Behind a Smile

C4 - Cangaroo not Can'tgaroo

TW: Death of Relative, Dissociation.
I'll indicate when the trigger warnings start and I'll add a summary for those who can't read it.

There was a minute left towards breaking the tower's record of 20 minutes and 31 seconds of silence between the hours of 7 AM and 10 PM. Usually, Clint was the perpetrator because he liked the chaos caused when he broke the silence 5 seconds before the end. This time he didn't need to though, because 30 seconds before the record might have been broken for the first time in over a year, the Avengers Assembly alarm went off and the tower was filled with chaos, sound, and just a complete contrast with just seconds before. Within 2 minutes everyone was in the Quinjet, dressing hurryingly so they could go to the emergency as fast as they could, while Tony Stark was surveying the outside world to see if he could spot the emergency or fleeing citizens already.

"I don't know what is happening yet, but I see a lot of dust clouds coming from Manhattan, so that would be my guess." He said, to which grunts of acknowledgment came from the teammates who were almost done suiting up. As soon as they were all done, they hit a button to call Fury to explain the mission.

Seconds later the director was shown on a large screen in the Quinjet. "Avengers, a kangaroo-themed villain is wrecking Manhattan. We are not sure yet who or why they are currently attacking but they are displaying immense strength and can jump extremely high, so we believe the Avengers are needed if we don't want to lose half of our police force." He paused in case there were any immediate questions. "Anyway, your mission is to capture this hopping foe and bring them back for questioning by S.H.I.E.L.D. Evacuate the citizens, keep destruction to a minimum, and good luck. And with that, he closed the connection.

"Com check. One, one two, testing, testing." Captain America spoke and everyone gave their thumbs up that they could hear him. Then they all paired up to get from the landing point to the destination. Black Widow and Hawkeye jumped on a motorcycle, while the others paired up a non-flying teammate with a flying teammate.

Soon enough they saw what the director had meant. They saw a person jumping high in the air and there were already chunks out of buildings from where they missed a punch. The punches were currently directed at a vigilante they recognized as Spider-Man. He was trying to evade the rapid, boxing-style punches while also ushering as many civilians away as possible.

The Avengers all looked at their captain for a command. "Stark, Wilson, evacuate people from the buildings, let's start with a two-block radius. Barton, top of whatever building you think is best, snipers position. Grab the heavy net, he might not be able to jump out from under that one. But wait for the all-clear to throw that one. For now, try sniping him with your sedative arrows. Romanoff, with me on trying to get a hit in. Let me lead though, you don't have enhanced healing. Banner, no hulking out just yet, I just need you on the medical though. Oh, and Stark, see if you can get a com connection with Spider-Man somehow?" Everyone nodded and they were off to join the fight.

While Stark was getting civilians out of the buildings and being bewildered with the technology that was in Spider-Man's suit that he could see, he had JARVIS search through all the tech he could communicate with so he could set up a com. He ended up settling for requesting permission to get a Bluetooth link so Spider-Man could download the correct program to his own suit should he wish so. "Spider-Man, I gotta ask, where's the tech from." He exclaimed surprised.

"Uhhh, oh hello Mr. Stark. I- I- Well I kind of... made them myself? Well some of them are just APIs that I used as a reference but I enhanced them and made them safer but... The tech basically comes from me? Oh, and my friend also helped." Spider-Man responded.

Tony Stark was surprised by the voice. This was a kid. He could be 20 max if he was unlucky in the voice department, but he was probably.... 15? But he was fighting well and he obviously was smart, so Stark reminded himself to look more into this vigilante. "Anyway, I'm sending you a program to connect your suit with the other Avengers. Just so you can join our communication channel. You can disconnect whenever you want."

"Alright, Mr. Stark. I think that would be a good idea. Yeah... Good idea." So Stark sent the program and within seconds he could hear the other Avengers.

---

"Natasha, watch your left."

"I'm going to try to hit them mid-air."

"Stark are you done with that building yet."

"Where is our connection with Spider-Man!"

Peter was a bit overwhelmed as soon as he connected to the com channel. But he heard his alter ego's name so he got snapped out of it and responded.

