Disclaimer: Everything you recognise here either came from the MCU films or the original Marvel comics, but I hope you enjoy the results anyway

Feedback: Feel free

AN: Another chapter that sticks to canon events while making some subtle changes; be assured I have more original events coming up once the current crisis has been dealt with.

The Legacies' Triad

Kate knew that there was no reason to be hurt at the idea that she had been left behind while the other two went off to intercept an arms deal, particularly when they would be dealing with experienced criminals, but she couldn't shake the idea that she was just the weak link in this whole situation. Peter's powers were obvious, and Yelena had apparently been training since she was a toddler, so Kate understood that she wouldn't really contribute anything to the group if she'd tagged along, but that didn't mean she had to just accept it.

It wasn't as though she wanted to be in danger, but she didn't like the idea of her old friend and her new protector going off and risking their lives while she was sitting around here. She was glad at the chance to get to know Peter all over again, and Yelena was rapidly becoming a great friend, but it felt a bit unfair that they had to take time out of the bigger investigation to protect her when nobody even knew why this apparent other Black Widow had been interested in her in the first place. She was taking advantage of her time in the safehouse to get in some extra practice on the archery range, and had even spent some time hitting the punching bags just so she could feel like she was giving herself more practice, but she felt like she could still be doing more.

She had just finished her latest session with the punching bag, satisfied with the force of her blows, when the door to the safehouse opened and Yelena walked in with a grim expression on her face.

"Hey," Kate said, hoping she wasn't about to say the wrong thing. "How did it go?"

"We intercepted the arms dealers and were able to destroy at least one of the weapons on sale," Yelena nodded at Kate as she took off her coat and began to remove her weapons. "When I left the boat, the FBI agents and Tony Stark were taking the weapons into secure custody."

"OK, that's- Tony Stark?" Kate wasn't sure if she should be impressed or worried at that news. "Iron Man was there? Did Peter-?"

"I do not think so," Yelena shook her head. "Stark called Peter just before the deal went wrong; Peter clearly was not expecting the call and he said nothing to Stark about his own presence."

"That's… good," Kate said, glad that she didn't have to be angry at Peter for basically selling them out to Iron Man. "So… we stopped those weapons being sold, right?"

"We did," Yelena nodded (Kate tried not to smile too much at the thought that Yelena was so quick to accept the 'we' of that last statement even when she hadn't done that much). "Now we must-"

The ringing of the safehouse phone prompted Yelena to walk over to the phone and check the number on the display, but she gave Kate a brief smile as she accepted the call and set it to speaker.

"Peter Parker," she began, "is everything-?"

"Mr Stark fired me."

"He what?" Kate said, feeling sure that she'd just made the kind of sound other people would call a yelp as Yelena looked at the phone in surprise. "Didn't you just stop a bunch of crooks selling alien weapons? Isn't that a good thing?"

"I tried to focus on that, but he was just going on about how the Accords mean we can't just go butting into things whenever we want; we've got to show that we can work with the system and respect the rules…"

"Respect the- does he even get that the kind of things the Avengers have to deal with won't have any rules?" Kate said incredulously, unable to believe that one of the original heroes of the Battle of New York could be such an idiot. "It's not like you just go out hitting people; you're a hero-"

"He took the suit," Peter said, his utter dejection at those words striking Kate with new intensity. "He acted like I'm just some kid who doesn't think things through and basically told me I don't deserve to have it if I'm going to be reckless like that…"

"How were you being reckless?" Yelena asked. "We took precautions-"

"And he doesn't know about you."

"Ah," Yelena said, her face twisting in a manner that left Kate wondering what she was thinking about as she looked over at Kate. "You did not tell him you have… associates."

"He'd just… I don't know what he'd do about you, but I didn't want to give you away," Peter said, still clearly shaken at everything he'd been dealing with. "I… I'm not sure if I can do this any more; I nearly got you both in trouble, these weapons have been becoming a serious problem, Mr Stark took away my suit, and everyone at school's starting to wonder why I'm being so distant…"

"Hey, you're not just the suit-!" Kate tried to protest, but then the phone call was terminated at the other end, leaving her and Yelena with nothing to do but look at each other.

"So," Yelena said at last with a shrug, "if arms dealers have been arrested, that leaves me with only your potential abduction as a lead; do you wish to stay?"

"Huh?"

"If my target no longer has advanced weapons, the plan that involved capturing you will have less resources; now that you are prepared-"

"And what if they go after someone else who isn't as ready for that as we were?" Kate cut the older woman off, hoping she wasn't about to make a mistake or come across the wrong way. "I get that this isn't safe, but even if they decide I'm not worth the risk… if I can't be bait, maybe I could be mission control or something?"

