Chapter Text
It has finally arrived; Christmas Eve has finally arrived at the Penthouse and its occupants. Peter didn't think things could get more festive but he is surprised to find he's wrong when he exits his bedroom and enters the living room that morning with Karen at his side as he follows the smell of breakfast being cooked. At some point in the night one or all the adults had snuck around adding more shiny garland on surfaces, Christmas colored blankets covering the furniture, and the teen guessed that Tony is behind the five foot tall stuffed reindeer sitting against the glass window wall. The same glass window wall that last night only had a few decorations stuck to it but this morning now supports spray residue that imitates frosted glass but in patterns of snowmen, trees, candy canes, and so on.
"Good morning Peter!" Pepper catches the teen’s attention.
"Hey Pepper," Peter responds glancing away from the windows.
Only to blink a few times to ensure he is truly seeing correctly. The businesswoman stands in the kitchen area wearing a Rudolph themed apron complete with a blinking red nose.
"Wow, ah, nice apron,” Peter responds to the view.
“Thank you, did you like the window?”
“Yeah,” Peter enters the kitchen and proceeds to get Karen breakfast, “did you do all that?”
“No, well I found the blankets and garlands but I just left those out. Tony had trouble sleeping so he was up adding to the décor and then painting the window until he felt tired enough to sleep.”
“Oh,” he glances at Pepper, “is he ok?”
“Yes, this is normal Peter so don’t worry. He’ll be up and ready for the day right as rain in a bit.”
The teen only nods and moves from Karen to the island as Pepper adds a plate of pancakes to the spread she’s created. Eggs, pancakes, sausage, and fruit sits waiting for consumption.
"Come get breakfast, we've got some fun planned today," she says with a wink.
“Oh,” Peter bites into some sausage he swipes of the plate, “what are those?”
“Well,” she leans in as if telling a secret, “later this morning I’m going to drive us over the bridges and away from the city.”
“Really,” he makes a mock gasp, “are you going to commit a holiday crime like in home alone?”
“No,” she chuckles, “but it is a bit of a long drive although I think it will be worth it because the location is a small town where a Christmas Eve event is happening. We can go ride a sleigh, listen to some stories, there’s Christmas Karaoke, some crafting activities, and more. Then the route back here to the city takes us through several areas known for their Christmas lights. What do you think, wanna join my adventure?”
Peter’s eyes widen at the thought of an authentic sleigh ride, “totally. I’m so in. When do we leave?”
“Well May is in the shower, you still need to eat more,” she pushes an empty plate and the pancakes closer to the teen, “and then get cleaned up. I also have to wake Tony up and get him ready.”
“That sounded like you have to get a kid up and ready rather than a grown man,” he says with a childish chuckle.
“Sometimes it feels like that,” she laughs in return, “eat,” she piles a pancake onto his empty plate.
Peter gives a salute and digs in. He’s on his second pancake and seven pieces of sausage when May appears wearing a very flamboyant Christmas tree themed sweater.
“Don’t worry,” she catches the teen’s staring, “you don’t have to be jealous because I got you a wonderful sweater too.”
Peter takes the item in question that she is offering, unfolding it to find the sweater has is perfect for him. The sweater displays a Christmas tree made of the periodic table with the words “oh chesmitree, oh chemistree, how beautiful are your branches” with the branches of chemistry written in small parenthesis under that.
“Perfect,” he smirks.
Taking Karen along, Peter dashes off to get himself and his canine pal ready to go, dawning his sweater after the shower to show it off to his aunt while Pepper is off “helping” Tony….aka get him in his holiday sweater according to Aunt May.
This gives the pair enough time to put some festive ribbons on both Karen’s vest and Friday’s before the penthouse owners show up in the kitchen.
“Now how in the world did you two ladies manage to find such thematic sweaters for the kid and I?”
Tony’s voice catches the Parkers attention, Peter is greeted by Tony’s displaying a Christmas tree dissected into an engineer blueprint with puffy, noticeable writing.
“The power of the internet Stark,” May smirks.