"Oh hi guys. Mr. Stark was having some trouble because I have some good firewalls on my suit but I'm here." Peter said, timidly.

"Mr. Stark? Oh, that's gold. Say, kid, how old are you? Wait, never mind, now is not the time." Peter heard Hawkeye exclaim.

"Can you help with leading the maniacal hopper to where we are headed? Hawkeye is on the top of a building with a net that we hope will keep him down." Captain America asked.

"Of course Mister Captain America Sir." A snort came from who he assumed was Hawkeye. But he shouldn't have looked behind him to see where they were headed because he regretted it because immediately his Spider senses started going off like crazy and before he knew he got hit right at the bottom of his ribs. He flew across the street and landed in a bush, breaking his fall. Normally he wouldn't have continued, but his binder was currently putting pressure on the spot where he had most likely cracked a rib, making him have difficulties breathing. "I'm okay, but I have to dip out for a moment."

"Take care, Spider-Man. We got this, we just needed you to lead him here so he wouldn't have to choose who to fight." He heard Captain America say.

Spider-Man dipped into an empty apartment and locked the bathroom door just to be sure. He quickly pushed the Spider that triggered the tightening mechanism and now he had access to his binder and could see his rapidly bruising midsection. He rolled up the binder so the pressure was lifted off the cracked ribs. He did unfortunately currently have a bit more padding on his chest where the rest of the material was laying, but he'd rather have that than no binder at all. To make it seem flatter and for extra support he used a few of his medical webs, which were like bandages, to hold his rib in the right place without putting pressure on it. Another push on the spider to tighten again and he was off to join the fight again.

"Alright, where do you need me!" He said to the com channel.

"Come help fight the Kangaroo. Cap got hit against a wall while you were down and most likely has a concussion. We just need to have him get hit by one of Hawkeye's arrows with tranquilizer in them." Black Widow said and he swung over to join the fight. The pain was still evident, but he couldn't let them, the Avengers, down.

Luckily it only took two shots for Hawkeye to hit the Kangaroo who calmed down enough to be trapped by this large net with heavy weights. A normal person would never be able to lift it once it was deployed, and in this case, a tranquilized Kangaroo couldn't either.

Sounds of victory sounded through the com channel and the Black Widow clapped him on the shoulder and steered him towards the Quinjet. Peter, who was still bewildered by how it was suddenly done, and he had helped the Avengers, didn't notice what was happening until he was ushered inside the Quinjet.

"Where. Ummm. Miss Black Widow? Where are we going? I need to get back to scho- home. Make sure my ribs are fine and all that." Peter asked and he received a quirked eyebrow to which he quickly corrected himself to not give away his age.

Black Widow urged him to sit down on a chair in the Quinjet. "We are going to debrief first and make sure you are cleared by medical. Like it or not, you were part of the fight so you have to be at the debriefing." He nodded and she continued. "After that, you can go back to scho- home. Yes, I caught that, but I won't say anything. You can also just keep your mask on, don't listen to Fury if he demands you do. Just intimidation tactics. Honestly, if you really don't want Fury to know, I'll mention to Tony how infuriated he would be. Tony will jump at the chance to annoy Fury."

"That would... Thank you Miss Black Widow." He responded and she stood up before returning with some chips. He hesitantly accepted and lifted a bit of his mask to start eating, knowing that it would help him heal faster. He was also hungry but that might just be because he had to swing from Midtown to Manhattan and then fight against a highly agile Kangaroo-like creature. That tends to burn some energy.

----

"Non-Avenger identified. Visual recognition: Spider-Man. Miss Romanoff, are you aware he is accompanying you?" A voice sounded through the rooftop.

Peter looked around. "Is that FRIDAY? Oh, that's awesome. I can't believe I'm on top of Stark Tower. I mean I have read through the schematics but to actually be here?"

"Yeah, FRI, that's Spider-Man and he's with us. Debriefing." The Black Widow responded, already stripping off some of her weapons belts and throwing it in a bin, probably for cleaning or testing, Peter remarked internally.