"Mission control?"

"Y'know, like that bit in Tomorrow Never Dies when James Bond is infiltrating that arms sale and MI6 are watching him from back at base?" Kate said, regretting that she hadn't watched more spy movies. "You're out on patrol, I'm… keeping an ear on police scanners or something… and if I hear something about a similar abduction attempt I can let you know? Or maybe we try a sting operation or two at some point and make it look like you left me to do my own thing so they can try and capture me again…"

She shrugged. "Well, I want to help out; is that so wrong?"

"…No," Yelena said, looking at her with a tentative nod. "We can… we shall see what happens."

A part of Kate wondered if she was just being kept on because Yelena was too nice to kick her out, but she wasn't sure if the Black Widow could be that 'nice' to anyone after the way she'd been so abrupt in the past. The important thing was that she didn't have to leave her new friend yet, even if she would miss the chance to spend more time with Peter again.

Still, even if it wasn't working with Hawkeye, she was still involved with an Avenger-adjacent crisis; at least the situation was still fairly cool… and she wasn't going to complain about spending time with someone as fascinating as Yelena…

I can miss Peter and still like spending time with Yelena, right?

Peter didn't think he'd ever stop regretting how he'd screwed things up with Mr Stark, but at least he had been settling back into his old routine over the last week. Things had been rough with May when she found out that he'd skipped school for something he couldn't properly explain, but once he'd told her that he'd lost the internship after making a couple of key mistakes, she'd quickly decided to act as though this was something to forget and move on from.

Getting his focus back on school had at least been easy enough, since his generally good reputation meant that the principal was willing to give him some leeway after a mistake that hadn't actually hurt anybody or meant that he missed something important. He still had to serve a few days' detention, but it actually helped him catch up with some work while letting him get back to some of his other social groups. He'd even found the time to work on the Lego Death Star with Ned that he'd been unintentionally putting off because he'd been so focused on helping Kate and Yelena…

I miss them.

He shook that thought aside just like he'd been doing since everything happened. With the suit gone and the possibility of Mr Stark watching, all he really had to offer was random scientific knowledge that wouldn't help a spy hunt and the ability to hit people really hard. He had to just step back and trust that Yelena was a professional who could handle herself; she'd been holding her own in this business for years before she even met him, he wasn't that important, there hadn't been anything in the news that might suggest that she or Kate were in any sort of trouble…

He was so lost in thought as he walked through the corridor that he almost ran right into Liz, even with his enhanced reflexes.

"Hey," he said, pushing thoughts of the other two girls out of his mind to focus on the one in front of him.

"Hey," Liz replied.

"I thought you had calculus fifth period," Peter said, immediately hoping that wouldn't come across as 'stalker-ish'.

"Yeah, I was just doing some homecoming stuff," Liz said, walking up to him. "By the way, great job at the decathlon last week."

"Eh, everyone did their bit," Peter shrugged, recalling how he managed to get a few good answers in during that particular tournament.

"Even when you were out the night before?"

"Yeah… that was just… I really should have been more a team player back then," Peter said awkwardly. "There was… I had other things going on, but… I mean…"

"It's fine," Liz smiled at him. "You wouldn't have done anything that bad; you're not exactly the best at keeping secrets."

"Hey, I'm a good secret-keeper when it counts," Peter protested half-heartedly, smiling slightly at Liz. "Uh… talking of secrets, sorry if this is personal, but you mentioned 'homecoming stuff'; I haven't actually heard… who are you going with?"

"…Nobody," Liz said with an awkward smile. "I think I was so busy planning it I never really got around to the part where I actually ask someone to it…"

"Huh," Peter smiled at that idea, before another idea came to him. If he was trying to get back to some kind of normal life… if he was genuinely focused on moving on and getting back to the kind of life everyone else had, rather than staying focused on a part of the world he could never really get…

"Do you want to go with me?"

"Yeah, sure," Liz smiled.

"Really?" Peter smiled, a part of him still unprepared for the idea that she would actually accept. "I mean, uh, great. Cool."

"Cool," Liz nodded back at him.

"I'm actually going that way," Peter finished as he walked past Liz, allowing himself a small smile at this development.

It didn't stop him thinking about his time with Yelena and Kate, but at least he could get back to the way things had been… if his new friends couldn't be part of his life, maybe he could go for an old dream…

After everything he'd been through, preparing for a simple dance should have been simple, but it had been nice for Peter to have something he could ask May for help with after he'd been keeping so many other secrets from her. Learning how to tie a tie was surprisingly more complicated than he had expected- he wondered if one advantage of private schools was that they included uniforms with ties as standard- but he'd certainly appreciated the dance lessons even if it was short notice.

