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ironspiderfics · 9 months ago

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this is supposed to be a vacation

for @meilz

by @iron--spider

Tony loves this kid.

It’s a montage at the beginning of a movie—Tony was crazy about Peter almost immediately, couldn’t accept it, his own damn daddy issues courtesy of Howard Stark, then he had to accept it because the kid kept trying to die, then things settled, they worked together, then they unsettled and the kid dissolved in Tony’s hands, and a year of heavy-drinking and nearly exploding himself in the lab wound up with all the dissolved people undissolved and the kid back and Tony in a hospital bed. Three-week coma. Whole screaming celebration when he woke up loud enough to bust his eardrums and restart his heart.

But Peter was there. Peter was there.

Time slowed to a crawl, sped up and slowed down again, and Tony tried to recover. He knew Peter and his friends went on that European trip—he encouraged it even though Peter was worried about leaving after everything. May and Happy chaperoned, and then everyone nearly died because Quentin fucking Beck decided to roll out of Tony’s past to try and kill off someone he loves. He failed, because Peter is Peter, and Fury and Happy shut down the false allegations Beck tried to put out there before he was arrested, and everybody came home.

It’s been about two months, since then. And Tony had just gotten back on his feet a week or so before Peter left, and he’s even steadier now. Getting steadier by the day.

But he loves this kid. More now, than ever. The son he never had. He loves May, he loves the kids that come along with his kid, he loves everything Peter has to say and everything he doesn’t, he loves keeping an eye on his missions, he loves the way he fits so snug into Tony’s little family.

And he loves him enough to know when he’s crashing. When his eyes are tired and his patrols aren’t as succinct and punchy as they usually are. When he needs a vacation from his recent vacation. As if nearly being killed by some asshole in London is the vacation any of them need.

So, Tony makes a couple decisions.

After all the shit they’ve gone through, what the hell could go wrong with a break?

Peter knew Tony was planning something, because he isn’t secretive when he’s excited, and he found out what he was planning when Tony asked if Ned and MJ’s families would mind if he took them out of the city for a few days.

And about a week later, they were heading upstate to Mohonk Mountain House.

And Peter hasn’t been complaining, at least not to Tony, but his tiredness has been bone-deep since he got back from London. Since before that, really. Coming back from the dead can do that to someone, and he doesn’t even like to call it dead, and apparently they were all tiny particle souls inside that infinity stone but it doesn’t matter because that’s a whole other can of worms and he gets more tired and more weary every time he even thinks about any of that.

He swung right into a wall the other day. Slap right into it. He almost broke his nose again. He feels like that might have been the moment Tony decided on this vacation—Peter could tell by the look on his face when he told him that he’d crossed some kind of line.

They walk inside the main lobby of Mohonk and Peter keeps hearing Ben’s voice in his head. You’re gonna catch flies, Pete. But he can’t stop gaping at everything. Like…he’s been in a Hilton and this is so much better than a Hilton.

“This place looks straight out of a Hitchcock movie,” May says, and she knocks Tony on the arm.

Tony laughs, and Pepper turns around, raising her eyebrows at May. “Let’s just hope we don’t have any Hitchcock-type events happen while we’re here.”

“What would that mean?” Ned asks, catching up to the group and trying to whisper in Peter’s ear. “You’ve seen Hitchcock movies. I remember you watched that weird apartment one a hundred times.”

“I love that movie,” Peter says. Rear Window. He never wants his leg to be broken. He knows he’d go insane just like that.

“You haven’t seen Psycho?” MJ asks Ned, hoisting her backpack higher on her shoulder.

Ned hums a little bit. “No. I know about it though. No crazy Grandmas for me.”

“That’s not what happens.”

Leather couches and tall ceilings and intricate carpeting and columns and everything somehow looks really rich but really comfortable at the same time—

“No,” Tony says, turning around and pointing at them. “No, no, and no.” He points at May too. “No. No Rear Window, no Psycho, no Vertigo—maybe a little bit North by Northwest—no, you know what, no. Not that either. This is going to be the lamest movie you’ve ever—this isn’t even gonna be a movie, there’s no—there’s no plot, this is just—a family video. A home movie. That’s it.”

Family video feels warm, and Peter grins.

“Of course, Mr. Stark—”

“It’s gonna be fine—”

“Absolutely nothing—”

“Listen, I’m hitting that buffet—”

“I’m just gonna sleep,” Peter says, as they approach the huge front desk. “Just the entire time.”

Tony smiles softly at him, and he winks. “You deserve it,” he says, and Peter can tell that he means it.

They hear crashing, something that sounds expensive hitting the ground somewhere behind them, and they all turn around and see a bunch of employees running around to try and take care of it. A whole big production and two guys trying to hold up a big bear statue that’s trying to fall over.

“Okay, step to,” Happy’s voice says, and Peter hears him before he sees him, and then he breezes by, striding out in front of them. “Let’s go, come on, follow me, let’s get this in the books—”

“Oh, there he is,” Tony says, patting him on the shoulders. “There he is.”

Peter and May could never afford a vacation like this. They could never even afford to imagine something like this. Peter feels like they would have charged him if he’d even looked at photos of this place. A big, historic, mountain resort in upstate New York, on the edge of a cliff overlooking a lake?

But now they’re here. They’re here with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. Peter was able to bring two friends. Happy drove them all in a big plush rental van. They’ve got a line of suites on the sixth floor and they had steak and lobster for dinner on their first night.

It feels unreal. But things feel unreal a lot. Especially things involving Tony, involving Spider-Man. Any of it. Like he’s having a long, prolonged dream before Ben wakes him up for school.

