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Peter glanced up at the rumble of the car turning, a little disoriented to see Happy taking an exit. Usually when he took Peter to the compound, they went straight there. He took one ear bud out from where he was trying to finish up his homework in the back, raising his eyebrows questioningly at the man. Happy caught his eye in the mirror.
"I'm just getting gas, kid," Happy grumbled with a roll of his eyes. Peter nodded, mumbling 'Okay' and putting his earbud back in.
It had been almost a year since the whole homecoming fiasco that had led to a test to being on the Avengers--that he'd thankfully passed--and an actual internship with Mr. Stark. Happy picked him up every other Friday afternoon, usually taking him back home Saturday night. Once or twice Mr. Stark had taken him back, but it was usually the bodyguard that was parking the car at a gas station.
The teenager looked up again as Happy opened the door, his stomach growling. He glanced out the window, in the direction of the gas station, before taking his earbuds out and fishing through his bag. He pulled out his beaten up wallet and hesitantly opened the door. Happy looked up at him questioningly from where he was pumping gas as he did.
Peter pointed at the gas station, "I'm gonna go--I'm gonna go get a snack. Do you want anything?"
"Sure. Get me a sweet tea."
"Okay, sure."
Peter closed the door and walked towards the gas station. The bell chimed as he stepped inside, heading for the drinks section to pick up Happy's drink. It took him a bit of searching to find, but eventually he managed to grab a bottle of Gold Leaf. He grabbed himself a pack of sour gummy worms, placing the two products on the counter and waiting for the cashier.
The old man looked up at him with a wrinkled smile and a cheery, "Hi, how are you?"
"Uh, good. Real good," Peter stuttered, fishing out his wallet nervously, "You?"
"Good, good," the man said, ringing the gummy worms and the sweet tea, "Sweet tea, huh? I don't see a lot of northerners drink that."
"Oh, uh, I--I don't. I'm just grabbing this for, um, somebody."
Peter nodded his head at the black car outside. Happy was easily visible as he finished up putting gas in the car and stepping into the driver's seat. The man nodded as he handed over a crumpled five dollar bill.
"Well, tell your dad he has good taste in drinks."
"Yeah, yeah. Thanks I--Wait what?" The man blinked. Peter glanced back at the window, dazed. His eyebrows raised, confused. "Oh, he's not--Happy's not my dad."
"Oh, I'm sorry then. Tell him he has good taste regardless."
Peter took a hesitant step towards the door, more than a little out of it. "Uh, sure. Yeah, yeah, I will."
He didn't.
And things only got more confusing from then on out.
Peter bounced up the stairs, glancing back down at Happy, who was following him up the many flights to his apartments determinedly. He let out a tired puff as he finally got to where Peter had stopped to wait for him.
"You know you don't have to come all the way to my apartment with me?" Peter said, raising his brow. Happy waved him off, moving towards the next flight of stairs.
"Tony said to drop you off at your apartment, not your apartment complex."
"I feel like he wouldn't mind if you didn't go all the way up the stairs with me."
"Shut up, kid," Happy said. Peter smiled at the agitated playfulness that only Happy could pull out.
Eventually, they made it to his floor. Happy walked him all the way to his apartment door where the black number 24 hung just a little lopsided. The man moved to knock, but Peter just put his key in and walked through.
"You know you don't have to knock, right?"
"It's polite."
"Yeah, I guess, but it's also my apartment, so."
"I think it's sweet," May entered. Peter and Happy both looked at where his aunt had exited her bedroom, clearly having had a relaxing weekend while he'd been at the compound. He'd stayed over for the entire time, and had only finally gone home when it was dark out. Peter almost groaned at the thought of school tomorrow. He did, however, make a face at May's comment. May rolled her eyes, running a hand through his hair and pulling him forward to place a welcoming kiss to his head.
"Hey, May," Peter greeted cheerfully.
"Hello to you too," she grinned, "And it's nice to see you, Happy."
Happy's fingers fumbled, "You too, Mrs. Parker."
May's grin grew just a little wider. He glanced between the two.
"Peter, Mrs. Jackson wanted some help with her air conditioning. I told her you might be able to help her out?" May said.
"Oh, uh, sure."
He put his bag down, gabbing his tool kit and walked out the door, but not without one last suspicious glance between the two. Peter went two doors down and knocked on Mrs. Jackson's door. It opened up after about a minute, revealing the kindly old woman. She always had a worn smile and fluffy gray dreads.
