Sooo... I'm officially the worst author in the world. Upload one fic, leave it half way and start a new one? Yup, guilty as charged. Several times over. Sorry :(

This plot bunny literally leapt into my brain and just wouldn't leave me alone so I had to blurt it all out. I'm going to make much more of an effort to work on my stories (all of them) from now on, seriously! (I feel like I've promised that way too many times now...)

There are some important details you need to know about this story before beginning:

First of all - in this story, Tony blew up all of the suits in IM3 but never actually 'quit' being Iron Man as it was kinda made out at the end. He's merely had to start all over again in this story.

Second - the events of The Amazing Spider-Man happened after the events of The Avengers but before the events of Iron Man 3 and the events in Thor 2 haven't happened at all (as you will discover soon). The majority of this story is set after TASM, TA and IM3 though there may be flashbacks every now and again. I hope that isn't too confusing for everyone (though the fact that I've basically confused myself with that sentence doesn't bring my much hope..).

Thirdly - The Avengers all know about Coulson being alive again (woohoo!)

Finally - this is also going to include characters from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's gonna be one hell of a party!

Anyway, boring details over - let's get to the story! The usual disclaimer applies: If I owned a single thing in this story I would NOT be sitting on my butt writing these stories but instead rolling in money (literally, I'd just roll in it for fun). Hope you guys enjoy!

Peter Parker was having a relatively good day.

For the past week, after the whispered words of broken promises in class to Gwen, they had somewhat reconnected. Despite the promise he had made her father before he'd died, the guilt of his death coupled with the guilt of not supporting the girl he had fallen for whilst she had grieved had eaten at him to the point that he'd had to talk to her again.

Smiling as her face filled his thoughts, Peter dropped his skateboard to the floor, placed one foot on the gritty surface and pushed off hard with the other. He was headed home to the small house he shared with his Aunt May from school as it had let out for the weekend. The fact that it was Friday which meant that he had a weekend free was one of the reasons that his day had been a decent one - the other reason being that he had shared four classes with Gwen which in his books was always good.

With his earbuds stuffed securely in his ears, Peter angled his feet backwards on his board and swerved sharply to the left down another road on his journey home. With his favourite band blasting out in his ears, he relied heavily on his newly heightened "Spidey-senses" (as Gwen had dubbed them, giggling teasingly at his subsequent roll of his eyes) to guide him safely through the throngs of people in his path.

Despite having the ability to get home much faster if he used his 'webs' (another Gwen term - she loved that one), there was something about taking the familiar journey home on his board that made him feel almost normal. There was no doubting that his transition into Spider-Man had been an experience that given the choice, he probably wouldn't have chosen to enter the room in Oscorp again - at least not without a protective suit anyway (why didn't he do that to begin with, again?). His life had been undoubtedly and irreversibly changed forever and though he felt mildly saddened by that, he knew he had to make the most of his abilities. After his "showdown" (Gwen seriously needed to stop with the names) with Dr Connors, he had taken a few weeks to allow his body to heal. The gunshot wound to his leg was giving him the most problems and even five weeks later still left him with painful twinges if he overused it. However, his Uncle's - or were they his fathers? - words constantly echoed through him - "if you could do good things for other people, you had a moral obligation to do those things" - and he knew that the words were right. He could help people, and so he would do it.

Humming along, he drew closer to home with a smile adorning his features. His recent ventures out at night as Spider-Man had all gone off without a hitch - as long as you didn't count a few bruises as a hitch - and it seemed that after saving the entire of the city, the police seemed slightly less intent on hunting him down. Aunt May and he were slowly getting adjusted to life without Uncle Ben, though it didn't make it any easier when he came down stairs for breakfast and wasn't greeted by the usual "morning, kiddo" that he was used to, but it was slightly less crushing than it had been at the start. Gwen seemed slightly better in herself too and together they had been rebuilding the trust they had shared prior to him letting her down.

So when all things were considered, Peter would say this day had been relatively good so far.

Then he walked up the steps to his house after picking up his skateboard from the ground, crossed the landing after shutting the door and yelling a greeting to Aunt May, walked into the small lounge and noticed the two men in suits sitting next to a pale Aunt May with stern faces and his stomach dropped.

"Aunt May?" he frowned questioningly, attempting to keep any hint of fear off his face. She shot a weak smile at him as he moved further into the room but kept silent.

"Peter Parker?" one of the suits asked in a calm voice, both standing at the boy's arrival.

Frowning, Peter nodded slowly. "Who's asking?"

The man smiled back at the response. "Agent Coulson. I'm here on behalf of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division - otherwise known as S.H.I.E.L.D. This is Agent Ward."

Heart pounding, Peter's gaze flicked quickly to Aunt May and back to the men stood before him. He cleared his throat and schooled his features carefully into one of innocence. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what they were here for.

"Bit of a mouthful." he quipped, mind struggling to keep up with the idea that there were members of a team that dealt in supernatural occurrences sitting here in his lounge. He received a small laugh from the agent in response.

"That's what we thought," Agent Coulson replied dryly. "Son, I think we need to have a little talk."

