B

by Lazydaily

Peter, Morgan, Harley post NWH. For TTS in the app

7. Chapter 7

The rest of Peter's day was a blur.

Marnie tried to keep him on track, but his thoughts had begun to cloud his head so much, he was barely of any assistance to her. She didn't complain, just gave him a sympathetic, understanding look before snatching a piece of paper off her desk and scribbling a phone number on it for him while the students were distracted by their worksheets. He'd offered her a tight smile and added it to his phone before he tried to focus back in on the papers under his hands that he'd been attempting to help her grade.

He ate lunch in a fog, trailing Marnie back into the teachers' lounge where they joined a table of other educators who talked about their home life and didn't bother trying to get him to speak. He was grateful for that small relief, and Marnie subtly picked up the slack anytime the conversation began to lull so that they'd continue to leave him alone. He learned she was a good conversationalist, one who was exceptionally quick at diverting the attention when the need arose, and he made a mental note to thank her for it later.

When it was finally time for the day to end and everyone to go home, Peter was utterly exhausted.

He hadn't done anything physical while working for the most part, and sure, he was tired after the whole ordeal earlier that morning at the East River and in the lab, but the mental gymnastics that had occurred in his head all day had worn him out more than anything else.

He needed to figure out what the fuck was going on with Dr. Octavius.

Where had she gone after she'd dropped him in the East River? He hadn't seen any news alerts about people seeing a deranged scientist with four extra mechanical limbs on the street, and the news had barely touched on the explosion at her lab, claiming it had been because of a gas leak. Peter knew better, of course, but with the police swarming the ruins it was unlikely he'd be able to break to and assess the place to look for clues that would lead to him finding the absent doctor.

He knew it wouldn't be long until she showed her face again to his alter ego, once she knew he was alive, though.

His villains always seemed to have it out for him, on a personal level.

It had bothered him, when he was younger, that they seemed so adamant to ruin his life when he was just trying to help, but once the spell had been cast, and everyone had forgotten, and the dust had finally settled…Peter had realized he was so, so, so angry. So, for a while after May had died, he stopped pulling his punches as much. Peter Three had told him something about that. But he couldn't help it, even with his warning ringing in his ears.

And it had been new, that anger. Sure, he'd been angry at Tony when he hadn't listened at Adrian Toomes, and what teenager didn't get frustrated every once in awhile? And of course, he'd been devastated with Tony's death, and angry at the world that he'd lost one of the last few reliable adults in his life, but nothing held a candle to losing May. He'd always been the kind of person to watch out for others, even more so once he'd gotten his powers. It had made him gentle, his care of others. May had told him as much, once she'd learned about his alter ego. She'd told him it was what made him so special.

He supposed May's death had been a catalyst of sorts, because for a good year following her death, he'd wallowed in that simmering pot of anger. He could feel it, sometimes. Prickling just under the surface of his skin, begging to be let out. So, he had. He finally just…gave in. He let everything rise to the surface when he went out looking for his next unlucky robber, rapist, or murderer that decided to cross his path on one of his patrols.

He let it consume him.

It would all boil to the surface, the moment the first punch was thrown or bullet shot: his rage at May's death. The despairing sadness that sat deep in his chest, warning him against turning towards the people he'd loved, and who had loved him, too afraid that his chaotic life would cost them their own. The infuriating knowledge that he'd never get to hold MJ again, never get to kiss her, hear her laugh, see her smile, listen to her argue with god himself—or whoever had pissed her off in the moment. His inability to laugh with Ned over dinner, to build the next giant LEGO project, to never complete their handshake ever again, or whisper about the girls they thought were cute while staying up late once May had fallen asleep. The pure agony that tugged so harshly at what he could only assume was his soul, at the idea of not getting to watch Morgan grow up. Not getting to watch the daughter of the man who had practically been his father grow into the incredible, insane woman she seemed hellbent on becoming. All of it had haunted him. And because of it, he only got worse.

He'd come out of those fights, during that seemingly endless stretch of time, bloodied and bruised but victorious. His hands sometimes took weeks to heal, they'd be so busted up from whatever fight he'd gotten himself into. For a long time, he was okay with it.

He let it run everything.

The night that finally signaled an end to that terrifying, dark side of himself that he couldn't seem to control, he'd found a girl in an alleyway.

Her eyes were rolling back in her head from the nasty cut in the middle of a large bruise that had been clearly dealt to her temple, and her dress was torn and tattered, and there beside her had stood a man, panting as his hand had crept lower and lower down her side. Her breathing had been increasing so rapidly, and her heart beating so loudly—a thudding jackrabbit of a sound—Peter had practically heard it from a mile away. His vision seemed to go black, and the next thing he knew, he was on top of the guy, his knuckles absolutely aching, his gloved hands soaked in blood.

According to the girl, once the police had arrived, he'd punched her attacker so hard that the man's jaw had snapped and she'd heard the crack of his finger's breaking, just as audibly. He realized, as he'd listened from the rooftop as she gave her report, that that had been what sobered him—the pain. He'd stared at the bloody, bruised mess of the man beneath him and had promptly turned to the side, tugged his mask high up over his mouth so he wouldn't get any splash-back on the material, and proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach on the pavement beside him. Shakily, he'd stood, approached the terrorized girl—who couldn't have been older than 16—and dropped into a crouch beside her. Her eyes had been wide and empty, and she was trembling.

"Hey there." He'd murmured, his knuckles throbbing. Her eyes had flitted to his face before flicking away, and he could see the terror in the wide pools of grey that made them up. They were the color of the winter sky at the lake house when a snowstorm was brewing, and Peter's heart ached at the thought. "I'm Spider-Man."

She nodded mutely, still curled in on herself, having fallen down at some point while Peter was busy punching the lights out of her attacker. She continued to stare straight ahead, but her lower lip had started to tremble. "I know."

"What's your name?" He'd asked, not moving in the slightest, too afraid any advancement closer would send her fleeing or make her scream.

"M-m-m-Maya." She'd finally managed to stutter out.

"Hi Maya." He whispered.

"Are you going to hurt me, too?" She'd said, her gaze finally flitting to his face. He was struck again by the color of her eyes, and it felt like someone reached down his throat and through his chest to squeeze his heart.

"No." He'd assured her firmly, keeping his tone warm.

"Prove it." She'd whispered back, her lip still trembling. "He was wearing a mask." She's jutted her chin out towards him, almost as if in defiance. Peter considered her, recognizing the pain reflected in her eyes and frowned. He knew what she was asking. And it went against everything he'd done in the year prior—choosing to keep his distance and let himself remain forgotten—but all he could see was a terrified kid who'd watched him beat the hell out of stranger and who had no guarantee that she wasn't next. That was the thing about his anger. It had consumed him so wholly, even the people he tried to protect ended up being afraid of him.

He'd tugged the mask up, over and off his face before taking a sharp breath, the cool air meeting his skin. She swallowed, taking him in, her eyes unreadable, then nodded.

"Okay." She'd said finally; an agreement.

Peter had nodded back and tried to smile, but he feared it had come across as more of a grimace. "Maya?" He'd said, softly. Her eyes, which had begun to sort of zone out again as she stared at the brick of the alleyway walls opposite her, focused back in on him.

"Do you have a cell phone?" He asked. She shook her head, once, and jerked her chin towards the bloodied man behind him.

"He does." She whispered. "Front coat pocket." Then, her gaze drifted back towards the wall. Peter swallowed, stood, and went back towards the man, mask held limply in his hand. Maya's heart rate was still thundering loud enough for him to hear, and he took steadying breaths as he'd walked forward, finally crouching down and searching for the device. He could hear the shallowed breaths of the unconscious man, and he avoided looking at his face, woodenly trying to process that the damage he could see there had been dealt by his own hands.

When he finally managed to locate the cellphone, he'd sent a silent prayer up towards the cosmos for the small break of it being a burner flip phone. Then, he'd stood, trying not to notice the shake in his hands as he stepped a ways away and dialed 911 to report an attack.

He snapped it closed when he was done, and turned around to approach Maya again, slowing and crouching a bit away from her. "Maya?" He'd called, softly. A whimper had escaped her. "Do you want to get up and come with me to wait for the ambulance? Or I could carry you. Only if you want. I won't touch you unless you want me to. I promise." She'd shaken her head so vigorously, he could practically hear her teeth rattling in her skull.

"No." She'd said, sharply. "I'll wait here." Peter had frowned, but nodded, having half-expected that sort of response in the first place.

"Okay." He'd glanced towards the prone figure lying less than ten feet away from them, and saw Maya's gaze flick towards him, too. "He won't be getting up anytime soon. I promise. But, just in case, yell for me, okay?"

Maya had simply nodded.

"You'd better put your mask back on." She'd said after a second, still staring straight ahead. "So they don't get an I.D. on you when they get here." Peter tilted his head at her, and she shrugged, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. "I watched a lot of Law & Order when I was younger." She confessed and Peter had smiled gently, trying not to wince at the "younger" comment, still unconvinced that she was older than 16.

"You sure you're gonna be okay with that?" He asked, and Maya nodded. "Okay." He agreed, lifting his mask back up and tugging it on over his face. Maya didn't dare glance at him, and Peter understood. "Okay," he repeated. "Maya, I'm gonna go wait for them at the end of the alley, okay? Just so they know where to find you. You're gonna be alright, okay? I promise." Maya simply nodded. Peter stood, and began to walk towards the end of the alley.

"Wait—!" her call had stopped him in his tracks, and he turned back towards her.

"I'm just going to wait until the ambulance gets here." He'd assured her, staying still. She'd nodded, tears suddenly filling her eyes.

"I know." Her voice had been a whisper, so quiet, Peter probably wouldn't have heard it without his super-senses. "I just…" She hesitated, and Peter waited patiently, fingers fluttering to his mask to make sure it was firmly back in place. "Can I know your name?"

"…Ben." He'd said, finally. It had felt right. She'd seen his face, and he couldn't give her his real name, too afraid to have it eventually come out and tie him to his alter ego. Besides, it felt wrong, to have gone a year without letting anyone remember him, only to tell a stranger his name. So, he'd lied and used Ben's name instead. He wanted her to be comfortable, and if a name was going to do it, then he'd offer it. After all, it wasn't a complete lie. His middle name was Benjamin.