"Hi, Mrs. Jackson," Peter said softly, "May said you were having a problem with your air conditioning?"
"Oh, yes, yes! Please come in, baby," the woman rasped, waving him in, "I've been fried all day in this heat!"
Peter nodded in polite agreement as she showed him where her unit was. He kneeled down and opened up the wall unit, beginning to search for the problem. "Yeah, it's been pretty warm this year."
The woman tutted in agreement, sitting down in a vintage cushioned seat as she watched him work. After a few moments she asked animatedly, "So, how was your dad's?"
"It was--" Peter stopped mid-sentence and mid-movement, looking back at her in the most polite confusion he could muster. There was no way she'd know that he'd been at the compound all weekend, with Mr. Stark, or even that he considered Mr. Stark like that. Not even Mr. Stark knew he thought of him like that. So, he settled on squeaking, "What?"
"I saw your dad's car parked outside, so I thought you spent the weekend with him. I'm sorry, are your parents not divorced?"
Peter's brain felt like it was broken. He felt broken. What the fuck was happening???
He felt like he should explain that May was his aunt and Happy was his...Happy was just his Happy, but Peter couldn't get any kind of reasonable explanation to form. In the end, all he could settle on was, "No."
"Ah, shit."
"What?" Ned asked as he put his bag down in his chair. Peter dug through his bag one last time before his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"I left my paper in Mr. Harrington's class."
"Dude, you better go get that. You know how Mrs. Warren is about late work."
"Yeah, shit, I know. I can still make it, I've got two minutes left."
"You better book it," Ned warned, and then Peter was out the door. Mr. Harrington was a few hallways over, and Peter could do little but speed walk thanks to the sheer amount of hall monitors and snitches that would love to put him in detention for running. Not that getting there was Peter's main concern.
The teenager slipped through the hallway as quickly as he could, dodging around one last group of slow walkers and stepping into Mr. Harrington's empty room. The teacher looked up from where he was clearly grading their last test as he did so.
"Ah, Peter!" he greeted, "What can I do for you?"
"I just need to grab my paper for Mrs. Warren," Peter excused, walking towards his desk. Somehow he'd just left it sitting there, and he picked it up and turned to try and make it to the door as quickly as possible. "Anyway, I gotta--"
"Y'know, I have to say, Peter, I'm so happy for you and May," Mr. Harrington interrupted. This was Peter's main concern, "I know things have been hard for you and May ever since...well you know. But I am so happy to see you have a new role model in your life. I mean, I know it's probably a lot to handle, and you're totally okay to not be ready for any of this, so you can come talk to me anytime if you feel like it's too much. I know I hated my step-dad when I first met him but eventually--well him and my mom got divorced before I ever ended up liking him... But you get the gist, right?"
Peter stared up at Mr. Harrington, unsure of how his confused and disturbed expression--one eye squished, an eyebrow raised and his mouth slightly open and twisted down--had yet to deter his teacher from his friendly and oddball speech.
"Do you mean Happy?"
"Is that his name? He doesn't look like it," Mr. Harrington said, "Your new step-dad, the man who picks you up after school."
Peter was going to lose his mind.
He also ended up being late for class.
Eventually, especially with his lack of corrections, Peter knew that someone was going to say it in front of Happy. Logically, he should have prepared for this, but any time someone referred to Happy as his dad or step-dad, his brain hopped on a plane and took a vacation for however long the conversation lasted and about ten minutes afterwards. But now, his brain was going to legitimately commit suicide.
It had started with a casual case of ditching a field trip. At this point, Peter could make a drinking game about the amount of times crazy shit had happened on his field trip. He wouldn't recommend it to anyone though. He didn't think he could get alcohol poisoning, but he also wasn't right the rest of the human population.
So, back to the field trip.
It was supposed to be an end-of-the-school-year touristy trip that was cheap and could justify some learning as long as the guide spouted a couple of history facts along the way. So of course Electro had been attacking just a block away from them.
Peter sipped from the lemonade he'd bought as he stuck close to his class making its way down the sidewalk. Mr. Harrington was very intense about making sure that they all don't get lost this time. He was surprised there wasn't a rope for them all to hold onto. Ned walked beside him, and Peter listened intently as he rambled about the game he'd played last night and went on about his wins and losses. They, of course, ignored the guide that was droning on.
"--and then I managed to get like, three guys all at once. Like these amazing headshots and then someone just snuck up behind me and--"
Peter's hair raised. Electricity crackled. Thunder boomed.
And then there were screams.