“Did you forget that existed Tony? Or because it doesn’t have a Stark label you don’t use it?” the sly smirk on Peter’s face got bigger.
“Ha ha funny kid, come on everyone! Let’s get this party on the road.”
Pepper rolls her eyes, “says the man who doesn’t know the destination.”
The humans and animals suit up in their warmest winter gear, going downstairs to load into a vehicle Peter’s never seen. The black SUV looked more like a security vehicle versus a billionaire’s vehicle.
“Oh, this is new,” Pepper is even surprised by this.
“Well, it has the best safety ratings, especially with the winter weather. So surprise, the irresponsible ex-playboy made a responsible adult decisions,” Tony did little jazz fingers.
But Peter could see the jittering in Tony’s eyes waiting on everyone’s response.
“I’m so proud of you,” Pepper kisses him.
“Ack,” Peter fake gags as he walks past the man, rubbing his shoulder against him playfully, “let’s go already.”
The group loads up into the vehicle, Pepper putting in the destination on the GPS as the only clue to Tony and May on where they were going or doing. Peter didn’t realize May and Tony didn’t know the plans until both asked Pepper multiple times as they drove out of the city. The red head only smiles with a ‘you’ll see’ and a wink at Peter behind the driver’s seat.
With Christmas music blaring they head further away from the city until they roll into a small community decked out for the holidays. In fact, it’s so extremely decorated that it looked like every possible Christmas decoration in existence was displayed somewhere they drove past.
Tony pulls into a frozen field housing cars as a makeshift parking lot and only then does Tony and May gasp in shock. The field next to the parking area has little booths set up with dozens of people milling around them, several horse drawn sleighs load up with passengers before heading off into the woods behind the area.
“Wow Pep,” Tony gasps as the group exits the SUV.
“Surprise,” she laughs while repeating Tony’s jazz fingers.
“I haven’t done a sleigh ride since I was a small girl,” May adds as she helps Peter put Karen’s shoes on to avoid injury in the white snow.
“This is going to be great,” Tony covers Peter’s head with a beanie before the teen could protest to the additional clothing.
It’s when the group is several booths in as they explore the place that Tony buys a pair of hand knit mittens that he tries to put on Peter after adding an extra scarf to each woman that Peter finally protests.
“Tony, anymore and I’ll look like that kid on the Christmas Story movie.”
“No fingers are falling off during the snowman contest Underoos. What about switching to wool socks before we go do that?”
Peter shoots a pleading look at Pepper and May, the two women snickering off to the side.
“I think he’s fine Tony, besides if needed we will get some after the contest,” May tries not to snicker more.
“Which we need to get to if we want to participate on time,” Pepper adds after she tucks her phone back in her coat pocket.
They arrive at an untouched area of deep snow where several families stand around with the provided snowman accessories waiting for the starting whistle.
Despite Tony being a genius engineer holding several PH.Ds, Peter being a rather smart teen (in his words), a CEO of SI, and a nurse the group isn’t as successful as Tony planned when they came up with it right before the whistle.
Doesn’t mean they weren’t successful. Pepper got the head on May’s middle snowball and Tony and Peter’s bottom appropriately. The face looks like a face and the arms were staying on without falling, although at a weird angle. They just were not the first ones done as Tony seemed to expect. Second place isn’t bad in Peter’s opinion, they get free snacks rather than pay for them for that.
It’s when they are eating the won Christmas popcorn with homemade hot cocoa that they decide to finally go on a sleigh ride.
Peter was a little nervous. Standing in line for their turn, Peter realized Karen’s never seen a horse up close nor been in a real forest.
What if she tries to chase something?
What if the horse scares her?
What if she scares the horse?
“Hey buddy,” Tony cuts into Peter’s spiral, “looks like you went somewhere there for a moment. Wanna share?”
“What—” Peter clears his throat as his voice comes out oddly, “what if Karen scares the horse? Or tries to run away?”
“Hey if that happens then we can go in pairs and take turns holding the dogs,” Tony offers, “or we can skip this and go do the Christmas karaoke competition. I can do a great jingle bells rendition after all.”
