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Peter rubbed his hands together and scooted forward in the sand, closer to the bonfire they’d built on the beach. He reached out, his hands flat, and hoped to capture some of the heat radiating from the flames, but he caught a blast of sand to the side of his face instead. He whipped his head around, and up, then narrowed his eyes at Tony.
“Did you just kick sand at me?”
“Yep,” said Tony. “Get any closer to that fire and I’m gonna have to throw water on you too, so you don’t burn to death.”
He leaned back in his beach chair, and his facial features flickered in and out with the crackling flames. The beach got really dark at night. Their fires were their only source of light, besides the lampposts that lighted the wooden path back up to the house, but they were so away from them, and so close to the ocean and it’s rocking, gentle waves, that any light that was provided by the lamps faded out before it reached them.
Peter turned his head back around and faced the fire. He tried to stay where he was, down on the sand and in position to inch closer to the fire when Tony wasn’t looking, but that only lasted a couple of seconds. Another blast of sand pelted him, so he gave up. With a sigh, Peter stood and returned to the empty chair next to Tony.
“I’m cold,” Peter told him. “It’s freezing out here.”
Tony sat up and rummaged around in one of the bags on the ground. Before Peter could blink, a blanket was thrown at him.
“There,” said Tony. “Now you’re warm and you didn’t even have to catch fire to achieve it.”
Peter gave him a glare, and an eye roll, but cuddled up with the blanket, anyway. Tony went back to chatting with Pepper, and Peter returned his stare to the fire, so he wouldn’t have to look at May and Happy on the other side of it. Happy was the reason May didn’t need a blanket to stay warm, and some nights, Peter just wasn’t ready to witness the two of them huddled together.
It was a new normal, though, and Peter knew he’d have to get used to it, eventually.
He allowed a small smile.
Another new normal was nights like this. All of them, around a fire on the beach, with the ocean behind them and stars above them. Nearly perfect nights happened every night. They’d be absolutely perfect if every day didn’t bring them closer to the end of vacation, if all of this could last forever, but Peter knew it couldn’t.
Nothing ever did. Everything died, eventually, and Peter dreaded the day vacation ended and everyone returned to reality. Peter and May would return to theirs in Queens with Happy drifting in and out of their lives. Tony, Pepper and Morgan would go back to the lake house, and Rhodey would go back to doing whatever Rhodey did that kept him busy and away from their lives.
With another glance at the fire, he stood, let his blanket fall to the sand, and told everyone goodnight. It was time for bed, or at least, time for him to pretend to be going to bed.
He trudged through the sand, to the wooden path lit by lamps, and then finally, into the beach house. His bedroom was on the top floor, directly across the hall from Morgan’s. As he walked into his room, he heard her tiny heart beating through the walls.
Peter collapsed on his bed, burrowed under his covers, got out his phone, and waited.
A half hour passed before Peter heard footsteps clunking up the stairs and through the hallways. He dropped his phone, shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep just in time for his bedroom door to creek open. He listened as Tony’s footsteps got closer, until they stopped, and Tony hovered above his bed.
Tony dragged his thumb across Peter’s forehead, swiping the hair off his face, before bending down and pressing a kiss against it. He brought the covers back up to his shoulders, tucked him in, and left the room, leaving Peter listening to his footsteps as he entered Morgan’s room where, probably, he did the same things.
It happened that same way every night.
Peter pretended to be asleep, so he didn’t have to uphold his teenage obligation to complain about being too old to be tucked in and so he didn’t have the opportunity to admit that he couldn’t fall asleep without it, at least not without falling into nightmares instead of falling into dreams.
Sleep came easy, and peaceful, once Tony left his room, and as he drifted off, he tried not to think about how that would disappear, too, once their vacation ended.
*
The next morning Peter’s stomach woke him up. He let it growl at him a couple of times before forcing himself to roll out of his bed and plant his feet on the carpet.
Everyone else had beaten him to breakfast. He found them on the back deck, and the second he stepped on the other side of the sliding glass door, he knew it was one of those mornings he should have stayed asleep, despite the grumblings from his stomach.
“Oh, good, you’re awake,” said Tony. “You’re taking Morgan on a walk.”
“What?”
Morgan’s face lit up, and she jumped off Tony’s lap and ran over to Peter. She grabbed his arm. “We’re going to find more shells for my seashell collection.”
