Chapter Text
Dear Mr. Parker,
This is the official notice that in one day’s time Steven ‘Skip’ Westcott will be released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. He has been serving a life sentence for the alleged rape of the then minor Peter Parker. His sentence has been overturned and he has been granted clemency due to the lack of evidence and his good behavior while imprisoned. He will be released on parole and will stay on parole for five years. If you would like to file a restraining order contact the nearest police station.
From,
Charles Sigler
Warden of Metropolitan Correctional Center
New York City, New York
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Peter immediately regretted opening the letter. He froze.
Skip is getting out? He hasn't even served two full years yet.
Peter was fourteen when Skip went away. It had been two years since then. It had happened a few months after he got his powers, but a few months before he went to Germany with Mr. Stark.
He had gone to Germany as back up for Mr. Stark, but he wasn’t needed. The Avengers all talked out their problems and Peter got to meet all of them. All the Avengers seemed to be fond of him and that was one of his proudest accomplishments. That was almost half a year ago.
Peter didn’t know what to do. There was nothing he could do. He couldn’t tell anyone. No one alive knew about Skip and what he had done to Peter and none of them could ever know.
May had been the last person alive to know what had happened. She was there when it happened and she was there to help him through it. She had calmed him down from his nightmares and had even tried to find him a low priced therapist.
But May was dead. She had died a little over a year ago. She had gotten really sick. Too sick for anyone to do anything except let her pass peacefully.
Now Peter’s family was the Avengers and all of their families. Mr. Stark and Pepper had legally adopted him almost immediately. And the rest of them quickly became like aunts and uncles. Although Peter didn’t address any of them with the aunt or uncle moniker. Even Clint’s children were like cousins to him. They were one very large, slightly dysfunctional, family. They had game nights and movie nights. They had big family dinners. And they even had the occasional prank war which were usually initiated by Clint.
For a professional spy and former SHIELD agent, he was basically a large man child most of the time. But he was fun to be around. He always knew how to break the tension in a room.
Mr. Stark was a father figure to Peter. At first Peter wanted to keep him at arm's length because the father figures in his life had a tendency to die on him. But after a couple weeks he had let Mr. Stark into his life. He was the only one he still used ‘Mister’ with. Just to annoy him.
Pepper had been there to help him through May’s death and everything that came with it. She was always there to help him get through nightmares, or to take him to his family's graves to pay the Parkers a visit.
He had bonded with Steve by helping him learn more about the twenty-first century and all the chaos and technology that came with it. Recently, he had been teaching Steve about different forms of social media and that was one of the most comedic things Peter had ever done.
Bruce was always there to listen to his science ramblings that almost no one else would understand. He helped him make new web fluids when he had the time to. Right now they are working on making it able to go farther. The challenge was to keep the tensile strength high at the same time as making it more fluid-like so it could travel over larger distances easier.
Rhodey had been rougher to bond with because Peter was always a bit intimidated by the colonel, but then he started telling him embarrassing stories about Tony and they bonded immediately.
Thor and Loki were both mostly on Asgard but they came for the big family dinner once a month and they always brought Peter trinkets from Asgard that fascinated him. They both had lived for over a thousand years so they had the best stories to tell.
Wanda was like a big sister to him. She always helped him with his wardrobe or if he needed advice on girls or guys. In the beginning of their relationship she was much more reserved, but she eventually told Peter that it was because she didn’t want to hurt him with her powers. They instantly bonded over that because Peter was probably stronger than anyone on the team and was always worried about hurting someone with his strength.
Vision was sort of hard to bond with seeing that he was an android but he had been becoming more and more human like recently. Wanda and Vision were Peter’s OTP (One True Pairing.) And Vision was always up for a game of chess with him. Peter had yet to beat him.
Bucky was another one of them he almost never saw. The ex-assassin was currently in Wakanda where the scientist and doctors were working on reversing all the shit that Hydra did to his head. The sergeant was supposed to come to the tower in a couple days though. From the couple times Peter had talked to him, he knew one thing. Steve Rogers was a little shit. The stories that Bucky had told Peter about Steve were some of the best things he had ever heard. For one, the ‘don’t do drugs kids’ walking PSA was literally prescribed cigarettes for his asthma in the forties. No one had let Steve live that down.