"So," May said as she came to a halt outside Liz's house, "what's the plan?"

"Open the door for her," Peter began, recalling all the advice May had given him on how to treat Liz at this event. "Tell her she looks nice, but not too much because that's creepy."

"Don't be creepy," May affirmed in a low whisper.

"No," Peter affirmed. "And, uh, when I dance with her, I'm putting my hands on her hips. I got this."

He fought down the part of himself that still couldn't help picturing an older blonde or a paler brunette as his partner to this event; even if Kate went to his school and Yelena wasn't older, asking them to Homecoming would have been completely impossible for Peter Parker (he and Kate had just been casual friends before she learnt he was Spider-Man; no way would she go to that kind of trouble for him). He was making an effort to rebuild his life outside of Spider-Man, and it wasn't as though going back to an old crush was a bad thing; he still liked Liz…

Old crush?

He pushed that thought down even further as he said goodbye to May, walked up to the door and rang the bell, waiting anxiously for whoever was going to open it.

When the door swung aside to reveal an older man who Peter last saw on the Staten Island Ferry preparing to sell weapons, Peter felt as though he'd just been punched in the face.

"You must be Peter," the older man said with a cool smile.

"Yeah," Peter responded, mind racing at the implications of this twist.

"I'm Liz's dad." The man held out his hand. "Put her there."

As Peter automatically shook the man's hand, he decided to be relieved that this guy hadn't worked out Spider-Man's identity even if he had no idea how to deal with this particular twist. If this guy hadn't done anything since the boat, it could be that he wasn't going to do anything dangerous ever again, but on the other hand, he didn't build that bird-suit-thing just to save on air fare…

Peter managed to get through his introduction to Liz's mother without any further surprises, glad to see that he didn't recognise her from the boat, but then she went off to get her daughter and he was alone with the criminal once again.

"You all right, Pete?" the older man said as he cleaned a knife.

"Yeah," Peter said, unable to speak in a louder tone.

"Because you look pale," the man said as he put down the knife. "You want something to drink? Like a bourbon or a scotch, or something like that?"

"I'm not old enough to drink," Peter said.

"That's the right answer," the man smiled, before he looked at something over Peter's shoulder. "Wow."

Turning around, Peter saw Liz, wearing a pink-and-red dress in a floral pattern, with short sleeves over her shoulders and a widening skirt down to just above her knees.

"Wow, wow, wow," the man said. "Don't you look beautiful."

"Please don't embarrass me, Dad," Liz whispered.

"Doesn't she, Pete?" the old man said, as Liz moved towards Peter.

"Yeah," Peter said, glad to focus on something more straightforward. "You look really good."

"Once again, that's the right answer," the man nodded, stepping back as Peter handed Liz the pink corsage he'd put together. "Well, hey, I'm your chauffeur, so, uh, let's get this show on the road."

"No, no, no, no, we have to take some pictures, babe," Liz's mother said. "All right. Oh, right here. Perfect."

Peter basically moved on automatic as Liz's parents took various photos of him and their daughter, each time wondering how long it would be before her father realised who he was and how he had interfered in his previous arms deal.

"Sir," he said tentatively, "you don't have to drive us-"

"No, no, it's not a big deal," the older man said as he shrugged on a brown jacket. "I'm going out of town; it's right on my way."

"He's always coming and going," Liz's mother said dismissively.

"Last time," her father said, in a manner that immediately left Peter feeling concerned. Considering what he had been doing just last week, if this man was going out of town now, there was no way he was up to something good…

"What are you gonna do, Pete?"

"What?" Peter looked at Liz's father in surprise, his anxious thoughts as he sat in the car broken by the abrupt question.

"When you graduate," the older man clarified, with a casual expression that made it clear he still didn't know who Peter was. "What do you think you're gonna do?"

"Oh, um, I don't know," Peter said, immediately concerned that he might say too much; he doubted that a man selling alien technology would be in favour of his affiliation with the Avengers.

"Don't grill him, Dad," Liz said defensively.

"Just saying, you know," the older man observed. "All you guys who go to that school, you pretty much have your life planned out, right?"

"Yeah, no, I'm just a sophomore," Peter pointed out.

"Peter has an internship with Tony Stark," Liz put in, leaning forward to more directly address her father. "So I think he doesn't have to worry."

"Really?" Liz's father said in surprise. "Stark?"

"So cool," Liz affirmed.

"What do you do?" the older man asked.