Peter’s eyes flicked up and away from Morgan. He looked at the assortment of juices on the table, the bottle of vodka, and the way Rhodey was already leaned back in his chair, sunglasses on, with a half empty bloody mary in one hand. May and Happy were standing together by the edge of desk, while Tony and Pepper simply sat at the table, with nothing but empty plates in front of them.
Morgan yanked on Peter’s arm and tried to pull him back into the house. “Let’s go nooowww.”
“We’re having a kid free morning,” May explained. She moved away from Happy and towards the pitcher of tomato juice, grabbing an empty glass as she went.
“I’m not a kid,” said Peter. “I’m almost eighteen.”
Tony laughed, then turned to May. “Isn’t that cute? When they think they’re gonna be a grown-up when they turn eighteen?”
“Sure is,” said Rhodey. He looked at Tony. “I remember when you were that age.”
Peter narrowed his eyes at Tony and crossed his arms. “What are you guys going to do? Sit around and morning drink?”
“Yep,” said Tony, without hesitation.
He stood up, walked across the deck, and gave Peter a push. He kept pushing until he was back on the other side of the door, with Morgan still hanging onto his arm.
“Morning drink, and tell stories about our kids,” said Tony, before he slid the glass door shut.
Peter sighed, and his stomach gave a funny growl. Morgan tugged on the bottom on his shirt. “We’re going now?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
He grabbed a granola bar from the kitchen and ate it as they snaked down the curvy, wooden path that led them to the beach. The sun was hung high, and there were no clouds in sight. Another almost perfect day, another day Peter was sure would pass too quickly.
They kicked off their sandals and started their search for pretty shells on the shoreline, where the water could just barely lick their feet. Morgan wanted every shell she saw, and since Peter was the one with big pockets, he became her mule. He didn’t mind it, though. He remembered collecting shells at the beach on Coney Island with his aunt and uncle, and wondered if May was, at that moment, trading stories about Peter’s younger days at the beach for Tony’s stories about Morgan.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw it. A giant shell, sticking up and out from the sand, a few yards away from the shoreline, by some trees. He looked at Morgan, making sure she wasn’t too close to the water, then trekked through the sand to retrieve. He was going to win major points with this find, more than when Tony had found her a sand dollar
And that had been a plant. He’d bought it at the giftshop the day before, threw it on the ground when Morgan wasn’t looking, then proceeded to pretend to find it for the first time in the sand.
But this, this was real.
He picked it up and examined it. A truly specular shell. Real life treasure, at least to Morgan, and when he turned around to show it to her, she was already looking back at him, with the biggest smile stretched across her face.
“Pete?” she asked, then pointed somewhere behind him. “Look!”
Peter followed her finger until his eyes landed on a dog. He was sitting, staring at them, between a few trees. He looked like a golden retriever underneath the dirt and sand that covered his fur. Also, he looked like his and Morgan’s new best friend.
“Let’s rescue him,” said Morgan, reading Peter’s mind. She grabbed Peter’s hand and gave an excited jump. “It’ll be our first superhero team up like daddy and Uncle Rhodey.” She dropped Peter’s hand, then gave an Iron Man prose. “Spidey and Iron Monarch save the dog.”
“Iron Monarch?”
“Mmhmm,” said Morgan. She puffed out her chest. “It’s my made-up name. Iron for dad, Monarch for the insect part, because everyone knows butterflies are better than spiders.”
Peter laughed. “It’s a good name. Let’s go save him, then.”
Morgan nodded, excitedly, and the two of them slowly, thoughtfully, quietly approached the dog. When they were just a few feet away, they stopped, crouched down, and waited for the dog to come to them. He didn’t. Just stared at them.
“Come on,” said Peter. He patted the sand next to them. “Come on, boy.”
“We won’t hurt you,” added Morgan.
The dog stood up at the sound of Morgan’s voice, and trotted over to them, only to lay back down in the sand and let out a whine once he was in front of them.
“What’s wrong with him, is he sick?” asked Morgan, patting his head and messaged his ears.
“I think just hungry,” said Peter. Up close, he could see how thin he was, underneath all that matted fur and dirt and sand. “Let’s take him back to the house. I think there’s some leftover hotdogs in the fridge…. Just, we have to be quiet and very sneaky.”
“So dad doesn’t find out.”
“Right,” said Peter. “And we should give him a name. That way if he does find out, he’ll feel too guilty making us get rid of him, that he’ll let him stay.”
