Chapter Text
There was very rarely any silence at all with both Shuri and Peter running around the compound, very literally climbing the walls, very literally eating everything in the cupboards, VERY LITERALLY blowing things up in the back yard and then screeching like maniacs over how cool the explosion was.
Very little silence.
Even when they were working in the lab or on homework, both of their mouths ran about a million miles a minute, barely stopping for breath, talking around whatever snacks they had stolen, talking over each other in an attempt to say their thing first….
Very little silence.
But one day when there was just a little silence, a brief moment where either they had finally run out of words to say, or maybe it was because they were eating peanut butter directly out of the jar and their mouths were stuck shut, or it might have even been the homemade gum that they definitely got the recipe wrong for because now it was some horrifying bright pink mass that couldn’t be chewed into submission–
Either way. Finally a moment of silence.
And Peter took the chance to blurt out, “I’m trans!”
And then there was a lot of silence.
Shuri blinked at him for several minutes while making a valiant effort to blow a bubble with the disaster of gum, before finally spitting it out into the trash can and taking a drink of her water.
“What a relief.” she said simply, and went back to her homework.
It was Peter’s turn to blink at her, stunned into even longer silence (shocking, right?) by her blase answer.
“What a relief?” he echoed. “Why is that a relief? You don’t have anything else to say?”
“I’m just saying, I thought you were going to tell me you were in love with me?” Shuri dug out a big spoonful of peanut butter. “And then I was going to have to ghost you. But no biggie. Crisis averted. Hey you know what would be really cool? If we made potato guns, but like. good potato guns. I know people say it can’t be improved on, but what if we fired tiny spuds instead of the big honking ones and we could make a Gatling-style spud gun that–”
“SHURI!” Peter yelled and she crinkled her nose at him. “I just admitted something really big to you, and you’re talking about potato guns?”
“Oh are we admitting big things to each other? Alright.” Shuri nodded and folded her legs beneath her, leaning forward until their noses were practically touching. “I’m bisexual.” she mock-whispered. “How’s that for a secret?”
“Bisexual?” Peter frowned, his own consternation about his confession pushed aside. “Is T’Challa alright with that?”
“The Black Panther knows better than to tell the women in his life what they can and cannot be.” Shuri rolled her eyes. “And considering how happily he swings both ways? I’m sure he’s fine with it.”
“Oh.” Peter sat back on his heels. “So you don’t care? About me?”
“Do you care about me?” she returned.
“Well no.” he shrugged. “I mean, it doesn’t change anything right? We aren’t dating so why would it matter?”
“Bingo, Spidey-boy.” Shuri went back to her jar of peanut butter. “Besides, I already knew about you.”
“WHAT?!” Peter yelped, his mind racing as to how she could have found out. Wade never even came near the Compound without him there, Tony wouldn’t ever tell anyone– he had been very adamant about it while designing a suit with a useable binder installed. And May– of course May wouldn’t tell anyone.
“How did– how did you know?” he squeaked. “How long have you known?”
“I um– I saw you taking a shot one day.” Shuri admitted. “And then I spent some time working on your suit, remember? I know that the binding is built right in and no one would be able to see it just looking at it, but when I ran the codes through the computer, there’s very few reasons why the fabric would be designed to fit so sturdily just around your chest, tighter there than everywhere else. And trust me–” she rolled her eyes. “Your suit is already so tight, that I figured there had to be a reason why it was even tighter there. Then I saw you taking your shot and I figured it out.”
“But I didn’t want to say anything because I figured when you were ready, you would tell me.” she said in a gentler tone. “And when I saw you getting all geared up to say something, I figured it was either that you were in love with me, or that you were trans and I gotta say. Total relief that you aren’t in love with me.”
“A relief, huh?” Peter finally smiled. “I guess that answers the question of whether or not you’re into me.”
“Uh, answers it LOUDLY!” Shuri threw a pen at him. “Who thinks we are dating? Is it Tony?”
“I don’t really know….” Peter hedged.
“It’s Tony isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he asked me the other day if—”
“AHA!” Right at that moment the door to Peter’s room flung open and Tony jumped through, waving his arms wildly. “I KNEW YOU TWO WERE HAVING SEX!”
“Oh, we’re having sex?” Shuri frowned over at Peter. “You should have told me! I would have put my book down!”
“Shut up.” he winged a pillow at her. “Mr. Stark, Shuri and I were just talking about–” he made a vague motion over his chest. “You know?”
“Oh.” Tony glanced over at Shuri, who gave him a thumbs up sign. “Well. What a relief. I was worried you were–” he shuddered. “Well anyway. I’ll leave you kids to it.”
“Bye Mr. Stark.”
“Bye, Tony!”
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“What’s Pete doing?” Wade asked as Tony came back to the living room.
“Not having sex.” Tony flopped back on the couch next to the mercenary, close but not quite too close since they were just barely trying out the whole dating thing. “So that’s a relief.”
“You kicked in the door and accused them of having sex? You are the least cool dad ever. I love it. Wear a Mr. Rogers sweater and loafers and I am yours, Tony.”
“I am about three seconds from kicking you out of here.”
“But we’re on a date!”
“Three seconds, Wade.”
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“You feel better since telling me?” Shuri said later that night as they sat outside and looked up at the constellations.
“Yeah.” Peter nodded slowly. “It sounds dumb to say, but its sort of a relief to tell someone else. It’s like with every person I tell, every person who accepts me for it, I become a little more real. A little more…valid? Is that stupid?”
“Nah.” she nudged him lightly. “I get it.”
“Good.” Peter breathed a big sigh and lay back on the grass. “So, about our gum–”
“Are Tony and Wade doing it?”
“I literally can’t talk about that.” Peter said firmly. “Are you trying to scar me for life? What’s wrong with you?”
“We should go kick in his door and yell at him for having sex like he did us.”
“Please god, let’s not. I’m afraid of what I might see.”
“….yeah. That’s a good point.”