Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Author's Note:

• 🍁 I love fall, and all the fall things, so I wanted to write a story heavy on fall vibes and here we are.  I present to you: a love letter to fall.  This is pretty much all fluff and comfort, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
• 🍁 I love fall so much I made a fic fest for it called cozytober2023.  It’s being run over on the Iron Dad Discord server, though there’s a collection for it on AO3 too, and if you want to participate all of the rules and prompts can also be found on the profile of the collection.
• 🍁 I’ll let you know which prompts I used at the start of each chapter.  The chapters are shorter than I usually write, and I’ll be posting about one per week (occasionally it might take two weeks to get the next chapter up).
• 🍁 The above photo is one I took a couple years back on a rainy day on a hiking trail I love.
• 🍁 Chapter 6 fulfils multiple Sicktember 2023 prompts.  Chapter 8 fulfills multiple Comfortember 2023 prompts.
• 🍁 Cozytober2023 prompts used in chapter one: 1. Favorite warm sweatshirt, 1. Soft blanket, 26. Warm hats, 26. Fall photos, 31. Scarves

ONE - Wrapped In Warmth

It starts with a button up shirt and slacks.  Pepper has them waiting for Peter when he gets in Friday evening for what's quickly becoming his favorite part of each week: weekends at Mr. Stark's cabin an hour and a half north of the city.  Ever since his return after Bruce snapped the dusted back into existence, Peter has been staying at the lake cabin whenever he has a chance.  Spending time with Mr. and Mrs. Stark, and with Morgan, is far better than sitting in the foster home in Brooklyn that Peter lives in.  There are five boys living in the foster home, led by an irritable man named Greg, who doesn’t like children, or Peter in particular.  Peter doesn’t know why, but he’s glad that Mr. Stark makes it a point to come pick him up whenever possible, or to send Happy to drive him out to the cabin.  In his first month back, most of his time had been spent at the cabin.  Then school had started up again, which means Peter only sees the Starks on weekends now.  Every Friday Happy or Mr. Stark picks Peter up from school and takes him north out of the city to the lake house.  On Sunday nights they bring Peter back to the foster home, and Peter starts counting down the days again until school is out for the week and he gets to escape.

Peter stares down at the slacks and button up shirt folded neatly on his bed in Mr. Stark’s cabin.  They look like they’re his size, but he can’t think of why they would be here.  They’re far nicer than the clothes he normally wears.

“Hey kid, try those on and make sure the fit is right.  FRIDAY guessed at your measurements,” Mr. Stark says, coming in through his open bedroom door.

“Uh, sure Mr. Stark.  But- what are they for?” Peter asks, turning to look over his shoulder at him.

“Pepper has this thing about fall photos.  Every year we hire a photographer to come out and take pictures.  Trust me, I don’t like to dress up anymore than you do.”  He points at the pile of clothes again and says, “Try them on.”

He leaves Peter alone in his room, and Peter picks up the maroon shirt.  He can’t imagine why he has to dress up when the photographer will be taking photos of Tony, Pepper, and Morgan.  Maybe they just want him to look nice since there will be a professional photographer there.  That makes sense, he thinks.

He tries on the shirt and slacks.  They fit perfectly.  Tony knocks on the door a minute later and Peter opens it.

“Looking sharp,” Tony says with a smile.  “Everything fit ok?”

“Yeah, fits great.”

“Good, I’ll let Pepper know.  The photographer will be here tomorrow afternoon.  Pepper usually schedules it for later in the fall when the leaves are changing, but she wanted photos earlier this year for some reason.”  He says it with a knowing smile, but Peter isn’t sure what that’s about.

After Mr. Stark leaves, Peter changes into pajamas, and hurries down to the living room.  Friday’s are movie nights, just like they had been before the blip… before Mr. Stark had a family of his own.

The two of them had just started to get close when Peter and Tony found themselves fighting bad guys in space and being whisked off to Titan.  Mr. Stark had added more and more lab days to the schedule until Peter was at the tower five days a week.  Then Friday lab days had turned into movie nights suddenly when Peter had shown up at the tower with a half healed stab wound from a fight he’d gotten into the night before with a carjacker.  After the doctor in the med bay had stitched Peter up, Mr. Stark had decided he shouldn’t be working in the lab when he was injured, and had taken him to the penthouse to watch a movie instead.  Peter had thought it was going to be a one time thing, but the Friday after that they skipped the lab to watch a movie again, no stab wound required.  They’d had five Friday movie nights, and then Titan had happened, and Peter had been dusted.  It was months ago for Peter, but five years have passed for Tony and Pepper.

Mr. Stark has a family now.  He has his own child to spend time with, and he isn’t living in the city to patch Peter up after a rough night out as Spider Man, or to come explain to his foster parent why he’d been out so late and had missed curfew… not like before.  Mr. Stark could choose to just forget about Peter… to leave him to his own devices, but that’s not what’s happening.  He’d been lucky before the blip to have Mr. Stark looking out for him.  He thinks he’s even luckier now.

“C’mon Roos,” Tony calls as he sets two boxes of pizza down on the coffee table in the living room, and Peter hurries down the stairs.  It’s only six thirty, but Morgan is in pajamas too, so is Mr. Stark.  Pepper is wearing comfortable gray sweatpants and a soft sweater.

“Pineapple!” Morgan squeals in glee as one of the pizza boxes is open.  It’s Peter’s favorite type of pizza too.

“You’ve ruined her, I hope you know that,” Mr. Stark says, though there’s amusement in his voice.  “Pineapple does not go on pizza Mo.”

“Sure it does,” Peter chimes in, taking a slice and putting it onto a plate for himself.  “It’s the only acceptable type of pizza.”

“You say that,” Tony says, “but last week you polished off an entire supreme by yourself.”

“I was hungry,” Peter defends.  They feed the kids at the foster home.  It’s not like Peter has to worry about food when he’s there.  Breakfast and dinner (he eats lunch at school), and a snack after school.  The portions are reasonable for a normal person, but Peter’s enhanced metabolism requires more.  The only time he’s really full is when he and Happy stop off for a big sandwich from Delmar’s on their way out of the city, or when he’s at the cabin with the Starks.

They settle in to watch How To Train Your Dragon.  Morgan wants to watch Finding Nemo, but Pepper had told Peter weeks before that Mr. Stark can’t handle that movie, so Morgan only gets to watch it when Mr. Stark is out.  Peter doesn’t know why Tony doesn’t like that one, but he thinks about it whenever Morgan asks to watch and Mr. Stark tells her gently to pick something else.

It’s only September, but the air at the cabin gets chilly at night.  Peter shivers from his spot next to Tony on the large couch and Tony gets up and comes back a minute later with a dark gray blanket.  It’s fuzzy and soft, and Peter feels instantly warm when Tony drapes it over him and then settles next to him on the couch again.  Morgan is already wrapped up in a soft white blanket, sitting on Pepper’s lap on the other side of Tony.

“Better?” Tony asks.

“Yeah, thanks.”  He’s never had a blanket so soft, and thinks someday he’d like to have one just like this.  His bed at the foster home has a comforter, but even when he buries himself beneath it, he’s still cold.  Peter can’t help it, he just runs cold.  He’d looked up facts about spiders just after he’d been bitten, and found out that spiders can’t thermoregulate.  He thinks that is what his issue is.  As a result, winter is his least favorite time of year.

When the movie ends, Pepper takes Morgan upstairs to brush her teeth.  Peter loves spending time with Morgan, but every Friday after she goes to bed, Tony and Peter pick a movie they want to watch.  Sometimes Pepper comes back downstairs to join them after Morgan is in bed, and others she stays upstairs and reads a book.

A few hours later as it’s nearing eleven, the movie ends and Peter stands up and folds the soft gray blanket up.  He tries to hand it back to Mr. Stark, but Mr. Stark just stares at the blanket for a moment, and then says, “It’s yours.”

Peter raises a brow.  “Mine?”

“Yeah, we bought that for you to use when we bought the white one for Morgan earlier this week.  Take it up to your room buddy, or you can leave it down here on the couch if you want.”

A soft smile comes across Peter’s face as he runs his thumb over the material of the blanket again.  It’s his, and he can’t wait to take it back to the foster home.  Wrapped up in this, and with the comforter on top, he thinks he might be able to sleep better during the week while he’s there.  “Thanks Mr. Stark.”

Tony waves him away like it’s nothing.  “Ok, you know the drill.  Teeth and bed Spidey.”

Peter grins at him and races up the stairs with his new blanket, being careful to tread lightly so he doesn’t wake Morgan up as he passes her bedroom door.  He has his teeth brushed and is in bed wrapped in the new blanket in just a few minutes.  Tony comes in through the open door a few minutes later.

Peter feels foolish when Mr. Stark comes up to tuck him into bed, because he’s not a baby despite that Mr. Stark sometimes calls him spider baby.  Mr. Stark also isn’t his dad.  Peter’s not a part of this family he loves so much.  At first he’d found it odd to have Mr. Stark coming to check on him before bed when he stayed with them the first month after he returned.  Now he looks forward to it, even though it makes him feel like a little kid.

“Ok, do you need a story?” Mr. Stark teases as he drops a kiss on the top of Peter’s hair.

Peter’s cheeks heat up.  Sometimes he asks Mr. Stark about things that happened during the five years he was gone, but he can’t think of any current events he’s confused about at the moment.  He thinks about asking him why he doesn’t like Finding Nemo, but doesn’t want to upset him, so he shakes his head.  “Nah, I’m good.”

“All right, see you in the morning kid.”

Mr. Stark flips the light off on his way out and shuts the door quietly.

Peter settles in under the soft blanket, pulling it right up over his head.  Weekends at the cabin with the Starks are the best, he thinks as he drifts off.

* * *

Saturday morning is spent watching cartoons with Morgan while Tony is on a work call Peter can tell he’d rather not be on.  Pepper is out because she had to go into the city to catch up on work despite that it’s Saturday.  He knows she’ll be back by one because the photoshoot is at four and she wants plenty of time to get herself and Morgan ready.  Some mornings Pepper is there to make homemade pancakes or waffles, and sometimes Mr. Stark makes bacon and eggs for breakfast.  Today Peter pours a bowl of cereal for himself and one for Morgan, and the two of them sit next to each other on the living room floor watching cartoons.  Peter has been trying to introduce Morgan to anime so he doesn’t have to watch My Little Pony or Daniel Tiger.  Today they’re watching My Hero Academia.  Morgan isn’t into it at first, though as they move into the second episode, her eyes are glued to the TV.

“That boy is mean,” she comments, “like the boy at school.”

“What boy at school?” Peter asks.

“Billy.  He’s mean like him.”  She points at the TV at Bakugo, who is bullying Deku.

“Does your mom and dad know there’s a mean boy at school?”

She nods.  “He was mean to me this week, and I came home and threw my backpack down, and stomped my feet, then daddy hugged me and I felt better.”

Peter gives a nod.  He hates to think that Morgan is being bullied at school.  She’s only in Kindergarten.  Peter knows what it’s like to get bullied.  He’s lucky that Flash Thompson didn’t blip and is in college now, but he’s entirely unlucky that most of his class blipped, and that since their return Ned’s parents have insisted on homeschooling him, not wanting to miss another minute with him after he had disappeared for five years.  That means Peter is completely alone at Midtown.  He hasn’t made new friends yet, and there are several seniors who insist on bullying him.  They don’t like his hair, or his shoes, or the fact that he’s an orphan and living in foster care.  Most of the time the four guys that bully him make fun of him for being one of the few sophomores that blipped and came back to find all their friends gone.

Mr. Stark comes up from his lab at eleven and asks Peter if he wants to come down and work with him now that his business call has ended.  Since Pepper isn’t there, it means Morgan has to go downstairs too, though Peter doesn’t mind.  He loves working with Tony in the lab, and he loves spending time with Morgan, so it’s a win win.

Morgan sits on a workbench and watches cartoons on her tablet while Tony and Peter work on Peter’s web shooters.  Peter feels a burst of warmth spread through his chest when Mr. Stark ruffles his hair and tells him he’s doing a good job.

At one, Pepper returns and finds them in the lab.  She takes Morgan upstairs to start getting ready for photos.  Peter asks Tony why they need three hours to get ready, and Tony only laughs and tells him there’s a whole process involved.  Tony and Peter don’t leave the lab to get ready until three thirty.

Peter expects that he’ll be sitting on the porch watching as the photographer takes photos of the Starks, but when he comes out of his room, changed into the nice new clothes, he finds Tony downstairs making a cup of coffee wearing an almost identical outfit.  He frowns and Tony says, “Hey, don’t give me that look.  What Pepper doesn’t know won’t kill her.”  He takes a drink of his coffee like he’s trying to hurry through it before Pepper comes down and catches him.  He’s only allowed to have decaf past three in the afternoon.

Peter doesn’t comment, because Pepper and Morgan come downstairs and his confusion only grows.  Pepper and Morgan are both wearing dark blue jeans and soft white sweaters.  They match, just like Tony and Peter match with their black slacks and maroon button up shirts.  Why do they match?

There’s a knock on the door and Pepper answers it to find the photographer.  Peter gathers from their conversation that they use the same photographer year after year for all of their family photos.  Mr. Stark finishes his coffee with his back turned to everyone, and then after his cup is in the sink he turns around and smirks at Peter.

“What’s up Roo?” he asks, putting his hand on Peter’s back to guide him towards the front door.  Pepper and Morgan are already outside with the photographer.  “You look a little pale.”

“Huh?  No, no I’m good Mr. Stark.  Just-”

“What?”

“Why do we all match?  I mean, you and me, and Pepper and Morgan.”

“Yeah, again, it’s a whole process.  Pepper spent weeks picking out the perfect outfits for all of us.  I don’t know why we all have to match.  Apparently you have to for family photos.”

Family photos?  Peter doesn’t say it out loud, but his mind is spinning.  He has to dress up because he’s a part of this.  He doesn’t know why, but he’ll be in their family photos this year despite that he’s not family.  He wishes more than anything that he can be, but he’s not.  He’s just a lucky kid that gets to come over on weekends right?

As Pepper calls over to him and directs him to stand behind Morgan, and Mr. Stark comes up beside him and puts his arm around his shoulders, Peter isn’t so sure.  They’re including him in their family photos, and the photographer is directing him to smile and to stand a certain way like he’s part of their family.

They take photos on the porch swing, and by the lake, and in the forest.  Peter’s never done any of this before, and he’s confused the whole time.

Finally, it’s over and the photographer leaves, promising to have the prints of the photos to them within a week.  Since they’re all dressed up, Pepper suggests they go out to dinner, and they drive into the little town that’s half an hour away.  Peter tries to relax as they order food and Mr. Stark starts joking with him.  He realizes Tony is trying to get him to smile, because Peter feels awkward sitting there with them when he knows he’s not family, though they’re treating him like he is.

It’s not until they get back to the cabin, back to what feels familiar to Peter that he starts to relax.  He changes into sweat pants and a t-shirt and wraps up in the soft gray blanket.  Peter drags the blanket down to the lab with him after Morgan goes to bed so he and Tony can finish the project they were working on earlier.

The rest of the weekend passes in a happy haze.  Peter tries to forget about the awkward family photos as he and Tony spend Sunday in the lab.  By the time Happy comes to get him Sunday evening to take him back to Brooklyn, Peter has almost forgotten about the photoshoot.

“Hey Roo, where you going with that?” Tony asks, and Peter turns around at the front door, soft gray blanket folded up under one arm.  “The blanket,” Tony says with a smile, pointing at it.  “I know you like it, but are you planning on wrapping up in it on the way back to the city?”

“My blanket and I are very happy together,” Peter says with a grin.  His stomach squirms though, because he realizes now that they’d bought the blanket for him to use only while he’s there at the cabin.  “Um… is it ok if I- take it back with me?  It’s just… it’s soft, and the blanket at the foster home isn’t very warm and-”

Tony gives a slight frown and straightens up.  “Of course Roo.  It’s yours.  I want you to be warm.  Go ahead and take it with you.”

Peter relaxes.  He doesn’t want to do anything to make Tony or Pepper upset with him.  They’ve been really good to him and he wants to keep being invited back on weekends.

Morgan and Tony follow Peter out to Happy’s car.  Morgan gives him three hugs and starts to whine and complain about Peter leaving.  He thinks he’d like to do the same.  He always misses the cabin and the Starks when he’s gone.  Tony gives him a hug and tells him not to get into any trouble while he’s in the city, and says that they’ll see him next Friday.

After Peter and Happy pull away from the house and down the long gravel driveway, Happy asks, “Have a good weekend?”

“Yeah, it was great,” Peter says.  Happy asks every Sunday and Peter’s answer is always the same.  He can’t wait to come back next weekend.

* * *

Peter doesn’t want to drag the soft blanket back and forth to the cabin.  He worries that if he takes it back to the cabin, Pepper or Tony will change their mind and ask him to leave it there so it doesn’t get dirty or ruined.  So he leaves it on his bed at the foster home, sad that he’ll have to spend the weekend without it.  All week as he’d sat in his bedroom at the foster home, he’s been wrapped up in it.  It doesn’t matter if he’s doing homework or talking to one of the other boys, he’s kept it wrapped around him because it smells like the cabin, and reminds him of being hugged by Tony, Pepper, and Morgan.

When Happy drops him off at the cabin the next Friday, Peter is anxious that he’s going to have to explain about not bringing the blanket back, but is surprised to find a brand new blanket sitting folded on his bed along with a brand new gray hoodie.

He rushes to his bed and runs his fingers over the new blanket.  It’s identical to the other one.

“There, now you have one for here too,” Mr. Stark says, coming up behind him.  Peter turns to him and grins.  He can’t help it.  Soft fuzzy blankets are the next best thing to being hugged.  He reaches for the hoodie and holds it up, question in his eyes.

“It’s fall,” Tony says.  “It’ll be getting cold.  Figured you needed something to keep you warm.  Don’t get me wrong, you’re free to drag the blanket around the house with you, but it might get awkward walking around the yard with it, or if we go anywhere.”  Tony is smiling too.

“It’s great Mr. Stark, I love it.”  Peter pulls the gray hoodie on immediately.  It’s thick and warm, and the inside is soft because it’s brand new.

All week he’s been thinking about the family photos from the weekend before.  At first he thought maybe including him in the photos had been an excuse to buy him new clothes, even though the nice slacks and button up shirt are something he rarely has occasion to wear.  He knows it’s not true now that they’ve bought him a new hoodie though.

In the weeks that follow, Peter shows up to the cabin to find a brand new gray scarf, a warm forest green beanie, dark green fabric gloves, and a couple new pairs of warm sweatpants.  Tony always tells him the items are from Pepper, though Peter wonders if that’s true.

Week by week they’re wrapping him up in warmth, inside and out.  Now when Peter goes to school early in the chill morning air, wearing his warm hoodie, he feels like the Starks are with him, because he remembers their hugs, and movie nights and family photos all week long.

Author's Note:

I've been getting some questions about why Tony and Pepper haven't adopted Peter yet.  I want you to know that the answer to that is coming in chapter 8, and you will not be disappointed in how the story ends.

Chapter Text

It starts with taking out the trash, but as the leaves start to turn colors and drift to the ground, it morphs into helping Tony get the cabin ready for winter, and raking leaves.  Everyone that lives in the cabin has chores, and Peter is no exception.  They never ask him to do much, but he’s glad he has chores to do because it makes him feel like part of their family.

Morgan is often asked to dust inside the house, or to empty small waste paper bins, or to fold towels with Pepper, even though Morgan’s way of folding towels is wadding them up into a ball.  It’s silly, Peter thinks, but being asked to do chores makes him feel like one of Mr. and Mrs. Stark’s kids.

The previous weekend Tony and Peter had gone around the house winterizing.  They covered up outdoor faucets, cleaned gutters, re-caulked a couple downstairs windows where cold air was coming in, and put a bunch of outdoor lawn furniture away in the garage.  The only furniture left outside now is the wood porch swing by the front door, and four chairs around the fire pit on the gravel pad near the front porch.  Last weekend they’d roasted marshmallows around the fire Saturday afternoon, and Peter is hoping they’ll do the same this weekend.  He’s never been camping, but getting to sit around the fire pit with the Starks makes him feel like he is.

Peter is buzzing with anticipation as Happy pulls up in front of the cabin Friday.  There’s already a fire going in the fire pit, and Mr. Stark is sitting on a chair poking the fire with a stick.  He’s bundled up in a thick sweater.  Peter doesn’t blame him.  It looks like it rained earlier in the day, and everything is wet and chilly.

Happy barely has a chance to stop the car when Peter barrels out the back door, greeted by a chill and the slight smell of smoke in the air he’s coming to associate with not only fall, but the cabin.

“Hey Roo!” Mr. Stark calls with a motionless wave as Peter hurries over to him, ignoring Happy’s grumble about him not waiting until the car is in park.  Happy gets out and follows him at a slower pace, passing Peter and Mr. Stark at the fire pit and going straight into the house.  Peter wonders if he’s staying for dinner.  Sometimes he does, and other times he chooses to head right home.  Peter had been fascinated to learn after his return from being dusted, that Mr. Stark and Pepper had moved out of the city, but even more so to find that Happy had moved too.  Now Happy lives about thirty minutes from them, between them and the city.  When Tony or Pepper have to go to work at the tower, they drive to Happy’s house, and then they carpool from there since Happy is still head of tower security and has to go in five days a week.  Peter asked Mr. Stark once why Happy had moved too, and he said it was to be close to them since they sometimes ask him to babysit Morgan.

“We’re going to eat dinner in a little while and then watch a movie out here,” Tony says as Peter sits down in a chair across the fire from him.  The air is chilly and growing colder since the sun is setting, but the fire is throwing off warmth that Peter is grateful for.

“Out here?” Peter asks.

Tony points towards the porch roof and Peter realizes there’s a thick white sheet rolled up sitting above the gutter.  “I have a projector.  Pepper is going to make hot chocolate.  It’s not supposed to rain again until after midnight, so we should be good to get through a whole movie out here.”

“What are we watching?”

“Why don’t you pick?  If you don’t pick we’re going to be stuck watching a Barbie movie or worse yet Frozen.  Morgan has been watching it on repeat all week.”

Peter laughs and says, “Have you ever seen this really old movie called E.T.?”

Tony rolls his eyes.  “That’s not old Pete, it’s a classic.”

Peter grins, about to ask if that’s what Mr. Stark calls himself, but Tony can see right past Peter’s smile.  “You know what Roo, why don’t you go rake some leaves.”  He motions towards the yard which is covered in wet red, orange and yellow leaves.

“Sure Mr. Stark!” he hops up, digs in his pocket for his headphones, and puts them in.  Then he pulls his hood up to keep the chilly autumn air off his neck since he has to move away from the fire, and goes to the garage to get the rake.

Mr. Stark tends the fire as Peter listens to his favorite music and starts to rake.  He can smell the fire, and also the pot roast Pepper is cooking as the smell wafts out the open front door and through the screen.

He rakes up one pile of leaves and then moves to another part of the yard and rakes another pile.  He’s not sure what Mr. Stark wants him to do with the piles, but figures he’ll get everything raked up before he asks.

He has four piles by the time he’s done, and the last is the biggest.  He’s just pulling the last of the wet leaves to the pile when something small and adorable flies past him and launches into the air, landing square in the middle of the pile of leaves.

Peter pauses for a moment, watching as Morgan giggles and rolls around, scattering the leaves right back out of the pile.  He pulls his earbuds out and tucks them in his pockets.  “Mo, the leaves are supposed to stay in the piles,” he says.

“No they’re not, you’re doing it wrong,” she giggles.  She picks up a handful of red leaves and throws them at him.

He leans down towards her, a smile on his face and says, “Oh yeah, how should I rake them then?”

“You don’t rake them silly,” she tells him.  “You play in them!”  Another handful of leaves is thrown at Peter.  One of them sticks to his face.  He turns and peers behind him, looking for Mr. Stark.  Sometimes things like this happen and Mr. Stark or Pepper comes to save him, or calls Morgan in to do some chores of her own.  Mr. Stark seems to have gone inside though, probably to grab a cup of decaf coffee or else sneak real coffee out past Pepper.

“Petey!” Morgan cries impatiently, and Peter turns back and grins at her.  He lets go of the rake and flops forward into the pile of leaves next to her.  Morgan giggles loudly and Peter takes a handful of leaves and drops it on her face, making her cry out in laughter.  She gets onto her knees and pushes leaves over him, and then throws herself on top of him to hold him down so he can’t scoop up leaves to throw onto her.

Peter and Morgan are giggling so hard as they roll around and throw leaves that they don’t realize that Happy, Pepper and Tony have come out onto the porch to watch them.  Pepper pulls out her phone and takes a picture, but Peter doesn’t see.

He’d done this once in the park when he was little.  Ben had taken him to the park and raked up a pile of leaves just for Peter.  “Go ahead Pete, jump in.”

“But why?”

“Not really fall unless you jump into a pile of leaves.”

“But… I just jump in?”

Peter had jumped into the pile, still standing and then stood there, staring at Ben like he was crazy.  Then Ben had come into the pile and started throwing leaves at Peter.

“Oh, like a snowball fight,” Peter had said, breathless with laughter.  “You didn’t say that.”

Peter had never jumped in a pile of leaves since then.  Apparently Ben and Morgan both knew the rules of fall, and Morgan had just been waiting for the leaves to be raked up into a big enough pile to teach Peter all about how to have a leaf fight.

“All right you hooligans,” Tony calls a few minutes later, and Peter scoops Morgan up from where she’s been thoroughly buried under the leaf pile.  “You’d better come in and get out of those wet clothes so you can have dinner.”

As Peter carries Morgan up to the house under his arm, Morgan still giggling, she says, “It was all Petey’s idea,” as they pass.

It’s ok, Peter knows he’s not in trouble.  He’ll probably have to rake the pile of leaves up again tomorrow, but he doesn’t mind.

“Somehow I don’t think Peter was the ringleader,” Tony says as he follows them inside.

Peter changes into some sweatpants and then brings his wet dirty hoodie downstairs.  Tony puts it in the wash while they sit down at the dinner table to eat.  Happy is staying for dinner, and Peter listens as Happy tells them about a security issue at the tower earlier that day.  Peter loves the city, but it feels far away from him when he’s here at the cabin, sitting around a dinner table piled high with delicious smelling food and bathed in warm light.

“Are you staying for the movie uncle Happy?” Morgan asks.  “Daddy said we’re watching a movie about some yucky alien.”

“E.T.,” Tony tells Happy.

“No, I’ll be heading home,” Happy says, finishing the last bite from his plate.  He pats his stomach like he’s full and satisfied.  Peter is still eating, now on his third helping.  Everything has been delicious.  Morgan has been telling Peter throughout the meal about all the things on the dinner table she helped to make.  Peter really hopes he’ll be invited back for Thanksgiving in November, because he doubts the meal they’ll be serving at the foster home will be as good.  Thanksgiving is for family, but Peter keeps hoping they’ll forget that he’s not and invite him anyway.

Peter helps clear the table, and so does Happy.  Before Happy leaves, Peter gets his backpack out of the car and brings it inside.  He can smell chocolate and hopes Tony and Pepper are making him a mug of hot cocoa too.

By the time Morgan comes downstairs in pajamas, a coat and thick winter boots lined with fur, Peter’s hoodie isn’t done washing and drying.  He’s surprised when Tony comes downstairs and hands him his old MIT hoodie.

“Are you sure I can wear it?” Peter asks.

“Put it on Roo.  You’re going to wear one of my coats too.”

As Peter pulls the hoodie on over his head, Mr. Stark reaches for a coat rack by the door and pulls down a thick coat.  Peter pulls the hood of the hoodie up over his head and then pulls the coat on over top.  He’s glad he has multiple layers on when he steps out the front door into the darkness.