Peter stands on one of the terrace balconies with Tony while the others are arranging activities for tomorrow, and he stares off at the lake and the way the moon hits it. Light rippling on the water.

“You really think you’re gonna sleep the whole time?” Tony asks, leaning on the railing. “Because nobody would judge you for it. Kayaks can wait. Ballroom dancing can absolutely wait, as can all of May’s Dirty Dancing comparisons, because I can feel them building up, like an aura around her—”

Peter snorts. “No,” he says. “But I probably will mostly just…relax. Take it easy. Just sleeping, no alarms—”

“You deserve it, like I said,” Tony says. “It’s thrilling to me that you’re even giving yourself a break.”

“Look who’s talking,” Peter says, giving him a look. “You were trying to get down to the workshop when your arm was still holding on by one string of muscle.”

Tony’s entire face contorts. “That is a terrible, disgusting image, Mr. Parker—”

Peter snorts again, choking on his laughter.

Tony knocks him on the arm. “You’re awful, a menace, making fun of an injured old man—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Peter says, swatting him back, and still laughing. “You’re the one who needs—needs this. Like Happy always says, I’m a ‘spring chicken’, I—I can bounce back.”

“I had enough bedrest for the next ten years,” Tony says, and he’s giving Peter that look again. Concern. Like he’s trying to read his mind. “You—I know you like to act like it all doesn’t affect you, but you were going through hell on the daily before that purple asshole snapped his fingers. Then there was all that, and the right after that, and the coming back from that, and me wasting away in front of you—and then Quentin Beck flaunting his dickheaded tendencies on your school trip—that was supposed to be your relaxing time and it got away from you too and I just—like I said, you deserve your time. You need it. Don’t—you’re not selling yourself short if you say you need some rest. You put everybody first all the time, yourself last—you deserve to relax, that’s all.”

Peter blows out a breath. He doesn’t even really try to deny it in his head anymore. He doesn’t try to compare himself to other people who have it worse. He’s tired. He’s beat. He feels older than he is.

Tony clicks his tongue and looks out at the lake. “I know this place is kind of old, kind of dated, rooms kind of look a little bit like grandma was head decorator, but—I, uh—I’ve got fond memories here. Mom used to bring me, when Howard was, uh…in some of his dicier moments. And sometimes we’d just relax, too. Recover from…knowing him.”

Peter is just kind of staring at him, because it always takes him off guard when Tony starts talking about Howard. They’re close enough now that he hears stories about his personal life all the time—his growing up, his insane college years with Rhodey, meeting Pepper meeting Happy and everything in between, but Howard is still…something they don’t really talk about, past flippant comments about Tony striving to be a better father figure than he ever was.

“Then I’m glad you brought us here,” Peter says, his voice cracking a little bit. “I’m glad you brought me here.” And in his head he hears I’m glad you brought me back. Because he thinks about that all the time.

Everyone’s back because of you, Peter. He never gave up on bringing you back. It was about saving you.

Tony looks like he’s about to say something else when there’s a bunch of rustling in the trees below them, and a loud thump, and more rustling. They both peer over the railing, and Peter can see the trees moving, but not anything else.

They share a wary look.

“Probably just a skunk,” Tony says.

“Oh, great.”

“Or maybe a band of feral cats.”

“Okay that’s better. Hopefully not too feral. Like, I hope they’re receptive to petting.”

They keep staring down at the trees, but it all seems quiet again.

Tony and Pepper have one room, Peter, MJ and Ned have the one in the middle, and May and Happy are on the end in a single room together even though Peter is refusing to acknowledge what that means or what might be going on in there. Tony mentioned that the rooms were dated, but they feel more like what a royal castle might look like inside, and for the longest time Peter is worried about wrinkling up the sheets. And then eventually it’s Ned’s snoring keeping him awake.

And then, when he’s finally mostly asleep—

“Peter.”

MJ’s voice. Peter’s in the bed with Ned and she got the other huge bed all to herself, but she sounds like she’s right next to him. He turns over onto his side, towards her voice, and then she’s—

On the ground right next to his face—

He startles a little bit, and she grabs his hand.

“MJ what—”

“There’s someone in the room.”

She’s whispering, and his heart speeds up a little bit. What the hell? There’s no way.

“Are you sure it’s not Happy?” Peter asks, as Ned lets out a rip of a snore. “Sometimes he likes to do perimeter checks—”

“It’s not Happy!” she whisper-yells.

Peter blinks, and she’s already pulling the sheets off him and yanking him out of bed, and he feels like he’d be more paranoid if something was actually happening, like he’d feel it pulsing and burning in his head, and she’s tugging on him and they’re stumbling over to the wall and—

“MJ—MJ—”

She flips on the light—

And Peter only sees him briefly—a man, standing over by the bathroom, and Peter barely gets to see what he looks like before the lights go out again.

But he wasn’t Happy he wasn’t Tony he wasn’t supposed to be here, and Peter’s heart rockets into his throat and he hears MJ gasp and he hears feet moving and Ned is still snoring, and Peter rushes towards where the man was and tries to catch him tries to fight, but he only meets open air.

MJ yanks the door open and she’s already running out into the hallway, yelling Tony’s name, yelling for Peter to follow her. And the hall light is streaming into their room now, and Peter looks around, breathing hard, trying to find the guy—

Nothing. Nothing.

Nobody’s here.

Ned is still snoring.