Natasha. Even though Pepper was technically his adopted mother, Natasha, or Nat as she wanted Peter to call her, was as much as a mother to him. Everyone had warned him that Nat may be cold and distant, but it was just because she wasn’t that used to love and affection because she had gone through a lot of shit in her childhood. So Peter being Peter custom made her a knife. It was a beautiful dagger. It was a black handle and black blade but there was red woven in throughout the weapon. It was perfectly balanced and custom tailored to Nat’s grip. It had taken him a few days straight to make and then Steve gave him a lecture on the importance of sleep. But Nat had loved it and they had started talking and then they had grown closer ever since. Nat had even started teaching him Russian and ballet along with the fighting skills she was already teaching him.
They were Peter’s family.
His family by blood might all be dead, but these people were his family by choice. And that was all that mattered.
Together they would make a good reality TV show. Maybe he should suggest that to Mr. Stark.
Even if they were a family, his family, Skip, was the one thing Peter never wanted them to know about.
Which meant he couldn’t file a restraining order.
No matter how much he wanted to.
If he did, it would immediately get flagged by FRIDAY and with just a small bit of hacking, Peter’s darkest secret would be revealed to his whole family. He couldn’t have that. He would have to hack into the police files later and hide all of his information relating to Skip behind firewalls even Mr. Stark wouldn’t be able to get through. It would take time, but it would be worth it.
If they learned about Skip, and what he had done to Peter, they would think the same things that Peter thought about himself.
That he was disgusting. Vile. How could he have let something like that happen to him? He was Spider-man for god's sake.
But most of all, Peter thought himself a coward. He hadn’t gone to May and the police until weeks after the assault. The evidence had all washed away in the blistering hot showers Peter forced himself to take so he could feel clean again. And due to his healing factor, all of the bruises and scratches and nail marks were gone within a couple days. That was something he was grateful for. He didn’t want to think about having those marks on him for weeks.
If only he had gone to the police sooner.
Peter’s cowardice was the reason there wasn’t enough evidence to keep Skip in prison. It was all his fault. If Skip hurt someone else, it would be Peter’s fault.
So no, Peter couldn’t tell anyone. He would just have to pretend nothing had happened. New York was a big city. He was never going to see Skip again.
Peter walked over to the small empty metal trash can in the corner of the room. He grabbed the cigarette lighter off the top of his desk and lit the letter on fire. He let it drop into the bin and watched as the letter burned into ash.
“I am detecting a small fire Peter. Are you in need of assistance?” The pleasant Irish tinted voice brought Peter out of his thoughts.
He cleared his throat before responding. “No thanks Fri. It’s nothing.”
Because it was nothing. It was just a small problem that Peter would have to deal with on his own. He didn’t need anyone to help him get through this. He could do this on his own.
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At dinner that night, Peter was more reserved. He was too trapped in his own head to form a conversation with anyone. It was only Nat, Mr. Stark, Pepper, Steve, Wanda, and Vision tonight. Everyone else was at their real jobs or with their families.
Of course his quietness did not go unnoticed by anyone, but Nat was the only one to ask him about it. Peter was twirling a clump of pasta around his fork when she bumped his shoulder with hers.
Peter turned to look at her questioningly. Her normally blank and emotionless face had softened considerably into a look that reminded him of aunt May.
“What’s wrong little spider?” During movie night a week or so after Peter moved into the tower, Clint had mentioned how they now had two spiders in the room. Peter had freaked out because he thought that he was referring to real spiders and he was deathly afraid of those.
After everyone laughed at him freaking out, Clint had explained he meant Peter and Nat. He then dubbed them ‘little spider’ and ‘big spider’. Over the past month that had become ‘little spider’ and ‘mama spider’. Much to Nat’s glee.
“What do you mean?” Peter knew exactly what she meant. But he was trying to avoid suspicion at all costs.
She just raised an eyebrow at him.
Peter shrugged. “I’m just tired. Nothing to worry about.” He looked away from her eyes.
When someone held eye contact with Nat, it was rumored that she could see into your soul. Peter would believe it.
She knew that he wasn’t telling the whole truth, but she let it be. If something was really wrong, he would come to her.
Right?
Natasha pushed the thought out of her mind and went back to the domestic chatter of the rest of the people in the room. Keeping an eye on Peter the whole time just in case something went wrong.