I never thought I would write a genderbent fic, but here I am. I had a blast writing this, and kinda ended up falling in love with Piper Parker, I hope you all end up loving her too.

(Shout out to Sparkstar_stories1 for letting me babble about this fic and bounce ideas off of her.)

Disclaimer- I only own Piper, nothing else is mine.

Trigger Warning- Mention of blood, injury, and canon-typical violence, nothing graphic, but just be aware.

Play Pretend

When Piper began going out looking for her Aunt May's killer she hadn't thought of all the consequences apparently.

She had wanted to bring the man that murdered her Aunt to justice, for herself and for her Uncle Ben, so they could both sleep at night knowing that the evil man was behind bars.

That was about the extent of her thought process. She had been angry, so angry at the world for taking May from them, but most of all, Piper had been angry at herself for letting it happen.

She had already been bitten by that spider, she had already changed, had already gained her powers. Piper could have stopped the man easily, but she hadn't, she had been selfish and complacent, and because of the teenager's choice Aunt May lost her life.

Catching the man had seemed like the only way to ease some of the guilt Piper felt, it would never go away, not fully. It would always sit in Piper's chest like a thick sludge that stuck to every one of her breaths and clogged her throat, making it hard to breathe.

But it was the only thing she could think to do.

The problem was -once Piper found the murderer, once she had turned him over to the police- she had figured the urge to sneak out at night would vanish. It didn't though, if anything Piper's desire to go out and patrol grew even more, but this time it wasn't driven by guilt and anger, but by the longing to help people, to save those who couldn't save themselves.

To make sure no one else had to go through what she had.

Putting on a mask and beating up baddies was freeing in a way that Piper had never felt. Girls weren't supposed to walk alone at night, and definitely not when they were petite and very easy to overpower. And here she was, all 106 pounds of her, taking on men more than twice her size, and winning.

And again, maybe Piper should have put more thought into where this path could lead her, because really, with her horrible luck she probably should have seen this coming.

"People are now calling the masked vigilante of Queens: Spider-Man," the platinum-blonde News Caster speaks from the small TV sat atop the kitchen island. "Where most are still wary of this Spider-Man individual, many are starting to warm up to the hero," the woman goes on.

Piper chokes on her bite of Lucky Charms, a marshmallow catching in her throat as she whips around to stare wide-eyed at the TV. "Yeah, Spider-Man is awesome," a dark guy a little older than Piper tells the camera, "he saved my sister and me from some muggers last week."

It switches from the teenager to an older lady. "Oh yes, Spider-Man scooped me up before I could get hit by a racing car," she says in a thick Hispanic accent, telling the story of only three days ago.

Piper had seen the speeding truck before anyone else did, it had been a snap decision to swing down and grab the woman. "I don't know where I would be if the young man hadn't been there," the woman finishes.

"It's nice that we finally have a hero in our neck of the woods," Uncle Ben speaks up from his seat across the table. Snapping Piper out of her gaping stupor.

The fifteen-year-old pries her eyes away from the TV screen. "Y-yeah, yup," she mumbles, taking a bite of food as she tries to find some coherent words, but it seems her vocabulary has drifted away with her racing thoughts. "Hell's Kitchen has Daredevil, Manhattan has the Avengers and-and the Fantastic Four, and now Queens has Spider-Mannn."

Piper misses her Uncle's bemused look as she glances back at the TV screen. They're displaying a very blurry picture of Piper in her suit (if you can even call it that) it consists of her dark blue skinny jeans, her red knee-high, converse boots, and a thick, red, hoodie that Piper had crudely painted a spider on.

Adding on the fact that she wears a red ski-mask and her self-made goggles, it's pretty hard to see any details of the person underneath it all. Let alone deduce that she is a teenage girl, not a man.

But even with all that in mind, it's still a shock watching these people assume she is another male vigilante. It hasn't even seemed to have crossed their minds that she might be a 'she' and not another 'he'.

The fifteen-year-old isn't sure how she feels about all of this.

Piper bangs her knee on the underside of the kitchen table as she scurries out of her chair. "I'm gonna be late for school," she chirps, forcing a smile as she gives Uncle Ben a quick peck on the cheek and runs out of the kitchen. "Love ya, bye."

Piper had apparently been naive to think that school would be a place where she could zone out and not think about that fact that the News and the majority of New York have all collectively decided that she is a grown man.

(At this rate she's gonna develop a freakin' complex)

It's a side-effect of having enhanced-hearing. Piper can't seem to hide from the whispers, can't seem to drown them out or ignore them. The words follow her from classroom to classroom, each one burrowing itself snugly into her brain.

All her classmates are jittery and excited with the newly named vigilant that lives in their borough, the school is overflowing with it. The teenagers and teachers all thrilled with the fact that they have their very own 'Super-Hero'.

(Yeah, people think Piper's a Super-Hero, how cool is that!?)

By the time her last class rolls around Piper is anxious and ready to throw on her suit and just swing. The fifteen-year-old isn't even sure what's bothering her most at this point- yeah being called a dude all day isn't the best boost for morale, but Piper doesn't really think that's her biggest worry right this second.

She is fully in the limelight.

Before today she had been a ghost story, the existence of the vigilante of Queens was debatable, no one had been sure if it was one person or many, and some people thought the whole idea was a sham made up by the police to keep crime rates down.

But now there was no denying it, there was footage and photos floating all over the News, Papers, and Internet. Spider-Man has been proven absolutely real, and people are over the moon with the fact.

Piper is about 93% sure that is the reason her head is pounding, and her fingers won't stop fidgeting. Not just because the whole city has misgendered her, but because now the whole city knows of her.

It's a lot to take in, a huge reality shift, it's an immense amount of unwanted attention shining brightly on a geeky fifteen-year-old girl that hasn't ever caught anyone's eye in her life.

"I knew he was real," Flash says proudly as Piper passes him in the hall.

He's smiling wide with a cocky eyebrow raise, talking to a group of kids that have collected to look at some blurry pictures of Spider-'Man' on his phone. "I told you guys, I told you."

Spencer Jacobs scoffs at the other boy. "What? You have a thing for Spider-Man now, Flash?" he asks, incredulous and mocking.

Flash splutters some sort of answer, but Piper's rushing down the hall so she won't have to hear whatever he might say.

She cannot deal with this right now.

The brunette's hair is coming out of her sloppily done braid and sticking to Piper's back underneath her over-sized spider-hoodie.

It is very annoying, and kind of making Piper itchy.

The fifteen-year-old never did do braids as well as Aunt May, they're either too loose or too tight, where May had found that perfect middle that kept the teen's hair up all day without giving Piper a headache.

But Aunt May isn't here anymore, and Piper had never been that type of girl. So here she sits; with an uncomfortable mask full of hair, wringing her hands in her lap, contemplating her wack-o life.

Technically Piper is on patrol, but at this point she isn't really actively seeking out crime, more like waiting for it to come waltzing to her. (Which, by the way, happens a lot more frequently than you might think)

Because she has things to think about, big, life-changing, adult things.

And Adulting is hard on any given day, so Piper thinks she can let patrol slide just this once.

The passing New Yorkers don't notice the teenager perched on the far up fire escape, Piper has come to learn that civilians just don't tend to look up- which is kind of interesting, just think of all the things people could be missing because they don't bother to take in their surroundings.

The fifteen-year-old watches a News Stand from a safe distance, a good ways out of hearing range, because the teen has learned (the hard way) that she might not want to hear people's criticism of her.

The front page of the Daily Bugle has a picture of Spider-'Man', not unlike the rest of the Papers today. But this photo is the most unflattering, a graining snap of Piper with her hand stuck in a rain gutter from when she had been trying to rescue a trapped kitten; her butt is up in the air and it looks as if she had gotten herself stuck.

Which was untrue, it had all been purposeful.

Oh, and the Daily Bugle didn't even mention the kitten, just FYI.

Which, rude.

Piper saved that kitten, and she would do so again.
It was cute and fluffy and had licked her masked cheek.
And she would have kept it if her Uncle Ben wasn't allergic…

The News Stand has a steady stream of people buying papers because as it turns out, everyone has their own opinions on the newly named hero of Queens, and Piper cannot count how many times she has heard people talking about the subject today.

That may be why the teenager is sitting on a fire escape thinking rather than patrolling. Piper's mind has been swirling with the news of Spider-'Man' since this morning, but she hasn't had a moment to herself to really consider all the pros and cons of the situation.

And now that she has finally sat down so she can over-analyze things it turns out that the city thinking she is a boy, (ahem, no, a 'man') might not be the worst thing in the world.

Piper had been feeling nervous all day, the main reason being that now that people know she is real, there is no taking it back, and that's scary in its self. But there is also the terrifying thought that someone out there will figure out who is wearing the mask.

She's read Batman comics, Piper knows why a secret identity is important.

If the wrong people found out Piper is Spider-'Man' they could come after her, but even worse, they could hurt Ben. Piper's already lost her parents and her Aunt May, she can't-she can't do that again.

She doesn't think she could live through the guilt she would feel if Ben died because of her either, it would destroy the teenager.

So, people assuming it's some guy wearing the suit isn't actually a bad thing, no one even seems to suspect that isn't the truth. And Piper's gotta say she couldn't have come up with a better way to protect her secret identity if she tried.

Who in the world is going to think little nerdy Piper Parker is Spider-Man?

Honestly, Piper doesn't believe it herself half the time.

The teenager adjusts her mask, standing and stretching out the kinks in her back as she comes to a resolution. Maybe this whole misgendering thing is a blessing in disguise, really, what does it matter what the world thinks of her?

Piper knows who she is.

If Piper's gonna roll with this whole 'I'm a boy' thing though, she'd better do it right.

Sure, everyone and their dog is convinced that Spider-Man is in fact, a man, but that doesn't mean Piper couldn't accidentally slip up and ruin the delicate illusion.

The universe has given her a prime opportunity here, she'd be stupid not to take a hold of it and dig her nails in with all her might.

That night Piper orders a handful of questionable items on Amazon, thanking her stars that she has her own account, because if Uncle Ben saw what she was purchasing they would be having a talk.

Her supplies comes five days later, and Piper gets to work.

First off, her voice is gonna be a problem if she starts to fight crime more publicly. She clearly does not have the voice belonging to that of a boy, and it wouldn't take long for people to catch on.

Honestly, the teenager isn't sure how people didn't put that together yet. It's not like Piper's silent when she fights bad-guys, but up until this point she hadn't been going out in the daylight either, so there weren't a lot of civilians to hear her hilarious quips.

It's been difficult this past week trying to kick butt without being able to rattle off her mouth, it's one of the teenager's main strategies to distract and confuse her opponents into submission or tears (hehehe) and she is excited to fix the problem so she can go back to talking again.

It doesn't take Piper very long to build a voice modulator, the tricky part is getting it small enough that she'll be able to sew it into the front of her mask.

It takes her until two in the morning before she gets it just right. But by the time she's done, it only takes a press of a button and her voice is deeper and pitched more like a boy's, it's oddly satisfying.

Next comes the costume- or, well, uniform? 'Costume' makes this sound like Piper's getting ready for a Comicon or dress-up party, and 'uniform' makes her sound like she's professional or headed off to work.

Which she is not…

Hmm.

Next comes her suit. (yeah, sticking with that, that's better) She has been meaning to upgrade from her sweatshirt and jeans, but Piper hadn't really known what kind of look she was going for.

Now she does.

Her current Spidey-attire is baggy and gets in Piper's way or caught on things when she's trying to do flips and swing around, it just isn't practical. She needs something tighter and more flexible, which is why she chooses spandex for her new material.

She decides to keep with the theme of red and blue since that is what everyone associates with Spider-Man now, but instead of leaving it plain Piper adds some black webbing to the red parts of the suit, which includes the mask.

Some slightly upgraded goggles go into the new mask, these ones flatter and made to look more like a bug's eyes, as well as the voice modulator. Then Piper adds a few last additions that should help keep her gender secret.

A binder is stitched into the top half of the suit to make Piper look even more flat-chested than she already is. And then a men's cup is sewn into the front of the pants to give off…that illusion.

When the suit is completely finished Piper puts her hair into two braids and tries the works of her labor on. It's more comfortable than her last outfit, and the mask is easier to breathe in.

The teenager stands in front of her full-length mirror and studies herself. The binder makes her chest and ribcage look bigger, giving the impression that Piper has more muscle than she does, and with the bit of padding she added to the sleeves for warmth she could say the same for her arms.

The mask hides all features, only the impression of a nose, and no mouth, just the huge bug eyes that go wide when Piper raises her eyebrows. The spider on her chest and the webbing design draw even more attention away from her figure, which is a plus.

There is no way in heck people are going to think she's a girl while wearing this. It's tight enough that the public is gonna assume that Spider-Man doesn't have anything to hide.

Which is exactly what Piper wants them to think.

Making the suit and trying it on in her room is one thing.

Going out and patrolling in it is another.

It seems like such a shift, going from a shadow lurker to right smack-dab in the public eye. It wasn't like Piper had been hiding on purpose, it just seemed to work out that way. But now here she is with a new suit and a different voice, getting ready to 'flaunt it', so to speak.

Taking a deep breath, the teenager wiggles her arms and legs to get out the jitters before jumping off the edge of the skyscraper she had been staling on. There are flashing sirens ahead and people who need Piper's help.

The fifteen-year-old's nervousness over lying about her gender fades into the background as she assists the fire department with a burning building; her worried thoughts lose their biting edge when she helps a little boy find his mom; and she pretty much forgets about her anxiousness by the time she jumps in and stops a car accident before it can even happen.

As predicted everyone goes insane over the costume change.

It's well…it's what Piper was expecting in some ways, she had prepared herself for the fact that New Yorkers can be very opinionated and that they are not always forgiving.

She knew she would have to suffer some backlash from the press like the Daily Bugle (ggrrrr) who thought the suit was too tight and that Spider-Man was being 'provocative' and 'perverted' by wearing it out in public. The Daily Bugle called it 'indecent exposure' and demanded that the authorities place a warrant out for Spider-Man's arrest.

If you ask Piper she thinks that is just over the top, the suit is tight, but it isn't that tight. She had made sure to get it a little big so that she could put in the padding without the spandex becoming overly suffocating.

Then there were the rational individuals that didn't seem to care what Spider-Man was wearing, just as long as 'he' was out saving people. Some of those same civilians pointed out that Spider-Man isn't the first hero to wear a tight outfit, and that if they don't judge Black Widow or Daredevil for it, then they shouldn't judge Spider-Man either.

(Piper might have melted a little on the inside because people were putting her in the same category as Daredevil and the Black Widow- holy cannoli!)

Piper had expected both of these points of view, she's read enough about other heroes, and witnessed enough gossip disguised as politics about celebrities to know how out of hand people can get with such little things like a costume redesign.

What she had not been anticipating was the third group.

Which consisted of people freakin' ogling her.

And her school was filled with oglers, FILLED WITH THEM!

When Piper had made the suit change she hadn't been expecting this, her intention was to get it across to the public, that yes! she is a man, a dude, a fella, no need to re-think that little public assumption.

Ha, ha, ha.

The skin-tight suit was getting plenty of unwanted attention from her fellow teenagers though. Liz Allen apparently had a crush on Spider-Man, and Betty Brant thought that Spider-Man was old. Which was…well, Piper's done a good job covering up her tracks apparently.

A lot of people though are actually making fun of certain aspects of Spider-Man - of Piper.

Where Piper had always been made fun of and self-conscious of her cup-size apparently Spider-Man should feel the same about his height, or lack thereof. Piper's 5'2, which is yeah, small, but short girls were like a thing for some reason. And where Piper's slimness was usually sought after among the other girls, Spider-Man apparently is too skinny.

