Chapter Text
Day 2
“Don’t worry, be happy.”
Peter shot up in his bed at the sound of the ringtone. It took his brain a few seconds to register the fact he was in his room in his apartment and not at the tower cause he was sure that he fell asleep at the tower. The ringtone cut off and Peter grabbed his phone to see a missed call from Happy. He clicked the icon to redial and Happy answered immediately.
“Kid, what is taking you so long, I’ve been outside for 10 minutes.”
Peter scrunched his face in confusion, this happened yesterday. “Sorry I think I forgot to set an alarm, I’ll be down in a few.”
Peter didn’t wait for a response and quickly hung up the phone. The lock screen came up as he did so and he stared at the date on the screen, December 24th. What the hell was happening.
With a deep breath Peter forced himself up and quickly got ready, somehow making it out of his apartment in record time.
“Sorry about that.” Peter said as he slipped into the backseat of Happy’s car.
If Happy grumbled a response Peter didn’t hear it, his brain was far too occupied trying to figure out what was going on. Did he somehow dream the entire day before? Did he get hit with some sort of magic he didn’t know about? Peter wracked his brain going through the events of the day prior, trying to figure out if anything out of the ordinary happened.
He woke up late, forgot the present for Tony, worked— Peter let out an annoyed sigh as he reached over and felt his backpack. He had forgotten the present again…
“Something wrong?” Happy asked.
“I just forgot something,” Peter said before remembering the day before Happy said he wanted to be in the car for the least amount of time possible, so quickly added. “It’s okay though, I can go grab it when I go on patrol later.”
“If you say so.” Happy said, refocusing his attention to the road.
Peter internally cursed himself for forgetting the present once again, but it wasn’t an issue for now. Right now he needed to figure out what happened yesterday. After getting to the tower, he and Tony worked in the lab on the projector project, they went to the bodega, then Peter went on patrol. On patrol he stopped a few purse thieves, found a cat, and ran into Santa. After patrol he and Tony ate manicotti for dinner, and he gave Tony the old JARVIS hard drive he found and worked on it in the lab for a bit. That’s the last thing he remembered. Everything seemed normal… or well running into Santa was slightly abnormal in the way he disappeared when the cat ran off, but that could be purely coincidence.
Maybe he did just dream the entire day because he was so nervous about it. Specifically wanting to tell Tony he saw him as a dad. It had happened before that Peter had dreamed how his day was supposed to go, but it was never with so much detail, and it never felt so real. That’s what was throwing him off the most. Plus how would he know he was going to wake up late, and exactly what Happy was going to say when he answered the phone.
Maybe he needed to retrace his steps as closely as possible and he could figure out what happened.
Peter was pulled from his thoughts when Happy pulled into the tower garage.
“Thanks, Happy!” Peter said getting out of the car and walking over to the elevator.
The elevator ride seemed shorter than normal but Peter was sure that had to do with the fact that he was still extremely lost in his head. Peter let out a deep breath as the elevator doors opened and he drug himself out into the living room plopping himself down on the couch.
“Good morning to you too, kid.” Tony called out from the kitchen. “I didn’t think you hated Christmas eve this much.”
Peter snapped his head over towards the kitchen, he could’ve sworn Tony said the exact same thing the day before.
“I don’t.” Peter answered. “Today has just been weird and I forgot something important, but I have a backup so it’s whatever.”
“Why is today weird?” Tony asked, making his way over to the couch with a bowl of food in each hand. “Also if you have a backup then why is it a big deal?”
“I don’t know. It’s just weird. Feels like it has already happened I guess.” Peter said, taking the bowl of food Tony offered him. He wasn’t exactly sure how else he could describe it. “And the backup and the original are different, and I had a plan, which both work for I guess. Just frustrating is all.”
“Feels like Deja vu?”
“Kinda? Not really, I feel like I’ve already lived today. I don’t know how else to describe it.” Peter shrugged as he took a bite of pasta. “It’s fine though.”
“If you say so kid.” Tony said, giving Peter a pat on the knee. “Now eat up kid I’ve got a fun day in the lab planned.”
Peter nodded as he continued to eat. He was probably overreacting about the whole situation.
“Alright kid, have at it.” Tony said, opening a door on the far side of the lab gesturing inside. “Everything inside is fair game to work on.”
“Anything as long as it doesn’t have an explosion warning on it, I’m assuming?” Peter asked, remembering Tony had said that the day before.
