A/N So, I got a review and I was so happy I decided to write a second chapter. This wasn't planned in any way, but I was procrastinating homework.

Sincere thanks to guacamole lover for sending me the review that motivated and inspired me. Seriously, it made my pretty awful day awesome.

DISCLAIMER: None of the characters belong to me, I just have the privilege of playing with them. All rights go to Marvel and Sony picture, respectively.

Peter was drifting somewhere between wakefulness and sleep. The drugs he could feel pumping through his veins tried to drag him back to the land of nod, but not before he noticed the other weight on the bed. He could see Ned's indistinct shape, and a shifting mass of brown… hair. Chatter wormed its way into his ears, too much, too much, too much…

He was aware of a beeping noise starting, harsh and loud and way too much too much toomuchtoomuch and then it shut off and he crashed back into oblivion.

Chatting comfortably around Peter's bedside, Ned, MJ and Flash jumped when the beeping started. The Avengers simply turned towards the source of the noise, Clint's bow with an arrow ready, Natasha with her knife held loosely. They had moved too quickly for the others to follow, but it took a few seconds for even the two assassin-spies to realize that the beeping noise was coming from the heart monitor.

Peter's heartrate spiked, rising higher and higher, past what a normal human could sustain.

His body shuddered, and every person in the room turned to him. Natasha's knife flew through the air, slicing past Michelle's hair and thudding into the speaker on the monitor.

Abruptly, the noise shut off.

They all turned to Natasha, who gave a small shrug.

"What? It was clearly making him worse. See, his heartrate has decreased again."

She was right, once again. Peter's heartrate had dropped back to 82 beats per minute. This would have been unnaturally high for a normal human, but since the spider bite his heartrate hadn't gone below 70.

Bruce quickly pulled up the feed from the monitor on his StarkPhone – a benefit of being in a hospital room designed and paid for by Tony Stark, while carrying tech from said Tony Stark and having his hacking expertise at the tap of a finger. He analysed it quickly, drawing conclusions in his mind like only a seasoned scientist could, especially one used to working with the wildfire speed of a Stark.

"I'm by no means an expert on the type of radiation Peter got from the spider bite, but from what he and Tony have told me, he has hypersensitive visual and audial receptors. His fast metabolism means that he came out from under the drug slightly, but the sounds and sights overwhelmed him. He had a miniature panic attack, and then the drug compensated thanks to Tony's tech, and he was pulled back under before his body systems were overridden."

The rest of the room stared at him, and Bruce had to do a double check to make sure he hadn't spewed out scientific jargon the rest, bar Tony, wouldn't have understood.

He hadn't.

May breathed out a sigh of relief. "Thank the Lord," she said. "I thought it was something serious."

There was a sarcastic lilt to her voice, and Bruce realized that what to him was a scientific analysis may have been taken as a forbidding warning of how close Peter had come to death.

It hadn't been that bad.

Except…

No, it was highly unlike he would have died.

Unless his body produced enough adrenaline to run his heart to a heart attack…

Thank the Lord indeed. And thank Tony's tech. The drip feed had upped the dosage, and that may have been the only reason Peter hadn't had a heart attack.

The room waited in a tense silence for a few minutes, before gradually shifting back to stressed but falsely nonchalant conversation.

The next time Peter woke, all he knew was pain.

It fired up from every nerve in his body, rivers of lava coursing up to his brain and it took all of his not insignificant willpower to cling to the sharp ledge of consciousness. He drifted there for a while, waiting for the pain to abate and listening to the indistinguishable murmurs that drifted through the air to him.

The pain didn't stop.

Eventually, he gave up on waiting. He was normally almost insufferably impatient, but this was different. This was pain. Pain couldn't be rushed, wouldn't just "get over it and stop".

So he didn't wait for it, and instead fought a battle with his tired muscles to open his eyes. To his drug addled mind, it took an infinity of secomds before he could see.

Peter blinked once, then twice.

Both sides of his life had collided.

Ned was hunched over his spider suit, with May and Mr Stark. That in itself was bizarre. Tony was normally very protective of his suit, and Ned hadn't been allowed to touch it except for the time he had disabled the Training Wheels Protocol (that was probably part of the reason he hadn't been allowed to touch it since).

His team was sprawled through the room, the people he had grown to love like family through trial by fire, all watching over him.

But it was the two people he had never thought to see in the same room as the Avengers that surprised him. MJ was sitting on his bed, opposite Ned and Tony. She was…

Talking to Pepper, Wanda and Tasha?

When had that happened?

As he watched, she gestured wildly, the other three nodding along. Michelle smiled shyly as Pepper patted her on the back. Tasha grabbed her by the wrist, and dragged her over to Clint. To her credit, Michelle didn't look the slightest bit fazed by being manhandled by the Black Widow.

Flash (Flash?) was conversing with Cap. Even the great Captain America looked a little worn down by the boy's attitude, but Sam wandered over them, out of tactical gear. Sam clapped Flash on the back, and the boy smiled, an actual, genuine smile, not his normal cocky sneer. Both he and Steve relaxed, and from what Peter could see, they fell into an easy conversation.

That was a miracle, if nothing else.

Peter couldn't focus on any one thing, and it was only a few more seconds before he was drawn back to Michelle.

She was learning how to fight.

Clint was pinned to the floor by Natasha, with Pepper, Wanda and MJ watching attentively. She swung fluidly off him, and Clint rolled back on to his feet.