Tony stands next to Peter while the manager shows them the video footage. He watches their doors, completely still and closed from the hallway cameras, and then he watches MJ race out, and Tony and Happy run in a few minutes later. Followed by Pepper and May a few minutes after that. And then Ned finally looming out into the hallway, still half asleep.

“As you can see,” the manager says. “No one entered the room.”

Peter can feel Tony’s anger simmering beside him, and he takes it as a compliment that Tony is all-in on believing that they saw someone, even though he didn’t see him himself.

“Can I get the outside view again?” Tony asks, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Of course, Mr. Stark.”

They switch to the outside view again, which they’ve already seen about three times. The cameras aren’t great out there, and Happy found out they’re in the process of an upgrade. Peter can see their floor from a distance, he sees a little flash of light that they can’t identify, and then nothing else. No one scaling the building. Not in a way they can see, anyway.

“When will the upgrade be complete?” Tony asks, his tone clipped.

“After your stay, sir, unfortunately.”

Tony huffs, and doesn’t say anything else, and he turns and takes Peter’s arm and leads him to the door. They walk out into the hallway, where MJ and Ned quickly back up.

“Don’t need to listen through the wall,” Tony says.

“Uh, we weren’t,” MJ says. “We were just—”

“Looking at the wallpaper,” Ned says. “It’s—so cool.”

“Uh huh,” Tony says. He moves so they’re in a little circle, and he grips Peter’s shoulder. “Do you want to leave?” he asks, looking around at the three of them. “Because we can leave. We can go somewhere else, figure something else out. Or we can move rooms, we can go down to the Grove Lodge so we can all be closer together—we can do whatever we want.”

Ned’s eyes go wide. “I mean, I didn’t see anything, I was sleeping—”

“It’s fine,” MJ says, fast, glancing at Peter. “I feel like we—Peter and I must have been—I mean, we’re—everything that happened, we’re always thinking about it, and Mysterio was about like—making us think we were seeing things that weren’t there or were there but different—it’s fine. Joint hallucination. Or maybe I made him think he saw something because I was saying I saw something.”

That would normally be a Tony joke cue, but he just looks at her intently. “You don’t have to make excuses,” he says. “I don’t want you guys feeling…unsafe. Despite the presence of, uh—enhanced individuals. Unnamed.”

“It’s okay,” MJ says, and she looks at Peter and nods.

Tony looks at him too. And Peter knows that if he said anything about being worried, Tony would move them in an instant.

What the hell did he see?

Were they really just tired?

Did he think he saw something because MJ thought she saw something?

“It’s okay,” he says, slowly, because…he isn’t entirely sure. But MJ seems sure and Peter doesn’t want to blow up the trip if they were just in a PTSD-addled nightmare. It is their first real vacation since that shit with Beck happened, it still feels like a knife in his gut sometimes.

“You sure?” Tony asks, and he shakes Peter’s shoulder a little bit.

Peter looks at MJ, and she nods at him.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I’m sure.”

They go back to bed after that without any more incidents, but Peter mostly stays awake, staring off into the darkness. MJ is awake too, through a lot of the night, and they text because Ned is sleeping and snoring like there’s nothing wrong and there’s never been anything wrong, ever.

I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.

I wouldn’t let anything happen to you either. Nerd :)

Over breakfast, Tony lets them know that Happy is setting up Friday to do sweeps and is doing his own personal perimeter checks.

“I want him to enjoy his break too though,” Peter says, pushing his waffle around on the plate.

“He’s enjoying it,” May says, through a mouthful of eggs.

Peter frowns at her. “I don’t like that. I don’t—I don’t need—”

She shrugs. “Well.”

“Okay, Miss Kiss and Tell,” Tony says, laughing as Pepper sits down next to him. “But it’s good. He’s on it, and I’m on it too.”

“Here,” MJ says, coming back from the buffet and sitting down next to Peter. She puts a cinnamon bun on his plate, smiling at him. “They just brought them out. Ned is trying to barter for more.”

“They can’t deny him,” Pepper says. “It’s all inclusive.”

“Exactly,” Tony says. “And after last night, we should be getting extra—I still think they sent someone in to check on something and didn’t want to admit it. I’m not gonna go all I’d like to speak to the manager on them, even though I did—do that—but either way—”

Peter hasn’t landed anywhere on it yet. He keeps trying to think back on it, trying to remember exactly what he saw. His spider sense, newly minted, is usually pretty bang on if something isn’t right, if he feels like he’s in danger, but he’d just woken up, he’s foggy in the mornings sometimes—

He figures his mind was just playing tricks on him. But MJ too?

She rubs his leg, like she knows he's agonizing over it, and he reaches down and holds her hand.

“Okay,” Ned says, walking back over holding a plate. “They let me take five of them. They’re all really warm and gooey, I feel like this is a promising start to the day.”

Peter isn’t exactly a spa guy, so he doesn’t join May and Pepper when they decide to go there, even though he feels like it might help him if he ever figured out how to relax. But going there is supposed to help him relax, so how can he ever relax enough to get to the point of going there—either way, he goes out onto the lake with Tony and Ned and MJ.

MJ and Peter both get their own kayaks, and Ned and Tony are in a canoe.

“He wouldn’t get into one of these,” Tony yells. “Honestly, if Happy’s not still doing security shit, he’s probably golfing. He’s terrible at it and he never likes to do it when anybody he knows is around. I’ll message him in a little bit and make sure but that’s probably where he is. Ned. You have to keep that thing on just in case we turn over.”

Peter snorts, looking back at them, and he sees Tony adjusting Ned’s lifejacket on his shoulders.