Mr. Stark goes out with him and sits down by the fire.  He pokes at it and adds another log, bringing up the flames again from where he’d banked it earlier.

“Hey, wanna use those sticky spider powers and climb up to the roof to drop the sheet down?”

“Oh yeah,” Peter says.

“It’s wet up there, don’t slip.”

“Mr. Stark,” Peter groans, “I can still stick to wet surfaces.”

“Hmm, I’m pretty sure I remember you deciding to climb a building in the rain and sliding down three stories before you caught yourself.”

“What?” Peter asks, shocked.  “How do you know about that?”

“Baby monitor footage,” he says.

“That was like… six years ago,” Peter says.

“For you it was one year ago.”

“Nope, six years,” Peter says as he climbs up to the roof and rolls the sheet over the edge so it hangs down, concealing the porch.  Instead of climbing back down, he jumps and lands in a crouch.

“Not near the fire kid, you’re going to give me a heart attack,”  Tony says loudly, tapping his chest above his heart.

Peter grins at him and moves for the chair across the fire, but Tony points to the chair right next to him instead, and Peter goes to sit down.  A minute later Pepper and Morgan come out.  Pepper is somehow clutching three mugs of hot chocolate with lids, and Morgan is carrying a smaller pink mug with a lid.

“I put extra marshmallows in yours,” Morgan whispers when she passes Peter.  Pepper sits down across the campfire and Morgan drags over a smaller pink chair she usually occupies to sit next to her mom.

Tony pulls up E.T. on his phone and sets his phone on a log facing the makeshift movie screen.  “FRI, start the movie,” he says as he sits down next to Peter.

Peter’s stomach is full, he’s warm from Mr. Stark’s coat and hoodie and the flames of the campfire, and he’s happy.  He doesn’t know what the rest of the weekend holds, but he hopes it’ll be just like this.

It turns out that Morgan likes the movie.  She climbs up onto Pepper’s lab during a part she says is too scary, and stays there until the movie is over.  Tony takes her inside to brush her teeth and go to bed while Pepper and Peter go into the kitchen to make fresh mugs of hot chocolate.  They take them back out to sit by the fire, and Pepper picks a movie.

Peter stares into the flames dancing in the firepit, and then watches as the flames cast a warm glow and cause shadows to waltz across Pepper’s face.

“How is school going?” Pepper asks as she pulls up October Sky and pauses it, waiting for Tony to come back outside.

“It’s good,” Peter says, and it’s the truth.  His grades are high like they always are.  He has a 3.8 GPA and he’s hoping to get it up to 4.0 by Christmas.  “The English teacher is offering extra credit to kids who come in and help direct parents during parent teacher conferences.  I’m gonna do it.”  The teacher had asked Peter specifically if he wanted to do it since he didn’t have parents or a guardian who would come.  Technically Greg could come since he runs the foster home Peter is living at, or Peter’s caseworker could come, but he knows they won’t.  At least he can get some extra credit out of it.

“When are the conferences?” Pepper asks.

“Oh, it’s on a Thursday, don’t worry miss Pepper,” Peter says.  “I wouldn’t do it if it was on a Friday.”

She gives him a look he can’t decipher.  She looks sad, but also like she’s trying not to.  He’s not sure why she would be sad.

Mr. Stark comes back outside a few minutes later with a brown blanket, and Peter’s gray blanket in hand.  He drapes the brown blanket around Pepper’s shoulders, and then tells Peter to stand up.  When Peter does, Mr. Stark wraps Peter up in the gray blanket like a burrito and then pulls a metal clip out of his pocket and clips it in front over Peter’s chest so that he’s wearing the blanket like a cape.

“No cold spider babies,” he says with a smile, and ruffles Peter’s hair.  Peter plops back down into his seat, toasty and warm.  He’s surprised when Mr. Stark drags his chair over a foot so it’s right up against Peter’s, and then sits down.

Peter wonders if Morgan will wake up and come back outside, but they make it through the movie without incident.  When it’s over, the three of them sit around the warm fire and talk.

Tony and Pepper talk about an upcoming merger with another company SI is acquiring, and about a dentist appointment Morgan has coming up.  Then they ask Peter questions about how Ned is doing and he tells them he hangs out with Ned after school a few days a week before going out on patrol.

“I stayed at his house Tuesday night,” Peter says.

“You did?”  Tony frowns.  “Was there no school Wednesday morning?”

“There was school,” Peter says.  “Ned’s parents don’t care too much now that he’s homeschooled.  He does school on his own schedule anyway.  Greg doesn’t care either, so I stayed over.  It’s quicker to get to Midtown from Ned’s house anyway.”  Peter knows that they know that Greg doesn’t care.  The one good thing about living with Greg is that he doesn’t care if Peter is out a little late, or if he stays the night at Ned’s on a school night, or if he goes to the Starks every Friday to spend the weekend.  Peter can’t imagine living at a stricter home that might stop him from going to the lake cabin.  The cabin feels like home to Peter more than anyplace else has in the last few years since May died.  He frowns at the thought that it was only a few years ago.  In reality it’s been eight years, but Peter’s sense of time is still warped by the blip.

It’s ten PM when Tony asks if Peter can climb up and pull the heavy white sheet down from where it’s tacked into the roof, and then pours some water over the fire, stirring it to make sure it’s out.

The three of them go inside, and Peter feels tired and happy.  On weekdays, Peter stays out as late as possible, frequently coming in after eleven or even midnight so he can patrol as Spider Man.  Sometimes the other boys at the foster home ask where he goes and why he stays out so late, but he always just tells them he’s with his friend Ned.  None of them know Ned, so it’s a good excuse.

When he’s at the lake cabin though, he frequently feels sleepy and ready to go to bed at ten or eleven.  It helps that he knows there’s a hug waiting for him right before he goes to sleep.  Sometimes both Tony and Pepper come in to tell him goodnight.  This is one of those nights.

After Peter returns Mr. Stark’s warm coat to the rack by the front door and brushes his teeth, he goes to his room and sits on the edge of the bed, taking a few minutes to text back and forth with Ned.  Now that Ned doesn’t have to get up super early to go in to Midtown, his parents let him stay up late.  Sometimes Peter is jealous that Ned gets to do his schoolwork whenever he wants.  Ned texts him back asking what he did that day and Peter tells him about the leaf fight and the campfire.  Ned tells him he’s working on a grueling English essay his mom set for him that’s supposed to be 2,000 words.

‘That sucks,’ Peter texts back, but then lifts his eyes to the door because Pepper is there giving him a soft look.

“Ready for bed sweetheart?” she asks.

Peter smiles.  “Yeah!  I was just texting Ned.  His mom is making him write a super long essay so he’s still up.”

Pepper crosses the room and Peter stands up to give her a hug.

“Did you have fun tonight?” she asks as she releases him and steps back.

“Yeah!”  Leaf fights, and a delicious dinner with friends, movies, hot chocolate, and sitting around the campfire.  Now he gets a hug before bed, and he doesn’t have to stay up late writing a long essay, he thinks to himself with a smile.  Because Peter doesn’t have any friends at school, he spends lunchtime and his one free period doing all of his homework so he doesn’t have homework to do over the weekend.

“Sorry about the leaf pile,” he says, “I’ll rake it again in the morning.”

She gives him a warm smile.  “That’s ok.  Tony usually has to rake the leaf piles three or four times before Morgan is done jumping in them all.  I’m glad you took the time to enjoy the leaves too.”

Pepper tells him goodnight and steps out of his room right as Tony comes in.  “I was thinking we’d take a drive further into the mountains tomorrow.  There are more leaves changing colors up there,” he says.  “What do you think?”

“That sounds like fun.  All of us?”

“Yep.  Morgan will think it’s boring, but I’m sure she’ll have her tablet.”

“We’ll just tell her to look at the leaves that are ready to fall and be piled up.”

Tony hugs him and ruffles his hair.  “Story?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says, “What’s up with Brexit?  The history teacher mentioned it and I looked it up but was confused.  Was that the year we blipped or…”

Tony sits down on the edge of Peter’s bed and motions for Peter to climb in and get under the covers.  “Long story kid.”

Sometimes Peter comes up with questions like this about the five years he was gone just so Mr. Stark will sit with him a little longer before he has to go to sleep.  He thinks Mr. Stark knows that, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

Chapter Text

It starts with an unexpected visit from Pepper.  It’s usually Happy that picks Peter up on Fridays on his way upstate after work.  Occasionally Mr. Stark and Morgan pick him up after spending a day at the zoo or at the tower in the penthouse.  They always come on a Friday though, so Peter is surprised when he walks out the doors of Midtown on a Wednesday and hears Pepper calling his name.

He looks around and spots her sitting in her car with the passenger window down, waving to him.  He hurries down the front steps through the rain and out to the pickup line, leaning over to talk to her through the window.

“Miss Pepper,” he says, breathless.  He’s filled with excitement to see her in the middle of the week.  “Is everything ok?”

“Yes, why don’t you get in sweetheart.”

Peter doesn’t ask why she’s there or where they’re going.  He knows it can’t be to the cabin.  He climbs inside and buckles his seatbelt.  As soon as he’s inside, she rolls up the window so the passenger seat doesn’t get any more wet from the rain than it already is.  Pepper pulls away and Peter thinks about texting Ned, who he has plans to hang out with in twenty minutes.

“How was school?” Pepper asks as she turns a corner and starts heading towards a commercial district.

“Good,” he says.  Even if it’s not a good day, he doesn’t want to drag Mr. and Mrs. Stark down, so he always says things are going well.  He doesn’t mention that he spent lunch hiding in the locker room because he didn’t want to be made fun of by Josh and his crew.  Peter thinks they must be extra bored this week, because they haven’t left him alone and have taken every chance to taunt him in the halls or at lunch.

“I got off work early today and thought we could go grab some hot chocolate.”

Peter’s chest fills with warmth.  She could have just gone home and spent some extra time with Morgan, but she’d chosen to pick Peter up from school instead.  It’s a long drive back to the lake cabin, and if it had been Peter that had gotten off work early, he would have gone straight home.  He wonders why she’s got her car today and isn’t driving with Happy since they usually drive into the city together.

“How was Morgan’s dentist appointment?” Peter asks.  He knows she had one the day before.

“She has a cavity,” Pepper tells him as she pulls over to park against a curb in front of a hip looking coffee shop.  “She’ll have it filled next week.”

Peter is about to push open his door to get out when Pepper asks, “When was the last time you had a dentist appointment?”

He cringes at the thought.  He hates going to the dentist.  “Uh, I’m fine,” he says.  “I don’t think I can get cavities.”  Now is definitely not the time to make a joke about the snap and it being five plus years since he’d last been to the dentist office.  He doesn’t want her to call his case worker and tell them to schedule an appointment.

She gives a small frown and they both step out of the car and into the rain.  It’s starting to pour so they hurry inside the coffee shop.

Pepper orders a large hot tea, and Peter orders a small hot chocolate.  Pepper asks if he wants a large, and he doesn’t waste the opportunity to get some extra calories or extra chocolatey goodness.

Once they have their drinks in hand, Pepper leads him to a table by the large front window looking out over the street.  The rain has let up to a drizzle.  It’s cold, dark and cloudy outside, but inside the coffee shop, string lights are casting warm yellow light over the shop interior and their table, giving the whole place a warm inviting atmosphere.  Peter thinks he might like some string lights up around his room at the cabin.

As he sips his hot cocoa, letting it warm him from the inside out, Peter watches as rain dribbles down the window.

“Have you been getting enough to eat?” Pepper asks, and Peter looks up at her.

“Oh yeah,” he says.  “I get a free lunch at school, and I get breakfast and dinner at the foster home.”

“How is it there?”  Her expression is tight, concerned, and Peter tilts his head a little and frowns.

“It’s fine,” he says.  He can’t say it’s good, but it’s definitely not bad.  “I’m not there much.  I’m at school, then I hang out with Ned and go out on patrol.  I’m mostly just there to sleep and do my laundry.”

She gives a nod, and when she next speaks, Peter is grateful she changes the subject to something he wants to talk about.  “It’s supposed to rain all week.  I think Tony is planning on watching movies all weekend.”

“Yaaay,” Peter says with fake enthusiasm and a genuine smile.  “My Little Pony and Frozen.”

Pepper smiles and takes a sip of her hot tea.  “Morgan is getting tired of Frozen,” she says.  “She’s moved on to the Little Mermaid.”

Peter hangs his head and laughs.

“I’ll see if I can schedule her to visit with a friend Saturday so you and Tony can pick a few movies.”

“No, no,” Peter says quickly, feeling panic start to rise up in him, “that’s ok, I don’t want Morgan to have to leave her own house.  I don’t mind Little Mermaid, I swear.”

Pepper sets her tea down and reaches across the little table, resting her hand on top of Peter’s for a moment.  “It’s ok, you get to pick some movies too.  Besides, I know Tony is tired of cartoons.”

Peter looks down at his drink, which is almost gone now, and smiles.  “We need a schedule,” he says jokingly.  “Days and times everyone gets to pick movies.”

Pepper nods.  “You and I might thrive on schedules, but Tony and Morgan are more of fly by the seat of your pants type people.”

Peter laughs again.  He doesn’t know if he thrives on schedules or not.  Well, maybe he does.  He lives all week for Fridays when he knows Happy will come pick him up to take him to the cabin.  At the same time though, he loves little surprises like Pepper picking him up to take him for hot cocoa.

They talk for twenty more minutes until their tea and cocoa are gone.  Peter thinks of asking for another just so he can stay there with her longer, but doesn’t want to keep her from going home to her family.  He wishes more than anything that he could just go home with her.

They exit the coffee shop and hurry to the car through the rain.  Pepper says she’ll take him back to the foster home, but he asks instead if she can drive him to Ned’s because they have plans to hang out.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, “I didn’t mean to interrupt your plans with your friend.”

“No no,” Peter hurries to say.  “It’s ok.  We hang out everyday after school.  I texted him and he understands.  But if you don’t mind, I’d like to go there instead of back to the foster home.”

She gives a little nod and a tight smile that looks more like a grimace.  He doesn’t understand why she looks like that.  “Is that ok?” Peter asks.  “I can totally just take the bus if you don’t want the extra drive-”

“It’s fine sweetheart,” she tells him, putting her hand on his wrist to calm him down.

As they pull away, Peter reaches forward a little to turn the radio on, and then remembers he’s not with Tony and pulls his hand back, grateful that Pepper hasn’t noticed.  Tony likes to drive with music turned up as loud as Peter can stand with his sensitive hearing.  But Peter has never driven in the car with just Pepper before, and hasn’t spent a lot of one on one time with her, so he doesn’t know how she’ll take him turning on the radio.

They ride in comfortable silence for the ten minutes it takes her to drive him to Ned’s house.  It’s still raining when they get there.

“Peter honey, do you have a coat?” she asks as he reaches for the door handle.

“No,” he says.  “It’s ok, I’ll ask Ned if I can use his dryer to dry my hoodie when I get inside.  He won’t mind.”

She gives a little nod, and he thanks her for picking him up and taking him out to the coffee shop.  He notes as he runs through the rain up to the entrance to Ned’s building, that she doesn’t pull away until he’s inside.  He smiles to himself as he hikes up the stairs to the third floor to Ned’s apartment.  Pepper is the best.

* * *

He sees the Starks on Fridays.  But Pepper had come the day before and taken Peter to the coffee shop, and now Peter is staring at them in confusion as they come in through the front door of Midtown and look around.  It’s Thursday.  It is isn’t it? he wonders.  It definitely is.  It’s Thursday evening and Peter is at Midtown helping direct people to where they’re supposed to go for parent teacher conferences.  Some parents have come with their children, others have come alone, leaving their students at home.  Peter would prefer not to be here himself, because he knows he has no parents to come to conferences for him, but he’d been offered extra credit in English for doing this, and he’s not about to pass that up.

Pepper smiles as she spots him standing there down the hallway staring, open mouthed, and nudges Tony gently in the side, pointing at Peter.  Peter hurries up to them.  “Mr. Stark,” he says in surprise.  “What are you- uh, is everything ok?”

“Yeah Roo, everything is great.  We wanted to come to the conference and talk to your teachers.”

“My teachers?  But- why?”

Tony smiles at him and puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder.  “Why not kid?”

He looks around for a moment, still confused, and asks, “Where’s Morgan?”

“She’s with Happy for the evening,” Pepper tells him.

Tony snorts and says, “They’re going to have a tea party and watch Downton Abbey.”

“You mean Little Mermaid,” Peter says, a small smile of his own forming.

“Yup, exactly what I meant Roo.  Now where are we headed first?”

Peter hasn’t had someone to go to parent teacher conferences with him in a long time.  Even when May was still alive, she was often working nights and didn’t have time to go.  “Uh, we can just go to classes I have in whichever order we want.”  He motions over his shoulder with his thumb.  For some reason he can’t even remember which classes he has at the moment.  He’s drawing a blank.  All he can think about is May.  He frowns slightly.  Parent teacher conferences are for parents to go to, and Pepper and Tony aren’t his parents… no matter how much he wishes they could be.  Still, here they are, smiling down at him.

“Robotics?” Tony asks to get Peter moving.  Peter looks up at him and grins.  He’s been working on a big project since school started two months ago.  He’s been telling Tony about it all this time, and now he’ll get to show him in person.  Excitement fills him from the tip of his toes all the way up to his head.  Tony and Pepper are here despite that it’s Thursday.

Peter leads them down the hall towards the robotics room.  It feels like a Friday.

Tony lets Peter talk about his project in the robotics classroom for ten full minutes before the robotics teacher comes over to them, finally done talking to another set of parents.  He’s surprised to see the Tony Stark in his classroom, and looks like he wants to ask why he’s there and interested in Peter’s project, but holds himself back.  Instead he tells them how smart Peter is and how enthusiastic he is about robotics.

They get similar stunned reactions in other classrooms they go to from teachers, kids in Peter’s classes, and parents.  Eyes are on them wherever they go as they move around the school.  Tony and Pepper are talking to his math teacher when Mrs. Evers, his English teacher finds him and sticks her head in through the open door of the math classroom.

“Peter,” she says, and he turns at the sound of his name.

“I’ve been looking for you.  You left your post.”

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” he says.  “I was there, and I was directing people and then-”

“Everything ok Pete?” Mr. Stark asks from across the room, and Peter turns to him.

“Yeah, uh, yeah, yup, everything’s good.”

Tony gives a nod and tunes back in to what the math teacher is saying, though his eyes are still on Peter and Mrs. Evers as Peter turns back to her.

Mrs. Evers is staring past Peter to Tony and Pepper, listening as the math teacher tells them about Peter’s high grades, and how he should probably be bumped up to a higher level of math before the school year gets too much further along.

“Sorry,” Peter tells her again.

Her eyes focus back on Peter.  “I thought your parents weren’t coming,” she says.

Peter’s cheeks heat up.  “Oh, uh, they’re not my…”

“It’s ok,” she says.  “Mr. Morita has been filling in for you.  I’ll let him know you’re busy for the rest of the evening.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says again.

She gives him a little smile.  “There’s more extra credit coming up next week.  I’ll announce it to the class on Monday.”  She turns and leaves, and a moment later, Tony comes up behind him and puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder, startling him a little.  Peter settles down as soon as he realizes it’s Tony behind him.

“Hey kid, anywhere else we need to go?”

He’s tempted to show them around the whole school, because he doesn’t want them to leave.  He still has to take them to the English classroom down the hall, but Mrs. Evers is under the impression that Tony and Pepper are his parents, and he doesn’t want her to say that in front of them.  He doesn’t want to explain to them how he let his teacher think that.

“No, that’s it,” Peter says.

“Great, we can go grab some dinner then.  Where do you want to go Roo?” Tony asks.  Hand still on Peter’s shoulder, he guides Peter out the door of the math classroom and down the hall.

“All of us?  What about Morgan?”  It’s after seven.  He’s sure they’ll want to get home to pick her up from Happy’s house and get her to bed, or have dinner with her.

“Yeah, well Pep might be a little upset if we make her wait in the car while we eat,” Tony jokes.  He doesn’t answer Peter’s question about Morgan at all.

“Um… Thai food?”  There’s this place he and May used to go to before she died.  Peter hasn’t been back since he was thirteen.  He wonders if the place survived the snap, or if it’s closed down or moved to another part of the city.  “Uh, it might not be there anymore,” he says, “the place I was thinking of.”

“Well, if it’s not, we’ll find somewhere else.”

They head out of the school and to Tony’s black Audi.  Before Peter can buckle himself in, in the back seat, Tony passes back a coat and says, “Here, it’s chilly out, put this on.”

Peter stares at it in the darkness.  It’s not one of Tony’s coats.  It looks like it’s his size.  It’s light gray and looks warm… and expensive.

“Is this- for me?” he asks, pulling it on.  His chilled skin instantly feels warmer.  The inside of the coat is soft, and it fits well.  He buckles himself in.

“Yeah, I bought that this morning.  Pep noticed you didn’t have a coat.”

Peter is used to them giving him clothes now.  He’s learned to just accept things when they’re offered to him, whether they come from Tony and Pepper or someone else, because living in foster care he doesn’t often get new things or all the things he needs.  Pepper had taken Peter back to school shopping before school started knowing the foster home wasn’t planning on helping him get pencils, notebooks and other things he needed, and Peter had to hold back his instincts then to not put up a fight as she added things into the cart.  Before May had died they’d struggled to make ends meet, but she had told him not to take things from neighbors or friends at school who tried to give him their items, because they weren’t totally poor and there were others who needed those items more.  Peter supposed he was one of those people now who did need them. 

“Thanks Mr. and Mrs. Stark,” he says as the engine purrs to life and Tony pulls out of the Midtown parking lot.  “It’s really warm.”

“Do you like the color ok?” Pepper asks.

“Yeah, it’s great.”

Peter directs Tony on where to go to find the Thai place.  He’s disappointed to find that the restaurant is no longer there, the space now occupied by a cell phone store.  Pepper searches up a different restaurant and they drive to another part of Queens.

As they sit and eat their food forty minutes later, Tony asks Peter questions about school.  Peter doesn’t find any of the questions out of the ordinary considering they just came from parent teacher conferences.

“Seems like school is going good for you,” Tony says.

“Yeah, it’s ok.”

“Just ok?”

Peter smiles as he swallows a bite of food.  “I almost have an A plus in English.”

“Do you like Midtown?” Tony presses.

Peter used to.  He used to love it when Ned and MJ were there.  He even misses Flash and his stupid taunts.  Midtown is still Midtown, but it’s not Peter’s favorite place to be now that most of the people he knows are gone.  “Yeah, I mean, at least I’m not stuck in one of the public schools in the city,” he says.  Most of the boys in the foster home he lives in go to a public school just a few blocks from where they live.  The other boys frequently talk about guns and knives being brought to school, and most of them are failing several classes, even the one kid that wants to learn and eventually go to college like Peter.  “You know,” Peter says, “there’s just a lot of bad stuff going on at some of the other schools.”

“Do you ever think of changing schools?” Pepper asks.

“From Midtown?”  Peter shakes his head.  He doesn’t know where else he would go.  “I dunno, no where else to go.  I’m lucky I get to go to Midtown.”  He knows he is.  One of his previous case workers had worked hard to get him in there just after May had died because he’d had such good grades and was interested in science and technology.

It’s after eight when they finish eating and Tony and Pepper drive him back to the foster home.  “We’ll see you tomorrow,” Tony says.

“Thanks for dinner, and for coming to the conferences,” Peter says with a smile.

“No problem kid.”

Just as Peter climbs out of the car and closes the door, he catches Pepper asking Tony, “Do you think we should go in with him?”

Peter gives them a wave and hurries up the front steps and into the house.  He doesn't know why she would want to come in with him.

He hurries up the stairs past the boys in the living rooms watching TV and to the room he shares with two other boys.  The other two boys sleep in a bunk bed.  Peter is the only kid in the home that has a twin bed and doesn’t sleep in a bunk.

He changes into pajamas and then packs his backpack full of clothes he’ll take to school with him in the morning since tomorrow is Friday and Happy will pick him up straight from there to go to the lake cabin.  He wraps himself up in his soft blanket from Mr. Stark and flops face first onto his bed.  He feels energized.  He got to see Tony and Pepper twice that week already and it’s not even Friday yet!  He can’t wait until tomorrow afternoon to see them again.

Chapter Text

It starts with a not so scary movie that Morgan is bored with.  She pulls out her tablet and headphones to watch My Little Pony, and after the movie finishes, Tony and Peter navigate through the list of movies FRIDAY has available and debate about what they’re going to watch next.  It’s getting late and Morgan will be going to bed soon.  Until that happens they can’t pick anything too violent or scary.  They settle on Monster House.  It’s a kids movie, and it’s not too scary, at least for Peter and Tony.  Peter has only seen it once, and Tony hasn’t seen it at all so it seems like a good choice since it’s October now and Halloween is coming up at the end of the month.

Tony makes a big bowl of popcorn and sets it on the couch between him and Peter.  He hands over a smaller bowl of popcorn to Morgan, who is sitting on the floor behind the couch with her tablet, enjoying a world of magical ponies that are far too colorful as far as Peter is concerned.

The movie isn’t bad.  Peter is focused on the plot and is oblivious to everything around him as he sits next to Mr. Stark on the couch.  The characters in the movie are running from the monster house as it chases them down the street.  Tony makes a comment about being capable of designing a house that could get up and walk on it’s own, and Peter is just thinking about telling him about Howl’s Moving Castle as the monster house on screen eats Mr. Nebbercracker, swallowing him whole.  Suddenly an ear piercing scream splits the air and he and Tony both startle, both of them practically levitating off the couch.  His senses go haywire for a moment, spidey sense tingling until he figures out that it’s Morgan standing right behind them screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Mo!” Tony says loudly, covering one ear.  That seems to break Morgan out of the terrified spell she’s in and she runs around the back of the couch to the front and throws herself into Tony’s arms.

“Hey, shh, it’s ok,” Tony says quietly, rubbing her back as she buries her face in his shoulder, crying.  “What happened?”

“The house ate him!” she cries.

Peter realizes the movie is still playing and reaches for the remote on the coffee table to pause it.  Neither of them had realized Morgan had stood up from behind the couch and was watching.  Of course she decided to start watching right at a scary moment.

“Houses don’t eat people, it’s just a movie, ok?” Tony tries to sooth her.

“That house looks like ours!” she cries.

“It’s ok.  I double checked this one when we had it built.  No legs or arms.”

“And no mouths?”

“No mouths,” he says.

“My spidey sense would know if the house wanted to eat us,” Peter tells her.  “It definitely doesn’t.”

Morgan turns to look at him, pulling her face out of her dad’s chest.  “Really?”

“Yup.  Houses can’t come to life or eat people, but if this one was alive, it would be a friendly house.  In fact, it’s my favorite house,” Peter says, trying to reassure her as Tony reaches up and wipes her tears away with the cuff of his sleeve.

“It’s friendly?” she asks, voice wobbling a little.

“Definitely.”

Pepper comes down the stairs, hair wet and wearing pajamas.  “Did I hear Morgan screaming?” she asks.  Clearly she just got out of the shower.

“All taken care of,” Tony tells her nonchalantly.

“A house ate a person, mommy,” Morgan says, as though she’s trying to gauge Pepper’s reaction to this news.

Pepper frowns, and then asks Morgan if she wants to come upstairs and tell her about it while she gets ready for bed.  Morgan climbs down off of Tony and races up the stairs, like she’s afraid the floor might open up and swallow her whole if she doesn’t hurry.

After Morgan is gone, Peter says, “I thought Miss Pepper would be mad at us.”

“Why’s that Roo?”

He shrugs.  “We’re not supposed to watch scary movies with her.”

Tony grins.  “Yeah, this one was pushing it a little, but Pep knows she gets scared over non-scary movies too.  When we watched How To Train Your Dragon, she cried because she thought Hiccup was going to fall to his death the first time he rode Toothless.”