And when he'd gotten home that night, he collapsed on his bed in tears, the damn of emotions that had been held back by the fiery anger that had burned through his veins finally beginning to be doused.

His interaction with Maya had flipped a switch in him, and it wasn't like the anger was fully gone but after that night, but at least he was able to try and start managing it. But it was because of his actions during that year, actions like the one that had let him meeting Maya, that he'd made a lot of enemies. A lot of big enemies. People he certainly wouldn't have fucked with when he was a stupid fifteen-year-old, high on the adrenaline that came from having super-powers. But people he had most certainly fucked with when he was trying to tell the world to get fucked.

And in the two years following that bad year, he had learned that a lot of them held grudges.

So, until Dr. Otto decided to show her face again, he had no way of finding her unless she showed up for school on Monday. But he was under no illusion that Doc Ock wouldn't have it out for him. If not for his Parker Luck, then certainly if any of the funding for her work had come from the seedy underbelly that made the up parts of New York Peter had prowled that first year.

And it certainly wasn't as if he was off the hook in terms of his personal life. Not only did he have to contend with the fact that he'd made another enemy that would pose a danger to the people he cared about, but he still needed to figure out how the hell he was going to handle the whole Harley situation. He didn't know if Morgan had somehow been involved in him appearing in his life or if Harley had just stumbled into him on his own, but it seemed to much of a coincidence for that to be the case. With Morgan involved, there was no way it was a coincidence.

He couldn't ever seem to catch a fucking break.

He was halfway down the hall that led towards the school's front door when it happened.

"Peter?" He stopped in his tracks and turned, his neck prickling. Dean Reynolds was waiting behind him, her face holding a wide, fake smile. "Could you come into my office for a minute? There's someone I want you to meet." He frowned and shouldered his bag higher on his shoulder.

"Um, yeah." He turned and followed her towards the front office, where she held the door open for him, still smiling. He could see the tightness of it, at the corners of her mouth and he tried not to read too deeply into it. She stopped him before they got to her office and settled a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Sorry to be springing this on you, Peter. But I have a parent who specifically requested to meet with you. I'm not entirely sure how she knows you're on our staff, it appears you may have had an interaction with her daughter?" Peter's blood went cold, and he tried not to let the knowledge of what he knew was about to happen show on his face. The Dean was still staring at him, waiting. He coughed to clear his throat.

"Oh, um, alright." He nodded. The Dean narrowed her eyes a bit.

"Do you have any sort of connections with the Stark's?" She finally ventured to ask. Time seemed to stand still, and Peter could feel the blood roaring in his ears.

He didn't think: 'Oh yeah, no big deal. I used to be an Avenger. And I just looked up to Tony Stark to the point that he became like a dad to me. And yeah, super weird but um, we got so close that he gave me these glasses and I panicked because I thought he wanted me to be the next him, and I couldn't even figure out what the hell I was doing so I trusted the wrong sleezebag because I was young and stupid and then said sleezebag proceeded to ruin my entire life to the point that I had to ask a wizard to make everyone forget who I am, including the love of my life, my best friend, and my little sister who evidently didn't forget who I am and is now trying to upend my life all over again even though I'm doing everything I can to protect her.' Would bode well as an appropriate response, much as he wanted to say it.

So, instead, he said:

"Oh, I don't think so."

He could hear his own voice saying it, the words cutting through the clouds in his ears, and he tried to focus on why he was here in the first place.

"Hm." The Dean hummed, her eyes never wavering from his face, though her own expression remainder unreadable. "Well, I'm sure you're quite aware of their business and everything they do for the school. Apparently, you've made quite the impression on her daughter, Morgan?" The last part came out as more of a question, and Peter felt himself nod, as if he no longer had any control over his body.

He was about to be well and truly fucked.

Dr. Reynold's hummed in acceptance, but her smile had faltered fully into a frown. "As I was saying, the Stark family is incredibly influential on our school. So," She smiled and reached for the door leading to her office, "best behavior, alright?" Then, she pushed the door open, ushering him in before her.

And there was nothing he could do except step forward and offer his hand.

She was waiting on the other side, her own hand held out expectantly, and Peter stepped forward to take it, praying that he wasn't shaking enough for her to notice.

"Ah, so you're the infamous Peter." Pepper's eyes skimmed over him, taking him fully in, and he tried not to squirm under the weight of her gaze. It felt like she was seeing every part of him, her blue eyes as sharp and observant as ever. It'd been three years since he'd talked to her, let alone had her pay any attention to him, and he couldn't help the way his heart thundered in his chest at being this close to her after all this time. He tried to pay it no mind, praying he wouldn't crack under the pressure. Morgan and Harley were a completely different ballgame, but here, staring Pepper down, the reality of his choices was beginning to dawn on him.

He never should have taken this job in the first place.

"You know, I sort of figured you were one of Morgan's imaginary friends, but that doesn't appear to be the case." Pepper continued, completely unaware of the thoughts circling in his head. Peter's ears began to ring at her words, and he tried to keep his breathing even.

What had Morgan told her?

The thought raced through his mind, and he realized he'd been awkwardly quiet for too long and he was still holding on to Pepper's hand. Dean Reynold's eyebrows were practically at her hairline, and she glanced between them before clearing her throat, sharply. Peter dropped Pepper's hand like he'd been burned, but her smile remained fixated on her face. It was the same smile he'd seen her wear while introducing him to new clients at Stark Industries, and he hated that she was directing it at him. He knew what that smile meant. She didn't trust him, but she didn't want anyone to know. She'd told him before she had perfected schooling her facial expressions because she'd met so many business people who were shady and clearly trying to stir up some sort of issue with their company, and the fact that she was wearing it while shaking his hand hurt, not that she had any sort of clue.

One of the main reasons he had stayed away from everyone was because the lack of recognition was almost too much to bear. When he'd seen Ned and MJ in the coffee shop, a few months after May had died, and while he was still trying to figure everything out, before he'd decided to keep things the same, he'd gone with the intent to read them his letter. But that little cut on MJ's forehead, healed by then, had stopped him in his tracks. And the way they'd looked at him…there had been no recognition there. Peter could tell them everything he knew about them, had been perfectly capable of convincing him that he'd once fit as seamlessly as a missing puzzle piece in their lives, but the light of recognition wasn't shining in their eyes and he felt so awful that MJ had been hurt enough that it scarred and he just…couldn't. He couldn't ask them to remember him, to remember all of the things that came with just knowing him.

They didn't recognize him, and that hurt just as much as knowing he couldn't ask them to.

"Yes, well, Mr. Parker here is one of our favorite new hires. The students have been ecstatic to have a new staff member and Mrs. Leigh says he's an essential help to her classroom." He could hear the Dean talking dimly in the background, and he let the steady cantor of her tone draw him back in. "We're hoping to keep him as long as he's willing to stay." She smiled, but Peter could see the expectation in her eyes. She wanted him to be nice, to play the political game that came with their jobs. The parents funded the school, and he had no doubt Pepper was a large part of the financiers, especially based on the impromptu talking to the Dean had given him moments prior. Peter swallowed, hard, and looked back up to find Pepper's eyes still trained on him, a small, uncertain smile on her lips.

"If you wouldn't mind, Dr. Reynolds, I'd like to speak to Peter alone." Pepper said, cutting the other woman's spiel off. The Dean glanced towards him, and Peter found he could only nod.

It may as well happen, he'd determined. If Morgan was this invested in bringing him back into their lives, he was going to have to go with it, for now. Hopefully, he'd be able to convince Dr. Strange to help him so he could fix everything.

"Alright." The Dean said, after a moment. "I'll leave you two to it, then. I'm right outside." She said, and for the first time since he'd met her, Peter could sense the uncertainty flooding off of her in waves. She gave him another meaningful look and Peter knew she was wondering just as much as he was, why the hell the CEO of Stark Industries wanted to meet with him.

And then, she was walking out of her office and shutting the door behind her, taking any sort of saving grace she may have provided with her.

"So," Pepper said, turning and settling herself on the edge of the Dean's desk and clasping her hand over her knees to watch him, "tell me a little bit about yourself." Peter swallowed, and tugged his bag up higher on his shoulder, before sinking uncertainly in the seat farthest from her. Pepper's eyebrow jumped up and her mouth pursed. "You don't have to be nervous, Peter. I wanted to come and meet you, because you're the latest thing my daughter has fixated on, and I just want to know why." Peter dipped his head, taking the movement as a way to break their gaze so he could attempt to collect himself.

"Yeah, Morgan, um…she's great." He finally managed to choke out, and Pepper hummed contemplatively.

"She's something else." She said finally, shaking her head. "I'm sure you've heard that we lost her dad a few years ago." Peter's chest constricted even tighter. He lifted his eyes to hers again, and saw the sadness simmering there, just below the surface. They'd both lost Tony, and the reminder of the events that had followed, events she couldn't remember, stung. But Peter couldn't tell her that. She had no clue what he'd gone through, and as far as she was aware, he had no clue what she'd been through.

"I heard." He finally managed to say, the words sticking like glue to the roof of his mouth. "I'm sorry for your loss." Pepper waved a hand and let out a laugh, but they both knew it was fake. He wanted nothing more to reach out and hug her, like she had for him, after they'd lost Tony. She'd held him as he'd sobbed against her, her eyes brimming with tears while they waited for May to meet them at the lake house. But he couldn't do that for her. They were strangers, now.

"It was a while ago." She said, decidedly. "We're doing better now. Most days." She smiled again, and all prior emotions that had started to rise to the surface of her face were visibly gone now. Composure had taken its place, and Peter couldn't help but feel terrible about the fact that she thought she had to fight how she felt. He knew what that felt like, and it wasn't a good feeling. "I know you're probably wondering why I asked to meet you," she continued, unaware of his internal battle, "so I may as well be completely straight with you." Peter's shoulder's tightened, and he straightened up, waiting for her to continue. "Morgan wanted me to talk to you." Peter tried not to let this fact shake him, so he forced a smile instead.