“Happy’s just afraid of racing,” Peter yells, cutting his oar through the water. “MJ remember when—”

“Yes,” she says, a little out ahead of him, and she’s already laughing. “I don’t even know why he was trying to chase you in New York traffic. While you were swinging in the air above him. You didn’t have any cars in your way, nothing was stopping you—”

Peter snorts again, bending over and laughing a little bit. “He was so mad. He didn’t talk to me for a week. He made me talk to Friday specifically.”

“I gave him shit for that!” Tony yells. “He shouldn’t have been trying to chase you. The gas leak had nothing to do with you. He’s always tossing blame around willy nilly.”

“Yeah he still blames me for the time those columns collapsed on that old garbage building,” Ned says. “A line of code can’t do that, that building was old I didn’t do anything there was no way he should have yelled at me at all let alone for twenty minutes—”

“He’s just dramatic,” Tony says.

“He just gets worried,” Peter says, glancing over his shoulder at their boat. And Ned makes big eyes at him, because yeah, uh, they’ve seen why he gets worried. They’ve dealt with why he gets worried. And now, after last night, Peter feels like he’s making himself worried. He needs to stop, they’ve already moved past it, they’re still here, it’s all fine.

“Yeah, I imbued him with a worrying virus that will never be cured,” Tony says. “And now the next generation has to deal with it. Here we are.”

Peter shakes his head, smiling. He’s gotta relax. The sun is shining on the lake bright and beautiful, and May is actually getting a massage for the first time in years and everything is fine. It’s fine.

He hears Tony chastising Ned again about his life jacket, gently, and Peter starts rowing out and around the outside of the lake. They’re the only ones out here right now, and he wonders how long that’s gonna last. He wonders if that’s something the resort set up, because it’s Tony, because of what happened last night, because Happy’s been intimidating people, and Peter simultaneously appreciates it and balks against the special treatment. But he’s with Tony, he should know it’s gonna happen.

He feels like he’s going a little faster than he should be going based on the way he’s rowing, like he’s really moving along. He glances over at MJ and she’s even further away from him, moving in the direction of the hotel.

“We’re not racing yet!” he yells, and he feels like Happy—constantly worried. But he’s worried about her in a different way and actually starting things with her in Europe made the whole thing worth it in a way, and now they’re together and it’s amazing but he’s just so worried all the time.

And now he’s stopped rowing all together, and he should be slowing down, but he’s still moving. Moving….fast. Maybe even getting faster.

Should that be happening? He doesn’t really kayak. He shifts around a little bit and looks down, and feels a little bit tucked in here.

“Hey!” Tony yells. “You’re moving like you have a motor on you!”

Peter’s brows furrow, because he is, and he’s not rowing, and he should have lost any propulsion at this point, and he looks up and he sees MJ looking back at him, and she’s not moving anymore, and he glances back and both Tony and Ned look concerned—

And he gets the worst feeling in his chest, like an alarm, like his spidey sense but more warped and panicked, and he tries to get up without toppling over, because the kayak is still moving for no reason, speeding along and it’s going faster and faster. He drops his oar, and balances precariously for a few seconds before he leaps into the water.

Bubbles all around him, and muffled calls of his name—

And he’s only submerged for a couple seconds, because of the life jacket pulling him back to the surface, and he comes up just in time to watch the empty kayak lift up into the air, careening into the forest and disappearing into the trees.

And he floats there, treading water, staring.

“What the fuck?” Ned yells. “Peter? Peter?”

“Peter!” MJ yells.

“Pete, we’re coming!” Tony yells. “Hold on!”

But Peter is just sort of. Staring. Staring off, at where the kayak disappeared. He stares over there. He stares.

No thoughts, just. Insane.

“Was that supposed to happen?” Peter asks, his voice squeaking. “Is that—MJ you should probably—you shouldn’t be in there if you’re not, uh, prepared to go—flying—did anybody see it explode? Did it explode? Or did it just shatter, uh, well, wooden—wooden kayak, was it wooden? Or plastic? Either way I bet it’s not a full kayak anymore—”

He feels himself being lifted out of the water, and it’s Tony pulling him into the boat. He doesn’t know how they got here so fast but to be honest a kayak just went full fighter jet on him so he can’t be that confused.

His shock has him gripped and he just sort of lays there like a rag doll as Tony and Ned pull him up, and he sees MJ rowing over to them. Thankfully, she’s still in her kayak, and it’s not—flying through the air.

“Hey, hey,” Tony says, once Peter isn’t in the water anymore. He’s got both arms around him, and Peter is laying against his chest, and Tony is patting his cheek and trying to peer around and meet his eyes. Ned has his hands on Peter’s knees and he’s just staring at him.

“I just got a defective one,” Peter says, pointing over at the forest. “It’s okay. It was just—a flying one, we didn’t make sure we didn’t get a flying one. I hope MJ doesn’t have a flying one and it’s just not like. On a time delay I don’t know. MJ, just—hurry over here—” He waves her over. He wants her to hurry up.

“Peter,” Tony says, and he pats Peter’s chest. “Are you alright? Did you twist anything when you jumped out, can you breathe—”

“Are kayaks supposed to do that?” Peter asks, feeling like he can hear his own voice echoing everywhere. “I didn’t think that was, uh, the case—”

“It’s not the case,” Ned says. “No. It’s not. It’s not the case.”

“Peter.”

MJ finally rolls up alongside them—

“I think you should get out of there,” Peter says, pointing at her. “It’s unsafe—”

“Something is going on,” MJ says, and she’s not looking at Peter. She’s looking at Tony.