Peter gives a nod.  Scary is scary, he thinks, even if his definition of scary is different than Morgan’s.  There are movies that he doesn’t want to watch because they’re too gory, or they freak him out.  Before the blip, MJ had invited him to watch Saw, and he’d come up with an excuse about needing to go to the lab to help Tony that night.  He had used the same excuse with her again for weeks afterwards anytime she brought up the movie.  Now that she’s off in college and isn’t there for him to hang out with, sometimes he thinks about those invitations to watch scary movies and wishes he’d accepted.

“Do you wanna watch Saw?” Peter suddenly asks, and Tony glances at him with a wary look.

“Are you crazy?  There is no way I’m watching that.”

“Great,” Peter says, and almost breathes out a sigh of relief.  “Want to finish Monster house?”

“That’s more my speed,” Tony says, and Peter grins at him and unpauses the movie.

Hours later, after everyone has gone to bed and Peter is asleep, he hears the creak of a floorboard in the hallway and shoots up in bed, sitting still and rigid, ears perked for any other sounds of movement.

Another floorboard creaks in the hall and his heart quickens.  He knows it’s silly.  He knows the house can’t come alive and eat him, but the movie is still fresh in his mind.  He lets out a sigh of relief when his door opens and he sees Morgan’s face and sleep mussed hair, a stuffed llama wearing a pink tutu dangling from one hand.

“Peter?” she whispers.

“Yeah Mo.”

She races across his dark room and climbs up onto his bed.  “I had a bad dream,” she whispers.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Nebbercracker was stuck in our basement cuz he got swallowed,” she says, snuggling up beside him.  Peter pulls his blanket out from under her legs and then up over her and she scooches down so her head is on his pillow, stuffed llama nestled between them.  “The only thing in our basement is daddy’s lab though, right?”

“If Mr. Nebbercracker was down there, I’d know.  I’d hear him,” Peter says.

“I know.  Your spidey sense still says our house is nice, right?”

“Yup.  Super friendly.  The friendliest.”

“Kay,” she mumbles, eyes drifting shut.

Peter scooches further down under the covers as well, arm around Morgan.  The lake cabin is his favorite place to be.  If he had a choice, he’d stay put right here and wouldn’t step foot off the property ever again unless it was with his- unless it was with the Stark’s.  It’s the best place because Morgan is here.  It’s the best because she trusts him to protect him like she trusts Mr. and Mrs. Stark.  It’s the best because he trusts Mr. and Mrs. Stark like Morgan does, and while he’s here, he almost feels like he belongs to them… like he and Morgan are brother and sister… like he’s not just some lucky kid they like spending time with for some reason he can’t fathom.

In the morning, Tony walks down the hallway on his way downstairs to get coffee, and catches a glimpse of something in Peter’s room through the open door.  He backs up a few steps and peers inside.  Morgan is sprawled across Peter’s chest, her stuffed animal pressed into Peter’s face.  Both of them are sleeping soundly.  Tony’s face softens.  He can guess at what happened the night before, and it fills him with warmth to see that Peter didn’t turn his sister away after she’d had a nightmare.  He loves his kids so much.

Chapter Text

It starts with one of the other boys in the foster home spilling a cup of coffee on his soft blanket from the Starks, covering it with an ugly stain. It’s not the worst start to a day he’s ever had… waking up and realizing Ben was gone… waking up a year later and realizing May was gone too… those were pretty bad starts.  This- it sucks, even though it’s not the worst thing that could happen to him, so Peter tries to push the upset and disappointment down and bury it.  He has another blanket at the Stark’s cabin, and he can wash this one and still use it, even if it’s stained.

But as Peter’s day goes on and continues to get worse, Morgan’s words from weeks before keep coming back to him about the bad day she had had at school.  “He was mean to me this week, and I came home and threw my backpack down, and stomped my feet, then daddy hugged me and I felt better.”  A boy had been mean to her, and as soon as she’d gone home her dad had hugged her and made it all better.  That’s what Peter wants.

He wants it more than anything when Greg yells at him for trying to wash his blanket before school when it’s not his laundry day.  He’ll have to wait until Monday to wash his laundry, which means his blanket will sit all weekend crusted over with coffee since it’s Friday, and he’ll have to sleep with it that way on Sunday night when he returns from spending the weekend with the Starks.

At school, Peter tries to keep himself calm by reminding himself that it’s Friday, and that in just a few short hours Happy will pick him up and take him out of the city and up to the cabin.  There are several guys that pick on him at school, but they’re not usually as bad about it as they are today.  It’s like they can sense that Peter came to school already upset, and are doing all they can to push him.  It’s almost like they’re trying to see how far he’ll go before they can push him over the edge and get him to blow up.  Well, joke’s on them because Peter isn’t biting today.  On another day he might, but it’s Friday, and if he gets into a fight the school will call Greg, who might punish him by telling him he can’t visit the Starks over the weekend.

So Peter holds his tongue as the other boys call him orphan and tease him about living in foster care.  He is an orphan, but he has the Starks. They care about him, Peter knows they do, or he wouldn’t be spending every weekend with them.

He holds his tongue when the boys make fun of his clothes.  There’s nothing wrong with them, he thinks, because Pepper and Tony bought most of them for him, including the soft warm hoodie he’s wearing that he loves so much, and the soft forest green snow cap in his backpack.

He doesn’t fight back after lunch when all three boys shove past him in the hall, and one of them shoves him hard enough that he stumbles sideways into a locker.

“Hey, watch out Parker,” the guy says with a smile.  “You’re taking up too much space.  Why don’t you do us all a favor and blip again?”  Peter bites his tongue so hard to keep from shouting that he can taste blood.  No one wants you here, is what the guy meant to say.  Peter doesn’t need anyone to tell him that.  He knows.  It’s really close to what Greg had shouted at him that morning.

Peter stands still in the hall as it empties out around him.  The warning bell rings and Peter leans against the bank of metal lockers, swallowing around the lump in his throat and trying to keep tears away.  He’s fifteen and a half.  He shouldn’t be crying over a little bullying.  He feels like Morgan.  He wants Tony.  He wants to walk out the front doors of the school and find Pepper waiting for him.  He wants Morgan there to remind him that he can do this because she has faith in him.

Peter is two minutes late to class, but the teacher doesn’t say anything to him about it, because for the most part he’s a model student, and is never late.  If Ned was still here, or if MJ wasn’t away at college, they’d sit next to him and try to make things better.  He pulls out his cell phone under his desk to text Ned. 'School kinda sucks.  How’s homeschool?’  He doesn’t text back right away and Peter wonders if his friend is napping since he does most of his schoolwork in the afternoon or at night.

* * *

Peter is usually excited to go to the cabin on Fridays.  He typically bounces on the balls of his feet, races out the front doors to Happy’s car and then chats excitedly most of the way to the cabin.  By the time school gets out and the boys he usually has trouble with get in a few last jabs at him and his orphanness, Peter feels exhausted, and grumpy, and empty, and too many other things for him to get a hold of when he tries to pin them down.

He does hurry out to Happy’s car, but it’s purely due to his need to escape the city and get to the only place he feels at home and wanted.  No one will yell at him or make fun of him when he gets to the cabin, or make him feel worthless and unwanted for wanting to wash some of his laundry.

“Hey, what’s that look for?” Happy asks as soon as Peter gets into the back seat of the car and buckles up.

Peter looks up and meets Happy’s eyes through the rearview mirror.  “Nothing.  Why?”

Happy frowns.  “Did something happen at school?”

“No.”

“At the foster home?”

“No.”

“Are you hurt?”  Happy is clearly remembering the great ‘I didn’t get stabbed, no, really Mr. Stark’ incident of 2018.

“I’m fine, Happy.”  Peter doesn’t want to worry him.  There’s nothing to worry about.  Peter has just had a really crappy day.

Happy asks Peter if he wants something to eat before they head out of town, but Peter just shakes his head.  Ned texts him back right as they’re leaving the city.  He can’t talk because he’s grounded.  Apparently his mom caught him playing video games instead of doing schoolwork, so he won’t be able to talk until he catches up on the day’s schoolwork he missed while gaming.

Peter is quiet for the rest of the ride to the cabin.  Happy doesn’t ask him anymore questions, though he does continue to give Peter worried looks through the rearview mirror.  He pulls off for gas forty minutes after they leave Midtown and Peter sees him texting someone as he stands next to the gas pump, probably Tony, Peter thinks.  Peter wonders if he’ll be accosted when he gets to the cabin and checked over for stab wounds.

Thirty minutes after they get gas, they pull off the main road and down the long dirt drive to the house.  As Happy pulls up to a stop, Peter sits and plays with the hem of his shirt instead of hurrying to unbuckle his belt and getting out of the car.  Despite the long ride, he needs a few minutes to tamp down all of his emotions from that day.  He doesn’t want to go into the house and bring Morgan or Mr. and Mrs. Stark down with his bad mood.

Happy rolls down the window next to Peter, and Peter hears the crunch of gravel under shoes as Mr. Stark approaches the car since Peter hasn’t stepped out yet.  Mr. Stark leans down and rests his arms in the open window.  “Hey kid, you coming out?”  When Peter doesn’t respond right away, Tony says, “Or I can come sit in there with you if you want.”

Peter unbuckles his belt and pushes open his door, waiting just a moment for Mr. Stark to step back and give him some room to do so.  He doesn’t catch the worried look Happy gives Tony, because he’s trying hard to tamp down on everything that happened so he can just enjoy the weekend.

When Peter finally looks up, he finds Tony there holding his arms out to him, and that’s all it takes.  His face crumples and he leans forward, pressing his face into Tony’s chest as he’s wrapped up in a comforting embrace.  It’s not that the Starks never hug him… they do.  They hug him a lot.  He can see why Morgan likes this though… coming home after a bad day and being given space to just be himself and not have any expectations on him.  Tony hugging him makes Peter feel like he’s taking Peter’s burdens and carrying them for him.

“Bad day?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says, trying to get the word out without choking.

Tony seems to understand that he can’t talk about it just at the moment, so he doesn’t ask what happened.  It’s all stupid anyway, Peter thinks.  It’s not worth getting upset over, despite that he is.

They just stand there like that, Tony’s warm embrace holding Peter together.  Peter knows he won’t move until Peter lets go.  He doesn’t want to make it awkward despite that he wants to be hugged longer, and is just considering letting go and stepping back when Tony plants a gentle kiss above his forehead in his hair.

“Come on Roo, why don’t we go for a walk around the edge of the lake.”

Peter nods and pulls back, though he wishes he could just stand there with him a little longer.

“Thanks Hap,” Tony says, and Peter hears Happy murmur that it’s not a problem.  Happy pulls away a minute later as Tony and Peter head down across the yard and towards the lake in the warm afternoon light.

Peter expects Tony to ask him about his day or why he’s upset as they make it to the edge of the lake and start to skirt around it, but he doesn’t.  He takes in a deep breath of fresh air and relaxes a little as he smells damp earth, decaying leaves, and a slight smell of smoke in the air he’s positive is coming from the fireplace in the living room of the cabin.

“So what are we thinking this weekend, Roo?” Tony asks.  “Supposed to have some warm afternoons.  I’m thinking we might be able to get a few last days in the hammock before it has to be put away for the year.”

“Yeah,” Peter says.  It sounds amazing, he thinks.  He loves relaxing in the big hammock next to Morgan and Tony.

One weekend, before school had started again, he’d come to the cabin for the weekend and had found Morgan snoozing on Tony’s chest in the hammock.  Tony had been sleeping too.  Peter had turned to go up to the cabin, but Tony had surprised him with, “There’s room in here for you too, Pete.”  Peter had never been in a hammock before, and had almost tipped all three of them onto the dirt trying to climb in beside them, but he’d made it, and had ended up laughing just as much as Morgan, who he’d woken up with his clumsy attempts at climbing in.

Peter doesn’t feel like talking, so Tony talks for the both of them, telling Peter about a new idea he has to improve the nanites that make up the newest Iron Man suits and Peter’s Iron Spider suit.  Peter doesn’t use the Iron Spider suit, he prefers the old one he had before the blip, but he keeps the watch that contains the nanites for it just in case he ever needs it again, something Tony insists on.  “It’s not just a spider suit Pete, it’s a tracker and bio-monitor too.”  Pepper and Morgan wear similar watches.  Morgan’s doesn’t have a nano-suit, though Peter suspects Pepper’s holds the nanites for the Rescue suit.

As Tony talks about nanites and something funny Morgan did the day before, Peter’s muscles relax.  They walk away from the lake a little and up into the treeline, feet crunching over fallen leaves, vibrant with fall color.  Rays of afternoon light filter down through the remaining orange and red leaves on the trees, and Peter looks up, letting the sunlight hit his face.

By the time they make it back up to the cabin forty minutes later, he doesn’t feel empty and alone anymore like he did during the drive up.  Life isn’t perfect… it can’t be.  But sometimes, when he comes back to the cabin, he feels like it can be better than just surviving and trying to make it to the end of the day.  A lot better.

When they get back to the cabin, Peter can smell cookies baking as they step up onto the porch.

“Petey!  We’re making chocolate chip cookies and we can even have one before dinner!” Morgan squeals, jumping off of the chair she’s kneeling on at the dining table.

“Oh yeah?” he asks.  They must be special cookies for Pepper to let her have one before dinner.

“Yeah!  We made them for you!”  She wraps her arms around him and squeezes tight.

“For me?”

She leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “I convinced mommy that we have to eat them hot.”  She giggles then and Peter feels light, despite the funny feeling in his stomach.  He can’t quite decide what the feeling is as Pepper comes down the stairs and smiles at him.

“Hi honey, cookies will be out soon.  Did you have a good walk with Tony?”

“Yeah, yup.  It’s not too cold out today.”

She gives him a quick hug and then heads for the kitchen because the timer is going off and she needs to pull the cookies out of the oven before they burn.  As soon as she opens the oven, the smell of delicious chocolate and hot cookies intensifies, filling the room.  Even though no one else will be able to smell it after a few hours, the house will smell like cookies to Peter all night.

Morgan dances from foot to foot, waiting for Pepper to scoop hot cookies off the baking sheet and onto a plate.  She puts one on a napkin for Morgan and tells her to wait for it to cool off, and then puts three on a napkin for Peter, and three on another for Tony.

Peter tries to wait patiently, but feels a little like Morgan.  His mouth is watering and he’s hungry.  He didn’t eat much at lunch and can’t wait for the cookies, so he reaches forward and takes one.  It burns his fingers and he shuffles it from hand to hand before stuffing the entire gooey thing into his mouth.  It’s hot, but it’s delicious and he can’t help but smile.

“Mommy,” Morgan whines impatiently.

“Give it another minute to cool,” Pepper says.

As soon as Pepper gives her permission a minute later, Morgan snatches her cookie off the counter and eats it like it’ll disappear if she doesn’t hurry.  It’s gone and she starts to complain about only getting one when Peter and Tony get three.  Peter has already eaten his second one.  He only has one cookie left, but he bends down and whispers into Morgan’s ear, “It’s ok, I’ll share.”

She giggles and holds a finger up to her lips like she wants him to be even quieter as he splits his remaining cookie in half and hands it to her.  Peter turns and glances over at Tony, who is leaning against the counter watching them with amusement in his eyes as he eats his own cookies.

It turns out they’re having takeout for dinner.  Shortly after they finish their cookies there’s a knock on the door and Tony opens it and accepts several bags of Chinese food.  He takes it to the living room and starts setting boxes out on the coffee table.  Pepper joins him with a stack of plates and silverware.

Peter waits until he sees where Tony sits down before sitting himself, and is pleased when he finds that Tony seems to have saved a spot right next to him just for Peter.

Morgan talks about her day as they eat, and Pepper tells Tony about a fight that broke out between two scientists on level 43 that had to be broken up by security.  Normally they ask Peter about his day or week over dinner, but just like Tony didn’t ask earlier, Peter recognizes they’re avoiding the topic now, and he’s grateful.

Pepper adds another log to the fire as they finish dinner and Morgan goes to a wooden chest to pull out board games.  Apparently tonight is a board game night.  It’s not something they do often, but Peter always has fun when they do.  When Tony gets up to go to the kitchen halfway through a cutthroat round of Monopoly where they’re paying Morgan every time she rolls the dice just so she can stay in the game, Peter goes with him.  Tony smiles at him and ruffles his hair.  He snags another cookie and says, “Quick, don’t let Morgan see.”

Tony makes a cup of tea for Pepper and a cup of decaf coffee for himself, and he and Peter go back to the living room.  Somehow during their absence Morgan has amassed several hundred more dollars.  Peter stares down at his colorful game money as he sits down on the couch next to Tony again.  The stack looks suspiciously larger than he remembers.  His eyes come up to see if Morgan had anything to do with it, but she’s not looking at him and is happily counting her play money.

Pepper however gives him a warm smile.  Did she give him more money?  He doesn’t know why she would.  She and Tony are in a fierce competition to dominate the board and are winning against Peter fair and square.  But as Tony rolls the dice and happily skips straight over several of Pepper’s properties to land on his own, Peter counts his money and finds that he has five hundred dollars more than he should.

The funny feeling he’d had earlier niggles in his stomach again.  He frowns, and Tony reaches up behind him and ruffles his hair again.

Monopoly ends half an hour later with Morgan bored and lying on her back on the carpet singing a song from Frozen to herself, and Tony shouting, “HA!  Take that Pep!  Hand over the rest of your cash.”

“Good job honey,” she says, voice light and sweet, and Tony frowns.

“No no, don’t do that.  I won fair and square.”  He points at her.  “You did not hand this to me.”

“No, never said I did,” she says in the same tone, as though she’s just giving him what he wants and doesn’t want him to know.

“Pete, Pepper’s being mean to me,” Tony complains in a joking tone.  Peter wonders if she would have won if she hadn’t given Peter five hundred dollars from her own cash stack earlier.  Either way, she doesn’t seem to care.  She leans down and kisses Tony on the lips and then stands up to go to the kitchen to refill her tea.

“I won that, you saw, right Pete?”

“Yeah, totally Mr. Stark,” Peter says with a grin.  Tony rolls his eyes as he starts sorting game money back into their respective stacks and Peter begins putting the rest of the game pieces away.

Morgan wants to put together a puzzle, but it’s close to her bed time so Pepper convinces her to play a quick round of UNO instead.  As they play, Morgan casually mentions that Christmas is coming up after Halloween and Thanksgiving and starts listing all the toys she wants, which include a Barbie house, several coloring books, and a Finding Nemo stuffed animal, specifically Dory.

Peter is sitting close enough to Tony that he can feel the man stiffen beside him at the mention of the movie.

“That’s nice,” Pepper tells Morgan.  “Make a list sweetheart, but remember that you can’t have everything that you put down, ok?”

Morgan nods like she already knows.  A few minutes later Peter wins the hand of UNO and Pepper tells Morgan it’s time for her to get ready for bed.  On her way past Peter she leans in and whispers, “Can you sneak me another cookie after I brush my teeth?”

“We’ll try for another one tomorrow,” Peter whispers.  She hugs him, climbs onto Tony’s lap for a goodnight hug and kiss, and then follows Pepper upstairs to get ready for bed.

“Are we still playing?” Peter asks Tony.

“Yeah, shuffle em.”

They play two more hands before Tony says he wants to watch the news.  He tells Peter to run upstairs and get changed into pajamas and then come back down.

Peter comes back ten minutes later and finds Tony watching some current events piece.  He turns it off when Peter comes in and sits down next to him.  He holds his arm out and Peter doesn’t hesitate to lean into his side and put his feet up on the coffee table next to Tony’s.

“You wanna talk about it?” Tony asks, and Peter doesn’t have to ask what he’s referring to.

“I just… had a really bad day.”

“What happened?”

Peter shrugs, some of the bad feelings from at the foster home and then at school rising back up in him.  He can’t tell Tony, can he?  It will just ruin everything good that happened that evening… the afternoon walk through the woods, and the cookies, and board games and hugs.  But then Tony reaches up with the arm that’s wrapped around Peter’s shoulders and sets his hand in Peter’s hair, and Peter relaxes again, the bad feelings from that day washing away.

“One of the boys in my room spilled coffee all over my blanket, and I didn’t get to wash it, and it’s gonna be stained now.  And then-” he pauses.  Then Greg had yelled at him and told him how hard he is to deal with, and that he doesn’t get paid enough to take care of Peter, and that he can’t wait until Peter is gone.  No… that’s too much to tell Tony.  Peter doesn’t want to bring that here… not to this place.  He clears his throat and says instead, “Then some of the guys at school were being jerks.  Just- sucked.  And Ned is grounded so he can’t really message me back.”

“That it?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Peter pauses again.  “Yeah, that’s it,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry that happened,” Tony tells him.  “We can get you another blanket.”

“That’s ok,” Peter mumbles.  The blanket is important to him, but somehow it feels less so when he’s here at the cabin in front of the crackling fire next to Tony.

“Did you get hurt at school?”

“No.”

“Those guys didn’t push you around or anything?”

Peter shakes his head, staring into the dancing flames.  They had, but he hadn’t been hurt.  Their words had hurt more than anything else.

“You know you can tell me if they did, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I can call the school if you want, or go down there Monday to talk to the principal.”

“It’s ok,” Peter says, “it wasn’t that bad.  I was just being stupid.”

Tony runs his hand through Peter’s hair once and says, “You’re not stupid kid.  You’re one of the smartest people I know.”

“Thanks.”

Tony doesn’t ask him any more questions.  After a few minutes, he turns the news back on and turns the sound down so it’s not too loud.  Peter watches for a few minutes, but then his mind goes back to the walk in the woods, and not so sneakily sneaking half of his cookie to Morgan.  He wonders about Pepper slipping him extra money during Monopoly again, and then thinks about Morgan’s request for Finding Nemo stuffed animals and how Tony can’t watch Finding Nemo.  Peter still doesn’t get why.

“Tony?” he asks quietly.

“Hm?”  Tony runs his hand through Peter’s hair again, eyes up on the newscast on TV.

“Why can’t you watch Finding Nemo?”

He stiffens, just like he did earlier when Morgan had brought up her Christmas wishlist.  “Just can’t kiddo.”  His voice is soft, but strained.

“Yeah,” Peter says.  “Okay.”  He doesn’t know why, but he gets that Tony can’t talk about it, or doesn’t want to.  He understands, just like Tony took one look at him sitting in the car that afternoon and understood that Peter wasn’t going to be able to talk about his bad day just then.

Tony gives Peter’s shoulders a little squeeze and then relaxes a little as he turns his eyes back up to the TV.  Peter tries to focus on the newscast, but it’s getting late and he’s feeling warm and comfortable leaning against Tony’s side.  His eyes drift to the dancing flames of the fire again, and then close.  As he drifts off to sleep a few minutes later, he decides that he does know what the feeling that keeps coming into his stomach is.  It’s relief, and safety, belonging and love.

Chapter Text

It starts with a scratch in his throat on Wednesday afternoon.  It’s not terribly uncomfortable, so Peter doesn’t think anything of it at first.  He knows it’s not impossible for him to get sick, but ever since the spider bite, it’s been rare.  It’s been a long time since he’s been sick, so he really doesn’t think anything of the scratchiness as he stays at Ned’s house as long as possible and then heads out on patrol on his way back to the foster home.  It’s sprinkling, and Peter makes use of the heater in his suit, trying to keep the suit and himself as dry as possible.

Peter doesn’t usually stay out terribly late on school nights, even though Greg doesn’t care when he comes or goes or if it’s after curfew.  Tonight, Peter gets side tracked and ends up staying out later than he means to.  He’s dealing with a couple of kids spray painting an alley wall when he hears a terrified scream coming from down the street.  He webs the spray paint cans away from the kids and leaves them up high where they have no chance of reaching them, and then swings away into the night.  It doesn’t take him long to find out what the screaming is all about, because there’s a lizard man with a long tail trying to rip a car in half with a woman inside the driver's seat.

“Whoa, is this road rage or roid rage?” Peter asks.  The lizard man still has human legs and is wearing a baggy pair of black sweatpants with a hole in the back for his green tail.  His arms are green and scaly, but muscly, and Peter wonders just what kind of drugs this guy took to turn into a mini-godzilla.

Peter isn’t really expecting an answer, but the lizard guy turns to him and says, “Roid rage?  Really?  You think steroids did this to me?”  He motions up and down his body with one hand.

The woman stops screaming and climbs out her window before bolting down the street.

“Well,” Peter hedges.  Usually when he gets sassy with criminals, they yell at him to shut up.  Lizard guy seems fairly calm though, and Peter really isn’t sure what to say.  He motions to the car, which is crumpled beyond repair.

“She stole my car dude,” Lizard guy says.  Peter really wasn’t expecting that.  Before he can say anything, or send out webs at the man, the guy reaches in through the mostly destroyed passenger window and rips open the glove box.  He pulls out a registration and hands it to Peter like this is a routine traffic stop and Peter is a police officer.  He takes it and stares down at it, feeling dumb.  He’s never even seen a car registration before.

“That’s me,” Lizard guy says, and he points down with one long green finger, tapping on the page Peter is holding.  “I’m Brad.  My roommate let that lady crash on our couch, and I came home and half our stuff was gone, including my car.”

“Do you uh… have ID Brad?” Peter asks.  He looks up, and Lizard guy is looking a little less lizard-like.  His tail has shortened, and his skin is looking a little smoother.  His face almost looks human again.  He digs around in his pants pocket and by the time he pulls out his wallet and then his driver’s license, he’s fully human again.  His shirt and pants are a little stretched out, and there’s a big hole in the back of his pants where the tail had ripped through them.

Sure enough, when Peter looks at his ID, the name matches the car registration.  Peter hands the registration and ID back to him.

“So how did all of this-” Peter motions to Brad’s body, “happen?”

Brad gives him a critical look and then motions to Peter.  “You first Spidey.”

“Erm… spider bite?”

Brad scoffs.

“Right… erm… have a good day sir.”

Peter webs himself up to a rooftop nearby and then leans over the edge to watch.  He wants to make sure Brad won’t go after the lady that stole his car again.  Peter is willing to bet she won’t come back to take advantage of Brad and his roommate again, not after the surprise of finding a 300 pound lizard chasing her down the street and trying to forcibly take the stolen car back.

Peter watches as Brad surveys the damage to his car, and then starts trying to salvage some of his stolen goods out of it.  He watches for the better part of an hour, sitting there in the rain, and then finally heads back to the foster home.  It’s past midnight when he gets back.  It’s too late to take a hot shower to warm up, so Peter changes into dry clothes and then climbs under his stained blanket.  He has to get up in just under six hours, and isn’t looking forward to being tired and groggy the next day at school.

* * *

His throat is more than just scratchy in the morning.  It feels like it’s on fire.  Peter groans and rolls onto his side as one of the other boy’s turns on their bedroom light to start getting ready for the day.

“What’s wrong with you?” one of the boys asks.

“Sick,” Peter croaks out.  He swallows, trying to get some moisture down his throat, but that only makes it hurt worse.  He pushes himself up, and as soon as he’s standing, his head starts pounding.

“Sucks to be you,” the boy says.  “You know old man Greg won’t let you stay home.”

“You could just skip school,” one of the other boys says.  “Stay at the library all day or something.”

“That’s not any better,” Peter tells him.  Plus, he can’t skip school for any reason or the school will call Greg and then Peter might have to skip his weekend with the Starks.

Peter does his best to get up and get ready for the day.  His headache subsides a little and he’s hopeful that this is all just from a lack of sleep and will get better as the day goes on.  By the time he makes it downstairs and into the kitchen to have a bowl of cereal, all the other boys in the house as well as Greg seem to know that he’s sick.

“You’re not staying home,” Greg says, “you know the rules.”

“Yes sir.”