It's a little eye-opening being on this side of the criticism, the standards for what is and isn't normal are vastly different for a boy in contrast to what the social norms are for girls.

Both though, are highly unachievable.

Piper rolls her eyes at her classmates, and trudges through the rest of the day, promising herself that if she doesn't strangle anyone then she can eat a whole tub of ice-cream when she gets home.

She gets to have her ice cream.

This is an accomplishment.

She came very close to killing today.

It's been two weeks since the suit switch and people are finally shutting up about it, thank god.

And while there had been some regret over the body-hugging costume initially, in the end, Piper is sure she made the right decision. Pretty much right after she remade her Spidey-outfit blog after blog started popping up on the internet, each one trying to figure out who is under the mask of Spider-Man.

None of those blogs are even close, (believe her Piper keeps a close eye on them) but because of people's obliviousness and crazy theories that Spider-Man is a mutant or an alien of some kind, Piper sleeps better at night.

It's a Saturday afternoon and Spidey has ventured out of Queens and closer to Midtown in her boredom. At this point, she's just lazily web-slinging, not willing to go home and do her Geometry homework, but not finding anything more than muggings to stop in her free time.

That is until Piper hears an explosion of shattering glass and scrapping metal, the echoes of screams and the sounds of blasters starting up not five seconds later.

Well, when duty calls.

The NYPD is already on the scene when Spider-'Man' arrives, but they are clearly losing the battle.

The officers are hidden behind their cars, trying to shoot at the brightly dressed people in yellow hazmat suits as the hazmat-suit-people shoot right back at them with large guns that spit out purple beams.

Piper does a showy flip and lands on one of the police cruisers hoods with a dull 'thunk'. "It is I," she says in her best Thor impression, her voice coming out deep and colorful thanks to her voice modulator. "Your salvation."

"Spider-Man," one of the cop's hisses from his place on the asphalt, "get out of here," he says, glaring up at the teenager with green eyes. "Before we make you."

Piper feigns hurt, placing a gloved hand over her heart as she makes a little 'nawh' sound in the back of her throat. "One of my many adoring fans," she quips- ah, so he's one of those.

There's still a lot of controversy when it comes to Spider-Man, some people hate 'him' and call the spider a menace (thanks J. Johan Jameson, you are truly a delight) while other's think that Spider-Man is a true 'Hero' and should be applauded. (Flash has actually done some applauding, it's horribly embarrassing)

"No can do fuzzy pickle," Piper tells the officer, though she has the sense to not pat his head like she wants to. "I've got work to do."

With that Piper flips off of the cruiser and into the fray of purple light beams and badly dressed villains. "I don't know if anyone's told you," the fifteen-year-old says as she clocks one guy on the chin. "But purple and yellow don't really go."

One of the goons curses loudly and shoots rapidly in Spidey's direction, purple rays striking a building and making crumbling brick rain down on Piper.

The teenager does a cartwheel out of the way and gasps, scandalized. "That's dollar in the swear jar, mister," Piper tells the man, jabbing an accusing finger at him before kicking him in the chest and sending the doofus flying into a windshield.

There are about four more guys, but they don't seem to know any hand to hand, or how to fight at all for that matter. They're just relying on their fancy guns, which are easily avoidable since you can hear them charging up before they blast.

"I've got a game," Piper says as she hides behind an overturned taxi to avoid being shot. "Okay, okay, just follow my lead."

The teenager slings a web at one of the hazmat suit dudes and spins him her way, he flails yelling and unable to aim.

Piper takes no time in punching him solidly as she says, "duck!"

He goes down with a groan and Spidey runs forward using the shoulders of one woman for momentum as the teen pushes the lady down and kicks another loser thug in the stomach. "Duck, duck," she hollers.

Piper has to twist out of the way of a blast before she's able to reach the last guy. The beam hits one of the police cars and Piper can hear the men and women behind it yelping in shock.

The teenager huffs, knocking the gun away from the villain before grabbing the dude by the front of his hazmat suit and saying, "guess that makes you goose." And promptly knocking the man out.

"Worst game of duck, duck, goose, ever," Piper grumbles as she toes at the fallen baddie.

The fifteen-year-old turns away from the crumpled guy on the ground, so she can take in her surroundings. The street is in chaos, cars flipped on their backs like metal turtles, and glass littering the entirety of the street like snow. But no one other than the idiot's in yellow seems to be hurt.

So, Piper counts it as a win.

Suddenly there's a buzz of her spider-sense, and the teenager looks around startled and confused when a bullet abruptly goes off over her head.

Piper doesn't find any danger, the baddies are all down for the count, so that leaves… Spidey levels an unimpressed glare at the officer that had shot for no apparent reason.

"Little late there, hotshot," the teen says, hands on her hips.

"That was a warning shot," the man says, it's not the same fuzzy-pickle officer that had snapped at Spidey before. But they both share a disgusted expression as they look at the spider.

"I won't miss again," the balding man goes on as he and a few of his colleagues in blue come out from behind their cover, including the pickle from before. "On your knees, hands behind your head, now!"

Piper feels something hot and bitter rise up in her chest, she just saved these people and now they are trying to arrest her. "Nah," she says, something like panic pinching in her gut. "I think I'll take a raincheck." Without the voice modulator, Piper's sure her tone wouldn't be as steady as it sounds.

The next bullet is close enough that Piper's Spidey-sense tells her to jump out of the way. "Rude," the teenager scoffs incredulously, before firing a web at a nearby building.

Her brain is screaming at her to Run Away, to leave before someone gets hurt or these bozos try to throw her in jail. She feels sick to her stomach, watching as the NYPD line up on the offensive- all their guns, all their anger, aimed at Piper.

"Well, sorry for leaving this little love-fest, but I've got places to be." And with those words, the fifteen-year-old scrambles away, ducking behind the nearest building as the police fire at her retreating back.

The arrest warrant for Spider-Man would have come as a surprise a month ago, maybe even two weeks ago.

But after Piper's last few encounters with the boy's in blue, it just seems like a long time coming.

"I cannot believe this," Flash says, pacing up and down the hall, sneakers squeaking loudly on the linoleum, completely outraged. "What did Spidey do to deserve this!? He's one of the good guys!"

For once in her life Piper actually agrees with Flash Thompson, it's a very odd thing to admit, even to herself. Piper doesn't understand the sudden hate for Spider-Man either, isn't sure what she could have possibly done to get on New York's bad side so fast.

People throw trash at her now, yelling obscenities and ugly things when she swings by. It's made wanting to go out on patrol hard, has taken away that joy Piper used to feel when she donned the suit.

But she doesn't plan on stopping.

Because this isn't about being liked, it's about helping people.

It's about responsibility.

"You act like you know the guy," Richie Kim says, "we don't really know anything about Spider-Man, he could turn bad any second- what if he's one of those mutants!?"

The huddled-up teenagers erupt into arguments, it's hard for Piper to catch everything, but the gist of it is, some people are afraid that Spider-Man might turn to crime and that without knowing his identity he can't be held accountable for anything. While the other side of the argument seems to be that the hero deserves some privacy and that if he hasn't committed any crimes in the five-months he's been around, why would he start now?

The hallway has turned into some sort of debating grounds, and Piper's alter ego is always the main subject. Flash might be a prick most the time, but he'll talk to anyone and everyone if it's about Spider-Man.

It's embarrassing honestly, the fact that Flash likes Spidey this much. He is always the one defending Spider-Man, without fail. And half the time Piper can feel her ears burning at the mixture of praise and awe Flash and a good chunk of the other kids have for Spidey.

If only they knew.

Piper stumbles in through her bedroom window and practically collapses onto her bed, her head is pounding with a fading concussion and her leg burns with the betrayal of an officer's bullet.

She's had a bad night, one of her worst, the fact that she still has to fish said bullet out of her thigh and get ready for school in four hours doesn't make matters any better.

The masks comes off, leaving a crows-nest of brown hair and blooming bruises behind, Piper stashes it under her bed and works on getting the rest of her suit off. It's more difficult with her hurt leg, but she makes it work, balancing on the wall and biting her lip so she won't make any noise that might wake her Uncle.

The bathroom floor hasn't been cleaned in at least a week, Piper kind of regrets skipping her chores now that she has to sit on the tile half-naked with a pair of tweezers a needle and thread in hand.

It takes twenty minutes, but by the time it's done Piper is breathless, the new hole in her thigh is crudely stitched together and the white-tile underneath her is smeared with red. The teenager swipes up the floor as best as she can with her eyes falling shut, before hiding the bullet in her desk drawer for later disposal.

She feels numb inside, her mind is floating away, like this is a dream, a nightmare.

Hunted down by the police, shot at and threatened like she's some sort of terrorist, a criminal. It isn't fair, Piper's just trying to help, trying to make her city a better place, and New York hates her for it, the fact makes fifteen-year-old's eyes burn and her throat clog with sticky emotions.

But for right this second Piper feels hazy, her healing-factor causing her stomach to grumble with hunger, and the blood-loss making her eyelids heavy with exhaustion.

The teenager limps downstairs to scavenge through their leftovers, not bothering to turn on the lights as she trudges her way through the house and to the kitchen.

Her bright yellow sweater-dress hangs down the majority of her thighs, and her Captain America socks stretch all the way over her knees, she hadn't wanted to put pants over her aching bullet wound and wearing the oversized sweater makes her feel cozy and small.

Piper wants to feel small right now, the teenager is at a loss, alone in a way she hasn't felt in months, it makes her want to curl up under her blankets and just not exists for a while. The longing to hide away from her problems and pretend they aren't real is strong.

But that isn't an option for Piper.

She can't give up on being Spider-Man, Piper is making a difference, even if most people don't think so. It might not be in the huge and flashy way the Avengers save the day, but if Piper is able to save one person, is able to keep a family from being ripped apart, is able to protect a single person from having to lose someone they love…then she has to, she has to do all she can.

Piper has a responsibility because of her powers, she can't stop just because a few thousand strangers despise her.

Huffing a breath, the teenager makes her way to the fridge, opening it and slumping against the inside of the door as she starts rummaging through its contents. She ends up grabbing some meatloaf from the night before and stuffing it into her mouth as she grabs some juice and a few more items.

"Hungry?" A voice asks, and the lights overhead flick on.

Piper jumps, dropping a slice of pizza on her foot as she whips around to face Uncle Ben. "Hiya," she chirps, "I uh…midnight snack?" she tries.

Ben comes over and grabs the pizza off of Piper's sock, placing it on the counter as he lets out a worn sigh, the sound of it makes Piper feel guilty, Uncle Ben has had to take on a lot more since Aunt May passed away.

It's unfair to him, having to take care of everything on his own. Piper does her best to help, cleaning up the house and making dinner at night. But she overlooks things and falls asleep on the couch with a feather duster in hand; she burns their food or forgets ingredients because even with all of Aunt May's coaxing over the years Piper has never been a good cook.

It's been a struggle without May. One that both Piper and Ben had been completely and utterly unprepared for. The Parker household had always been a set of three, they had a system, a pattern that they had constructed and learned to navigate over the years- and it had worked.

But take away one of the main gears…and the remaining pieces spin out of sync and with no rhythm. Piper and Ben have been doing their best to find a new tempo, but it's hard when the machine has been left fractured.

"I saw the News tonight," Uncle Ben says, he grabs two cups from the draining-rack by the sink, pouring them both some apple juice, taking a sip of his own as he watches Piper from the other side of the counter with soft blue eyes.

The teenager tries her best to act nonchalant, but Piper's always had a bad poker-face. "Oh yeah?" she asks, "The Fantastic Four do something amazing?"

"Spider-Man was shot," Ben discloses, his tone is regretful, sad as he looks down at his drink. "The NYPD tagged him, and Spidey took a pretty bad fall." He looks at Piper here, she can't help but feel pinned down under his gaze. "No one's sure if Spidey made it away alright, but the police haven't found him either."

The blood rushes to Piper's ears, and she feels too cold and too hot all at the same time. The meatloaf in her mouth suddenly turns to dust on her tongue, and her fingers fidget with the hem of her sweater anxiously, just above the place a bullet had been not an hour earlier.

"Oh," Piper finally breathes out, the sound hushed. "That's-that's too bad." The fifteen-year-old breaks eye-contact with her Uncle, staring at her heaping pile of food instead. "I hope he, uh, got away okay."

Uncle Ben leans against the countertop, he's wearing an 'I 3 NY' t-shirt Aunt May had gotten him as a joke. "I was worried," he says, "felt sick to my stomach."

Piper still can't look at him, Uncle Ben has always known her so well, has always been able to tell when something is wrong or when Piper is lying, if she looks at him it will be over, he'll know.

"I'm-I'm sure that Spider-Man is okay," she says, trying to reassure her Uncle not to worry.

Because she is fine…mostly. Her lungs feel constricted whenever she sees a police cruiser or hears the wails of sirens, and lately, her nightmares are filled with the people that are supposed to protect her, but she's fine, really.

If she keeps saying so, maybe someday it'll be true.

Uncle Ben doesn't say anything for a moment, causing Piper to finally glance back to him; and when she does, his eyes look lost and a little too glassy, his lips pinched together as he whispers, "are you?"

Piper's breath hitches in her chest and all the air is swiftly stolen from her lungs, her mind spins in a frantic panic of excuses and explanations. But looking at her Uncle, watching as his eyebrows pinch together in quiet concern, it makes all the energy abruptly drain out of Piper.

And suddenly Piper is on the floor, her eyes burning as she babbles almost incoherently. Apologizing for lying to him, for not telling him, for going behind his back. Somewhere within her hysteria Piper finds her face smushed to Ben's chest, she can't place when he sat on the floor with her, or when he pulled her in, but it makes it better, it makes this terrible, awful night a little less suffocating.

Piper doesn't feel like she's as alone anymore like the world is going to swallow her up.

Once Piper starts talking, it's like she can't stop. She tells Ben everything, she tells him about her powers and how May's death was all her fault, she tells him why she became Spider-Man and how the city's hatred for her hurts to her very core.

Uncle Ben doesn't interrupt, he doesn't push for details or ask for clarification, he just holds Piper through it all, and when the teenager finally runs out of words, he says, a little choked up, "I am so, so proud of you, sweetheart."

They take the next day off, both sleeping until noon and not daring to change out of their pajamas. They end up snacking on junk food and watching all of the Indiana Jones movies (not the fourth one, the fourth one is banned from the Parker household).

It's a light carefree day, though they do talk a bit more about Piper's Spider-ing.

Piper shows Ben her suit, displaying all the little details she included, and showing off the voice modulator she made. Ben in return asks to see the wound in Piper's thigh, but when she lifts up her sweater-dress the only evidence of last night is freshly puckered-pink skin and her crappy crisscross stitches.

They make some slightly burnt chocolate chip cookies from May's recipe book in the evening and eat the whole batch, washing them down with mugs of milk; dusty VHS tapes of their family playing quietly in the background.

Piper dozes on the couch, wrapped in a knitted blanket from May that the teen does her best to imagine is one of her Aunt's hugs. Her Uncle Ben's fingers playing with a few strands of her unruly hair the whole time.

And on the TV plays some fuzzy footage of when Piper was a two-year-old- dressed up in an Iron Man costume and Ladybug rainboots, clearly having dressed herself that morning.

Aunt May, Uncle Ben, and Mary Parker sit on a picnic blanket watching a little Piper run around pretending to be Tony Stark; a man, Richard Parker, chuckles behind the camera as the toddler trips over her boots and tumbles into Aunt May's lap.

It's all of them together and carefree, more than a year before Piper's mom and dad died, and over a decade before Aunt May was taken away. Piper squeezes Uncle Ben's hand at the realization, they are the last ones, the last Parkers.

