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"Kid, if you're gonna follow me, you gotta keep up," Happy called over his shoulder to Peter, who had strayed to scoop a canapé from a passing hors d'oeuvre tray as they weaved through the crowd along the edge of the room. He had lost track of when Peter’s name had become a permanent fixture on the guest list of most of Tony's big events, but somewhere along the endless line of industry networking mixers and post-conference dinners and charity benefits, he'd grown used to the kid appearing in the thick of things. When he wasn’t caught up in Tony’s orbit, all starry-eyed and stuttery as he shook hands and dutifully answered questions about colleges and internship projects, or hovering near wherever the food happened to be, he was usually trailing along in Happy’s wake. By now, it felt almost normal for Happy to take the shadow on his periphery into account as he walked the perimeter or stood on the fringes of the party to keep an eye out for any problems before they arose. Almost as routine as the events themselves were after a couple decades of stifling suits and simpering people.
The kid himself, on the other hand, seemed nearly as much a fish out of water now as he had been the first time he’d shown up in the suit he wore to his school dances and a clumsily-knotted tie that Tony had immediately insisted on retying himself, his mouth twitching in fond amusement all the while. Peter was not a smooth talker like Tony. Not a schmoozer or a businessman and definitely not comfortable rubbing elbows with a roomful of people who’d been in the game longer than he’d been alive. Happy might’ve worried about it, had Peter’s most frequent solution not been to attach himself to either Tony or Happy for the evening and stay there (despite any of Happy’s early attempts to shake him off).
Frankly, Happy couldn't blame him for sticking close to a familiar face. These things were intimidating enough when you did know what you were doing, let alone when you were still too young to drink any of the free alcohol that made the events tolerable for everyone who wasn't actively working them. The only problem being that Happy was one of those people who had to work rather than mingle. And perhaps babysitting the kid did count as one of Happy's many responsibilities, but that didn't mean he could neglect the rest of them.
"Kid?" Happy shot a sharp glance over his shoulder when Peter didn't immediately respond and froze when he realized that the kid had stopped dead in his tracks to peer out the window to their left. Happy strode back to join him, but no amount of squinting showed him anything but darkness and the faint shadow of the ornamental trees and carefully trimmed bushes that bordered the rented hotel's perimeter. Peter, on the other hand, narrowed his eyes.
"There's a dude squatting in the bushes out there," he muttered, his voice soft enough to fend off any eavesdroppers and his face thoroughly bewildered.
"In the bushes?" Happy’s brow furrowed. He tamped down the sarcastic urge to ask the kid if he needed to borrow his glasses. Or if he’d been dipping into the adult beverages that Happy himself had given him the “I’m-watching-you-so-don’t-even-think-about-it” lecture about when he first started coming to these gigs. Granted, he’d seen some strange behavior at parties over the years—a solid half of it from his own boss—but skulking around in bushes wasn’t exactly typical. Particularly when Happy could see no evidence that anyone was actually doing that. “How do you know? I don’t see—"
"He’s literally just on the other side of that window!" Peter tapped a finger against his earlobe, a faintly annoyed edge creeping into his tone at Happy’s skepticism. "Heartbeat's loud, like he’s nervous or something."
“His heartbeat.” Happy repeated, brows rising into his hairline. “You can…you can hear that?”
He’d known the kid had some freaky abilities hiding under the floppy hair and goofy grins, but he never bothered to ask for a list. That wasn’t his job. So long as Peter stayed in one piece, kept up with his patrol reports, and turned up for his internship days on time, Happy didn’t really need to know the specifics of what else he could do. He knew Tony knew, but that was…different. Tony was the mentor and Happy was the babysitter, and if Peter chose to tell him what his newest party trick was, fine, and if he didn’t, then Happy wasn’t going to pry about it.
Under normal circumstances, anyway. If the kid was spotting threats before they even crossed Happy’s radar, well…that changed things a little.
“Dude.” Peter gave him a long-suffering sigh that implied it wasn’t the first time he’d been interrogated about his powers and that he didn’t particularly appreciate it, but was resigned to the explanation anyway. “I can hear like…almost anything.”