Peter snorts at the thought, “despite how great that would be to see I really want us all of us to ride together.”
“Well then let’s go in this thinking positively, Friday and Karen will be fine, that way our worry doesn’t set them off. If something happens, we will take care of it as it comes rather than focus on the what-ifs. Ok kiddo?”
Peter nods, taking some even breaths.
The teen grips Karen’s lead tighter as the group moves to next in line to load in a sleigh several minutes later.
The sleigh ride turns out to be a magical experience. The horse, adorned with jingling bells and festive decorations, pulls the sleigh smoothly through the snow-covered landscape. The forest sparkles with Christmas lights, and the air is filled with laughter and joy.
Despite the teen’s initial worries, he can't stop smiling as they glide through the winter wonderland, Karen remaining surprisingly calm, and seems to enjoy the experience as much as he does. The group shares stories, laughter, and the occasional off-key rendition of Christmas carols until the sleigh ride comes to a stop under the stunning starlit sky.
The group disembarks, Tony wraps an arm around Peter's shoulder, "see all good buddy."
Due to the practice round of caroling during the sleigh ride they agreed to call it a day, the air getting crisper with the passing of time. As they drive back towards the city, passing through the brilliantly lit areas, the magic of Christmas Eve fills Peter with excitement and warmth. An excitement that spikes with his aunt gives him a very conspiratorial look as the vehicle eased into the tower's private parking garage.
The teen tries to hide the little hop in his step as he leads the adults and service dogs to the private elevator, once again glancing at May with a secret grin. The pair have prepared to bring Pepper and Tony into a Parker Christmas Eve tradition tonight. With this in mind Peter tries hard not to suspiciously rush the two adults in the penthouse entryway when removing their outer layers.
“So,” May leads the group to the living room, “Peter and I have a little Parker tradition Christmas Eve where we open one gift.”
“Oh,” Pepper eyes the pair, “well go right ahead, don’t let us stop you two.”
May nods and Peter bounds off for the gifts, Karen following him to his room and back slowly.
Peter hands out the oddly shaped red wrapped objects to each adult and sits with one in his lap on the floor. Karen takes that moment to plop down beside Peter and rest her head on his leg.
“And we’ve decided that you two are now part of our tradition,” May adds.
Peter was nearly vibrating in his seat on the penthouse floor, petting Karen’s head to show her she doesn’t need to alert to his excitement, eyes flitting between his Aunt May in the chair and the Stark couple on the couch who hold wrapped packages.
“I wonder what this could be,” Tony inspects the object, squeezing it and poking it.
“I mean if you see what is in the package and don’t want to—you know like, if you don’t want to, well, do it, it’s—I mean that’s ok,” Peter fumbles out, hoping not to look to downcast at the idea that Pepper and Tony might not want to do the matching pajamas.
“Naw kid, we’re game,” Tony chuckles, “just a new experience for me.”
The Parkers watch with big grins as Tony and Pepper began to unwrap their presents. Curiosity gives way to happy smiles as both adults hold up the now revealed matching Christmas plaid flannel pajama sets. Peter rips into his package quickly and lifts up his to show Pepper and Tony his own matching set, which also matches the set May holds up.
With a unified consensus the four move to separate locations to put on the pajamas, something Karen and Friday grunt at as their handlers are no long pillows for them. Once dressed, everyone has the same idea for photos for they all have their phones out when returning to the living room. With some bribery with treats, the two dogs manage to be awake and alert enough to sit with the four humans in front of the tree for photos before they meander to the kitchen for food.
The last few of hours of the night are spent with snacks, stories, and Christmas movies playing in the background of their excited chatter.
Peter doesn’t protest when the night is called to an end, the day’s activities wearing the teen out as much as the dogs. With a sleepy smile, he bids the adults good night and well wishes before he retires to his room with Karen. Peter intended to try to listen for May, Tony, and Pepper going to bed as he hears them clean up the living room but he never makes it.
Rather a few blinks and thoughts are all he has before darkness sucks him away for the night.