Silence.
That was the first thing Peter noticed as they entered the communal kitchen. It seemed Peter wasn't the only one who was confused by the lack of noise, though Peter hid his confusion. Tony on the other hand, voiced his.
"Where is everyone?"
Rhodey didn't even look at Tony as he answered, instead going to the pantry to get bread out for sandwiches.
"Cap, Bucky and Sam are on a run I think. Wanda and Vision went out for a walk, though I'm pretty sure it's a date. Clint and Nat are out on some mission, wouldn't tell us what it is, said we weren't needed."
Tony just nodded in response, letting out a "hm" noise as he went over to the coffee machine to make himself and Rhodey a coffee.
He looked over at Peter and asked, "Coffee?"
"Yes, please sir," Peter answered politely. "Do you need any help with the sandwiches, Colonel Rhodes?"
"Nah, it's all good Peter. This will only take a second. And you can drop the Colonel, just Rhodey is fine," Rhodey added as he cut some sandwiches into halves and placed them on 3 different plates.
The room dissolved back into quiet, except for the sounds of a kitchen at work. The coffee machine, cups and plates moving around, the opening and closing of cupboards. Peter soon found himself with a plate of 2 different sandwiches, BLT and ham and cheese, with a coffee in hand sitting in-between two superheroes. It was almost surreal how normal this felt as the three of them munched away on their lunch, Tony standing up once or twice to refill his coffee while Rhodey looked at him with half joking disappointment.
Peter practically inhaled the food. Though he seemed to do that every time he ate recently. He wasn't eating more than when he first arrived, though still not enough for his metabolism. So every time he had food he seemed to devour it in no time. He tried to slow down his eating to avoid causing a scene—though it seemed he only half succeeded in that.
"Do you want another, kid? You practically devoured those sandwiches," Tony asked as he finished his 3rd coffee. Peter blushed bright red in embarrassment.
"No, sorry. It's ok, sir. I just forgot to have breakfast this morning," Peter tried to play off. Not a complete lie, he hadn't had breakfast, but not because he forgot. He had come back from patrol later than normal and had all but crashed into his bed. He had woken up late and was so excited about today that he raced out of his house in fear of oversleeping and being late. In hindsight, he should have risked being late in favour of eating, he hadn't realised how hungry he was till now.
"You can't skip breakfast kid, I'll make you another sandwich. What do you want on it?" Tony asked, putting down his cup and moving over to where all the ingredients were and gesturing to the foods.
"No, really, sir. It's ok. You don't have to– " Peter began, only to be cut off by a glare from the billionaire.
The embarrassed blush returned to Peter's face as he responded "BLT, please. Sorry."
Rhodey's hand came to rest on Peter's shoulder, causing him to flinch slightly, as the man said, "Don't apologies, kid. We have enough food to feed an army of Asgardians, might as well use it."
Why was he flinching so much lately? He never flinched from physical touch before. But ever since the reversal of the snap—ever since that battle—sudden contact, even from people he trusted, caused his mental alarm bells to go off and his body flinch away. All Peter could do was hope people didn't get the wrong idea. Though Peter had gotten pretty good at playing them off. But it was better when people didn't mention it. Talking about it just made him feel awkward.
Peter happily ate his sandwich as the adults talked about everything and nothing, quietly sipping on their coffee every now and then. It wasn't long till 45 minutes had passed and Tony announced it was time to go back down to the lab.
"Fine," Rhodey said. "But if you're not out of that lab by dinner, I'll come back down and drag you out myself."
Putting the plates and cups in the sink and gesturing for Peter to follow him, he called back, "Yeah, yeah, whatever honey bear."
As Peter was pulled along he called out "Bye Colonel- Rhodey!"
"See ya kid!" Peter heard as he and Tony entered the elevator and made their way back down to the lab.
"To the lab please FRIDAY," Tony asked the AI.
"Yes Boss."
The elevator moved the speed of light and Peter quickly found himself back in Tony's personal lab. Funnily enough AC/DC was still playing loudly through the speakers and everything was still where they left it almost an hour ago.
As Tony began to walk towards the armour once more, he explained, "Keep working on the AI, kid. I'll be here if you need me."
Gathering his courage, Peter responded, "Actually, Sir? I've finished the code."
Now that got Tony's attention. He whipped around at the words and placed down the wire cutters he had already picked up. He looked Peter in the eye and carefully asked:
"The whole thing? All the code is done, checked and everything?" Peter nodded. "Alright then Whiz Kid, let's take a look."
The two sat down in front of Peter's code. Neither spoke as Tony looked through the code, nodding to himself as he read it. He seemed mildly impressed. He stopped reading for a moment to ask FRIDAY to run the code and check for errors. A few seconds later, the AI responded that there were no bugs in the code.
With the faintest bit of a smile, Tony remarked, "You made this entire code, in what, 3 hours?" Though it was phrased as a question, Peter didn't respond. "And there isn't a single bug in it. I have people in my R department downstairs who couldn't do what you just did if I gave them a week. And you just did it in 3 hours."
Peter didn't know what to say. He didn't think what he could do was that impressive. Sure, he knew he was smart. But not that smart. Mr. Stark was probably just being nice.
"I gotta say… I'm impressed."
Peter smiled easily at the praise.
"You can go."
Wait… what? Hadn't he done well? Why was he being asked to leave? Had he done something wrong?
