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“Peter,” Karen begins, “may I ask why we’re sneaking into the Tower so late at night?”
The teen paused in climbing up the frosted window long enough to heave a sigh, the sigh of one whose brilliance is often misunderstood by those around them. He may or may not have learned it from Mr. Stark.
“I t-told you,” he mumbles, trying to keep his words straight despite his shivering, “I have t-to get in there without Mr. Stark knowing. There’s no better place to hide his C-Christmas gift than his own house.”
Peter resists the urge to cackle childishly to himself because honestly? This is a great plan. Mr. Stark is so hard to give gifts to; the man has some sort of complex against receiving. Peter found it out at his birthday back in May. Pepper even mentioned that she can’t give him anything directly; it always has to be left out for him where he’ll find it on his own, otherwise he’ll refuse to accept it.
That’s why he’s here crawling through the window he knows is left unlocked in the penthouse, shaking off the snowflakes clinging to his suit and slinging a plastic shopping bag off his shoulder. He truly feels like Santa Claus sneaking in the house to hide gifts under the tree at midnight, except that his plan is to find a suitable niche where Mr Stark won’t think to visit, and then hide the loot there until Christmas Day. Then all he’s gotta do is text the location of the gift with a winky face (Mr Stark’s least favorite emoji) and the man can find and unwrap it in privacy: no opportunity given to reject it.
“I’m not sure I follow your logic, but I trust you know what you’re talking about,” Karen chirps. In a more concerned tone, she adds, “While we are here, might I suggest seeing if we can fix the suit’s heater function? You have hardly stopped shivering all night.”
On cue, Peter’s frame is wracked with a violent shiver and he rubs his gloved hands up and down his arms vigorously. Even out of the cold, his fingers and toes still feel numb from hours of exposure.
“Not tonight, Karen,” he whispers. “Tonight I can’t let anyone know I was here. I’ll be f-fine.”
The AI stays silent but Peter pulls his mask off anyway to silent further commentary. Yeah, he’s cold; he’s cold all the time lately. He can deal.
Right now there are more important matters to attend to.
“Okay,” he mumbles to himself, tiptoeing through the dark room. “If i were Mr. Stark, where would I NOT look for presents…”
He considers some empty cupboards in the kitchen, but what if they’re going to get groceries to put in there soon? Too risky. There’s a broom closet in the hall that he’s never seen anyone use, but… it doesn’t seem secure enough.
Finally he comes across a door he’s never opened before and curiosity overwhelms him. The handle is unlocked so he pulls it open slowly and finds what seems to be an ordinary laundry room.
It’s weird; Peter has never once pictured Mr. Stark doing his own laundry. It has to happen somehow he guesses.
There are two drier machines and two washers, as well as a rumbling boiler generating warmth like a welcome greeting in the small room. Peter steps in and closes the door behind him, eager to get rid of the cold still clinging to his bones. He looks around and sees that one of the washers has a ‘broken’ sign on it. Perfect .
Carefully he wraps the package in a clean towel and places it inside the machine, then closes the machine door and stands back proudly. Mission accomplished. Now to head home.
Except… heading home means he has to go back out in the cold...
The warmth in the room is starting to seep into him with an intoxicating heaviness and he yawns, blinking in the darkness. It can’t hurt to sit down for a minute, can it? He came here straight from patrolling all night after all; he can take a small rest before going back out…
After slipping to the floor, his back against the door and his arms resting on his knees, he notices the large basket of clean clothes waiting to be folded that sits by the far wall. He can smell the fresh detergent coming off of it and, even though these clothes have long since cooled, the sight is reminiscent of warm laundry piles that he used to love burrowing in as a kid, much to Aunt May’s chagrin.
For whatever reason in that moment, Peter has the sudden urge to do that again, to burrow into the pile and tuck himself away and drift off, safe and sound in his hiding place.
If he were more awake he wouldn’t have done it. As it is, he’s become so sleepy so fast that he barely registers his body reacting; it’s like instinct takes over and the next thing he knows, he’s cocooned in a nest of cloth that smells so clean, and now that he’s closer he can also pick up the scent of cologne and machinery that is so distinctly Mr. Stark. It makes him feel as comforted as if the man himself was there watching over him.
His breathing slows. The methodical white noise of the heater blankets his senses and lulls his eyelids to half mast.
He blinks slowly once. Twice. The third time, his eyes don’t open again.
…
The funny thing is, Tony doesn’t know for over a day and a half that anything is out of the ordinary.
It’s late Sunday evening when he gets an anxious call from May that reminds him he hasn’t heard from a certain Spider-kid even once this weekend, which is odd considering he’s about to start his Winter Break.
