T U E S D A Y - P A R T O N E

words: 2199

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Peter snuck out of the room of teenagers. After he reached the stairwell, he leaned over the rail, sighing at how many floors he had to go up. He soon began his ascent to the Avengers common room. He reached the correct floor in about 2 minutes due to his enhanced abilities. He opened the door which didn't creak as loudly as the door from earlier. He creeped his way to the kitchen, glancing back and forth making sure no one was awake. Since, no one was out, he assumed the coast was clear. He was wrong.

Clint dropped down from above and followed after Peter. Peter was completely oblivious to this because his Peter Tingle didn't perceive Clint as a threat. He opened the cabinet which held the Avengers Pop-Tarts and grabbed four boxes. He had to climb onto the counter to reach his favorite flavor. He closed the cabinet door and jumped off the counter while turning around. He froze as he came face to face with Clint who was watching with his arms crossed and an amused look on his face.

"Where do you think you're going with those?" Clint questioned with a grin on his face. Peter still looked shell shocked. He soon snapped out of it and realized the danger he was in.

"I- um- about that... Sorry but I gotta go." Peter managed to stutter out leaving Clint with a confused look on his face. Clint was about to speak up when Peter shifted the boxes to one arm, sticking out the other one and webbing Clint's feet to the ground. Clint didn't even notice the kid had his webshooters on. In his defense, after Peter and Tony worked on nanotech for Peters suit, he was able to hide his webshooters in two little bracelets on his arm.

"Peter- what? NO! YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME HERE! PETER!!" Clint whisper yelled as Peter walked to the elevator. Peter faced towards Clint as the doors closed with a totally innocent smile on his face. "I WILL GET YOU BACK!" Just like that, Peter was gone and Clint was left in the room, on his own, stuck to the ground. "Nat?" He called out. "Tony?" He was met with silence and sighed. He did not expect it to end up like this when FRIDAY told him Peter and the Decathlon team were raiding the kitchen.

"Wait. Where's Peter?" Peter heard who he assumed to be Sally. Peter walked back in the room with several boxes of Pop-Tarts. The group noticed and immediately grabbed the boxes before going to sit on their bunks.

"Peter," Betty spoke up. "Where did you even get these from?" Peter froze as the group wondered the same thing.

"I... have my ways.." Peter replied with a smile, trying to take the attention away from him. "Anyways, uhh Betty, truth or dare?" The group continued to play truth or dare until about one in the morning.

Peter shot up from his bunk, eyes wide and breathing hard. He grabbed his phone from under his pillow and turned it on, only to be blinded by the brightness. He hissed in pain as he turned it down and tried to focus his eyes on the time. "7:43? It's too early for this." Peter thought as he put his phone away. He pushed his body up so that he was leaning against the wall and let his head rest against it. He glanced over at MJ only to see her looking right back, book in hand. "MJ? Wh- what are you doing awake right now?" Peter whispered, his voice shaky from his nightmare.

"I wake up at seven in the morning every day. It's normal. Why are you awake?" She replied back nonchalantly, still staring at Peter. Peter got nervous and started fiddling with the end of his sleeves. "Should I tell her about the nightmares? Will she think I'm weak? No. She wouldn't. She's MJ. I should be-" "Peter." MJ whisper yelled. Peter snapped his head back up to meet her eyes that held a questioning look.

"I have nightmares..." Peter breathed out with a long sigh. "Most of them are from Homecoming but sometimes..." Peter trailed off, his eyes becoming distant.

"What happened?" MJ asked, slight concern in her voice. Peter stared at his hands, still playing with the ends of his sleeves. What happened? The memories played back in his mind.

Toomes threatening him in the car. "Walk through those doors. You forget any of this of this happened. And don't you ever... EVER... interfere with my business again. Cause if you do... I'll kill you and everybody you love. I'll kill you dead... That's what I'll do to protect my family, Pete." His thoughts changed to the warehouse. "I'm sorry, Peter."

"What do you mean? That thing hasn't even touched me yet!"

"True but then again... wasn't really trying to." Peter watched as the wings crushed the pillars and the building came down on top of him. Metal. Dust. Dirt. It was hard to breathe. Suffocating. Bleeding. Dying.

MJ watched as Peter became trapped in the nightmare, once again.

"Peter?" MJ called out but got no response. "Peter?" She whispered a little louder. He was zoned out... bad. MJ got down from her bunk, careful not to make much noise, and climbed onto Peter's bunk. She took his hands, shaking from the nightmare, and put them in hers. At this he looked up at her and what she saw hurt her. Peter's eyes were brimmed with tears, threatening to spill, as his hands shook. She stared at him with something incomprehensible to Peter, though, to anyone else, it was concern.

"I- I'm sorry. I..." Peter stopped, at a loss for words, and looked down at their hands. What MJ did next surprised him. She let go of his and crawled up beside Peter and sat next to him in the corner. She intertwined one of their hands and Peter leaned his head on her shoulder. He seemed to relax at this so MJ figured she was doing something right. A few minutes passed and Peter was out cold again. "Most likely exhausted from the nightmares." MJ thought. She leaned her head on top of his and dozed off.