Piper vows to do anything in order to keep her Uncle safe.

Piper's trying her best to catch her breath, hidden behind a brick chimney far up where no one can see her, hunched over her bony knees and panting raggedly through her spider-mask.

Spidey just stopped a bank robbery and it was all the hero could do to get in and out before the NYPD showed up and decided it was time to play another game of Pin the Bullet on the Spider.

She had just barely gotten out of there in time, and at this point, the fifteen-year-old isn't sure if this is just her lungs resetting after her hasty getaway, or the start of an anxiety attack.

So, it is at this unflattering moment, of course, that none other than The Human Torch lands behind Piper, because the universe freaking hates Piper.

"Wow dude," the blond says, cocking his head to the side as he lets his flames fade away. "Do I need to like- call the paramedics, or…?"

Piper spins around, thankful for her mask, because if she looks anything like she feels… "H-holy- you're-you're Johnny Storm," Piper laminates because her brain to mouth filter has been broken for years.

"The one and only," Johnny replies, his smile is as bright and perfect as it is on TV, straight white teeth and tanned skin that still seems to glimmer with residual sparks. (Piper's little nerd heart can hardly take it)

The fifteen-year-old's brain stops for a cluster of seconds, she may have a slight- a slight, crush on the Human Torch. But who doesn't? Piper also kind of has a crush on Thor- and so what if she has Fantastic Four and Avengers merch comingling in her bedroom- and who cares if she has a posture of Johnny Storm above her desk- this means nothing!

Except that Piper never thought about the possibility of running into and sequentially having to talk to her long-time idols and or crushes.

Which means, she has absolutely no idea what to do in her current situation.

"Um," Piper fidgets, wringing her hands together before she remembers she is not Piper Parker nervous high school student; she is Spider-Man mysterious vigilante in spandex.

The teenager abruptly straightens up, trying to make herself taller and more confident looking. "What are you doing here?" Spidey asks- and then it hits her like a ton of bricks-

She is a Wanted Criminal, Spider-Man has been resisting arrest for weeks now, people don't see Piper as a good guy, in the eyes of the justice system she has taken the law into her own hands and should be punished accordingly.

Spidey's hackles rise, her shoulders squaring and her stance becoming something more defensive. If the Human Torch is here who's to say the rest of the Four aren't around the corner waiting for Piper to hightail it out of here so they can gang up on her?

Piper can take on some D-lister baddies, she has no problem beating up muggers and rapists. But there is no way in heck she'll be able to take on the Fantastic Four. Piper's not even sure she could hold her own against one of the Four.

"Whoa," Johnny says, taking a step back from Spidey, putting his palms out in a none threatening gesture, apparently discerning Piper's abrupt attitude change. "I don't want to fight you dude," he goes on, "I just uh," the blond rubs at the back of his neck, smirking as he admits, "I think you're pretty cool and I wanted to meet you."

Piper feels her brain sizzling.

"I mean," Johnny shuffles here, looking slightly uncomfortable. "I've followed you even before people had a name for you, so when I saw ya in the area…I don't know, I just thought I might as well try to catch up with you."

Johnny seems earnest, giving a little shrug as he takes a seat on the edge of the building, smiling a bit crookedly at Spider-Man. He looks like he belongs there lounging high above New York in his blue jump-suit. But Johnny Storm probably wouldn't look out of place in a McDonalds wearing a tuxedo, so…

Piper works her jaw a few times, trying to remember how to speak English, then how to form sentences or where her tongue is. It takes her an embarrassingly long time to find her voice.

"You're not here to arrest me?" she feels the need to reestablish.

"Nope," Johnny shakes his head, popping the P on the end.

"Because-because I can tell when you're lying," Piper says in a bout of awkward courage.

Johnny looks puzzled for a moment, his eyebrows pinching together. "Oh, so you're like another Daredevil?" he inquires.

Piper hasn't met Daredevil, and she has no idea what kind of powers he has- lie-detector or mind reading apparently. "…yes," she says anyway.

"Okay," Johnny pulls out the second syllable, looking slightly amused. "Well, I'm not lying, so."

Piper nods once, feeling something unclench in her chest as she concludes she won't have to fight one of her crushes/heroes today, she doesn't think she could deal with something like that right now, she feels wrung out and spent as it is.

The teenage girl shifts awkwardly before she decides to take a seat, but there is no way in heck she's gonna sit right next to Johnny Super Model Storm, so Piper just plops herself down on the ground and folds her legs under herself.

(It is only then that Piper realizes she still has no idea what to say or do. The fifteen-year-old swallows dryly, her brain isn't helping her at all, none of the information or thoughts in her head are useful in this kind of scenario, knowing the majority of Bruce Banner's research on Gamma Radiation, or the basics of Quantum Physics means absolutely nothing when faced with a cute boy)

Suddenly Piper doesn't know what to do with her arms, does she fold them? Or-or put them in her lap? What do boy's do with their arms? Do they…do they move their arms differently from girls?

Oh god, why has Piper never paid attention to boy's arms before!?

The fifteen-year-old tries to gather herself, she takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment before she decides not what Piper Parker would say in this situation, but what Spider-Man would say. "Well, hello Johnny Storm," Piper says with the most confidence she can muster. "I'm Spider-Man."

Somehow Johnny appears even more like sunshine at Piper's introduction, he smiles wide and beaming, his face absolutely lights up as he gives a little chuckle, before saying, "nice to meet you Spidey."

Oh lord, Piper's lost her words again.

Piper ends up talking to Johnny The-Sunshine-Child Storm for over an hour before she excuses herself, she then proceeds to fangirl internally as she watches Johnny flame on and fly away.

It is only when Piper's down in a dirt-ridden alleyway changing back into her homemade Stranger Things t-shirt and galaxy jeans that she realizes she can't tell anyone that she- Piper May Parker, got to have an hour-long debate with Johnny Storm over the pros and cons of the new Star Wars trilogy, because no one in their right mind would believe her.

"Dang-nab-it," Piper hisses.

Piper trudges through another day of school, barely able to keep her eyes open as she makes it from one class to another. Her hair is swept up in the worlds messiest bun, her upper cheek still a blooming purplish-green color, her top lip split and scabbing over from the punch she hadn't been able to dodge last night.

The teen's working on two hours of sleep, and she must look it too; she had dressed herself in her midmorning delirium without opening her eyes, and that's why Piper's in her pants with the flowers and a NASA t-shirt, with her mismatched socks sticking out of her brown flats with the big straps.

Because Piper is a disaster and she shops at thrift stores.

Everyone side-eyes the fifteen-year-old throughout the day but Piper just shrugs it off, thinking it must be due to her unusual appearance. She looks like she lost some sort of bet, or maybe like her closet chewed her up and spit her out.

It isn't until Flash corners Piper outside after the last bell, that the teen realizes it wasn't her wardrobe choice people were whispering about and gawking at today.

"Someone beating you up, Parker?" Flash demands, he's blocking Piper's path, effectively trapping the fifteen-year-old between a brick wall and his broad chest.

Being provoked by Flash doesn't feel as intimidating as maybe it should though, Piper thinks she's just too exhausted to congeal up any sort of emotion other than Dead-On-Her-Feet and Done-With-The-World.

If you can categorize those as emotions really.

"Why would you care?" Piper asks, normally the words might have been more snappish, but right now they come out subdued and drained.

Flash glares, but there's an underlying worry there, some sort of sentiment Piper hasn't ever seen on Flash before. Piper doesn't understand why the bully seems to be playing the good guy all of a sudden, there's no reason for it.

"Who is it?" Flash asks, he sounds angry, now that is a familiar tone. "Someone's hurting you, tell me who."

Oh, what do you know, looks like Piper is still capable of feeling emotion after all. "Why do you care what is or isn't going on with me Flash?" Piper snaps, indignant. "You don't like me, in fact over these past four years you've made it really clear that you hate me."

Flash splutters, leaning heavily into Piper's personal space, even when he's trying to be considerate or protective or whatever the heck this is, he still uses his height to intimidate, how lovely.

"I might pick on you, Parker," Flash hisses out through clenched teeth, "but I don't hit you, it not right to hit girls-"

Piper's eyes burn with frustration and she shoves Flash away from her, letting some of her super-strength slip in her anger, the bully looks shocked but not hurt as he stumbles from Piper's push.

Piper glares up at the boy and practically yells, "it's not okay to hit anyone Flash!" A few other students waiting to be picked up, turn at the commotion, but Piper ignores them, there is no room left in her to care about what other people might think of Piper Parker standing up to Flash Thompson.

"It's never okay to hit anyone, boy or girl!" Piper says, her hands in fists at her sides, she can feel her nails digging little half-moons into her palms. "It doesn't matter what a person looks like they're still a person!"

Flash glares harder, his lips a thin line, Piper can hear him grinding his teeth in agitation. "That's not what I meant-" he starts, but Piper is so done, she is so beyond done listening to him, it is her turn to talk.

"You beat other boys up all the time," Piper spits, but she isn't shouting anymore, "are you telling me that if I had different anatomy you would start shoving me into lockers? Or if Thomas Choi was a girl you'd finally leave him alone?"

Piper huffs, she wants to pull out her own hair, she's just so freakin'- so freakin' mad. She's been watching Flash hurt other kids for years, and Piper's been picked on by Flash since Middle School, and now he's acting like he has a right to care!? To ask Piper if people are hurting her just because she's a girl? Because he sees her as small or weak or in need of protection?

Does that mean if Piper were born a boy Flash would be the one giving her bruises? Instead of asking her who was the one doing the punching? If Piper were actually the Spider-Man everyone thinks her to be, would anyone even notice her gradual spiral?

Shaking her head Piper swipes at her burning eyes and hoists her backpack higher on her shoulders, she's done with this conversation, she just wants to go home where she can hug her Uncle and hopefully take a nap.

Flash still doesn't say anything; his face has gone a little blank, his eyes masked over. Piper isn't sure what to do with that, hasn't ever dealt with a silent Flash Thompson before, usually, he's loud and has no sense of personal space, Flash is all big talk and harsh words, without those things…

Well, he's not Flash.

Piper takes a few steps away from the boy, staring at her one striped sock and her other yellow bee one before she glances over her shoulder and in a near whisper asks, "do you think Spider-Man thinks about the person's age or gender or race or anything else before he saves them?"

Flash doesn't look at Piper, doesn't even move when she delivers the words.
But Piper hadn't really been expecting anything else.

When Piper finally takes the scissors to her hair it seems like it should be a much bigger deal than what it turns out to be.

She hasn't cut her hair since she was twelve (save for the at-home trims) it reaches her lower back, and with her spider powers it seems to grow even faster, if she let it, her dark hair would be at her hips within the month.

But Piper has learned that long hair and hero-ing do not coincide. Her hair ends up a tangled nest from the mask, and it gets in her mouth and eyes if she doesn't put it up beforehand (which she doesn't always have time for).

Plus, Piper's never really known what to do with her hair. She hadn't needed to learn, Aunt May had always been the one to put it up in intricate braids or buns, playing with Piper's hair while they watched movies or before school.

But without Aunt May around, Piper's hair has become more clumps of tangles than actual hair.

It's time for it to go.

Grabbing Aunt May's old sewing scissors, Piper locks herself in the bathroom and climbs up onto the small counter, sticking her feet in the sink. She has a picture of a bob haircut taped to the mirror for her to refer to, and her hair is down in two ponytails, ready to be chopped off.

"How hard can it be?" Piper mumbles to herself, taking a breath and bringing the scissors up to one half of her hair.

"Sorry Aunt May," Piper whispers, and then she's cutting the clump of hair, having to saw through it a bit before she is left with a detached ponytail of brunette locks.

The fifteen-year-old holds up the half of her hair, it's about the length of her forearm; and as she glances at her uneven mop in the mirror, Piper worries for a moment that she might regret chopping off her own hair at two in the morning.

But when she sees the choppy shoulder length hair on her left, compared with the long hair on her right- all she feels is an odd giddiness, one that fills her chest and makes her smile as she saws through the right side as well.

It's a very Mulan-esk moment really.

All she needs now is a talking dragon.

By the time Piper is done, her hair doesn't quite touch her shoulders, and it almost resembles a bob, it's a little choppy, and probably uneven in the back, but somehow that almost makes it better, it suits her, she thinks.

It's mismatched and a little odd, but it's that way because Piper did it herself, because Piper took that chance, just like she's been taking chances over and over again.

It's empowering in a way.

The next morning when Piper makes it downstairs Uncle Ben smiles at her, giving her a tight hug and a peck on the top of her head as he asks, "why the haircut, kiddo?"

The teenager squeezes back, -always taking mind to remember she is stronger than him now- and resting her head on her Uncle's collarbone as she says. "I just needed a change."

Ben doesn't say anything for a moment, the two just standing together in the low light of 7:00 in the morning, before he says, "I like it." He lets the silence go on for another second before he holds Piper at arm's length and studies the haircut. "It makes you look older."

Piper gives a shy smile, cocking her head to the side before she asks, "is that a good thing?"

Ben smiles, letting go of his niece as he heads to the kitchen for breakfast. "Means I'm an old man," he says, "and time flies by quicker than you'd ever imagine."

Piper follows her Uncle to the table, rubbing her leg with the toes of her sock as she waits for Ben to finish.

"Just don't go growing up too fast on me," Ben says, chuckling with it, his blue eyes twinkling.

"Promise," Piper says, smiling softly as she carefully doesn't mention the fact that she grew up the moment Aunt May fell to the pavement, that the innocence bled from her as May's life spilled over, leaving Piper's hands stained red in a way she can never wash off.

Piper's sat in third period when she hears a far-off explosion, the windows rattle with the vibration, and a few of her classmates jump in surprise, but once the initial 'boom' has passed no one seems to think much of it.

Just another day in New York evidently.

But Piper can hear the car alarms and the screams of people, her spider-sense is a low hum at the base of her skull, a tickle that crawls down her spine and makes her shiver in her seat.

Piper raises her hand abruptly, banging her knee on the underside of her desk as she stands, saying, "I need to go to the bathroom," before Mr. Harris can even reply.

Piper's out the door of Midtown High and running down the street before she's really registered it, scrambling into an alleyway and changing into her spider-suit as quickly as she can.

When Spidey finally swings into the battle people are already on the scene. But it's not just the NYPD or the fire department, no, it's Iron Man and The Black Widow.

Iron Man zooms through the streets, firing off one repulsor shot after another in what looks to be effortless precision; Black Widow takes down one-two-three baddies at once, using their own weapons against them more times than not.

Piper stares awe-struck and shocked for a moment from her perch on a rooftop before she snaps back out of it, taking a step back and shaking her head to herself. Well, clearly, they don't need Spider-Man's help- maybe she'll even make fourth period.

The fifteen-year-old goes to leave, shooting out a web and twisting around- when something flies by and slices cleanly through her web. Piper stumbles as she catches herself, her knees knocking together; it's only when the teenager spins around to find freakin' Hawkeye approaching her that she realizes it was an arrow.

Piper shoves her fangirling down for a later time and hopes to god she comes off as some form of a grown man, maybe she should have practiced a bit more, she feels unrehearsed, it's a cluster of having stage fright and being star struck that clogs the teenager's throat and makes Piper's stomach drop all at the same time.

"Why, hello," Piper greets, and for some reason, she bows, because she sucks and doesn't know how to properly human.

Hawkeye raises an eyebrow, Piper would like to say he looks amused, but it's hard to tell. "Spider-Man," the man acknowledges- lord above, Hawkeye just said Piper's name.

Uncle Ben is going to be so jealous.