“Yes as long as it doesn’t say it could explode then go for it.”
Peter was quick to look for the projector that he and Tony had worked on in his dream or the day before, whatever was happening. He found it pretty fast and it was in the exact place he remembered it being, yet another thing that made the theory of it all being a dream not line up. He didn’t even know of this room's existence until then, so how could he possibly know the room or projector even existed?
“You okay there kid?” Tony asked, pulling Peter out his thoughts.
Peter realized he must've been standing there lost in thought for too long and shook his head to clear it. “Yeah, I think I found something.” He said emerging from the room with the projector in hand.
“I think I remember that old thing.” Tony said as Peter set it down on the table.
“Wasn’t it so you could project the stars at a specific time and place?
Tony made a face of confusion. “Yeah it was… how’d you know that?”
Peter shrugged. “Lucky guess? It seems pretty old so I guess I thought it was something you may have attempted to make when you were younger.”
“Yeah I was pretty young, so I probably lost interest or moved onto another project, which is how it likely ended up in there.”
“So it’s cool if we work on it and maybe try to finish it before I go on patrol?” Although Peter already felt like he worked on the project he had no problem doing it again. It meant he got to spend time with Tony.
“Of course kid, and if we finish early enough we’ll stop at the deli before it closes so you don’t go on patrol hungry. God knows May is always on my case about making sure you are eating enough.”
Peter froze at Tony’s words. They were the exact same ones he remembered from before and somehow they affected him the same way. It made him feel like Tony didn’t really care about him. Tony didn’t really see him as a son, and just didn’t want to piss May off. It made him question if going back to his apartment to get the gift he forgot was even a good idea. Because if Tony didn’t see Peter as a son then the gift was completely useless and would probably cause Tony to hate him.
“Kid you okay there?” Tony asked, resting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. Peter jumped at the contact. “We can go somewhere else if you don't want to go to the deli.”
“No it’s okay!” Peter rushed out. “The deli sounds great!”
“Alright then, let’s get to work!”
For pretty much the entire time they worked in the lab Peter was lost in his head. He had managed to get over the whole Tony might not see him as a son thing, when he remembered the reaction Tony had when he gave him the JARVIS file. To him that felt like confirmation that Tony did see him as a son. But he couldn’t get over the fact that it seemed like this entire day was repeating.
Everything Tony was doing was exactly the same from what he was remembering. Something was definitely wrong and this wasn’t a dream. He was quite confident of that fact now.
Regardless of the fact that Peter was extremely distracted, he and Tony made good progress on the projector. Spending time with Tony was practically effortless which is why Peter thinks he was still able to work while being so distracted. The only issue they were still having was the same one that Peter remembered from the day before and that was the projection of stars on a specific date to which Tony once again suggested having FRIDAY hack NASA for them.
“Alright kid, while FRIDAY gets that data for us let’s try this thing out. FRIDAY lights please.” The lights in the lab turned off with the exception of the light illuminating from the computer screens. “Where are we looking first, kid?” Tony asked his fingers hovering over the keypad next to the projector.
Peter thought for a moment before answering. “Let's do New York.” He suggested. He wanted to see if it looked the same as it did the day before. Because if all the planets and stars were in the same position, then that would confirm his theory that it was in fact the day repeating itself.
“Oh yes, how dare I think of another place we could look at.” Tony said sarcastically before typing in a set of coordinates.
It took a couple seconds but in the blink of an eye the lab was covered in a projection of the stars. Peter stood in awe for a moment once again mesmerized by the beauty of it all before he really started studying what he was seeing. He walked around the room spinning some of the planets as he passed by them. It was all the exact same. Not a star was out of place, every planet was in the same alignment. Peter had to sit down at the realization.
“You okay, kid?” Tony asked, crouching down next to Peter and resting a hand on his shoulder.
“Yeah, I think so.” Peter responded after a moment.
“That doesn’t sound too reassuring.” Tony joked ruffling Peter’s hair.
“It’s just a lot to take in.”
Tony nodded then stood up offering Peter a hand as he did so which Peter accepted to help himself up.
“We should save other locations for later and go for some food before you go on patrol, yeah?”
Peter nodded in agreement. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed Tony give him a questioning look for a few seconds before he moved to turn off the projector, FRIDAY turning on the lights at the same time.
