Chapter Text
It all started when Peter Parker, at the tender age of fourteen, found one of Black Widow’s electric stinger bracelets on the ground.
He was a superhero geek in addition to being a regular old science geek, and so he’d shadowed the Avengers at the very edge of their battle with a Hydra cell. He wasn’t stupid, and he’d lived in New York through the goddamn Chitauri invasion as well as all the rest of the Avengers’ nonsense, so he didn’t get too close, but… he saw Thor call down lightning, he saw Hawkeye shoot arrows from impossible distances, and best of all, he saw goddamn Iron Man shooting repulsor blasts across the skyline.
New York was awesome.
He’d been walking home, thinking about getting a camera to get (better-quality) pictures from his superhero-watching, when he’d kicked a piece of debris in the street only to realize it was Black Widow’s bracelet.
“You’re super broken,” he said, picking it up. It shocked his fingers- he tossed it to his other hand, sticking his fingers in his mouth. “That was mean,” he said around them. “Don’t do that.”
Still, it was a genuine piece of superhero tech- of StarkIndustries tech. He brought it home, ignoring Uncle Ben and Aunt May in favor of cracking it open and looking at the wiring. It was a work of art, really, the way this thing was designed, and as such, even a novice like him could figure out a patch job with a basic understanding of electronics and engineering.
(In the interest of full disclosure, he did put on the fixed bracelet and pretend to beat up a lamp in his room. Peter Parker was a young man obsessed with superheroes and relatively confident in his masculinity- he was more than happy to pretend to be Black Widow with a genuine piece of her tech.)
With the help of his aunt and uncle, he boxed it up and addressed it to Black Widow at Avengers Tower. Inside the box, he placed the following note:
Hey, I found your bracelet after that last battle and fixed it up for you! Thank you for saving the city- all of the times.
Sincerely,
Peter Parker
Tony Stark showing up on his doorstep a week later was an unexpected surprise.
“Hi,” Tony Stark said to Peter, who opened the door at Aunt May’s request. “I’m looking for Peter Parker.”
Peter’s jaw dropped. This doesn’t happen often outside of cartoons, but it does happen- rarely, when one is good and truly shocked. “I- I’m Peter Parker. You’re Tony Stark.”
“I know,” Mr. Stark said, stepping smartly over the threshold. “Your parents home, kid?”
Peter shook his head. “My aunt and uncle are,” he said. Actually, he wanted them with him, because was this real? Was this really happening? Was Tony Freaking Stark, aka Iron Man, in their apartment? “Aunt May? Can you come here?”
“Is it for me?” she calls back, walking in from the kitchen. She freezes in the doorway, hands wrapped around a towel. “Oh. Um- can we help you, Mr. Stark?”
“Your kid fixed up a piece of my tech a few days back, shipped it back to us with a note. You did fix it, right?” Mr. Stark asked, addressing the last to Peter. “It wasn’t a teacher or something, or your uncle?”
Peter shook his head. “No. I mean, yes. I mean, I fixed it. I found it after that fight and figured the Black Widow needed it back, so-“
“She says it’s good as new,” Mr. Stark said. “I cracked it open- I had to, to make sure you weren’t trying to bomb us or something- and inside… an entirely acceptable patch job. On my tech.”
“Am I in trouble?” Peter asked.
Mr. Stark shook his head. “You want a job?”
“I’m fourteen,” Peter replied reflexively. Aunt May threw an elbow into his ribs. “But yeah, yes, a job would be nice.”
Mr. Stark nodded, clapping his hands together. “Excellent. You’re hired. I want an extra pair of hands to work on our tech with me. Keeping the Iron Man suit in tip-top shape is a full-time job, and we keep acquiring new hangers-on who need tech upgrades because honestly those falcon wings were an embarrassment to engineering before I got my hands on them, and Hawkeye’s always breaking things, and I have a company to run. So, what do you say? Wanna be a superhero repair boy?”