—

Three months later…

"Sir, I really must insis-"

"Jarvis, if you don't stop talking right now I'm going to delete you." Tony Stark snarked back at his AI invention. Flexing his wrist around a few times, he tried to ignore the twinges throughout his body. The mark XLII had been giving him problems ever since he had needed to start from scratch after the Prodigal Son had been used against Killian a few months back. Warily eyeing the disassembled pieces across the other side of the room, Tony shook his head to clear his thoughts and focused carefully.

"All right, show me what you got," he taunted, shooting his arms out for the hundredth time that day alone. One by one the armour jolted forward at quick speed towards him and he grit his teeth. The pieces reached him and slammed onto the correct parts of his body one by one, knocking him slightly off balance. A few seconds later, Tony's eyes widened in terror as he eyed the last piece floating a few feet away, hovering precariously close to the floor.

"Not again," he pleaded, twisting in an attempt to escape. Seconds later, the last piece flew forwards and hit him squarely in the groin and knocked him flying backwards. Landing with a heavy thud, the wind was knocked out of his chest and he lay still, not daring to utter a word in fear of sounding more like Pepper than himself.

"Sir, I did try to warn yo-"

"Jarvis, shut up."

Groaning, he rolled over and pushed himself off the floor. Disassembling the armour once more, he chucked each part back over to the other side of the room and stood back in the centre. Huffing once more, he put his arms up, ready to go again when Pepper's voice rang out from the pad on the wall to his right.

"Honey," Pepper's voice echoed out in the fake-sweet voice she used when she was being watched. "We have a guest. Upstairs now, please."

Letting his arms drop, he sent a glance in the direction of the bits of armour and frowned. He would work on it later. Turning tail, he headed towards the stairs and ascended to the brightly lit lounge. After his house had a slight remodelling when he had been paid a visit by Killian's men they had been forced to start from scratch in Stark Tower.

Emerging into the room, Pepper appeared in front of him with a strained smile.

"We have a problem."

—

"What do you mean Loki's free again?" Tony asked incredulously to a slightly grimacing Agent Coulson.

"Phil-"

"Pepper, his first name is Agent-"

"Phil," Pepper repeated, shooting Tony a glare. "How has this happened?"

Agent Coulson heaved a sigh. "Apparently Odin saw fit to banish Loki to Earth just as he did with Thor years prior. Remember New Mexico?" There was a slight pregnant pause as everyone remembered the giant robot falling literally from the sky (and no, for once this wasn't one of Tony's robots) and nearly flattening an entire town.

"I'm sorry but what the hell was he thinking? He realises that the guy literally just got done trying to take the whole planet over with a bunch of his creepy alien pals, right?" Tony questioned, disbelief colouring his tone.

"According to Thor, Odin has stripped Loki of most of his powers and sent him to Earth as a form of 'punishment' - something about him repenting what he's done here," Coulson replied dryly.

Tony just stared at 'Agent' (his name was not Phil), eyes wide.

"Thor knows that his father is crazy, right? I mean, no disrespect to the guy or anything-"

Pepper let out an unflattering snort in response.

"-but Loki is one straw short of a basket case and Odin sends him back here? Here I thought the justice system was flawed in this country," he remarked sarcastically.

"I know," Coulson sighed again. "The reason I've told you is so you can be on your guard. Loki still having any kind of power means he's a threat. Thor's debriefing Director Fury right now but he'll be coming here once he's done to stay until Loki is dealt with. Even as of right now S.H.I.E.L.D doesn't know his current location."

"Oh great," Tony snarked once more.

"That's not the only reason I'm here though Mr Stark," Coulson continued. Tony's interest peaked slightly upon hearing this and he wandered over to the bar area to pour himself a drink. Raising a glass in offering and receiving a "no, thanks" in response, he shrugged and took a gulp.

"We need your help in another matter. I'm assuming you've seen the news about a so-called 'vigilante' named Spider-Man?" Coulson questioned, moving forward to hand Tony a file. He held out the manilla folder, only mildly surprised when Pepper took it from him and placed it down on the bar.

"Doesn't like to be handed things," Pepper reminded with a slight teasing to her voice. Coulson smiled slightly in response and watched as Tony opened up the folder.

Tony nodded and hummed his response. Flicking through the file, he saw a few pictures of the 'web-slinger' in action and a S.H.I.E.L.D classified document about Spider-Man with 90 per cent of the information blacked out.

Tony raised an eyebrow at that to which he received a small smirk accompanied by a humorous glint in his eyes. (Coulson clearly underestimated Tony's ability to find out anything he wanted within minutes regardless of the organisation.) Shuffling around the counter, Tony moved to his computer and took another swig of his drink before flicking through a few screens and pulling up a video of Spider-Man in action against the giant lizard - otherwise known as Dr Connors - that had gone crazy and tried to turn the entire city into scaly monsters like himself four months ago (and yes, Tony was rather thrilled that he had happened to be on a delightful holiday in Paris with Pepper at the time of that. He still shuddered at the idea of being scaly).

"Guy's got balls I'll give him that," Tony praised slightly. "What do you want with him?"

Agent Coulson smiled.

"We want you to recruit him and bring him here."

—