Peter snickered, swiping through his notifications. The post he uploaded only an hour ago—a particularly funny Thor quote involving snakes—already had hundreds of notes, and a lot of the commentary was pretty good too.
He was still formulating a reply when he walked into the avenger's compound, immediately triggering his spidey sense.
This wasn't a rare occurrence, per se. His built-in warning system was often more of a joke, warning him about incoming spitballs and trip hazards more than large-scale threats. But Peter didn't need his enhanced senses to tell him something was wrong this time.
The normally bustling entryway to the compound was completely empty of its usual staff and agents, and the normal tranquility that permeated the building was lost in the argument that was taking place a few doors down.
Peter cautiously edged his way to the room where he could hear the hushed voices fighting to be heard over one another—immediately negating any attempts at subtlety. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find when slowly peaked his head into the room, but it wasn't… that.
All of the Avengers were gathered in the small conference room, apparently in a heated debate. Steve was at the head of the table, face a calm mask as he silently observed the others. Natasha stood next to him, her hands planted on the table as she leaned across it to sneer something at Clint, who seemed to be having the time of his life from where he sat with his chair leaned back, feet up on the table, laughter spilling out of his mouth. Sam seemed to be trying to engage Bucky in an argument, but Bucky was completely blank-faced and silent as he sat in the corner just staring at Sam in the way everyone knew he hated—that was a good one. Bucky-messing-with-Sam posts always got a lot of notes. He'd have to remember this for later.
"Hey, kid."
Peter's attention snapped across the room, focusing on where his mentor stood next to his best friend, though Rhodey seemed more invested in his conversation with Vision and Wanda. But Mr. Stark was just… staring at him like—
Not good.
Peter gulped, taking in Tony's crossed arms, stiff posture, and calculating look. He knew that look. It was the same look that Aunt May gives him when she catches him sneaking in at three in the morning. It was the look that foretold certain doom, unless one was able to talk themselves out of it.
"Hey, Mr. Stark," Peter replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. "What's going on? Is something wrong?"
In order to get out of trouble, it would be nice to know what it was he did. Was this about the prank call that he and Clint made to Scott? Was it about him temporarily losing his suit along with another backpack last week? Was it—
"There's seems to be some sort of security breach," Tony replied, eyes still narrowed and searching.
"Oh," Peter said, briefly forgetting to hide his relief. It had nothing to do with him then. "I mean, that's awful. What happened?"
"It would seem," Thor answered, interrupting his conversation with a nervous-looking Bruce, "that one of your Midgardian "social media" has been listening in to our conversations."
"Uh," Peter said, looking between the god and his mentor as though that would make things clearer. "What?"
"Some punk on tumblr has been recording and posting some of our conversations," Clint answered with a laugh, earning him several sharp looks from his fellow Avengers. "What? It's honestly kind of funny."
Peter felt his stomach drop. Oh no.
"Funny, Clint, really?" Natasha said, shaking her head at her partner in exasperation. "This is serious!"
"You're just mad because they heard you signing 'Black Widow Baby' when you were fighting that slumlord last week."
Oh no no no.
Natasha sniffed, stepping back from the table to cross her arms, giving her glare as much venom as possible. "This coming from the guy they saw slip on an actual banana peel."
Clint, of course, was unaffected. "It was for science."
That's pretty good. I'll have to use that in something la—Not now Peter! Focus on getting out of this alive and unembarrassed.
"I think that we're all missing the point here," Steve spoke up, standing and giving everyone in the room a measuring look. "Someone has been listening in on our conversations. Just because the leaked information so far has been… harmless—okay, not harmless," he amended with a small smile when Natasha gave him a sharp look. "The conversations that they've posted have all been for comedic affect, not intelligence leaking."
"That we know of," Rhodey interjected. "This could be information selling we're dealing with, meaning we don't know what kind of information has been leaked where."
"He's right," Sam said. "This is a serious threat and we need to deal with it as soon as possible."
"Could be," Bucky spoke up, surprising Peter. Usually he didn't say much in meetings like these, but when he did… "Or, you might just be a little pissed that they posted about you feeding birds. Speaking of which, do you really name them all?"
"Okay, that's low," Sam started, rounding on Bucky just as the room delved back into chaos.
Nobody seemed to be worried about secrecy or privacy anymore as they all clamored to be heard over one another, arguing about classified information and ridiculous overreactionswhile Peter tried to slowly edge himself back out of the room. If he could just get away long enough to go home and regroup, he could figure a way to fix this without his friends finding out that he was the one leaking these "trade secrets."
"Not so fast, Pete."
Peter froze, one foot out of the door, and cursed his luck. This was so not good.
