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The snow globe was hideous and kitschy and absolutely perfect.
Happy had really gotten into vintage cars over the last few years. Peter had blipped back to a man who spent most weekends fixing up some old Volkswagen Beetle he had bought for a few hundred bucks. Probably off some woman whose husband had snapped away and who could finally get rid of all the crap he had accumulated over the years. That’s how Peter imagined it, at least.
Inside the snow globe was a figurine of Santa Claus driving that exact car, a bag of presents strapped to the roof. Even the color was almost an exact match. An ugly, faded blue-green.
The snow globe was a little over budget, but Peter owed Happy a good Christmas present. They had gotten into another fight this morning. It hadn’t even been a real fight, because Peter didn't have the energy left over to yell. This whole week, full of exams and pop quizzes, had scraped him raw. He’d just tiredly insulted Happy’s cooking and left the house, shoelaces still untied.
He really needed his Christmas break to start already. Just one more week to go. Then he could finally catch up on his Spider-Man to do list. The city was such a mess. The world was a mess. Unemployment and homelessness had gone through the roof, which meant that crime rates were up, too.
Peter didn’t know where to even begin to fix it, but he knew he was supposed to, and nothing was working out, and he wasn’t even sure if he was where he wanted to be.
The city needed Spider-Man.
He needed Spider-Man. It was his tether to Mr. Stark; the reason his mentor still called him on the phone regularly and still flew down to New York a few times a month. Mr. Stark, who had risked everything to bring Spider-Man back. That’s what Happy had sort of implied, at least, that one Sunday morning when they were having coffee and watching Home Alone and hadn’t sniped at each other for a change.
He gently lifted the snow globe off the shelf, paid and had it wrapped up nicely.
Christmas wasn’t for another two weeks. So he’d still have to apologize to Happy, he realized as he sauntered home. With words, or whatever. ‘Communicating’, May always said, like she was their shrink.
As he stepped out of the elevator, he already picked up on May’s voice from down the hallway. And Mr. Stark’s voice, too, in that raspy, mechanical tone that meant he was on the phone with her.
“But are you sure?” May asked. “It will be such a change.”
“The kid will get used to it. I can’t live all the way out here and come to New York all the time to see Peter. It’s just not doable, May. I have to choose, and then the choice is easy.”
Peter stuck his key in the keyhole to announce his presence.
“Peter is home,” May said. “We’ll talk later.”
-
The choice is easy.
Which made sense. Mr. Stark had an actual daughter back home. A family that had to take priority over some teenager in Queens. Of course it wasn’t doable to keep travelling back and forth.
But why Mr. Stark had to announce this to May instead of having the decency to talk to Peter himself…
Peter angrily pressed his lips together as he punched the buttons on his calculator. Everything irritated him and he didn’t know why. The refrigerator was too loud and all the light switches were in the wrong place and his stupid pen was out of ink – ARGH. He scratched angrily into the paper before giving up and throwing the pen across the room.
“Fine!” he yelled at his chemistry book. “Fine, then I won’t do my homework!”
His chemistry book didn’t care.
“What is happening?” May called out from her bedroom.
“You need to buy a new fridge is what’s happening!” Peter yelled back.
The front door opened. There was scraping and shuffling down the hallway, and then Happy pulled a moderately sized Christmas tree into the living room, branches bending back against the doorpost, strewing pine needles all over the ground.
Peter left his homework on the table and helped him set the tree upright. “We never get a Christmas tree,” he said. “May says it’s too much vacuuming.”
Happy pursed his lips as he rearranged a few branches. He didn’t respond, but Peter understood what was left unsaid. May never got a Christmas tree before. But she and Happy had of course created their own Christmas traditions over the last five years. And Peter was the odd one out. The uninitiated.
Without another word, he returned to the kitchen table and started gathering his books together. He had intended to apologize to Happy, he vaguely remembered. But he felt too annoyed, now.
“I thought you were going over to Ned’s place this afternoon,” Happy commented, without much infliction in his tone. He always spoke in that detached tone when he was trying to stay polite but was secretly pissed.
“I have a lot of homework.”
“So you’re not going to patrol today?”
It felt like a reprimand, like an accusation. Putting your grades over the wellbeing of your fellow New Yorkers. Way to be a true Avenger, Peter.
“Yes I am,” he snapped, even though he actually hadn’t planned to go out.
“Did you two talk yet?” May asked as she marched through the living room with her scrubs folded under her arm. “About this morning?”
“Leave it, May,” Happy said. “All counterproductive.”
May’s lips thinned and they both lapsed into silence, clearly waiting for Peter to leave so they could argue about him.
So Peter grabbed his suit and went.
-
“I’ve called you about three times.”
“Oh,” Peter said as he wriggled his feet back into his shoes. He had somehow missed the first two. “I was patrolling.”
“I know. I called you as soon as you were done.”
“Just how precisely are you tracking me, Hannibal Lecter?”
“I get updates about your injuries, kid. So. Sit-rep. How was your day?”
Peter clenched his phone between chin and shoulder, stuffed his suit into his backpack. “Nothing special. Just helping old ladies cross the street and all that.”
“Interesting. Because KAREN signaled to FRIDAY that you might have some bruised ribs. Sounds like those old ladies really showed you who’s boss.”
Damn, all these A.I.s gossiping about Peter behind his back.
“You don’t have to call me every time I take a hit, Mr. Stark. I’m fine.”
Mr. Stark sighed a little. Probably because Peter was still refusing to call him ‘Tony’.
He knew Mr. Stark was slowly getting tired of him. Peter was pushing him away, but Mr. Stark was letting himself be pushed. His calls felt perfunctory. He didn’t like New York anymore. He almost died, but then he didn’t, and now he had a family and a home and a hundred excellent reasons to retire and become a full-on hermit. Peter probably just felt like an awkward leftover of his old life.
