It had all happened in one moment.

Loki, Thor and Dr. Strange had arrived from their intergalactic relations trip one month after - well - the incident. It pained the Avengers to even acknowledge or think about what had happened.

Loki and Stephen had realized at once that someone had enchanted the Avengers, and was influencing their emotions, and had immediately removed the spell.

They found out that Jesper- who was actually a HYDRA spy- had mind control powers similar to Wanda, and had pushed the two people who didn't fall for his illusions far away from the Avengers. After their senses had returned to them, they had quickly made short work of Jesper and had attacked every single HYDRA base in search of the two ever since, as Jesper had goaded that the two were now part of Hydra.

Every single day without Peter and Nat was hell for the Avengers. It had been ten months now, and they were nowhere to be found. It was as if they had disappeared from the face of the Earth. Most of the Avengers thought that they were dead, but not Clint and Tony. They believed that Nat and Peter were a hell of a lot resilient than they seemed. 

All they could do was hope- but hope had seemed to become rarer these days.

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Scene 3

Path 1

All it took was one decision for everything Peter had built to unravel.

It had been ten months since Nat had taken Peter away to Russia. As May was dead, Peter no longer had a place to live- and as the Avengers didn't want him anywhere near them, he had decided to live with Nat.

They were living under the guise of Petra and Natalie Romanova, mother and son, so that the Avengers couldn't find them. In fact, Nat had even officially adopted him.

At first, Peter was miserable that he couldn't be Spiderman; that would have allowed the Avengers to easily find out their location. Besides, Tony had taken away his suit. All he had left was a sub-standard suit that he had built on his own, using whatever materials he could find.

For the first few months, Peter had fallen into a disastrous spiral. He had passed out in a pool of his own blood, and Nat had bandaged him up- just like she had done when they were being tortured by Hydra. She had stayed with him every step of the way, and with her support, Peter had slowly learnt to take everything in stride.

Peter was walking towards his college when he noticed a crowd collected around something. He pushed through the crowd and stood rooted in shock as he looked at the bloody body of a man lying on the ground. He quickly overhead snippets of conversations that were flowing around him.

"Hostage situation-"

"Biggest building in the city-"

"Around 1000 people held hostage-"

"10 already dead-"

Peter had heard enough. Revealing that Spiderman was in Russia was worth saving a thousand lives, and he knew that Nat would agree  with him. He changed into his own Spiderman suit, which was red and blue with black accents and had a much bigger logo.

He swung onto the fifteenth floor of the building, where all the hostages were apparently kept. The entire crowd started gasping when they saw him.

"Oh my god! Is that Spiderman?"

"I thought he was dead!"

Peter ignored their shouts and crawled through the air duct- something one of them had taught him. He discreetly found every single terrorist, about thirty in total, and webbed them up securely, making sure that they couldn't contact their accomplices. He then found the location of the hostages, and discreetly breached the room through the ceiling.

He made short work of the handcuffs on some of the hostages, freeing the rest before dutifully carrying the ones that were wounded.

Everyone started screaming his name and cheering as he walked past them, but Peter simply ignored them all. He had only one thing on his mind, and that was to alert Nat before they came. He swung towards his house discreetly and entered through the back window. Nat simply took one look at him and produced a packed duffel bag out of nowhere.

"It's okay little spider, I understand. I'm not mad. I'm sure you did this to save many lives. I'm proud of you." His mother said, before he could even speak.

He smiled at her and grabbed his own duffel bag, ready to leave, eyes turning softer as he glanced upon his only parental-figure.

"Well, at least I got to be Spiderman again!" Peter exclaimed, causing Nat to chuckle. They started to move through the fire exit, but were suddenly blocked by a familiar blue and red shield which had embedded itself into the hard metal. Peter and Nat turned around to hear the sound of repulsors coming from the other side of the door.

The door in question was kicked open, and Tony, Bruce, and Clint entered through it, eyes red from crying, still holding a shadow of disbelief and sorrow in them.

"We found them."

Path 2

The ten months Peter had led in Russia were not easy. He and Nat had completely changed their identities and were trying to live normal lives in Russia. They could have returned if they wanted to, but Peter no longer trusted the Avengers. He still remembered the TV broadcast he and Nat had seen one evening.

"You all are probably wondering why we arranged this broadcast. Well, it's because we lost the two people who mean the world to us." Tony said, trying to conceal his emotions and stop them from being shown on his face.

"We recently discovered that a HYDRA recruit, Jesper, had the Avengers under his control. He has been stopped, but he cost us the one thing we cared most about. Family." Steve said, eyes puffy.

"Peter and Nat - we can't even start to tell you how sorry we are - we wronged you in ways you can never forgive. But everyday without you both is hell for us. Nobody has cracked a smile without you Peter, and nobody has been at ease without you, Nat. Our doors are always open for you. We are begging you to come back. Please." Clint finished.

Nat had softly told him that it was Peter's choice, but Peter didn't want to return to them. He wasn't sure if he ever wanted to go back to a place that was filled with pain and agony for him. What they had said that day had struck a chord deep inside Peter, who always thought subconsciously that he didn't deserve to stand on the same stage as the Avengers.

After all, a bleeding heart cannot be healed by a simple 'I'm sorry'.

______________________________________

Peter was whistling to the tune of his famous alter ego. Well, ex-alter ego. He had decided to stop being Spider-Man the minute they entered Russia, just so the Avengers wouldn't find them.

He was drinking a can of diet coke ( normal gives him a sugar rush. He learnt that the hard way ) when he bumped into a hooded man. Peter quickly picked him off the ground and apologized profusely.

"I'm so sorry sir- I didn't see where I was going- are you okay?" Peter asked. The man looked startled when he heard Peter speak, but he simply dismissed it, thinking that it was probably because of his lingering Queens accent.

"I'm fine, kid, don't worry." the man announced in a slightly familiar voice.

"I'm really sorry, sir!" Peter apologized once again before putting his earphones back on and turning to leave - but was stopped by the man.

"Say - I didn't happen to catch your name, kid." The man asked.

"Oh, it's Peter sir, Peter Romanova." He said, and walked into his apartment. It had taken him quite some time to learn to automatically say Romanova instead of Parker.

Unbeknownst to him, the man he had just helped startled in shock and pressed a button on his Stark watch, his eyes wide with disbelief.

"I've found them. They're here." Clint Barton announced to the rest of the Avengers, who scrambled to meet him there.

Peter greeted Nat, who was sitting on the couch, with a 'hey mom' and was making himself a sandwich- well, eight sandwiches -when Nat suddenly stopped paging through the magazine she was holding and said, "I learnt from my contacts in SHIELD that Clint's in Russia for a mission. I don't know where exactly, but it's better to be careful."

Peter froze. He silhouette of the hooded man he just encountered flashed through his head. He suddenly realized why the man sounded so familiar.

"He's right here!" Peter declared.

"How-" Nat started saying, but was interrupted by the door blasting open, revealing all the Avengers standing on the other side of it, each greedily drinking in the sight of Nat and Peter.

"It's you. We've found you."

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A/N: Thank god it's done! I am pooped! I intended to finish the story in this part, but it kinda wrote itself soooo..... Another one's coming up soon! BTW, the reason they could get to Russia in like, five seconds is, well, because of Tony and his amazing inventions. Please Please Please comment. I haven't gotten a single one until now and would love to have one!

Goodbye!