He pivoted on his foot ever so slowly, turning back around to find everyone facing him with varying looks of interest as Tony approached him. "Uh, yeah, Mr. Stark?"
"You wouldn't happen to know anything about this, would you Peter?" he asked, still appraising him as though he were a suspected criminal. Which, Peter guessed he actually was.
"Um, no," Peter replied, trying not to answer too fast or too slow. "I don't even know what Tumblr is." Tony's eyebrow shot up and he heard Clint laugh somewhere in the background. Too obvious, time to backtrack. "I mean, I've heard of it. I just don't have one."
"Uh huh," Tony said, pulling out his phone. Peter had thought that his luck might be turning around, that Tony had just received a very important text that would pull him away long enough for him to escape. That hope, however, was ruined when Mr. Stark held the phone up for Peter to look at the screen.
Oh. No.
"Can you tell me what this says, Peter?"
"I—I think that there's been some misunderstanding," Peter hurried to backpedal, raising his hands and attempting to back through the door. He heard it close behind him and whipped his head around to see Thor standing there with his arms crossed and that intimidating stare directed at him.
"Okay," Mr. Stark said, turning the phone back around to face him. "Then I'll read it. 'Tony Stark: *entering his bedroom* FRIDAY, what time is my meeting with Fury tomorrow morning? Spider-man, slowly descending from the ceiling upside down: It's at 8 a.m. Wanna carpool? Tony Stark: *shrieks like a small child*'… Sound familiar, Pete?"
"Uh," Peter said, eyes dancing across the room in search of an escape. All he saw was the Avengers looking at him in either disappointment, anger, or amusement. "No."
"Really?" Tony raised a brow. "It doesn't? Because that's the exact exchange that we had when you broke into my house last month. My completely untappable house, where you and I were the only two present for the conversation. Do you know what that means?"
"FRIDAY has an insanely popular tumblr account dedicated to you?" Peter hedged, voice raising an octave.
Tony sighed. "Come on, Pete. You've been caught, just come out with it already."
"Okay," Peter burst out, unable to take the pressure of lying (terribly) anymore. "I made a 'incorrect avengers' account so that I could post all of the stuff that you guys say. But a lot of it's hilarious! I mean, did you read the one with Clint and the banana peel?!"
Clint nodded sagely. "He's right. It's hilarious."
Peter gestured at the archer with wide, hopeful eyes, as though his approval was all the proof he needed.
"So let me get this straight," Natasha said, eyes narrowed dangerously. "You made this account to share private conversations with complete strangers, jeopardizing our security?"
"I don't think that our security has been jeopardized, Nat," Steve tried to placate her while Peter could only gape, guilt washing over him in waves.
"Oh really, Steve? He essentially told everyone that sing I Shania Twain songs when I'm drunk."
"Well," Sam butted in, his face losing its hard edges as he smiled. "You do."
"Yes, Sam, that's the point!"
"Actually," Bruce cut in, standing up from his position in the corner to place a placating hand on Natasha's shoulder. "I think the point is that nobody believes that what Peter's posting is true."
"Right," Tony said, returning his attention back to Peter, clapping a hand on his shoulder as though that would help protect him from their scrutiny. "The kid wasn't trying to embarrass anyone or 'leak any top-secret information.' No harm done."
Natasha didn't reply but continued to fume as Thor cleared his throat and also stepped forward. "Stark is right. He was just sharing his humorous experiences with his online friends, which I am told is something that you Midgardians do regularly." Thor smiled his giant, impossible-to-stay-mad-after-you-see-it smile at Peter and said, "I see no reason to be angry with the boy."
"It was kind of funny," Sam allowed, much more relaxed now that imminent threat was off the table. "Did you see that one today about the snake biting Thor? What the hell were you doing man?"
The tension in the room seemed to bleed out as Thor defensively explained that he thought he knew that particular snake. Peter was still feeling a little bad about the whole situation, so he quietly slipped out the door, hoping to go home to figure out how to make it up to everyone.
Mr. Stark stopped him in the hallway though, stepping out of the room with his trademarked half-smile. "Where you off to kid? I thought we had training scheduled for tonight."
"Oh," Peter said, rubbing the back of his nick. "Yeah. I just thought that maybe it would be best if I gave everyone some space for a bit."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. You think that that was bad? Two years ago we were beating the shit out of each other in an airport parking lot. No one's mad at you kid."
"Really?" Peter asked, trying not to sound too hopeful as he edged his way back to the room.
"Really," Tony confirmed, opening the door back open to let Peter in. "Though I would maybe consider leaving Nat out of any future posts."
"Yeah," Peter said, laughing as Thor demonstrated how to best pick up a snake that you believe to be your brother. "That's probably good advice."
Advice that he wouldn't follow, of course, but good advice all the same.