Mr. Stark was still talking, he realized. “—should go home. It’s a school night. Don’t you have a Spanish presentation to prepare?”
Peter had blipped back to a different Tony Stark. A Tony Stark who had years of experience parenting a child of his own. And it showed. “No big deal. I have to give a ten-minute talk about the current pollical climate in Mexico.”
“Do you know anything about the current political climate in Mexico?”
“No. But none of my classmates do, either, so it’ll be fine.”
Mr. Stark hemmed and hawed a bit about the importance of education, and then said “will I see you over your Christmas break? Morgan keeps asking for you. You can spend a few days here, and go back home Christmas Eve to be with your family.”
That sounded… really freaking tempting. But… New York. And crime rates. And homeless people. And Mr. Stark was planning to dump him anyways, like full on Taylor Swift his ass. “We’ll see,” he said, evasively.
“I’ll talk to your aunt about it.”
An unpleasant reminder that Mr. Stark had apparently, at some point over the last months, made a habit of contacting May directly to talk about Peter. “Gotta run now, Mr. Stark,” he said.
“Okay kid. Study hard.”
Peter hung up, even as his stomach clenched uncomfortably. Study hard. His grades had taken a hit these last few months, and he suddenly remembered that he would be bringing his report card home this week. That was sure to bring a lot of Christmas cheer to the house.
-
The paradox was this: he didn’t have time to do more studying, because Spider-Man. But once May saw his report card, she would probably banish Spider-Man to the shadow realm until he got his grades back up. Which meant this was going to cut into his patrolling time either way.
“Mr. Parker, are you still with us?”
He jolted to attention, glancing up at Mr. Harrisson who was looking down at him with a mixture of concern and exasperation.
Did he nod off? “Sorry.”
Mr. Harrisson tapped a single finger against the still empty worksheet in front of him, then stepped past his desk. Ned elbowed him in the side and talked to him about some party. He had been talking about that before, but Peter hadn’t been paying attention.
“I’d just like it if you dropped in as Spider-Man and gave me a little, I don’t know, a low five. Or the air guns. And then see Flash’s face.”
“You know what I’d like?” Peter said as he pressed his pen against the paper. “I’d like it if you were just my friend and you're not, like, obviously crossing your fingers that my secret identity will come out so you can piggyback of, whatever, the shitstorm that would inevitably follow.”
Ned froze, staring back at him with wide eyes. Then, he hunched his shoulders and turned back to his work, blinking rapidly, and Peter wanted to kick himself.
… He’d made Ned cry. He was the worst person on the planet. “I’m sorry,” he gasped, unclenching his fingers so the pen dropped down. “I’m so sorry – Ned. I didn’t mean… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Shit.”
“Yeah, okay,” Ned said, his voice a little dull. “It’s okay. I shouldn’t have insisted, it was a dumb idea.”
“It wasn’t a great idea,” Peter agreed. “But that doesn’t mean – I shouldn’t have said that, because it’s not fair. It’s not true.”
“You didn’t mean it.”
“I didn’t. You’re the best friend ever and dude, if Spider-Man’s identity ever comes out I’m gonna make sure you get all the credits. Guy in the chair.”
“Yeah?” Ned said, a smile breaking through on his face.
Crisis averted.
-
He’d made Ned cry. He’d made Ned cry.
He really needed to get his shit together, what was wrong with him?
“Peter, are you listening?”
“Get off my back!” he snapped.
May frowned, pushed her glasses a little higher. “Why are you so moody, lately? Did something happen? You know you can talk to me.”
There had been a news report about the homeless last night. With temperatures dropping, shelters were raising the alarm about their limited resources. A journalist had interviewed the coordinator of Queen’s largest shelter, a man with deep grooves under his eyes who had explained how many people he had to turn away every evening. And how it was a matter of time before the first hypothermia-related deaths would occur. How could Spider-Man possibly fix that?
“Peter.”
“WHAT?”
She regarded him with an expression that tried to be angry but betrayed too much concern. “I thought you were going to that thing this afternoon. That robotics thing.”
“Didn’t feel like it,” Peter muttered.
-
“Good morning.”
He still needed to get a Christmas present for May, too. Something… not cliché. That looked like he had put some effort into it for a change. So she would know how much he cared, even if he had been acting like a little shit, lately.
“I said good morning.”
Peter blinked and looked up at Happy who was frowning back at him across the morning newspaper. Peter immediately spotted a big fat headline about an armed smash-and-grab robbery only a few streets away. A wave of nausea suddenly rose up from the pit of his stomach and he glanced down at his cereal with a frown. Did he put too much sugar in? He pushed the bowl away, no longer hungry.
“Never mind,” Happy said, rustling the paper. “Another day of the silent treatment, I see.”
Peter tried closing his eyes, but he could still see the headline in negative.
-
Happy and May went for a drive in Happy’s Beetle, which seemed like a real 1980s thing to do. Happy had invited Peter, but Peter declined, because the two of them probably didn’t actually want him along. They probably wanted to get all gross and frisky in the backseat— ugh.
He fixed his Spider-Man suit and tried to catch up on homework but fell asleep on top of his geometry.
“What do you mean, you didn’t have time to clean your room,” May asked when they got back. Her hair was all tousled, and Peter chose to believe it was from riding down the highway with the windows rolled down.
“I just didn’t! Don’t have to throw a hissy fit about it.”
“We were gone the whole day. What did you do?”
“Nothing,” Peter said. Because if he told May he fell asleep, she wouldn’t let him patrol this evening.
Happy crossed his arms over his chest and May set her jaw.
Yeah, they probably weren’t going to let him patrol either way.
-
“Hey, kid. Not answering your phone anymore? That’s an outrage. Only Pepper is allowed to ghost me. Call me back.”