"Oh?" He asked. He wanted to know what Morgan had said, what his hellion of a little sister had done to make her mother show up to her school on Sunday, just to talk to him.

"Oh." Pepper said, smiling. "She seems to be under the impression that you should come work for us at Stark Industries." Peter practically felt his blood freeze in his veins, and he stood up, before he realized what he was doing. Pepper's eyebrow raised again, and she watched him. Peter swallowed.

"I just remembered, I have to get home to feed my…fish." He finished, lamely. Pepper's brow furrowed at that.

"Your fish on a timer?" She asked, smiling wryly. Peter smiled nervously in return.

"Something like that." He said, hands twisting at his sides. "I'm sorry P—" he caught himself. "I'm sorry, Mrs. Potts." She tilted her head, and he could see the smile, her real smile, tugging at the corner of her lips.

"Alright, Mr. Parker. I do apologize for bothering you right at the end of the day. I know it's frustrating, trying to get home, only to be cornered by some insane parent." He nodded again, and began making his way towards the door, ready for this impromptu conversation to be over. He didn't know how much longer he could keep the façade up, especially with that small part of him begging him to remind her who he was, and how they'd known each other.

He couldn't do that to her.

He wouldn't do that to her.

He didn't know what the hell Morgan thought she was doing, inviting her here to talk to him. He had told her that things couldn't go back to the way they were. She was going to have to accept that, whether she wanted to or not.

"I'm not." Pepper said, as he reached for the door, the Dean's unspoken warning be damned. "Some insane parent." She said, when he hesitated to twist the handle. "I'm just very busy, and I don't have a lot of time for meetings like this. I just wanted to catch you now and try to see where Morgan's fascination was stemming from." He nodded but kept quiet. She tilted her head, considering him. "This may seem strange, but you seem familiar." The blood pounding in his ears raised to a roar. He could feel his palms sweating. He knew something like this was a bad idea. But he wasn't capable of saying no to the woman who wrote his paychecks, so he was here now, stuck.

"Oh?" He managed again, voice hoarse. Pepper stood and approached him. He didn't move, barely breathing with every step towards him that she took. She stopped, just short of him, and nodded again.

"Mhm." She said, looking him over fully once more. Peter tried to seem casual, despite the steady panic rising in his veins. "Morgan said you were like him." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I didn't get it, at first. Her dad was larger than life, in a lot of ways." Peter knew exactly what she meant.

Tony. She was saying he was like Tony.

"I don't—"

"Wait, please." She said, and he halted, his mouth dry. He wasn't sure what he would have said, anyway, so her interruption was more of a blessing than anything else. "No one calls me that anymore. Mrs. Potts, I mean." She smiled again, and Peter could see the crow's feet around her eyes that had developed over the past few years; years that he had missed. "My husband always called me that. Even after we got married." She laughed. "Everyone calls me Mrs. Stark, now. I never even changed my name." She shrugged. "Sorry, this is probably a lot to be telling a stranger, but sometimes—"

"Talking is the best medicine." Peter finished for her. Pepper's eyes met his own and she nodded, slowly.

"Yeah," She said softly. Peter knew he had said too much, then. It had been a phrase Tony had taught him, when he'd still been alive. He'd first said it to Peter when he'd called him at 3 am, panic rising in his chest, unsure of who else to talk to about it. 'Talk it out Pete. Talking is the best medicine.' Evidently, Peter wasn't the only one he'd said that to.

"Peter, this is going to be a little forward, but since you're clearly busy, and since I've got somewhere to be, I'd like to see if I can take you out for coffee and maybe pick your brain a bit. Get to the root of Morgan's fascination with you." She considered him, head tilted a bit. "There's something about you, Mr. Parker." He swallowed, refusing to break his gaze from hers. "So, if you'll indulge me, I'd like to chat with you again." He felt himself nod, despite the fact that he knew he shouldn't be.

"Yes. Yeah, um, great. Coffee would be great." What are you doing?! His brain seemed to be screaming at him, but Peter couldn't seem to stop the words that were leaving him. She already knew his name and where he worked, what was stopping her from looking further into him and finding out everything he'd managed to keep buried for the past three years?

He was so fucked.

"Excellent." Pepper smiled, and stepped back, gesturing to the door. "I'll get your contact information from the Dean. Should we say Friday?" She asked. "If you're not busy, of course."

And that's how Peter found himself with plans for coffee with one of the women who had practically raised him, but no longer had any recollection of him.

It felt deceitful, he decided, as he swung home. He'd accepted her invitation, unable to do anything else in the heat of the moment. He was putting her in danger by just being near her. He knew he never should have accepted the invitation to work at the school, especially once he'd seen that stupid fucking flyer advertising his name.

So, he made a decision, while flying high above the snow-covered streets of New York, that he was going to so what he'd promised himself he'd do from the beginning. He was going to find Doctor Strange and ask him to fix this mess completely. So, if the rest of his night went the way he was planning it to, Pepper would have no recollection of their conversation, and he could let go of his guilt.

It was the only solution he could think of.

His day got even worse when he realized Harley hadn't come home that night.

Peter got back to their apartment, his head squarely on his shoulders, his resolve a steel weight in the center of his chest—only to find the other boy was nowhere to be found. The apartment was dim as Peter hung up his keys, and he frowned, taking in the still air. Harley hadn't said anything about working that day, and they didn't have classes on the weekends, so he knew he wasn't at school. Peter had arrived with the determination to get to the bottom of everything brewing in his chest, wanting some sort of resolution before he went to the wizard.

He knew going to Strange to get everything straightened out was going to be an ordeal in of itself, and he wanted to give his new roommate an opportunity to explain himself, and maybe offer some clarity on the situation before he chose the nuclear route. But it didn't seem like that was going to be an option, now.

Keener: Hey, Parker. Stuck in the snowstorm. Crashing with some people I know. Be home tomorrow. Be safe. I filled up the fridge, so you shouldn't have to worry about that. Lmk if you need anything.

Harley's text came through right as he was opening the fridge to make himself some dinner, and he stared down at the device in his hand. He shut the fridge with his hip and ran a hand down his face, frowning. Well, better late than never, right? At least now he could go to the Sanctum Sanctorum and not worry about Harley checking in on him every five minutes.

He knew, if he was home, that would be exactly what the other boy would do. He'd patched Peter up that morning, and Peter had barely managed a thank you. But Harley was like a golden fucking retriever. He didn't let things go, and Peter knew if he'd been home, he would have been fluttering nervously around him, checking on him anytime he decided to show his face.

He had too much to be thinking about without having Harley in the mix, so he decided his absence was more of a blessing than anything else.

He sent Harley a quick thumbs-up in return before making his way back towards his room, his stomach suddenly churning and causing him to lose his appetite. He could eat after he'd fixed things.

"Everyone who loves you…we'll all forget." The words had stuck with Peter the entire three years since that pivotal moment. Sometimes he still heard them ringing in his ears during the day, when his focus slipped. A reminder of everything he'd given up.

He remembered everything from that day, almost down to the minute. He was the only one who could, after all. So, he'd journaled it. All of his conversations with everyone he'd had that day. His alternate selves. Their villains. His last words with Ned and MJ. He hadn't known Stephen all that well, or really even enough time for him to make such a statement, but he'd never forgotten the quiet confession the Wizard had practically whispered. And for three years he'd wrestled with the notion that everyone he'd ever loved no longer had any memory of him. Some days, it was such a heavy burden, he could feel himself cracking ever so slowly under the pressure. Like Atlas, trying to hold the world up on his shoulders. It was a burden he had to bear on his own. He would never again risk the people he loved being a consequence of his actions. Lesson learned. It was better to be alone than to have even the tiniest, most infinitesimal chance at getting the people he loved back.

And Morgan had blown that all to hell.

He didn't think she really knew how much it hurt him to try and maintain his secret. She had no clue what he would give just to make her forget, like everyone else had. It was safer this way, he tried to convince himself as he pushed the window in his bedroom up and tugged his mask over his mouth. The whole world had forgotten Peter Parker, but not his little sister. How did something like that even happen? The whole point of the spell was to keep everyone he cared about safe.

God, he fucking hated magic.

It was dark out, as he swung through the New York skyline, steadily breathing through his mask as he made his way towards the one person he knew could fix everything. His ribs groaned in protest at his movements, but he didn't let the pain slow him down.

For three years, he had kept a low profile, even as his alter ego. He avoided all Avenger's functions as if they were the plague, worrying that his involvement would lead to the people he cared about finding out about him once more. He'd stayed on the fringes of any large threats, always careful to help the civilians that needed assistance without being spotted by any of the major players. He knew they'd tried to follow him, a few times, once the dust from whatever villain they'd been battling had settled, but he always managed to lose them on his way home.

But now, he was actively looking for one of the Avengers. Something he hadn't done in years.

He landed outside of the Sanctum Sanctorum, his palms sweating. Snow continued to fall around him, and he could feel some of it sticking to his suit and wetting the material as it began to melt. His adrenaline was pumping through his veins, preventing the cold from really setting in, his brain practically going haywire. He took a deep, steadying breath and steeled his resolved.

Then, he lifted his hand, and knocked on the foreboding wooden doors.

On Monday, Natasha made good on her word to pick Morgan up.

She waited, leaning against her parked motorcycle outside the school grounds. Her helmet remained firmly in place despite her dismount, her distinctive red hair hidden by the entirely black visor that covered it. A purple, child-size helmet hung off her handlebars in anticipation of Morgan, and she tried to maintain her patience as other chaperones began to queue up behind her, their cars running idly as they waited.

So much for saving the planet. She thought, tapping her foot against the paved ground as she listened to the cars running behind her.

Most of the drivers were just that: drivers. Half the kids that attended this snobby ass school had parents that were either obscenely rich, famous, or some sort of senator, and as such never seemed to have time for their children. In their stead, they would send nannies and drivers to pick up the beings that were supposed to be most important to them, as if they were packages; parcels to be gathered and moved whether or not the tiny being wanted that.