“Meet you on the helipad in 10?” Tony asked as he wrapped an arm around Peter’s shoulder and pulled him into a side hug.
“Meet you on the helipad in 10.” Peter confirmed leaning into the hug for a few seconds before pulling away to go upstairs.
After leaving the tower and going to the deli, Peter and Tony ended up on the same rooftop they had the day before to eat their lunch.
“Any specific plans for patrol today?” Tony asked in between bites of his sandwich?
“Not really. I’ll probably stick to the Manhattan area though.”
He wanted to stick to the same area as he did the day before. He didn’t know where else something out of the ordinary could’ve happened. The goal was to basically retrace his steps the best he could.
“If you need any help kid, I’m just a call away.” Tony said, breaking Peter out of his thoughts.
“I will, Mr. Stark.”
“Alright kid, have fun and be safe.” Tony said, lowering the mask of his suit back over his face.
Tony gave Peter a pat on the shoulder that once again lingered as if he had something else to say, but by the time Peter was able to process it Tony took off towards the tower. Peter sat on the rooftop for a few more minutes mapping out his route the best he could from memory. When he was pretty sure he had the route down, he pulled his mask the rest of the way over his face and took off swinging through the skyline.
Peter showed up to his first stop, where the guys stole the women’s purse, a little early and was able to prevent the mugging from happening all together. He swung away, giving the women he helped a wave as he did. Peter swung around for a little bit before he started hearing some commotion a few blocks away and turned to head in that direction.
As it turned out, someone had accidentally dropped a bag of their Christmas presents in one of the storm drains and couldn’t get them out. Peter offered his help, which was greatly appreciated by the person, and one by one Peter shot a web down into the drain to pull up each of the presents as carefully as he could.
“Here you go.” Peter said, handing the person the last of the presents that fell.
“Thank you so much Spider-Man, I don’t know how I would’ve gotten them out of there without your help!”
“Of course, happy to help!” Peter waved as he shot a web towards one of the buildings. “Happy holidays!”
As happy as Peter was to help, he knew he was missing a part of retracing his steps. He didn’t help this person the day before and had gone in the complete opposite direction then he was supposed to if he was meant to retrace his steps.
With that in mind Peter swung off in the direction he had gone the day prior where he found the cat. It took him longer to get there than he expected but when he reached the alleyway it was quiet instead of the loud meows he came to yesterday.
Peter searched the alleyway for a few minutes trying to find the cat, but came up empty. Maybe he had just gotten lucky the day before and came across the alley at the perfect time for the cat. With a sigh of defeat, Peter walked out of the alley and found himself walking the same route he went the day prior.
After walking the route for quite some time, Peter came across the spot near where he ran into Santa. As if on cue Peter saw Santa on the sidewalk up ahead and ran to catch up with him.
“Santa!” Peter called out and the man turned around at the sound of Peter calling out to him.
“Merry Christmas Spider-Man!” Santa exclaimed when he saw who was calling out to him.
“You said yesterday that there’s all sorts of magic around this time of year. What did you mean by that?” Peter asked. This was the only conversation of Peter’s day that had seemed at all out of place. Especially with the fact that Santa had brought up the magic, it made Peter wonder if it had something to do with what was happening.
Santa looked at Peter confused. “I’ve definitely never met you before, Spider-Man, I’m sure I would’ve remembered whatever conversation we may have had.”
“We talked yesterday. I had a cat with me, and you asked what I wanted for Christmas, and you said that to me. Then the cat I had ran away and we didn’t get to finish the conversation, but I'm sure we had it.” Peter was somewhat desperate at this point. He knew he probably sounded a little bit crazy, but at this point it was his only chance of figuring out what happened.
“Look Spider-Man,” Santa said, this time talking in a normal voice and not an exaggerated Santa voice. “We definitely didn’t meet yesterday or have any sort of conversation, but you seem to think we did, so maybe you should talk to someone about that man.”
Peter had a defensive response on his tongue but instead let out a sigh. “Sorry about that, I must be remembering wrong.”
“It happens. Get home safe Spidey. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah you too, Merry Christmas.”
Santa turned to walk away and Peter let out a sigh of defeat before he shot a web out towards a nearby building. He didn’t understand what was happening. He was absolutely sure he had that conversation yesterday. He was sure he had all the same conversations yesterday, but nobody seemed to remember them but him. It was as if he was stuck in a time loop. But that also didn’t make any sense because those only existed in movies. At least he was pretty sure they did. Maybe he could ask Tony about it, see if something like it was even a possibility.