Tony loves this kid, and this is supposed to be a fucking vacation. Tony loves this kid, and he believed him when he thought someone was in his room, even if the hotel was trying to sway them away from the idea. Tony loves this kid, and he just had to watch him abandon his kayak because said kayak was lifting off and destroying itself somewhere on the property. And kayaks don’t just fucking do that.

Tony stands close to Happy, well into his personal space. He’s got his hands on his hips, like a stern stance is gonna bring him any closer to an answer, and Happy sighs.

“I’ve done ten sweeps,” he says. “There’s nothing going on. There’s nobody here that isn’t supposed to be here. We even looked at the remains of the goddamn kayak and I didn’t find anything wrong with it.”

“There was something wrong with it,” Tony says. “It was flying. It was flying, speed wise, without Pete even rowing, and then it was flying, literally, after he had to abandon ship.”

“I know. It was in a million pieces.”

Tony sighs. They moved down to the Grove Lodge after it happened. Nobody told Pepper and May why, because Peter was insisting on not telling May, and he was also insisting on not leaving even though Tony wanted to leave, because if they left then they were leaving danger behind for the poor unassuming Mohonk guests. And if they leave, danger will probably follow them anyway, and Tony doesn’t know what move to make.

He’s upset, because this was supposed to be a relaxing break for all of them, but especially for Peter, after everything he’s goddamn gone through. He’s upset because this place felt like his place, his haven, a place where he could get away and be secluded and safe, and now something is pursuing them here. Something is trying to hurt them.

“You haven’t found anything?” Tony presses. “Nothing?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” Happy says, and he glances back at the front door of the lodge again. “I’m still looking, I’m not giving up, and I think we should be better located down here because we rented out the whole house and I told them not to come in for room service or cleaning or anything. I know we lose the nice high-up view—”

“It’s fine,” Tony says, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s afraid to even be discussing this in public. Anybody could be anywhere listening.

He doesn’t like feeling like he can’t protect these kids.

“It looks like they’re targeting Peter,” Tony says, as quietly as he can. “And I can’t tell if that’s because of me, that they think—I mean the whole goddamn world thinks he’s my love child at this point, thinks May is my secret mistress or the sister of his secret mother, God knows, I don’t know what the most recent story is. But I can’t tell if they’re targeting him because of me or because of the other thing—”

“And the other thing is worse—the spider thing—”

“I didn’t specify on purpose, Hap,” Tony says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Right, right—the innocuous other thing—”

“We’re lucky we got out of Europe with the other thing intact—”

“Yeah,” Happy says, shaking his head, and Tony wishes he had been there with him, had been there period. He would have torn Beck in half had he laid eyes on him.

Why do they always target people he loves? Why not him? Blow him up. Kidnap him. But he guesses he’s been there already. He guesses they’ve done all that and it’s old hat to these assholes to go to him directly.

But this could be about Spider-Man too. There could be people that know who he is. People always find out, no matter how hard Tony tries, and Peter has made plenty of his own enemies. His own gallery of rogues looking to take him down.

“Just don’t tell May, if she asks,” Tony says.

“Oh, and don’t tell Pepper either?” Happy asks, in that stupid voice he uses to make fun of Tony. Tony glares, and Happy glares back. “They know by now something’s going on. They’re not dumb. They’re just not saying anything. But May will beat someone to death with anything she can get her hands on and so will Pepper, so maybe we should be sticking close to them.”

Tony sighs. “I just wanted—”

“I know—”

“And now—”

“I know,” Happy says. “We’re on it. We know it’s real, now, even if these people won’t cop to anything. I’m in their walls. Literally. Maybe I’m doing some things I shouldn’t be.”

Tony steps up onto the porch. “Don’t even tell me.”

“I won’t. But maybe I am.”

“Ned, why are you in here while I’m in the bathtub?”

“She’s in here!”

“I’m dating her.”

“Wow, that’s great,” Ned says, not making any move to get up from his spot on the gold lounge chair. “That’s great, I see how things are going. I see what direction we’re heading in.”

Peter scoffs. He warmed up a long time ago, and he’s getting really pruny, but he doesn’t want to get out just yet. He feels like something is gonna happen if he gets out. Like it’s all gonna start up again and maybe the house is gonna explode or their fridge is gonna grow arms and start trying to fight them or something.

And he isn’t lazy. He’s always ready to fight.

Maybe he’s a little lazy. But not usually. He thought Europe was gonna be a Spider-Man free trip and look how that turned out. And he thought this was going to be calm and relaxing but now it’s become suspicious. And worrying. And he’s torn between leaving and staying and telling May and not telling May and he doesn’t know if she’s in danger too and sometimes he feels like everybody would be safer if he lived out in Alaska somewhere and nobody knew him.

Peter sighs, and MJ rubs his shoulder. Ned is still giving him that look and Peter ignores that look. He’s never been in a little claw-foot tub like this before. Tony doesn’t even have these in the compound. And a bubble bath? He hasn’t had a bubble bath since he was a kid and Ben was still alive. It almost distracts him from… whatever the hell is going on here.

“We’ve got two more days,” MJ says. “And we’re sticking it out.”

“We’re sticking it out,” Peter says. “I got my webshooters, I guess I’ll wear them if we go hiking tomorrow.”

“Someone is gonna push you off a cliff,” Ned says, raising his eyebrows.

“We’re all going together, so nobody is gonna push anybody,” MJ says. She leans down and presses a kiss to the corner of Peter’s mouth. “Okay let’s leave so he can—get out.”

They both get up, and Peter watches as they argue.

“Oh, you’re not gonna help him?” Ned asks.