His hearing was returning, because he could hear Clint's voice in time with his lips.

"I guess I should be used to being manhandled by now."

The girls laughed, and then Wanda was jumping on Clint.

He stumbled, then fell.

Wanda's face split into a grin, and she cheered. "Yes!"

Natasha started a round of applause that spread through the room.

Even Peter's reluctant lips twitched into a smile. He could remember Wanda trying, for hours, and hours, and hours, to get that move perfect. Physical combat was her weakest skill in training, so she had worked on it a lot at the Avenger's compound.

She moved off Clint, a little clumsily, and then it was Pepper's turn.

And suddenly, Tony had lost all interest in the suit. His eyes were glued to Pepper as she slid off her high heels, then sprung forward, her petite frame smashing in to Clint. Clint fell backwards, just like he had with Wanda. There wasn't a cheer this time.

Everyone knew that Natasha had been giving Pepper lessons in self-defence for a long time, since she had been undercover at Stark Industries. A life with Tony Stark would never be a safe one, but the man himself looked proud of her for being able to well and truly look after herself.

Peter watched as MJ readied herself. Natasha moved around her, positioning her legs and arms. It was so similar to what she had done for Peter that he felt a pang of something. Something warm that felt like home and peace and maybes.

Then she was jumping and no.

No, she couldn't have been that lucky.

For with a look of surprise on his face, Clint fell backwards, crashing into the floor.

In an instant, Michelle was off him, whooping and pumping the air. It was so out of character that Peter almost laughed, but instead he let everyone's applause wash over him, and slowly, painfully moved his hands.

Michelle was still grinning as the applause ended. She had done it! Sure, he hadn't been prepared, and Natasha had helped, but she had still done it.

The room quietened again, except for a single, slow clap.

MJ looked around the room, searching for the cause.

She didn't see it until she saw Peter's bed.

Peter was clapping.

"Peter!" She rushed over to his bed, followed closely by Flash and the Avengers.

Peter let his hands fall limply to his sides. He smiled stiffly, then forced his mouth in to cooperation.

"Hi," he wheezed.

Ned clapped him on the back, and even Flash looked mildly pleased. His team smiled at him, Tony's massive grin lighting up the room. Even Natasha was smiling unabashedly.

But MJ wasn't.

Instead, a stormy look had slunk over her features.

"When were you planning on telling us, Peter?"

Ah. Of course. The others would be willing to let this go, but Michelle was cautious. Peter didn't know her history, but she had trust issues stemming from somebody.

He just hoped she would trust him again, but for that to happen, he had to tell the truth.

"I wasn't."

She looked immediately affronted, and he hurried to clarify.

"I don't want you to be hurt. And, well, it was a security risk. There was always a chance someone might let something slip. Flash? Wait, Flash will spill!"

For the first time, it had sunk in what these two could do to him. They could unmask Spiderman.

Flash chuckled. "It's cool, man. Just let me come to your secret meetings from time to time."

Peter sighed in relief, ignoring the sparking pain in his ribs. Maybe Flash was one of the good guys, or maybe he just liked the idea of knowing superheroes.

MJ replied to him as well.

"I can look after myself, as you just saw." That much was true, but his other point still stood.

"And, you trusted Ned with this. We can manage, Peter. Better than that, we can cover for you at school."

This was going better than he had ever thought. They had not only accepted and understood, but they were going to help him.

"Don't think I've forgot this, though. I reckon you should have to let me into the Stark Labs whenever I want for this."

Before he had even thought about it, Peter was nodding. Of course she could have access to the labs. Like he had, she would find it amazing, and she would probably churn out a world-changing experiment.

Peter had forgotten one thing.

"You forgot it's not your lab, didn't you Pete?" Tony's voice was brassy and cheery, but it sounded like he had almost cried.

"Umm…" Peter's hands fisted the hospital sheets.

"Of course she can come! In fact, we might be able to set up an actual internship if she's as good as you say."

MJ looked flattered. Peter and Stark had had actual conversations about her, and on top of that, she was going to have access to the Stark Labs! It was a dream come true.

Pepper's cough broke the comfortable silence.

"Tony, I think you forgot whose labs they are."

Tony's guilty face would have melted vibranium. He looked pleadingly at Pepper.

Natasha laughed. "Of all the people you could get in a relationship with, you pick the one who doesn't melt when you use puppy eyes."

Tony's eyes widened.

"Maybe I'm not so immune," Pepper muttered.

After a moment of consideration, she replied. "It was never in doubt. You are always welcome at the Avengers Base, MJ. You should join Wanda, Nat, and I for basic defence training sometime or another."

MJ grinned at the older woman, whom she had already grown to look up to.

"I'd like that," she said.

Peter fell back into sleep with a smile stretch across his face as his sped-up healing went to work, content with his family gathered above him.

Both sides of his life had crashed together, but somehow they fit.

Perhaps, that was the true superpower. Being able to live two lives, and not deceiving anyone and staying whole. If so, Pepper controlled that power, but Peter would try to use what she gave him to build his life.

So, yeah, that's the end of this story. This chapter is shorter than the last, but it only took me an hour and a half, and the other one took three hours, so it's a fair trade.

I might steal the idea of MJ joining our favourite girls for a training session for a later story, but for now, this is complete.

Thank you for your support. Again, let me know if there is something that is wrong, something that you love, or hate. I need feedback to improve.

See you as soon as I can words again,

MyNightmaresAreMyDaydreams