“Have you seen Peter today?” is what she says instead of Hello. “I worked a graveyard shift on Friday night and he wasn’t home when I got back Saturday morning. I assumed he was out doing his, you know, his thing last night so I didn’t want to worry that I still hadn’t seen him when I went to bed, but…”
“But you still haven’t seen him?” Tony guesses, his blood going chill with the worst-case scenarios filling his mind. Was he kidnapped? Hurt in a ditch somewhere? Having a really long stay with Ned that he forgot to tell anyone about? It’s probably too much to hope for that last one.
Sure enough, May swallows and says, “No, I haven’t, and neither has Ned or any of any of his other friends I’ve called, and his phone is off, and now you haven’t seen him… so, I’m just kinda, sort of freaking out, maybe a little?” She gives a breathy, hysterical laugh.
Tony nods even though she can’t see him. “I’ll track his suit,” he says. “Don’t worry, May, we’ll find him.”
She thanks him and as soon as he hangs up, Tony is ordering FRIDAY to pull up Spider-Man’s coordinates. The screen before him lights up and zooms in on a location, much to his relief, except-
It’s here. In the tower.
“FRIDAY… this is the suit he has right? Not the Iron Spider?” he asks, uncertain.
“Yes, Boss. Mr. Parker’s tracker is here in the building. In the laundry room of the penthouse to be exact.”
Tony’s confusion deepens and he frowns even as he’s already pacing out of the workshop and down the hall. In the elevator he has to wonder… he’s not going to stumble upon a horror scene, is he? This feels eerily like a horror movie all of a sudden, finding out there’s someone in the closet when you thought you were alone.
Maybe that’s why he knocks and opens the door to the laundry room a little more timidly than he wants to admit, and flicks on the light as soon as he can reach it.
He scans the seemingly ordinary room until his eyes light on a scene that does make him jerk back in surprise, it is decidedly not from a horror movie. What genre does it qualify as exactly? That’s yet to be determined.
In a pile of clothes long since cleaned but which Tony has procrastinated picking up (he’s got a lot of clothes, okay?), there’s a familiar curly-haired head poking out of the laundry basket in the corner. He’s barely visible with the way he’s burrowed in among the clothes, a shirt over his head like a hood, his hands curled up by his chin like an infant. Coming closer, Tony can see that he’s still wearing full Spider-Man attire minus the mask, but even that is sitting on the ground nearby. As he watches, the whole pile rises and falls in time with the boy’s sleep-slowed breaths. He doesn’t so much as twitch at Tony’s entrance.
“What in the- Peter?” Tony gapes, kneeling down by the basket and putting a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He shakes it a little. “Peter, wake up, kid.”
Peter does not wake up. Tony finds the pulse in his neck beating reassuringly steady but incredibly slow.
“FRIDAY, what the heck is going on?” he asks helplessly.
“If I may, Boss… many species of spiders hide themselves in piles of leaves or rocks to hibernate in response to cold temperatures. It could be that, due to his mutations, Mr. Parker has similarly entered hibernation.”
“But- wha-” Tony sputters, not taking his eyes off the kid’s peaceful face. He swallows, supposing this probably isn’t the weirdest thing to happen in his week , let alone his life. Pushing past the multitude of obvious questions to be asked, he says aloud, “...Why in the laundry room?”
FRIDAY replies matter-of-factly, like it’s not a big freaking deal, “His body temperature was dangerously low when he entered the tower on Friday night, and the laundry room runs warmer than any other room in the penthouse. The hormones that triggered his hibernation response were likely released upon taking shelter so quickly after leaving the cold.”
At that Tony has to gape upwards, hoping his AI-- who he knows is brilliant, but is apparently be very dense at the same time-- can comprehend the consternation on his face. “FRI… Peter’s been asleep in my laundry basket for over 36 hours and you didn’t think to tell me about it?!”
“You didn’t ask,” she says simply.
He shoves his face in his hands and groans, long and low. “Okay,” he sighs at last. “Whatever. It’s fine. This is where we are now. Peter’s hibernating. Great. How do I wake him up?”
There’s a pause, then FRIDAY says cautiously, “I am not sure.”
“You’re not sure.”
“Correct.”
Tony doesn’t have the mental strength for this. “I’m asking now, FRI. Do you have any ideas on how to wake him up?”
“There are no reported cases on which to base a conjecture,” she says. “Mr. Parker is the only human in my database who has arachnid sequences integrated into his DNA. Sources suggest that mammals that hibernate may be unrousable for months at a time, but there is less research on the hibernation patterns of spiders. He may be able to wake with some prodding, or he may require an injection of the proper hormones to return to wakefulness.”
