Peter Parker was simply part of the background. A blur of brown hair, a backpack slung over one shoulder, a laugh that sometimes echoed down the hallway. She passed him countless times without a second thought.

He was the kid who showed up late with ridiculous excuses, who sat with his friends at lunch, who sometimes did suspiciously well on chemistry tests. Nothing more.

One afternoon, that changed. She caught a scent as she walked—clean cotton, crisp green apple, the faintest hint of cedarwood and rain-soaked pavement.

Unmistakably omega. And whoever it belonged to had forgotten their suppressant.

She didn't look around. People forgot all the time. It wasn't her business.

Weeks later, she walked through the Avengers compound on an ordinary afternoon. The familiar hum of technology, the distant sound of Tony arguing with someone, the soft whir of machinery. And then—

The scent. The same one. Clean cotton, green apple, cedarwood, rain on pavement.

Unmistakably omega. And dangerously close to heat.

She stopped in the hallway. The compound smelled like home usually—coffee, metal, the faint undertone of too many powerful pheromones layered together. But this was different.

This was impossible to ignore.

A few feet away, Bruce Banner glanced up from a tablet, eyebrows slightly raised.