I entered the main penthouse, freezing in place as I saw all the Avengers assembled there, staring back at me with stern expressions.

I gave an awkward wave, "Um…hi?"

Aunt Nat crossed her arms, "Why didn't you tell us about Flash earlier? Why did it take an off-chance of us witnessing it today, for us to find out about it?"

I bit my cheek, dropping my bag to a floor with a sigh, "Because it's nothing you all need to worry about."

Loki glared at me, "He insulted you, child. And in your own home. In Asgard, such action is worthy of death."

I rolled my eyes, trying to hide my nervousness with sarcasm, "One, technically the Avengers Museum is not a part of my home. Two, it's a pretty big goal of everyone here to keep everyone from knowing that I do live in the building, so he was not aware of that fact. Three, most of the time he's no more annoying than a fly."

Loki twirled a dagger, "I tend to squash any annoying flies."

"Well, no squashing this one," I looked intently around the room, trying to meet as many eyes as possible, "And that goes for all of you. He's just a kid with a big mouth. Leave him to me."

Uncle Bucky and Dad both narrowed their eyes at me, Uncle Bucky speaking first, "If he's so easy to handle, then why haven't you already put a stop to it—and why did he say what he did today without even hesitating."

I swallowed hard, glad I was able to think of that moment now without reacting, "I haven't put a stop to it because usually it's just little stupid barbs that he says, not worth the effort of getting him to stop. Today was a large departure from his usual behaviour, so I'm not sure where that came from in all honesty."

Dad looked at me with troubled eyes, "I still don't like it. I think Iron Man may needs to pay this kid a personal visit."

Crap. I really needed them to let this go—if they pursued it too far, they might learn about Peter too and then all hell would break loose.

"That's really not necessary."

"You're being bullied!"

"I can handle it!"

"He made you cry!"

"And if Uncle Bucky hadn't stepped in, I would have made him cry."

Eyes turned to Uncle Bucky, who shrugged, "I will admit, she looked rather… unhinged and he seemed a bit scared." He grinned darkly, "But he was downright terrified when I 'stepped in', which I think was a much better reaction."

I threw my hands in the air, "You're all impossible! Pepper, back me up here, they can't deploy on a high school bully like it's an Avenger mission."

She looked uncertainly between the others and me, "While I will admit they are perhaps a bit…excessive, I do think something needs to be done…"

I sighed, crossing my arms. This was going to be a long talk.

I dropped onto my bed, tired and relieved. I wasn't entirely sure how I had managed it, but I had gotten them all to agree to leave Flash alone. I was supposed to inform them if he did anything else and to start keeping some kind of log (evidence for if they did need to pursue it with the school administration). I had also managed to convince them that if they pursued this outside of Stark Industries, where they could explain their reaction due to S.I.'s Code of Conduct, taking it any further would only emphasize their relationship with me, and could lead to questions resulting in a possible exposure of my identity as Tony's child.

A knock came from my window and I nearly jumped out of my skin, swallowing a scream back down as logic kicked in and I realized it was probably Peter. I opened the window and he slid in wearing his Spiderman suit, just returning from an early patrol.

"So? How'd it go?"

I was just finishing my recap of the conversation, the two of us having somehow ended up sitting side by side on the floor, knees folded up towards our bodies, leaning against each other, when my door opened and Dad popped his head in.

He raised an eyebrow, "Am I interrupting something?"

Peter blushed for some reason, but I just scoffed, "Of course not, we're just chilling. What's up?"

"It's dinner time. Pepper made spaghetti."

We eagerly jumped up, following him out of the private penthouse and to the dining room.

After dinner, which stuck to mercifully light topics, Peter and I escaped out to the rooftop garden.

"You know, Y/N, I never got the chance to apologize."

He shuffled his feet, hands stuck in his pocket as he avoided my eyes.

What on earth was he talking about?

"Apologize for what?"

"For Flash—if I had done something about him before, or if I had kept my distance from you at school, or—"

"Wait a minute, are you blaming yourself for Flash's comments?"

He nodded slowly. I rolled my eyes. Martyr mentality indeed. I shoved his shoulder, hard enough to make him stumble. He looked up at me with confused eyes, then just nodded again acceptingly. "I deserve that for making you a target too."

I shoved him again. "No, you deserve it for being an idiot." I nudged his shoulder gently with mine as I passed by him to sit on the bench. "An adorable and lovable idiot. But an idiot nonetheless."

"…huh?"

"Peter, I'm only going to say this once, so please let it get through your head. Flash is not your fault. It is all HIS. You didn't do anything to make him start bullying you, aside from existing. If you had never met him and thus weren't around for him to bully, he would have found someone else to target. That makes him the very clear cause. And frankly, in all honesty, if I'd gone to that school and not known you from anyone else there, I probably still would have become a target. I would have seen him bully some rando kid I didn't know, and I would have stepped in 'cuz I don't put up with that crap. And then we'd still be here. Again, Flash is the clear cause. It is not your fault that he's a moody problematic pile of teenage stupidity. It is not your fault for anything he says to you, nor is anything that he says is your fault. The pavement has better opinions than him, 'kay? Thus, it is also not your fault for anything he says or does to me, or to anyone else. You got that?"

He just stood there, staring at me wide-eyed and looking lost. Which, in all fairness, I had just word-vomited at him unexpectedly. I leaned forward, looking up to meet his eyes. "You got that, Peter?"

He nodded much faster this time, then caught me off-guard by launching himself at me. I startled but recovered quickly, wrapping my arms around him to return his tight hug. He buried his head against my shoulder and I patted his back. His arms tightened even more and while I adored the Peter-love, I eventually had to cut it short, wheezing out, "Too tight!"

He immediately let go, stepping back with a guilty look. I rolled my eyes at him again and stood up, throwing my arm over his shoulders and tugging him against me. "You just had to loosen up a little, not move yourself to a new zip code."

He finally chuckled and the weird mood broke, and we spent the next half hour just chatting and joking around like normal. Then I glanced at the time, looking up at him with panicked eyes, "We forgot about homework!"

Peter's eyes widened, "Oh crap!"

He grabbed my hand, yanking me back towards the main penthouse and we ran through, not paying any attention to the bewildered Avengers watching from the couches, and into the private penthouse and to the study there where we liked to do our schoolwork.

And because of our speed going through the room, neither of us heard Wanda ask Pietro, "Those two really seem to be spending a lot of alone time together recently, don't they?"