Greg gives a satisfied nod, and the hard glare he’s been giving Peter for the last several moments slowly fades away.  Greg leaves the boys in the kitchen to go get ready for work himself.  As Peter slides into a chair at the small kitchen table, he’s surprised when one of the boys slides a hot cup of tea in front of him.

“Here, this might help.  My grandma always used to make me hot tea when I had a sore throat.”

“Thanks,” Peter mumbles gratefully.  He doesn’t realize how chilled he’s feeling until he wraps his hands around the hot cup and then shivers.

The other boys quickly finish their breakfast and then head for the front door with their backpacks.  Peter drags his feet finishing the tea and knows he’ll be late to school if he doesn’t hurry.

When he gets outside ten minutes later wearing a hoodie with a coat over top, he shivers as rain pelts his face.  Last night’s light sprinkle has turned into a torrent of rain this morning, and little rivers of water are running down the street gutters.  He pulls his hood up and then makes his way to school, feeling cold and miserable.

* * *

Peter is soaked and can’t get warm.  He sits through his first two classes shivering, his throat on fire.  He’s miserable, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Peter, are you ok?”  Mrs. Evers asks as soon as he walks into third period English.  He must look really miserable if she has noticed.

“Yeah…” he knows he doesn’t sound convincing since he can barely speak.  “I have a cold,” he says.

She gives a light frown.  “If you don’t feel well you shouldn’t be at school.  Why don’t you call your parents to come get you?”

He frowns, but then says, “I’ll text them.”  He doesn’t have parents to text to come pick him up.  Greg had made that clear the day he moved in, and a dozen times since then.  Greg works in a factory and has no time to take care of sick kids or kids that get suspended.  It’s best to let Mrs. Evers think he’s doing as he’s told and then hope she doesn’t follow up.

As Peter sits in the back of the classroom not paying much attention to the day’s lesson, he starts to think about what being sick really means for him.  It’s Thursday, and he doubts he’ll feel well enough by Friday to go to the Starks after school.  His shoulders fall.  He doesn’t want to miss a weekend with them, but at the same time, it would be selfish to go to the lake house and then get them all sick.  Peter is going to have to rough it for the next few days by himself.  He’ll have to go to school sick on Friday, and then hope the other boys at the foster home take pity on him over the weekend and make him some more tea and possibly some canned soup.

Reluctantly, Peter pulls out his phone and sends a text to Mr. Stark.  ‘I don’t think I can come over this weekend.  I’m sorry.’

Tony’s response comes barely a minute later.  ‘Why not?  What’s wrong?’

Peter notes that Mrs. Evers is watching him from the front of the room, but doesn’t seem to mind him texting since it’s what she’d told him to do.

‘I have a cold.  I don’t want to get any of you sick.’

‘Do you have a doctor’s appointment?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Peter hurries to type, thinking Mr. Stark might be worried about Peter’s secret being exposed. ‘He wouldn’t take me anyway.’

‘Pete, why does your watch say you’re at school?’

‘We’re not allowed to stay home if we’re sick.’

Tony doesn’t text him back, so Peter thinks that’s the end of it.  He’s sad about the loss of the weekend with the Starks, but at the same time, he feels so miserable that he doesn’t think he would have enjoyed it anyway, even if they did allow him to come.

At the end of the class he tells Mrs. Evers that his parents are coming, and then hopes she doesn’t spot him for the rest of the day and catch him in his lie.  He goes to fourth period and sits in the back of the room, slumped down in his seat, and then heads to lunch.  It’s there that the PE teacher finds him, pushing his free school lunch around on the tray, not eating because it hurts too much to swallow.

“Parker,” the man says, and Peter looks up, confused.  People usually don’t approach him at lunch unless it’s to say mean things to him.

“Yeah?” he croaks.

“Go to the office, your dad is here.”

He raises his brows, confused.  “Huh?”

“You’re going home for the day.  Hurry up, don’t keep him waiting.”

Peter picks up his bag and then dumps what’s left of his lunch in the trash can.  He wonders briefly if Greg took time off of work to come get him from school, though he can’t imagine why he would after making it crystal clear that morning that he wouldn’t.  Fear flashes through him then that a teacher called home for him, and his heart starts to race, his head pounding along painfully to the beat.

He hurries as fast as he can out of the cafeteria and down the main hall to the office.  It’s not Greg he finds when he gets there though, it’s Mr. Stark.  Peter is even more bewildered to find him there than Greg.  Relief floods him and fights for space with his confusion at seeing Mr. Stark there waiting for him.

“Mr. Stark?” he croaks.

“C’mon buddy, I already signed you out.”

“But- it’s only Thursday.”

“Yeah, and you’re sick,” he says.  He reaches over and takes Peter’s bag off his shoulder.  “Geeze, what are you carrying in here, bricks?”  Peter feels bad for a moment, but Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to mind.  He puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder briefly to get him moving out of the office and towards the front doors.

“I don’t understand- why are you here?”

“Kid, you shouldn’t be at school if you’re feeling this bad.  I called Greg and cleared it with him.  He was pretty ok with me taking you tonight and tomorrow night too.  He said he’d call you in sick at school for tomorrow.”

Peter is stunned.  He can’t believe his good luck.  Greg doesn’t want to take care of him, so he’s willing to let Mr. Stark take him for two extra days just so that he doesn’t have to deal with Peter.

“But- you might get sick now,” Peter says as they step out into the rain.

“Maybe,” Tony says.

“I- I don’t want to get everyone sick.”

“We’ll quarantine you in the bedroom.  I’m not going to let you just sit at school sick and miserable though.”

Peter swallows painfully.  He’s not sure what to say.  He knows they care about him… like him even, but he’d never expected this level of kindness.  It’s what May would have done for him… what Ben would have done.

They get into the car and before Peter can buckle up, Tony puts his hand on the back of Peter’s forehead.

“You have a fever,” he says.  He sounds displeased.

“Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?  You can’t help getting sick.  You probably caught something at school.  Kids are little germ monsters.  Morgan was sick Monday afternoon and spent Monday night throwing up.  She just went back to school this morning.”

“That’s what I’m going to go for as Halloween… a germ monster,” Peter says as Tony pulls away from the school, rain pelting the windshield.  He wants Mr. Stark to laugh and to stop looking worried.  They’ve done so much for Peter, and he hates that he’s worrying Mr. Stark now over a little cold.

“That’s what you’re masquerading as now,” Tony says with a little laugh.

He asks Peter if he wants anything to eat, and Peter declines.  Peter gives him a general rundown of his symptoms when asked, and then the two of them grow quiet.  Peter falls asleep to the sound of the car engine and rain pelting the windshield before they make it out of the city.

* * *

It’s not raining when they arrive at the lake house.  The ground is wet, but the clouds have parted enough to let a little sunlight stream through and illuminate the damp gravel driveway and house.

Peter’s clothes are still wet from his walk that morning to the subway, and then from the subway station to school, so the first order of business is to get him into something dry.  Tony directs Peter up to his room, and Peter obeys, wanting nothing more than to flop down on his bed and wrap up in a soft warm blanket.  Tony follows him up the stairs and immediately goes to Peter’s dresser and starts pulling out clean clothes.

He tosses a pair of dark gray sweatpants onto the bed, and then a black Star Wars t-shirt, a fresh hoodie, and a fuzzy pair of dark blue socks Peter has never seen before.  Peter eyes the socks as Tony turns around.

“Pep bought those for you earlier this week.  Morgan has a couple pairs and she insisted the two of you need to be fuzzy sock buddies.”

Peter groans and sits up to start getting dressed, and Tony disappears for a few minutes to give him some privacy.  When he comes back with a cup of hot tea, Peter has managed to get into the clean t-shirt and sweatpants, but nothing else.  His arms feel weak and he has given up on the idea of pulling the hoodie and socks on.  Tony takes in the miserable looking teenager before him for a moment, and then sets the hot tea down on Peter’s nightstand.

“C’mon, lift your arms up,” Tony says.

Peter frowns up at him, and Tony motions with his hands towards Peter’s arms.   “Up, up.  C’mon.”  He picks up the hoodie and Peter realizes what he’s trying to do.

“I can do that myself,” Peter says.  “I’m not a baby.”  Sometimes Tony or Pepper still help Morgan get dressed.  Every once in a while she comes down the stairs with her pants on backwards or with her head stuck inside a sweater, unable to get it on all the way.

“Are you cold?” Tony challenges.  He doesn’t sound angry.

“Yeah but-”

“Then lift your arms up.”

Peter doesn’t feel like fighting despite his sour mood.  The last thing he wants to do is fight with Mr. Stark.  He lifts his arms up and Mr. Stark shimmies the hoodie down over his head and arms.  Peter is still shivering once it’s on, but he feels a lot better for it.  He flops backwards on the bed and lays there, legs dangling off the end.  He’s surprised a moment later when Tony lifts up his left foot and slides one of the warm fuzzy socks on.

“Hey,” Peter complains.

“What?  Did you say something?”  Tony leans down, holding Peter’s newly fuzzy foot close to his ear.

Peter can’t help but laugh.  “Mr. Stark, c’mon, I can do that.”

“I know you can.  Also, I had no idea your left foot could talk.  Does it have a name?”

Peter laughs again.  He tries to pull his right foot away when Tony tries to attack it with the other fuzzy blue sock, but he has no energy and Tony wins after only a few moments.  He points at Peter and says, “Morgan would be disappointed with your effort.  B minus.  Your sister puts up way more of a fight when she’s sick and tired.”

Peter freezes.  His brain feels like it has short circuited.  His sister?

“You ok Roo?”

He blinks several times and then lets his eyes slide over to Tony, who is still standing at the foot of the bed.  “Huh?”

Tony reacts to Peter’s confusion by walking around the side of the bed and feeling his forehead again.  He frowns and says, “I’m going to call Bruce and see what he recommends to get this fever down.  I have some of your painkillers here, but I don’t know that they’ll do anything for a fever.  FRI, what’s his temp?”

“101.6.”

“Not too bad yet,” Tony says.  “C’mon, let’s get you under the covers.”

Peter rolls off the side of the bed, feeling weak, and his head starts pounding again as soon as he stands up.  From the other side of the bed Tony pulls the covers back, and Peter climbs back into the bed.

“Drink some of that tea.  I put honey in it.  It’ll help your throat.  I’m going to go see if we have any throat lozenges.  If not, I’ll ask Pepper to pick some up on her way home.”

“You don’t gotta do that,” Peter says.  “I don’t want to bother her.”

“It’s not a bother,” Tony tells him.  He takes the cup of tea from the nightstand and presses it into Peter’s hands, and then leaves the room to go in search of throat lozenges.

Peter drinks some of the hot tea, grateful to have it both for the warmth it’s sending into his cold hands, and the way it’s soothing his throat.  It hurts to swallow at first, but after a few sips his throat feels calmer and less irritated.  Mr. Stark doesn’t come back right away, so Peter has a few minutes to think over what he’d said.  He’d said Morgan was his sister, hadn’t he?  Peter really isn’t sure if he’d heard right or not, and is afraid to ask.  If that’s not what Mr. Stark said, Peter will sound silly… like he’s trying to insert himself into their family when he’s not really part of it.  He feels like Morgan’s older brother, but that doesn’t make him her brother any more than it makes him Mr. Stark’s son just because he feels like he is sometimes… all the time.  In the end, he decides that it was all wishful thinking on his part.

He’s lucky he has them at all.  He doesn’t need any more than this, he tells himself as he stares down into his tea.  He must be giving it a dark look, because when Mr. Stark comes back a few minutes later with a handful of throat lozenges, he says, “Did that tea do something to you?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing Roo.  Are you hungry?  Do you want some soup?”

Peter shakes his head.  “No, I’m ok Mr. Stark.  I think I just want to sleep.  I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“Yeah?  Late night?  I didn’t check the baby monitor footage yet.”

Peter shoots him a dark look for a moment at the name of Karen’s monitoring protocol, but he can’t hold it.

“There was a lizard man ripping a car in half.”

“That’ll teach that lady to steal his stuff,” Tony says.

When Peter looks up at him, he finds Mr. Stark with his hands on his hips, grinning.  “Thought you said you didn’t watch it yet.”

“Yeah, well Pep says I’m a helicopter parent.  Sue me.”

There it is again, Peter thinks.  He’d said parent, Peter is sure of it.

“I have to leave to pick Morgan up in an hour,” Tony says.  “Why don’t you get some sleep.  Have FRIDAY call me if you need anything.  I won’t be gone too long when I leave since her school is only ten minutes away.”

“Okay,” Peter says, voice quiet.

“Don’t fall asleep with a throat lozenge in your mouth,” Tony advises, “I don’t want you to choke.”

Tony leaves him alone in his room, pulling the door halfway shut, and Peter sets his tea down, pops a throat lozenge in his mouth, and shimmies down, burrowing under the covers.

“Pep says I’m a helicopter parent.”  Peter is sure he was just joking around.  He didn’t mean that he was Peter’s parent.  He closes his eyes, the throat lozenge starting to do its work to calm his inflamed throat.  He’s not Peter’s parent, but he and Mrs. Stark had come to parent teacher conferences.  The PE teacher had come to get Peter in the cafeteria earlier that day and said that Peter’s dad was there to pick him up.  A minute after the lozenge is gone, Peter drifts off into a confused dream where Tony and Pepper are his parents, and had died in a plane crash instead of Mary and Richard.  The nightmare is awful and chaotic, like fever induced dreams are, though at some point it changes and Peter finds himself in a calmer dream where he and Morgan are younger and are growing up together in the penthouse in Stark Tower.  The Peter of his dreams doesn’t hesitate to call Tony and Pepper mom and dad, because they’re his parents, and everyone knows it.

Peter wakes up hours later, throat dry and sore and head pounding.  He’s not sure at first what woke him, or where he is, until he smells Tony’s cologne.  He struggles to peel his eyes open, mind wanting to drag him back into the pleasant dream he’d been having.

“Hey buddy, wake up and have something to eat.  Pep brought home takeout and got you hot chicken noodle soup.”

Peter finally opens his eyes in the dimly lit room.  It’s dark out, and his night light is on, bathing the area around his nightstand in soft warm light.  “Nnnngh.”

“Sit up,” Tony says, and when Peter struggles to do so, Tony helps pull him upright and then puts an extra pillow behind him so he can lean back on it.  “Sorry,” he says.  “I didn’t want to wake you, but it’s after eight and you need to eat something before you go back to sleep for the night.  With your metabolism you can’t afford to skip a meal.”

Peter finds a hot mug of chicken noodle soup pressed into his hands, and is confused at first, thinking it’s another mug of tea.  “Thought it might be easier to eat this way.  You can drink it if you want or use the spoon.”

“Thanks,” he croaks.  He takes a sip of the hot soup and is glad when his stomach doesn’t rebel.  It tastes good despite that he’s stuffed up and can’t smell much of it.

“How are you feeling?” Tony asks.

“My throat hurts,” Peter says after another sip.  The hot soup is doing wonders for his throat.  “N’ my head is pounding.”

“Bruce said the painkillers won’t do anything for your fever, but you can have some for your headache.  They might help with your throat too.”  Tony pulls out a medication bottle that has Peter’s name on it and tips two painkillers out into the cap, which he holds out to Peter.  Peter takes them one at a time and swallows them with a sip of hot soup.

Tony pulls the desk chair away from Peter’s desk and sits down beside his bed.  “If Morgan asks, you have spider pox.  That’s what it took for me to keep her out of here.  I told her they were highly contagious and that if anyone other than Spider Man gets them they’ll turn into a dozen spiders.”

Peter just stares at him open mouthed for long moments.  “That’s- won’t she have nightmares?”

“Nah.  She drew you a picture after dinner of spiders covered in little green and purple spots.”

“She won’t believe you.”  He points to his face and says, “No purple and green spots.”

“We can fix that,” he tells Peter with a mischievous grin.

“I’m gonna wake up tomorrow covered in marker aren’t I?”

Tony holds up his hands and says, “Yeah, but it won’t be permanent marker.”

Peter manages to finish the entire cup of soup and then puts another throat lozenge into his mouth.

“You want to watch a movie or go back to bed?” Tony asks.

“Bed.  I’m sorry.”

Tony stands up and pushes the rolling desk chair back into its place.  He ruffles Peter’s hair and says, “Nothing to be sorry for Roo.  Tell FRIDAY or come get me if you need me, even in the middle of the night, ok?”

Peter nods.

“Night Pete.”

“Goodnight Mr. Stark.”

Peter goes through two throat lozenges before he’s able to fall back asleep.  He wakes several times in the night from strange nightmares full of lizard men, plane crashes and dozens of spiders, because sleeping while sick is the worst.

* * *

He wakes up in the morning coughing.  His chest feels tight and at first he wonders if his asthma is back, but he knows it can’t be because he hasn’t had asthma since the spider bite.

Tony comes into the room at the sound of his coughing and feels his forehead.

“FRI, what’s his temperature at?”

“102.3.”

“You’re still ok,” Tony says.  “Bruce said not to worry until you hit 103.5.  How are you feeling?”

Peter only groans in response, looking around and hoping to find a cup of something hot to drink on his nightstand.  He doesn’t find anything and reaches for the last remaining throat lozenge instead.

“You feeling like you can come down to the living room to watch movies and have some breakfast?” Tony asks.

“Sure,” he croaks.  He feels like he’d rather stay there in bed, but it’s Friday and he doesn't want to miss any of his weekend time with Mr. Stark.  “Won’t I get Morgan and Mrs. Stark sick?”

“Morgan is leaving in a few minutes to go to school,” Mr. Stark tells him.

Peter looks down at his hands and then looks up at Tony.  “Are there spots on my face?  Do I have spider pox?”

Mr. Stark laughs and says, “I’ll grab a marker.”

Ten minutes later, Peter has managed to pull himself out of bed.  He had put three purple dots on the back of his right hand and then wrapped himself up in his soft fuzzy blanket.  By the time he makes it to the bottom of the stairs, Morgan is just pulling her coat on at the front door with Pepper.

“Petey!” Morgan says.  She looks like she wants to run to him and hug him, but pauses after only a step.  Peter lifts his hand to show her the three purple dots and her eyes widen.  Pepper presses her lips together to stop from laughing.

“Petey, are you gonna turn into a bunch of baby spiders?”

Peter points to the dots on his hand.  “These are baby spiders,” he croaks.  When her mouth hangs open in awe, he says, “I’m just kidding Mo.  They’re just spider pox.”

“I knew they weren’t baby spiders,” she says.  “I hope you feel better.”

Peter wishes he could hug her.

“I’ll be back soon sweetie,” Pepper tells him.  She opens the door, letting chill air and the smell of rain come in, and then ushers Morgan out so she can take her to school.

“Have a seat at the table,” Tony says, and Peter sits down, blanket tucked around every bit of him.

Tony brings him a mug of hot tea and a bowl of hot oatmeal with blueberries.

“Sorry, know it’s kind of a boring meal, but I figured you’d get tired of soup if I gave you some for breakfast.”

“This is good Mr. Stark,” Peter says, head pounding, “thanks.”

Peter gets some of the oatmeal down and all of the hot tea.  Mr. Stark makes him another cup and they move to the couch in the living room.

“Star Wars?” Mr. Stark asks.  He really doesn’t need to.  He knows Star Wars is one of Peter’s comfort things.  Peter nods and Tony turns on the TV.  Peter is surprised when Mr. Stark sits down right next to him and then holds his arm out towards him, like he usually does when inviting Peter to cuddle with him.

“Aren’t you worried about getting sick Mr. Stark?”

“This morning I took garlic and a bunch of vitamin C.”

“What if I have some weird mutant sickness?” Peter asks half jokingly as he leans into Mr. Stark’s side.

“Then we’ll pull out the markers and you can draw purple and green dots on my hands and arms.”

Peter snuggles into his side and murmurs his agreement as Tony turns on the movie.

* * *

Pepper keeps shooting Peter worried looks as his coughing gets worse throughout the day.  The cough drops stop working pretty quickly and Tony says that Bruce mentioned that might happen.

“FRI, temp?”  Tony has asked FRIDAY so many times now that right after lunch she had started reporting Peter’s temperature at random times all on her own.

“103.5.”

“I don’t like it,” Pepper tells Tony as Peter dissolves into another coughing fit, this one lasting for long agonizing moments where Peter can’t catch a breath.

“I’m going to call Bruce again.”  Tony gets up and walks away and down into his lab.

“Peter honey, take the blanket off.  You’re too warm,” Pepper says.

“F, f, feel cold though,” he chatters out as he shrugs out of the blanket reluctantly and lets it fall off of his shoulders.

“I know sweetheart.  You’re not really cold though, it’s just your hot skin reacting to the air around you.  I’m sorry, I know that doesn’t help.”

She leaves him in the living room for a few moments and comes back with a bottle of water.  “I know you’ve been drinking tea, but let’s try some plain water.  It’s important that you stay hydrated.”  She opens the bottle for him and hands it to him and then goes to the kitchen again and comes back with a cool damp cloth.  Peter sips his water and then hands it to her and lays back on the couch.  She drapes the cool cloth over his forehead and he shivers at how cold it feels against his flushed skin.

When Tony comes back up the stairs from the lab a few minutes later, Peter is coughing again and FRIDAY announces that his fever has risen to 103.9.

“That’s it, we’re going to the compound med bay,” Tony says.

“I’m ok- really,” Peter says through coughs.  Every time he coughs it’s a new experience in pain in his throat.

“Kiddo, you’re about to hit 104 and Bruce just told me to bring you in if you get up over 103.5.  Because of your metabolism and unique biology we don’t know what a safe temperature is for you.”

Tony helps Peter up off the couch and Pepper brings Peter’s coat.  “It’s raining out,” she says.  “I don’t want to bundle him up, but I don’t want him to get soaked either.”

Tony nods and helps Peter into the coat.

“Call me when you get there,” Pepper says. “I’ll come down after I pick up Morgan in an hour.”

“It’s- o- o- ok,” Peter coughs out.  “You don’t have to.  It’s a long way.”  The compound is almost an hour from the cabin.

“It’s ok,” Pepper tells him.

Peter opens his mouth to talk, but before he can Tony cuts him off.  “Don’t say you’re a bother buddy,” he says as they head for the front door and he grabs his car keys and shrugs into his coat.  “She and I are both just going to tell you that you’re not.”

Pepper hands Tony the waterbottle Peter had been drinking out of and then they head out into the rain and to the car.

Peter notes that Tony pulls out of the driveway faster than normal and that as they hit the highway a minute later, he’s speeding.

“I’m ok, really,” Peter mumbles.

“Still gotta go to the med bay.”

“R- r- right.”

Normally Tony turns on music, and they talk and joke around if they’re driving together, but Tony’s brows are furrowed and he seems focused on getting Peter to the compound as fast as possible.  It’s boring and Peter is feeling cold and miserable.  His head still hurts, and coughing isn’t helping the pounding sensation or his throat any.  He wants to sleep, but is too uncomfortable to do so as they speed towards the compound.

Rain pelts the windows and Peter watches as trees and fields fly by.  They pass through several small towns and cities, and Peter feels like he loses track of time, because they pull into the newly rebuilt Avenger’s compound sooner than he expected.  Tony pulls right up to the front door, and then gets out and comes around to Peter’s side of the car to help him get out.  Unlike the day before, Peter doesn’t attempt to fight him or tell him he doesn’t need the help.  He feels weak and shaky and just wants to get inside and out of the rain.

Peter startles when they walk in the side door of the compound and FRIDAY immediately announces, ‘104.4.’  He’s used to hearing FRIDAY now, both at the tower and at the cabin, but hadn’t realized that she’d already been integrated into the new Avengers compound again.

“Tell Bruce we’re here, FRI,” Tony says, but a moment later, Bruce comes around the corner down the hall and hurries towards them.  He looks worried, Peter notes.  He doesn’t know why everyone seems so worried.  He’s feverish and miserable, but he’ll be ok.  This isn’t his first time getting sick.  He used to get so sick as a kid that he’d end up in the hospital due to his asthma.  It had been something he was glad to kick after the spider bite.

“Let’s get him into the med bay and see what we can do to cool him down.”

“Spiders can’t thermoregulate,” Peter says, trying to be helpful.  He doesn’t want to do it, but in his mind, just sticking him outside in the rain or a cold shower should cool him down fast.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” says Bruce.

They go to an elevator and then down one floor to the Med Bay.  Tony helps Peter onto a bed and then at Bruce’s command begins stripping the extra layers of clothing away from Peter.  He takes off Peter’s warm coat and then his warm hoodie, leaving Peter shivering in just a t-shirt.  Peter tries to pull his feet away from Tony like the day before, and says, “N- n- not my fuzzy socks.”

“Sorry kiddo, doctor’s orders,” Tony says.  Peter feels like it’s icy arctic air that hits his feet as both socks are pulled off.

“I want those b- b- back,” he coughs out.

“You can have them back as soon as you cool down,” Tony says.

“M’ fuzzy sock buddies with Mo,” Peter grumbles.  He feels miserable and hugs himself trying to hold onto the body heat radiating off of him.

“FRI, temp?” Tony asks.

“Give it a few minutes, it’s not going to come down right away,” Bruce says.  He brings over a cold wet cloth and Peter wants to shout at him as he drapes the frigid thing over his forehead.

FRIDAY reports that Peter’s temperature has gone up .2 degrees anyway.

Peter closes his eyes as he sits back on the bed, which has been raised into a sitting position.  His eyes fly open only a moment later when he hears Bruce rummaging around in a drawer full of medical supplies.  He has a feeling he knows what comes next, and there is no way he’s going to sit there and let them draw blood.  He hates needles.  Needles and dentists, and lizard people that make him feel like an idiot, and the boys at school, Greg, and the loss of his fuzzy socks.

“No, forget it,” Peter croaks out, trying to scoot back in the bed when Bruce turns around with a needle and supplies to draw blood.

“Whoa, easy Pete,” Tony says, putting his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“No.”

“Peter,” Bruce says, voice calm, and Peter’s eyes leave the needle in his hand for just a moment to go up to his eyes.  “This could just be a cold, but drawing some blood will let us know for sure.  If this is something bacterial I can give you some antibiotics to help you get better sooner.”

“D- d- don’t like needles,” Peter coughs.  “C- c- can’t you just ask FRIDAY?”  He knows they can’t.  It’s not the first time they’ve had to draw his blood at the compound or tower med bays.  It’s not the first time Tony has had to calm him down beforehand either.  Normally Peter just sucks it up and deals with it, but right now he’s overloaded with sensory input from his fever, the goosebumps on his bare skin, the pain in his throat and head, and the coughing.  All said, there is no way he’s going to let Bruce draw blood.  He realizes Bruce doesn’t know that yet however.  Bruce has never been around while Peter has been in the med bay before since he’s not a medical doctor.  Peter wonders where all the normal doctors Tony keeps on staff are.

“I’m not gonna let him Mr. Stark,” Peter says to Tony, trying to make his voice firm.  It comes out shaky though.  “Tell him.  He can’t.”

Bruce looks at Tony, question in his eyes, and Tony says, “He has a thing about needles.”

“Is it about the pain?” Bruce asks.  “I have a numbing cream I can put on your arm.”

Peter shakes his head.  “No needles.  No blood test.”

Bruce motions for Tony to follow him away from Peter’s bed, and the two proceed to have a whispered conversation Peter wishes he could just block out.

“I can probably skip the blood draw, but he’s going to need an IV.”

“That’s going to be a problem,” Tony says.  “You know he has super strength, right?”

Bruce gives him an exasperated look, as if to say, ‘and I’m the Hulk’, but doesn’t say it out loud.  At some point in the last few months since the second snap, Bruce has managed to figure out a way to get his body back to normal, or as normal as it ever was as the Hulk.  He no longer looks like the Hulk all the time, but he can turn into the Hulk at any moment if he needs to.

