Hey guys! Wow it has been a minute, so sorry. Honestly, it's been a crazy month after my move and I had the worst writer's block (I almost gave up on this story) but I just saw the new Spider-Man a few days ago (and I'm crying) I found my motivation to write again. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Years! This chapter isn't the longest, but I'm working hard on writing more. Enjoy!

As always, please review :)

After Kate and Clint had left for the RAFT, Peter had retreated to his room, promising that he would return for lunch when it was ready. He stretched out on his bed with Lucky piling on top of him. The dog had rarely left his side, though considering Kate was almost always at his side as well that contributed to the attention. Peter didn't mind though; he loved all the doggie snuggles.

A month ago, Peter would have taken any chance to be in the lab or out in the common area with the others, but he was beginning to feel like he was a fish in a tank, or a rat being observed. The logical half of his brain said that they were all concerned over him and that they understood the grief and could help. However, the emotional piece of his mind was tired of all the attention. He didn't want to talk; he didn't want to do anything.

Lucky moved forward to push his muzzle up against his cheek. The dog nuzzled him, sensing his bad thoughts and Peter sighed. He raised his hands to rub Lucky's ears and stroke his head gently.

"Thanks boy." He said softly. "Good dog."

He looked up at the ceiling. He was incredibly lucky that he wasn't alone, he knew that. Ned and MJ both reached out, they were the ones outside of the Avengers circle that knew. Everyone had been incredible at trying to help him get through this, and he was very aware that he could have gone into foster care if Tony and Pepper hadn't taken him in.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath before he sat up. He looked down at Lucky who was laying across his lap. "I can't stay in here forever." He said quietly.

Lucky sat up allowing Peter to swing his legs out of bed. Maybe he could clear his head in the lab while he waited for Kate to come back.

…

Getting to the main control room had been the easy part, however, with how many prisoners were in the RAFT it didn't take much before they were surrounded, and they had to seal the doors. They were now trapped.

Kate immediately made sure that the landing bays and all the transport off the prison were sealed and inoperable. They were still submerged so none of the doors could be opened without flooding the prison and killing everyone. Clint and the few guards that they had come across along the way were busy getting weapons together as they listened to the pounding against the metal doors.

"Have you been able to get in contact with the compound?" Clint asked as he walked over and placed a few weapons beside her.

"I'm working on that now." Kate replied. "Signals aren't clear while we're under water, but I'll figure it out. I wanted to make sure they couldn't escape first."

Clint nodded as he glanced at her work. "They aren't going anywhere for now."

"Neither are we." Kate replied somberly as the banging continued against the doors.

…

Peter glared down at the chemical mixture that was for his webbing, which was currently not behaving the way that it normally did. It was soupy and wasn't turning into its usual sticky texture. With a frustrated sigh, Peter decided to scrap the concoction and tossed it away safely. There wasn't anything inherently dangerous or toxic in the substance, and even like this it would be gone in a few hours, but still better safe than sorry.

As he sat down to start again, he heard someone keying in to enter the lab. Normally this would be either Tony or Bruce, but when the music quieted down, he looked up in surprise to see Pepper walking in holding a tray.

"I thought I might find you here." Pepper said with a smile as she walked over.

"Hey Pepper." Peter said with a smile. "Sorry, I didn't know you were looking for me."

Pepper smiled and shook her head. "Don't worry. You skipped lunch, so I just thought I'd' bring you a plate." She said setting it down on the workbench as Peter pushed some of his beakers away to make room.

"Thanks." Peter tried to smile. He wasn't hungry, he hadn't had an appetite in weeks despite how much he normally ate to keep his strength up, but he couldn't say no to the kind look in Pepper's eyes. Plus, he was about three rejected meals away from them force feeding him and that didn't sound pleasant. He looked at the meal and it really did smell good. "What is this?"

"It's Paprikash." Pepper replied. "Natasha and Wanda made it."

Peter nodded and took a bite. It was delicious but he just didn't have the energy to eat it.

"Peter, you know you don't have to carry this alone." Pepper said gently, her smile fading to concern as she saw him push his food around on the plate.

Peter paused in rearranging the food. He nodded but he couldn't quite look up to meet her gaze.

Pepper didn't push him, she just reached out and brushed some of his hair off his forehead before she caught herself as unshed tears began to burn his eyes. "Oh, Peter, I'm sorry I didn't—"

"No, it's okay." Peter replied quickly, looking up at her. His eyes were still overbright with tears, vision a little fuzzy at the edges but he smiled in reassurance. "Really, Pepper, it's fine. I'm okay."

Pepper couldn't seem to resist the urge as she reached out and pulled him in to a gentle, but tight hug. Peter wrapped his arms around her carefully, mindful not to hug her too hard. Pepper reminded him a lot of May, being near her could be hard sometimes, a reminder of who wasn't there anymore, but it also filled him with warmth to know that he still had someone like her in his life.

They held the hug for a long moment until Peter heard the telling beep that someone was keying into the lab. He pulled back and Pepper let him. Peter smiled genuinely at the red-haired CEO; he felt a lot better after that hug.

Pepper smiled at him, giving his shoulders a squeeze before she stepped back as Tony and Bruce walked in.

Bruce took note of the two, seeming to see that they interrupted a moment, but Tony chose to ignore it. Instead, the billionaire eyed the plate of food.

"That looks like exactly one bite has been taken from it." Tony said looking at Peter with a half-hearted glare. He had talked to Peter more than once about eating more, or at least enough so his high metabolism didn't start causing his body to fail without proper fuel.

"I'm eating." Peter replied and took another bite.

Tony gave a somewhat satisfied face and went to his workstation. Peter and Pepper exchanged a knowing look and grinned before Peter went back to eating, Pepper giving his shoulder one last squeeze before going to fuss at Tony about a missed meeting. It was weird, but a good weird, having the two of them to fuss at him.

Peter was just about finished with his plate of food when FRIDAY interrupted.

"Incoming call from RAFT prison." FRIDAY announced.

Peter looked up quickly. The RAFT? He looked at Tony in confusion and saw a tense expression that usually meant he was worried about something.

"Put it through." Tony instructed. "And get Rogers and the others in here."

The projection lit up and they saw Kate.

A quick scan told him something was wrong; her curls were messy having escaped her bun and she looked frazzled, a rare occurrence for her. "Kate?" Peter called concerned.

Kate smiled. "Oh, thank god I got through." She looked over her shoulder. "Clint, I got them."

The old of the archer siblings appeared on screen. "Tony, we have a problem." Clint said as he glanced back.

If he strained his ears, Peter could hear yelling in the background.

"I gathered from the need to call here." Tony replied as he moved around his workbench. "What happened."

Clint suddenly disappeared out of frame for a minute. "They escaped." Kate replied, looking to where Clint had gone, eyes watchful of something they couldn't see.

"Who escaped?" Tony asked as FRIDAY brought up a projected list of the prisoners at the RAFT.

Kate turned her eyes back to the screen. "Everyone."