"Fancy meetin' you here," Spidey says as she shoves down the urge to fidget with her fingers, she opts to lace them together and place them behind her head in her best act of nonchalance.

"Looked like you were about to take off," Hawkeye notes, he spins his bow around his deft fingers, Piper can't figure out if she's utterly impressed or a little threatened by the action, probably a mixture of both.

"Well I mean you guys seemed to have it covered," the teen says, giving a wink with the statement. She feels out of her element; Piper Parker is not meant to converse with Super Heroes. (Does Not Compute)

Suddenly there is a weighted presence behind Piper that has the teenager's hairs standing up, it takes an embarrassing amount of effort for the fifteen-year-old to stay rooted to the roof and not scattering up the nearest wall.

"Hello," the Black Widow says in the most mundane voice Piper's ever heard in her life.

It's all Piper can do not to choke on her tongue, though she does splutter a few words resembling something close to English, they don't really make it through her voice modulator.

Both of the Avengers have the decency not to mention it.

Piper is dying on the inside.

"You're shorter in person," Hawkeye mutters, the abruptness of the statement catches Piper so off guard she finally takes her eyes off of the daunting and mesmerizing Black Widow.

"…Thanks," Piper deadpans because she isn't really sure what to say, not just to that unwarranted observation, but in this general situation as a whole.

"Don't mind him, he's still working on his people skills," someone says from above, and then Iron Man is landing on the rooftop not ten feet away from Piper.

What even is her life?

"So, what's this," Tony Stark motions to the four of them gathered on the rooftop with a dismissive hand wave. "Little meet 'n greet?"

Hawkeye folds his arms over his chest and shrugs. "Spotted him hangin' around, it's about time I met Queens' Spider-Man."

Piper feels butterflies burst in her stomach and flutter up into her chest, the teenager shifts on her feet, biting her lip so she won't say something stupid.

Silence stretches on for a moment and Spidey can feel the awkward babble making its way up her throat, the teenager knows she's being sized up, but her spider-sense is quiet, they may be planning something, but no one is making a move yet.

"So," Hawkeye finally breaks the silence, "what's your deal?"

The question is so simple that it throws Piper for a moment, the teenager shifts, giving a one-shouldered shrug as she answers. "Um, saving people?" it comes out uncertain, Piper tries to fix it. "I want to help people."

She doesn't add on the 'like you' that sits on the tip of her tongue because that might come off as childish or immature and Piper's already struggling with being the opposite gender, she doesn't need to make matters worse by causing people to be suspicious of her age too.

"I have eyes on you," Iron Man states, his face is visible, but he isn't looking at Spidey, it's a little unnerving. "Keep up the good work and we'll be in touch." And with that, his face-plate goes back into place and Iron Man grabs Hawkeye by his quiver-strap and flies away.

A second later Spidey hears the roar of a motorcycle engine and watches gobsmacked as the Black Widow speeds away, Piper whips around to the place the woman had just been on the rooftop, completely befuddled.

How even?

It's the most epic thing Piper's ever seen in person. She wonders if they rehearsed it or if they're just that in sync. She honestly isn't sure if any of that just happened, it all seems like some sort of fever dream really.

It takes a moment for Piper to pick her jaw up off the ground, and it is only when she finally calms down a bit that Iron Man's words truly sink in. He has eyes on her…Tony Stark is monitoring Spider-Man.

Piper presses her hands to her masked mouth in something akin to horror, "holy cheese," the teenager whispers, dismayed.

The next time that Piper sees Johnny Storm he's flamed on and grappling against some flying Doombots, the rest of his team/family is there with him, fighting along with Johnny and talking over their comm-link as they take down one Doombot after another.

The Thing is on the ground ripping the robots' limb from limb while Mr. Fantastic goes about shutting them off with some sort of device he has to stick to their head-plates. Piper assumes The Invisible Woman must be fighting somewhere also, but she can't exactly see her.

Spidey takes a breath and flips off of a building and collides with a robot in the air, grabbing at its neck and trying to rip the wires out as the bot screams, "DOOM TO YOU ALL!"

"Wow, cliché much?" Piper asks as the robot tries to taze her, its fingers coming up and swiping at Piper's head. The spider crawls onto it's back and pries it's neck open, "huh, these look important," she says as she tugs a handful of wires out.

The Doombot goes lifeless and plummets to the ground and Spidey takes the opportunity to cackle and jumps onto another one.

Johnny flies down as he burns another robot to a crisp. "Hey Webs," he greets, his smile is wide and twinkling, and the boy looks great even with his swollen lip and bleeding nose, Piper tries not to focus on the fact.

"Nice of you to join us!" Johnny calls as a Doombot tackles him through the air.

Piper shoots a web at the bot and yanks it away from Johnny. "Heard they were having a sale on Doom, couldn't miss it."

It goes on like that for a while, Piper jumping from one Doombot to another, tearing their wires out before she moves to the next one. Webbing them up and trying to avoid their tazers as she flips around and dodges attacks from all sides.

It isn't until Piper lands on the ground near Dr. Richards that she realizes just because Johnny likes Spider-Man doesn't mean the rest of the Fantastic Four will.

"You shouldn't be here," Mr. Fantastic says, his voice is strained, but that might be because his arms are stretched out and wrapped around three Doombots. "Go home Spider-Man."

Piper stops long enough that she gets tackled to the ground in her shock. Her mouth has gone dry all of a sudden, her stomach clenching from more than the electricity coursing through her body.

"Yeah squirt," The Thing says as he yanks the Doombot off of Piper and literally tears it in half. "We got this handled."

Piper forces herself to her feet and swallows around the lump in her throat as she stares up at some of her long-time heroes. "I'm here to help," she says, her voice comes out weaker than it should, she's supposed to be a grown man, not a high school girl. "I want to help," she tries again.

"We don't support vigilantes Spider-Man," Dr. Richards goes on, the same Dr. Richards that Piper had been obsessed with when she was ten, the same Dr. Richards that a young Piper had learned from even before he became Mr. Fantastic.

"Are you saying that you'll arrest me?" Piper can't help but ask, the battle with the Doombots doesn't feel as chaotic as what's going on inside of Piper's chest, her heart and lungs battling it out as fear-induced adrenaline feeds into her bloodstream.

Mr. Fantastic pauses for a moment before he looks squarely at Spidey. "That's not our job," he says, "but that doesn't mean we desire to associate with you."

Suddenly The Thing stomps toward Piper, the teenager's never been scared of The Thing before, hasn't ever had a reason to be, but with the rocky man towering over her she feels her breath stutter on a shaky exhale.

"Don't mean we won't deal with ya if we have ta either," he says, the hint of a threat is clear, and his clenched fists don't allow any room for argument.

Piper scrambles back, grabbing onto a bricked wall and hoisting herself up before she slings out a web and swings away. Ignoring Johnny's call of, "Spidey!?" as she flees the scene, bolting from the Fantastic Four because they too think Spider-Man is a criminal.

As soon as Piper gets home she tears her Fantastic Four posture off her wall and throws her F4 themed lamp-shade in her closet, stuffing her science journals by none other than Dr. Reed Richards under her bed and tossing her Ben Grimm action figure out the window.

It doesn't make her feel better, it doesn't make the sense of betrayal lessen or the unfairness of this all go away.

But when Uncle Ben knocks lightly on her bedroom door, hands full of ice cream sundaes and a sad little smile on his face, Piper remembers she's not all alone in this, is reminded that even if the whole world is against her, at least she has someone that's proud of her.

Piper puts up an Iron Man posture in place of the Fantastic Four one, it hangs between her Black Widow poster and the smaller one of Johnny Storm that she pointedly left untouched.

She makes a DIY Captain America lamp-shade to replace the old one, that goes unsurprisingly well with her Avenger themed blankets. Ben observes the changes with a fond smile and asks if Piper will make him a Captain America lamp-shade too?

For some reason, that makes Piper feel better.

It's been long enough that Piper just kind of assumed people didn't care about her random cuts or bruises anymore. She's been going out and fighting crime since the middle of September, that's almost seven months of Piper showing up to school a bit worse for wear.

And at this point, Piper is less sloppy while fighting, most the time her face is okay even when she's limping from a sprained ankle or breathing stiffly due to broken ribs. But all it takes is slipping on her glasses and hiding in a big sweater and Piper goes right back to being invisible.

The fifteen-year-old is pretty good at hiding in plain sight, it doesn't take much when no one's eye has ever been drawn to her in the first place.

That's why it catches Piper so off guard when she's pulled from gym class and into the principal's office for no apparent reason.

"A lot of people are concerned," Mr. Clark intones, he leans forward on his elbows and gives Piper a sympathetic look over his desk.

Something unsettling and slimy wiggles around in Piper's gut, she shifts in her seat to calm it down. "I'm fine, really Mr. Clark," Piper insists again, all too aware of her swollen cheekbone and slightly puffy lip.

"I'm inclined to disagree Miss Parker," the principal says, "I've had staff and students come to me in concern for your wellbeing, and I can see why."

Piper goes to tug on her hair only to realize it doesn't fall over her chest anymore, she settles for picking at her sweater sleeve. "I skateboard, I fall down sometimes," she lies, Piper is good at skateboarding and with her enhanced senses, it would take no less than a bulldozer to knock her over.

Mr. Clark leans back in his chair with a heavy sigh, he looks tired, but Piper can't find it in herself to feel all that bad for him, she's tired too and this conversation isn't helping any.

"It's not only my job to educate Miss Parker," he goes on, "I have a duty to make sure the students under my care are safe."

He pauses, and Piper holds her breath for some odd reason, the office suddenly feels stifling, the air becoming heavy with the words Mr. Clark carefully chooses next.

"Do you understand what I am saying?" the man goes on, "if you need help you can come to us, we'll protect you."

There's a pressure behind Piper's eyes as her chest seems to collapse on itself. No one can guard Piper against the monsters she faces, some of those monsters' wear navy blue and guns on their hips, others are literal monsters with eight mechanical legs or green fiery skin.

No one can defend Piper against those things except for herself, it doesn't matter that she's fifteen or small, because those are monsters she helped create and they are monsters that she has to deal with alone.

But that isn't what Mr. Clark is talking about; no, Mr. Clark is referring to domestic abuse, a whole different kind of monster, one that Piper will never have to live through.

"If you need a safe place to go, there are people we can call," Mr. Clark goes on.

Piper feels choked up and wrung out, her insides covered in slime and gunk leftover by this conversation. But she needs to hold herself together until she leaves Mr. Clark's office, bursting out into tears isn't going to help her convince him that she is okay, and Piper's never been a good actress or lair in the first place.

"I don't need a safe place," Piper says, her words are softer than she'd like, it makes her miss her voice modulator, it makes her wish she was hiding behind the mask where people may hate her, but at least they think she is a capable adult.

Sometimes other's belief in you can make you believe too.

Unfortunately, the same goes for people's doubt.

Mr. Clark doesn't say anything for a moment, his hands folded under his chin as he takes Piper in; her striped sweater that used to be May's, but no longer smells like her. The teen's choppy self-done haircut and thick-rimmed glasses that slip down her thin nose, what a picture Piper must make.

"If that changes you can come to me, or any of the other teachers here," Mr. Clark insists one last time.

Piper leaves Mr. Clark's office with a promise that if she changes her mind she will talk to an adult and seek help. Her words of 'I will,' and 'thank you' stain the teenager's tongue and make her feel queasy with a sense of guilt like she's betrayed her Uncle Ben by voicing such things.

Piper stuffs her hands in her pockets and drifts through the rest of the school day.

That afternoon Piper marches down to the nearest drug store and buys the best concealer she can afford.

Piper's never liked makeup all that much, she has always looked at it as a thing for special occasions or for those days she wakes up looking a little more lifeless than usual.

She hadn't ever pictured herself going out and buying it of her own free will without cosplay in mind. Or at least some sort of dance like homecoming or something equally as fancy where Piper might consider stepping up her game.

But Piper is going to do everything in her power to never have another discussion like the one with Mr. Clark again, and if putting on a little bit of concealer is what it takes to protect Uncle Ben's reputation.

Well, then that's what Piper's gonna do.

Spidey is idly pushing herself back and forth on a rusty swing-set after a run in with some guy calling himself The Shocker, and then sequentially the police, when she sees Johnny Storm again.

"How did you know I was here?" Piper asks, still swaying back and forth, the chains give a high-pitched squeak every time she moves, but the fifteen-year-old doesn't want to stop swinging, because the moment she does she'll have to deal with reality -with the glass in her side and her broken toes- and maybe it's childish, maybe it's dumb, but Piper doesn't think she can do anything more than slowly sway in the wind of 3:00am, so that's what she's gonna do.

Johnny gives a somewhat sheepish smile as he shrugs, saying, "I've maybe been stalking all social media that talks about you."

Something flutters in Piper's stomach, she does her best to shove it down. "W-why?" she stutters out.

Johnny plops himself onto the swing next to Spidey, jostling the whole rickety frame before smiling as he says, "I don't exactly have a way to contact you, Webs."

Piper hums, glancing to her throbbing toes as she asks, "why do you want to contact me?" she doesn't look at Johnny, can't force her eyes off the bark-dust under her feet. "I'm pretty positive your family doesn't want you talking to me."

Johnny pauses on the swing, not speaking for a moment before he says, "I'm eighteen, an adult, it doesn't matter what my family thinks."

Piper huffs, finding the resolve to finally look at the other. "They're your family, of course, it matters what they think."

Johnny starts pumping his feet, going much faster than Piper's lazy back and forth. "Well, what about what I think? What if I think you're cool and I don't care what other people say?"

Piper watches as the blond swings beside her, the chains squeaking loudly with Johnny's weight. Here's this boy, one who lives in a Skyscraper with a team of other Superheroes, a boy that models for fashion magazines and can be with whomever he wants.

And he's sitting here, at a falling apart playground, with a wanted vigilante.

"But," Piper starts, at a loss, "you're Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, you can be with whoever you want- can go or do whatever you want, why do you care about meeting me?"

Johnny abruptly stops his swinging, digging his boots into the woodchips. He just looks at Piper for a moment, not saying anything. "Because. Because you keep going out and saving people even though no one appreciates it because you keep throwing yourself into danger even though no one has your back."

Piper swallows hard, her chest is tight, her eyes a little bit misty. She's looked up to the Fantastic Four since they became a thing three years ago, she watched Johnny Storm grow up fighting bad guys and taking names alongside the adults, he was part of the reason Piper thought she stood a chance at being a teenage hero.

And here he is saying exactly what she needed to hear.

"So, you have my back?" Piper can't help but ask, it comes out soft, the sounds of New York traffic in the background.

"I got your back Spider-Man."

For right this second school is pretty great; sometimes it can feel like a prison that Piper is suffocated by, other times school feels like her only source of normalcy.

Piper kind of bounces back and forth with how she views school, but today it just feels nice to be here.

The students buzz with a hyper kind of energy that almost feels contiguous as it spreads through the air. Everyone is excited about Spring Break and Piper is right there with them, she is gonna take this next week and catch up on some well-deserved sleep and maybe go see a movie with her Uncle.

It's going to be awesome.

"Hey, Parker," Flash waves as he slams his locker shut. Normally Piper would be readying herself for some sort of verbal attack, but Flash hasn't said one single hateful thing towards Piper in weeks.

And from what Piper's heard, Flash hasn't been beating up the other boys either.

Miracles do truly happen people.

"Yeah?" Piper asks, turning to face the boy. Flash is wearing a Spidey t-shirt, the spider symbol stretched over his broad chest in a way the real one never will on Piper, it's ironic really.

"I was wondering…" Flash hesitates for a moment, shifting his bookbag on his back before he stares Piper dead in the eye. "I was wondering if you're doing better? If you're okay now?"