“Huh.” Happy filed that away to be unpacked later and shifted his focus to the matter at hand. If there was in fact someone outside (and if Peter said there was, with his abilities to back it up, there likely was—the kid was a lot of things, but unreliable wasn’t one of them), it certainly warranted his attention. There were any number of nefarious reasons why someone would crouch in the dark outside a billionaire superhero's party…but one in particular stood out in Happy's mind.
"You hear anything else?"
Peter cocked his head contemplatively for a few seconds. "Yeah, actually. Like a…like a clicking noise every couple of—"
That settled it. Happy scowled and stalked across the gap to the window in question. He raised a fist and pounded it, bellowing a sharp exclamation that (thankfully, for the dignity of the event) didn't quite rise above the noise of the event hall. There was a muffled yelp on the other side of the glass and a familiar man tumbled out of the shrubbery and onto the sidewalk that ran alongside the window, clutching a camera far too fancy to belong to an amateur to his chest as he scuttled away.
"Burt!” Happy smacked the glass again for emphasis, though he doubted the sound would reach his nemesis at the rate the man was fleeing. He’d been shooing that idiot out of Stark events for years, and the man seemed to run a little faster every time. “You're on private property, Burt!"
There were, Happy had learned a long time ago, certain advantages to not being famous. Being able to walk down the street without getting flagged down for autographs and selfies was a big one. So was going out to lunch without having to dodge gushy fans or duck out back entrances to avoid the crowds. And so was being able to host an event—any event, apparently—without having to chase the paparazzi from behind every bush, tree, or architectural feature they could conceivably hide behind. No matter how carefully he vetted the event space or how many security people he staffed the place with, they always found a way to slip through.
Peter, who had jumped almost as hard as the paparazzo, materialized at Happy’s elbow to crane around him for a final glimpse. “Who’s Burt? Is he dangerous?” His voice dropped to a stage-whisper. “Do I need to get my other suit?”
“No,” Happy snapped hastily, looking askance at Peter as he contemplated exactly how strange his life had become. “Why do you even have your other suit here?”
“Just…because.” Peter shrugged, unrepentant. “You never know when stuff’s gonna happen.”
“Hmmph.” Happy made a mental note to keep a closer eye on what the kid smuggled in with him when he arrived. He’d never noticed any stowed-away super-suits, but then he hadn’t exactly been looking for them, either. Still, he supposed he couldn’t blame Peter for bringing it with him (although he’d be damned before he let the kid actually use it at one of their events—there would be no spider-shenanigans or intern endangerment under his watch, thank you very much). He imagined even the idea of having it close was a decent distraction from the monotony of meeting shareholders and department heads and philanthropists.
It struck him then that perhaps that wasn’t the only option available for distraction.
“Hey, Peter,” Happy said slowly, mulling the idea over for any potential ways it could backfire. The more he thought about it, the more like a sound plan it seemed. It gave the kid a breather from trying desperately to be professional despite being roughly as businesslike as a golden retriever, it gave Happy something to do with said golden retriever that didn’t involve letting him fall into any prospective mischief, and—if they were lucky—it might even make Happy’s real job a little easier. “You think you could do that again?”
“Do what again?”
“Spot somebody who’s not supposed to be here—” Happy flapped a hand in a poor effort to describe Peter’s apparent super senses. “—with the heartbeats and everything. If there was anyone else hiding out around here with a camera, would you be able to sniff ‘em out?”
Peter’s face lit up, a slow grin unfurling as he considered the idea of masquerading as a paparazzi detector. “Yeah—yeah, I could totally do that!”
“Good.” Happy cracked a half-smile and clapped Peter on the shoulder, already steering him to walk the length of the room. This might, he mused with a hint of satisfaction, even result in some fun for him while they were at it. If all the camerapeople they encountered jumped as hard as Burt had, it would definitely be fun. “In that case, I think we’ve got some work to do.”
“Hey, Happy?” Peter let himself be propelled along, his face already beginning to settle into solemn focus…apart from his eyes, which sparked with a hint of mischief as he shot Happy a final smirk. “Does this make me part of the security team?”
“No.”
Peter cackled, and Happy rolled his eyes as they forged through the crowd on the hunt for more gatecrashers and shutterbugs. He had the feeling that neither he, nor the kid would ever be fans of the fancy dinner circuit. But—as he was learning—that kid had a way of putting a bright spot in whatever he did. Even Happy could appreciate that.