The rest of the team awoke when Lauren came into the room, telling them they had forty minutes before breakfast. Luckily, they had enough sense to hide the pop-tart boxes before they went to sleep so she saw nothing. After Lauren came in, it took the team a solid few minutes to actually get up and about 43 seconds after that to notice Peter and MJ. Even in Peter's sleep, he could feel his spider-sense telling him that he was being watched. He soon awoke but stayed still due to the weight on his own head.

Unfortunately, for Peter, MJ noticed his stirring and sat up. Their hands were still intertwined and as soon as they noticed everyone staring, they turned different hues of red. The two teens struggled to form words at this moment and decided not to say anything yet. MJ hopped down from his bed and went over to hers and Betty's. At this, everyone TRIED to continue getting ready normally and the room broke out in whispers.

"Dude, why was MJ in your bed?" Ned whispered to Peter. Peter was halfway listening to him. The other half of his attention was on MJ and Betty's conversation. "Hello?" Ned waved a hand in front of Peter's face. "Earth to Peter." At this, Peter finally responded.

"Hey, yeah, uh sorry... It was nothing. Just a bad dream." Peter responded, trying not to say too much. Ned looked skeptical but decided not to push it and continued to get ready. As the group got done getting ready for the day, they all headed back to the place that they were just at hours before, the kitchen. Needless to say, it was an interesting breakfast.

The group sat down at a long table and ate their food in silence. For one, they were still waking up and two... no one wanted to say anything about it. Flash was about to speak up when someone dropped down from the vents. And you'll never guess who it was. Just kidding. It was Clint. He looked pissed to anyone that was looking but Peter saw the amusement and smug look in his eyes. That terrified Peter after last nights events.

"Hey Peter! Catch!" At this he threw a sparkly orb at Peter who caught it with ease. The teens looked down at it with confusion. Suddenly, it dawned on Peter what it was. They started a prank war a few months back and this was Clint's ammunition. It took forever to clean up but Clint said it was worth it. Peter muttered a small, "This is gonna suck" before it exploded, leaving blue and red glitter all over.

Peter stood up without a word as his classmates stared at him and the man across the room. Peter slowly turned with a look that could almost rival Natasha's. Clint saw it and took off running without a word. At that moment, he knew... He messed up. As soon as Clint got out of Peter's eyesight, Peter walked off to the room without a word. The group sat in silence when Lauren walked up.

"...Where's Peter?" The group just looked at her with blank and shocked stares. The Hawkeye just walked into their breakfast time, threw a glitter bomb at their classmate, and ran off. This was a weird start to the day.

Ned told Lauren that Peter would catch up with them in a minute. A few minutes passed and Lauren turned to the group.

"Okay, what actually happened? And where is Peter?" Lauren glanced at the Decathlon team. No one really knew what to say until MJ spoke up.

"Hawkeye dropped in to the room, threw a glitter bomb at Peter, and then ran off." MJ replied nonchalantly. At this, Lauren groaned and wiped her hands over her face.

"They started another one." Lauren mumbled to herself. At this, the group gave her many confused looks.

"What do you mean, they started another one?" Flash asked. Lauren took her hands off of her face before answering.

"A few months back, the entire tower got caught up in a prank war. It started with the Avengers and Peter. It was harmless so none of the interns or staff did anything about it. That was until one day, Peter walked into one of the labs to help and multiple glitter bombs went off across the room. On that day, we all started pranking each other and it was complete chaos in the tower for a whole week. It only stopped when Hawkeye got Black Widow and Mr. Stark with a glitter bomb. He wasn't seen for a week after that." Lauren visibly shuddered at the memory.

The group seemed shocked that the most famous, and dangerous people on Earth, started a prank war. They also couldn't believe that Peter Parker was caught up in this. As they all took a second to comprehend what they just heard, Peter walked up with damp hair and a new pair of clothes. "Ah, Peter, nice of you to join us again." Lauren smirked. You could still see the glitter in his hair.

"Oh, haha. There's going to be glitter in my hair for the rest of my life!" Peter groaned at the thought. Clint is going to pay for that. "Hopefully, he doesn't drag the entire tower down with him again."

"Who started it this time?" Lauren asked. Peter froze at the question before sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck.

"I-I did..." Peter looked down at his feet, his shoes becoming a lot more interesting in that moment.

"What did you do?!" Lauren couldn't think of anything Peter could have done to start a prank war. Usually it was Hawkeye or Falcon that started them. Unless Shuri was here, Peter rarely got in trouble. Even when she was here, he didn't get that bad of a punishment. If you saw Tony and Peter's interactions, you could tell Stark had a soft spot for the kid. Nobody would ever admit it though.

"I kind of, may or may not have, stole the uh... pop-tarts." Peter glanced up at Lauren who went wide eyed, along with the rest of his group.

"You stole Clint Barton's pop-tarts?" Lauren asked with disbelief.

"No...Technically they're Thor's, too." Peter replied with an innocent smile. At this, Lauren scoffed and the group started to freak out. Lauren knew that if Thor showed up, he was as good as dead. The group started asking Peter tons of questions at once. She glanced down at her tablet to check the time and realized they were running late.

"Shoot. OKAY! COME ON! WE'RE LATE TO MEET WITH DR. BANNER!"