Morgan titled her head and looked at their newest family member. “Iron dog.”
“Very original,” said Peter, with a laugh. “How about Monarch?”
“Yes, that’s it, that’s his name!” Morgan said as if that had always been his name, and Peter happened to guess it right. “Come on, Monarch, let’s go home and eat.”
*
After what felt like an hour of coaxing and backtracking and stopping along the way to get the dog back on track, they managed to get him outside the beach house. The three of them were crouched down behind some bushes, waiting for the perfect moment to get Monarch in the house and up to Peter’s bedroom.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” said Peter. He pulled back a branch from the bushes with one hand, and the other was laid protectively on Monarch’s back. “They’re all probably still on the back deck, so you go and distract them, show them the new shells and all, and I’ll sneak him upstairs to my room.”
Morgan nodded. Determination rang true in her eyes. She was ready for war.
“Then once you’re done showing them, grab the leftovers from the fridge and meet me upstairs.”
“Got it,” said Morgan, with another nod.
She raced off towards the house, and once she disappeared inside, Peter led Monarch inside, too. Getting him upstairs to his bedroom was surprisingly easy, locking him up in his attached bathroom was easier.
Monarch sat down by the door once it was shut and stared at Peter, like he knew.
“Look don’t be mad at me,” Peter told him. He backed up towards the bathtub, knelt in front of it, secured the drain stopped and turned on the facet, leaving his hand under the stream to gauge the temperature as he turned and leveled another look at Monarch. “This is for your own good. There’s no way they’ll let you stay in the house with all that dirt all over you.”
Monarch stared at the running water and attempted to scoot even farther into the door. He whined when it was impossible, stood up, and began to scratch at it, instead.
“It’s not that bad,” said Peter. He flicked some water at Monarch. “See?”
He stopped scratching, sat down, stuck his head straight up into the air and howled.
“No, no, no, no, no,” said Peter. His words were a fast and panicked whisper. He dove away from the tub and knelt in front of Monarch instead, placing his both hands on the dog. “Shhhh you have to be quiet.”
Monarch stopped howling, but it was too late. Peter heard footsteps making their way up to his room. He tugged on Monarch, pulling him forward and away from the door, just in time for it to pop open.
It was just Morgan, holding a glass container of last night’s hot dogs and wearing a red cape along with a paper superhero mask that was held together by rubber bands. She shut the door behind her. She threw two hot dogs on the floor for Monarch.
“Whoa,” said Morgan, as they both watch him absolutely devour the food. “He was hungry.”
Peter looked at the tub, slowly filling with water, then back at the glass container of hot dogs Morgan held. He rolled up the legs of his jeans, stepped inside the lukewarm water, and asked Morgan to hand him the food.
He took one of the hotdogs and held it up for Monarch to see. He sat down and stared at the food intently.
“Come on boy,” said Peter. “Just come in here and you have all the food you want.”
Monarch didn’t move. He barked.
“No, no, no, no barking.”
He barked again, louder that time, and without much warning, jumped into the bathtub at Peter. The shock and the weight of him knocked Peter backward, causing him to slip on the slope of the tub and fell completely into the water. The leftovers fell with Peter, emptying out into the bath water, and Monarch burrowed his head under the water, trying to find them all.
Morgan shrieked with laughter that died down quickly as the door to the bathroom flew open. Peter panicked, fully expecting to see Tony walk into the room, but it was worse. It was Pepper.
The room went dead silent as Pepper surveyed the room. Her eyes went to Peter, sitting in the bathtub with a stray dog, to Morgan, smiling unapologetically and dressed as a superhero, to the water all over the floor, then finally, to Monarch, as he splashed around in the tub, occasionally lifting his head from the water just long enough to chop down a hotdog he’d found.
“Tony,” Pepper shouted, as she turned on her heel and left the room. “Come get your kids!”
Tony appeared mere seconds later, took out his phone, and snapped a picture of all three of them. “That’s getting hung up in the living room.”
Peter groaned, and Monarch barked, and Morgan gave another Iron Man pose for Tony’s camera. He kept snapping away, taking more and more pictures, as if he were trying to make the moment last forever.
*
A breeze hit Peter’s face. He stood on the deck and watched as Happy and Rhodey played fetch with Monarch. Morgan ran along side of him, sometimes taking the frisbee for herself, sometimes playing tug-of-war with him for it. Behind them, the sun was lower in the sky, and soon it would be gone.
