【a fluffy lil oneshot, requested by the amazing @violet-the-wizzerd ! I'm sorry my writing isn't the best, it's been going down in quality lately for some reason but I've tried my best to make this as good as possible. I hope you enjoy reading this long crappy oneshot that I spent waaaay too much time on hehe <3】
Both you and Peter were extremely devoted to the cause of saving the world along with the rest of the team as Avengers together and as a result, were always paired up with Steve and Bucky to do the more difficult parts on missions because of your unmatched abilities to fight. From the moment the two of you first joined, everyone immediately saw the talent that you held.
Your genius mindset with more knowledge in the fields of biology, paleontology and logical way of thinking than most others, and fighting skills perfectly combined with all of Peter's skills to form what earned the two of you the label "The Iconic Duo."
The unfortunate thing was that yours and his tightly packed schedules didn't always overlap, so you only got to see each other around four times a week. You were either cooped up in the lab, waist-deep in research with Bruce, or sparring with Natasha.
Despite the fact that you weren't constantly around one another, you'd been close since fourth grade. As the daughter of the famous Bruce Banner and also with Tony Stark like a second father to you, you'd known him since before he'd become Spider-Man so you would have him over at the compound often after school.
The only negative sort of thing that came out of it was the fact that you spent so much time with him so you ended up developing feelings for him. No matter how many times you told yourself it was wrong and that it was cliche to fall for your best friend, for some reason, your heart refused to give up.
Peter found himself experiencing the same thing, too. It didn't take long for the rest of the team to figure this out, either. With all the lingering gazes and hugs, Bucky and Clint were the first ones to catch onto it all, Natasha and Wanda after that, and then your father, Steve, Tony, and the others.
It wasn't too common for anyone to see you in a cuddly mood such as this, because you weren't the typical, openly loving person. You were anything but overly affectionate, displaying barely anything but a tough persona and only cracking a small smile and a few hugs here and there most of the time. You could be loving when you wanted to, though, if you were in the mood at the moment.
You weren't exactly coldhearted, but rather just calm and collected and mostly keeping to yourself, which was a beneficial factor when it came to helping Bruce with research down in his lab, or sparring with the others.
Even when you'd been shot out on the battlefield right in the side, you barely even flinched when the wound was treated, nor did you cry out in pain, not even once. Peter liked seeing that hidden side of you because you always talked about how tough you were when in reality, he knew you were a big softie, inheriting similar qualities as your father's.
Today, he was particularly distracted thinking about you when he was training with Bucky and Steve.
"Come on, kiddo," Steve encouraged as Peter fell back against the boxing ring and offered him a hand, "what's up? You seem distracted today."
"Oh, um, I'm fine," Peter stuttered, letting Steve help him back up, "just a bit tired. Didn't get much sleep last night."
"Something's definitely up," Bucky stated, crossing his arms and narrowing his eyes slightly in concern. "What's wrong? I know for a fact you slept at least eight hours because we didn't have our musical marathon the night before. You're never like this, Pete.."
A thought of you crossed his mind and he quickly shook it off. "Nothing."
"Is it about Y/N?" the super-soldier questioned.
Peter struggled to find the right words to say, no words forming when his mouth moved.
"Oh my god. You're in love with her!" Bucky practically squealed, and Peter could feel the heat rising up his cheeks at his statement.
"N-no I'm not," he squeaked.
"Hey, guys," Peter heard a familiar voice say as the doors to the gym slid open.
He froze when he realized it was you and Bucky snorted.
"Hey, kiddo," Steve smiled, and you gave him a fist-bump, "You good?"
"Guess so," you replied honestly, keeping a rather straight face as you spoke, "if you don't count the time that Clint tried to pick out all the strawberries from my açaí bowl this morning. Talk about trying to eat healthy when someone keeps stealing your fruits."
"He did that again?" Bucky scrunched his nose up in confusion. "Took all the granola before I could pour some over my yogurt."
"Yup."
Both men noticed that Peter was still standing there, cheeks turning bright pink as he looked over at you and slight smirks made their way onto their faces.
"So," Bucky coughed awkardly, trying to break the tension in the air, "how's the research going, mini Banner? Anything new?"
"We're getting somewhere, I guess," you shrugged, "Dad and I put together a new section out from the fossils that we found back during our trip to Africa, you know---when we were all visiting T'Challa's place. We actually got a lot done, that is, if you take out Tony pretending to be a star basketball player as he shot crumpled-up paper balls into the trash can from the other side of the room. And you?"
"Beating the crap out of the spider-kid," he grinned, slinging an arm across a rather flushed-looking Peter's shoulders. "He's already crushed me a few times, but I made sure to get my revenge."
"Typical," you shrugged in response before cracking your knuckles. "Are we doing anything else today? If not, I'm going to go head back down to the labs. Dad's needing my help with a new experiment, which means I get to work the super cool microscopes, and I'm not missing out on that."
"No, we don't have anything. What about you, Peter?" Steve jumped in, subtly nudging Peter in the side. "You can go help Y/N in the labs, her and Banner are going to need some."
"Oh! Uh..." he stuttered for a moment, "sure! I can help."
"Great! We're going to need the extra help, there's a lot to do," you offered him one of your rare smiles, "meet you down there in 5."
"Dude," Bucky snorted as you turned around on your heel and left the gym, wiggling his eyebrows up and down at a furiously blushing Peter, "you're so in love with her."
"Shut up," Peter mumbled under his breath. "I'm not."