“I have a plan,” Tony says.  “Just, put the needle away for now.  Let’s do what we can to get the fever down first.”  Tony raises his voice again.  Peter knows that Tony knows he heard the entire conversation.  “Do you have anything we can give him that might lower it?”

“Let me look through some of Steve and Bucky’s supplies.  They’re not going to be exact doses since they’re not formulated for Peter.”

Tony goes back to Peter’s side and Peter says, “I heard you planning something.”

“I know.”

“I’m not gonna let y- y- you take blood.”

“I know.”

“No IV either,” Peter tells him.

“Kid, gotta be real with you here.”  He pulls out his phone and taps on it several times before flipping it around so Peter can see.  It’s his temperature, displayed in red numbers with the word 'warning' displayed underneath.  104.7.  “We need that temp to come down.  I know you don’t like needles and you’re going to fight us on this, but if Bruce thinks you need an IV, it has to be done.”

“T, Tony no,” Peter stutters, shaking his head.  Tony just stares at him for a long moment.  Peter never calls him Tony, always Mr. Stark.

“I’m sorry buddy.  The best I can offer is waiting until you’re asleep to put the IV in.  I need you to work with us though and not pull it out as soon as you wake up.”

Peter scrunches his face up and turns to look away from Tony.  He startles a moment later as Tony puts his hand on Peter’s head and slowly runs his fingers through his hair.  That’s not fair, Peter thinks, because he wants to be angry right now and Tony knows that doing this is going to make him relax.  It’s what Tony does every time Peter needs to have his blood drawn or get a shot.  Peter had practically had a meltdown the one time he’d been stabbed and Tony had dragged him to the tower med bay, back before the blip.  His only source of comfort at the time had been Tony's soothing touch as he combed his fingers through his hair.

Bruce comes back a minute later with a white bottle of pills and pauses in the doorway at the sight before him.  Peter is wide awake but looking relaxed as Tony combs his fingers slowly through his sweat soaked locks.

“What do we got?” Tony asks.

“Bucky had an infection and a high fever back before the blip.  I have something we formulated just for him to bring the fever down.  I don’t want to give Peter too much to start because I don’t know how exactly his biology and metabolism compares to Bucky’s.”

Bruce pulls out a pill and then uses a pill cutter to cut it in half and then in half again.  He holds out the quarter pill to Peter along with a bottle of water.  “If this is going to put me to sleep,” Peter says, sounding grumpy, but Bruce cuts him off just as Peter raises the pill to his mouth.

“It is.”  Peter pauses, and looks up at him, surprised.  “It will make you sleepy.  I’m sorry, I should have said that before I handed it to you.  It might make you a little disoriented too.  I really can’t have any way of judging how your body will react to this.  I’d rather not give it to you at all without running your blood first, but we have to get the fever down.  Your temperature is already dangerously high.”

Peter puts the pill in his mouth and then lifts the cup of water to his lips with shaky hands.  “I want my socks back,” Peter tells Tony again.  “If I wake up with an IV in my arm,” he pauses to cough for long moments, throat searing and head pounding, “then I better wake up with fuzzy socks on my feet.”

“Fuzzy socks, got it,” Tony says.  “I’ll make sure to let Pep know you liked them so much.”

“They make my feet feel happy,” Peter mumbles.

He knows he’s acting childishly.  He knows he’s making demands when he normally wouldn’t, especially not of Mr. Stark.  But he feels so sick and overwhelmed that it’s this or breaking out in tears.  Being sick sucks.

They monitor his temperature for another half an hour.  It doesn’t go up, but it doesn’t go down either.  Peter feels drowsy, but he’s not sure it’s because of the quarter pill he’d taken.  They give him another quarter pill and settle in to wait.  Tony asks Peter if he wants to listen to music or an audio book, or if he wants to watch Star Wars on his phone, but Peter can’t handle any extra sensory input at the moment so he tells him no.  Tony resumes running his fingers through Peter’s hair.

When Peter’s temperature still hasn’t dropped, Bruce gives him the rest of the pill and Peter finds he can’t fight the drowsiness anymore.  He falls asleep, and is chased into another set of strange, fever induced nightmares.

* * *

Peter wakes up with an IV in his arm, and no socks on his feet.

“Sorry buddy,” Tony murmurs softly.  “Your temperature is still too high.  Bruce thinks the IV is going to help bring it down, but you can’t have the socks back until it comes down to 101.”

Peter doesn’t know why that upsets him so much, but it does, and tears fill his eyes.  Tony sighs quietly and says, “I know.  We’re going to get this fever to go away, and then when you’re feeling better I’ll take you out and buy as many pairs of fuzzy socks as you want.  We’ll get all the colors.”

“I’m gonna need Iron Man socks,” Peter says, scrunching his face up in the hopes it will make the tears stop.  It’s stupid, he knows it is.  He shouldn’t be crying over socks and IV’s but he is.

“Red and gold.”

“I don’t think they make gold socks,” Peter says.

“Pretty sure I can special order gold fuzzy socks.”

Peter laughs a little, even though it hurts his throat.  He thinks about Mr. Stark buying a sock factory somewhere just so he can get them to make one pair of Iron Man socks for Peter… maybe two, because Morgan will want a pair.  Peter has never been sock buddies with anyone before, but he’s pretty sure that’s how it works.

His mind drifts to starting a business that sells Iron Man and Spider Man socks, and then to what they’ll call it, and then to a dozen other things as he and Tony sit quietly in the empty med bay.  Peter isn’t quite sure when his hazy musings turn into dreams, but they do at some point, and rather than the nightmares he’s been having since getting sick, he dreams about socks, and Morgan, and sitting in a hammock in the trees down by the lake.

* * *

His brain feels like it’s melting.  In fact, he’s pretty sure it is.  His face is hot, and his brain is melting because there’s magma inside, molten hot and painful.

“Nnnnnngh,” Peter moans.  He tries to lift his hands up to his head, but his arms feel weak.  He expects Mr. Stark to be there, to tell him it’ll all be ok, but he isn’t there.  Peter is alone, and he panics for a minute thinking he’s back in the heat of Titan.  That has to be why his brain is melting, right?  He’s on Titan bathed in heat and red light, and his body is being pulled apart atom by atom while his super healing tries to hold him together.  He remembers that being painful.  Not painful like magma sloshing around in his brain, but painful nonetheless.

But Mr. Stark had been there on Titan when he’d dusted.  He’d been there… held Peter in his arms.  He isn’t here now.  Peter doesn’t know where he is, or how to make the pain stop, but he wants Mr. Stark.

“Nnnnnggh.”

“Pete, hang in there ok?” comes a voice.  It’s not Mr. Stark’s.  Peter thinks it’s the Hulk even though it can’t be, because the Hulk hadn’t gone to Titan with them.  “Your fever dropped a little but then went back up.  It’s 105.2 right now.”

“Hurts,” Peter cries.

“I know.  We’re going to give you more of the fever reducer and a pain killer.”

Peter chokes on tears he hadn’t realized he was crying.  “I want- my dad.”  He’s scared and he doesn’t know where Tony is and why he’s not there with him.  “My dad,” he gasps out.  “Please.”

“He went to the bathroom, he’ll be right back, I promise.”

“M’ dustin’ and he’s not here.”

“You’re not dusting.  You have the flu and a high fever.”

“Where is he?”

“What’s going on?” comes Tony’s voice.  Peter tries to lift his arms to reach towards the sound, but he can’t.  He’s hot.  So hot!

“He keeps asking for you.  I just gave him some pain medication and fever reducer through the IV.  He thinks he’s on Titan.”

Peter can hear Tony’s heart rate pick up at that, but he doesn’t know why.  Tony can see that they’re on Titan, can’t he?

“Hey,” comes Tony’s voice beside him.  He puts his fingers in Peter’s hair.

“Hurts,” Peter croaks.  “You weren’ here.  M’ dustin’.”

“No Pete, you’re not dusting.  I promise.”

“M’ sorry dad.”  Tony’s fingers still in his hair, though Peter doesn’t register it, because the pain meds and fever reducer are taking effect, and he’s asleep again.

“You ok?” Bruce asks a few moments later when he turns from the monitor he’s been looking at and sees Tony staring at Peter, face tight.

“He called me dad.”

“Yeah, he kept asking for you while you were in the bathroom.”

“He- he was calling me dad?”

“Yeah.”  Bruce frowns.  “Doesn’t he normally?”

“First time,” Tony says, throat tight.  “He was probably calling for his uncle.”

“No, he was asking for you,” Bruce says.  “He thought he was on Titan with you.”

Tony keeps running his fingers through Peter’s hair despite that he’s already asleep.  He’s not going to get up and leave him again, not even for a minute.

* * *

Peter doesn’t wake up again that night.  His fever breaks around two AM after a third dose of the fever reducer, and around five in the morning when his fever is back down around 100, Bruce gives Tony the ok to put Peter’s fuzzy blue socks back on his feet.

“You’re a good dad,” Bruce says.  “I hope you know that.”

Tony looks up at him, exhausted, slumped in the chair up against the wall beside Peter’s bed.  “Did you expect anything less from Iron Man?” Tony half jokes.

Bruce scoffs.  “I didn’t, did you?”

He walks away with the medical tablet he’s holding, satisfied that Peter is out of danger.  He’s been up all night just like Tony, trying to synthesize cough medicine that will work for Peter, along with a fever reducer made just for him so they don’t have to wait so long to administer it next time.  Neither Bruce or Tony ever want to hear Peter mumbling or crying out that his brain is on fire again.

* * *

Tony takes Peter home Sunday morning.  Peter is still sick but he looks like he’s feeling a lot better.  His fever has gone down and stayed down, and the medicines Bruce made are working wonders for helping his sore throat and cough.  Peter sleeps the whole way back to the cabin.  Tony on the other hand feels like a wreck.

Morgan had been sick enough to go to the hospital once, when she was three.  She’d had a high fever and had cried for hours.  Granted, her fever wasn’t as high as Peter’s had been, but still, it had been serious, and that had left Tony feeling like a wreck afterwards too.  He doesn’t like seeing his kids sick or hurt.  He doesn’t like seeing them in danger like that.

His throat still tightens at the thought of Peter being delirious and thinking he was back on Titan being turned to dust in Tony’s arms… calling out for him because he wasn’t there when he woke up.  He’d called him dad.

Tony had lied to Bruce when he’d told him that last night had been the first time.

Peter had called him dad once before.

Tony will never forget his kid apologizing as he turned to dust in his arms.  “I’m sorry dad.”

He doubts Peter remembers that he’d said that on Titan.  He doubts that Peter will remember saying it in a haze of pain and fever either.  Tony longs for the day when his son will call him dad because he’s happy, and just because he wants to.  He wants that more than anything. 

* * *

Pepper is waiting for them when they get back.  Tony’s hair is a mess from running his hand through it so many times, and from a lack of sleep.

“Why don’t you go upstairs and shower and go to bed honey?” she asks, hugging him as soon as Peter is settled on the couch under his soft blanket again.  Peter is tired, but feeling a lot better than he was when they’d left for the compound Friday evening, and Morgan is asking if Peter’s spider pox are gone and if a thousand spiders burst out of his chest while he was at the compound, and if the compound is now covered in webs.

“Mo, give him a break for a little while ok?” Tony says, running his hand through his hair again.

“Get some sleep,” Pepper says again.  “I’ll take care of him.”

Tony nods, gives her a kiss and accepts another hug. He goes upstairs, showers, and changes clothes.  He wants to go to sleep, because he’s had very little sleep in the past couple of days, but as soon as he lays down in his king size bed, he knows he’s not going to be able to.  He gives it ten minutes, and then gives up and goes back downstairs.  Pepper looks like she expected him to come back.

Tony settles in on the couch near Peter’s feet.

“Daddy, we bought something for you and Petey,” Morgan says as Tony rests his head on the back of the couch.

“You did huh?”

She giggles and then pulls out a plastic bag.  From inside she pulls out two pairs of fuzzy socks.  One is red, and one is a goldish yellow with random strands of sparkling gold.

Peter laughs.  “Mr. Stark, look, Iron Man socks!”

“Tony texted us yesterday and we went out and found them,” Pepper says.  She takes the tags off of both pairs and then Peter sits up and accepts one red and one gold sock, exchanging them for the fuzzy blue ones he’s been wearing off and on since Thursday afternoon.

“Now you daddy,” Morgan says, and Tony sits up to pull on the red and gold socks being offered to him.  He sits back on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table Morgan is sitting on.

“Now you and Petey pie can be sock buddies too!” Morgan says with delight.  “We have to wait til’ his dark blue socks are washed and don’t smell bad so he and I can be Frozen fuzzy sock buddies.”  She lifts her own feet with her light blue fuzzy socks to show Peter and Tony.

Peter laughs again, just as delighted as Morgan.

“See kid, told you I’d get you new socks,” Tony says.  He can’t keep his eyes open anymore.

Someday soon, he thinks right before he drifts off to sleep.  Someday soon they’re both going to be his kids and Peter will call him dad.  Until then he’ll be happy to settle for splitting two pairs of ridiculous fuzzy red and gold socks with him.

Pepper fixes something for Peter to eat, and then turns on a movie for him and Morgan.  Tony sleeps through it all, glad that both of his kids are safe and happy and are right there with him.

Chapter Text

It starts with a comment from Happy that Tony and Pepper look like they could use a break from kids, and Peter wholeheartedly agrees.  Tony takes Peter back to the foster home Monday night when they’re sure he’s feeling better, and then Peter and Happy spend the next several days hatching up a plan to get Tony and Pepper out of the house and doing something fun via text messages.  Somehow Happy convinces FRIDAY to get in on the plan, and informs Peter that FRIDAY has been dropping hints to Tony all week and telling him and Pepper both that they look stressed out.  Peter wishes he could see the recordings of how they react to FRIDAY telling them that.

By Friday afternoon when Happy picks Peter up to take him to the cabin, things are in motion.  Happy fills Peter in on their way to the lake house while Peter munches on a burger and fries from McDonalds.

“Tony finally gave in after FRIDAY told him 12 times on Thursday that he and Pepper should go do something fun.  He thinks Pepper put FRIDAY up to it,” Happy says with a chuckle.

“Does Mrs. Stark think the same thing?”

“She hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

“So they’re going to go out and do something?”

“Boss said Saturday night they’re going to go out to eat.  They’re planning on asking you to babysit Morgan for a few hours while they head into the city.”

“I can do that,” Peter says.  “Juice pops, juice boxes and Frozen on repeat.”

“Good luck,” Happy says.

Peter shrugs.  He doesn’t mind watching Morgan.  He’s watched her for an hour here or there while Tony and Pepper are busy doing chores or if they need to head into town to go grocery shopping.  Watching Morgan for a few hours will be a cakewalk.

“Whatever boss asks you when you get there, I had nothing to do with this, got it?”

Peter grins.  “He’s gonna know.”

“Not if you keep your mouth shut.  You’re complicit in this.”

“Who, me?” Peter asks with mock innocence.  “How would I have access to FRIDAY during the week while I’m at school?”

“You could probably hack into FRIDAY with a toothpick and a flip phone,” Happy snorts.

“A paperclip and a flip phone,” Peter says.

“See.”

“So your plan was for me to get blamed for this the whole time?  Pretty sneaky Happy.”

“Don’t say anything and he won’t think it’s you either.”

“He’s gonna know,” Peter says again.  He doesn’t care if Mr. Stark knows or not.  He and Mrs. Stark definitely deserve a night out after all the stress Peter put them through the prior weekend with his emergency trip to the compound and raging fever.

* * *

“Hey Pete, do you mind watching Morgan for a few hours tomorrow evening?” Tony asks an hour after Happy drops him off at the cabin.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Like you don’t know,” Tony says.  He reaches out from under the kitchen sink and Peter hands him a wrench.  Morgan stuck three tiny pony figurines down the sink and now Tony has to dismantle it to get them out before Pepper gets home and wants to use the kitchen to cook dinner.

“Hey, I am a completely innocent bystander,” Peter says.

“So you didn’t hack FRIDAY?”  Tony doesn’t sound angry.  “Pepper has been laughing at me all week every time FRIDAY tells me I should ask her out on a date.”

Peter laughs.  “I swear I did not hack FRIDAY.”

“Somehow that still sounds like an admission of guilt,” Tony says, pulling the pipes below the sink apart.  He climbs out from under the sink and taps the piece of pipe on a towel several times.  Three colorful pieces of pony shaped plastic dislodge and come out along with several baby carrots.  “The ponies got hungry and she sent some of her lunch in to make sure they didn’t starve to death,” Tony explains.  Peter laughs and Tony climbs back under the sink to put the pipes back together.

“I might have been involved, but I didn’t hack FRIDAY,” Peter says.

“But someone did, and you told them how.  Was it Pepper?  Happy?”

Peter stays silent and Tony looks out from under the sink at the smirk on his face.

“You’re gonna have to work on your poker face.  It was Happy, I can tell.  He’s been acting cagey all week.”

“I am a completely innocent bystander,” Peter says again.

“Sure you are.  Very believable Roo.”

* * *

Tony and Pepper leave at four on Saturday afternoon to head into the city for dinner at a fancy restaurant.  A wind storm is whipping up outside and it looks like it might rain.  “We’ll be back by seven thirty, eight at the latest,” Tony says.

“It’s ok, take your time,” Peter tells them.  “FRIDAY has Frozen queued up to watch again and again and again.”  Peter says it in a monotone, like he’s not excited at all, but he’s smiling as he follows Tony and Pepper to the door.

“You have Happy’s number, and ours,” Pepper says.  “Call us if you need anything.”

“Ok, I will.”  Pizza is sitting on the counter waiting for Peter and Morgan to dig into.  He has everything all planned out and doubts there will be a reason to call them.

Pepper and Tony tell Peter and Morgan that they love them, and then head out to the car, dressed up for a nice dinner.  Peter hasn’t seen Mr. Stark dressed up for a while.  It had been a lot more common to see him wearing business clothes before the blip when Peter had been going for lab days at the tower.

He locks the front door and turns around to find Morgan right behind him.  He startles because she’d been so quiet he hadn’t heard her.

“So,” she says in a half whisper, like her parents are still there and can hear them somehow, “what are we doing while they’re gone?” She rubs her hands together, excited, like she and Peter are up to no good.

“Pizza, Frozen, and board games.”

“Nooooo Petey,” she says with a giggle.  “What are we really doing?  Ghost stories?  Jenna told me a really scary ghost story at school yesterday at recess about a ghost that kidnaps stuffed animals, and I told her my brother explodes into a hundred spiders when he gets sick.”

Peter rolls his eyes.  He still remembers her having nightmares after watching Monster House weeks before.  “No ghost stories, and I told you that’s not true Morgs.  I don’t turn into spiders when I get sick, or ever.”

“I told her you were the spider king and can control them and send them to attack people with your mind.”  She points to the side of her head, eyes wide like she might even believe it herself.

“Mo,” he groans.

“Well I can’t tell her you’re Spider Man!”  She puts her hands on her hips like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and he laughs.  He loves her so much.

“No ghost stories,” he says again.  “We don’t have to watch Frozen if you don’t want to.  We can watch something else.  Let’s eat pizza first.”

She nods and Peter puts a slice of pizza and a sliced apple on her plate.  He takes the rest of the pizza box to the living room because after she has a second slice he plans on finishing off the box.

“A scary movie,” Morgan says when Peter picks up the remote.

“No, you remember what happened last time.”

“Come on Peteeey,” she whines, elongating his name.

“Do you want to know the real plan for tonight?” he asks, lowering his voice in a conspiratorial tone.

She leans in towards him.  “What?” she whispers, eyes wide.

“Two juice pops.”

She falls over backwards on the couch, giggling, like this is the best idea ever.

Despite her assertion that she wants to watch a scary movie, she lets Peter turn on Frozen while they eat pizza.  He has to pause it ten minutes in when she races upstairs to get something.  A few minutes later she comes back wearing her light blue fuzzy socks.  She has Peter’s dark blue fuzzy socks in hand.  “Fuzzy sock buddies,” she says in an insistent tone.  She won’t get an argument from Peter, who puts his own beloved fuzzy socks on.

By the time they’re an hour into Frozen, Peter has gone upstairs to retrieve his favorite warm hoodie, and has finished off the last of the pizza.  Morgan has made it through two juice pops and has begged him several times for a third.

“Petey,” she says.  “Mommy and daddy will never know.  Just one more juice pop?”

“No, wanna know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want to tell the scary story to Ned about how my little sister turned into a sugar monster after three juice pops.  He’ll have nightmares and so will I.”  With Mr. and Mrs. Stark out of the house for the evening, he feels comfortable calling Morgan his sister.  She won’t care, so he lets it slip out without a worry.

She glares at him for a moment but then her expression lightens, and she dives at Peter and starts climbing all over him on the couch like a jungle gym.  When her parents are home, they never let her do it.

“Mo,” Peter says, elongating her name in playful exasperation.  She climbs right over him and then onto the back of the couch.

“I’m the sugar monster,” she growls, and then sits on the back of the couch behind him and puts one leg over each of his shoulders.  “Grrrrr.”  She grabs both sides of his head and says, “I control your mind.”

“Does that make me a sugar zombie?”

“What’s a zombie?”

He doesn’t give it a second thought before explaining it to her, though later he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have.  “People that get a virus and die, but they come back to life and if they bite someone, then that person they bit turns into an undead zombie.”

“Really?” She asks in awe.

“No, it’s just made up, like me turning into spiders or ghosts that kidnap stuffed animals.”

She shakes her head behind him.  “Nuh uh, Jenna said that’s true.  All her stuffed animals keep disappearing!  She said she saw the ghost take them out of her room in the dark!  It only comes out when it’s dark and it murders her stuffies!”  She sounds a little horrified as she’s describing it, and Peter is surprised she or her friend know the word ‘murder’.

Morgan finishes Frozen, they play a few hands of Uno, and then Peter resigns himself to sitting through The Little Mermaid until she’s ready for bed at eight.  It’s seven thirty when he gets a text from Tony asking how it’s going.

‘Everything’s good.  She already brushed her teeth.  I’m going to read her a story soon.’

‘What about you?’ comes Tony’s reply.

‘I don’t need a story Mr. Stark, but thanks for checking.’  He grins to himself, waiting for Tony to text him back that he’s a smart ass.

‘You know, spider babies are never too old for a story.  I can read you one when I get home.  Things are running a little slow here.  You ok if we stay for an extra hour?  We’d get home around 9:30.’

‘Yeah totally Mr. Stark, I have things covered.’

‘Don’t let Morgan convince you to give her a third juice pop.’

Peter pauses, grins and then taps into his phone, ‘You’ve been watching us.’

‘Nah, FRIDAY’s just a snitch.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

Tony doesn’t respond, but he’s on a date with Pepper, so Peter really doesn’t expect him to keep texting back and forth all night.  Instead Peter switches over to texting with Ned.  Ned has been trying to convince him to ask Mr. and Mrs. Stark for a gaming PC so that he can play online games with Ned on weekends.  A gaming PC is crazy expensive though, even if Peter and Mr. Stark build it themselves.  Plus, he only gets to see the Stark’s on weekends.  He gets to see Ned during the week almost every day, so he’s not sure he wants to spend any of his time at the cabin playing computer games, even if he does want to play and to build a PC from scratch.

At eight on the nose Peter chases Morgan up the stairs and into her room.  She begs him to tell her a ghost story, but he grabs If You Give A Moose A Muffin from her bookshelf instead and flops across the foot of her bed to read it.  She doesn’t argue and climbs out from under her covers, stuffed llama in hand and lays on her back with her head against Peter’s stomach as he starts to read.

Mr. Stark has never read Peter a bedtime story.  He hasn’t been read a bedtime story since he was about 10 years old.  Peter has heard him read stories to Morgan before though and has picked a few things up.  For instance, if he starts lowering his voice near the middle of the book, and then starts speaking more slowly, so that by the end he’s speaking slow and soft, Morgan’s eyes start to drift shut right around the time he’s flipping to the last page.

“Petey,” Morgan says with a yawn as he closes the book.

“Yeah?”

“Love you.”

“Love you too.”  He gets up and then drags her towards the head of the bed and pulls the covers out from under her, settling them down over her and under her chin.

“Another story?” she asks, though her eyes are closed and she’s cuddling her stuffed llama close.

“Nope.”

“Another juice pop?”

He grins.  “No.”

“Kay.”

He’s never put Morgan to bed before.  He stands there for a minute, and then says, “Love you,” again and backs towards the door.  He turns the lamp on beside her bed and then turns the main light off.  If he ever has to do this again, he thinks he’ll do that first before reading a story.

Once he’s in the hall he makes his way softly down the stairs and goes to the kitchen to find a snack in the pantry.  He pulls out a bag of chips and a package of Oreos, and then plops down on the couch and pulls his phone out again.  Ned has sent him a dozen impatient messages, all of them telling Peter how fun it will be for them to stay up late playing Fortnite on weekends if he can just convince Mr. Stark to build a gaming PC with him.  Ned knows him well enough to know that Peter would never ask Mr. Stark for something so expensive, or for much of anything at all.  They’re not his parents, and they already give him way more than he deserves.  It doesn’t stop Ned from trying to convince him though.

Peter is fully engaged in debating with his friend and eating snacks, unaware of much else around him, so he startles twenty minutes later when the lights go out and he can hear the hum of various electronics powering down around the house.

“FRIDAY?” Peter asks.  The AI doesn’t answer.  “Hey FRI?  You there?”  When he doesn’t get an answer again he huffs and presses himself back against the couch.  It’s just a power outage, he thinks to himself.  He switches his phone over from wifi to 4G so he can keep messaging Ned and tells him the power is out.

‘Ooh, creepy,’ Ned shoots back right away.  ‘You’re out in the woods all alone and the power is out.’

‘Don’t start.  There’s nothing creepy about it.’

‘Isn’t this how most movies with an axe murderer start?’

‘No, besides, even if there was an axe murderer, I could handle it,’ Peter sends back.  He’s Spider Man after all.  At this thought, it’s like all of his senses suddenly go into overdrive.  The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end despite that he knows there’s no danger around, and his ears start picking up every sound of the storm raging outside that he’d been ignoring before.  It’s not raining, but the wind is howling, causing the large trees around the house and property to bend and sway.  He startles as a branch scrapes across a window in the downstairs bathroom, sits rigid for four or five seconds, and then lets out a huff of breath and forces his body to relax.

‘Thanks a lot,’ Peter taps into the message window.

‘For what?’

‘Now you freaked me out.’

‘LOL.’

Peter closes the message window and opens YouTube.  He needs some noise to help him focus and drown out the storm in the otherwise completely silent house.  He pulls up a Star Wars conspiracy video and settles in to watch.  It works at first, but after several minutes he hears the branch hit the side of the house and then scrape the window again.  He doesn’t jump, but it’s still unsettling.  He does jump when Morgan starts screaming at the top of her lungs a moment later.  It’s so loud and blood curdling that Peter shoots straight up off the couch and every hair on his body stands on end, like he’s in mortal peril.  The last (and only) other time this happened was right after Thanos had snapped and Peter had started to feel… off.  Then he’d dusted.

Morgan is still screaming as Peter races up the stairs.  From how terrified she sounds, he’s positive there is a very real danger.  Axe murderer fresh on his mind from his conversation with Ned, Peter bursts through her bedroom door and finds her sitting in the dark in the middle of her bed, still screaming.  They’re alone though.

“Morgan!  Mo!  MO!” he shouts over her screams, holding his hands over his ears.  Finally she stops screaming, and starts breathing heavily, like she just ran a long distance.  He can hear that she’s crying too.  He drops his hands from his ears and hurries to the side of her bed.  She wastes no time in throwing herself at him and wrapping her arms around his neck.  She has an iron grip and he knows she’s not going to let go.  “What is it?” he asks.  He realizes he’s breathing heavily too, still panicked and freaked out from her screams.