“Oh, you’re not?” MJ replies, nudging him as they move towards the door. “I thought that was your job, guy in the chair—”

They have dinner in the main building, and Peter watches his back. He only jumps once, when someone drops a tray full of plates, and he winces at the shattering and runs over there to help clean it up before they usher him away. They visit the horses in the stables, and Peter checks every nook and cranny to make sure somebody isn’t hiding in there. They watch May and Happy bust into the late jazz class that’s going on in the ballroom and Peter forgets to do anything because he feels like his face is going to catch on fire from all the blushing.

And he remembers to be paranoid when they get back to the Grove Lodge, and he can tell May is suspicious and they’re all watching him like hawks and he gets worried that Tony is the real target of whatever is happening here and he’s just a distraction.

He can’t let anything happen to Tony. He can’t let anything happen to any of them.

Or maybe nothing is happening. And nobody was in their room. And the kayak was just—Parker luck. Too much strength, or something.

He wakes up around three in the morning because he can’t stay asleep, and he sits down in the ‘great room’ and stares out into the darkness of the night.

“Don’t jump,” Tony’s voice says, but Peter jumps anyway, twisting around and seeing him on the stairs. “You jumped! I said don’t jump! You heard me, I said it—”

Peter snorts, shaking his head. “You can’t just tell me not to jump and expect me not to jump—especially if you’re stepping out of the shadows—”

“There’s no shadows,” Tony says, stepping off the landing. “No shadows. I’m fully illuminated—”

Peter sighs. “You can’t sleep either?”

“Nah,” Tony says, walking over quietly. “Sleep and I, we have a very contemptuous relationship.” He shakes his head. “I just feel like shit because you can’t have a normal vacation. Whatever the hell is or isn’t going on here. You just deserve—Jesus, a full day, at the least, without something happening you have to question.” He sits down next to Peter and lets out a sigh.

“It’s not your fault. At all.”

“I mean—it might be. We’ve seen Europe as an example of very much my fault.”

Peter narrows his eyes at him. “That wasn’t your fault either. You know it wasn’t your fault, idiots blaming you for their own stupidity is not your fault—”

A huge crash outside. It sounds like one of those big weird planters falling over and knocking into the other planters and then it sounds like a bunch of feet shuffling and this isn’t Parker luck, this isn’t a hallucination, this isn’t a kayak doing non-kayak like things—

They both leap out of their chairs. The noises don’t stop and Tony is immediately stepping in front of Peter and holding his arm out, as if to shield him.

“Kid, go back upstairs—”

“No,” Peter whisper-shouts, grabbing his arm as the two of them move forward very, very slowly towards the back porch doors. “You almost died recently—you’re wearing pajamas and a house coat—”

“You don’t even know what a house coat is—”

Another crash, more skittering feet, and Peter focuses—he can hear separate heartbeats from the hearts he loves in this house. Two of them.

“Tony I’ve got my webshooters on—”

“That doesn’t matter you’re wearing pajamas too you’re not prepared—”

And when they’re just close enough to open the door, there’s a flash of bright white light. And Peter closes his eyes against it, and he can feel Tony turning around, trying to block him from it, and it must be more than just light because he hears a loud bang and the windows are shattering and it feels like a cataclysmic boom is pushing them through the air. The two of them fly backwards, and hit the far wall, and the last thing Peter hears before his head snaps back too far is

GOD DAMMIT ALFIE YOU’RE TWO SECONDS TOO EARLY WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS JUMPING THE—

Peter gasps awake. His gasp echoes, and he sits up, and looks around, and he’s…nowhere.

He scrambles to his feet. He’s alone, and he’s nowhere, there’s nothing but blackness and his ears are popping like he’s high up and he sees—

He sees—

A kayak? Flying through the darkness?

He watches it, cascading like a majestic bird, and he stares at it, and then it just—blinks out of existence. Like it was never even there.

Maybe he’s just dreaming. Maybe he never even woke up and went downstairs and talked to Tony. Maybe none of that happened at all. Maybe he’s still asleep and Ned is snoring somewhere and MJ is saying not beets in the salad in her sleep again and maybe—

God dammit, Alfie, I swear. I swear I’m gonna whack you in the head.

Peter spins around, in the complete darkness. He can see himself, his own body and his hands and his pajamas and his webshooters, like he’s got a spotlight on him. “Hello?” he calls. “What the hell is—whoever that is—”

And then the London Bridge appears huge and massive above his head and he starts to duck, nearly collapsing in on himself, and there’s no way this is actually happening this isn’t real and he shoots a web at it and it goes right through it and it hits—somewhere—somewhere in the darkness, it sticks, it—

ALFIE I THINK THEY’RE BOTH—

I KNOW IT I CAN TELL OKAY I’M NOT MORONIC—

It clicks in Peter’s head. This is someone using Beck’s tech. It’s someone using Beck’s tech. That’s what this is. This is some idiots using his tech and not knowing how to use it properly and—

Peter starts yelling. “Whoever you are, you’re—you’re not good at this—this isn’t gonna work out for you—”

The bridge disappears, and Peter starts running. His spidey sense is going berserk, and he can’t tell where the danger is, what direction, how far. He can’t tell what’s underneath his feet, it feels—crunchy, and a little old, maybe? All he knows is he needs to get the hell out of this illusion. It feels unstable.

He starts shooting his webs everywhere, and most of them fly away without hitting anything, and that makes him wonder where the hell he could be with so much space—

STARK IS DOING SOMETHING WITH HIS AI—

Peter’s heart lurches.