Natasha had known for a long time that she'd never be able to have kids, and she'd made peace with it some years ago. But it didn't stop her from criticizing the adults that Pepper often found herself entertaining, much to Natasha's consternation. As far as she was concerned, most of the adults she met during Pepper's business' ventures (for which she would occasionally work as security on) never should have had children in the first place. Most of them acted as if they were an ornament; something shiny and bright to be shown to guests; a form of entertainment. She hated the idea of that, having once been the shiny object of everyone's affection, only useful for her skills and talents, never for who she actually was.

It was no wonder that the majority of the girls who attended Morgan's private school seemed like they were miserable. They might not have been raised to be child assassins, but their childhoods were nothing to be jealous of.

She looked up as the school bell rang and a flood of girls, all of them older than Morgan, began pouring out the school doors, chattering amongst themselves. She spotted Morgan finally approaching, trailing behind the other girls who pointedly ignored her as she wove through them. Her face was set in a stony frown as they parted to let her through, their voices dropping into whispers as she passed by, their eyes glancing her over before they continued in their quiet tones behind secretive hands when they thought she was out of earshot.

Natasha hated that they treated her niece like a pariah. Morgan was the smartest kid Natasha had ever encountered, and they treated her like the opposite was true. It reminded Natasha of her own childhood, though the stakes there had been far higher than anything Morgan had faced yet. But Natasha knew, while the young girl may not be facing down death every day, her life was never going to be easy. She was the daughter of Pepper Potts and Tony Stark. The whole world had been watching her since the moment she'd announced her arrival in the compound's hospital wing with a cry so loud it was probably heard in Europe. It was unlikely anyone would ever be able to stop the child who was destined to carry on Tony Stark's legacy, but that didn't prevent them from trying. Natasha had promised herself she'd be there for her throughout it all. School bullies were just the start. They'd only get worse from there, of that much she was certain.

She had even tried to warn Pepper that something like that was bound to happen, with Morgan being so much younger than her classmates, but it had fallen on deaf ears. She knew it wasn't Pepper's fault necessarily, she only wanted the best for Morgan, but the school she'd chosen hadn't been first on Natasha's list. Hell, it hadn't even been in her top ten. But Pepper had been convinced that it was the only place that would be able to get the little hellion under some sort of scheduled routine. Natasha knew better though, especially now. Morgan wasn't going to let anyone stop her ridiculous plan, and while she'd been complicit in helping the pre-teen, she hadn't thought things would get so far out of hand.

So, she waited outside the building and when Morgan finally got to her side, she could see the frown that seemed to be permanently etched into her mouth, up close and personal.

"Hey, Morgan." She greeted with a small wave.

"Hey, Aunt Nat." The nine-year-old said sullenly, eyeing her warily. Natasha raised a brow under her helmet and pushed herself away from where she'd been leaning against the bike.

"Where did you want to go to chat? Presumably not home, since you wouldn't talk to me about all this nonsense there, last time." She eyed the girl and Morgan lifted her head to meet her gaze, something shining in the back of her eyes. Nat hesitated, watching her carefully. "Morgan?" She asked, though Morgan's smile only grew.

"Have you heard of Peter Pan Donut and Pastry Shop? Off of Manhattan Avenue?" She asked, innocently. Natasha felt her eyes narrow incrementally.

"You're certainly obsessed with the name Peter, huh?" She asked after a moment. Morgan's grin grew, and she shrugged.

"Something like that." Morgan said, winking slyly. Natasha's eyes narrowed again, but she just shook her head and picked her helmet up and held it towards her.

"Put it on, brat. It appears that we've got a date with The Lost Boys."

The diner was a cute little thing, small and retro with bubblegum-colored, old-school nurse-style uniforms that screamed late 50's/early 60's vibes. It immediately reminded her of Yelena, and she made a mental note to bring her, when she was back from her mission with Rhodey, Kate and Clint.

She'd had Yelena back in her life for almost four years now.

It never got old, waking up and knowing her sister was no more than a phone call or text away. She'd spent years running from her past, trying to erase the red that had soaked her ledger. She'd almost forgotten, parts of those red had been bleached by the mere presence of her younger sister.

If she were being totally honest with herself, it was why she'd listened to Morgan in the first place. She knew what losing a sibling was like. Heart wrenching. Sharp. There seemed to be no relief. She'd felt it for five years, once Thanos had snapped. And for fifteen before that, when she and Yelena had been separated and she no longer knew if she was dead or alive.

Clint had been the only person she'd ever told her about, outside of Tony. So, when Morgan had come to her that late October evening and asked her to help her find her brother, she'd found it incredibly difficult to find a good enough reason to say no.

She'd known it was a risk, agreeing to help a nine-year-old. She knew that a lot of kids had some wild imaginations. But Morgan had been absolutely adamant that she was telling the truth. And Natasha had believed her. Because how could she not? She'd missed Yelena so much she would have scoured the entire Earth to find her. She hadn't been able to look for her when she'd joined SHIELD, much as she'd wanted to. She'd had to prove herself, and her new loyalty. Loyalty didn't ask about what was next. Loyalty didn't question orders. Loyalty didn't try to dig up its past.

And Natasha had been nothing but loyal. Look where that had gotten her: over a cliff, then brought back to life for some reason. She wasn't sure the entire ordeal was supposed to be anything other than a giant cosmic joke that she hadn't quite figured out the punchline to, so as far as she was concerned, her loyalty to SHIELD had been proven time and time again.

She'd told Nick as much, as soon as she'd found Yelena again, and it had taken him a minute to agree but eventually he'd pulled some strings to make sure her baby sister wasn't charged for any of her actions under Dreykov's influence. Nick had still been off-world at the time, but once Carol had gotten word to him that Natasha was alive again, he'd returned to make sure it was real.

Nick had been something of a father to her, since the moment she'd joined SHIELD, and he was one of the few people she trusted. Less so, after he'd tricked her into thinking he'd died when Steve was still around, but enough for him to allow her to operate as a free agent—seeing as she'd run SHIELD Post-Snap 1.0, she'd figured it was a fair trade off. He'd even allowed her to bring Yelena into the fold. Not that she'd had any trouble finding friends of her own once she had officially joined their team. She'd moved in with Kate Bishop shortly after they'd returned to New York, and when Kate started to show up on their missions more and more, Yelena had never had to tell her that they were more than friends.

And in the nearly four years that Natasha had gotten her sister back, they slowly began to mend their relationship. It had been awkward, admittedly, at first. Neither of them had seen each other since their separation at the Red Room as children, but Yelena was still the wild child she'd always been. And as they'd begun to grow closer again, Natasha learned more and more about her.

She knew she'd have to bring Yelena back to this diner. If she didn't, her sister would be furious that she'd never mentioned it. She smiled fondly to herself at the thought, finally finding a parking spot, and yanked her helmet off before locking it to the handlebars and tugging the door to the shop open.

Morgan had gone ahead of her, slipping off the bike at the entrance to get inside and order for them while Natasha looked for a place to leave her motorcycle. When she got inside, the pre-teen was sitting at one of the barstools, her skinny legs swinging as she sipped what Natasha could only assume (god, who was she kidding—could only hope) was hot chocolate. Lord only knew what Pepper would do if she returned her already hyper-active child with a caffeine high.

"This the friend you were waiting on, little miss?" She heard the waitress asked, a thick, dark eyebrow winging up as she pushed the door open, the bell jingling overhead. Morgan glanced towards her, and a grin broke out on her face.

"Mhm!" She said, setting her cup down before sliding off the barstool, picking her cup back up, and approaching Natasha's side. "Michelle, this is my Aunt Nat." The waitress—no, Michelle—hummed and un-sleeved a stack of coffee cups, giving Natasha the once-over. It was sort of unnerving, her piercing brown eyes showing a sharpness that Natasha rarely saw anymore; it was almost as if she could see right through her. Natasha didn't let it show on her face as she stared back, and finally, when she seemed satisfied with what she saw, the girl hooked a thumb over her shoulder and gestured towards the far corner. It wasn't well lit, and the store was otherwise empty, but Natasha knew she was trying to point them in the direction of a private place. It was obvious she recognized Natasha, but she was grateful that it hadn't resulted in instant gushing and asking for a photo that usually followed any sort of public appearance since her return from death.

It was a nice change of pace, and Natasha was grateful for the lack of attention.

Morgan looked up at her, and Natasha reached out for her hand. The girl let her take it, and they made their way to the back without another word. Natasha could feel the curious weight of the barista's eyes on their backs, and she prayed her instincts about the girl weren't wrong and that they weren't about to be bombarded by too-curious reporters, looking for the latest scoop on the Black Widow and her Avenger's associates.

Morgan seemed to sense her apprehension and she squeezed her hand as she tugged her into the booth. "It's alright, Aunt Nat." She whispered, somewhat conspiratorially. Natasha raised an eyebrow at her and waited. "Michelle is cool." Morgan said with a shrug. "She won't tell anyone we're here."

"Oh, you frequent this joint?" Natasha asked, wryly. Morgan simply offered a sly smile in return, one shoulder lifting into a half-shrug, and Natasha decided she didn't really like the mischievous glint that had formed in her eye. She'd seen that look before. It was the same look that had landed her in this mess to begin with.

"I drag Uncle Happy here sometimes. Michelle knows my favorite menu stuff, now. She used to go to school in Boston, but she told me she transferred back here when her dad got sick." Natasha hummed in response, and offered the young girl a measured look, one that she knew would translate in the manner it was supposed to. Morgan's smile died on her lips, and she hunched in on herself, holding her mug close to her chest.

"So…you wanted to talk?" She asked, peering up meekly through her eyelashes.

Natasha suppressed an eyeroll at the sight.

"Don't try the 'I'm innocent' act with me, kid. I'm not your mother. You've got some explaining to do." She said, voice lowering to a whisper as she stared pointedly at her. Morgan considered her for a moment, then straightened up, squaring her shoulders, suddenly looking older and wiser than her years. Natasha nodded, once, accepting that she was starting to understand the gravity of their situation. "Why didn't you tell me?" She asked.