“The stuffy murderer!  I heard him!  He was trying to break in a window downstairs to come kill my llama!  He’s gonna get me next!”

Peter sucks in a deep breath, holds it for a second, and then lets it out slowly.  He sits down on the side of her bed in the pitch black room and rubs his hands up and down her back.  “It’s ok, I’m here.  There’s no stuffed animal murderer, I promise.”  He’s secretly glad there’s no axe murderer either.

“Then what was the noise?  I heard him trying to scratch his way into the house!” she cries, a little hysterical.  Just the thought of it makes her grip Peter’s neck tighter.

“It’s windy out.  That big tree on the side of the house is being blown around.  A branch keeps hitting the side of the house and scraping the window.”  As if to prove his point, a gust of wind blows the branch and it hits the side of the house several times in quick succession.  He hugs Morgan tighter since she can’t possibly squeeze him any tighter, and says, “See?  It’s been doing it all night but we were watching movies and didn’t hear it before.”

“But- but- why’s it all dark?  I’m scared Peter!”

“The power went out.  That happens sometimes in a storm.”

“I want mommy and daddy.”

Peter couldn’t blame her.  He wanted them too.

“C’mon, you want to sleep in my room til they get back?  My room is monster proof because everyone knows I’m Spider Man and they won’t mess with me.”

She nods into his neck and he stands up, carrying her out of her room.  He turns back and grabs her stuffed llama, feeling around on the bed for it blindly, and then turns his phone screen on to use as a flashlight.  He’s sure Mr. Stark has a flashlight in the house somewhere, probably down in his lab, but Peter doesn’t know where and doesn’t feel like going down to the rest of the house in the dark to look for it.  There’s no axe murderer, but now that he’s upstairs with Morgan, there’s no convincing his brain that going downstairs is a wise idea.

He feels his way down the hall and into his room.  “See?  All safe,” he tells her.  He pulls the covers back on his bed and tries to set her down, but she’s not letting go of him.  Instead of trying to convince her to let go, he sits down on the bed and pulls the covers up over both of them.

“They’re gonna leave you alone 'cause you’re the spider king,” Morgan says.  She sounds like she’s trying to reassure herself.  “Zombies will leave us alone too, right?  I don’t wanna get bit by a zombie Petey.”  She’s gripping his neck so tight he thinks he might be bruised by the time Mr. and Mrs. Stark get home.

“There’s no zombies, and no spider king, but even if there were zombies, they’d leave us alone.  I promise.  I wouldn’t let them get you.  Close your eyes, ok?  I’ll stay awake and watch for monsters.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

She’s quiet for a few moments, but finally she relaxes her grip on him and slides down next to him in the crook of his arm.  He pulls the covers up higher under her chin and tucks them in on the other side of her.

“Night,” she whispers.

“Night.”

He can tell when she falls asleep by the sounds of her breath and the slowing of her heart rate ten minutes later.

There are several more bangs on the side of the house, but Morgan doesn’t wake up again.  Peter thinks about pulling his phone out to text Ned some more, but his every fiber is focused on the sounds of the house around him.  He can hear the drip drip of a faucet leaking in the downstairs bathroom, and the sound of something scurrying around in the living room, probably a mouse they hadn’t realized was in the house.  The wind outside continues to howl, and the tree branch continues to beat the side of the house and scrape the window.  Then there’s a new sound… a sound that makes Peter’s heart speed up and his body tense so suddenly that he can tell he woke Morgan up beside him.  The wooden floorboards of the front porch are creaking.  Someone is out there.  He can hear one step, then two, and then a third.  The covered front porch stretches across the front of the house and it sounds like someone is walking up one side of it and down the other.

He shifts to slide out of bed, but Morgan whispers, “Petey no!”

“Shh.”  It comes out harsher than he’d intended, but she stops talking and lets go of his arm.  He slides out of bed and creeps across his bedroom floor and out into the dark hall.  He stares down the stairs at the window that looks out onto the front porch.  He squints into the darkness, but he can’t see anything.  Then there’s a flash of pale yellow light.  Whoever is out there has a flashlight.  The light warbles as the person (Peter tries desperately not to believe it’s an axe murderer, or a stuffy murderer, or any kind of murderer at all) moves around out there.

He can hear the shuffle of feet behind him as Morgan comes to stand in the doorframe of Peter’s bedroom.  A moment later there’s a loud BANG from the front porch.  Peter and Morgan both jump and scramble to get back into the bedroom.  Peter’s fuzzy socks slip on the hardwood of the hallway and he falls, catches himself and falls again.

Morgan starts screaming again.  Finally he pulls himself up and makes it into his room, slamming the door behind him.

“There’s a monster in the house!” Morgan wails.  She clings to Peter’s legs, but Peter doesn’t pick her up.  Instead he’s fumbling with his phone, fingers and arms shaking as he pulls up the text window to Tony and hurries to tap in, ‘come back right now!’  He knows it’s unreasonable for Tony to respond right away, especially if he’s driving back from the city, but Peter doesn’t care.  He types it in again.  ‘come home now!’  And then again. ‘come home come home come home!!’

There’s another thump from downstairs and they both hear the front door swing open.  It creaks as it does, once again making all of the hair on the back of Peter’s neck stand on end.  He surprises Morgan by grabbing her suddenly and moving across the dark room to his closet.  He throws open the door and puts her down inside on the closet floor.

“Petey!” she cries, but he immediately shushes her.

“Stay here,” he whispers frantically.  “No matter what, stay in here.  I won’t let him get you!”

“Who?” Morgan wails softly.

He doesn’t answer and shuts the door, hoping she’ll stay quiet and hidden.  He can already hear whoever entered the house coming up the stairs.  It’s not Tony and Pepper, he knows it’s not, because he can only hear one set of heavy steps.  Besides, it’s barely nine and he doesn’t think they’ll be back for another half an hour yet.

His breathes heave as he stares at the closed bedroom door.  He can hear the footsteps stop down the hall by Morgan’s empty room and then continue a moment later.  He shakes out his arms at his sides, all of his focus on the door.  Whoever it is he’s going to have to fight them.  He has to protect Morgan, and he’d really like to be alive to see Tony and Pepper come home at the end of the night too.

It’s right as the heavy steps stop outside of Peter’s room that he wonders if he locked the bedroom door.  Locked.  Locked.  I locked it right?  It’s locked isn’t it?  The handle turns and the door swings open.  Peter swears he sees the glint of an axe in what little light there is.  He screams at the top of his lungs as he throws himself at the axe murderer.  They collide and both topple over and into the pitch black hall.

Except, it isn’t pitch black.  The flashlight the man was holding clatters to the floor and rolls away as Peter keeps screaming and does his best to pin the man to the ground.

“HOLY HELL!” the guy shouts.  Something in the back of Peter’s mind tells him he knows that voice, but he raises his fist up into the air to start beating the intruder anyway.

“WHOA WHOA IT’S ME!  It’s me kid!”

Peter brings his fist down hard but stops just short of hitting him as he sits on top of him.  Both of them are breathing heavily.  Peter’s senses are still in overdrive.  His body is in fight or flight mode and he’s having trouble making sense of all of the input.  It takes several moments for Peter to realize that his spidey sense isn’t going off and that the man doesn’t have an axe.  In fact, both of his hands are held up, palms open and empty.

“What?” Peter rasps.

“It’s me, it’s Happy,” he says.

“H- Happy?”

Happy lets his head fall back to the floor with a dull thud and lets out a loud sigh of relief.  “I thought you were gonna beat me senseless kid.  Geez.”

Peter’s mind slowly starts spinning into action again, and he climbs off of Happy.  “Happy I- I’m so sorry.  So so sorry, I- I thought you were-” then Peter hears Morgan crying quietly in the closet behind him in his room and he gets up and hurries to the room to open the closet door.

“Mo, it’s ok, come here,” he says, and she throws herself into his arms.  “It’s Happy.  It’s ok, it’s just Happy.”

Happy gets to his feet, finds the flashlight, and then stands in Peter’s open doorway and shines the light inside, finding Peter kneeling on the floor next to the open closet door, holding Morgan protectively in his arms.

“It’s ok,” Happy says.  He still looks harried, like he just stared death in the eye, but he’s speaking softly.  Peter realizes he’s wearing sweatpants and a coat.  He wonders if Happy was in bed when he decided to come for a visit.  “The power went out at my place too and I got notified that FRIDAY went offline here so I came to check on you two.”

Morgan abandons Peter and runs across the room to Happy.  He kneels down to pick her up and then eyes Peter warily.  “You coming?  Let’s go downstairs and get a fire going.  It’s freezing in here.”

Peter nods and stands to follow him out.  Happy sets Morgan down so he can navigate the stairs down, not wanting to trip down the dark steps and drop her, but as soon as they’re at the bottom again Morgan demands to be held once more.

“It was so scary uncle Happy,” she tells him.  “Peter was gonna have to fight the stuffy murderer.  He was coming to kill my llama.  I didn’t want Petey to die either though!”

“No one’s going to die,” he says.  “Were you two telling ghost stories?”

“No,” Peter is quick to say.

“Nuh uh,” Morgan says.  “He wouldn’t let me tell ghost stories.”

“Good.”  Peter and Morgan both stand close to him as he gets a fire going in the woodstove.  In just a few minutes, warm flames dance in the grate and he closes the heavy black metal door with a window.  The flames lick the inside and then send orange light flickering and dancing out into the room.

Happy gets a metal pot and brings it to the living room before dumping several bottles of water into it and setting it on top of the woodstove to boil.  He sends Peter to retrieve three mugs and packets of hot chocolate.

“Stay back from the woodstove,” Happy tells Morgan, who is waiting impatiently for the water to boil.  “You know if you watch it it won’t boil.”

“Really?”

Happy nods and Morgan moves away, back towards the couch.  When the water boils, Happy pours it into the three mugs, only spilling a little, and then Peter dumps hot chocolate powder into each cup and all three of them settle in on the couch.  Peter holds his mug with both hands, staring into the flames, still feeling unsettled, though much safer now that Happy is there with them.

“Rough night?” Happy asks, and Peter looks up into his eyes.  It’s silly.  He knows it is.  He feels silly for attacking Happy, and for thinking he was an axe murderer, and for letting Ned get to him like he had.  He gives a nod and is grateful when Happy doesn’t make fun of him for it.

“Yeah,” Happy gruffs, “me too.”

“I’m so so sorry,” Peter repeats.

“It’s fine.  You were protecting yourself and Morgan.  I should have called out as soon as I got inside.”  He takes a sip of his hot chocolate and then says, “Remind me never to get on your bad side kid.  Spider Man is scary when he’s angry.”

Peter’s face heats up, but Happy doesn’t comment on it.  “It was a compliment,” Happy says.

Morgan has her hot chocolate finished and is snuggled into Happy’s side, watching the flames through the glass in the woodstove door when Tony and Pepper get home twenty minutes later.

When they open the door and find the three of them sitting safely in the mostly dark room, Tony lets out an audible sigh.  “You all right?  What’s going on?” he asks.  He crosses the living room to stand in front of them, eyes sweeping first from Peter and then to Morgan.  “You sent me those texts and I thought the house was on fire or something.  FRIDAY was down and you weren’t picking up my calls.”

“Oh, no, I’m- I must have left my phone up in my room,” Peter says, eyes going wide in horror.  “I didn’t mean to Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Hold up Roo, it’s ok, I’m just glad you’re both ok.  What happened?”

“Power went out,” Happy supplies.  “At my place too.  I came to check on them when I got notified that FRIDAY was down.  They thought I was an intruder breaking in.”

“And you’re not dead?” Tony asks, brows raised.  He notes that Peter’s face is turning red and sits down on the arm of the sofa next to him and puts a hand on the back of his neck.  Peter leans into the touch as Happy huffs.

“You have no idea how close I came to death,” Happy says.  “You don’t even need a security system boss, you just need the spider kid.”

Peter wants to go to bed, climb under the covers and forget this day ever happened.

“I gotta hear this,” Tony says as Pepper sits down next to Morgan and pulls her into her lap.

“No, you really don’t,” Peter says.  Tony rubs the back of his neck again and then the back of his shoulders, and Peter relaxes.

“I didn’t announce myself when I came in.  The kids were both already in Peter’s room.  I opened the door and he ran screaming at me and threw me to the floor.  My life flashed before my eyes.”

“I thought uncle Happy was here to kill my llama and Petey,” Morgan says, cuddling Pepper.  She doesn’t sound as upset about it as she did earlier.  “Petey hid me in his closet so he could fight the stuffy murderer.”

“Sweetie, I keep telling you there’s no stuffed animal murderer,” Pepper says quietly, running her fingers through Morgan’s hair.

“I know,” she says.  “It’s only uncle Happy.  He made us hot chocolate.”

Tony sighs heavily and says, “Ok, I’m going to go see if I can get the backup generator going.  It should have come on already.  You wanna come down and help me Pete?”

Peter nods, leaving his half drank cup of hot chocolate on the coffee table, and follows Tony down the stairs to the basement lab.  Tony uses his phone for light until he digs two flashlights out of a drawer in the lab, handing one to Peter, and then they get to work trying to figure out why the backup generator isn’t working.

“There’s a mouse down here,” Peter says five minutes into holding the flashlight up above Tony’s head so he can work.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Tony sits up and wipes his hands on a rag he pulls down off of a workbench.  “Powerflow valve is shot,” he says.  “I don’t have a replacement.  You and I will have to build one tomorrow.”  He looks up at Peter’s face and says, “Hey, you know you did good right?  You kept yourself and your sister safe.  I’m proud of you.”

Peter freezes.  Mr. Stark had said that once before… that Morgan is his sister.  He still can’t imagine why though, because that’s something he would only say if Peter is family, and he knows he isn’t, even though he wants to be.

“Come here,” Tony says, and Peter allows himself to be pulled into a hug in the quiet basement lab.  “You all right?”

Peter nods.

“That was scary, wasn’t it?”

He nods again and Tony puts his hand on the back of Peter’s head for a moment, and then lets go.

“I knew right away when I got your texts that something was wrong.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.  I want you to call me when something’s wrong.  That’s what I’m here for, ok?”

Peter nods again and then he and Tony go up the steps and back to the living room.

“Any luck?” Pepper asks.

Tony shakes his head.  “No.  I won’t be able to fix it until tomorrow.”

Pepper motions to the pile of blankets she brought downstairs and says, “We can sleep in here for the night since there’s no heat in the rest of the house.”

“I should get going,” Happy says.

“Nonsense,” Tony waves at him like he’s being ridiculous.  “Take the recliner.  There’s not going to be any heat at your place either, and the wind is pretty bad out there.  It was blowing the car around on our drive back.  You should stay here.”

“Yeah uncle Happy,” Morgan says with a yawn.  She’s already wrapped in a soft white blanket and snuggled up on the couch.  “Petey and Daddy will keep us safe if anyone tries to break in.”

“I believe it,” Happy says.  He sits down in one of the two recliners and pushes himself back in it so the footrest pops out and his feet are elevated.  Pepper hands him a folded up blanket and then settles down on the couch next to Morgan.

Peter thinks about taking the other recliner, but Tony tells him to sit down on the couch instead.  Peter sits down and Tony puts two pillows on the coffee table and then sits down next to him, dragging a blanket off the pile to cover himself and Peter with.  They put their feet up on the pillows and Peter is grateful that he’s surrounded by people he loves as he snuggles down under the soft blanket and against Tony’s side.  Tony stares into the flames licking the glass inside of the woodstove and then reaches up and starts running his fingers slowly through Peter’s hair.

“You want that bedtime story now Roo?” Tony asks quietly.

“No ghost stories,” he says.

“No ghost stories,” Tony agrees.

Chapter Text

It starts with a new orange beanie cap and a handful of candy corn.  “What’s this for?” Peter asks as he stares down at the candy corn Morgan has just dropped into his hand.  He’d barely made it out of the car when she had come bounding across the yard with candy corn and a burnt orange beanie in hand.

“It’s Halloween!” she cries happily.  She reaches up for his head but her arms aren’t long enough so he bends down and Morgan roughly slides the orange cap over his hair.  It’s crooked but Peter doesn’t bother fixing it.

“Halloween is on Tuesday,” he corrects her.

“Nuh uh.”  She doesn’t seem bothered by his proclamation at all.  “It’s going to be the best weekend ever!” she shouts, elongating the last word as she races off across the yard again.

Happy snorts behind him as he shuts the car door.  “They have big plans this weekend,” he says.  “Something about a pumpkin patch.”  A little thrill of anticipation runs through him at that.  He’s only ever been to a pumpkin patch once before.  It was the year May and Ben had gotten him, and they’d driven an hour out of the city to take him to a pumpkin patch, where Ben had insisted they find three of the biggest pumpkins known to man.  It was the same year Ben had taught him to jump in piles of leaves, and to make hot cocoa, and how to build a blanket fort.  Thinking about it now, Peter is surprised to find warmth spreading through him and tears threatening to come out whether he wants them to or not.  He misses Ben so much… misses May and the way they’d accepted him so readily after his parents had died in the plane crash.

Mr. Stark and Miss Pepper remind Peter of May and Ben often.

Happy startles him by giving him a gentle slap on the back.  He leans over Peter to look at the handful of candy corn and says, “I’m not sure I’d eat that.  Who knows where it’s been.”

Peter laughs and puts it all in his mouth.  Morgan had made it a point to bring it to him as soon as he’d arrived.  He’s not about to waste the act of affection he knows it is.

Happy snorts and then passes Peter to head up to the front porch of the cabin.  It looks like this is one of the times he’s planning on staying for dinner.  He hurries after Happy and bounds up the few steps to the front porch and then in the front door.

“Hi honey.”  Pepper looks like she’s trying to wrestle a jacket onto Morgan, but stops to greet him with a hug.  “The hat looks good on you,” she says.

“Thank you,” Peter tells her, hugging her back.  It’s chilly outside despite being a sunny day, and he’s glad to have the warmth Pepper offers up to him so easily.  When she pulls away, she eyes the hoodie Peter has on and says, “Grab a coat, we’re leaving in a few minutes.”

“Where are we going?”  He notes that Happy is in the kitchen pouring himself a travel mug of hot coffee despite that it’s almost five PM.

“A fair!” Morgan shouts with glee, trying to tug her coat on the rest of the way over her sweater.

“There’s a harvest festival,” Pepper says.  “We’re going to get dinner there, but if you need a snack, you can get some granola bars.”

“I gave him a snack mommy,” Morgan says brightly.  Coat finally on she runs to the front door and starts rummaging through a wooden box full of her hats for a warm cap like the one Peter is wearing.

“You did?”

“Candy corn,” she says, back to them.  She’s pulling hats out of the box and dropping them on the ground around her.  Happy snorts again as he puts a lid on his travel mug.

Pepper makes an unhappy noise.  “Morgan, where did you get candy corn?  No, nevermind, I know the answer.”

“Daddy,” she answers anyway.

As if her proclamation has summoned him, Tony appears from the stairs wearing a thick maroon pullover.  He has two pairs of gloves in his hands.  One is a pair from Peter’s room.

“Hey kid,” he greets him.  “Have a good day at school?”

Before Peter can answer, Pepper puts her hands on her hips and says, “Tony, why did you give Morgan candy corn?  She’s going to be bouncing off the walls.”

“What?  Me?” Tony asks with mock innocence.  “It’s my understanding that kids are supposed to have candy on Halloween.”

“That’s Tuesday,” Peter tells him, and Tony flashes him a grin.

“Halloween weekend kid.  As far as Mo and I are concerned, Halloween starts tonight and ends Tuesday.”

“In a sugar induced coma,” Pepper says.  “Every time you tell her yes tonight to sweets, I want you to remember this moment and know that you’re agreeing to be the one to deal with kids bouncing off the walls.”

“Yep,” Tony says, “I’m on it.”

Tony pulls one of his coats off the rack by the door, and then before he can get it on, snags Peter as he tries to hurry past to go upstairs to get his own coat.  He pulls him into a hug and surprises Peter by planting a kiss in his hair.  “You get some of that candy corn too?” he asks as he lets go.

“Yep,” Peter tells him with a grin.  He races up the stairs to his room and leaves the flurry of activity of people getting ready to leave down on the main floor.  He finds his coat and pulls it on in a rush and then hurries back downstairs.

A few minutes later they head to the driveway, Morgan babbling excitedly about all the candy she’s going to eat at the harvest festival.  Happy goes to his own car so he can follow them.  “He’s coming for extra security,” Tony says.  “There will be a lot of people there.”

Tony turns on music as they pull away from the house, though he keeps it turned down low.  Pepper tells them it will be a forty minute drive, but Peter doesn’t mind.  The trip is spent listening to Morgan talk about her week at school, and then answering questions Tony and Pepper ask him about a presentation he gave earlier in the week in history class, and about his week in general.  He tells them about spending Tuesday night at Ned’s house and playing computer games.  “You didn’t stay up too late did you?” Pepper asks.

“No later than I usually would anyway.  It was raining really hard so I couldn’t go out and patrol.  Ned’s mom didn’t want me to walk home in the rain, so she said I could stay.”  Ned didn’t have an extra bed, but his mom had given Peter half a dozen soft warm blankets and Peter had made a nest on the floor next to his friend’s bed.

“Mommy, why does Petey get to stay the night at his friend’s house but I can’t stay at my friend’s house?”

“When you’re older you can have friends stay the night at our house,” Pepper tells her.

“That’s not what I meant.”

“It’s a safety issue,” Tony tells her as he turns down a country road as the sun sets.  “Remember we talked about how we have to be extra careful?  More careful than other people have to be?”

“But you let Petey stay the night with his friend!” she whines.

Tony and Pepper don’t answer her.  Peter knows that Morgan doesn’t understand that they aren’t his parents, especially because he spends so much time there with them.  She’s been told that he lives in foster care, but it’s not something she has experience with and she’s young, so she doesn’t understand.

Pepper changes the subject and Morgan is dragged into a conversation about her favorite types of candy for the next ten minutes until they arrive at the harvest festival.  It’s almost dark as they pull off the gravel driveway and into a field that’s been turned into a temporary parking lot.  As soon as they park, Happy pulls in right beside them.  The parking area is already fairly full, and there are more people pulling in behind them.  As Peter opens the door, he can hear sounds from all over the farm.  Everything from creepy carnival music to children laughing, adults talking and a food vendor calling out that he’s got a batch of fresh hot dogs ready to go.  He thinks at first that the sounds are going to be overwhelming for him, but after a few moments the cacophony settles in around him like a blanket, and he breathes a sigh of relief.  He’s going to be fine.

“Ok Roo?” Tony asks, putting a hand on his shoulder.  Peter looks up at him with a smile.

“Yeah,” he says brightly.  

Together the five of them follow the trail of people from the parking field to an entry point into the little Halloween fair.  Tony holds Morgan’s hand as they walk to make sure she stays with them, and Happy brings up the rear.  At the entrance Pepper pays $25 to a teenage girl and they pass under a homemade wooden arch which has scarecrows attached to each pillar.  They both have pumpkin heads, and Morgan eyes them warily as they pass by them.

The area they enter into is full of food stalls and food trucks.  There are benches and wooden picnic tables scattered around the area.

“Oooh daddy, cotton candy!” Morgan shouts, trying to drag him towards a brightly lit stall.

“Dinner first munchkin.”  His eyes travel from stall to stall.  “Ok, I see pizza, hot dogs, hamburgers, soup-”

“Philly cheesesteak,” Peter says, cutting him off.

“Where?” Tony asks.

Peter shrugs.  “I dunno.”

Tony’s brows pull together as he stares at Peter, but there’s a smile on his face.  He winks at him and says, “That what you want?”

Peter nods.

Morgan wants hot dogs and so does Happy, so Happy volunteers to take her and stand in line at the hot dog booth while the rest of them go in search of the Philly cheesesteak stall.

“Lead the way Roo,” Tony says.  “You can smell which direction it’s in right?”

Peter is surprised Tony and Pepper are going to leave Morgan with Happy in order to go with him, but he gives a nod.  He’s never really used his sense of smell to find something before, but his stomach is rumbling and he’s positive he can find the food stall.  It turns out it’s tucked around a corner behind a stall selling fresh pressed hot apple cider and coco.  Pepper stops at the cider stall to order them all something to drink and Tony and Peter get in line to get Philly cheesesteak sandwiches.  They buy four, two for Peter, and one each for Tony and Pepper.

It’s ten minutes before they’re able to meet up with Happy and Morgan again, who are already sitting at a wooden picnic bench eating their hot dogs.  The sun has completely set now, but the harvest festival is lit up with strings of warm white, yellow, and orange lights.  All of the food stalls are decorated for Halloween, some with green and purple lights, others with scarecrows, pumpkins, fake skeletons, and other Halloween decor.  Peter loves all of it.

As they sit and eat, Pepper, Tony and Happy strike up a conversation about the upcoming holidays.  Peter half listens as he watches people walk through the food area around them.  He’s already counted five kids dressed up as Spider Man, and one teenager, who is wearing an outfit that is really close to Peter’s original homemade spider suit.

The adults talk about Christmas, before circling back around to Thanksgiving.  Weeks before, Peter had wondered if he’d be invited to celebrate Thanksgiving with them.  Now he’s sure he will be.  He’s not officially part of their family, but he knows they won’t exclude him.

“You get enough to eat?” Tony asks him after he scarfs down his first sandwich and then finishes up his second at a more reasonable pace.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t believe it,” Happy says.  “His stomach is a bottomless pit.”

“Good, then he’ll have room for candy,” Tony says.  Pepper looks like she wants to object to buying more candy, but she looks across the table and smiles at Peter instead.

As soon as they clean up their trash, Morgan begs to get some cotton candy, but Pepper tells her to wait until they’ve done some of the activities first.

“Candy is an activity mommy,” she says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

They leave the area with all of the food trucks and move into an area where there are carnival type games setup.  Peter really wants to try the ring toss.  He’s positive that with his enhancements that he can win a stuffed animal for Morgan.

“What do you think Pete?” Tony asks, coming up to stand next to him.  He’s eyeing the ring toss with Peter.  Morgan has already dragged Pepper away to a stand that has a kiddie pool filled with orange, red and yellow ducks to play that game, having declared ring toss and several other games boring.

“Can we do it?” Peter asks.  All of these games cost money, and he doesn’t want to ask for too much.  He’s already having fun just being there with the Starks and Happy on a Friday night and getting to eat out.

“Sure,” Tony says.  He pulls out a wad of bills and hands a ten to the teenager running the game.  The kid hands Peter six rings, and in turn Peter hands Tony three of them.

“Ring a clear bottle, you get a piece of candy from the bucket,” the guy says.  “Ring a green bottle, you get a token.  Three tokens for a small stuffed animal, six for a medium one, and twelve for a big one.”

Peter nods, takes one of the small rings he’s holding and eyes a green bottle.  The rings are small and it’s going to take precision to get it around the neck of any of the bottles that are all sitting on the platform five feet from him.  He tosses one.  It hits a green bottle and then clatters to the ground.  His shoulders slump a little.  This might be harder than he thought.

On his next toss, he rings a clear bottle and the guy running the game holds out a bucket of candy to him.  Peter picks out a fun size Twix.  His third ring also clatters to the ground.

“Allright, stand back and let a pro work,” Tony says, shaking out his arms.  He rings a clear bottle, followed by a second clear bottle, and then his third ring lands on the ground.

“Sorry Mr. Stark,” Peter says as Tony lets Peter pick out two pieces of candy from the bucket from his winning tosses.  Peter stuffs the candy they earned into his coat pocket.

“Why?  Do you want to play again?”

“No it’s just- that was a lot of money for three little pieces of candy.  I thought I could do it.”

Tony smiles and leans in to whisper, “All the games are rigged.”

Peter frowns.  “What?”