Peter looked around, taking it all in. He followed the Black Widow towards a conference room where the rest of the Avengers were already sitting, looking exhausted. He didn't expect his hero, Tony Stark, to drop his head to the table and let out a loud groan.

"What is it now, Stark?" Hawkeye snapped.

"I just realized, Mr grumpypants, that one of the shops that we evacuated and that had their ventilation duct punched in, was the good Chinese. You know, the one that made Nat moan once?" Mr. Stark replied and earned a glare from the Black Widow, who Peter guessed was called Nat. "Oh calm down Natasha, it is a good indicator." Or Natasha, Peter thought, adjusting his guess.

"Well then you make a big donation so it gets fixed by next week or something and we'll just get some shawarma today. Big deal." Hawkeye snarked back, obviously not impressed by the Mr grumpypants remark.

Mr. Stark made a dismissive motion and laid his head down on his arms, the adrenaline from battle obviously having taken a toll on him.

His other hero, Bruce Banner, was currently on the other side of the room doing a medical evaluation on Captain America. That is until the relative tranquillity of the room was interrupted by a... pirate? It was an imposing man with an eyepatch.

"Avengers, Spider-Man, good job today. The Kangaroo has been captured and already been identified as Frank Oliver, an Australian that is like the Mowgli of Kangaroos. As for the motive we are still unsure." Eyepatch man started to talk.

Spider-Man interrupted him though. "Uhm Mr... Eyepatch Sir?" A laugh marked by a cough from Mr. Stark and by a sneeze by Hawkeye interrupted his interruption. Eyepatch man glared at the too before focussing back on Spider-Man. "His motive was probably because I interrupted his robbery. He was robbing the ummm.... That big bank? I don't know whether it is just Manhattan Bank or if it has a special name but yeah. I heard about someone robbing the bank and that they were already destroying things to assert dominance and stuff. Which is weird, why would you have to destroy things to assert dominance? But anyway yeah I heard about that and how the police were being held up somewhere else. So I went to check it out but it made him angrier so I led him outside because less damage outside I thought but he damaged more things because the alternative was damaging me which I kind of didn't feel like. So I think we have motive covered?"

Eyepatch man let out a low hum. "Alright. We got identity, motive and they are in custody. What went wrong? Any arguments that impacted the fighting? Tech that broke?"

"Stark, could you have told me that you adjusted the tranquilizer arrows? I missed a shot because of you." Hawkeye snapped. That's probably why he was so grumpy, at least that's what Peter hoped.

Stark snapped upright. "I did, Barton. You asked for the adjustment, I did the adjustment, I gave them back to you and told you exactly how I adjusted it. I sent you an e-mail, knowing that you wouldn't even read it. It's not my fault you didn't train with them because you were too busy playing Mario Kart." He exclaimed.

"I would have remembered if you did. But fine, it's in the past." Hawkeye mumbled.

"Next time I'll just have FRIDAY remind you every hour till you practice with them, that good?" Mr. Stark said jokingly.

But Hawkeye quickly sat up straighter. "That... that would actually be nice. Thank you."

Eyepatch man clapped in his hands. "Now we got that out of the way, anything else?"

"Widow bites got tangled up and short-circuited or something? Suffice to say, they are broken." Natasha mentioned.

"Okay, we have the perpetrator, we have motive, we have arguments, we have broken tech.... medical. Who got hurt? How long are they out of the running?"

Bruce piped up from the back of the room. "Steve has a concussion. He'll probably be fine by the end of the week but someone will need to clear him before he goes back on the field."

Peter looked around. He wasn't sure whether he should say something until Natasha poked him and waved at the screen. "Oh uh. I have like... I think I cracked a rib, maybe two. But I will be fine by tomorrow." Peter said and Bruce perked up.

"You have super healing as well? Fascinating. Let me guess, enhanced metabolism?" Bruce asked. Peter just nodded. "Well if you allow me, I would love to research your capabilities sometimes soon. But only if you consent."

Peter was hesitant but he did answer. "I think that would be fine, as long as I can keep my secret identity." Bruce nodded to the answer and smiled. Before anybody could continue though, Peter's suit display lit up. "Karen, can you answer that please?"

"Who is Ka-" Bruce remarked but Peter shushed him.