It took a second for Peter to make his voice work. “I- uh, I- yes. Yes, that would be awesome.”
“Good,” Mr. Stark said. “Swing by the Tower, like, tomorrow, and we’ll figure out the paperwork and get you started. The sooner you start, the sooner I never have to hear Clint Barton whine again.”
As quickly as he came in, he was gone. He nodded at Aunt May, then at Peter, then turned on his heel and strode out of the room. The door swung gently back and forth behind him.
Everything was quiet for a moment.
“Did that just happen?” Peter asked.
“Yes,” Aunt May replied. “After school tomorrow, I’m going to drive you to Avengers Tower. Because you have a job there. Working for the Avengers.”
Peter nodded. “Life is weird,” he decided. That worked for him, though. He liked it.
(fanart by dopekryptonitething on tumblr)
About four months in, shortly after he turned fifteen, his life changed again. The spider, Uncle Ben, everything all at once and he couldn’t come in for a while. There were funeral plans to make and a city to wall-crawl and web-shoot through. Eventually, though, Tony Stark came back, picked him up in an outlandish red-and-gold car, and drove him back to work.
Wanda sat with him as he tinkered with an improvement Tony had sketched out for the comms. She was quiet, reading a book and sipping coffee as Peter worked.
“I know loss,” Wanda said out of the blue. She was new to the team, newer than Peter was, and he wasn’t quite sure what to do with her yet. She looked up at him, over the top of her book. “In Sokovia, my twin. I know loss.”
Peter’s throat got thick. “Yeah,” he said through it, “Um. Yeah.”
“It is better when you are not alone,” Wanda added. “And you are not alone.”
She went back to her book, which was good, probably. Peter wasn’t sure what to do with that. He was an unprepared, scared fifteen-year-old kid who got bizarre spider-powers due to a stroke of luck and decided to use them to be an off-brand of an off-brand of an Avenger. “You aren’t either,” he said back, and then immediately regretted it.
The Scarlet Witch looked over at him then slowly, impossibly, started to smile.
She sat with him the entire time he was tinkering, and the rest of the team drifted in and out, checking on him with varying degrees of success at being subtle. When Peter was done for the day, Tony came in, looked like he was about to say something, and then gave Peter a nod. “We’re glad to have you around, kid,” he said. “You’re a good kid and we’re proud of you.”
Peter didn’t trust himself to talk. He just nodded back.
Tony cleared his throat. “Someone get this kid a hug?”
“You are ridiculous,” Wanda said, rolling her eyes, but still she came over and gave Peter a hug- he didn’t realize how much he needed one until her arms were around him and he was fighting not to cry.
After a few seconds, she pulled away and smiled at him. “You are not alone.”’
“Yeah,” Peter said, looking between Wanda and Tony. “Yeah.”
Tony snapped his fingers, seemingly uncomfortable with the moment. “Want me to take you home via the Iron Man suit?”
“Yes,” Peter said, smiling for the first time since the gunshot. “That’d be cool.”
“You’re damn right,” Tony said, clapping him on the shoulder and steering him out of the Tower.
There, in Tony’s somewhat awkward but present company, was the first time, but not the last, that Peter seriously considered telling the Avengers who he was. That he was Spider-Man, that is. That Peter Parker, Tony’s tech sidekick, was a YouTube joke in a silly costume that occasionally managed to stop a pickpocket. They’d laugh and laugh, he thought, laugh and laugh and then tell Aunt May and together they’d all wrap him in Bubble Wrap and lock him in a room and never, ever, ever let him out again, and he’d miss this, playing with superhero tech and the camaraderie of the Avengers team and that wasn’t a risk he could take.
And so, he did both. All, really. Peter Parker- promising student of Midtown High, devoted (or mildly absentminded) nephew, intern at StarkIndustries, and your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.
All in a day’s work, right? Hey, if the Avengers could do it, so could he.