"Tell you what?' Natasha narrowed her eyes and Morgan exhaled sharply, then rolled her eyes. "Because I knew if you knew who he is—" She glanced over her shoulder, but Michelle didn't seem to be paying them anymore attention, and was instead doodling in her notepad, bent over the paper, her brow furrowed in concentration. Morgan seemed satisfied and turned back around to finish her thought. "—on the side," she raised her eyebrows to drive her point home, "that you'd tell Mom."

Well. She wasn't wrong there, was she?

Natasha had been debating all day Sunday on whether or not she should tell Pepper about everything that had been going on behind her back. She had weighed the decision in her mind for twenty-four hours, and decided that if Morgan didn't have a hell of a convincing argument, she was going to tell her. She owed it to the other woman. If for nothing else, because she owed Tony. She couldn't be the reason that anyone else Pepper cared about got hurt. Morgan getting tangled up with vigilantes was the last thing she and her mother needed.

"Morgan." She said evenly as she settled her open palms, face-down, on the table between them. "You had better have a hell of a convincing argument as to why I shouldn't be knocking your mom's door down and tell her what the hell you've been getting up to." Morgan watched her, her brown eyes unreadable as she took a steady sip of her hot chocolate.

Before she could say anything though, the barista was approaching them, a pot of coffee and a white mug in her hands.

"Coffee?" She asked. Natasha looked up at her, and offered what she hoped was a convincing smile.

"Please." She said. Michelle nodded and set the mug on the table near her hand, and began pouring. She left room for cream if she wanted it, then made her way back behind the counter, returning to her drawing pad. Natasha took a sip of the coffee and Morgan's nose wrinkled.

"You drink it black?" She asked. "That's disgusting. Even Mom adds sugar." Natasha made a face at her.

"Yeah, well, you get used to drinking garbage when you're in my line of work." She said with a shrug. "But that's beside the point. Explain yourself, because so far this meeting is ending with me taking you home to your mother and telling her everything." Morgan sat back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes narrowed. She looked so much like Tony with such a small movement that Natasha felt her throat close up a little bit.

"Yeah, okay, fine." She said, shrugging nonchalantly and avoiding Natasha's gaze. "I knew about his other identity. I didn't tell you, because like I said, I thought you'd tell mom."

"Morgan," Natasha said with a sigh and a shake of her head, "I agreed to help you because I thought it would be safer with me involved. But you not telling me everything makes this a lot harder. If you want someone to help you, you have to trust them, Morgan."

Morgan's lips pursed, but she didn't argue. Instead, she let out a sigh befitting of a veteran who had seen the worst kind of wars and gripped her mug tighter.

"How'd you find out who he is in his spare time?" She asked, finally.

"I've been watching him." She said, tilting her head. "Ever since you first asked me to help. Found his apartment awhile back. Saw him coming out of the window. Not hard to put two and two together, especially once I pulled him out of the East River."

"You weren't supposed to approach him." Morgan huffed, her slender arms cinching tighter over her chest. Her face was a mix of emotions—suppression something she'd yet to master—and Natasha held back a smile at the sight of the disdainful annoyance that shone so clearly through the tough-girl façade she'd tried to maintain. "You were just supposed to observe." She continued haughtily, uncrossing her arms to reach forward and take a steady sip of her hot chocolate, peering up over the rim over her cup, her dark lashes the same shade of brown as her eyes. Natasha heaved another sigh.

"Yeah, well, if I had done that, he'd probably be dead." Morgan's head snapped up at that and she set her cup down to fold her hands in her lap.

"What happened?" She asked, her voice a quiet whisper.

"Not really sure, malen'kiy." She said, running a hand through her hair before she settled her elbows on the table to rest her chin in her hand as she watched the young girl before her. Morgan squirmed in her seat, not quite meeting her gaze.

"What does that mean?" She asked, after a moment. "Ma-Len-Kai." She repeated, sounding the word out and tilting her head.

"Little one." Natasha said, clasping her hands around her coffee mug. "It was what my mother used to call my sister and I."

"Where is Aunt Yelly?" Morgan asked, taking another sip of her hot chocolate. Natasha sighed and leaned back in her seat.

"On a mission. But that's not what we're here to talk about, is it?" Morgan eyed her and sank lower in her own seat, tugging her mug with her.

"No." She said, solemnly. She waited, stirring her hot chocolate with a spoon. "What happened to Peter?" She asked again, finally. Natasha sighed and shook her head before taking a long sip of her own coffee.

"He almost died." She said, watching her closely. Morgan met her gaze, squarely.

"How?" She asked simply.

"It happened pretty fast. There was an explosion." Morgan's eyes widened at that, but Natasha forged ahead. "I thought it was probably some idiot getting into things they weren't supposed to, and I'd lost Peter after he slipped out of his window. But he was at the site of the explosion, and there was a woman, too."

"A woman?" Morgan interrupted, her brow furrowed. "Was she okay?"

"I think she was the cause of the explosion." Natasha said grimly and Morgan's face pinched.

"So another bad guy."

"Unfortunately." Natasha confirmed. "She had these mechanical arms. Never seen anything like it. Everything happened very quickly, and the next thing I knew I was dragging him out of the East River after she'd thrown him in." Morgan's pupils were blown wide, and she didn't seem to be breathing, hanging on to Natasha's every word instead.

"Peter can't thermo…" Her face pinched as she tried to find the word she was searching for.

"Thermoregulate?" Natasha offered and Morgan nodded, her face still serious. "Yeah, I gathered. He was out of his mind with delirium; she used some chemical on him that completely disoriented him. Add the cold water and his evident inability to thermoregulate and you have a recipe for disaster." Morgan's hands were white-knuckled around her mug and Natasha settled her own over them. "He's okay, now." She assured her. "I got him home. I had to leave before I could really check on him because his roommate was woken up by our entry."

"Roommate? Morgan squeaked, and Natasha could see the red flush in her cheeks and ears, a dead give away that she was hiding something. She pulled her hands away from Morgan's and stared her down.

"Morgan Hope Stark." She said sharply. Morgan avoided her gaze, slinking down further in her seat. "What the hell aren't you telling me."

"Promise you won't get mad?" She asked, still avoiding her gaze.

"That depends on what you're about to tell me." She said evenly. Morgan took a deep breath.

"Harley is his roommate."

"Jesus Christ, Morgan, are you serious?" She hissed leaning forward. Morgan leaned back in response, that familiar indignation crawling across her face again.

"I didn't ask him to!" She argued petulantly. "I found out from mom."

"Does he know?" She asked pointedly. Morgan swallowed, hard at the question, looking away once more and it was all Natasha needed. Of course, of course, Morgan had gotten other people involved. Fucking hell. This kid was more than she bargained for. That was for damn sure. "Morgan." She said, steadily. The girl finally ventured to look up at her, actually looking somewhat ashamed of herself for the first time since she'd picked her up. "Explain yourself."

Morgan let out a long sigh and settled deeper into her seat.

"It's not Harley's fault." She said softly, watching Natasha as if she were a Rattlesnake, poised to strike. She supposed it wasn't too far off, but that was beside the point. "He found my journal. I was using it to keep notes on everything I remembered about Peter." She continued. "Harley made me tell him what I was up to, and he threatened to tell mom if I didn't." She frowned at that, and Natasha sighed.

"Morgan, I know you think she won't understand, but—"

Morgan slammed her hands down on the table, startling her. She raised an eyebrow but didn't otherwise move, and Morgan's frown deepened. "She won't get it. She'll just be mad and think I'm lying." She sounded like she was at the end of her rope, and frankly, Natasha couldn't blame her. She hadn't believed her either, when she'd first asked her to help.

It had to be frustrating, to have everyone treat her like she was just a kid.

"Morgan, honey…" She sighed. "I know you think she won't believe you, but c'mon. Between me, you, and Harley, that's got to be enough for her to believe us." Morgan shook her head quickly, her brown hair twisting wildly with the movement.

"She won't. We don't have enough proof. She'll think I made it up. She never listens to me." Natasha frowned at the statement. She knew Pepper was busy, but she also knew she cared about her daughter more than anything else in the world. And yeah, okay, maybe a long-lost brother that no one remembered was a little far-fetched. But it wasn't completely implausible. They lived in a world where men donned iron suits and aliens fell from the sky, after all.

But—and it was a small 'but,' but a 'but' nevertheless—she knew Pepper was extremely practical. And she'd dealt with a lot, especially over the last few years. Frankly, Natasha wasn't entirely sure that Pepper wouldn't have her daughter taken to a psychiatrist that very same day if Morgan told her she had a brother that no one remembered.

"Okay, fine." She said, agreeably. "Maybe she won't believe us. But how, exactly, are you planning on getting her to believe us?" She asked, tilting her head. Morgan's shoulders hunched.

"I'm still working on that." She said, a quiet confession.

Oh god. Natasha thought as she pinched the bridge of her nose. This is going to end terribly.

But before she could state that aloud, her phone buzzed. She glanced down at the screen, eyes scanning the news article that had popped up, and she felt herself go cold.

Breaking News: Black Widow and Spider-Man Spotted Getting Up Close and Personal on Late Night Rendezvous. Is The Spider-Menace in Spider-Love?

"Oh, fuck." She cursed, gaze immediately snapping back up towards Morgan, who coughed on the sip of chocolate she'd been drinking, pausing to meet Natasha's gaze, surprise drawing at her features.

Ross is going to have a field day with this one. She thought, her mind already racing. He'd already been pissed that no one could seem to catch Spider-Man as it was, so a news article with a photo of her and one very wanted vigilante, arm-in-arm no less, was going to be a thorn in her side, the size of it something she hadn't had to deal with since she'd gone on the run with Steve and Sam back in 2014.

"Aunt Nat." Morgan whispered harshly, pulling her out of her thoughts. All semblance of shame had disappeared off the young girl's visage, and Natasha watched as she pointedly glanced towards the girl behind the register, who was wiping the counter down with a rag and seemingly paying them no mind. Natasha followed her line of sight and quickly schooled her face into an awkward smile, despite her racing thoughts. She waved politely but the waitress just shrugged. "You never cuss." Morgan said solemnly, her eyebrows drawing together, glancing back towards the cashier.