The end to another perfect day, and a couple of steps closer to the end of vacation.
He turned when he heard the glass door slide against the track, but quickly turned back around when he saw it was Tony, wearing a smirk. The same one he’d been wearing as he snapped a million pictures of the Monarch Bath Time Disaster.
“Did you actually think your chances of keeping him were better if he were clean?” asked Tony. He joined him at the end of the deck, where Peter rested his forearms on the handrail.
“I thought it was worth a shot.”
He looked at Tony. He was his only chance at keeping Monarch. His and May’s apartment building had an expensive fee for keeping a dog. It had to be Tony, and Peter wasn’t about to give up.
“I had to bring him back here.”
“Oh, you had to?”
“Yeah. He was out there all alone and he was hungry, and I just started thinking about how he probably got snapped and his family just moved on and forgot all about him, so when he came back, he was all alone.”
“Don’t do that,” said Tony, wagging a finger at him.
“Do what?”
Tony narrowed his eyes at him and leaned against the railing. “Give this dog a backstory that makes me feel sorry for it.”
“Him,” corrected Peter. “His name is Monarch.”
Tony didn’t say anything. Just looked at him with a blank, unreadable expression.
“Please can we keep him?” asked Peter. He wasn’t above resorting to begging, not for a dog. “I can help take care of him. It’ll give me an excuse to come over."
Tony frowned, straightened up and turned his body so his feet pointed towards Peter. “You don’t need an excuse to come over. When are you gonna realize that you’re my kid, too, huh? What’s it gonna take?”
Another breeze ruffled through Peter’s hair. He opened his mouth, shut it, then opened it again, settled with telling the truth.
“I just – I’m just worried that once we go back home,” he said, gesturing to Happy, Rhodey, Morgan and Monarch down below, then at Tony and himself. “All this goes away. You know, May and I will go back to Queens, you guys will go back to the lake house- “
“-We’re not,” said Tony. “I mean, we’re keeping the lake house as a holiday getaway, but we’re moving back to New York.”
“You are?”
“Yep. Morgan’s gonna be starting school soon, and I’m serious, Peter. You’re my son. The lake house is too far away.” Tony put a hand on his shoulder, and directed him to the table, where they both took a seat. “May and I were talking today, and we worked out a schedule.”
“A what?”
“You know like every other weekend you’ll be at my place,” said Tony. “And I get Wednesday dinners.”
That sounded like joint custody, or co-parenting, at the very least. It was weight off his shoulders, and it took away some of the dread of vacation ending. Just some. They would still have to leave behind the sun and the beach and the zero responsibility.
“Holidays we all spend together,” said Tony. “Just like this.”
Peter released a breath and gave Tony a smile. “That sounds great.”
“Good,” said Tony. He clapped his shoulders again, “So we’re squared away, now? No more of this making up excuses to come over bullshit you just said?”
Peter stood up and walked back over to the ledge to watch Monarch run around some more, then looked back at Tony. He broke out into a grin. “I know what it’s going to take.”
From Tony’s expression, Peter could tell he knew exactly what he was thinking.
“That’s emotional blackmail.”
He shrugged, “Learned from the best.”
“Fine,” said Tony, joining Peter, again, by the ledge. “We’ll keep the dog.”
“Yes,” said Peter. He tackled him with a hug and burrowed his face into his chest. “Thanks, Tony.”
Tony hugged him tighter. Hugs like that, from Tony, always reminded Peter of being on the battlefield. His hugs were peace in the middle of destructive and chaos. When Tony finally let him go, he backed away, and towards the door
“You smell like wet dog,” he told him, before he disappeared into the house. “Go take a shower.”
Peter frowned, sniffed his own shirt, and crinkled his face. He went directly to his bathroom, and after cleaning out all the dog hairs, washed the stink off him.
That night, when Tony wondered into Peter’s room to tuck him in, he was pretending to be asleep between Morgan and Monarch. He felt Tony kiss his forehead, he heard Tony kiss Morgan’s, and then, he heard a third kiss, from his other side. He’d given Monarch a goodnight kiss, too.
“Well buddy,” Peter whispered, once Tony was gone and down the hall. “I guess you’ve officially been adopted.”
Monarch, for once, didn’t give him an answer. He slept peacefully. Peter gave his ears a massage, then shut his eyes. Sleep came easy.