Piper bites at her lip and rolls to the balls of her feet uncertain. Piper is sure that Flash is one of the students that talked to Mr. Clark about her hypothetical abuse, but she still hasn't figured out why.

Sure, Flash isn't bullying Piper anymore but that doesn't make them friends either.

"Cause," Flash goes on, his tone lowered even though there is no one else in the hall. "I know what it's like," he says, "so if you ever need it, I got your back."

Something just sort of 'clicks' in Piper's brain, a lot of things about Flash Thompson suddenly make sense. Piper hadn't ever thought about what made Flash the way he is- was. She hadn't considered where his anger might have come from or why he acted the way he did.

And now Piper knows why Flash went to Mr. Clark, and why he confronted her the way he did.

"I'm okay now," Piper says in a soft voice, glad for the concealer covering a bruise on her forehead and the glasses carefully placed over a cut on her nose.

Flash nods, he looks relieved in a way Piper's never seen him, and the fact that it's because of her well-being makes something like protectiveness settle heavily under her clavicle.

"Good," Flash says as he turns to leave, headed for the door and to a home that Piper can't help but feel concerned about.

Flash is halfway down the hall when Piper finally finds the words she wants to say. "Hey Flash," she calls, waiting for him to turn back around. "I've got your back too," Piper says in all seriousness, "you need me and I'm there."

Flash doesn't say anything for an instant and for a brief pause Piper thinks he might laugh at her offer or slink her off, that he might reject it because she's small and a girl- instead Flash smiles and says, "don't doubt it."

Spring Break whirls by in a messy blur.

Piper spends the first half of it lounging around the house in her pajamas and eating loads of junk food, interspersed with her going out as Spider-Man and kicking some bad-guy butt.

She even teamed up with Thor.

Which, by the way, was the most glorious moment of Piper's whole existence.

Thor had called her a 'small but mighty warrior' and then he had patted Piper so hard on the shoulder she fell right over, it was amazing and Piper lays awake at night thinking about how her life led up to her meeting and interacting with Freaking Thor!

She still can't believe it.

Of course, somehow Spider-Man had still gotten backlash from it, the Daily Bugle had taken some candid photos and claimed that Spidey and Thor were actually fighting one another rather than together.

Which is completely and utterly ridiculous, Thor could kick Piper's butt into the next millennia, there is no way in heck she would last in a battle against him, the Bugle isn't even trying with their slander anymore.

C'mon Jameson, pick it up a notch!

Yeesh.

Piper is also glad to say she caught up on her homework and has even slept a decent amount, she's like a real human…it's an odd phenomenon only happens every few years or so.

Then it was just a nice weekend with her Uncle Ben, the two of them caught a movie on Saturday and walked around as they ate from some random food-carts that had a good chance of giving them food poisoning but was delicious.

The highlight of the week was Sunday though; the two of them went and planted some flowers in Aunt May's garden and in the large pots that sat on their porch. It was the first year that May wasn't there to direct the gardening, and while that was bitter-sweet, it would have felt wrong to leave her gardens colorless when they had always been blooming this time a year.

When they finished -covered in mud from when they had thrown it at each other and crashing from too much sugary lemonade- Piper and Ben cleaned themselves off and drove down to the graveyard.

Piper had picked out a small flowerpot that she thought May would have liked, and then Ben and she planted some purple irises (May's favorite) and some yellow lilies (Ben's favorite) and arranged them together so the purple commingled with the yellow, (the same arrangement they had had at their wedding.)

Piper had placed the flowerpot right under May's grave before she walked to the next two plots and set down one lily and one iris each, for mom and dad- her fingertips brushing over every stone as she walked back to her Uncle.

The sun was just kissing the horizon, bathing the sky in a soft pinkish orange as Piper and her Uncle Ben stood there for a moment, his arm wrapped around the teenager's shoulders, and Piper's head resting on his collarbone.

"They would be proud of you too," Ben had said, his head lowering to rest on top of Piper's. "Your parents, May, they would all be stunned by the young woman you've become."

Piper's eyes had throbbed, her chest clamping down so hard it almost felt like a physical jolt. "You think so?" she had murmured back, staring fixated at the little flowerpot in front of Aunt May's grave.

Ben had squeezed her shoulders, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head before he placed his cheek back on top of her hair. "I know so."

Piper's on her way home from the grocery store when a car goes flying through the air and crashing into a nearby building.

"Seems about right," the fifteen-year-old mutters as she starts running, stuffing her bags of food into her backpack as she pulls out her red and blue. "Why look for danger when danger just seems to come for me?"

Webbing her backpack to a nearby fire-escape Spider-Man flips through the air and swings around a few buildings- her breath catching when she hears a loud roar of rage that can only belong to one person.

Scampering up a skyscraper window Piper feels her eyes go about the size of dinner plates, "holy guacamole," the teenager whispers, "it's the Hulk."

Down below the Hulk picks up another car and throws it at a foe, or at least Piper hopes it's a foe. Hulk is on their side, but everyone still knows that it doesn't take much for Big Green to lose his cool.

That's when Piper sees a few things at once- Hulk is, in fact, fighting an enemy; a large blob-like thing? (Man? Woman?) Whatever it is it seems to be alive, or at least it has built-in defensive instincts. Hulk's large fist sinks into its jello-like form, getting stuck inside as the creature tries to swallow Hulk all at once.

The other thing that the teenager notices, is that Hulk is not alone, to the right Captain America fights against a smaller piece of the sludge-monster, while Falcon flies through the air and shoots at it from above.

Piper swallows down her fangirling for a moment, trying to wiggle out some of her excitement as she swoops down to help in any way she can. This will be her first-time meeting Cap and the Big Guy- since Hulk doesn't come out much, and Piper has sorta kinda been avoiding Captain America.

Not because she doesn't like him, but the opposite really.

Piper has a tendency to talk too much when she gets excited. She can get a bit flustered when it comes to meeting her heroes/idols, and she has been a huge fan of Steve Rogers since she was a little girl. Even thinking about meeting The Captain America makes Piper want to simultaneously start singing and throw up.

And those two things do not coincide.

Yuck.

"Get stuck in a sticky situation?" Spidey calls as she lands on the ground, prying a manhole-cover off and attaching a web to it as she swings it up and into the blobby-creature, trying to get it to let go of Hulk.

Hulk's hand and forearm come out with a slick 'pop', making Piper grimaces. "Gross," she says, jumping away as part of the sludge comes for her, wiggling on the ground like a land-stricken fish.

"So, is this thing a person- or?" she calls as she scatters up onto a car and away from the slime.

Falcon flies close enough that Spidey can hear, "hey man," he greets, "nah, this stuffs sentient- but like a plant, not a person," he explains, dodging as the sludge throws some goop at him. "Rest of the teams comin', but until then we need to contain the thing." And with that, he flies back off to fight.

Spidey purses her lips, nodding to herself. "Non-living goop-monster," she mutters, stretching out a kink in her back before cracking her knuckles. "That sounds about right."

Keeping the sludge at bay isn't the simplest of tasks.

Piper has learned that her webs are pretty much useless on the creature, and they've all come to the conclusion that keeping it as one big mass is far easier to deal with than a bunch of little globs- even if it does cause more damage that way.

Also, trying not to get too close is the key. Piper learned that the hard way when the jello-monster swallowed her whole and the Hulk had to rip her out. He hadn't put Spidey down for a solid five minutes after he saved her, and Piper had found herself clutched in one of Hulk's meaty hands, dangling there like an abused (but loved) rag-doll.

Not her best moment.

But Piper thinks she and Hulk are buddies now so there is an upside to the embarrassment.

It's about thirty minutes of playing tag with the goop when backup finally arrives. Iron Man swoops down with Hawkeye, depositing the Archer on a nearby rooftop before he lands near Captain America with a 'clunk' of his boots.

"The Cavalry has arrived," Iron Man remarks, "and with new toys!" he adds as he starts tossing out rectangular objects. "These lil guys emit a sonic-rhythm on a molecular level- won't affect us, but point it at Mr. Blobfish over there and he'll implode," he explains.

Piper can feel herself having a coronary, she- Piper May Parker, is surrounded by the Avengers (minus Thor) and Tony Freakin Stark is handing out his latest invention to his teammates while he explains the science behind it.

Holy jalapeños.

"Sounds easy enough," someone says flatly, right next to Piper's ear.

Piper jumps, her heart going double time as she twists around to find Black Widow behind her, "how!?" Spidey asks, bewildered and feeling vaguely threatened, "and also why?!"

"She likes intimidating newbies," Tony Stark says, not missing a beat. "Alright everybody I made these specifically attachable for each of you- except you, Spider-ling didn't exactly know you were gonna be crashing the party." Clapping his hands together Tony's faceplate slides back into place and he rises above the concrete with a "get to work."

Piper wasn't sure how much help she would be without one of Iron Man's gadgets, but it turned out that she could help with rounding up the random pieces of goo, using herself as bait or lifting cars out of the way so Hawkeye could shoot his arrows at the sludge from above.

It all seemed to be going well until a couple dozen fragments of the jello-monster all came slither out of their hiding places to form a large blob once again, and maybe that wouldn't have been much of a problem on its own, but of course, the slime attacked the person nearest by.

Who happened to be Captain America.

Instead of just swallowing the Captain whole though, the monster spun around with the man still struggling inside of it, and spit Cap back out, sending the symbol of Truth and Justice flying through the air.

What Piper did next was more instinct than any conscious thinking on her part, her body just seemed to move on its own.

-The teenager shot out a web to snag onto the Captain and launched herself up into the air, her body colliding fully into the man as she caught him before grabbing onto the side of a nearby skyscraper and sliding to a halt; one of Piper's bony arms wrapped around Captain America's broad chest, her hand holding tightly to one of the straps of his uniform.

"Thanks for the save, son," the Captain says a moment later, not seeming perturbed at all, even if Piper was still holding his dangling form from ten stories up. "You've got some fantastic reflexes there."

Piper chokes on her next breath, Captain America just called her 'son', she is having so many mixed feelings right now- she's a girl so having Captain America call her 'son' isn't something Piper ever thought she needed, but holy cheesecake! This is the best moment of her whole life.

And-and he said her reflexes were 'fantastic', Piper doesn't think she has ever felt this much pride before, she kind of feels like she needs to lay down and process, her brain is going a little haywire at the moment- her face has gone numb.

"I don't think I've introduced myself yet," Cap says, "I'm Steve Rogers, it's nice to finally meet you Spider-Man, I've heard great things about you."

Piper's world is a dizzying blur, she can't seem to feel her body anymore.

"Uncle Ben! Uncle Ben, I have to tell you about my day!"

Piper is stressed, the school year is ending in a few weeks and she's in the middle of finals; her brain feels like soup from all the cramming she's been doing the past few days, trying to make up for all the things she missed when she skipped school to deal with the latest baddie.

Piper regrets her life's choices now.

Except that she really doesn't.

This week is going to majorly suck, but that's alright because it's going to suck in a totally normal run-of-the-mill teenager way; finals week is an ordinary thing to be stressed over, and since Uncle Ben asked Piper to hang up the spandex for this week that will be the only thing stressing her out for the next few days.

Being shot at by the police and ridiculed by the public really puts your priorities straight.

Piper lets out a sigh and gets back to reading her textbook.

Piper's headed for the subway, a smile on her face and a spring to her step as she happily hums 'Here Comes the Sun' to herself.

At this moment Piper feels like she could fly, she just got her test results back on all of her finals and she passed- sure it wasn't straight A's, but she didn't fail, and Piper is freakin' elated.

(Take that Jameson! – Piper knows that her lower grades have nothing to do with the News Paper editor, she just wants to shove her victory in his metaphorical face!)

Piper was even able to put on a color-coordinated outfit today- black jeans with a red slouchy hat that matches her converses, *insert horrible French accent here* and the 'pièce de résistance'- a sweater displaying the Avengers with the caption 'I Only Date Superheroes'.

Piper wears it ironically, obviously.

It's a good day, a great day even.

Which is exactly why the Universe comes in to smack Piper right in the face.

A manhole-cover near Piper launches up into the air and falls to the ground with a resounding 'thunk', a moment later a bunch of little weird yellow goblin-things start climbing out of the sewer, crawling over one another and running around the streets.

Piper blinks a few times, she feels a little resigned, a tad complacent, stuff like this just seems to happen to her now. Does the Universe really hate her? Is all of this just a result of her Parker Luck?

Who knows, Piper doesn't.

The teenager turns to find the nearest dumpster to change behind, her converses scraping against the ground as Piper dodges other New Yorkers and the little goblins- jumping over a few as they try to grab onto her legs.

That's when Piper's spider-sense gives off a dull warning right before a ball of fire smacks into her, sweeping her quite literally off her feet and flying her above the goblins pouring out of the sewers.

A strangled gasp escapes Piper's mouth as she turns to find Johnny Storm's face mere inches away from hers, their noses practically touching.

"Thought I'd help you out," Johnny says- his voice sounds deeper than it usually does- fake. "You looked like you could use a save."

Piper's stomach is bursting from butterflies if it's from the feeling of flying or being pressed closely to her crush- she can't tell. All she knows is- her mouth won't work and she is freaking out inside because Johnny is seeing her without her mask- and he has absolutely no idea that he and Piper have been hanging out off and on for months now.

Talk about a conundrum.

"I-I had it covered," Piper says, and maybe it would have been half convincing if her words didn't stutter on their way out. But no one can blame her, she is being carried bridal-style through the air by the Human Torch- she is simultaneously Living and Dying.

Help her.

Johnny laughs good-naturedly, still flying Piper away from the action when really both Spider-Man and the Human Torch should be down there fighting. Not that Piper can really voice those thoughts.

"Sure, looked like it," Johnny agrees, his voice sounds amused, a tad smug. "But maybe I just wanted to save a pretty girl."

Flat-lined, dead, diseased, gone.

Piper is no longer of this world.

Some spluttered verbiage makes its way out of the fifteen-year-old's mouth without her consent. Piper's ears are on fire, she's sure her face is no better- of all the times she has wished for her mask, this is in the top five.

Johnny sets Piper back on the ground after a moment, blocks and blocks away from where the little goblins are wreaking havoc (Piper can't find it in herself to care). Piper feels wobblily on her feet, unstable in an odd way as she stands bare-faced in front of Johnny Storm.

Johnny smiles brightly at her, taking a step back as Piper finds her footing. The two teenagers stand there for a moment, both just staring at each other before Johnny points vaguely to Piper's torso.

"So, does that only apply to the Avengers or?" he asks, sounding very, very pleased with himself.

Piper doesn't even have to glance down at her sweater to know it boldly states, 'I Only Date Superheroes'. Earlier she had thought it was clever and comical, now she just wants to sink into the floor.

Being flirted with by Johnny Storm is both highly embarrassing and shamelessly exhilarating- either way, it is an out of body experience.

"I-I don't discriminate," Piper chokes out.

Johnny laughs, a real laugh, not his hero-esc chuckle he does to be cool in front of fans. "Good to know," he quips before he flames back on, giving Piper a wink before he flies away.

Piper's knees are jello, the fifteen-year-old has to take a minute, getting her black jeans dirty as she sits on the sidewalk in utter and absolute shock.

It takes Piper an embarrassingly long time to remember she is needed, and that her internal freak out will have to wait for later.

"Thank you, Universe," Piper whispers into her hands.

It's a week before Summer Vacation when Johnny Storm finally convinces Spidey to come hang out with him at the Statue of Liberty.

They had just finished dealing with Sandman and Piper feels itchy and in need of a shower. But she'd much rather be here with Johnny, so sitting here with sand in her spandex is a sacrifice she's willing to make.