Peter winced as he deleted the voicemail message. He hadn’t ignored Mr. Stark on purpose. He just kept forgetting to call the man back.
Why was Mr. Stark even still calling him? If Peter was going to be ditched by the man, he’d rather just get it over with.
“No phones in class,” his economics teacher snapped at him from behind. Peter jolted in his seat and turned to look up at her.
She was looking at his still unopened book and sighed. “Extra homework for you, Mr. Parker.”
-
What was even the point of economics? Half the time Peter had no idea what he was doing. It was like a shitter version of math.
SLAM
He hadn’t ducked out of the way fast enough and the ATM robber’s fist slammed into his rib cage. He stumbled back and landed flat on his ass with an undignified ‘hngm’ sort of sound.
“Having a slow day?” the man grinned, before taking off.
Peter jumped to his feet and broke into a sprint, shooting webbing at the guy’s feet. The man faceplanted against the pavement with a dull thud and let out a low groan.
“Shame,” Peter said, pausing at his side. “I liked your confidence.”
-
He was having slow days. Or maybe ‘slow’ wasn’t the right term, because it felt like everything else was just going too fast. Like a speeding train he couldn’t catch up with. He hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in a while; that was probably the reason. He should just have an early—
“Peter.” Happy said it in a tone of voice like he had been calling him for hours.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to finish your food?”
Peter blinked and stared down at the half-eaten piece of sweet potato pie in front of him. He couldn’t even remember eating the first half. “Not hungry. And your cooking is impossible to digest, anyways.”
Happy took his plate away. May sat back in her chair, lips pursed and arms crossed.
-
He used to always eat at least twice as much as his aunt, but lately, all meals just felt like he was chewing mud. He’d heard Happy and May fighting about him again last night, when he returned from his patrolling earlier than they’d probably anticipated.
If they broke up because of him—
“-arker. … Mr. Parker. … Peter.”
Ned kicked him under the table. He dragged his eyes away from the treetops outside and towards Mr. Harrisson’s exasperated face.
“Show me the notes you took in class today,” his teacher said.
Notes? “Uhmmm…”
“I see,” Harrisson said. “Come see me after your classes have ended. I want to discuss your grades.”
-
Crime rates in Queens continue to climb, the website said. It might as well have said Spider-Man continues to be an utter failure.
“Watch where you’re going!” someone barked and Peter jerked out of the way, almost dropping his phone.
-
Ned sent him a link to the trailer of a new zombie movie. Wanna go? This evening 9PM. To celebrate start of xmas break.
He didn’t want to hang out with Ned. Not while he was in such a bad mood. He might end up just snapping at his friend again.
Sorry May grounded me. He messaged back, his stomach clenching with guilt.
“Peter, put your phone away, we’re talking to you!”
Peter dropped his phone to the table and his head into his hands. “What is there to talk about?”
His report card was lying on the table in front of them, mocking him. “You’re not in trouble, we’re just worried. Your grades took such a blow. And Mr. Harrisson called and said he was supposed to talk to you after class, but you ditched him.”
Shit. He’d forgotten about that.
“And Tony says he left you about four voicemails.”
He’d forgotten about that, too.
“I’m not worried,” Happy said. “I’m pissed. Because it’s not just this.”
“So why don’t you ground me?” Peter asked. At least then he wouldn’t feel as bad about lying to Ned.
“We have something better in mind.”
———❄———
The road looped its way through the forest: past the hillsides streaked with snow, the gleaming flashes of iced-over lakes. Half-molten snowflakes drifted down the windshield.
“This is not a punishment.”
Tony had just turned his car off the interstate. They were less than twenty minutes away from the lakeside cabin, and Peter had been sitting next to him in stony silence from the moment he stepped into the car back in Queens.
The kid would be staying with them until Christmas Eve, and it looked like it was going to be a quiet few days.
“Yes it is,” Peter said, fingers fanning out over the page of his math book as he traced the outline of a cube. “It just is. I don’t, whatever, I don’t even care. Just grow a pair and admit it.”
“We’re doing this for you own good.”
“Sheesh, which parenting website did you visit before picking me up? Quotes for parents dot com?”
“Yes,” Tony said. “Forward slash annoying teenagers.” He fiddled with the radio, attempting to find a channel that didn’t just blast Christmas tunes for hours on end. He finally let the dial rest on a jazz station, and kept the volume low.
“If I’m so annoying, maybe don’t make me spend half my Christmas break at your house.”
“Four days of vacation in a luxury lakeside cabin. My, my, isn’t your life rough.”
Peter returned to his silent-treatment attempt. He tried doing that a lot, lately. He wasn’t terribly good at it. It was far too easy to rile him up.
Silent temper tantrum aside, Tony was glad to finally have the kid by his side, after months of seeing things fall apart from afar. Both May and Happy had, independently from each other, taken up the habit of calling Tony on the phone multiple times a week to voice their concerns.
Peter himself had stopped taking Tony’s calls.
“This isn’t a punishment,” Tony repeated. “This is just an attempt to give May and Happy a little space to do their thing, without you being an asshole at them all the time.”
“So instead I get to be an asshole at you for a week?”
Tony flipped on the turn signal. “You can try.”
-
Morgan greeted them by the front door, bouncing up and down on her toes with her hands cupped together. “I found a spider outside, I kept it for you!”
Peter crouched next to her. “That’s exciting, Mo-mo, let me see!” His voice was suddenly warm and soft around the edges. Any worries Tony had about Peter’s bad temper rearing its ugly head in front of Morgan, melted away.
Tony took Peter’s bag up to the kid’s bedroom. Peter had only stayed over a handful of times, but the room had been ‘Peter’s room’ to Tony from the moment the kid snapped back into existence.
When he got back downstairs, Peter was still complimenting Morgan on her spider-catching skills. “But now we should let it go back to play outside, don’t you think?”