[tw death of relative, dissociation]



"Hey, June. What's" Peter answered the phone.

"Peter, I think you should come to the hospital. Your aunt, she is in critical condition. A code blue was just called and they managed to get her breathing again but just in case..." June said and if his mask was off the Avengers could have seen him pale as white as paper.

"I'm on my way. Thanks, June." Peter replied, holding back tears and Karen ended the call. "I- I- I gotta..." Peter started near hyperventilating.

Mr. Stark stood up. "Where to, kiddo?"

Peter wanted to protest but he knew Mr. Stark could get him there faster than any swinging he could do, with or without cracked ribs. "Queens Hospital." He saw all the avengers frown and pulled Peter along with him.

----

"I got clothes and a backpack in the trunk, you change in the back seat and I won't watch you walk away. Do you need a ride back?" Peter shook his head. "Alright, then if you need me, you just connect with the com channel in your suit and I'll have JARVIS or FRIDAY listening for you."

They drove in silence for the most part, and Peter was in fight or flight mode. His aunt... What if she didn't make it. He would have no one left. He- He felt numb. She wasn't gone yet and he already felt numb. He wasn't even sure if Mr. Stark asked him anything, he might not have heard it over the numbness. Mr. Stark probably said something because before he knew it he was shaken and he realized they were in front of the hospital.

He felt like he was on autopilot, moving towards the trunk and moved to the ally to change. He blinked and he was inside the hospital already, not really sure how he got there but every step was a mental control to move his foot and he was glad he didn't have to do that for the trip towards here. Or he did but just couldn't remember it. Either way, he was kind of glad for that blackout.

When he wants to enter the quarantine room they won't let him through. He is abruptly aware of the code blue that is currently going on and from June's face, he could tell it was his aunt. It all seems to go like in the movies. The code blue being shouted is all he hears, he hears the rapid heartbeat before he hears a long, final beep and he doesn't know whether it is immediately after or that minutes have passed but June comes to hug him and he knows it's over. His aunt is gone. He couldn't even say goodbye.

Peter dissociates even more from that point.

"Pete, Pete look at me." Oh someone is talking to me. He looks up. It's June. "CPS is on their way. It will all be okay, you don't have to arrange a thing unless you want to." He didn't know what she was talking about but he knew unconsciously that he should shake his head.

Someone was talking again. How long had he been sitting here? How did he even get here? All he knew was that she was dead. His aunt was dead and – Talking. Focus Peter. "-ere is a couple who are willing to take you in for emergency placement for a week. I'll be looking for a more permanent placement for you after that." A number was pushed into his hand together with his... someone's... backpack. It was the backpack he had taken to the hospital but he couldn't remember who it was from.

He was outside, being ushered into a car. Where was he going again? It was like all information was locked away. He knew it but even his thoughts had slowed down. He wasn't sure if he liked it. His thoughts weren't always nice, but being unable to think also wasn't ideal.

"I have a trash bag for you. Pack the essentials you need for a week. Your aunt had paid in advance for two months so as long as we sort this out before then, nothing will go wrong. You could put it in a storage locker or something. We'll see how it turns out moneywise whether that's an option."

"This is Peter Parker. His aunt just died and he doesn't have any family to take him in. Here's his file. He has my number, I'll pick him up as soon as I have an immediate placement or once the week is up." Peter placed his bag down. All he wanted to do was just sleep for a few hours. He had no clue what was going on anymore. Luckily the next time he blinked he was curled up in bed. Hopefully, he hadn't missed anything important.

----

Nico was about to cry. They were flat. Their chest was flat. And they could move, run, without issue. They were so happy they could burst. Nothing could ruin this day. They were free.

Nico was blissfully unaware of what one of their friends was going through, coincidentally only a few floors above where they lived.

----

{ Trigger warning Summary:

Aunt May is in critical condition, Tony brings Peter to the hospital and has him change into spare clothing and grab a backpack to put the suit in. Peter dissociates. Aunt may passes away before Peter can see her. CPS picks him up and he gets placed into an emergency placement for a week. His aunt has paid 2 months in advance so the apartment needs to be sorted out before that.

}