"Everyone cusses in here. No biggie." Michelle called out without looking up, her gaze trained firmly on the task at hand. Natasha wondered how much of their conversation in general that she'd overheard, but she had a lot more pressing matters to attend that would afford her no time to question their eavesdropper. Hopefully their little visit wouldn't end up in the tabloids with fresh new rumors that threatened her livelihood. "It's New York, there's pretty much nothing you could say that would surprise me." Michelle continued, and Natasha offered her a grateful—albeit fake—smile before turning her focus back on Morgan.

"Sorry, Morgan. Look, something just came up. We've got to go, because I need to take you home before your mother uses that radar sense of hers to track me down and kill me. We have a problem, and I need to get this fixed, now. Get your coat." She stood, gesturing for Morgan to do that same. The young girl frowned but didn't argue. Instead, she followed Natasha's instructions and rose from her seat, tugging her puffy red coat on before pulling her purple backpack on over that. Nat dropped to one knee and zipped her up, ruffling her hair gently in the progress. She was annoyed, and frustrated, and they would be finishing this conversation later, but for now she had bigger fish to fry. So, she grabbed Morgan's hand and led her towards the front door, dropping a twenty on the counter for the barista, who waved in thanks.

Natasha tried to keep her breathing even as she loaded Morgan onto the motorcycle, tugging the purple helmet over the girl's head as her mind raced. "Morgan, we're going to have to finish the conversation at a later date." She said evenly, her hands moving deftly to adjust the helmet over Morgan's face, her fingers slipping to the straps underneath her chin to tighten it so it wouldn't fall off while they drove.

"Aunt Nat?" Morgan managed to squeak, her small hands coming up and resting on top of Natasha's, who had been too caught up in her thoughts to realize it might be too tight. She released her hold, and Morgan loosened the strap of it a bit, flipping her visor up to frown at her. "Is everything okay?" She asked, somewhat meekly and Natasha suppressed a deep sigh.

"Not really, kid." She said. She'd made a promise, after Tony had died and she'd started visiting the Stark residence more, that she wouldn't lie to the kid, though Morgan didn't seem fond of returning the favor. But Natasha had seen what her lies had cost her with Tony, and for the past three—nearly four—years, she'd held true to that. She had no plans on breaking that promise any time soon. She let out a short breath through her nose and shook her head. "When I rescued our mutual friend, I had to take a cab to get us back to his place. It looks like a photo was taken when we were walking away. The Daily Bugle has it, and your mom is going to absolutely murder me for not bringing him in. So. I have to go get that cleared up." She snapped Morgan's visor shut and pulled on her own helmet.

Morgan's eyes were wide under the shaded glass, and she took a sharp breath. "Oh." She managed to choke out.

"Yeah, 'oh' is right. Looks like we'd better get our stories straight." Natasha raised an eyebrow and Morgan nodded slowly.

"Okay." She agreed softly. Natasha shook her head and climbed onto the bike in front of her, waiting until Morgan's arms tightened around her mid-section, her small hands fisting into her leather jacket, her knuckles white. The bike roared to life under them, and Natasha knocked the kickstand up, making quick work of merging into traffic, immediately making a beeline for the quickest route that would get them back the lake house the fastest as Morgan clung to her.

That stupid fucking cabbie.

She was going to find him and wring his fucking neck.

But not if Pepper didn't wring her's, first.

Pepper Potts was not a woman to be scorned.

She had been through hell and back—more times than she cared to count—and she was not about to let her nine-year-old daughter's attitude be the thing that broke her iron will. It was almost infuriating, just how much she took after Tony. After all, Pepper had been the one to birth her, she'd been the one to carry her to term, she'd been the one left on Earth to look after the alien life growing inside her, while her headstrong fiancé had gone off into space to fight the next big bad.

Pepper couldn't really blame Morgan for taking after him, though. He'd put dreams in her head for the first five years of her life, fed her the same fantasies he'd wanted to live, the same fantasies he'd promised to live with them, and then he'd left them. She knew she couldn't blame him for the leaving aspect, per se, but without him, with it being just her and their children, she almost felt lost. It wasn't a feeling she'd had to deal with in a long time. Not since she was a little girl watching her mom walk out the front door only to never come back. And she would never admit it to anyone else, but frankly, she didn't know how to handle Morgan entirely on her own.

She was a mother, but it wasn't like the title had come with a handbook, and she certainly hadn't had any sort of role model to speak of that she could call up and ask for advice. She knew she was just as lost as Morgan seemed to be. And she'd never, ever admit it out loud, but Tony had been the one that wanted kids. Pepper had never had an interest in it. She was a businesswoman, someone who had focused on her career ever since graduating college, giving no spare thought to a future that involved dependents. Tony had been dependent enough, as it stood. He'd grown up a lot since he'd first stumbled out of the desert sands of Afghanistan, determined to change the future of the legacy his father had left him. And for a long time, they'd focused on that—together.

They were a unit, and for a while, it was as simple as that. Pepper had loved him for longer than she cared to admit, but she was not the kind of woman who based their entire being around a man. She'd learned from a young age that the only person you could truly trust, was yourself. Her own childhood had been evidence enough on that front. Tony had reaffirmed that fact for her, time and time again too, until he hadn't.

Something had changed in him, after he met Harley.

He got…softer.

He'd always been a magnet for kids; they adored him, especially once he became Iron Man, but up until he'd crash-landed in Harley's life, he hadn't seemed to have any sort of defining interest in them. But after meeting Harley, and when they'd started to patch things up again for the umpteenth time, he'd first floated the idea to her.

Admittedly, she'd burst into a fit of laughter at the notion.

"Kids?" She remembered how incredulous she'd sounded, even to her own ears. But her tone had done nothing to deter him, nor had her teasing smile. Instead, he started to paint her a picture of the future he'd evidently been dreaming about. For a minute, she'd almost laughed at him again. But his face had been dead serious, his brown eyes sparkling with that light that always seemed to glow in them whenever he got a particularly good idea brewing in that thick skull of his.

"C'mon, Ms. Potts…" He'd teased, pulling her close and tucking a kiss in the crook of her neck before he'd spun her around. They'd had a long day at the office, and she'd found him in the lab, tinkering away, despite his numerous promises to quit the Iron Man alter ego. She'd been too tipsy on three glasses of white wine to really care, and Tony's face was flushed from the whiskey he'd been trying to hide from her (a task he had never been good at, to begin with), but he had been dead serious about discussing kids.

"Tony, we can't even keep ourselves from falling apart, how on earth would we raise a kid?" She'd pushed at him, smiling affectionally, but he hadn't let her pull fully away, instead, he'd tugged her into his lap as he collapsed in his chair by the desk. JARVIS had turned the room dark and thrown the night sky up above them—without Tony even having to ask—and she had felt her pulse fluttering a nervous rhythm in her throat when she'd realized it wasn't a conversation he was going to let her avoid.

"Imagine it, Pep…" His voice had been quiet, going suddenly serious and she could smell the whiskey on his breath, but she let him talk anyway as they stared up at the constellations shining above them. It was one of her favorite things to do, watching the night sky. He knew it, and he'd tried to use it to his advantage; to swoon her while whispering fantasies into the shell of her ear. "What if we had a son? Don't think I'd be able to handle a girl, but I know I could be a better dad than my dad was." He'd gotten quiet for a minute, and Pepper relaxed in his arms, feeling the steady beat of his heart against her back. "I'd want him to look like you, though." He'd continued, after a minute. "Gotta have your eyes, that's for sure. Maybe not the hair." He'd teased, kissing her, even as she laughed and smacked him in return. She'd ended up managing to convince him it was a bad idea at the time, but the irony of his statement never escaped her, especially once Morgan had been born, a spitting image of the man who fathered her.

And for a while after that, he'd stayed away from the topic. Until the creation of Ultron (and subsequently Vision) had come along, which had really thrown her for a loop, especially after that night in the lab under the night sky. She'd known Tony was working on his side projects, but she hadn't thought 'Serial Killer AI Hellbent on Destroying Humankind' was anywhere on his radar. Of course, that hadn't been his intent when he'd started working on Ultron with Bruce. He'd told Steve, who had later told her, that he wanted to put a suit of armor around the world. She had come to understand, in time, that he had really meant a suit of armor around his world. The people that meant the most to him. Rhodey, Happy, Harley, herself, and later Morgan. She was pretty sure there was someone else in that mix that he'd intended on protecting, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember who. Grief did that to you, she supposed. Made you forget things that weren't in the immediate blast zone that the bomb of death created. So, she didn't think about that too much anymore, especially not once Harley moved back home. She had Morgan to worry about now, and she couldn't focus on much else aside from her daughter, her adopted son, and their family business.

It still infuriated her that somehow, Tony had known she was pregnant before she did, though. When they'd gone for the run—before the Wizard with the sparking portal that also delivered Bruce had shown up—he'd brought the conversation back to the table. She'd laughed coyly and denied it, like she had all those years ago when he'd first brought it up. Much to her displeasure, she'd been forced to take a pregnancy test later that night, her frayed nerves overwhelming her and making her hands shake when she'd realized that she was over a month late on her period. She had been forty years old and staring down at a positive pregnancy test on the edge of a panic attack when half of the population had begun to disintegrate around the universe.

Happy had burst through the door, sheer panic on his face only to find her sobbing over the sink with a pee-covered stick in her hand. The sight of Pepper Fucking Potts crying over a pregnancy test had sobered him extremely quickly and he'd gone into full security-guard mode, grabbing a plastic baggie, and forcing her to drop the test inside of it before he'd walked her through washing her hands and practically carried her out the door and into the car that was running idly outside. She'd barely registered the chaos that was occurring around them, too caught up in the fact that she was pregnant and her stupid, irrational, hare-brained genius of a fiancé had disappeared out of Earth's atmosphere with no promise of his return.

Talk about being unprepared.