“Tony!” Peter yells, still running, and he holds his hands out and tries to find something, anything, and he shoots webs fucking everywhere, and then—

SHIT—

He runs right into someone. And they push him off, and then he gets a brass-knuckled fist to the face before he can get a hit off of his own. He stumbles backwards through the sharp pain, wrestling with the instinct to just fight even though it’s only darkness all around him and he can’t see who the hell he’s fighting with.

Instead, he spits out a line of blood and keeps running.

Pulsing, face pulsing, beating with ripped skin and metal—

A massive kayak blips into the air briefly, and then it disappears.

Peter narrows his eyes, shaking his head, and what the hell is with the kayak—

He runs smack into something, like a train going accordion against a wall, and he stumbles backwards again, clutching at his crushed nose and trying to stay on his feet. The punch and the goddamn running into whatever that was has him dizzy, has him mangled and seeing stars in this manufactured darkness and then he hears Tony hollering his name at the top of his lungs—

“Peter! Peter!”

He sounds like he’s behind him—

“Tony!” Peter yells, all nasally. “Tony! Hey I’m over here—”

He turns around, changing his trajectory. And the darkness blips, breaking in large pixels, and Peter keeps running towards Tony’s voice and the darkness blips again, turns bright white, and then—

The illusion, or lack of one, breaks all at once, and Peter can see—

He’s on the roof of the main Mohonk building—he can see the lake, and the forest, and the mountains, settled in the calm of the night that feels decidedly not calm for him in particular, and he skids to a halt because he’s nearly running off the roof—

And he feels someone grab his arm and tug him back, and he spins around and it’s Tony, thank God it’s Tony—

“Hey!” Tony yells, and Peter looks at him and grabs his arm and they both look up and—

There are just two guys standing there. Two guys, both on the shorter side, definitely unkempt, and they’re holding a little gray box and they’re both just hitting it and hitting it and hitting it—

Peter aims his webs and just starts shooting. He feels like he shoots the most amount of webs he’s ever shot. The two guys fly backwards and get stuck to one of the upraised red parts of the roof, and they’re both gritting their teeth and trying to get out like they’re Scooby Doo villains.

“They must be associated with Beck,” Peter says, trying to catch his breath. His entire mouth tastes like blood. “They’ve gotta be.”

“I figured, with their shitty illusion attempts,” Tony says, and he sounds angrier than Peter’s ever heard him. He glances at Peter, starts to glance away, but then he looks at him again, fast, his brows furrowing severely. “Jesus Christ, you’re—bleeding everywhere—”

“Yeah, it feels—it doesn’t feel good—they didn’t hit you?” Peter asks.

Tony takes Peter’s chin gently, tilting his head and wincing. “No,” he says. “They didn’t goddamn hit me—”

“Well, the nose was from—running into something—I think that, uh, I think that’s a chimney over there, I think I ran into it—you didn’t run into anything—”

“No, I didn’t—”

“Oh, that’s great—”

Tony looks like he’s about to breathe fire, and he lets go of Peter and starts stomping towards the webbed bad guys.

“Why the hell would you be loyal to a moron like him?” Tony asks. “Beck? He couldn’t even keep a job at Stark Industries—”

“Yeah, buddy, because you stole his idea,” one of them hollers. They’re both still wiggling around, trying to get out.

Tony sneers. “He worked for my company executing an idea I designed and commissioned and decided to weaponize it when it was created to help deal with trauma and mental health—have you never had a job, an occupation—you know what, I don’t care, I don’t care—”

“Well he didn’t say that, he didn’t say any of that exactly,” the other guy says, the one with the longer hair. “He just said—”

“Nothing he says is true,” Peter yells, wincing when he touches his nose. “That guy is a liar, and a freak, and you believed him enough to follow us on vacation and—screw up every attempt you made to kill us—it was one of you guys in my room—”

“No, that was just testin’, that was just—we was just testin’, it was—you guys acted really dramatic—”

Peter scoffs. “Dramatic?”

And the two guys start giving each other nasty looks, even though they’re webbed shoulder to shoulder. “Maybe if you hadn’t dropped that dart gun in the lobby when they first got here—”

“Maybe if you hadn’t fallen out of the tree—”

“Maybe if you had made the goddamn kayak explode instead of fly—”

“Stop!” Tony yells, cutting his hands through the air like an angry teacher. “Stop. Stop. I’ve never wanted to hear Boston accents less. Stop. You’re arrested. We’ve arrested you.”

“You can’t do that, the Avengers aren’t cops,” the shorter one says. He’s got a tattoo on his neck that says GOLDBARES with a Haribo bear icon and Peter squints at it and he feels like his entire face hurts worse just from seeing it.

“You’ve committed several crimes,” Tony says, still pointing at them. “It’s—my personal security already—”

There’s a click. A very loud click. And both guys clam up real quick.

“What was that?” Tony asks.

Peter’s spidey sense is—ratcheting up, clear into his teeth—

“Tony!” he yells, because it feels like something is coming, and, just like in the Grove Lodge, there’s a big boom and they’re blown backwards by a seismic wave—

And they’re launched off the roof, and it feels like they’re moving in slow motion, through the dead dark of the night and the reflection of the lake, and Peter screams like a moron. He just screams, and then he shoots a web right at Tony and pulls him in with it, and then he shoots a web at the building and swings back around with him.

They don’t land well, because Peter’s brain is on the backburner and there’s nothing on the front, and they roll in a heap, Peter tucking his face into Tony’s shoulder. When they come to a halt Tony pulls back, sitting up and touching Peter’s cheek.

“You in there?”