“If I make her bite me, will I have superpowers?”
“No.” Peter said with a dry finality to his tone.
“Why not?”
“Because that doesn’t happen.”
“Why not?”
“Morgan is in her why-phase,” Tony informed Peter. “Which, in her case, is mostly a why-not phase.”
“Did you look in my bag?” Peter asked him.
“No, should I have?”
Peter shrugged, then extended his hand to Morgan. “Come on, Mo-mo. Let’s find a nice place to put her back.”
“But why noooot?” Morgan whined, even as she obediently trudged alongside Peter.
-
“Checking up on me again?”
Tony forced himself to keep his posture casual as he leaned against the doorpost. “Just making sure you’re settling in.”
Peter just huffed before continuing to transfer his clothes from his backpack to the wardrobe. Tony stepped closer. “Let me give you a hand.”
“DON’T-“
But Tony had already spotted something crammed into the bottom of the backpack. Something red and blue. “Why did you bring this?”
Peter gave a stiff shrug. “Force of habit.”
Which was a lie if Tony ever heard one. “You know you’re not supposed to leave the grounds.”
Peter’s expression hardened. “I know.”
Tony manhandled Peter’s backpack until he could pull out the Spider-suit. “No Spider-Man while you’re here. I’m keeping this thing under lock and key, capisce? You’ll get it back when you go home Christmas Eve.”
“Is that your biggest trump card, Mr. Stark?”
Tony set one hand on his hip. “There is something ironic about you being overtly disrespectful at me and then also calling me ‘sir’ and ‘Mr. Stark’. I know why you’re doing it, of course. You want to seem more standoffish. But you end up with a weird mixture of rude and overly polite.”
“Uhuh,” Peter said, and left the room.
-
Yarn around, new loop through, old loop up.
Tony really needed to throw himself into his knitting if he wanted to finish everyone’s scarves for Christmas.
Peter sat in an armchair by the fire place, staring down at his math book. Tony would be glad that the kid was putting some effort into his schoolwork, except Peter hadn’t skipped a page in almost half an hour now.
Can spiders sleep with their eyes open?
“Do you need help with that?” he asked, tugging at the yarn to bind off the last row of stitches. There. Scarf for Happy, check. “Peter.”
Brown eyes darted up to meet his. “Hmm?”
“Do you need help?”
“I don’t see how,” Peter said. “Unless you can control the weather so they don’t freeze to death. Or have the resources to build about ten more shelters overnight.”
“I meant your math homework. You want to include me in whatever thought process you’re going through?”
Peter flushed and let himself sink lower into the armchair, staring hard at his book. “Never mind.”
Pepper glanced around the corner; a heavy cutting board clenched under her arm. “Peter, honey, do you like Brussel sprouts? They’re in season.”
“Yes,” Peter said.
He had apparently decided not to mouth off at Pepper. Instead, he limited all of his answers to her questions to just one or two words.
Which in no way dissuaded Pepper from attempting to engage him in conversation. “What about rhubarb? I’m making an apple-crumble with rhubarb. Morgan is helping me. Do you want to help?”
“No,” Peter said.
“All right, well, we have a rule that whoever doesn’t help with the cooking, has to help with the cleaning up. So that’s on you and Tony this evening.”
Peter didn’t respond anymore. He just buried his nose in his math book again.
-
“Something wrong with our cooking?” Tony asked.
Peter ignored him again.
“Peter,” Tony repeated, voice raised.
Peter blinked and glanced up at him, fork raised slightly in the air. “What?”
“You’re being really quiet,” Morgan observed.
“Just tired,” Peter mumbled as he poked his food with his fork. For someone who claimed he liked Brussel sprouts, he wasn’t showing a whole lot of gusto.
Morgan said what they were all thinking: “We’re all waiting for you! I want my dessert!”
“Have a little patience, sweety,” Pepper chided as she swirled her wine around in her glass. Ironically, something Tony knew she always did when she was feeling impatient.
Peter twirled his fork through the sprouts. “I’m not hungry.”
“You’ve barely eaten anything,” Tony said. “I’ve seen you eat before, kiddo. Don’t tell me you’ve had enough."
Peter managed to gobble down another few spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, before giving Pepper a pleading look, clearly expecting sweet release from that direction. She pursed her lips, but nodded, and Peter immediately folded his knife and fork together, looking relieved.
-
“So what’s with the grades?”
Peter quietly sorted through a box of Christmas ornaments, eyebrows drawn together in a deep frown as he sat, cross legged, next to the Christmas tree.
“Peter.”
Peter tore his eyes away from his work and looked up at Tony, eyes slightly glassy. “Hm?”
“What’s with the grades?”
A shrug. “I’m dropping econ after this year, so.”
Their Christmas tree had thin branches and a few bald spots, because Tony just cut one down he had found in the forest, and those were never going to be as artificially ‘nice’ as the ones that were grown on plantations. Tony made another half-hearted attempt at fluffing up the branches. “We all know it’s been hard. Since the snap. You haven’t been yourself. Happy thinks it’s him. Is it?”
“Did he say that?”
“He’s not a parent. And he didn’t think he’d ever be. After.”
“How inconvenient for him that I came back.”
“You know it’s nothing like that. So it is him?”
Peter turned back to the box of ornaments, carefully picking apart two glass bulbs whose strings had gotten tangled. “I’m not even failing any subjects. This is all stupid.”
“I bet it’s strange when you come back after five years and relationships have just shifted beneath you.”
“It’s not him, Mr. Stark,” Peter said, voice tired.
-
Tony hoisted his daughter up in his arms as he stepped over the threshold. He caught sight of Peter, bare feet, face still and tight, slowly pacing the room. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Walking.”
“It’s four AM.”
The boy’s eyes flitted down to the Spider-Man slippers on Tony’s feet, then back up at his face. “I didn’t realize there was a rule against it.”