...
"Hi, Peter, Y/N," Bruce gave the two of you a friendly wave as you made your way downstairs to the lab. "You ready to get started?"
"Ohmygod, Dad, can I use the supercool microscopes? Not just the regular ones, but also the electron one too? Pleasepleaseplease?" you begged. "I've been waiting for forever and you promised me I could since I haven't set anything on fire in two months!"
The scientist sighed and shook his head, smiling to himself. "Sure, sweetheart, you and Pete can be on microscope duty. The slides should already prepared and cleaned up but if not, you can take new ones out or clean them yourself, and instructions are over there on the tablets and overhead screen. When you're done, just let me know, and Tony'll also be down any minute as well."
You nodded and got out the necessary supplies as Peter took the tablet from the stand and swiped right, reading out the list of materials to you.
You quickly jotted down notes in your notebook before setting up the electron microscope, while Peter slid the prepared slide under the regular microscpe that was besides your things.
He couldn't help but steal several glances at you as you worked, noting how adorable you looked when your brows furrowed together, something you typically did when you were extremely focused. He also loved all the other little things that you did, like tapping your pencil against your chin or letting out a small sigh every now and then and when you got frustrated (which he found rather attractive as well), spun yourself around in the chair and stared blankly up at the ceiling for several moments before getting back to work.
This time, you decided to steal a glance of your own and your eyes met his.
"Oh, hey," you ran a hand through your hair and tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, "what's up?"
"Uh...n-nothing," he stuttered, internally cursing himself when he felt his face flush bright red. "What about you?"
"I got bored, so I started looking at tardigrade," you shrugged, holding up the petri dish with the moss soaked in water. "I magnified it by like, a lot...and I can literally see the muscle and tissue or whatever that junk is...but it's really cool."
He held up his notebook in response, which was covered in doodles and scribbles from top to bottom. "I lost all inspiration, and I'm kind of finished with my task here, so...do you need any help with anything?"
"Yeah," you nodded, "I have a lot of work to do, so I'm going to need a helping hand."
The next hour passed in dead silence, with Peter taking all the notes for you as you finished up what was needed to be done regarding all the microscope work, then went to finish the fossils that you and your father had been working on.
"So..." Peter's eyes narrowed as he squinted to peer down at the arrangements of bones across the table, "do you even know what this is?"
"Not yet..." you murmured, placing a finger on your chin as you stepped back to look at the section you'd just put together, "but I know for a fact that it died a long time ago, and it's big and scary. Don't know, honestly."
"There's a lot of things that are big and scary and long dead, even in Africa. But my suspicions are only pointing towards one of them---"
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?" you interrupted, eyes going wide.
"I think so..."
"Finding dinosaur fossils in Africa is extremely rare," you explained hurriedly, "and while it does have a rich fossil record, it's patchy and incomplete---lost research. And you're telling me that we just happened to stumble upon some of these bones, which are rarely ever found, by the way, because most of the country is now covered in lush vegetation instead of the rocks that yield them?"
"Basically yes. There's a very high chance, I mean, it's not like these are just some random buried cat bones or something, are they? Mansourasaurus shahinae---that was one of the more recent species that was discovered. Could be that."
"Mansour what?" your nose scrunched up in confusion at the long name. "What are you saying?"
"We just need to..." he paused momentarily, hesitating for a second. "Just...just keep putting it together. I have a good feeling about this."
"Uh...okay."
...
"Awww, they're so cute together!' Clint quietly clapped his hands as he, Natasha, Wanda, and Steve silently filed downstairs into the lab.
They watched with wide grins on their faces as the two of you worked side by side, saying nothing but standing rather close to the other.
"Banner, are they a thing or what?" Tony poked his science bro in the shoulder, looking over at you two.
"I hope so," the scientist smiled. "She's been fawning over him for the longest time and he's been doing the same as well. Which we all know. But she's grown really good at being subtle with her feelings or hiding them completely altogether."
Everyone flinched when they suddenly heard both of you scream in delight, jumping up and down.
"YES!" you screamed, giving Peter a high-five. "IT'S RIGHT! WE DID IT! WE FINISHED!"
"FINALLY!"
With the excitement coursing through your veins and because it was on the spur of the moment, you didn't give even a second thought to what you were doing so before you could think things through, threw your arms around his neck and pressed your lips to his.
He was initially taken aback, almost stumbling at first but quickly wrapped his arms around your torso and pulled you closer to him when he came to his senses seconds later.
It wasn't until the sounds of whooping and wolf-whistling that you two finally broke apart, blushing like idiots.
"Uh huh, yeah..." Bruce pointed at you both, "they are a thing."
"So when will you guys finally announce it officially that you're dating?" Sam raised an eyebrow at you.
"We're not dating," you scoffed.
"Correction," Peter smirked, "we're not dating yet."
"Tony, what did you do to the kid?" Steve questioned, rolling his eyes.
"Nothing," he smiled innocently. "Just taught him a few pickup lines and how---"
"I DON'T WANNA HEAR THE REST OF THAT!" Pietro yelled, smacking his hands over his ears. "Blah blah blah blah blah..."
You pressed your palm to your forehead and let out a loud groan. "I'm living with a bunch of idiots."
"What about me?" Peter made his puppy-eyes at you, "you hate me too?"
"Ugh," you groaned again, "I don't hate you, Peter. Though you can be an idiot sometimes."
"I'm not just any idiot, though! I'm your idiot!"
"Oh my god---"