It All Started In A McDonald's...

For the first minute, all we can do is shout each other's names in varying levels of confusion.

"Jamie?" Peter says, inquisitively at first.

"Peter?" I say, dumbfounded.

"Jamie?!" Peter says a bit louder, confused.

"Peter?!" I practically shout, with nothing else to say.

"Jamie?!"

"Peter?!"

"Jamie?!"

"Peter?!"

"Loki!" Loki shouts as loud as he can (the dude's loud) to mess up the pattern and effectively shut us up. Both Peter and I – Peter?! – look towards him. I'm shocked to see he's looking more shocked than me. Is that possible? "Do you two know each other?"

"Yeah!" I said, my voice still elevated with the shock, and even though Loki is standing about six feet from me, I seem to feel the need to shout still. "Gee, what on earth gave you that impression?!"

"It was rhetorical!" Loki answers, and even he was starting to get caught up in the raised voices fest.

I was shocked. Stunned. Astonished. Confused as hell. Amazed. And I couldn't take my eyes off Peter, in his Spider-Man outfit, the literal Spider-Man outfit, standing before me, in the Avengers Tower. What the fuck was happening? Was I dreaming? No, I wasn't dreaming. I must be dreaming! But I'm not...

I went up to Peter and slapped him on the arm, just to make sure this wasn't some illusion. But no. He was very much solid. And I'd just slapped him. But at the minute, I was too overloaded with emotions to care. "Peter, how the fucking hell have you kept this a secret from me? From MJ and Ned too? And let me guess, that Stark Internship you have? It's this isn't it? It's your excuse?"

Peter blinked at me. "How-"

I didn't wait for his answer. I already knew it. That's the excuse... other certain Avengers use. That's what Loki had said. It was amazing I hadn't pieced this together before. Of course Peter was Spider-Man. The suspicious excuses. The Stark Internship he supposedly couldn't speak about. I wondered if that was even a thing. Then there was his surprising agility. MJ said he was "athletic" but not "obvious" about it. Now it all made sense. Peter Benjamin Parker was Spider-Man.

"It's my excuse too," I said. His jaw dropped open and he blinked some more, as though in denial of whether I was actually there. Well, I felt the same way. Eventually he just turned his gaze to Loki, waiting for him to explain.

"Hey, don't look at me," Loki frowned. "Now would you like to explain how you two know each other so I can decide whether to go to Stark with a potential problem or not?"

"Why would it be a potential problem?" I asked just as Peter opened his mouth.

"Stark's picky about these things," Loki frowned. "I personally don't see a problem with it. It's just a bit of a surprise to me. But Stark's weird. He doesn't like us to have too many links with the outside world for some bizarre reason."

"Links with the outside world?" I asked, dumbfounded. I met Peter's eye, and he simply shrugged.

"Sort of like... well, I'm gonna be honest, it's about you Peter," Loki admitted, to which Peter's eyebrows flew into the air. "Stark's overprotective of you. Hence the reasons he's gone to such measures to help you hide your identity. So he's going to view it as a problem that someone knows his darling Peter's secret identity outside of the Tower."

Peter seemed to understand, but I frowned. Now I was just more confused. "What the fuck am I missing? Stark is overprotective of Peter? It's not like he's his son or something."