Tony used his free hand to blindly grapple through the fridge. “Do you want some warm milk?”
“I just wasn’t tired,” Peter said.
“At dinner you said you were.”
“Well, then I guess I’m full of shit.”
Tony poured him a cup, then pressed the button for the microwave. “Morgan had a bad dream,” he explained, twirling a single lock of her hair around his finger. “Didn’t you, Maguna?”
She sniffled and turned her head. He bounced her up and down a little in his arms. A muscle in his back twitched. She was getting too big for this and he wasn’t supposed to do heavy lifting. He still had weekly PT since the snap.
Why couldn’t they stay tiny like this?
Why couldn’t Peter just be a little toddler that he could lift up, and bounce on his hip, and coax into telling him what was wrong… And it would be something simple like a nightmare or a lost toy.
The way Peter held himself, spoke of an entirely different story: the haggard face and the tight shoulders. The thing about teenagers was that they often didn’t even know themselves why they were upset.
Another thing about teenagers was that they liked their space. So Tony didn’t push; just slid the mug of warm milk across the table. He was here if Peter wanted to talk.
He sat at the table and blew on Morgan’s warm milk a little before letting her take a sip. “Not too hot, sweetheart?”
“s’good,” Morgan mumbled, wiping her hair away from her face with both hands.
“I’m not even flunking any subjects,” Peter said. “By the way.” He sat at the table and clasped his hands around the mug of milk.
“It’s really not about that, Pete. Your grades are just a tell-tale sign. You can measure that stuff. You can’t measure your mood swings. Can’t put a number on that. But they’re just as concerning. We’re not asking you to be the perfect student.”
“Perfect student and perfect super-hero and perfect son— or whatever, I’m not even anyone’s son, but you know what I’m saying.”
“You’re saying you can’t be all three.”
“What? No. Sounds like you’re saying that. Are you? You— That’s what you think?”
Tony shrugged around Morgan. “That’s what I know. From decades of experience.”
“Real vote of confidence,” Peter said as he shifted his scowl to the ceiling. “Whatever. I don’t even care what you think. I just wish you wouldn't, you wouldn't rub my damn nose in it all the time.”
Tony kept his voice carefully neutral, for Morgan’s sake. “I don’t appreciate your tone right now.”
“Then maybe stop talking to me already,” Peter snapped, setting his mug down. “You were going to, anyways! I‘m going to bed. Wake me up when it’s Christmas Eve and I get to go back home.”
Tony let the kid leave. It would get better over the next few days, he told himself.
-
It didn’t get better. Peter would fall asleep on top of his school work, mouth hanging open slightly, but Tony could hear him shuffle around the house at night. Peter didn’t want to help making Christmas cookies. Peter didn’t want to make a snowman with Morgan. Not even when she pulled out all the stops and came at him with puppy-eye expression number seven; the one even Pepper couldn’t always resist.
-
Someone had opened his safe and taken out the Spider-Man suit.
Someone, of course, being Peter Parker. How he had managed to open the door without breaking through the steel was a mystery to Tony. And one he was very interested in solving after he had put the fear of God into the kid for breaking his most basic rule.
“Just hand it over, kid.”
“I don’t have it.”
“Step aside, I’m searching the room.”
“It’s my room.”
“It certainly is not. It’s my guestroom and you are a guest. Step aside!”
Peter stepped aside surprisingly willingly and sat on the edge of his bed; arms crossed. Tony found the suit in the very first place he looked: stuffed in a corner of Peter’s wardrobe. He was almost more disappointed in the kid’s lack of creativity in hiding the thing than he was about the theft. Almost.
“I am beyond angry at you. Why would you— You weren’t even subtle about it. You left the safe door open.”
“Is that your main complaint?” Peter asked. His voice was snide but his whole body was as tense as a tightly coiled spring.
“You thought there wouldn’t be consequences? Because I’m not planning on being as lenient as your aunt has tried to be for months now.”
“You’re treating me like a child!”
“I’ll keep treating you like one until you stop acting like one. You don’t get to play the self-pity card when your entire behavior these last months has been insufferable from start to finish.”
“You talk a good game,” Peter said, tones stiff. “Are you actually gonna do something?”
-
“Do you want me to be there when you tell him?”
Tony leaned one hand against the window frame, the other one pressing the phone against his ear. “I don’t see how-“
“I could drive out. We could drive out, Happy and I. I don’t want all the responsibility to fall on you, that would not be fair.”
Pepper and Morgan were little blobs of color in the distance. They had left for a morning scroll through the freshly fallen snow.
“We could even bring him back home if he’s too much to handle. I thought a different environment would— But if he’s still—”
“I’m telling him right now,” Tony decided. “You and Happy are welcome to drive down and stay here for a few days. I don’t know. Maybe stage an intervention. He’s not going to take this lying down, you know that. The last time I took his suit away…”
“We’ll be there around dinner time.”
-
Peter just stared back at him. He wasn’t yelling, yet. But Tony could see something brewing in those wide eyes. Peter’s emotions were always on full display, no matter how hard the kid tried to be stoic.
“You’re going to focus on getting a good night’s sleep and getting your homework done in time. And by spring break, if your grades are back up and your sleeping patterns are healthier, we can discuss returning your suit to you.”
To his abject horror, Peter’s face slowly crumpled. A faint sound, something like a hiccup, escaped him.
And then he just started crying.
And Tony was at a loss. He had braced himself for yelling and stomping feet, or the silent treatment. This was far, far worse. “We’re doing it for your own good, Pete.”
“I’m – I’m sorry,” Peter gasped, pressing both sleeves against his eyes. “I don’t – don’t know why.”
“It’s not the end of the world kid, you’ll get the suit back eventually. I promise.”