She had sworn to herself, after her mother left and her sister had died from a collision with a drunk driver while she was in college, that she was never going to rely on anyone else. Tony's sudden absence reminded her in sharp relief of that personal promise and she vowed that she was going to protect the being growing inside of her with everything she had in her.

In the two weeks it took for Harley to reach out to her, she paced the entirety of the compound, her ears ringing the entire time. Natasha watched her from her perch in the chair, whenever she wasn't off completing missions to help the displaced civilians, and after a week, she finally asked her.

"Are you pregnant?"

The question had stopped Pepper in her tracks, and she'd sank into one of the chairs beside the former assassin, her hand coming to rest on the smallest swell her stomach had begun to create; her body already carving out space in her abdomen to accommodate the newest addition to her little family. Natasha had watched her, all of the unspoken betrayal hanging heavily between them.

But Pepper was alone, and admittedly, afraid of whatever the future held.

"Yes." She'd said, finally, the confession puncturing the air like a needle poking through cloth. Quiet, barely noticeable, but significant enough to leave a mark. She hadn't said it aloud to anyone, not even Happy, who had been watching her like a hawk since he'd safely deposited her at the compound. It was an odd thing to admit, but once she had, a weight seemed to fall off her shoulders. Natasha had settled her hand on the small of her back, her green eyes incredibly soft.

"It's going to be okay."

They both had known those words were a lie; no one knew how anything was going to turn out. Tony was missing, presumed dead, and the world was in shambles. They'd met Carol, who'd come home after Nick Fury's final, desperate signal to her, and she was doing what she could to help. She'd taken to space shortly after her initial arrival to try and track Tony's last known signal down, on the off chance that he was still alive. Pepper had held onto that thin thread of hope as if it were a lifeline, but she'd never been naïve. The likelihood that Tony was still alive was 50-50, and his lack of communication with them hadn't exactly raised her optimism.

So, when Harley finally made it known that he was still alive—and all alone nonetheless—Pepper did what she did best: she fixed things. If Tony was Harley's "Mechanic" then Pepper was the general manager of the shop he worked at.

She didn't tell anyone she was leaving.

Instead, she packed a bag, climbed into one of Tony's numerous cars, a hybrid (in case she couldn't find a gas station to fill up at with all the craziness), plugged the address Harley text to her into Friday's navigation system and took off. When she finally checked her phone, three hours later, she had seven missed calls from Nat and numerous messages from Happy that were increasingly panicked. She caved and called Natasha back to explain where she'd gone. The other woman had been less than pleased she'd gone off on her own, but frankly, Pepper needed to clear her head. A thirteen-hour drive by herself seemed like the best option, at the time. Nat and Happy both tried to convince her to turn her location on so they could catch up and help get here there, but Pepper was determined to do it on her own. She was perfectly capable, as far as she was concerned. Pregnant or not.

She drove through numerous towns, noting the way houses were shuttered closed. Children's bikes were strewn throughout the empty streets of small towns, presumably left there since The Snap, and garbage was piled high in the streets of most places. All goods were scarce, and need was in high demand, but there was no one to meet that demand.

How did the world continue to operate when half of it disappeared?

She'd found, it sort of didn't.

Everyone had become reclusive, sticking to the areas they knew, holding the other survivors as close as they dared, the fear of losing them too great to not acknowledge. She made a mental checklist of all the things she was seeing, vowing to herself that if the Avengers couldn't fix things in a timely manner, she was going to do her damndest to use the funds Stark Industries generated to try and help out those who remained. After all, with Tony gone, she was in charge of all of their assets.

By the time she had finally arrived in Rose Hill, Tennessee, she was exhausted. But there was a kid that needed her, and she didn't exactly have time to relax and rejuvenate. She had pulled up outside of Harley's tiny house, locked the car doors as she got out and let herself into the home that housed the child that had unknowingly sparked her current predicament.

Harley was a scrawny fourteen-year-old with the mouth of a sailor and guarded blue eyes. They'd met once before, but he'd grown since then, to the point that he practically towered over her, which was no small feat seeing as she was already fairly tall herself.

She hadn't gotten to know him very well on the first visit he'd made down to New York, having far too many meetings as the newly minted CEO of Stark Industries to miss, but that second meeting, in his little abandoned house had immediately enlightened her as to why Tony had taken such a liking to him.

He was sharp, witty, and a bit of an asshole, just like her fiancé. And over time, as they grew closer, she learned he was so much more than that. Harley was angry at a lot of things. His father, for leaving; his circumstances; the future. Hell, he was mad at the world. But he managed to hide it pretty well behind easy going mannerisms and sharp sarcasm. He became her crash-course test-run on parenting, and she was almost positive she'd never been more grateful to have another human being end up in her life. And god, she knew that he loved Morgan as much as she and Tony did. He'd made that very clear in every interaction he had with her. It had made sense to adopt him. He was a part of their family, and after two years of their circumstances remaining the same Post-Thanos, she'd asked Tony if they could officially make him a part of their family.

He and Morgan got very close, very quickly. Pepper watched them grow up together, and it was clear Harley was a natural with kids. He treated Morgan like a princess, but he didn't let her get away with things either. It was a perfect balance, as far as Pepper could see. But Morgan was smart. They'd known it when she was four and already tinkering on things with her dad in the lab, her brown eyes wide as she'd taken everything in. She was just as insistent as her father had been, that familiar light that had lit up in him when he was passionate about something finding a new home in their daughter.

She didn't want Morgan to be alone. She knew her daughter hadn't made any new friends at her school, and it pained her to think that Morgan maybe wouldn't have anyone else once Pepper was gone. It was a morbid thought, one Pepper tried not to dwell on, but it was hard to not think about it. It wasn't like she had the safest life. She was part of the Avenger's, for god's sake. Of course, she'd cut back on her field operations and her use of the RESCUE suit after Tony was gone and it was just them, but she knew, even with her use of the suit reduced, that the chances of her making it back home grew slimmer and slimmer every time she donned the thing. .

And Pepper knew all about being alone.

After her sister's accident, and her father's untimely death, that was all she was.

Alone.

It was an odd sort of life. Something that took a while to get used to. She'd started to settle into it, by the time she was twenty-three and fresh out of college. She'd seen the loneliness, written so clearly on her own face anytime she looked in the mirror; she knew how to recognize it.

It had been exceptionally clear on Peter Parker's face.

It wasn't unusual for Morgan to find strays that she'd try and bring in from the cold, but this 'Peter' kid seemed to have a chokehold on the girl. Pepper couldn't quite figure out why his name seemed so familiar, Peter was a common name after all, but there was something about it that stayed on the corners of her mind, the edge of a cliff that if she dared to step over would throw her into something she wasn't quite sure her family was ready for.

Peter had seemed like a skittish animal, when she'd met him in the Dean's office. It was clear he'd been alone for some time. She could see it in his face. He was just a kid. A kid who was all alone. Pepper's heart had ached at the thought of that. He was so young, probably younger than Harley, and he could barely meet her eyes the entire time. And it wasn't as if Pepper had particularly wanted to meet him, let alone invite him to coffee with her already insane schedule, but there was something about him that had made her want to extend their conversation. She'd realized, afterwards, that Morgan had been right; he was like Tony. It was the little things that had done it for her. His awkwardness had reminded her of her late husband, specifically that first year she'd begun to work for him. He'd been drunk most of the time, before he'd really gotten a handle on his alcoholism, and overwhelmingly persistent in his determination to get to know her, and by the time she'd gotten him home and safe into his bed most nights, he'd gain a sort of vulnerableness that was rarely accessible when he was sober.

Peter seemed to radiate that vulnerability. She'd seen the sadness in his eyes. The same sadness that was once so clear in Tony's.

If she didn't know better, she'd almost believe Peter to be Tony's son.

And, god, stupid as it was, the fact that he'd called her "Mrs. Potts" instead of Mrs. Stark had stuck with her all weekend. She'd heard the small slip in the office and had thought it odd that he'd call her that rather than the name everyone else had dealt her post-Thanos. After all, Tony had been the only to call her that for the longest time, though eventually, even Harley had picked up on it. The kid had even called her Mrs. Potts up until they'd adopted him, and he still threw it in his never-ending list of nicknames occasionally, if he was feeling particularly goofy or sentimental.

So, hearing the Parker boy call her that had tugged on her heartstrings a bit. He looked like he was around Harley's age (which didn't help her thinking that he was still a child), and she couldn't help but notice the nervousness that had rolled off of him in waves. He'd seemed to be deliberately attempting to avoid her, and that done nothing to dampen her curiosity of him. Most people, she'd found, jumped at the opportunity to speak with her. A side effect of both her business and name, she supposed. Not Peter though. It had seemed like he wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole, from the moment he'd opened the door to the Dean's office and shaken her hand.

Curious.

She couldn't help the thought as it raced through her brain later that night when she'd finally convinced Morgan it was time for bed before settling into her own. And it certainly didn't help that Morgan seemed more determined that usual for them to meet. Pepper knew if she hadn't agreed, her daughter would have orchestrated some event that led to them meeting, regardless of her own opinion on the matter. She'd done things like this before, and Pepper wasn't an idiot, much as her daughter seemed to think she was.

Breaking News: Black Widow and Spider-Man Spotted Getting Up Close and Personal on Late Night Rendezvous. Is The Spider-Menace in Spider-Love?

All thoughts of her daughter's newfound friend and potential future employee seemed to fall out of her immediately at the chime of a news article on her phone. She kept her alerts on, and FRIDAY had coded her phone to send her any news that popped up with headlines pertaining to the Avengers. She'd found immediate access to any breaking stories tended to allow her to get ahead of any particularly bad press. Plus, it helped her keep tabs on everything.

She sat up straighter in her chair and blinked, reading and re-reading the words boldly written across her screen. She couldn't seem to wrap her head around it, no matter how many times her eyes read the words. The text was clear as day, but it just didn't make sense.

Black Widow.

And Spider-Man.

Spotted.

Together.

What the actual fuck?

A headline like this was normally nothing to write home about, she knew that. Especially when coming from a source like the Daily Bugle. They were always looking for the worst in the Avengers, and she'd learned a while ago that it was best just to ignore them.