“I’m in there. Here,” Peter says, and he feels like he’s bleeding worse, somehow. “Did they blow up? Did those guys blow up? It sounded like they blew up.”

“We didn’t blew up we’re still over here but maybe I wish we woulda blew up because—”

And they start shouting at each other, but Peter tries to tune them out.

“Thank God you brought those things,” Tony says, tapping Peter’s wrist. “Thanks, bud.”

Peter blows out a breath, shaking his head and still just. Laying there. “Oh yeah, no problem. All good, just—completely normal.”

Tony sighs, and his eyes cut to the side. “Any other late traps ready to explode?” he yells, over his shoulder.

They stop arguing with each other. There’s a brief silence.

“Uh. I honestly got no idea. We just brought the whole bag of tricks, I don’t know. There’s shit everywhere.”

Tony looks at Peter, slowly shaking his head.

“Fantastic,” Peter says. “Wonderful.”

“So, you weren’t in there watching us when we were getting our nails done in the spa?” Pepper asks. “I thought it was weird. I told May it was weird. That was these guys—”

Tony scoffs, and he feels like he instantly gets a headache, a migraine—

“Of course I wasn’t—of course—you thought I was just standing there? Staring at you in the spa? You didn’t think that was out of the ordinary—”

Pepper gives him a look, and Peter laughs from the hammock behind them.

“Yeah, when I went to get my nails done later you kept walking in and out,” Happy says. “But I thought you were just—I don’t know what I thought. But then you told me about the kayak thing later and I thought—well—I attributed it to that.”

“Happy went and got his nails done,” Ned whispers, somewhere behind Tony, too. “We could do that?”

“Who’s stopping you?” MJ says, quiet.

“Well, the whole—the whole situation stopped me, I guess, but I didn’t really think about it—”

“I’m glad it wasn’t you staring at us,” May says, standing near the railing and peering out into her binoculars. “Pepper said it was normal, but it was concerning me.”

Tony glares at Pepper, but she just bats her eyes at him like the picture of innocence.

“Sometimes Peter does that to me,” May says. “Just stares at me from behind a Lucky Charms box in the kitchen. That’s how I know something’s wrong.”

Tony snorts, and he turns around as soon as Peter starts protesting.

“I do not!” Peter says, shifting around in the hammock. “I do not do that.”

“It sounds like something you’d do,” Ned says.

“You’ve done that to me,” MJ says, clearing her throat.

Peter huffs, and everyone laughs at him, and Tony tries not to laugh too hard, because this started with his own wife acting like she thinks he’s capable of acting like some weirdo who stands around staring at people.

Tony sighs. He turns around, walking over and peering down at Peter. He braces his hand on the tree his hammock is attached to. “How’s the nose?” Tony asks.

“Broken.”

“It’s not broken anymore, we reset it.”

“It knows it was broken. I know too.”

He’s still got the butterfly bandages on the bridge of his nose, and it’s bruised and angry looking. He’s got a burst blood vessel in his eye, and the white part is dipped with red. Tony feels like shit because he got out of the whole ordeal relatively unscathed. Just a few bumps and bruises. Some whiplash. But Peter broke his nose again.

They hiked up to the Sky Top Tower, and the kids wanted to hang out once they got up here. They all thought Peter had earned the hammock. Happy refused to come, and he’s in charge of the security situation, anyway, so he couldn’t exactly abandon it to do a hike he didn’t want to do.

They had to clear the whole damn resort out to get rid of any remaining traps and illusions. Tony had to bring in a whole team. Rhodey made fun of him on the phone when Tony told him, laughing for a good five minutes.

And sure, it’s stupid. Those guys are stupid and they had no idea what the hell they were doing, they couldn’t even attack properly. But that’s what happens when stupid people follow more powerful stupid people. They hold grudges. They make up shit in their heads. They cause problems.

And it’s never really funny when Peter is bloody at the end of it.

“I feel like I’m sinking,” Peter says, his brows furrowing.

He reaches out his hand, and Tony takes it, and he pulls him out of the hammock as MJ and Ned push on his shoulders. Peter groans like he’s a hundred years old, and Tony claps him on the shoulder.

May looks away from her binoculars. “How you doing, honeybunch?”

“Fine,” Peter says, letting go of Tony’s hand. “Incredible. Amazing.”

“Just a normal day for a hero,” Pepper says. “MJ, you’ll get used to it, May, you’ll never get used to it—”

“And Ned,” Ned says to himself. “You will be there every step of the way.”

Tony looks at Peter, and he wants to apologize. For all of it, for being a hero at all, for the goddamn radioactive spider at Oscorp and everything that came after. For stupid morons like Quentin Beck, who know the quickest way to hurt Tony is to attack this kid he’s nearly adopted as his own.

He doesn’t know what the hell to say, because Peter wouldn’t accept his apologies anyway. He never would. Peter is just appreciative of every moment. Even if the moments aren’t ideal.

“We’ve got the whole place to ourselves,” Tony says. “How about we have a pie bar when we head back down there? I can tip the kitchen staff two hundred percent when I ask. I don’t think anybody would be pissed off.”

He sees May smiling softly at him over Peter’s shoulder. Trust in her eyes, even after all this bullshit.

“Can there be…at least four key limes?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Four or five,” Tony says, ruffling his hair. “Or six or seven. Depending on the number of ovens in the joint.”

Peter grins at him, still bright and lively, despite everything.

Maybe they can salvage this vacation yet.

#iron dad #iron man #irondad #irondad fic #marvel fic #peter parker #spider-man #tony stark #iron dad fic #works by iron_spider

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