“I can’t… I d-don’t… I don’t…” Peter heaved in another breath before he finally managed to spit out a full sentence: “I don’t w-want to be S-spider-Man anymore.” He curled in on himself, pressing his forehead into his knees.
Tony froze in place. “Kid, I - - What?”
“I’m s-s-s-sorry,” Peter managed.
“Just… hold up,” Tony said, scooting closer and hesitatingly setting a hand on Peter’s back. “What do you mean?”
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry- I'm so-r-ry-." Was all Peter could manage. “I just don’t… I can’t-.”
Tony gripped his shoulder a little tighter. “Pete, don’t apologize. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. But I need you to talk to me, because I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“Me n-neither,” Peter hiccupped.
“Pete, look at me for a second,” Tony coaxed.
Red rimmed eyes peeked out at him from behind a barricade of awkward teenage limbs.
“All right, now take a breath. Sit up a little, give yourself some room to breathe.”
Peter followed his directions, his motions lackluster, like all energy had been drained from him. He hiccupped again, and dragged his sleeve across his face.
“All right. Now-“ Tony leaned forward and wrapped Peter into a hug. “Talk to me. You wanna hang up the suit? Because I for one would understand completely. I did the same.”
“But you’re allowed to,” Peter cried out, pressing his forehead against Tony’s shoulder. “You almost died to save half the population. The world is a mess, how am I supposed to take a break? So many people need help.”
“And so many people are helping,” Tony said. “We’re sharing the load. It’s not all on your shoulders. Can you imagine? If all the problems in the world were your responsibility?”
Peter made a helpless little noise like he had always thought they were. “People will say I’m selfish and all that. And everyone else can do it. Not this, obviously. The Avengers thing. But Ned has like a hundred extracurriculars and he’s still keeping up his grades. And he’s like all freaking pleasant all the time, doesn’t even get moody, ever.”
“You were dealing with it fine, too, before the snap. We all have our ups and downs. No point comparing your down to someone else’s up. The best Spider-Man is a happy Spider-Man. You can’t pour from an empty cup, kid. Taking care of yourself is the best way to take care of others.”
“I just want to h-help people. And I like having you in my corner, having you as my back-up. It’s annoying when you call me over every little scratch, but it’s also nice. And Happy said you almost died to bring Spider-Man back. How can I…?”
“I almost died to bring you back. You, Peter. I’m always gonna be in your corner, whether you’re in the suit or out.”
“I don’t want to give it up all together. Just… I think I need a break. And then rethink.”
“That sounds like nothing less than perfectly sensible,” Tony said. He was suddenly seeing today’s incident in a whole new light. “Were you angling for me to take the suit away?”
Peter hunched his shoulders and pulled up his legs, wrapping his arms around them. “I wasn’t… I don’t know. I don’t think I was doing it on purpose. I wasn’t really thinking about it. I just felt… I’m really tired, Mr. Stark,” he finished in a small voice.
That was that, then. “You won’t have to think about it anymore. Because I’m taking your suit away. Until spring break at least.”
“Thank you,” Peter whispered.
He brushed Peter’s fringe back. “And the only thing you have to think about right now, is what you want to have for lunch today.”
“That…” Peter swallowed. “Okay. Yeah. That feels pretty manageable.” He sniffled and rubbed his cheeks against his knees.
Tony crossed his legs as he hooked his arm around Peter again. “So how did you break into my safe?”
“I’m sorry,” Peter said, digging his fingers into Tony’s sweater.
“Don’t. We’ve dealt with it. That’s settled. I just want to know how you did it.”
“Um. Combination lock. Super hearing. If I turn it, I can hear the dial click at the correct number combinations.”
“I don’t want to know how or when you figured out that skill. Actually, I do want to know. Spill.”
Peter gave a wet chuckle. “I want grilled cheese for lunch,” he then said. “And cookies, after.”
“I’ll get right on that. Cookies, made with a lot of love and not a lot of skill.”
-
Tony really thought that Peter’s confessions that morning would be the first step towards cracking the hard shell the boy had built around himself; towards getting the bubbly, happy teenager back that he missed so much. By lunchtime, though, he quickly realized that he had been wrong. It hadn’t been the first step.
It had been all the steps.
Turned out all the kid had needed was permission to focus on his own needs for a change. Because now Peter wanted to bake cookies with him. His eyes were still red and his hands moved cautiously. But he giggled when Tony’s Santa-shaped cookie came out looking more like a turd, and then began shaping his own cookies into little hands that were flipping the bird. And when they heard Pepper and Morgan on the porch, he squealed with barely contained laughter as Tony frantically tried to smoosh all their age-inappropriate creations together, before Morgan could see. Or Pepper. Tony wasn’t sure which would be worse.
“Oh, I love holly,” Peter said with a smile when he spotted the green branches in Pepper’s hands.
“Yes. Me too,” Pepper said, clearly a little unbalanced at hearing Peter voluntarily string more than two words together.
“Let me find you a vase.” Peter wiped his hands, got up and left the room.
Pepper’s gaze drifted past the misshapen cookies and clumps of dough. “What happened while I was gone?”
“I fixed him.” Tony said.
-
Peter ate more at lunch than all three of them combined.
“I’m hungry,” he said apologetically as he piled more food onto his plate. “I’m a growing boy!”
After the hunger came the exhaustion. Tony was still nursing the last of his chai tea when Peter almost keeled over and faceplanted on their kitchen table.
“Go take a nap, growing boy,” Tony said. “We’ll take care of the dishes.”
“But I—”
“Just let us take care of you, kiddo.”
Less than thirty seconds later, Peter was conked out on the couch. Only at that moment did Tony realize he forgot to tell the kid his aunt was coming over.
-
Peter was still sleeping when Happy’s blue-green Volkswagen Beetle pulled up next to the porch. “That thing made it all the way here, huh?”