And normally, she would.

Had it not been for the photo that was directly underneath it.

It was blurry and grainy, clearly having been taken without a flash, but Natasha's distinct red hair was visible, and the red and blue costume of the vigilante they'd been looking for, for three years, was easily recognizable—the spider symbol and webbing design lit up a bit by the streetlamp they happened to be passing under. Her eyes scanned the text repeatedly, trying to make sense of the title as the words seemed incapable of registering correctly in her mind. Natasha? That made sense. And Spider-Man? Yeah, he made the headlines all the time. But…together?

Her eyes slid back to the photo, taking in the sight of his arm, slung low around her waist, cinching them together, and she could do nothing more than raise her eyebrows as she stared at it.

What the fuck?

When did this happen?

She checked the date, feeling the steady flow of blood to her cheeks, undoubtedly turning her an embarrassing shade of vermillion as she tried to piece everything together. What game was Natasha playing? Was this some sort of joke that she wasn't aware of?

The photot had been taken two nights ago, and she hadn't even so much as sent Pepper a text telling her she'd run into the infamous Spider-Man. She knew Pepper had been looking for him for nearly three years now, and she hadn't even thought to tell her they'd met up? There was no doubt that the speculation in the article was just that: speculation. She knew Natasha didn't really date, least of all an unregistered superhero, and she hadn't mentioned anything about a new love interest. Of course, she had her secrets, that was to be expected from an ex-assassin and spy. But dating one of the heroes they'd been trying to find and recruit? Not a chance. Natasha was many things, but she wasn't an idiot.

This article was going to cause a disaster though, she could feel it in her bones. She was surprised Thaddeus hadn't called her already to bitch about it to demand answers. Not that she'd be able to give him any. They both knew this particular news outlet was unreliable, but the photo on question was certainly going to wreak havoc.

She picked up her phone and pulled up her last conversation with Natasha.

Pepper: any idea what this is about ?

She sent the text, attaching a link to the news article, and waited, pursing her lips.

Natasha: I'm on my way. With Morgan. Explain shortly.

She raised an eyebrow at Natasha's text.

Hm.

Something about it didn't feel right.

She had always had a sixth sense for trouble. All of Tony's shenanigans had ensured that, and over the years she had honed it to perfection. She didn't bluff, and she could pick a lie out like a mugging victim assessing their attacker in a lineup. She was notorious for her ability to sniff out trouble, and everyone seemed to be forgetting that.

Natasha had told her she wouldn't lie to her again, but Pepper knew her answer wasn't the whole truth. Natasha would have told her about running into Spider-Man, having failed to bring him in for the Accords or not.

She pulled out her phone, scrolling through her contacts. She hesitated over the number, her brow furrowing. She hated calling him just to get some help, but she only knew one other former assassin who had as many contacts as Natasha did, if not more.

She selected his name and waited. The phone rang twice before he picked up.

"Hey, James."

"Mrs. Stark. Hello." She tried not to roll her eyes at the name. He'd never called her anything else, even after they'd made amends. She'd never even formally taken Tony's last name, but everyone called her that anyway. She didn't mind it, in all honesty though. It was a connection to him; a small reminder of the man she'd loved, who had sacrificed everything he had to fix the world.

She shook her head to clear her thoughts, noticing the shuffling in the background as someone whispered something indistinctly in the background. Sam, from the sound of it. "Is everything alright?" James continued. "Sam and I didn't fuck up any of our forms for vacation, did we?" She could hear the smile in his voice, and for a minute she felt bad for interrupting his much-needed time off. He and Sam had been working nonstop lately, helping with groundwork and the efforts to help everyone Post-Blip. Ever since Sam had encountered the Karli girl a few years back, they'd been on a mission to help the refugees as much as they could. She had, of course, willingly helped fund their project, having seen all of the displacement that had occurred firsthand.

And she'd watched as they'd gotten closer.

Neither of them had explicitly told her, but she knew they'd moved in together. The paperwork had come across her desk since their salaries were automatically tied into their rents if they chose to live outside of the Compound and needed her sign off, since she and Stark Industries financed everything the new Avengers needed, once she'd learned Sam's family had almost lost their business and several banks had declined them the necessary loans to rescue it. She hadn't said anything at the time though, just filed it in the back of her head for a later date.

And even after Nat told her they were going on vacation together; she still remained quiet. It wasn't her business, as far as she was concerned. Besides, she knew they'd talk to her about it eventually. Likely the next she managed to corner Sam and drag him to lunch. James had an excellent poker face, but Sam was a terrible liar. She had a feeling it had something to do with the fact that she reminded him of his mom. He'd told her as much, and they'd had a good laugh about it. But since then, she'd noticed he simply could not lie to her in any capacity. It was endearingly amusing, and she knew when to put that little nugget of knowledge to use.

"No, no, your paperwork was fine. In fact, I'm sorry to be bothering you about this, but I need your help with looking into some things." She said after a moment. He took a short breath but didn't interrupt her. "Shouldn't pull you away from your vacation or anything. But I was wondering, do you still have your contact in New York?"

"Of course." She could hear him shifting in his seat, but his tone gave nothing away. "Do you need me to get ahold of him for you?"

"Would you mind? I need him to look into Spider-Man for me." She could hear James' inhale, sharper than before.

"Finally trying to bring him in?"

"Something like that." She said, taking a halting breath. She knew James and Nat had gotten closer, after Tony had passed and Steve had left. They'd rekindled whatever odd relationship they'd had, prior to the Avengers. Pepper didn't know much about that time, as Nat didn't really share and James was quite stoic ninety-eight percent of the time, so she wasn't sure just how close 'close' really was. Nat tended to stay near Pepper and could typically be found at the Compound, if she wasn't upstate at Clint's place, or at Yelena and Kate's apartment. And while she could disappear for weeks on end for missions that Nick sometimes popped up to drag her into, she always made sure to loop Pepper in if she was straying far. Pepper knew she did it keep in her good graces, and she didn't mind, because frankly it was nice to have another adult to talk to when she needed a break from her everyday activities as a mother and CEO.

They'd grown closer over time, and despite her initial apprehensions that still lingered from the betrayal Tony had dealt with in Germany, she had come to care about her. Pepper couldn't remember a time since her first meeting of Natasha that the former assassin had lied to her, up until that day. Hell, she'd been brutally honest about Germany, once she'd returned from the dead. It was the only time Pepper had ever seen her come close to tears, and once they'd talked it out, a barrier seemed to crumble between them. She knew Natasha still felt guilty about the whole thing, not to mention the lack of closure with Tony. She could see it every time she came over and Morgan ran to hug her, squealing 'Aunt Nat!' at the mere sight of her.

She knew Natasha cared about their family. She'd made that very obvious, over the years. And Pepper did trust her. But she also knew that Natasha wasn't telling her everything.

And that worried her.

The last time that had happened, Tony had ended up with the snot beat out of him in the frozen cold of Siberia. Tony wasn't around anymore, and Pepper refused to risk anything similar happening to a member of her family ever again. If Natasha wouldn't tell her what was actually going on, she was going to find out for herself. She didn't know what Spider-Man had on Natasha, but for her to actively lie about him had to mean he knew something Pepper didn't, and she was not risking a compromised team. She had enough to worry about with Stark Industries to be having another worry added in, but even if Natasha wouldn't ask her for help, she was going to get involved.

"I'll ask him to keep an eye out." She nodded at James' words, letting herself be drawn back into the conversation at hand. "He's got a friend that's a P.I., too. Want me to have him reach out for the secret identity part? I know he could track him down in the suit, but we know how that's gone the past few times." Pepper closed her eyes and bit her lip before letting out a soft breath at the comment. Spider-Man had remained elusive for the past three years. She hadn't been able to get anyone to successfully tail him because he was incredibly quick, and he seemed to have a sixth sense that flared up when anyone got too close. It didn't help that he seemed to drop in out of nowhere on a dime, and was capable of leaving just a fast. She'd left him to his devices for a while because he seemed utterly determined to remain a solo act, despite having fought with the Avengers before. She hadn't been able to figure out why he was avoiding them; she knew for a fact Tony had recruited him and she couldn't imagine what had soured their relationship so much that Tony kept no evidence of him on file. She'd checked. She'd thought it odd that he didn't even have his name saved anywhere, nor any indication that he'd ever worked alongside the Avengers. None of the Avengers seemed to know who was under the mask either, having only briefly fought alongside him in Germany and the battles with Thanos. They'd said he sounded young, but even Rhodey hadn't been privy to who Tony had recruited. And without a name, it wasn't likely they'd catch him.

James, for his part, seemed to have a particular annoyance towards Spider-Man, grumbling under his breath about stupid webbing and super strength anytime someone mentioned him, so Pepper knew he would jump on the opportunity to find out who was under the mask that had kicked his ass in Germany. He had made a lot of friends since then and had recently told her about the Devil of Hell's Kitchen and the ragtag group of vigilantes he ran around with. Technically she shouldn't be asking the red suited hero for help, seeing as he hadn't signed up for the Accords either, but the article was making her a bit desperate. Besides, if she figured out how to play her cards right, Thaddaeus Ross would never have to know she'd asked unregistered individuals for their assistance.

"Yeah. I want to get to the bottom of who he is. I'm going to send you a news article. There's a photo, with street names in the background. Maybe they can start there. Get an address or something. I don't know." Bucky hummed on the other line.

"Sure thing, Mrs. Stark." She snorted and rolled her eyes at the name.

"Please, James. You know you can call me Pepper."

"I'll call you that when you call me Bucky." He said, but she could hear the smile in his voice, which was a nice change of pace from his usual sullen demeanor. "I'll have him call you when he's got something. Give him a week or so. He and his friends work fast, but I know they've got other stuff going on." Pepper nodded, despite the fact that he couldn't see her.

"Okay, thanks. I'll keep my phone on." She hung up, her hands shaking a bit. There was something urging her that this was the right thing to do, but she couldn't figure out why. All she knew, was she was going to get to the bottom of whatever the hell was going on under her nose.

Before anyone else got hurt.