Chapter Text
Peter wakes up on Thursday apprehensive but determined to see whatever happens through. It doesnt matter that he’s tired from patrol or that the budget at work didn't even out the way the department thought it would. Spiderman has business with the Avengers today and one way or another it's getting taken care of.
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Tuesday and Wednesday had been further balm on his fraying nerves. The mornings spent shoulder to shoulder with his interns and lab attendants, catching up and refining data entry. By night swinging through the city and mentally re-establishing his masks and barriers. They hide his burdens, his troubles, his insecurities, they make it easier to hide his Hanahaki. Make it easier for people to love him.
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He makes sure to eat a big breakfast and hydrate before going to work. He takes the long way, stopping to get the paper and coffee. Enjoying the morning. He loses himself in his routines, in the ritual of preparing for the day ahead. He doesn't think about the Avengers, of what the meeting could be.
He laughs with his interns, mostly just supervises the lab work. Has a couple short catch-ups with the other department heads.
It's the perfect kind of slow. There's nothing urgent that needs doing, no one is unreasonably behind on anything. He can relax and let his team work.
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Work wasn't the only successful part of the week. Peter might see alit of people over the course of a day but he doesn't actually consider himself very sociable, he doesnt hang out with people very often. But on Tuesday he actually took up an offer to hang out from some old college buddies and ended up having a really good time.
On Wednesday, after a particularly productive day helping Patterson with his study set up, he was able to deep clean his apartment while making Thor's cookies. Peanut Butter raisin is not Peter's favorite but it's sweet and chewy. And of course, according to Thor anyway, they're warrior's cookies.
So after a disastrous start the week has really been looking up.
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He leaves work early and promises not to see anyone till tomorrow. He walks in the general direction of Stark tower till he finds a particularly dark looking alley. He turns quickly to change outfits, and takes to the rooves. He makes sure Thor’s cookies are stashed in his
Peter considers going through the front door, like someone who was invited into the tower for a very important meeting, but then realizes how out of character that would be and decides to just bust in a window as always. So he lands on the 70th floor or so. Slamming into the glass and hopping to finger and toe tips, scaling the building to the blaconey landing pad. He walks along the bottom of it like gravity doesn’t exist. And maybe it doesn’t, for him, not the same way it does for everyone else. Musings for another day. For now he takes the railing in his hands to flip up into a handstand. It's gonna be a show in one way or another, might as well start out with some flair.
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Closing himself off from people the way he had on Monday only ever works for a little while. Not seeing people, not interacting with them, not fawning over them to way he normally does dampens the effects of the flowers.
Eventually the way he misses people causes him to cough up the flowers. The loneliness catches up with him and he ends up purging a day or two worth of flowers instead. If he continues his isolation he might stave off the flowers for several days. But he always returns to his friends. The cost of never coughing is never seeing anyone, never being kind to people, not smiling, not laughing,and it's just not worth it. He could live his life in silence, never speak to another person, but he'd be so unhappy. Would he even really be living at that point? Then again, it wasn't like he was jumping for joy right now anyway.
Ah! Best not to jump on that train of thought! The train of thought that only sends him plummeting into the depths of his own selfishness. How can he NOT be happy? He's alive, he's healthy, he has a good job. Why can't he just be content? His life is good and he has people in it. They don't love him but they haven't made him leave either.
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So he's not really listening to Stark right now. They're walking through the window lined corridor to get to one of the many conference rooms.
He should be listening to Stark. Probably. It's mostly babble about new articles and some recent Twitter dispute between pharmaceutical company and a scientist. It's definitely something he'd normally be interested in hearing but today he's too focused on not relaxing his posture and preparing for the worst rejection he's ever faced.
Stark prattles on, all wide, sweeping hand movements and exaggerated facial expressions. He should really be listening.
They enter the conference room. It's the usual disarray before a meeting, most everyone is standing and socializing with anyone who's come in from out of town. Like Thor, who's got his arm around a bulky red form.
"Oh hey, Deadpool. Thor!” Peter tosses the bag of cookies hes been holding on to since he left work.
"I thought I told you to get him out of here- wait! You know him?! How long? Where did you meet?! When! When di-"
Stark continues to talk as Cap looks at Peter half over his shoulder, arms crossed, eyes wide but purposefully blank. Then he smiles.
They make everyone sit down. And it's funny because Peter goes to sit next to Deadpool and Stark makes this ridiculous noise and bodily wheels the chair he's sitting on to the other side of the table.
“So apparently you two know each other. Which defeats the whole fucking purpose of this!”
“Language!” “Language!” Cap and Deadpool say at the same time.
“HAHAhahahaha! He said it! White you owe us money!” Deadpool shifts around violently in his chair, rocking as he swivels to talk to the air behind him.
“Either way!” Stark interrupts the laughter. “We wanted to introduce you to this psychopath in a controlled environment.” Stark tosses a file on the table, papers fanning out from the manilla confines. “Honestly don’t know why I even fucking try.”
Deadpool snickers as he says “language” under his breath. Widow and Hawkeye are snickering with their heads bent together. Stark pulls up a powerpoint and just randomly clicks through it. Deadpool is trying to get Cap to look at his phone. Dr. Banner is sneaking behind Stark, pulling his chair behind him.
“Spiderman.” Banner speaks softly as he pulls his chair back up to the table. “I want to get your opinion on a paper I was asked to collaborate on.” Stark is yelling nonsense about security as laughter and conversation take over what was probably supposed to be a very serious meeting.
“Of course Dr. Banner.” They bend their heads together to look over the paper displayed on Banner’s IPad.
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"Well, we should have known."
"You didn't really expect Deadpool to stay inside for a whole week did you?"
"A guy can hope."
"It'll all turn out Tony. Don't worry too much about it."