Johnny's laid back, his legs spread out and his arms pillowing his head as he watches the darkening sky, while Piper slips off one of her boots to dump out a pile of sand, letting it blow away in the wind.

"Dude," Johnny says, "you have super small feet," he notes.

Piper's back goes straight, she guesses she hadn't really thought it through when she slipped off her boots. Her mouth feels sticky as she searches for a response, guys seem to think that having small feet also means…

Ahem.

Piper puts as much offense as she can in her tone, "yeah well my feet might be small but I'm fine where it matters." Did she do that right? Does she sound like a boy? Oh heck-a-roonie!

Johnny snorts, "sure you are Bug, sure you are."

Piper lets out an internal sigh. Slipping her boots on and leaning back on her hands as she watches the city start to glow with thousands of lights, a sea of man-made stars flashing and twinkling over the rippling water below.

The silence stretches on for a few minutes, but it isn't uncomfortable, Johnny and Piper have been hanging out for about half a year now- long enough that they don't have to fill the quiet with words.

"Can I ask a question, Webs?" Johnny asks, more tactful then he usually ever cares to be. He sits up, now eye level with Spider-Man.

Piper can feel the warmth radiating off the other, some part of her imagines taking Johnny's hand and lacing their fingers together, stealing some of that heat for herself, warming up her cold fingers- and even after that, not letting go.

"Um," Piper swallows, unsure, "yeah?"

Johnny wiggles a little, showing his uncertainty. "I know your secret identity is important," he starts, "but I just…I was wondering how old you are?" The blond shakes his head, "or, I guess I was wondering if you were around my age?"

Piper doesn't say anything for a moment, hesitant to answer. Johnny knows how important her secret identity is to her, Piper even declined food because she'd have to lift up part of her mask while with Johnny. He, of course, didn't know that was because that would leave Piper without her voice modulator and with a clearly girlish chin exposed- but he must know that Spidey does her best to keep her two lives separate.

But Johnny isn't asking this to be nosey or for any ulterior motive, and Piper can understand why he'd want to know- they've become friends over these past few months, and some things, like age (and gender- but Piper doesn't want to get into that) are things that friends should know if they want to relate to you better.

Spidey takes a breath, fiddling with her gloved-fingers as she makes a decision. She may not be able to tell Johnny her name or sex, but she can give him this. "I'll be sixteen in August," she answers.

Johnny doesn't say anything for a long moment, and for a second Piper regrets telling him her age, her chest clamping down before- "you're fifteen!?" Johnny all but squeaks.

Spidey jerks, surprised, "well, uh, yeah?" she says, "how old did you think I was?"

Johnny splutters, a large unbelieving smile across his face. "At first I thought you were like twenty-five, but then I'd find you at playgrounds and stuff and I figured maybe you were like twenty."

"Oh," Piper mumbles.

"My family is convinced you're like thirty though, which I was really hoping wasn't true," Johnny goes on.

Spidey makes a choking sound that turns into a laugh, "they think I'm thirty!?" she asks, completely shocked.

"Yeah, there's actually a bet going on," Johnny says, lying back down.

Piper chuckles, mirroring Johnny as she lies sprawled on top of the Statue of Liberty. "Just tell'em I'm twenty-two and split the money with me."

"Deal."

It's officially been over a year since Piper started going out and beating people up at night, and in another two months, it will be the anniversary of Piper being named 'Spider-'Man'.

In one way it feels like it's been longer, being Spider-Man is such a huge part of Piper's life it's hard to believe it's only been a year. But on the other hand, May's death feels like it was yesterday like hardly any time has passed since she was killed.

Piper guesses it probably depends on the day.

Right now, it's a mixture, Piper thinks she's grown a lot as a person and as a hero over these months, she's learned what true responsibility is, what it's like to put your life on the line and have people hate you for it.

Those were some hard lessons to swallow, but Piper doesn't regret having gone through them, it's made her realize what being a true hero is, that it isn't about being appreciated (though that would be nice) it's about saving lives, about keeping families together.

Piper smiles over at what's left of her family, at Uncle Ben, getting a grin in return as the pair walk arm in arm, two ice-cream cones melting in their hands as they enjoy the warmth of July.

Piper rests her head on Ben's shoulder, something like nostalgia bubbling up in her chest as she takes a lick of her ice-cream, it's not every day that Piper feels normal, that she has a moment to just, breathe.

Piper's life might be complicated, but it's hers, and she'll protect it with everything she's got.

"Sixteen's a big one," Uncle Ben says over breakfast, munching on toast as Piper eats some watermelon. "A milestone," he tries, smiling conspiracy. "Think you're brave enough to start driving?" he asks.

Piper hums through her mouth-full of melon, pointedly ignoring the News Footage of Falcon, Hawkeye, and Spider-Man taking down The Leaper, playing on their small TV. It's funny that Piper doesn't seem to have a problem dealing with villains and teaming up with the Avengers, but when it comes to something as simple as driving she gets nervous.

And Uncle Ben seems to think that's hilarious.

"Nah-ah," Piper says, swallowing as her eye flicker to the TV- Spider-Man webbing up The Leaper and laughing at a stupid pun Hawkeye made. "Do you know how fast web-slinging is? I will never need to drive," Piper informs her Uncle.

Ben chuckles, "it's always good to be prepared," he says, teasing, "you should at least know the basics."

Piper scrunches her nose in distaste, "just don't blame me if I wreck your car," she mutters- hoping her spider-sense will help her behind the wheel…

The sixteen-year-old is taking a day to herself- eating leftover Chines on the couch, nursing a split lip and sprained ankle, and channel surfing when she stumbles onto a live-broadcast of the Avengers.

The team of heroes all stand united on a large stage, reporters and a mass of people surrounding them as Tony Stark and Steve Rogers speak into the microphones set on the large podium.

"We've come to speak out against the stigma aimed at a fellow hero," Captain America says, he looks disappointed, determined maybe. "A man that has not only helped this city time and time again, but that has saved many people, myself included."

Piper leans up on the couch, eyes glued to the screen, she feels jittery, hyper-focused on each word coming out of the two men's mouths.

"Spider-Man is a hero," Tony Stark comments, "and frankly we're all sick of the slander and contempt thrown his way," Mr. Stark leans up to the mic, taking a moment to look at the crowd. "Spider-Man is an honorary Avenger and should be treated as such."

The mass of reporters erupts all at once, so many questions being fired off that they all slur together to make one big disapproving rumble of voices.

Piper can't figure out how to breathe.

Black Widow makes her way up from the back, nudging Steve Rogers over a step so she can speak. Her hair a dazzling red and her green eyes daring the people to interrupt her. "We demand that the arrest warrant for Spider-Man be dropped."

Piper chokes, her fried-rice falling to the floor as can't help but jump up in complete befuddlement, her ankle protesting the movement as Piper paces on the spot.

The Avengers don't stay for questions, and they don't comment any further, the seven of them all disappearing off the stage once they've said what they came to say. The way everything plays out makes it seem as if they've laid down an ultimatum, one that the people better adhere to or what?

Piper's not sure, but that's the thing, no one is, no one knows.

And it is the fear of the unknown that gets people moving.

The arrest warrant for Spider-Man is dropped within the week.

If Spider-Man is later heard singing 'We Are the Champions' very loudly as 'he' web-slings through the city, well…no one can really say they didn't see it coming.

(Video(s) of it end up all over the internet; Tony Stark re-tweets it and the video compilation goes viral- Johnny will never let Spidey live this down, but Piper thinks that's alright)

Piper is out with her camera and channeling her inner hipster as she walks around the city snapping candid's and just people watching. It's a nice rarity to take an afternoon and just do nothing in particular.

The sixteen-year-old is in one of her most Summer-y outfits, a navy-blue skirt with sunflowers and attached suspenders over a red shirt, and her leather Retro Oxford shoes that she had found at a garage sale.

Yes, Piper is amazing at finding the best things at the cheapest of prices, it truly is a gift.

The teenager is in the middle of taking a photo of a bulldog and little boy running through the grassy part of the park when her spider-sense makes her spine go straight and ridged. Piper stops, blinking up from the scope of her camera as she scans the street around her, trying to pinpoint what's wrong.

There.

Over to her left behind a bench is an unattended backpack, a second later Piper spots another bag that's been abandoned by the fountain. The teen's breath catches in her throat as she walks over to the first backpack, the ringing in Piper's ears growing louder with every step she takes. The people around her seem to fade into the background as her spider-sense screams, her hairs standing up on end.

Piper's fingers shake as she leans over the bag to take a look inside, her stomach dropping and her blood turning to ice as she finds a mess of colorful wires and metal on the inside.

It's a bomb.

Piper stumbles away, almost tripping over her own feet in her haste. And suddenly the ringing in her ears becomes dull in comparison to the sounds of all the innocent civilians scattered around her. Piper needs to get these people to safety, she needs to save them, but things will only get worse if the crowd panics and tramples each other to get away.

This is so high above Piper's pay-grade.

The teenager starts running to the nearest alley, her dress-shoes slapping against the sidewalk as she dodges other New Yorkers while pulling out her scuffed-up cellphone and hurriedly dialing.

"911, what is your emergency?"

Piper feels winded, not from running, but from an all-encompassing fear- her whole body is trembling with the fact that she is only one person and there are so many innocent people in need of saving right now, there are so many families that could be ripped apart, that could be destroyed, and they don't even know it.

The sixteen-year-old isn't sure what to do other than call for help, she can't risk moving the bombs, and she isn't even sure how many there are, she only spotted the two, there could be dozens more for all she knows- their best bet is to evacuate.

Piper just hopes that there is enough time.

"I'm at Central Park," Piper says, her voice strained and a tad too high. "I found a bomb, and I think I spotted another." Piper's shoes slide across the asphalt as she makes a turn and ducks behind a dumpster, already slipping out of her clothes. "Near Bethesda Fountain. Please, please hurry."

Spider-Man is on the scene before anyone else, but that isn't a surprise.

Piper immediately goes to the first backpack and starts webbing off a large area around it, "please stay back," Piper says to the people around her, trying to use her best hero voice. "For your own safety I need you all to leave," she calls louder, trying to stay calm.

The people mummer uncertain, some of them glare at Piper, while others just gawk at her or even take pictures. Spider-Man might not be painted as a villain anymore, but that doesn't mean Piper is taken seriously either.

"You have to leave!" Spidey says more urgently, "please hurry and-" but her sentence is cut off as three explosions light up the sky, flames like fireworks and then smoke filling the air.

The New Yorkers around Piper gasp, some scream, others stare scared and confused at the sky. It was far enough away that no one immediately panics, no, that doesn't happen until another blistering crash goes off, this one much closer- debris raining down like tiny meteors.

That gets people moving, and Spidey is caught in the middle. Trying to make sure no one gets injured, and that children aren't separated from parents as the many people bump and smack into each other in a mounting panic.

And at the same time, Piper can't figure out what's happening. The first three detonations were far away, and the next one was close enough she could feel the vibration of it- but all four of the bombs went off while far up in the air, nowhere close enough to the ground to hurt anyone.

It's when Spider-Man is carrying a little girl- crying into Piper's shoulder and asking for her baba- that the police finally arrive.

"Please stay calm," one of the policemen calls over his car intercom. "The Avengers, Fantastic Four, and NYPD are dealin' with the issue," he says evenly, at the mention of the two hero teams people do seem to quiet down, but the terror still sits the air, filling everyone's lungs and making it hard to breathe.

"Please evacuate the city calmly, we have this covered," the policeman finishes, stepping out of his car and signaling for his other men to go take care of the bombs.

Spider-Man jogs over to the two squad cars, feeling breathless and off-kilter. "Officer," the sixteen-year-old greets as she gets in earshot. "What's going on? How many bombs are there?"

The little girl nuzzles Piper's neck, her tears having slowed, reminding Piper that she is still carrying the lost child. "O-oh could one of you use the intercom-thingy to ask if anyone is missing a little girl?"

At that another female officer takes the girl from Spider-Man's hands and calls out the girl's description over the comm, a moment later letting the little girl cry for her 'baba' in another language just in case her parents don't speak English.

That taken care of, Piper turns back to the policeman who seems to be in charge.

"We've been gettin' calls scattered 'round Manhattan," the older officer says, watching as bomb-squad deals with the two bombs Piper webbed off earlier. "We can't keep up, the problem 's half the bombs 're dummies, we can't tell which is which. S' we have ta treat every case with the same 'mount of caution- we're spread too thin, soon our luck is gonna run out."

With that the man stalks off, looking downcast and stressed as he rubs a hand over his mustache. Piper watches him go, her brain running on too much anxiety and too many theories, ones she can't even be sure will pan out in the end.

Out of the corner of her eye, as Spidey stands there at a loss and with no ideas, Piper spots a father and mother coming to collect the little girl Spidey had saved earlier. There are tears in the mother's eyes and another smaller baby wrapped against her belly, the father picks the little girl up with a relieved smile, thanking the police with a wave of his hand.

Piper can't help but feel pride bloom in her chest, she did that, Piper was able to help that family. But that might mean nothing if she doesn't act fast if she doesn't figure out a way to shut off these bombs and keep the rest of New York safe.

That's when Piper is struck by an idea.

Spider-Man swings through the city as fast as she can, flinching when one-two-three-four fiery explosions go off over her head- she just needs to get a hold of one hero, just a single super so she can-

Incidentally, a streak of flame flies through the sky at that moment- not residue from a bomb this time either. "Johnny!" Spidey calls to her friend, trying to swing higher so she'll be seen. When that doesn't work she aims a web-ball at the other teenager to get his attention.

Johnny dips down so he's closer to Piper, but he isn't smiling or even trying to look anything but haggard and worn thin. "Don't have time to chat Webs, we're kinda in a time-crunch here-"

"Wait-wait!" Spidey interrupts, having to web-sling double time to keep up with the flame-brain. "I need to talk to Iron Man," she pants, the sound of explosions has become background noise they are so constant- car alarms and screaming civilians are a little harder to tune out. "Is he connected to your comm?"

Johnny slows down, giving Piper an overly tired but assessing look as he floats in the air. "You have an idea," he says, not a question.

"I have an idea," Piper agrees.

"You're telling me," Tony Stark's voice comes out of Johnny's F4 watch- Piper holds her friend's wrist up to her face, has been for the last five minutes as she explains her idea to the Avengers and Fantastic Four.

"That you can tell which of these are about to blow," Tony sounds a little disbelieving, but mostly just curious. "With your…sixth sense?"

Piper nods rapidly, maybe a bit hysterically. "It's a danger-sense, a built-in defense-mechanism, it'll get louder when I'm near something dangerous."

As it turns out there are no 'dummy bombs' per say. As Dr. Richards and Mr. Stark explained all the bombs are built exactly the same, complete with explosives, the only difference is that some are set to go off, while others are not.

It's made it that neither Mr. Fantastic nor Iron Man are able to build anything that can distinguish the difference because really there isn't any. Which is why the heroes are scattered around the city throwing the bombs up above the buildings where they can detonate without hurting anyone.

But their lucks is already running out, from what Johnny told Piper two buildings have already been destroyed, (thankfully they were previously evacuated) but there will come a moment that a bomb goes off and they weren't fast enough to get everyone out in time.

"If you guys can track the bombs, then all we gotta do is bring me close enough to tell the difference and then we can take care of those bombs first," Piper insists, her body is filled with jitters, a need to help, to save as many people as she can.

"So, you'd be our metal detector," Falcon mummers over the line.

"Yes," Spidey insists.

"It's the best idea we have," Mr. Fantastic comments.