“Barely.” May slung a bag over her shoulder. “Everything all right?”
“In a way. I told the kid this morning that I’m taking the suit away.
“I imagine he didn’t thank you for it,” May wryly responded.
“Actually, he did.”
He led them inside and made coffee and debriefed them about the latest developments. He chose his words carefully, diplomatically, because Peter might be just pretending to still be asleep, even if he was snoring slightly.
May clasped her hands together, knuckles turning white. “I didn’t see it,” she whispered.
“You did,” Pepper said. “You knew something was wrong, that’s why you sent him here.”
May left the table and sat by the couch, one hand gently resting on Peter’s shoulder, clearly not intending to wake Peter up. But Peter woke up anyway, or stopped pretending he was sleeping, whichever one it was. “May!” He rubbed his eyes. “Are you visiting? Did you drive all this way to ground me? That’s depressing, like, that would be depressing.”
May kissed him on the tip of his nose. “We’re staying a few days. We’re all staying a little longer. Until after Christmas.”
“We…?” Peter sat up a little until his gaze found Happy. “Oh. You— Both of you?” He didn’t sound all that pleased about it.
Happy clearly picked up on it, because his posture stiffened. “Yes…?”
“But I left your Christmas gift at home, under my bed. I found you a really cool one! Now I have no present!”
Happy’s shoulders sagged. “That’s… Don’t worry about that, kid. We’d already figured we’d do just present when we get back home.”
Peter hugged May. “Thank you for coming,” he said. “I missed you. Like, a lot.”
“Missed you to, baby,” May said, clearly meaning it in a much broader sense.
-
They made another snowman after dinner, right next to the porch. Peter joined in. Sort of. It was clear he was still tired, but also clear he didn’t want to sell ‘no’ to Morgan again. So he sat on the ground right next to the snowman and smoothed down its sides.
Morgan pattered around the house, holding out two branches. “For the arms.”
“One’s way smaller than the other, Mo-mo.”
“He’s got one bad arm, just like daddy.”
“Oh,” Peter kept his eyes forward. His cheeks were red, but it might just be the cold.
“What about my goatee, then, Maguna?”
She looked at him, then back at the snowman, and traced something with her fingers that looked more like a d'Artagnan mustache.
“Spot on,” Tony said.
-
Tony was knitting again, as the fire place roared and a reggae rendition of White Christmas played on the radio.
“Can you teach me?” Peter asked, following the movements with his eyes.
“I only know how to do scarves.”
“I like scarves.”
“Oh, you’re just saying that. There’s no way you’ve ever actually put any thought into a top three of your favorite items of clothing.”
Peter slipped off the arm chair and poked Tony’s knee. “But will you teach meeee?”
“Come on, then.”
Peter hauled himself up on the couch and leaned against Tony’s good arm. He always did that, Tony had begun to notice. Always manoeuvred himself so that he was sitting, standing, walking on Tony’s good side. Tony wondered if it was deliberate or subconscious.
“Watch, first,” he said. “Yarn around, new loop through, old loop up.”
A few minutes into his demonstration, Peter nodded off on his shoulder.
-
“This is a terrible idea,” Happy said.
Tony squeezed one eye shut as he tried to estimate the distance. “Disagree. It’s the best idea the kid ever had. I just don’t understand why he wants you along for the ride so badly.”
“If he gets hurt, May will kill me.”
“Old man,” Peter said as he set the wooden sleigh down on the edge of the slope. “You’re an old man. You’re both old men. Boom. Roasted, like a chestnut on an open fire. Why would I be the only one getting hurt?”
“I’m not saying you’d be the only one getting hurt, I’m saying you’re the only one May would get angry about getting hurt—”
“You sit in front,” Peter said. “I stand behind you, I’ll hold your shoulders. Please please please?”
“—this is a nightmare—”
“I think I can steer this thing. Please please please please, Happy?”
“—this is… What do you mean? It’s a wooden sleigh, you can’t steer it. You can pray it won’t kill you and that’s about it.”
“I think he can probably steer it,” Tony said with a grin. “Get on, you bellyacher.”
Happy got on. Peter hopped on the back. And Tony watched them fly off the hillside and crash into a tree halfway down, bringing down the snow that had settled on the branches. Happy spluttered and immediately sat up.
Tony chuckled and made his way down the slope, watching as Happy rolled over to check on Peter, who was still lying flat on his back. “…extremely idiotic.” He heard Happy finish.
“It looked flawless,” Tony said, slipping the last few feet and grabbing a hold of a branch overhead.
“This was a terrible idea,” Happy said.
Peter flailed his arms through the snow. “I just wanted to— Because you're mad at me and I don't want that."
“Okay,” Happy said. “I need you to stop being stupid. Can you still move everything?”
Peter sat up. “I think we need to go again.”
“I’m not mad at you.”
“Prove it.”
“You little idiot,” Happy said, and hugged the kid.
Peter melted into the embrace. “I’m happy you’re here,” he murmured.
“I’m happy, too. And don’t make the joke, I’ve heard it a million times.”
Peter grinned and carefully climbed to his feet as clumps of snow clung to the creases in his clothes. Once Happy followed his example, his grin faded and he wrapped his coat around himself. “And I’m happy that— That is… It’s a comforting thought that after I was gone— that she had someone.”
Happy evidently didn’t know how to respond to that.
“I’m grabbing the sleigh,” Tony said. “You two clearly need another go.”
-
Tony printed out the New York Times news story and laid it out on the breakfast table. 10 Local charities step up and join forces to shelter the homeless this winter.
“Okay,” Peter said when he came downstairs. “Yeah, I— Yeah,” he blinked a few times, rapidly. “People step up, I guess. And you’re just trying to make me cry.”
Tony scraped the edges of his burnt toast. “That was the plan. Did you wear my slippers last night?”