Defeated by the conversation he just had with Santa, Peter decided it was best to go back to the tower early. Nothing else had happened the day before for the rest of the time he was out patrolling so there was no harm in going back early. Luckily because he stayed in Manhattan, the tower was relatively close and in no time Peter was swinging up onto the helipad and making his way up to the penthouse where he was sure Tony was likely cooking.
“You’re back early, kid.” Tony greeted when Peter walked into the penthouse.
“Yeah not much going on tonight.” Peter said, walking into the kitchen where Tony was leaning over the stove flipping whatever was in the pan in front of him. “Whatcha cookin’?”
“Crepes.” Tony said, flipping the crepe on top of the growing pile next to him on the counter. “Homemade for the manicotti, not the type of crepes you’re probably thinking of.”
“Need any help?”
“Not when you’re all sweaty and gross from patrol.” Tony joked lightly bumping shoulders with Peter. “Go wash up then maybe I can use some help then.”
“What? So you wouldn’t like it if I did this?”
Peter wrapped his arms around Tony’s middle and laughed as Tony let out an indignant shout and tried to pull away. Peter held on with his strength for a quick moment before letting go.
“That’s gross kid. Go take a shower.”
Tony ushered him out of the kitchen and Peter laughed as he walked away. It wasn’t until Peter made it to his room that he realized he had forgotten to go back to his apartment on patrol to grab the present for Tony. Shit. He had been too caught up in trying to retrace his steps from yesterday that he completely forgot. It was fine at least he still had the hard drive in his backpack. Wait, he did have the hard drive in his bag, right?
Peter was quick to grab and open his backpack that he had tossed onto his bed earlier in the day. He dug through the bag and when everything was strewn across his bed, he let out a defeated sigh and let himself fall face first onto the bed. The drive wasn’t in his bag… all he found were the clothes he packed as well as his book. Somehow in the rush and confusion of the morning not only had he forgotten his original gift for Tony, but he had also forgotten the backup gift.
It was fine. Except it wasn’t. Because he now once again felt like he couldn’t tell Tony that he saw him as a dad. And to be honest with everything going on he had barely thought about that subject the entire day. Maybe he wasn’t meant to tell Tony today. Maybe this was a sign that he shouldn’t tell Tony at all…
With a groan Peter forced himself out of his head and off the bed. Maybe he was overthinking it. Either way at this rate there was no way he was going to tell Tony today.
“You okay there kid?” Tony asked when Peter trudged his way back into the kitchen.
Peter let out an exasperated sigh as he sat down on a barstool at the counter. Despite the fact that he had tried to clear his head while he showered, he still had a list of things he was upset about- starting with how he forgot not one, but both of his presents for Tony and that he still wanted to tell Tony he saw him as a dad but now likely couldn’t as he had no clue how to start that conversation. Plus, he still had no idea what the hell was going on with the day seemingly repeating itself.
“Do time loops actually exist, Mr. Stark?” Peter settled on asking. He didn’t really care if it was an answer to Tony’s question or not.
“Who do you think I am, Jane Foster?” Tony quipped. He stood from placing the pan in the oven and closed the door, turning to see the solemn look on Peter’s face. “I’ve never really had a reason to look into it. Why, is something wrong?”
“No, it’s just been a weird day is all.” Peter said, brushing off the topic and Tony’s concern before mumbling. “And missing Ben today.”
While that was true, it wasn’t really what was wrong, but he knew it would get Tony off his back about the odd question.
Tony sent him a questioning glance while he grabbed his cloth and started wiping down the counters. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Peter thought for a second, wondering if he really should talk about it. He knew realistically he could confide in Tony, but at the same time he wondered if Tony was just asking to be polite. He also wasn’t completely sure he wanted to unpack any of it at the moment, so he shook his head and laid it down on the counter knowing that in itself was an answer enough.
Footsteps softly made their way around the counter before a hand reached out and ghosted over his hair, eventually landing on his shoulder until Peter melted into the touch.
“Come on kiddo, let’s go watch Lucifer, we have to see how Lucifer being arrested ends up working out.”
The hand left his shoulder as Tony moved towards the living room and Peter wished for the comfort to come back. After a moment he stood and followed Tony to the living room plopping himself on the opposite end of the couch. He wanted nothing more than to sit next to his mentor, but there was no way he was going to be able to handle that without a mental breakdown.
