Spider-Man: Duty and Loss Chapter 16: Information

Natasha's eyes instantly hardened as her thoughts started to go over what might have happened. Slowly reaching down to check his pulse she found nothing wrong with it. Doing that just to make sure he was alright and not actually on deaths door, her grim face continued to scan his clothes for more blood spots.

What peter didn't realize last night when Laura was killing that group of thugs was the amount of blood that splashed onto his clothes. It wasn't a lot, only a few splotches here and there but it was sill suspicious and worrying for anyone that caught a glimpse.

Her mood turning worse and worse as her thoughts grew out of control, she finally nudged the sleeping body. Giving a small yawn and then a bewildered look as if he didn't know where he was for a second, Peter finally calmed down as he stared at the green eyes of Natasha standing above him.

'No wonder my spider sense didn't go off' He thought that to himself as he moved over letting her sit down. He was still pretty tired from last night and didn't know how stiff her movements where as she sat down and started to talk to him.

He was actually more surprised that she was starting most of the conversations for the day. That was usually something that Peter did, as Natasha would just listen, go along with the topic, or give her own insight, as she had been all over the world.

Finally after 10 minutes of talking she raised the one question that was on her mind. "Where did the blood come from?" Her voice was quiet but had a little amount of steel in it. Peter froze at the question before showing her a dumbfounded face. 'What was she talking about' he thought.

Seeing that he was confused also confused Natasha. She picked up the sides of his brown coat and showed him a few of the splotches of blood. His eyes widened at the sight of blood and a small amount of recognition went through them. Natasha wasn't a super spy for nothing. She instantly saw through him, that he knew where it had come from.

But Peter tried to play it off; he didn't want to drag Natasha into any of his business so he thought up of a lie quick. A few short seconds of silence came between them before Peter spoke up. "I have a friend who's a butcher. He sometimes gives me free food. He suggested I watch him and learn something, some of the blood must have splashed near me without me knowing." Peter mentally praised himself as he tried to keep a straight face giving nothing away.

He looked up at Natasha who was giving him a skeptical look, but in the end she said nothing. He let a sigh of relief out but felt guilty about lying to her. Natasha on the other hand was also slightly annoyed that she was lied to, but in the end her thoughts just got worse. 'What if he's so scared of what happened he doesn't want to talk about it.'

Her thoughts ran wild as she realized that Peter was only 15 years old, 'also when's his birthday?', that thought drifted by for a second before she focused again. Him being so young it wasn't too much of a stretch for him to be forced into silence if he comes across any crime. Actually now that she thought about it, just being on the streets it was a bit surprising that he could make it by with no problems.

Her gaze turned a bit deeper as she looked at peter who was trying to start a different conversation. He was likely to have been injured, or have been sick before they met, how did he survive for so long? Did he do dirty work for someone? Was he someone's grunt?

Natasha really didn't want her thoughts to drift in that direction, but the practical side of her assessed the information and came to the conclusion that no one his age could live on the streets without some backing, or anything happening. The blood on his jacket was just the first sign she's seen.

Right then and there as she kept quiet and listened to him talk about some mundane things, she decided that she would search him up on one of the helicarrier computers. She had a mission briefing later in the day, and then some free time afterwards.

She could use that time to look in to his situation. After all the time they had been meeting up, which was closing in on 7months, he had really started to grow on her. If he were to die because of some gang war, or he was forced to do something that landed him in jail. She didn't want to see that happen to such a nice person.

The blood wasn't mentioned for the rest of their small talk, only when they parted ways did something different than usual happen. "Hey Peter." Peter turned to her. "Stay safe out here, you hear me." Peter realized the honest concern in her words and gave a small nod. He also realized that his deflection of the topic hadn't reduced her worry.

Seeing him nod Natasha finally turned and went back to Avengers tower. When she got back she didn't feel like responding when Tony started to complain to her about how he got chewed out by Pepper, or when Captain America, aka Steve Rogers, tried to talk to her about her latest mission.

Noticing that she wasn't in a good mood, the rest of the avengers that spent time in the Tower, which was only Barton and Banner, Thor was off world, decided to give her space. You didn't want to piss her off when she wasn't in a good mood. That would lead straight to the sparring floor and them getting their asses handed to them. Captain America might be the only one that could take her in a sparring match, and that was because of his heightened abilities.

(Later that Day)

Natasha walked up to one of the consoles in the helicarrier. She had pretty good clearance as she took orders straight from director Fury. All her orders came through him and with that came some small perks. She was using the console she usually looked criminals up with. It was shields database of information that was an amalgamation of various agencies and their own.

Putting in his full name Peter Parker and doing a quick search till she found the right file Natasha read over the information quickly. Looking at the screen in concentration she didn't realize that she was talking out loud. "Peter Benjamin Parker… Born…. Oh I wasn't here for his birthday…he said nothing about it." She may not have noticed, but when she realized that she missed Peter's birthday her voice turned sad for a few seconds.

"Parents died in a plane crash when he was 5, no information on the crash." If she had looked a little closer while reading the file before moving on, she might have noticed a small discrepancy when looking at his parents' names. Usually there would have been extra information about them, but their names seemed to be locked in to a high clearance. Of course you would only be told that directly if you clicked on their information, which Natasha didn't do.

But she had already moved on from that information and went to the next part. "Took in by relatives, May and Ben Parker." "Uncle died 5 years ago when he was 11. Aunt died when…." Her face turned grim as she read over the small amount of data on his aunt's death. A small word escaped her lips as she did. "The battle of New York."

Natasha continued to read on in silence.

Chapter end