"Yeah, actually, there were… creative differences," Peter said, feeling a need to say some of the truth for Liz's sake even if she couldn't know the full details.

"Creative differences?" Liz looked curiously at Peter.

"I just… I realised I didn't entirely agree with some of Mr Stark's approach to things," Peter explained. "It was nothing… he liked my work, but we decided we couldn't agree on some… non-work-related things."

"Like what?" Liz looked at him incredulously. "What could be that big a deal?"

"…Personal stuff," Peter said at last, looking apologetically over at Liz. "I… really can't say much more…"

"Confidentiality contracts, right?" the older man said with a shrug as he glanced back. "Good for you being that respectful of things."

"Just because I don't agree with Mr Stark about a few things doesn't mean I didn't like the job," Peter clarified. He still wasn't comfortable about Mr Stark's stance on the Accords, but he could still respect the man as an inventor and an Avenger without agreeing with everything he did. "But… well, things came up and it wasn't practical for me to stay on."

"That's a bit rough," Liz gave him a sympathetic smile.

"I mean, the job still gave me a few ideas for the future," Peter observed, even as he kept an anxious eye on her father in the driver's seat. He was fairly sure nobody at school had ever been given any hints that he was affiliated with Spider-Man directly- he wasn't even sure if anyone thought he worked with Mr Stark on the Iron Man suits or if he was just a more generic intern- but the less he gave this man about himself the better right now. "I don't get the easy pass, but I still get it for my resume for the future."

"You know, Pete, you… sound familiar," Liz's father said, his tone thoughtful as he looked in the mirror. "Have we… met before?"

"He does Academic Decathlon with me," Liz pointed out. "And he was at my party… before he disappeared."

"Yeah, sorry about that; something… came up with the internship," Peter shrugged. "I had to be on notice if Mr Stark ever needed extra hands for something; it was… all a bit complicated."

"He could do that?" Liz looked at him in surprise. "Just call for you?"

"Genius is eccentric," Peter shrugged, hoping that this wouldn't be pushing his luck. "It's like how I… went off for a walk that night in Washington; sometimes we all just need to step back and take a new look at things."

"And that justifies Stark calling you away on short notice?"

"It just proves that he's a brilliant scientist who has his own approach to things," Peter said, suddenly regretting that last comment for what it might have implied about Mr Stark. "I don't always get some of his decisions, but that doesn't stop me admiring him as a person, right?"

Liz's father sat in silence for the rest of the drive until they finally reached the school, the building surrounded by well-dressed teenagers and the entrance decorated with colourful balloons.

"Here we are," the older man said, as the car came to a stop. "End of the line."

"Thanks, Dad," Liz said, as she took Peter's arm and basically led him towards the car door, her father staring after her with an approving smile. "Good luck with that business trip; see you later!"

For a moment, as Peter was led into the school by Liz, walking past the dangling lights and the spread of balloons, all he could do was look back as the old man drove away, mind buzzing with the implications of this man being out for 'work' in the next couple of days. With most of his team having already been caught, it was always possible that the man didn't have the resources to pull off anything that big and he would end up getting caught by Mr Stark or another FBI sting team… or maybe even Yelena…

But I can't be sure of that.

Peter had gone after the arms deal on the ferry even when he knew the FBI would be involved, because he didn't want to risk the agents being hurt if the gang had more advanced technology than the agents could cope with. If he didn't bother trying to stop a deal when he couldn't know if anyone else knew about it…

Looking around the dance floor as he walked into the main gym hall, full of dancing couples and loud music, Peter saw Ned looking over to give him an enthusiastic wave from one side of the room while Michelle gave him the finger from another area. It was such a small action, but that gesture… the way he was just dismissed so easily…

Suddenly, Peter realised what he should have accepted a week ago.

He went out as Spider-Man because he wanted to save lives; he wasn't in this business simply to win points with Mr Stark and earn a place on the Avengers. He had become friends with Yelena and Kate (basically renewing his friendship with Kate counted as becoming a new kind of friend) because they all wanted to keep people safe; if he stayed put because he wanted to be Peter Parker rather than help people as Spider-Man…

I don't want to be that person.

"Peter?" Liz's voice interrupted his train of thought. "Is… something wrong?"

"…There's someone else," Peter said at last, falling back on the explanation that was at least partly true without giving away the truth. "I'm sorry; you don't deserve any of this."

He didn't like leaving Liz with such a hurt expression on her face as he turned and left the hall, heading for the lockers where he had hidden a version of his original suit, but it was best to make a clean break as fast as possible.

If he could move quickly enough, he should be able to catch up to Liz's father before his car got too far away, and still have time to make a couple of calls for help…