Seemingly sensing his confusion, Tony corrected. "For today. I'm not kicking you out kid. Look, you did good. Better than I thought actually. So here's the deal. I don't want to rip you away from your little friends downstairs so, for now, you'll do the normal internship Wednesdays and Fridays and you'll spend Saturdays with me. Cool? Cool. I'm only saying you can go cause I didn't have anything else planned, I thought this would take you the whole day. So you can go home, or you can go down to the normal internship for the rest of today."
It was an easy choice, Peter didn't like being alone.
———————
The month wasn't close to being over yet, but Peter could already tell that his day at the internship would be the highlight of his month. No competition.
Peter was currently at the bar for his shift, Wade wasn't around. Something about him taking a job, Weasel said he would be away form a few days but would be back in time for his lesson on Tuesday. Honestly, Peter didn't want to know.
He was keeping to himself, not talking to many people. Others at the bar seemed to pick up on it and were keeping to their own conversations. Not too many people were sitting at the counter so Peter was able to work away on the drinks by himself.
Weasel had left to take care of something out the back, but he said he would be back soon. So the silence wasn't likely to last. But for now, it was just Peter.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw two people enter the bar. Nothing unusual. So he continued putting away the new bottle of Brandy, syrup, and sweet vermouth he had just used to make a regular Metropolitan cocktail. He heard the two sit at the bar right behind where he was standing. Putting his cloth on his shoulder, he turned to greet them.
"What can I get you?"
Turning to meet their eyes, he realised these were not just any two people he was talking too. They were avengers. Sitting in front of him was Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton, dressed in disguises.
Natasha's iconic red hair was covered with a realistic blonde wig and she was wearing brown contact lenses. Clint had his hair slicked back instead of spiky how it was normally and was also wearing brown contact lenses. They were both dressed in mostly black but otherwise normal looking outfits. It was clear they were trying to blend in. The average person would be deceived by their disguises, but not him. Peter would know those faces. He had fought side by side with these people. And yet he didn't know what to say. Peter quickly hid any kind of alarm from seeing them from his face and waited from their responses.
Nat put on a smile, "Yeah, a beer for him and a strawberry margarita for me."
"Coming up," Peter responded as he turned around to grab the ingredients and mix the drink for Nat and pour the beer for Clint. When he turned around, Peter heard the two superheroes have a whispered conversation. He wouldn't have heard it without his advanced hearing.
"Shit, was that a kid?"
"Looks like it."
"How are you not freaking out about this, Nat."
"I know how to keep my cool on a mission."
"What do you think he's doing here?"
"It looks like he's serving us drinks."
"Nat."
"I don't know, could be the owner's son. Doesn't matter, for now. We have to find information about the shipment, we can't get distracted."
"So we are just going to ignore this?"
"For now."
As their conversation ended, Peter turned around and placed the drinks in front of the two. They both faked smiles and thanked him. Peter just smiled back and wiped the counter in front of them with his cloth.
In a hushed tone, he remarked, "Never thought I would see Avengers down this end of town. Let alone in this bar."
With a tight smile, Nat responded, "What do you mean?"
Peter looked at the two for a moment before adding, "Your disguises are good, but eye colour doesn't change the way you look. Besides, you guys saved me once, I wouldn't forget your faces. Ms Widow, Mr Hawkeye, may I ask what you're doing here?"
The spies seemed to have a silent conversation that Peter was not privy to. So Peter finished wiping down the bench and served another customer quickly while he waited. When he returned Clint spoke.
"We're following a guy involved in an illegal weapons ring near the docks, we followed him here hoping to catch some info on him or his operations."
"Which guy?" Peter asked them.
Nat gestured with her eyes over to a balding man sitting near the back corner of the bar. The man in question had been coming to the bar for several nights in a row with one other person, meeting up with someone new every night. The two were currently talking to another man, using his advanced hearing, Peter listened into the group's conversation.
"–are you in or not?" The man the spies were following asked, who Peter had nicknamed Baldy.
"I'm in, I'm in. I just need more details," bad guy number one replied.
Sighing, bad guy number 2 responded, "We have a shipment coming in at 2am tomorrow at dock 3, be there at 1:30am or you're not getting your cut. It's a big shipment, we need all the manpower we can get. But don't go spreading this, got it?"
Pulling out of the conversation, Peter brought his attention back to the super spies and relayed his new information.
"They are getting a new shipment at 2am tomorrow at dock 3. Apparently it's going to be a big operation. Does that help?"
The two adults just stared back at him. Both seemly shocked at the information he had though they both hid it well. When neither spoke, Peter did.
"I work long shifts and I have good hearing. People forget I'm here."
They seemed to accept his answer, a little begrudgingly but accepted it nonetheless.
Finishing her drink in one sip, Nat thanked him "Yeah, Thanks."
"What are you doing here, kid?" Clint blurted out, as if he could no longer hold it in. Peter sighed, he was so used to lying about his situation these days. It was tiring. Eventually, Peter decided on a half truth.
"Well, bills to pay, food to buy, you know how it is."
He laughed awkwardly as his sentence finished while the two adults looked at him sadly. Shit, that wasn't his intention. In hopes to end the awkwardness, he added:
"So you have your information, anything else?"
"No, that's all," Nat responded, grabbing Clint's arm to start leaving "Thanks again. Stay safe."
As they left, Clint turned and asked "You good, kid?'
"Yeah, I'm good."
And he meant it.