“Oh. They’re in my room. Um. Your guestroom.”
“It’s your room,” Tony said. “I shouldn’t have said that it wasn’t. Heat of the moment. That’s when you say stuff you don’t mean, especially to your loved ones.”
Peter ducked his head. “I’ll go grab them, later.” His eyes flicked up. “Why do you have Spider-Man slippers, anyway?”
“Present from Pepper. Pre-snap, actually. She is earth’s mightiest troll. You can keep the slippers for now. I don’t want you to get cold feet. In the literal sense.”
“But you—”
“I can double up on socks.”
“You don’t mind us staying until after Christmas?”
Tony lowered his piece of toast. “Of course not, kid.”
“I’ll be fine, you know,” Peter said. “Get my grades up and stuff. And now that I’m not even gonna be Spider-Man for a while, it’s probably the right moment for you to, um, step back.”
“Step back,” Tony repeated.
“Yeah. You told my aunt May on the phone that it wasn’t doable for you to fly back and forth to New York to see me. And you didn’t want to do it anymore.”
Tony needed a moment to realize what on earth Peter was even talking about. “I’m sorry you heard that,” he then said.
Peter’s shoulders hunched a little, as if that was exactly what he had expected Tony to say.
“Pete, I was talking about moving back to the city. Because it isn’t doable to fly back and forth to New York to see you. We’ll be getting the lake house ready to put it on the market, soon. We’re not moving back to Manhattan, but somewhere in the suburbs. Maybe even Queens.”
“You’re… You’re moving back to New York? What about Morgan?”
“It will be a change, sure. But the kid will get used to it. I think the city is a good environment for her, too. There aren’t any children her age around here. And I wanted to be closer to you. You’re stuck with me. You, Peter Parker. You’re not just Spider-Man to me. And I apologize. Because if you were under the impression that I would ever ditch you, I’ve clearly been doing something wrong.”
“I didn’t actually think that. I don’t think I did, at least. I don’t know, I can’t even properly explain it. My head is a big mess right now. Like, squirrely.”
“Squirrely.”
“That’s my word for it. When my brain is just jumping all over the place without properly finishing a single thought. Um. No offense to squirrels.”
“They’re forgiving creatures, I’m sure. Your aunt and I, you know, were already talking about you all staying until after New Years.”
“Can we?”
“And if she feels like you’re ready to go back to school. She said she’s calling you in sick for another week, and you’re staying here a while longer.”
“But you said I had to get my grades back up.”
“Your health is priority one. We have full faith that you can catch up on your schoolwork once your energy levels are back up.”
Peter shifted in his seat. “You’re not really moving back to New York just for me, right, Tony? I mean…”
“Yes we are,” Tony said. “And you’re just going to have to deal with that.”
———❄———
The sky was thick and grey. A curtain of white was approaching from the north, promising more snow. Happy and Pepper had taken the Beetle down to the nearby town to do all the grocery shopping for their Christmas dinner, and Peter could only hope that they’d make it back alive in that thing.
He called Ned, sat on the porch.
“I’m surprised you have reception,” Ned said, nose almost pressed up against the screen of his phone, like he always did.
“It’s Iron Man’s house, Ned. If the apocalypse came, I think this would be the last place in the world with running water and electricity.”
“Oh my god, think how awesome that would be. Surviving the zombie apocalypse in Iron Man’s lake cabin. Does he have an underground bunker? And food supplies?”
He’d missed this. Talking to his friend about dumb shit like which Avenger would win the Hunger Games. “Let’s go see that zombie movie when I get back.”
Happy and Pepper still hadn’t returned by the time he finished his call, so he went back inside to warm up. May was doing the dishes. Tony was on the couch, and he already had a drowsy Morgan leaning into his good side, so Peter sat on the carpet in front of the fire place and watched Tony stare at the Christmas tree. “What are you thinking about?”
“Venn diagrams. And what to have for lunch.”
Relatable.
“You need a nap?” Tony asked.
“Hmm, naps,” Peter said. He felt tired a lot, but in a different way than the weeks before. Like it had settled in his bones instead of in his head. “I feel like I’m five years old. Which is fine, I guess. It’s nice.”
“Come sit on the couch.”
Peter hesitated, because he knew Tony’s arm still bothered him sometimes, and his eyes must have strayed because Tony said: “You don’t have to treat me like I’m made of glass, you know that, right?”
“No,” Peter said. “Just. I’m glad you didn’t die. I’m not glad you almost died and you have the arm. But I’m glad you didn’t die all the way, because that would suck.”
“The arm doesn’t bother me that much. I swing Morgan around with it.”
“Tony. That’s not by doctor’s orders, I’m sure.”
“It’s not, and I don’t care. So come sit.”
Peter pushed himself up and nestled against Tony’s side.
One arm around Morgan, one around Peter. “Would you look at me,” Tony said, and he sounded all proud for some reason.
-
Happy and Pepper returned. Peter stood on the porch and watched the Beetle skid to a halt next to a pile of snow. The back seat was packed, almost to the roof, and Peter discreetly took a picture because he needed that reference for when he gave Happy his gift.
“Are we feeding a whole village?”
“Welcome to Christmas at the Starks,” Pepper smiled.
“It’s like Santa came for a personal delivery.”
Happy opened the door and pulled out the first bag. “Except Santa drives a sleigh.”
“No, he doesn’t, not at all,” Peter said. Grinned. “Sorry. It’s an inside joke. Between just me and myself.”
“As long as you’re having fun, kid.”
“You’ll see.” Peter said. “You’ll see, just wait. Merry Christmas.” He grinned more and hugged a grocery bag to his chest. It smelled nice, rosemary and salmon and chocolate, and he looked forward to dinner, and the cold was biting his cheeks out here, but it would be warm inside, by the fire, and everything would work out, probably, but either way he was where he wanted to be.