Peter looked up as the crowd of people began rushing the opposite way they'd been walking, screams fizzing through the crowd just like the blue electricity that was bouncing off of buildings and wires, frying trees as it grew. Ned grabbed his arm.
"What the hell is that? What are--what are you going to do?" Ned asked as the chaos of the crowd forced them back. Peter let himself be swept away for a moment.
"I don't know. I don't have my suit!!"
"Why don't you have--"
"It's the last day of school!!" Peter excused. He pushed his friend forward, "Just get going and make sure everyone's put of the way! I'll take care of it!"
Peter broke off of the sidewalk, zipping into the street and hopping between the traffic that was attempting to escape, trying to keep to the side where people had abandoned their cars and begun running at the sight of--
At the sight of a glowing blue man seething at cars burst into fire around him. He halted in his tracks, his eyes widening as he took in what was happening around him. There were still people screaming and trying to run, but were trapped by shots of lighting that corralled the people into place.
Without his suit, he took a step forward, his hands raised in surrender. "Hey! Blue guy!"
The man swirled around, staring at him as electricity fizzled up and down his body. His expression was angry and defensive, and it didn't change as he caught sight of him.
"What the hell do you want!?" he growled. Peter kept his arms raised.
"I just want for these people to be safe," he responded, "Just--please let them go. They didn't do anything."
"I need them here."
Peter took a hesitant step forwards, "No, you don't. What do you really need?"
"I do need them here. I need Spider-Man and Iron Man here, and this is the only way to get their attention."
Well, shit. Peter glanced around nervously, swallowing.
"Have you ever thought about, like, calling them? Spider-Man's around a lot. I feel like it wouldn't be that hard."
His words only seemed to annoy the man, who held out a hand reminiscent of the way Mr. Stark did when he was about to fire. Out of his hand flew a startlingly thick stream of lightning. Peter barely managed to dodge out of the way, dropping onto his knees and rolling with the momentum before pushing himself up by the palms of his hands.
The teenager dodged behind a car as another shot came for him, the vehicle moving with the force but being stopped as Peter pressed his back against the car, managing to keep it from flying and instead just letting it rattle against him.
Yeah, he needed Mr. Stark.
Peter fumbled for his phone, but his hair raised and the car was struck again. This time it smacked against him, sending him crashing to his ground and his phone flying from his grasp. He groaned as he picked himself back up, staring up at the glowing blue man.
"Agh, what the hell..."
"Someone just needed to play the hero, huh?"
His hand raised again as Peter tried to stumble back to his feet. He was unable to move out of the way as the shock struck him, forcing him to fly across the street and come to a stop against a car that crunched from his force. Peter slumped against the ground, groaning.
"And you needed to play the villain."
Peter cracked open his eyes to see Iron Man, arms perched dangerously, and waiting in the sky. The mask looked a little more pissed than usual.
"Iron Man," the blue man breathed, "Where's your other red friend?"
"What? Is just me not enough?" He clanked down on the ground. "Arms up. I don't want to make this any harder than it has to be."
A shot of electricity flew towards Mr. Stark. Peter let out a yelp as protest, but when the blue hit the suit, it only fizzled away. The blast that came out was more powerful than usual, hitting the blue man square in the chest and knocking him to the ground. He stayed down.
Iron Man turned to him, "You okay, kid?"
Peter stumbled to his feet, "Yep, I'm--I'm okay, Mr. Stark."
"What are you doing out of school?"
"Last day field trip."
Before Mr. Stark could respond to that, a black car drove up, stopping hastily and allowing for Happy to step out, clearly panicked. The man made his way over to the teenager.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Happy," he assured.
"Just let him Mama Bear you, kid, it's easier that way," Tony said. Happy shot him a dirty look.
"Ignore the asshole. C'mon, kid, let's get you to the Medbay to make sure you're not gonna die on us."
"I'm not gonna die, Happy--"
"Peter!! Oh my, God!!" shouted a familiar voice. His shoulders slumped. He turned.
"Hey, Mr. Harrington."
Mr. Harrington grabbed him in a quick hug, "Oh, thank God you're not dead. Are you--Oh you found your step-dad, that's good. Nice to meet you, sir."
Peter wanted his soul to leave his body. He wanted to collapse right now as Mr. Harrington extended his hand to Happy. The Iron Man helmet had retracted to reveal Mr. Stark's face, which was puffed up with laughter.
"Your--" Mr. Stark started.
"I never told him that," Peter protested.
"Wait--Hold up--does that mean May likes me???"
"Oh, my God."