“Anything interesting happen during Paw Patrol today?” Tony asked when they finally sat down for dinner.
Peter scoffed mid bite of food. While watching Lucifer, he had managed to get out of his funk a bit. He was still concerned and confused with everything going on, but he didn’t want to let it ruin his mood. So he forced himself to stop worrying about it. Everything would be fine.
“Not really.” Peter answered with a shrug. “Stopped a mugging, helped someone get their presents out of a storm drain, had a disappointing conversation with Santa, pretty average.”
“Average is good though, isn’t it? Keeping the little guy safe and all?”
Peter nodded as he took another bite of food.
“Thank you for cooking. Whose recipe is this? I know WHiH World News says you can’t cook, but this is really good.” He really didn’t want to talk about patrol anymore.
“Haha very funny kid, contrary to popular belief I can cook. My mom taught me before I got shipped off to boarding school. It was tradition to make manicotti every Christmas Eve before the Stark Industries Holiday Jam Fest. It was the one thing my mom and I did together that I enjoyed at Christmas.”
A soft smile crossed Peter’s face as Tony talked. Yesterday Tony had shared that it was a tradition, which he already felt honored to be included in, but now he shared the story behind it and Peter felt even more honored.
“Thanks for sharing it with me, Mr. Stark.
After dinner, despite Tony’s protests, Peter helped clean up. Peter was still a bit down, but was pulled right out of it when Tony took notice of how quiet he was being and had FRIDAY play All I Want For Christmas Is You by Mariah Carey and started obnoxiously singing to which Peter replied by obnoxiously singing back. Kitchen clean up took a bit longer after that but neither of them cared.
The jam session left them breathless with laughter, which didn’t last long for Peter when he remembered what he did the day prior after kitchen clean up.
“Alright kid, what gives?” Tony asked, still catching his breath. “I know you said today has been a weird day, but clearly there’s something more that has been bothering you.”
Peter opened his mouth to answer before closing it again with a sigh. How much did he want to share? He knew that he mentioned forgetting the present, and feeling like he had already lived the day, when he first got to the tower this morning, plus his time loop question before dinner, but he wasn’t sure if he really wanted to go into the whole thinking he was in a time loop thing just yet. Plus, he wasn’t even 100% sure he was in a time loop. For all he knew he would wake up tomorrow and it would be Christmas.
“Remember when I said I forgot something this morning, but I had a backup? Turns out I forgot that as well. I was gonna grab it while on patrol, but I completely forgot. So I’m just frustrated.”
“Well what is it you forgot?” Tony asked. “Is it something we can find here?”
Peter shook his head. “No. It was uh- it was a present for you… for Christmas. I had this whole plan on how I was gonna give it to you, but I- I don’t know.”
Tony’s face softened and he wrapped his arm around Peter’s shoulders pulling him into a side hug. Peter melted at the touch.
“Thank you kiddo, but you know you didn’t have to get me anything, right?”
“I know, but I found some things that I thought you’d like, so I had to get them.”
“How about this kid, we’ll run to your apartment first thing tomorrow and you can grab them, or maybe May can grab them before she heads over this way. That sound good?”
“Yeah, tomorrow.” Peter said, continuing to lean against his mentor.
Since Peter didn’t have either of the gifts today, they didn’t end up going back down to the lab like they did yesterday. Instead they decided to stay in the penthouse to watch Christmas movies. Per Peter’s request they started with Home Alone, followed by Home Alone 2 which they were about halfway through now.
Peter for some reason (for good reason) couldn’t stop looking at the clock. It would be only a minute or two between glances. But now that it was getting closer to midnight, Peter was starting to get tired. It was understandable, he’d had a long and mentally draining day.
As hard as he tried to stay awake, Peter couldn’t keep his eyes open. He probably shouldn’t worry, today was probably a fluke and tomorrow would come. He would wake up to May making coffee while Tony and Pepper tag-teamed breakfast. Everything would be like it should be- normal.
The last thing Peter remembered before his eyes closed for the last time was some whispered words of comfort from his Dad Tony while the man leaned down and brushed a kiss across his forehead.
“Goodnight kiddo.”
Day 3
“Don’t worry, be happy.”
“Fuck.” Peter said, the second he opened his eyes to find he was once again back in his apartment.
He was definitely in a time loop.