“That’s how it works.  They’re supposed to be hard to win.”  He points back at all the bottles lined up in rows and they watch as a little girl steps up to try her luck.  “See how close they’re all packed together?  And how small the rings are?  They’re more likely to bounce off of the bottle necks than land just right and go over them.  It’s chance.”

“But- that’s dishonest,” Peter says.

Tony shrugs.  “Pretty smart way to make money.  So, you wanna go again?”  Peter just stares at him for long moments.  “This is what we came for.  We knew we’d be blowing a bunch of money on rigged games.”

That’s- that’s not what Peter had expected.  When he doesn’t answer, Tony pulls out another ten dollar bill and hands it to Peter and the two of them step back in line.  By the time they’re done, they’ve spent almost forty dollars and Peter has a pocketful of candy to show for it.  Mr. Stark doesn’t seem to care.

They meet with Pepper, Morgan and Happy at the duck stall.  Morgan is having much better luck.  The game is simple, she just uses a net to fish a duck out of the pool of water, and then the game attendant reads the number written on the bottom of the duck in black sharpie and gives Morgan the corresponding prize.  Morgan has won several pieces of candy, and a cheap knock off Barbie doll that she has already named Princess Candy Queen.

“Do you want to try any of the other games?” Tony asks Morgan.

“No, I need to get Princess Candy Queen a sister!”

Tony asks Pepper if she wants to switch, but Pepper says she’s fine for the moment, and Peter and Tony move off to see what other games there are.  There are two more versions of ring toss, a basketball toss, a strong man’s bell, and a rope ladder that looks impossible to climb.  Peter can tell just by looking at it that the physics make it nearly impossible.  He decides to give it a go anyway.

“Make it look natural Roo,” Tony tells him, as though he has no doubt Peter can climb the rope ladder.  He gives the game attendant five dollars and then Peter steps up onto the janky rope ladder.  As soon as he’s fully on it, it flips upside down, leaving him hanging.

“Keep going Roo,” Tony calls with a laugh.  So long as Peter doesn’t touch the ground, he can keep going.  He struggles to climb up from the underside since the rope ladder is unsteady, attached at just a single point to the ground at the bottom and to a pole at the top.  The rope ladder twists and turns, trying to buck him off like a bull with every movement, but slowly Peter makes his way to the top and touches the little bell.  He drops down the few feet to the ground and grins.

“Nice,” the attendant says.  “Been running this game for years and I’ve never seen anyone do it.”  He points to the prizes and says, “Whatever you want.”  Unlike most of the other stalls, this one actually has some good prizes.  There’s a brand new unopened iPad, a fancy looking wristwatch, a brand new cellphone, and some video games.  The attendant snorts and shoots Tony a look when Peter goes for the cheapest item there.  It’s a pair of Iron Man gloves.  They’re just gloves for keeping his hands warm, but they look like gauntlets.

Tony reaches forward to Peter and ruffles his hair.  “Good job kid.  Best prize out of the lot.”

Peter puts the gloves in his coat pocket and they find Pepper and Morgan again.  Pepper is holding two cheap Barbies and watching as Morgan climbs a play structure made of hay with several other kids.  There’s a plastic slide, and while it’s small, Morgan still squeals with delight as she slides down.

“Having fun?” Tony asks Happy.

He snorts.  “Yeah, so much fun.”  He says it like he’d rather be doing anything else, but Peter notes that Happy looks relaxed and at ease.  He’s positive that Happy is enjoying himself.

“There’s a corn maze and a petting zoo,” Pepper says.  “Morgan wants to ride a pony.”

“Actually, her words were, ‘daddy will buy me a pony if I ask,’” Happy recites.

“We’re not buying a pony,” Pepper tells Tony as if it’s even a question.

“We could.  We have room for a stable.  We could get ten ponies.”

“Could, but we aren’t,” Pepper tells him.  Tony responds by wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her into his side.  He plants a kiss on her temple and she leans into him, wrapping her arm around his back.  Peter watches with a smile.  He loves Mr. Stark and Miss Pepper so much.

“I want a pony,” Peter says, and Tony looks over his shoulder at Peter and smirks.

“Pep, how can I say no to that face?”

“No, Peter.”  She sounds happy.  “Just like that.  Besides, I already told Morgan she has to decide between a pony and a candied apple.  She chose the candied apple.  We have to stop and get one at some point before we’re done.”

“I want a candied apple,” Peter says, and this time he means it.

Pepper half turns, still holding onto Tony and reaches back for Peter.  He steps forward and she wraps her other arm around his shoulders.  “You can have a candied apple.  You can’t have a pony.”  Peter desperately wants to say, ‘Dad will buy me one if I ask,’ but clamps his mouth shut.  He wants to say that, but he can’t, because as much as the Starks have included them in their crazy, cozy little family, Tony isn’t his dad.

They let Morgan play for a few more minutes, and then they go to the stall selling candied apples.  Peter and Morgan both get one and they head to the little petting zoo as a group.  Peter eats his candied apple and watches as Morgan and Tony pet several goats.  He’s surprised that Happy goes into the coral with them to pet the animals too.  Peter and Pepper watch from the side, Pepper holding onto Morgan’s candied apple, which has exactly one bite taken out of it.

“Are you having fun sweetie?” she asks Peter.

“Yeah, lots of fun.”

“Good.  We’ll get pumpkins on our way out tonight, and then carve them tomorrow.  Is there anything else you want to do this weekend?”

Peter doesn’t know what to say.  He just wants to spend time with them.  They usually already have plans made for the weekend when he shows up on Friday.  He really has no idea what he wants to do aside from what they always do.  Board games and movies, family meals, chores and cuddling on the couch.  Any of it.  All of it.  He doesn’t care.

“Uhh… can we bake something?  Cookies, or muffins or something?”

“I think that can be arranged,” she says with a small smile.  Peter smiles too.

When Morgan is done petting animals, she comes back and takes two more bites of her candied apple before declaring that she’s full.  Tony takes it and finishes it off as they head towards the corn maze.  The cornfield is huge and looks like it’s been split into two separate corn mazes.  One entrance has a sign that reads, ‘Haunted - Enter If You Dare.’  The other says, ‘Kid friendly.’

“Well I know which one Morgan and I are going through,” Tony says.  She looks like she’s getting tired and he’s been carrying her for the last few minutes.  He steps towards the kid friendly corn maze and then turns back.  “Who’s coming?”

“There is no way I’m going into the haunted maze,” Happy says, and steps towards Tony.  “I heard people talking.  There are people in there dressed up and jumping out at people.”

Tony huffs a laugh and gives Pepper a look like he’s daring her to go into the haunted side.

“Are you going with me?” Pepper asks Peter.

“Huh?”

“Are you going with me to the haunted side?”

Peter had thought they would all just go into the kid friendly corn maze.  “Uh, yeah, sure.”

He eyes the entrance to the haunted corn maze.  There’s a fog machine turned on in there somewhere and fog is billowing out, clinging to the ground.  It’s lit up by a creepy green light.

“Well, see you on the other side, if you make it out,” Tony says with a smile.  He carries Morgan into the kid friendly corn maze.  Happy follows, and stops just long enough to grab two flashlights out of the box at the entrance.

“We should follow them and scare them,” Peter says.

Pepper laughs in response.  “If Morgan wasn’t with them I would.”  They get two flashlights out of the box by the entrance to the haunted corn maze and step into it.  The hairs on the back of Peter’s neck immediately stand up on end and he pauses.

“What?” she asks.

“Nothing.  Happy’s right, that’s all.  There’s people in there waiting to jump out.”  There’s more than just people waiting to jump out at them, it turns out.  At various points throughout the haunted corn maze, there’s radios hidden in the field playing creepy sounds, like evil laughter, and bats screeching, and creaking floorboards.  Peter knows it’s all fake, but he’s still creeped out, and remembers feeling freaked out the night the power went out the prior weekend.

They walk for three minutes and turn several corners before an actor dressed all in black pops out of the corn and whispers, “Boo.”  He’s not loud, but they’ve just started to get comfortable and aren’t expecting it.  Peter and Pepper both jump a little.  Pepper grabs Peter’s wrist with one hand and her chest with the other.  As the actor steps back into the tall stalks of corn without a word, Pepper starts to laugh.  Peter isn’t sure why, but when she lets go of his wrist, he laughs too.

“He didn’t have to yell to get us did he?” she asks, and Peter shakes his head.

As they continue on through the maze, they find that they don’t always need their flashlights.  Some parts of the maze are lit up in creepy green or purple light.  One time they turn a corner into a dead end and find a creepy looking scarecrow lit up by dark purple light.  They both jump, and then they both laugh before turning around to find another path to take.

“This isn’t so bad,” Pepper says.  “Tony’s a scaredy cat.”  Just as she says it, a man wearing a creepy clown mask jumps out of the corn yelling at the top of his lungs.  Pepper stumbles backwards and almost falls over, but Peter catches her.  It takes everything he has not to turn and flee.  For the last five minutes they’ve been hearing the sounds of a creepy clown giggling, laughing, and occasionally breathing hard from radios scattered throughout the maze.

“Want some candy, kid?” the actor wheezes through the clown mask, holding out a piece of candy.

No, Peter does not want some candy from a creepy clown that will pull him into the corn stalks and disappear with him.  The actor straightens up in surprise when Peter pulls a piece of candy out of his pocket and puts it in the clown’s outstretched hand instead.

“You have some candy,” Peter tells him.  “And don’t follow us.”

The clown stares down at the candy in his palm for a moment, and then points at the next corner.  “There’s another actor right around the corner.”  He disappears back into the corn stalks and Peter pulls another piece of candy out of his pocket.  He shines his flashlight towards the next bend in the maze and he and Pepper approach it with caution.

“I have candy for you,” Peter says as they approach.  “I’ll pay you not to jump out.”  They stare into the maze, illuminated only by their two flashlights.  An arm appears from the corn stalks, palm up, and Peter approaches carefully before paying the candy toll.  The arm disappears and they hear a decidedly non-creepy giggle from the female actor hiding in the corn.

Peter and Pepper laugh too and continue through the maze.

It takes them twenty minutes to get out.  They don’t encounter any more actors, but they do jump a few more times when they spot creepy mannequins and scarecrows in the maze.  Tony, Happy and Morgan are waiting by the corn maze exit when they get out.

“Well, how was it?” Tony asks.  “We heard screams coming from the creepy maze.”  As if to prove a point, there are several screams as a group somewhere behind them is startled by an actor in the tall corn.

“Not scary at all,” Pepper says.  “Want to go through it?”

“Forget it,” Happy says.

“Peter paid them candy tolls to let us pass.  It was pretty scary,” she concedes.

“You all out of candy?” Tony asks Peter.

He pulls several pieces out of his pocket.  “I have some left.”

It’s only eight o’clock, but they’ve been there for a couple hours and Morgan looks ready to fall asleep.  “Are we going home soon?” she asks.

“We have to get pumpkins first,” Tony tells her.

“Pumpkins!” she squeals.  “Can Princess Candy Queen and Lady Cotton Candy get pumpkins too?”

“Little ones,” Pepper tells her.  They make their way to the pumpkin patch, which is less of a patch and more of several hundred pumpkins laid out in neat rows not too far from the exit.  The area is lit up with string lights strung from pole to pole, and the whole area is bathed in a warm glow.

Pepper and Morgan go off to pick out some small pumpkins, and Tony and Peter head towards the larger pumpkins.  Happy finds a rolling green cart with big wheels near the checkout and brings it over to Tony and Peter.  Peter can carry a heavy pumpkin with no problem, but Tony wants to get several.

“I’m picking one for Pepper too.  She wants some for the front porch.”

Peter sets his pumpkin on the rolling cart, and then goes to help Tony find another one.  They have six by the time they’re done.  Pepper and Morgan come and add three small pumpkins to the cart. Two are Barbie size, and one is the right size for Morgan to carve.  It’s a good thing they have the rolling cart, because it’s quite a walk back to the car out in the field after they pay.  Happy drags the cart and then Peter and Tony load pumpkins into the back of their SUV while Pepper gets Morgan buckled into the back seat.  Normally Morgan does it herself, but she’s tired and whining.

“Thanks Hap,” Tony tells Happy.  “You coming back to the house with us?  You’re welcome to stay.”

“No, I’m good boss.  I drank quite a bit of coffee in the last couple hours.  I’ll make it back to my house.”

Tony nods, thanks Happy again, and then he and Peter get into the car.  He turns music on low and they pull out across the bumpy field and then onto the dirt drive.  In a few minutes when they make it back to the paved road, Morgan is already asleep, conked out with a Barbie in each hand.

“You have fun Pete?” Tony asks.

“Yeah.”

“What was your favorite part?”

Peter isn’t sure.  He loved playing games with Tony, but he also really liked doing the corn maze with Pepper.  “All of it,” he says.

“You hungry?”

The answer is yes, but he doesn’t say so.  Instead he reaches into his pocket and finally pulls out one of the mini-sized candy bars and unwraps it.  He stuffs the whole thing in his mouth.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Tony says.  “We’ll stop and get something on the way home.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Peter protests.  He’ll be fine, really.  He already had a big dinner, a candy apple and now he has several pieces of candy.

“Burgers?” Tony asks, like he hadn’t heard him at all.

“I wouldn’t mind a milkshake,” Pepper says.  “Unlike the rest of you, I was good at the fair and didn’t load up on sweets.”

The side of Tony’s face that Peter can see is lit up dimly by the instrument cluster as they drive through the darkness.  He can see a small smile there.

Morgan sleeps all the way home.  She doesn’t wake up when they go through the drive through of a fast food place and get a cheeseburger, fries, and a soda for Peter, and a milkshake for Pepper.

When they get home it’s after nine.  Tony carries Morgan into the house and Pepper tells Peter that they’ll leave the pumpkins in the car until morning.

“Get some pajamas on sweetie,” she tells him.  “I think we’re all kind of tired out.  Tony might want to watch a movie, but I’m headed to bed.”

“Ok,” he tells her.  She gives him a hug and then disappears up the stairs and to her room.  When Peter follows and passes by Morgan’s room a few moments later, he finds Tony inside pulling Morgan’s socks, shoes and coat off as she sleeps, while trying to rouse her to brush her teeth.

Peter changes into pajamas, brushes his teeth and then sits on the edge of his bed to text Ned.  He and Mr. Stark had taken several selfies while playing games at the fair, and he sends off a couple of his favorites to his best friend.

‘Did you win all the games?’ Ned shoots back.

‘Nah, just one, they’re all rigged.’

‘Figures.  Wish I could go to a fair.  Mom and dad are taking me to a haunted house though!  It’s gonna be so cool!  It’s a haunted hospital theme!’

Peter scrunches up his face.  Hospitals mean needles, and Peter has no desire to go to a haunted house that will make him think of blood draws and IV’s.

Tony comes into his room a moment later.  “What’s that look for?” he asks.  Peter looks up at him and Tony points at his face.  “Looked like you were going to be sick.  You eat too much candy?”  He crosses the room and puts the back of his hand gently against Peter’s forehead.

“No, no I’m good Mr. Stark.”  He turns his phone to Tony, who sits down next to him on the edge of the bed and takes it, reading Ned’s last text.  He hands the phone back to Peter.

“Yeah, haunted hospital, no thanks.  I’ve had enough of hospitals.”  Peter thinks Tony means it because he’d spent a lot of time recovering after the Snap.  He has no idea that Tony is still just trying to recover from Peter having to spend the weekend in the med bay with a fever two weeks before.

“You brush your teeth?” Tony asks.

“Yeah.”

“Morgan was like a zombie.  She sat on the edge of the tub while I brushed her teeth.”

“Sugar coma,” Peter says with a grin.

“She didn’t have nearly enough sugar for that.  Trust me.  One year she snuck a bag of Halloween candy off to her room, and by the time we figured out what was going on most of the bag was gone.  She zipped around the house for hours and then threw a major tantrum.  Still didn’t conk out like tonight.  I think she just tired herself out having fun.”  He leans into Peter a little, knocking shoulders with him.  “What do I gotta do to tire you out like that kid?  Do we need to go to a full amusement park for you to have that much fun?”

“I had a lot of fun Mr. Stark, I promise!”  He really did.  May and Ben had taken him to events like that for Halloween, but he’d never been to an actual harvest festival before.  It’s a night he’ll never forget.

“Good.  Tomorrow we’ll carve pumpkins and watch movies, how does that sound?”

“Sounds great.”

“I don’t mind if you stay up, just not too late, ok?”  Tony stands up and then ruffles Peter’s already messy hair on his way out of the room.  “Tell Ned I said hi,” he says.  “Night Roo.”

“Night Mr. Stark!”

Tony disappears out his bedroom door into the hall, but then Peter realizes he hasn’t thanked them for taking him to the harvest festival yet.  He doesn’t want them to think he’s being ungrateful.  He leaps off his bed and hurtles out of the room.  Tony startles at the sudden movement and sound behind him in the hall and turns to find Peter there.

“Uh, I just forgot to say thanks.  For taking me, I mean, and for- for every weekend,” Peter rushes to say.

Tony moves forward the few steps between them and wraps Peter up in a hug.  “You’re welcome buddy.  You don’t have to thank us.  We wanted to take you and Mo.”  He gives Peter another squeeze and then pulls back.  “You good?”

Peter nods, smiles and then heads back to his room.  He turns out the lights and gets under his covers before pulling out his phone again.  ‘Miss Pepper and I went through a haunted corn maze.  It was creepy enough without making me think about needles and creepy hospital stuff.’

‘Did you pee your pants?’

‘What?  No!’

‘My cousin went to a haunted house last year and my mom said he peed his pants.  He’s 20.’

Peter laughs at the text and scooches down a little to get further under his covers.  He and Ned text for twenty more minutes.  When Ned starts in on him again to ask for a gaming PC, Peter decides to call it a night and go to bed.

He has a feeling Tony would get him a gaming PC if he asked.  He thinks Tony would get him a pony too.

* * *

Morgan wears her Halloween costume despite that it’s only Saturday and Halloween is still several days away.  Tony, Peter and Morgan sit on the covered front porch and scoop pumpkin guts out of their pumpkins, getting ready to carve them.  It’s chilly and raining out, rain dripping off the edge of the roof covering the porch and splattering as it hits the ground.  Peter is glad the rain held off until today so they hadn’t had to deal with it at the harvest festival the night before.

Morgan hums softly to herself as she squeezes the pumpkin guts between her fingers, playing with it more than cleaning the pumpkin out.  Peter has already cleaned his pumpkin out, as well as two others, and Mr. Stark is busy setting tools out so they can start carving.

Between the sound of gentle rain, Morgan’s soft humming, and the sound of Mr. Stark’s heartbeat a few feet away, Peter feels completely at peace.  He loves being here… being home with the Starks.  It’s not officially his home, because technically he lives at the foster home, but it’s still his, and he loves being here.

“Almost done with those guts Morgan?” Tony asks.

“Nope.”

Tony smiles to himself and then sets out a series of knives on the floor at his feet for Peter.  He sets his own pumpkin up on a folding wooden tray and uses a maker before he starts carving.  “I know I don’t have to tell you this, but I’d prefer no trips to the emergency room this weekend,” Tony says, and Peter grins.

“It’s only a little cut Mr. Stark, we totally don’t need to see a doctor.”  Peter can hear Tony’s heartbeat pick up above him where he sits on the bench and can feel his gaze, assessing his hands and fingers for damage.  Peter looks up at him with a grin and lifts his hands to wriggle his fingers.  “I’ve got all ten,” he says.

“Kid, I have a heart condition.  You know that right?”

Peter nods with a smile.  “Um hm.”

“Psh.”  Tony reaches down and ruffles his hair.

“Why would Petey need to go to the doctor?” Morgan asks, still squishing pumpkin guts through her fingers.

“Because he has a thing with sharp objects and getting stabbed by them,” Tony says.

She peers around from behind Peter and asks, “Do you need a bandaid?  We have Iron Man and Spider Man bandaids.”

“No, I’m good Mo,” he says.  He hasn’t even started carving his pumpkin yet.  He’s still drawing his design on with a black marker like Tony is on the bench above him.

Pepper comes out after a few minutes with mugs of hot coffee for her and Tony and hot chocolate for Peter and Morgan.  Then she sits down on the deck floor next to Morgan to help her finish scooping the pumpkin guts out.  Peter pushes one of the gutted pumpkins towards her and she thanks him for getting it ready for her.

Peter sips on his hot chocolate in between sketching out his simple design and then starting to carve.  It’s a few minutes before Pepper looks up at Tony sitting on the bench using a hand held laser to carve his pumpkin and says, “That’s cheating.”

“It’s not cheating if I made the lazer tech.”

Pepper laughs and then goes back to helping Morgan with her pumpkin.  Morgan is using one of those store bought carving kits for kids with little blades that aren’t all that sharp.  Peter is halfway through finishing his pumpkin, and Tony is well on his way with his own using a red laser cutter.  The laser sweeps side to side despite that Tony holds it still, and cuts the pumpkin like a laser CNC machine.  “I have an intricate design that needs a lot of finessing,” Tony says.

“You have a need to go over the top,” Pepper corrects.

He responds only with, “It’s my quirks that make you love me.”

Pepper smiles and finally satisfied that Morgan is on her way to carving her own pumpkin without cutting herself with the little carving kit, she turns to start her own pumpkin.

After a minute Tony looks down at Peter and says, “What are you carving?”

Peter turns his mostly finished pumpkin around to face Tony.  It’s half of an avocado with stick arms and legs and a goofy smile.  Underneath is the number 6.022 x 10 to the 23rd power.

“Avogadro’s number,” Tony smirks.  “Nice.”

“I think you mean avo-cadro’s number,” Peter jokes.

“Um hm,” Tony hums.  “What’s next, guaca-mole?”

Peter laughs.  “That’s what Ned said.”

“Mommy,” Morgan asks.  “What are they talking about?  We don’t have to have guacamole and avocados for dinner do we?”

“No sweetie, they’re just being silly.”

“I don’t get it.”

Peter opens his mouth to explain, but Tony catches his eye and shakes his head.  “It’ll be our inside joke,” he tells him.

Peter goes back to carving his pumpkin.  He’s good with that.  He and Mr. Stark have a lot of inside jokes together.  He and Happy have some too, and lately he and Pepper have come up with some of their own.  Yeah… feels like home.

* * *

Peter wakes up to the smell of fresh baked muffins and the sound of rain dripping down from the gutters and splattering on the windows Sunday morning.  They’d stayed up late the night before, Morgan included, decorating the house for Halloween, listening to music and playing board games.

When Peter goes downstairs in his pajamas and fuzzy socks, he’s not surprised to see that Morgan isn’t up yet.  They’d let her stay up until nine thirty, which is late for her.  After she’d gone to sleep, he and Tony had gone down to the lab to work on Peter’s web shooters and mess around with a prototype for hygroelectric power.  They’d had to set up a humidifier in an enclosed space to generate moisture to see if their prototype would actually generate electricity from the water molecules in the air.  It had been after midnight before Pepper had come down the stairs to the basement lab and told them both it was time for bed.

Peter sits down on a stool at the kitchen counter next to Tony.  Sipping his coffee, Tony doesn’t greet him, but he does reach up and ruffle his hair.

“Good morning honey,” Pepper says when she turns from checking on what’s cooking in the oven and sees him.  “Tony and I got up and made muffins for breakfast this morning.”

“How much did Mr. Stark help?” Peter asks with a grin.

“If you’re going to insult my cooking skills, I’ll give your share of the baked goods to Gerald,” Tony tells him.  He looks tired and a little anxious, and Peter wonders if he went back down to the lab after Peter went to bed and ended up not getting much sleep.

He holds his hands up in surrender.  “I wasn’t going to insult your baking skills,” he says.  “You’re the best cook ever.”

“Psh,” Tony scoffs, and lifts the coffee cup to his lips again.  “I don’t believe a word of it, but A for effort.  Pep, we’re going to have to teach him to be more believable.”

She presses her lips together in a smile and turns back to the oven to pull the blueberry muffins out.  As soon as she turns back around with them and sets them on a towel on the kitchen island in front of Peter and Tony, his mouth starts watering and he’s overwhelmed in the best way with the smell of hot muffins.

“Do you want a cup of hot chocolate or tea Peter?” she asks.

He stares at the muffins longingly but then slides off the stool and goes around the counter and into the kitchen.  “I can get it Miss Pepper.”  He doesn’t want them to feel like they have to wait on him.  He doesn’t want them to start to see him as a burden.  Peter pours himself a cup of coffee from the coffee pot, and then turns back to the kitchen island, ready to snag a muffin.

Tony points at his mug.  “What is that?” he asks.

“Coffee.”

“That’s for me right?”

“Sure Mr. Stark,” he says, bringing it to his lips and taking a sip.

“Hey,” Tony says, voice loud, though he doesn’t sound mad.  “No coffee for spider babies.  Have some hot chocolate.”

Peter is just raising the cup to his lips again when Pepper reaches around him and lifts it out of his grasp.  He’s going to complain, but he’s not used to joking around with Pepper like that.

“House rule,” she says.  “I’m still trying to wean Tony off of caffeine.”

Peter points at Tony’s coffee and gives Pepper puppy eyes, which Tony doesn’t miss.

“Kid, you are on one today aren’t you?” Tony says.  “Is this a residual sugar high from last night?”

Pepper smiles and Peter gives Tony an innocent look.  “What do you mean Mr. Stark?”

He points to the stool next to him and says, “Sit down and eat a muffin.”

“More sugar,” Peter says, taking his seat next to Tony again.  He pulls a hot muffin out of the muffin tin and starts to unwrap it.  “You know, if I am coming off a sugar high, it’s kind of your fault.”

“I agree,” Pepper says before Tony can object.

Peter is about to say, ‘Mom agrees’ when he catches himself and stuffs the entire piping hot muffin into his mouth.  He regrets it immediately and hurries to chew and swallow because it’s burning the inside of his cheeks.

“Every time I turned around yesterday you were handing out candy,” Pepper tells Tony.  Peter didn’t even know where Tony was getting it all from.  It was like he had stashes of candy hidden around the house.

“It’s Halloween Pep.”

“As soon as Halloween is over, I’m putting a moratorium on candy until New Years.”

“You’ll ruin Christmas,” Tony counters.

“Then stop filling the kids with candy for Halloween.”

Tony eyes his wife for long moments, and then holds his mug up towards her like he’s ready for a toast.  She looks like she’s won something, but Tony doesn’t seem to mind.

Peter pulls another muffin out of the hot muffin tin and is starting to unwrap it when Tony leans in and whispers conspiratorially, “This candy thing is your fault.”  Peter smiles to himself, not even looking up at him.  As soon as Pepper leaves a few moments later to go upstairs to wake Morgan, Tony says, “Want a Snickers bar?”

Peter looks down and finds a mini wrapped Snickers bar in Tony’s open palm.  “You just had that on you?”  He narrows his eyes, “Are you trying to buy my affections with candy?”  He means it as a joke, because the three of them have spent the last half hour joking, but Tony’s expression changes… grows uncomfortable and anxious again.  He starts to pull the candy bar back but Peter reaches out with lightning fast reflexes and snatches it.  “It’s working,” he says.  He glances up at Mr. Stark’s face and finds that while he still looks anxious, he’s relaxed a little.  He looks relieved.  He doesn’t like being the reason Mr. Stark is anxious, and isn’t sure why what he said seems to bother him so much.

A few minutes later Morgan comes downstairs with Pepper, dressed for the day, and Tony pulls a muffin out of the tin and hands it to her.  “Hey munchkin.”

“Hi daddy,” she says.  Tony pulls her up onto his lap since the only two stools are occupied and she sits and eats her muffin as Peter has a third.  He loves that the Starks always order or make extra food for him and never scold him for eating too much.  He never starves at the foster home, but he’s never full there either.  He’s always full when he comes to stay the weekend with the Starks.