“Nice,” Tony says. “Great. Awesome.” He stands and pulls out his phone. “I’m just gonna… call his Aunt real quick… then we’ll deal with this…”
The brief conversation with May is, in all honesty, not as bad as it could’ve been. Hibernating ? she asks. Hibernating , he confirms. They’re both silent for a minute. She giggles first, then he finds himself joining in. He promises to wake and return the spider-baby to her as soon as possible and she agrees, still laughing as she hangs up. Tony turns to said spider-baby in his self-imposed crib and smiles softly.
This kid.
“I’ll tell you a confidential secret, Pete,” he says as he peels back the layers of clothing and slips his hands under the boy’s arm pits, hefting him upward. “...I am not the spring chicken I used to be...” He winces as his back creaks and he pulls up to full height again, Peter’s limp body a warm weight against his chest.
He bumps the kid up on one hip like a toddler, the tousled head falling languidly into the crook of Tony’s neck and tickling his nose. He’s just deliberating on whether to try carrying him this way all the way to the lab, or to try shifting to an easier bridal carry, when suddenly the seemingly comatose boy’s eyelids begin to flutter.
“Hey, that wasn’t so hard,” Tony cheers, watching as Peter’s eyelids open just the tiniest bit. “You with me, bud?”
The boy’s face stays lax, his irises still uncomprehending and clouded with sleep beneath his lashes. Tony gets the impression of a cat sleeping so deeply that its third eyelids are visible.
“Peter?” Tony calls softly, not wanting to startle him, but curious as to how much the boy is registering of his surroundings.
“Mi’r S’rk,” Peter mumbles sleepily. Before Tony can react, he’s caught off guard and stumbles to adjust his hold as the boy’s previously lethargic limbs suddenly come to life and wrap themselves around Tony’s torso more securely, like a human backpack. Tony feels like a mom wearing a baby swaddled to her front.
“Uh,” Tony stutters, all his famous eloquence out the window.
“Nnnnm,” Peter sighs, nuzzling his face more firmly against the man’s collarbone. With that, he goes limp and heavy again, eyes slipping shut once more.
Tony waits a minute to make sure the kid’s really out again before filing the event away, trying to shush the paternal bells ringing his whole body over and making his heart flutter shamelessly in his chest.
He swings the door open with one foot and carries the sleepy lump down the hall, into the elevator and into the med bay without crossing paths with one person, a fact for which he is grateful on several accounts. For one, there’s the explaining he’d have to do; for another, there’s a peaceful kind of protectiveness that’s settled over him with the holding of this kid which he doesn’t want to think about too hard but which he wants to last uninterrupted as long as possible.
It’s not til he gets to the bed he’d planned on laying Peter in that he runs into another problem. He leans over and lets go- but nothing happens. Peter is still attached to him.
He’s extremely confused before he realizes: the kid’s sticking to him.
As in, actively using his spider powers to keep Tony from putting him down.
Unconsciously. In his sleep.
“Oh my gosh,” Tony breathes, his exasperated tone not matching the grin that takes over his face. “Kid, what even- where’s the release button on you?”
He jerks a little, like someone trying to shake off a bug, but the kid doesn’t budge and Tony’s back is starting to ache with the bent-over position. Eventually, cackling softly, he accepts his fate and does what has to be done: he lays down on the bed and allows Peter to curl up into his side, adhesive fingers still glued determinedly into the fabric of his shirt.
“FRI, Helen’s in the building somewhere today, right?” Tony asks, stretching awkwardly to pull a rumpled bedsheet over the two of them.
“Yes, Boss.”
“Can you inform her of Peter’s situation and have her get to work on making, uh, a cure? I don’t think this kid is gonna let me get anything done anytime soon.”
“Sure thing, Boss.”
…
Later, Dr. Cho will come to the med bay and see them both still nestled together on the bed, Peter snoring softly and Tony snoring a little less softly. She may or may not spend a very unprofessional moment fawning over the sight. If she snaps a photo of her “Mr. Who-Has-Emotions-Not-Me” boss being so gentle and vulnerable on behalf of his “he’s-just-my-intern” kid, nobody needs to know.
After the proper hormones have been administered, Peter will wake and push onto his elbows, looking around with his brow furrowed in disorientation. His movement will stir Tony at his side and the man will deflect any and all flustered feelings he has about the impromptu cuddle session with a healthy helping of teasing aimed Peter’s way as he recounts everything that happened: Hibernating in my laundry, kid? Really? If you needed a better bed at home, you could’ve just said something.
Peter’s only consolation is that Tony didn’t find out about the Christmas present in the drier. What he doesn’t know is that his presence in Tony Stark’s life is a gift in itself, one he receives anew over and over.