"I'm comin' to scoop you up, kid," Iron Man says, "if you're gonna do this you'll need to be fast."

Piper jumps in place a few times, getting herself pumped for what is sure to be a long, long night. Johnny gives her an odd look as she wiggles out her arms and legs, "let's do this," she says, taking a deep breath as she watches Iron Man approach.

It feels like a battle against time, one that is never-ending, the sun set hours ago, Piper isn't sure how long they've been at this, too long really. Her suit is starting to feel suffocating, the built-in binder is squishing her ribs, and her gloves have melted onto the pads of her fingers where she had lifted a too-hot piece of metal away from some ash covered civilians.

There is an endless supply of death-inducing bombs; scatted across the city, hidden within buildings and in bushes, under busses and against fire-hydrants, and Piper is only one person.

The rest of the heroes continue with tracking down the explosives and taking care of them in any way they can- The Invisible Woman incases them in her force-fields, while Hulk and The Thing throw them into the air- the others, like Mr. Fantastic, Black Widow, and Hawkeye work on getting the innocent to safety.

Meanwhile Spider-Man is passed along from Iron Man, to Thor, to Falcon, to even the Human Torch- they fly her to wherever they might need her at that moment, and the second Spidey says which bomb is going to go off the soonest, they take her somewhere else to do it all over again.

The NYPD work on getting the people out of the city alongside the supers, Manhattan seems to be the only place affected, but well, it's Manhattan, there are people everywhere. (Piper supposes that's the point)

The bomb-squad(s) work on disarming the explosives Piper deemed the most pressing, while the heroes take care of the ones set to blow at any instant. They're trying to do the city in a sort of grid-style to be more officiant, but as time goes on, it just seems that they can't get to all of the bombs before they go off.

Piper closes her eyes and takes a breath of char and smoke, trying not to think of all the damage that has been done to her city and its people.

Iron Man crouches down, beginning the process of disarming the bomb Piper just identified as active, a moment later Thor swoops down and scoops Spidey back up- no rest for the wary.

The man's hair is tangled and soot's smeared across his cheek, Piper's sure that she must look the same- tuffs of brown hair coming out a hole in her mask and a patch of too pale skin showing on her thigh.

"How do you fair Man of Spiders?" Thor asks over the wind, his voice vibrating against the teen's back.

Piper feels stretched too thin, she's running on fumes and her body is starting to really feel the wear and tear of this day. Adrenaline and will-power can only do so much when you've pushed your body too far.

"I'm alright," Piper tells Thor, patting his large arm that's wrapped around her to keep the teenager steady as they fly over the city. "I think I might pass out for a week once this is done though."

Thor gives a hearty laugh, Piper's body bobbing up and down with the man's chest. "Aye," he agrees, "I'd say you have earned that much my friend."

It's the middle of the night when they feel they've finally made some progress.

Spidey has been flown all over the city, has scanned and strained her spider-sense for so long and so hard that she can feel her brain pushing against her eyes and leaking out of her ears.

(Okay, that was maybe a little bit exaggerated)

At this point it seems they've gotten all the bombs that were set to go off, the explosions are further apart, and fire no longer fills the sky every few minutes. They only have a corner of the city left to check. After that, it will just be the bombs that were left untimed to take care of, and bomb-squad has already taken care of a large amount of those.

Piper finally feels like she can see a light at the end of this tunnel.

"Five more check-points and we're home free," Iron Man informs as he and Spidey sail through the night sky. "How you holdin' up, Webs?" Tony asks a moment later.

Piper gives a thumbs-up before she clings back to Tony's gauntlet arm. "I'm good," she calls over the wind, "ready to get this over with."

Iron Man makes an agreeing sort of sound, the noise comes out tinny through his metal mask. "Think we all are, kid."

Tony sweeps downward, the wind loud in Piper's ears. At the beginning of the night the motion had made Piper's stomach burst with butterflies and her breath stutter, now it feels as natural as web-slinging, filling Piper with a resolve and determination as they get closer to the ground.

"Jarvis says there are four in this abandoned apartment complex," Tony states, a few hours ago he might've explained more, might've told Piper how far apart they were or how she needed to get in and get out as fast as she could.

But they have a rhythm now, Spider-Man knows what to do, and Iron Man trusts that.

In a few days when all of this is over maybe Piper will take a moment to think about how she worked with all her heroes, how she had relied on them as much as they relied on her. But at the moment Piper doesn't feel like a kid playing dress up in the midst of her idols, she feels like a fellow in arms, an equal on the same battle-field.

"Got it," Spidey says as Tony lets her drop to the ground, the two of them entering the rotting down building with Piper in the lead. Iron Man shines his suit's lights so Piper can find the bombs easily- it's expected at this point, the two of them have worked together the most throughout all of this.

Piper's spider-sense rings loudly as she climbs up the stairs, but it's only when she enters the next room that it screams high pitched and deafening in her ears, her whole body going rigid as she turns back to Iron Man, "it's gonna go o-!"

But her words are abruptly cut off as the bomb explodes, and then an instant later, the other three, the first having set off a chain reaction.

She can't move, something large is pressing on top of Piper's legs and holding her in place, keeping her pinned on her stomach as she coughs and coughs against the dust and smoke that fills the air.

It's all the sixteen-year-old can do to take a deep breath, her lungs straining against her binder and the debris resting on her back. "I-Iron Man?" she calls, her words come out staticky and wrong, her voice-modulator must be broken. "Tony!?" she tries again.

Nothing.

Even if Piper wasn't buried under a bunch of wreckage she doesn't think she would be able to hear Tony if he called back anyway, her ears are ringing loudly, and everything feels muffled and sort of numb, like this isn't real, like none of this is actually happening.

"I-" Piper chokes on the word, gasping and wheezing down at the ground as the weight of the building and the encompassing darkness both press down on her. "I-I, I need help," she says, whispering into shadow. "I need help."

Piper shudders, squeezing her eyes shut against the wave of panic and the dizzying blackness. The right side of her face stings as she closes her eyes, and when the teenager presses a trembling hand to it she can feel the shards of a broken goggle-lens.

She only hopes none of the glass actually went into her eye.

Piper lays there unmoving and trying to breathe through her mounting terror for what could have been hours but was probably mere minutes. Time feels wonky and off, Piper thinks maybe she has a concussion.

Her body is throbbing and there is a growing warm wetness underneath her. Piper does her best not to think about it, to focus on her breaths and nothing else- not the weight or the darkness, not her injuries or her fear.

Just the air filling her burning lungs.

It's when the stickiness of blood as crawled its way up to Piper masked cheek when she can hardly keep her eyes open against the exhausted pull of her eyelids- that the rubble above her finally moves to let in light.

Piper can't quite swallow down the sound of alarm she makes, her body jumping slightly at the abruptness of the noise and flash-lights. The movement hurts, makes Piper aware of something stabbing into the back of her thigh, something else poking her sharply in the hip.

The smell of coppery blood makes Piper want to gag.

"Spider-Man?!" someone calls down through the hole. "We're here bud, just hold on."

Piper thinks that was Hawkeye, she wants to answer, to say something snarky like 'take your time,' or 'I'm not going anywhere,' but when she tries to form words nothing but a raspy noise escapes her throat.

It takes enough time for them to remove the rubble that Piper has swallowed down and coached herself through half a dozen panic attacks- but the hole is finally big enough for someone to lower themselves down.

"Hey there, son," Captain America greets as his boots scrunch on top of some drywall. "I'm gonna get you out alright?" he says calmly, crouched down near Piper, probably taking an assessment of her injuries.

Piper's tongue doesn't want to work, "kay Cap," she slurs out, her eyes gluing themselves shut as she finally gives into her exhaustion.

A strangled noise makes its way out of Piper's mouth as she feels herself being lifted up, there are hands on her, hands all over her, and they hurt- not because they are the ones doing the hurting, but because Piper is hyper-sensitive to every touch, to every move that her body is making without her consent.

She wants to rest, she wants the hands off of her, she wants the pain to go away.

Instead Piper finds herself at a dizzying angle, and then there is cold air and too many voices as she is set down on uncomfortable hardness, her head resting on something warm, something that keeps moving.

It takes a moment for Piper to be able to pry her eyes open but when she does she is greeted by the shapes and blobs of people, she can faintly make out Iron Man helping a disheveled Captain America climbing up from the wreckage.

And above her, "hey there, Bug," Hawkeye greets, "you're gonna be okay," he reassures, one of his hands grabbing something that Piper can't make out as he pulls at the hem of her mask. "I need to cut this off, alright?"

Through the fog muddling Piper's brain, she knows that that is wrong, her mask is supposed to always stay on, no one can know that Piper May Parker- that a teenager- that a girl- is Spider-Man.

"Nu-nh," Piper tries to get out, but her lips won't form the word, and her hands won't listen to her as she fails to grab at Hawkeye.

"It's just us here," Clint goes on, "no police, no civilians, just me, Cap, Tony, and the Human Torch, okay?" he says as he takes his knife and begins cutting through blood-soaked spandex. "You can trust us kid- I need to see how bad you hit your head. Where the blood is coming from."

The mask peels away, and with it, all of Piper's secrets.

The teenager can feel herself slipping, can feel the hands of unconsciousness dragging her into shadow. She was hardly hanging on in the first place, staying awake is a losing battle.

Right before Piper drops off again though, she sees the look of utter shock on Johnny's face as he crouches next to her; sadness or maybe that's disappointment creases lines on his forehead, makes his lips turn downward.

"Oh, kid," someone mutters as Piper passes out.

When Piper wakes up she feels like she's been hit by a truck- which has literally happened to her, so, she has an actual frame of reference.

Not many people can say that.

It takes the teenager a moment to open her eyes and when she does, not only does Piper find that she has absolutely no idea where she is; unsettling, yes? But that she isn't alone either; terrifying, yes?

"Hello," Black Widow greets, and Piper does not squeak, she does not.

"Uh," Piper says eloquently, "hi?"

"How do you feel?" the woman asks, standing up from her chair across the room and taking a few cautious steps toward Piper.

Piper's throat is sticky, her chest tightening uncomfortably. She feels naked and found-out without her mask, vulnerable and far too human as herself. This wasn't supposed to happen; no one but Uncle Ben was meant to know Piper was Spider-Man because it would change things, it would change Piper's relationships with people, and it would change Spider-Man's friendships as well.

And it seems it already has because it isn't Clint that stands at the foot of Piper's bed with a loose teasing smirk; it isn't Tony who sits here with a raised eyebrow and a dig about wearing nothing but spandex while in a fight.

It's Natasha, it's the Black Widow, someone Piper's only traded a few words with because the woman is an enigma to Piper, a mystery, and if Piper is being frank about the situation, she's pretty sure Black Widow doesn't like her.

But it is Natasha who is here, not one of the others, and that in itself already shows the swift change Piper's unmasking has made.

"So," Piper starts, fiddling with the light blue sheets. "Did they send you in?" she asks, staring down. Are the others uncomfortable with her now? Unsure where to walk on unfamiliar ground?

Widow takes another careful step before she sits at the foot of Piper's bed, it should feel intruding, daunting to be so close to the Black Widow, but having the woman at eye-level is better, less intimidating.

"I asked to talk to you alone," Widow informs.

Piper picks at her nails, they're cracking, she needs to cut them before they split from a punch. "Why?" the sixteen-year-old asks.

Natasha shifts slightly on the bed, getting more comfortable. "I knew that you were hiding something," she starts.

"The mask was an indicator probably," Piper says, not looking up from her hands.

Widow doesn't seem perturbed by the interruption. "Clint saw it too," she goes on, "the contrasts to how you move when you think no one's watching."

Piper wiggles, feels the catch of bandages on her legs and hips rubbing against the sheets- and dutifully doesn't think about being treated and dressed while unconscious. "You knew I was lying about being a man?" the teenager asks.

"Not necessarily," Widow says, her voice is soft, holding a tired note in it, or maybe Piper's just imagining that. "The team figured out as a whole, that you're young. It was just Clint and I that saw more."

Piper finally looks up, and she has a moment to think about how odd her life is, sitting here injured in the Avenger's Tower and having a discussion about her alter ego with Black Widow. "Okay?" she prompts, not understanding.

"My point is," Natasha says, leaning a touch toward Piper, green eyes flickering over the teenager's face. "We knew that you were hiding something, and we still fought with you, even put our lives, our trust in you. Knowing your face doesn't change that."

Piper swallows against the cotton in her throat. "The Avengers…" she begins, "they don't care?"

Natasha's lips pinch for a second, "that you're a woman?" she asks, "no. That you're sixteen? Yes."

Piper suppresses the urge to defend herself and her age. "So, what happens now that you know?" she has to ask, worried that they might try to ban her from the mask because she's too young.

"Nothing will change that you don't want to change." Natasha smooths out her sweats, and now that Piper's looking she realizes that Black Widow is in a purple Hawkeye T-shirt and yoga pants, it makes her look so normal. Piper's never really seen any Superheroes as just themselves, it's odd, but at the same time, it makes the sixteen-year-old feel less self-conscious about herself.

"Now that we know who you are, we can help," Natasha goes on, bringing Piper out of her musing. It's getting hard to focus, to form words; Piper glances down at the IV embedded in her arm and figures that has something to do with the spreading numbness going through her body. "We can be more involved," Widow finishes.

"Involved?" Piper quirks an eyebrow.

"You need training," Natasha levels the teenager with a look, "and more than one safe place to go. Now that we know, the Tower, the team can be one of those places."

Piper's eyelids are getting increasingly heavy, her thoughts running together as she tries to place everything Black Widow is saying. But through the drugged haze Piper has one resounding thought.

"And my identity?" the teen asks, she needs to make sure, needs to know that she and her Uncle are still safe.

"Stays with us," Natasha doesn't hesitate to answer, doesn't so much as blink.

Piper drifts away feeling more stable than before.

This time when Piper wakes up she is alone and no longer feels like she got run over by a school bus.

Her legs shake when she places her bare-feet to the carpet, but it only takes Piper a moment to regain her balance (thank you Spider powers) she's clearly in a guest room rather than a hospital, which is always preferable.

The bedroom is large, with floor to ceiling windows and an amazing view of New York below. Other than the bed and a chest of draws the room is bare for the most part; though there is a full-length mirror that the teenager heads for, wanting to check out the damage for herself.

She's in gray sweatpants and a Stark Industries t-shirt, (that she intends to steal) her bare-feet sticking out of the too long pants. Her stomach and ribs a yellowish green color, white bandages wrapped around her right thigh and hips.

Piper's hair is greasy and in dire need of a washing, knotted and sticking up in places, it's the worst case of mask-hair she thinks she's ever had. But her face doesn't have any ash on it, her fingers have been treated for the burns she acquired in battle.

In truth, Piper feels a lot better this time waking up.

The sixteen-year-old blows out a raspberry, fidgeting as she glances at herself in the mirror. She's about to meet all of her heroes again, this time without a mask as a buffer, it's a little (lot) nerve-wracking.

But there is no way she is walking out of this room without at least trying to make herself look a tad less like a scarecrow. Piper nods encouragingly at herself in the mirror and hopes to Thor one of these doors leads to an attached bathroom.

Face washed and hair as good as it's gonna get without an actual shower, Piper squares her shoulders and walks out of the bedroom.

"Please head to the elevator," a disembodied voice says, making Piper jump. "Sorry to have startled you, Miss. I am Tony Stark's AI, but you may call me-"

"Jarvis," Piper finishes, awe-struck, "oh man, this is so cool," she whispers to herself.

"I am glad you think so. The rest of the group is gathered on the common floor, they are awaiting your input on where to order in lunch."

Piper stares up at the ceiling, "they're waiting for me?" she asks, her voice small.

"Of course," Jarvis says promptly, "the Avengers were very worried for your well fair, Spider-Man," the AI informs, using her hero name. "And may I say what a relief it is to see you recovering so quickly."

Piper blinks a few times in shock, "I-I have a healing factor," she mumbles.

"Sir put that together, yes," Jarvis says, because of course, obviously, they would have figured that out- what with them having to deal with Piper's unconscious and injured form.

Apparently, the sixteen-year-old was standing there for too long because the elevator doors open by themselves and Jarvis says, "I will be happy to escort you to the common floor." Because he is a program and too nice to tell Piper to pick her jaw off the floor and get movin'.

"R-right," Piper responds, stumbling forward onto the elevator, chewing on her lower lip as it descends.

The instant that Piper steps off the elevator she doesn't so much as get to glance around before the teenager is swept off of her feet. Giving a somewhat startled yelp as she automatically clings to Thor.

"How do you fair my young friend?" the blond asks, holding Piper off the ground but somehow not aggravating any of her injuries.

"I'm-I'm good Thor," Piper says, breathless, patting the large man on the arm as he swings her from left to right in the best bear hug she has ever received. "Just give me a few hours and I'll be good as new."

"Well you don't look like roadkill anymore," Clint says as he walks up to greet the teenager, noogie-ing her hair as she dangles from Thor's grip. "So, I'd say that's an improvement."

Piper mockingly kicks at the Archer, he dodges it effortlessly.

Thor sets the teen down after a few minutes and Piper is greeted by the rest of a team in a blur of a movement, hands on her shoulders or patting her back, smiles and nods from everyone; and then somehow Piper finds herself being prodded toward the large L-shaped couch, a blanket magically draped over her shoulders and the Avengers all taking their own seats around her.

Piper's still not sure how this became her life.

It's when the team is stuffed full of Indian food, rice spilled across the coffee table and too hot curry making Sam cough and Tony's eyes water, that the companionly silence goes from relaxed to serious.

Piper feels slightly drowsy from a combination of a stuffed stomach and pain-meds, her head lolling on a couch cushion that someone had discreetly slipped behind her. Any other day Piper might've argued against being babied, but the teen kind of thinks she deserves a breather after the whole bomb debacle.

Piper still feels like she's in a dream or that maybe she is the dream. It hasn't set in, almost like everything that's happened -The bombs, working with the Avengers and Fantastic Four, getting buried under a building, waking up in Avenger's Tower with Black Widow, eating lunch and arguing with Falcon and Clint about the new Star Wars 'Solo' movie- it all feels like it's happening to someone else.

Because it's utterly crazy and completely insane, it's nerve-wracking situations that are both traumatizing and mesmerizing, it's out of body experiences that leave her whipped but fulfilled. It's getting to be someone different, someone brave and courageous and willing to put themselves on the line for others, but at the same time, it's become who Piper is too.

It's getting to play pretend in a world that Piper never thought she'd belong and learning that somewhere along the way it stopped being pretend and became what Piper is.

A hero.

And this, right here, sitting in the Avengers Tower surrounded by her idols, wrapped in a Hulk blanket and listening to Black Wid- Natasha hum a tune under her breath, watching Dr. Banner show everyone up with how spicy he can take his food, that's just another aspect of a hero's life.

Piper's life.

"Does anyone else know?" Tony Stark asks from across the coffee table, he's balanced on the arm of a chair that Dr. Banner sits in, their legs bumping into each other.

Piper twists the edge of the blanket with nervous fingers, her bare-toes sticking out from under it. "My Uncle," she discloses. "No one else."

"Good," Tony nods, sounding somewhere between relieved and proud.

"We don't want you to feel that we see you differently now," Captain America says from his place on the floor, one of his legs folded under him his elbow resting on his other knee as he gestures. "But you're young, and we can't overlook that."

Piper bites the inside of her cheek, nodding as she tries not to think of all the eyes on her, spies and assassins, geniuses and soldiers taking in Piper's bony joints and small figure, her too round cheeks that scream of immaturity, her ratty hair and bruised eyes.

"I won't stop," Piper says, because it needs to be addressed, it needs to be spoken aloud. "I can't." She shakes her head to herself, thinking of all the little differences she makes; minuscule in the scope of what the Avengers do, but huge when it comes to those families affected.

And without Piper, without Spider-Man, who is going to fight for the little guy?

Piper won't quit, not when the NYPD turn on her or when people look at her with fear or hatred, not when the Daily Bugle prints horrible things about Piper or people throw trash her way.

She can't ever stop, because Piper has a responsibility to all the people who can't protect themselves and Aunt May's blood will never wash away from her hands.

"We're not asking you to stop Spi- Piper," Sam says, correcting himself in the middle. "We just think there's more to be done here," he says softly, leaning forward to be seen from behind Thor's bulk.

"We wouldn't ask you to stop, Webs," Clint comments, "we're not idiots," he says with a slight chuckle. "If all of New York hating your guts couldn't get you to stop then how the hell are we supposed to?" he teases.

Natasha kicks him in the thigh.

"We would like to make you an offer," Cap- Steve picks back up without missing a beat. Blue eyes intent on Piper. "A few months back we said that you are an honorary Avenger, but we never formally asked you."

Piper feels herself freeze, her fingers pausing in their fidgeting and her lungs no longer breathing. This is what all of her sacrifices, all of the bullet wounds and sleepless nights, the lying and sneaking around, has led up to.

Piper has always wanted to be a hero, years ago when Tony Stark announced himself as Iron Man, back when they fished Captain America out of the ice, even when New York was attacked by the Chitauri and Loki.

Piper has grown up with these people's faces on the TV and plastered to her bedroom walls, she dressed up as them and dreamed of being them. And here Piper is, having them ask her if she'd like to become one of them, fight with them, laugh with them, continue growing up with them.

"That's your cue, kid," Tony mock-whispers when Piper makes no move to answer.

"Yes," Piper blurts, feeling her ears go red a moment later and not caring at all. "Y-yes, of course, yes," she stutters out, pressing the blanket and her hands over her mouth as the magnitude of this situation sets in.

Her excited and shocked babble gets a few chuckles out of the group, but none of them are mocking, just amused in a soft sort of teasing way.

"Well, alright Spider-Man," Steve stresses the last word, a smirk on his face. "We'll there are a few guidelines that you'll have to follow," he starts, telling Piper what she'll need to do.

When Piper finally stumbles through her front-door back in Forest Hills, the sun is setting behind her and she's still covered in bandages and wearing borrowed clothes.

Uncle Ben comes rushing out of the kitchen to meet her, worry in his eyes and questions on his lips- Piper wonders what it must have been like for him, to sit watching helplessly as parts of New York caught fire; to be contacted the next day by the Avengers, only to be told Piper was injured in the battle and was still recovering.

Guilt builds up in Piper, thick and scorching; apologizes for making him worry, for causing him to lose sleep burn in the back of her throat. But Piper holds the words in for now, allows herself to take this one moment.

Because right now she's falling into Ben, wrapping her arms around her Uncle and just clinging, pressing her nose to his chest and finally taking her first real breath since she saw that abandoned backpack in Central Park.

It's been just under a week since the bombings -and Piper's sequential unmasking- when a message is branded into the sky for all of New York to see.

'the usual place' it reads.

Piper stares at the words long enough that the letters fade and dissipate in the sky. Her chest feels tight with just the thought of going to see Johnny. It feels different with him, the Avengers and Piper had previously teamed up together sure, but other than some traded banter and teasing that was it.

Johnny and Piper are friends, they've kicked bad guy butt together and limped away from the fight, they've talked into the night on rooftops and swing-sets, they've laughed over memes and stupid things, they've gotten close over this past year. So, it feels bigger for him to know Piper's secret, it's like her lying about being a girl to Johnny is somehow worse.

More of a blow.

Piper's fidgeting with her phone, debating with herself on whether she should go, when another word sears itself brightly into the Summer sky.

'please', it says.

Piper gets her suit.

Piper hasn't had the time or the money to make herself a new suit, so she has to resort to her old one, sweats with a sloppily drawn spider, a red ski-mask, and her old knee-high converse boots.

The sixteen-year-old might've had it in herself to feel embarrassed of her crappy costume if she wasn't already internally freaking out about talking to Johnny in the first place.

It's almost evening when Piper finally gets there, and her hands shake from nerves when she starts scaling up the slightly damp copper of the Statue of Liberty. The climb to the top feels both horribly short and dreadfully long.

When Spidey pulls herself up onto the head Johnny is standing across from her. He's in his bright blue suit, his back armor straight and not looking relaxed whatsoever, his blinding smile isn't anywhere to be seen.

There's an awkward pause where Piper's stomach tries to commit suicide and she has to swallow against it as she chocks out a, "hi," in her real voice, not Spider-Man's, this suit doesn't have a voice modulator.

Johnny takes a breath and answers, "hey," quietly, but not stuttered like Piper.

There's a few long seconds of silence before Piper pulls off her mask to reveal knotted curls and brown eyes as she says, "I-I'm Piper Parker," she starts because she doesn't know where to begin. "I'm sixteen and I go to Midtown High School of Science and Technology. I-I live with my Uncle it's just the two of us- and-and I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, but I hadn't told anybody (well except my Uncle, but that was an accident) and maybe I should have told you, but-"

Johnny cuts her off, "why didn't you say anything that day with Moleman and his Moloids?" he asks, shaking his head. "I was being a total idiot and you just played along!" He might've meant it to sound accusatory, but the laughter coloring his voice ruins the illusion.

"What was I supposed to do?" Piper asks back, giggles sparkling into her mouth, "web you in the face and tell you to put me down?"

Johnny's full-on cackling, "I made such an ass out of myself, and then you just came swinging back in, acting like nothing happened."

"Well I'm suave like that," Piper smiles.

"You are not, you're a total klutz," Johnny throws back, "you can walk on walls and still you somehow trip over your own feet, it's ridiculous."

They banter back and forth for a few moments, teasing each other and closing some of that unneeded space between them until they are both smiling bare-faced and relieved that nothings changed.

"I'm sorry that you had to find out like that," Piper says once they've calmed down.

Johnny sits, his legs sprawled out as he gives a shrug. "I understand. I was worried when I hadn't heard anything from you though. The Avengers said they'd take care of you, I just…" he trails off.

"Yeah," Piper agrees as she takes a seat next to the blond, her legs crossed as she fidgets with her mask in her lap. "I'm…I'm sorry about that."

Johnny glances over to Piper, a soft smile on his face. "You healed up quick," he comments, "can't even tell what happened."

Piper smirks, "see, I told you my powers are better than yours," she says, smug.

Johnny scoffs, faking offense, "I can literally fly, dude, nothing beats that."

"I can lift a bus!"

"I control fire!"

"I am literally part spider."

"That's not cool, that's disgusting."

"Oh my god, this again. Johnny, Johnny, listen to me, the science behind that is absolutely amazing, you cannot te-"

Epilogue-

Piper stuffs her books into her locker and starts speed walking to the exit, dodging the elbows and shoulders of the other students as she pulls her backpack up higher.

She's about to shove open the doors when someone stops her.

"I didn't think ditching was really your thing Parker?" Flash asks, leaning against the opposite door and giving Piper a raised eyebrow.

Flash is nicer now, mellowed out and real. He smiles more and has friends, not the fake kind that could turn on you at any second, ones that have his back, Piper's glad.

Piper herself isn't exactly Flash's friend, but she wouldn't say they couldn't get to that point either.

"I've got the Stark Internship," Piper smiles back.

Flash's eyes go wide as he gives a small gasp. "How'd you score that?" he asks.

Piper shrugs, "just got lucky I guess," she answers, and how very true that statement is.

The bell goes off overhead and Flash makes a face, "I gotta get to class," he says, "see you later."

Piper pushes out the door, "bye Flash," she calls as the door slams shut behind her.

The sixteen-year-old is running for the subway when her phone goes off, she fishes it out of her pocket as she dodges the path of a speed-walking businessman talking adamantly on his Bluetooth.

Light O Life- "hang out"
Light O Life- "?"

Pipin' Hot Mess- "cant. Training today."

Light O Life- "﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿ O'RLY?"
Light O Life- "sux. Forgot that was on Wednesdays"

Pipin' Hot Mess- "tomorrow?"

Light O Life- "meet you at Stan's Hotdogg stand"

Pipin' Hot Mess- " (⌒▽⌒) "
Pipin' Hot Mess- "7. We can patrol"

Light O Life- "c u then"
Light O Life- " ^̮^ "

"You need to be able to at least aim a gun," Clint says, showing Piper how to hold the pistol. It's cold and foreign in her hands, the bang of a bullet being shot rings through Piper's ears, her throat feels sticky as she pushes the memories away.

"I'm more the type to throw the gun at a person, than y'know, actually firing it," the sixteen-year-old says as she lets go of the weapon, wiping off nonexistent blood from her hands onto her workout pants.

Clint makes a face, "I, am, ashamed," he says, making sure to over-pronounce each word.

Piper sticks her tongue out at the man.

He does it right back.

Natasha sweeps Piper's legs from under her and the teenager falls to the matt with a puff of air.

"You good?" the redhead asks from above.

Piper nods, lifting herself up and rubbing at her sweaty brow. "I'm good, let's go again."

Piper's been trying to learn a certain move from Natasha all afternoon and she is not stopping until she gets it, even if Sam and Steve are laughing at her from the corner of the room.

Saturdays and Wednesdays are the days that Piper trains with the Avengers, it's part of their agreement. If Piper wants to be an Avenger, be a part of the team then she needs to work on combat with them twice a week and wear her comm when she patrols.

It works, Piper doesn't feel so alone anymore, she always has someone at her back or in her ear.

And the longer this goes on the more Piper finds herself at the Tower, spending time with Tony redesigning Piper's suit or doing experiments in Bruce's lab, making a mess with Sam in the kitchen, playing video games with Clint or falling asleep as Steve draws a sketch of her, learning bits of Russian from Natasha and watching movies while slumped against Thor's side.

The Tower has become something of a second home.

Piper throws a punch and Natasha dodges, Piper's fist just scuffing the woman's shoulder. Nat goes for Piper's legs again (something they're working on, Piper's stance is far too open, apparently) but the teenager jumps out of the way smoothly.

Natasha spins around, her other leg going for Piper head, the teenager ducks but doesn't consider that Natasha would go for her legs again. But she should have because Natasha is ruthless.

Darn it.

Piper falls to the matt for the dozenth time and huffs up at the ceiling.

Natasha comes into view, green eyes twinkling with mirth, a sly grin on her face.

"Hey kid, you knock her off balance and I'll make you brownies," Sam calls, cupping his hands around his mouth.

Piper rolls her head to the side, clumps of hair sticking to her face; Steve has left, but Clint and Bruce have taken his place. Clint smirks at Piper and Bruce gives a small wave, Piper can't help but smile back at them.

"The fudge kind?" Piper calls back. Because the fudge kind are the best kind and if Sam is making them then they are worth all the pain and suffering in the world.

"Whatever you want," Sam answers.

Piper closes her eyes for a moment, taking a steadying breath. Piper really wants those brownies, she wants to pin Natasha even more.

"You ready?" Nat asks, extending a hand to the teenager.

Piper pries her eyes open, "always," she answers.

And she gets back up.

I had no idea how much I needed this concept until I started writing it, I hope you all enjoyed this fic too.

Sidenote; getting to dress Piper up was amazing, and I am addicted to drawing her in outfits. (If you'd like to see the pictures you can find them on my Tumblr)

If people like the concept of Piper, I wouldn't be opposed to writing her more, so please leave some feedback. :)

Thank you all for reading, until next time- Fernandidilly-yo is outta here!