As soon as Morgan and Peter are done eating and Tony has had his fill of muffins as well, he says, “What do you two want to do today?”

“Cartoons!” Morgan calls.  She slides off of his lap and runs to the couch behind them, throwing herself down on it on her stomach and reaching for the remote.

“What about you Pete?”

He shrugs.  “I’m good with whatever, Mr. Stark.”

“I know you are, but what do you want to do?”

Build a gaming PC together.  “Uh, cartoons are good.”

Peter heads to the couch and picks up Morgan, who giggles as he settles her back beside him.  She flops backwards and sticks her legs on him, lying them across his.  While they watch TV Tony and Pepper pour themselves more coffee and tea and sit at the dining room table.  Peter tries not to listen as they have a few minutes to themselves, but he still catches bits and pieces of the conversation.  There’s something about taking a walk later even though it’s raining, some kind of meeting they have to be on time to on Monday, and Ned.

Peter stills, back to the kitchen and dining room.  Ned?  He focuses in on their conversation but is disappointed to find that they’ve already moved on to something else and are discussing finances for SI.  He swears they had said Ned’s name though.  If he asks, they’ll know he was eavesdropping, so he decides to push it from his mind.  That works for all of about twenty seconds.  He reaches into his pajama pants pocket and pulls out his cell phone to text his friend.

‘Do you know why Mr. and Mrs. Stark would be talking about you?’

Ned doesn’t respond and after a few minutes Peter glances at the clock on the wall.  It’s ten thirty AM.  He thinks Ned might not be up yet.  His friend is used to staying up late now and playing video games or racing to get through schoolwork he’s behind on.

After an hour Ned still hasn’t texted him back yet.  Peter texts him again, but still doesn’t get an answer.

“Why don’t you head upstairs and get dressed sweetheart?” Pepper says, coming up behind the couch.  “Tony wants to go for a walk.  Bundle up in layers and put on your coat and hat.”  Peter nods and shifts Morgan’s legs gently off of him so he can get up and go upstairs.

“You too Morgan,” she says.

“It’s raining out,” she whines.  “Can’t I just watch cartoons?”

“You can watch cartoons later.  Let’s go get dressed for a walk.”

Peter can still hear Pepper trying to convince Morgan that a walk is a good idea as he makes it upstairs.

He changes quickly, pulling on warm clothes and his soft green cap.  Since he’s in the privacy of his room he decides to call his friend.  He dials but the phone rings through to voicemail after two rings, meaning Ned probably hit the ignore button.  He’s not sure why he doesn’t seem to want to talk to him this morning.  Before he can wonder too much, Ned texts him.

‘Can’t talk, in the middle of family stuff.  TTY tomorrow.  Srry.’  He follows that text up with a goofy yellow emoji and Peter relaxes.  At least his best friend isn’t mad at him.

Slipping the phone into his hoodie pocket, Peter heads back into the hall and downstairs.  Pepper and Morgan still seem to be getting ready and Tony is nowhere in sight.  Peter can hear movement down the stairs leading to the lab though so he goes down to the basement.

“Hey buddy,” Tony says.  He smiles at Peter but it doesn’t reach his eyes.  His muscles all seem to be tense.  “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, voice soft.  He’s starting to get worried that something’s wrong.  Miss Pepper hasn’t seemed anxious, but Tony has been acting weird all morning.  “Uh, Mr. Stark?”

“Yeah?”

“Is everything ok?”

He looks up from where he’s fidgeting with the little hygroelectric prototype and says, “Everything’s good buddy.  Wanna come see how much electricity this generated overnight?”

Peter crosses the little lab, feeling hot in all the layers he’s wearing.  They check to see how much power is stored in the device (about enough to power five pixels on a TV screen), and then talk about how they can improve the little device, and daisy chain several of them together to generate and hold more power.  Hygroelectric is a new technology, and they’re just dipping their toes into the water with this first prototype.  Tony has explained to Peter that four or five other companies are messing with the technology right now, but since SI is a leader in green energy, they’d like to have a leg up in the hygroelectric game.

Pepper calls down the stairs for them and Peter and Tony head back up to the living room.  Morgan is by the front door sitting on the floor struggling to pull on pink rain boots over what looks to be several layers of warm fuzzy socks.

“Want help?” Peter asks her, and she nods.  He kneels down and pushes from the bottom of her boots while she pulls on the little straps at the top.  “You could take some of these socks off,” Peter tells her as they struggle to get the first boot on and finally manage.

“My feet need to be warm and cozy Petey,” she tells him, tongue sticking out slightly between her teeth as she pulls at the second boot.  It takes them a few moments but they get that one on too.  She climbs to her feet and puts her hands on her hips, triumphant.

Tony reminds Peter to grab his coat from the coat rack and Peter pulls it on despite that he feels much too hot.  As soon as Pepper opens the front door, chilly fresh air rushes in and Peter breathes a sigh of relief.  He can smell rain and damp earth as he steps out onto the covered front porch and revels in the cool air.

Before they step out into the rain, Tony startles Peter by tugging his hood up over his head from behind him.  “No sick spider kids this weekend,” he says.  “You’re going to stay dry and toasty.”

“I’m so toasty I’d like to take off a few layers.”

“Nope,  not gonna happen.”  Tony walks down the three steps and out into the rain, Peter right behind him.

“Mommy,” Morgan says, “we could be watching cartoons by the fire right now.”

“I think you’ve watched enough TV for the day honey,” she tells her.

“I could have a tea party by the fire.”

“That sounds like a great idea for after our walk.”

Morgan pouts a little and crosses her arms, though she’s having trouble doing so in her puffy jacket.  Peter turns back, looks at Morgan, and grins at her.  She uncrosses her arms and lets them hang at her side.  He raises both of his eyebrows twice and she runs to catch up with him.

“What are we doing?” she whisper yells.  Tony hears her but doesn’t comment.

“You know what those rainboots are good for?” Peter asks her.

She shakes her head.

“Jumping in puddles.”

She giggles, looks around, and spots a puddle in the gravel driveway.  She runs ahead and leaps into it, water splashing up around her.  As they head towards the woods on a familiar path they’ve walked together several times before, Morgan runs from puddle to puddle splashing in each of them.  Peter hangs back with Tony and Pepper.

“You all caught up with your schoolwork for the week?” Tony asks.

“Yeah.  I always get it done at school or in the car on the way here.”  Once Peter had researched an entire report on his phone while Happy drove him to the cabin, and then spent the ride back to the city at the end of the weekend writing it on a laptop Mr. Stark had let him borrow.  It’s Sunday now, and Peter wishes he had another day, that it was only Saturday.  Happy will be there later in the afternoon around four to pick him up and take him back to the city.  Peter will miss the Starks and the cabin all week, and look forward all week to Friday so he can come back again.  It’s been that way for months now, and he hopes that as soon as summer rolls around and school gets out that the Starks will invite him to stay for a week or two at a time.  He really doesn’t think Greg will care how long he’s out of the city for.

As they walk, Pepper takes Tony’s hand and they start up a conversation about a new charity the company is going to start donating to.  Morgan continues to splash in puddles twenty feet ahead of them as they walk over wet orange and yellow leaves through the trees, and Peter draws in a breath of fresh air cleaned by the rain.  He loves the smell of rain and the feel of cold rainy days as long as he has something warm to wear and isn’t getting soaked.

They take their time on the little trail that meanders through the woods, slowly making their way around the edge of the lake and back up the other side.  At some point it stops raining, though the sun doesn’t come out.  The skies are cloudy and gray, and Peter is glad that he’s bundled up, no longer hot from being in too many layers.  His face and nose are chilled but the rest of him is toasty warm.

By the time they make it back to the cabin, Peter is ready to get inside and sit by the fire he knows they’ll start in the woodstove.  Before he can go inside however, Tony asks him to hang back on the porch with him for a bit.  He sounds nervous again.

“Uh, yeah, sure,” Peter tells him as Morgan and Pepper head inside.  He pulls out his phone and glances at the clock.  It’s almost four and Happy will be there soon.  He needs to go pack some of his clothes back into his backpack.  Happy doesn’t seem to mind driving Peter to and from the cabin and the city, but he gets grumpy if Peter keeps him waiting.

Tony sits down on the wooden porch swing and Peter sits right next to him.  The man lifts his arm up and Peter takes the invitation to lean into his side.  They sit quietly for a few moments, porch swing gently rocking.  Peter feels content to sit there for as long as Mr. Stark will let him.

Ten minutes pass before Pepper comes back out and sits in a wicker porch chair next to the porch swing.  Peter glances at his phone again and notes that it’s after four.

“Happy’s usually here by now.  Is he coming later?” he asks, brows pulled together with a slight frown.  He’s not going to complain about getting a few extra minutes (or hours) with them before he has to go back to the city.

Instead of answering, Tony asks him a question.  “Have a good weekend Roo?”

Peter smiles.  “The best.”

“Do you want to stay?”

Peter hesitates for a moment.  “Stay?  Yeah, of course I want to stay Mr. Stark, I love it here, but I have school in the morning.”

“We were thinking more along the lines of forever,” Pepper says.

Peter stills and his heart starts beating.  It beats so hard it starts to hurt and he thinks it might pound right out of his chest.  “F- forever?”

He can feel Tony tense up beside him.  He’s quiet for long moments before he says, “We’ve been working on the adoption paperwork for quite a while.”  He sounds nervous again, and starts talking faster, as though Peter is going to interrupt him.  Peter finds it odd, because rambling is his thing, not Mr. Stark’s.  “There’s a lot of kids in foster care since the blip, and they’re eager to get kids out and to permanent homes, so that’s been working in our favor, but it’s still taken the lawyers a while to get everything squared away.  We only want to do this if you want to though,” he finishes, out of breath.  He’s still tense beside Peter.

He expects me to say no, Peter realizes.  He’s nervous because he expects him to say no, when really Peter wants to say yes more than anything.  They want to adopt him?  They want him to stay forever?  Forever?  He doesn’t think they understand that forever is a long time.  He’s only fifteen.  Adopting him would mean three more years of having to take care of him… having to provide for him and put up with him.

When Peter doesn’t answer after long moments, Tony says, “Pete, we want you to stay.”  He still sounds anxious.  Peter still doesn’t answer and Tony leans forward a little so he can see Peter’s face.

Peter’s eyes are watery.  They’re so full of tears that haven’t fallen yet that he can barely see.  He turns to Tony and seeing the tears Tony puts his hand gently on the back of Peter’s head.  “You want me?”

“Of course we want you sweetheart,” Pepper says.  “You’re family.”

“Me?” Peter asks again, looking at her.  “I don’t have to go back to the foster home?”

“You,” she says softly.  He thinks from the sound of her voice she might be getting a little teary eyed too.

Clothes and family photos, trips to the coffee shop, parent teacher conferences and so much more.  All this time Peter has wanted to be part of their family so badly, and thought that maybe they might want him to be part of their family too.  Now he knows.  Now he knows it was never a question of if they wanted him.  They did…. they still do, after all this time.

He scrunches his face up a little as he leans into Tony’s side, though he knows there’s no hope of stopping the tears now.

“Happy tears Roo?” Tony asks, and Peter nods.

“Yeah,” he chokes out.  Yeah, they’re happy tears.  They’re happy tears, because Peter is happy, just like he always is when he’s with his family.

Pepper gets up and comes to sit on Peter’s other side on the porch swing.  She wraps her arms around him too so that he’s sandwiched between them, being hugged on both sides.

“We’ve been working on adopting you for a long time,” Tony repeats what he’d said a few minutes before.  “With everyone coming back from the blip and looking for housing and work, and all the new kids in the foster system, it’s taken a while.  We didn’t want to tell you we were trying to get custody of you and then have it fall through and disappoint you.  But we got news in the middle of the week that the paperwork has all gone through.  We just have to go to the courthouse tomorrow morning, Roo, all of us, and then it’ll be official.”

Peter doesn’t say anything.  He can’t.  It’s ok because they seem to understand that.  Neither of them let go of him and they just sit there like that, together, until Morgan comes out of the house a few minutes later in her many layers of socks.  She eyes the three of them like there’s something wrong, and then notices Peter’s teary eyes.  Putting both hands on her hips she says with an accusing tone, “What did you do to my brother?”

Peter chokes out a laugh and Pepper chuckles at Morgan’s antics.

Morgan doesn’t know what’s going on, but she sees the three of them hugging and knows she wants in on it.  She crosses the distance between them and starts wriggling her way through the tangle of arms and climbs up onto Pepper’s lap.  “Can we go in and have a tea party now?  I’m tired of being outside.”

“I’m going to stay out here for a little while longer,” Tony says.  His voice sounds wet, but no longer anxious and tense.  Peter chances a glance up at him and realizes his eyes are just as wet as Peter’s.

“I’ll go inside with you,” Pepper tells Morgan.  Morgan slides off her lap and Pepper stands up with her, though her hand lingers on Peter’s shoulder for a moment until she steps away to follow Morgan inside.

“You going inside too?” Tony asks.  His arms are still around Peter.

Peter’s not going anywhere.  Not with Happy back to the city, not to the foster home, and not into the house.  Not when his dad is right there.  Peter leans into him and Tony tightens his grip.

“Nah.  I’m gonna stay.”

It’s cold and it’s starting to sprinkle again, but as the sky grows dark, Tony and Peter sit on the porch swing watching the rain and looking out towards the woods and lake.  Peter can’t remember the last time he knew for certain that he was staying somewhere for good.  He thinks maybe it was with May and Ben.  He doesn’t know how he got to be so lucky to find a second and then a third family that love and want him after all that’s happened.  It’s more than he ever could have hoped for.

“Dad?”

Tony runs his hand up and down Peter’s shoulder a couple times.  “Yeah?”

“Can we build a gaming computer?”

“Whatever you want buddy.”

* * *

Peter fidgets with the hem of his button up shirt.  Pepper had asked him to wear a suit today, but Peter would rather be wearing Tony’s MIT hoodie because it smells like him and calms his nerves.

“Ok kid?” Happy asks.

“Huh?” He looks up at the man who is giving him a close looking over.

“You look like you’re gonna throw up.”

“Yeah,” Peter says.  He feels like he’s in a daze.

Happy pulls out his phone and starts texting someone.  Curious Peter glances at it and finds him texting, ‘Code green in the hall boss.’

“Wait, what’s a code green?”

“You are if you’re gonna throw up.”

“I’m not.”

“That’s not what you said a minute ago.”

Peter lets his head fall back against the wall.  He and Happy are sitting on a bench in a courthouse hallway waiting for Pepper and Tony to get done signing paperwork in a room with several lawyers.  After that’s done they’ll go before the judge, who will hopefully sign off on the adoption.  Peter can’t believe that in less than 24 hours he went from being just some lucky kid that gets to stay with the Starks on weekends to sitting in a courthouse waiting to be adopted.  This time yesterday he was sitting at the kitchen island with Tony- with his dad eating fresh baked blueberry muffins.

A door down the hallway opens and Pepper steps out.  She’s dressed to the nines today just like Tony is.

“Thank you, Happy,” she says as she makes it to them.  “Could you give us a few minutes please?”

“Yes boss.”

Pepper gives him a frown.  “It’s Pepper.”

“Not when I’m on bodyguard duty,” he tells her, and walks down the hall just out of earshot, but close enough that he can still jump into action to protect them if need be.

Pepper sits down next to Peter and puts her hand on his back, running it up and down his back slowly a few times.  “How are you doing honey?”

“Good, good, I’m fine,” he rambles.  His stomach is twisting in knots.  It feels like mice are in his stomach using his intestines as a trampoline.

“It’s ok to be nervous.”

Peter doesn’t open his mouth, afraid of what might come out if he does.  Instead he nods and resumes staring at the floor.

Pepper takes a slow deep breath and then he can feel her relax beside him.  “I know this all seems sudden to you, but this has been a long time coming for us.”

His brows pull together and he looks up at her.  Seeing his confusion she says, “Tony started the process of adopting you a week before the blip.  You two had grown close and he wanted to bring you home to the tower and keep you there.  I did too.  Neither of us wanted to see you go back to a foster home each night.”  Back then Peter had been staying at the tower as late as possible, watching movies with Tony or working on things in the lab.

He stares at her with his lips slightly parted.  “Before the blip?”

She nods.  “He’s thought of you as his son for a long time honey.  It was- while you were gone things were rough.  We thought we’d lost you.”  A frown comes over her face and she’s quiet for long moments.  “I wasn’t going to tell you this but-” she pauses, looks like she’s changing her mind, flip flopping back and forth on what to do.  Finally she settles on telling him the truth and her expression softens.  “When he came back on that ship without you, he looked so… broken.  The first thing he said to me was, “I lost him Pep.  I lost the kid.”

Peter’s throat grows tight, and he remembers sitting on the couch with Tony a month before.  “Why can’t you watch Finding Nemo?”  “Just can’t kiddo.”

“We thought we’d lost you.”  “I lost him Pep.  I lost the kid.”

The realization hits him like a ton of bricks.  The weight of that loss… a loss Peter has felt again and again with his parents, then with Ben, and then again with May, settles in over him.  Tony had gone through that when Peter had dusted in his arms.  He tries not to think about turning to dust on Titan because he still has nightmares about it sometimes.  He’s never stopped to consider what that had been like for Tony though… for his dad.  He’d held Peter as he’d turned to dust, and then spent weeks on a ship with just one other person on the way back to earth… probably thinking the whole way back about what he was going to tell Pepper.  Knowing now that they’d already started trying to adopt him before the blip…

Tears well up in his eyes and he whispers, “I’m Nemo?”

She puts her hand on his back again and nods.

“I’m so sorry- I- I didn’t mean for any of that to happen I-”

“No honey,” she says quietly, “no, that’s not why I told you.  No one blames you.  I just wanted you to know how much you mean to us… how much you’ve meant to Tony for a long time.  We went back and forth with whether to tell you or not that we were trying to adopt you.  We decided to wait in the end because of how precarious the state of things still is with the government.  We’ve heard stories of adoptions that were ready to go through being turned down last second just because the paperwork got lost or because of all the upheaval happening, and we didn’t want to get your hopes up.”  She touches just above her heart and says, “You’ve been part of our family for a long time though, ok?  Morgan grew up hearing stories of her big brother Spider Man, and of all the trouble you and Tony used to get up to around the tower.”

They sit quietly for a few minutes in thought.  Eventually Peter leans into her side.  “Can I call you mom?”

“I’d like that sweetie.”

“Me too,” he whispers.  He clears his throat.  “I wanted this, but I tried not to let myself want it, because I didn’t think- I didn’t think it was gonna happen.”

She puts her arm around him and pulls him a little closer to her side.  “I’m glad you’re finally going to come home and stay home.  We worry about you when you’re gone.  It’s hard not to have you with us all week long.”

Peter nods.  It’s been hard for him too.  He still can’t believe that when they’re done at the courthouse he’s going to get to go home with them and stay there.  Forever.

The door down the hall opens again and Tony sticks his head out.  “Pete, c’mon buddy, we’re ready for you.”  Tony is smiling and holding out his arm.  Peter and Pepper stand up and Peter takes in a slow deep breath, steadying himself.  Tony’s eyes are locked on him, and he starts to look anxious again when Peter doesn’t immediately make his way down the hall.  His dad has been waiting for him to come home all this time… for five years… more than five years because it’s been months since he’s been back since the final fight with Thanos.

Peter starts walking and then picks up his pace.  When he gets to his dad he looks up at him and says, “Can I have a pony?”

“Psh, kid, get in here,” Tony says, breaking out into a wide smile.  He puts his hand on the back of Peter’s hair, careful not to ruffle it since they’re all dressed up.

“Two against one dad,” he says, passing him.  “Morgan and I are teaming up.”

“No pony!” Pepper calls from inside the room.  Tony lets the door fall shut, and the only one left standing outside is Happy.  Happy sticks his hands in his pockets and leans against the wall to wait, smiling to himself.

* * *

Peter shouldn’t be nervous to start a new school.  He’s fifteen, he can handle this.  He stares up at the two story high school building.  It’s just a few minutes away from Morgan’s grade school, and only ten minutes from home.  Home.

Queens had been home once.  Queens had been May, and Ben, and Ned, and MJ, and Midtown.  It had been his home for a long time.  He’d always felt like the tower had been home too, because that’s where he’d gone to escape having to go back to the various foster homes he’d been placed in before he’d been dusted.  He’d gone to the tower to escape bad days at school, and to get patched up after bad nights out as Spider Man.  He’d gone to the tower because he knew he was welcome.

Now home is a cabin in the woods on a lake.  Home is Tony, and Pepper, and Morgan.  It’s Happy too, coming to check on him and Morgan after the electricity goes out, and having Morgan jump in a pile of leaves he just raked.  It’s spending evenings in the basement lab with his dad, and having his mom buy him soft warm sweatshirts and fuzzy socks.

He looks up at the school again and then heads for the entrance.  Home is good, and starting a new school is part of that.  He’d sent Ned a bunch of texts the night before about being adopted, and that it included starting a new school, but Ned never got back to him.  Peter hopes his friend isn’t upset with him.  Tony and Pepper have both reassured him that he’ll get to see Ned often.  He pulls out his phone to send off a quick text to Ned to let him know what they’d said as he walks inside.  They had even told him that Ned can come to the cabin sometimes to spend the night.  When he’s done sending the text, he sighs and then pulls his new schedule out of his pocket.  Apparently Tony and Pepper already had him enrolled by Friday the week before, the night they’d gone to the harvest festival.

He has robotics class first thing in the morning.  He doubts it’ll be as good as the robotics lab at Midtown, but he pushes that thought down and starts looking at room numbers as he passes, looking for room 101.  Midtown hasn’t felt the same since he returned… not without Ned and MJ, and even Flash.  It’s just… different.  Maybe starting a new school isn’t such a bad prospect after all.

Room 101 is down at the end of the main hall on the right.  Peter walks inside behind a group of other kids.  “Hey, are there assigned seats?” he asks a girl sitting at a long table up front.

“No.  Usually we sit with our groups, but we just finished a project so there aren’t any groups right now.”

“Oh, ok, thanks,” he says.  He looks around and finds an empty table near the back.  He kind of likes sitting up front, but this is a new place full of new people, and he thinks sitting in the back for a few days will give him the opportunity to observe people and try to get a read on the kids in his classes.

He sits down and starts pulling out what he needs.  Pepper and Tony had a whole box of new school supplies waiting for him that morning before he headed out the door to school.  Tony had driven him, and before he’d dropped him off on his way to drop off Morgan, he’d said, “I’ll be right here waiting for you after school Roo.  Morgan gets out a few minutes before you do, so we’ll both be waiting for you.”  Peter can’t wait for that.  He can’t wait for his dad and sister to pick him up from school and take him home.  Home.  Home.  He can’t stop reminding himself that he has a home now.

Someone plops down heavily in the seat next to him with a sigh and Peter startles because he’d been deep in thought, smiling to himself thinking about his family.

“You know what this means don’t you?”

Peter stills at the sound of a familiar voice… the voice of his only and best friend.  He looks up and finds Ned looking bothered, like this is all a big inconvenience.

“Ned!” he exclaims in surprise.

“You’re supposed to say what does it mean, Peter.”

“What does it mean?”  Peter can’t stop grinning.  He’s grinning so hard it’s starting to hurt, but he doesn’t care.

“It means no more school in pajamas.  No more staying up late and playing Fortnite whenever I want.”  He sighs heavily but then a smile spreads across his face as well.  “Also means my mom and dad are sick and tired of me, so when your mom and dad went into the city to talk to them last month about how good it would be to move out of the city and have us go to school together, they agreed.”

“What?  You- you guys moved?!”

“We’re a few minutes away from the school.  We moved over the weekend, which is why I couldn’t talk to you.  That and your dad banned me from revealing anything to you about anything.”

“Dude I- your family really moved out here… for me?”

“Mom and dad thought it was a good idea to get out of the city with how crazy everything has been since the dusted came back.  When they found out you were moving out here permanently they started thinking about it.  Your mom and dad helped them find jobs out here and a house.  Mom can’t stop talking about all the grass in the backyard.  You know I’m gonna be the one they make mow it right?” Ned says with a groan as the bell rings.

Peter is still grinning.  “I’ll help you.”

“Nah,” he says, pulling out his own notebook.  “You got your own yard to mow.”

The teacher walks in and the class, who had been chatting up to that point, quiets down.  Ned leans in a little towards Peter and whispers, “Dude, it’s so quiet here.  How do you deal with the quiet at night?”

“Sound machine,” Peter whispers, and Ned nods.

The teacher doesn’t acknowledge that there’s two new students in class, but it works out in Peter and Ned’s favor, who are both too excited to be back in school together to listen much during that first class.  Ned scribbles down a quick note, including a web symbol which Peter takes to mean Spider Man when he slides it across the table for Peter to read.  ‘Are you allowed to go out after school? There’s gotta be stuff out here for [web] to do right?’

Peter doesn’t know, but has a feeling Spider Man will be just fine no matter where he is, as long as his family and his guy in the chair are there with him.

* * *

It started with Tony and Pepper filing a petition for adoption five days, seven hours and twenty six minutes before the blip.

It ends with Peter at home, sitting on the couch wedged between his mom and dad after school, his dad’s arm around his shoulder, and Morgan sprawled across all three of them as they watch Frozen for what must be the hundredth time.

Peter had dusted on Titan in his dad’s arms, and his dad had come home without him.  But like Nemo’s dad, he hadn’t stopped looking.  He’d found a way to bring Peter back.  Later that night after Morgan goes to bed and it’s just Tony and Peter sitting on the couch watching Mythbusters, Peter says, “You found me.”

“Huh?”  Tony’s eyes are still glued to the experiment they’re doing on TV, but Peter can tell he’s listening.

“I got lost, and you found me and brought me home… just like Nemo.”

Tony turns the TV down and turns to look at his son.  He’s quiet for long moments, and Peter wonders if he shouldn’t have brought it up.  “Yeah bud, I did.”  He puts his hand on the back of Peter’s head and pulls him gently into his side.  “Don’t go anywhere again, ok?” he asks, voice hushed.

“Yeah,” Peter agrees in a soft voice.  He’s not going anywhere.

Tony draws in a deep breath and then lets it out in a rush.  “Good, because if you don’t listen and get aboard an alien spacecraft again, you’re grounded.  I can do that now you know.”

Peter laughs and relaxes into his dad’s side.  “If you ground me will you feel bad enough for me to get a pony?”

“No pony!” Pepper calls from the kitchen where she’s making herself a cup of tea.

“A for effort,” Tony tells him, reaching up to run his fingers through Peter’s hair.

“What about a cat?”

“That we might be able to do.”

“Tony,” Pepper chastises.

“Honey, I can’t keep saying no.  Look at him!  Kid came back from outer space and we can’t get him a cat?”

“Or a pony,” Peter points out as Pepper comes into the living room and into view with her hot cup of tea.  She gives them both a chastising look, but then her face softens at the sight of them cuddled up on the couch together.  They’re both wearing their matching fluffy red and gold socks, she notes.

“We can think about getting a cat,” she says, settling into one of the comfortable leather chairs.

“You heard that right kid?” Tony asks, looking down at him.

“Yeah, she said we can get a cat.”

“I said think about,” Pepper says.  “Think about.”  Both of them are grinning at her though and she rolls her eyes and shakes her head.  She’s going to have her hands full with both of them, just like before the blip when Peter had frequently been at the tower.  It was something she’d missed dearly when he’d been gone, and like Tony and Happy is glad to have back.  A cat, a computer… maybe even a pony.  Like Tony, she will do anything for their kids.

Whatever it takes.

Author's Note:

I wanted to quickly share a couple pieces of fan art that the awesome RJTomlinson25 was inspired to make for this fic after reading the chapter of Peter and Morgan raking and playing in the leaves.  She decided to turn Peter and Morgan into cozy fall kitties.  Here are those pics: