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Peter knocks twice on Tony’s half-open office door. He steels himself with a breath before calling in a slightly wavering voice, “Uh, hey, Mr. Stark?”
Tony doesn’t look up from the massive stack of paperwork that he’s steadily working his way through, signing each document in turn. “Yeah?”
“Well…” Peter takes another shaky breath as he pushes the door further open and steps into the room. “I might have a problem.”
Tony heaves out a sigh. “If this is about the shortage of orange crêpe paper at Halloween City again, I don’t have time to—” He cuts himself off, his eyes going comically wide the moment he finally glances up at Peter. “Holy shit!” He jumps up from the desk so suddenly that his chair goes sailing backwards as he lurches across the room. “What the hell happened?!”
“Had a little crafting accident,” Peter says, doing his best to keep his face straight. He gestures to the scissors, which currently appear to be plunged into his right eye. Blood is dripping down his face in rivulets. “I tripped.”
Tony stares at him in shock. “FRIDAY, alert Medical!” he orders. “Get a surgeon—get a specialist! Get, I dunno, Strange! Just anyone! Jesus Christ...”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to bother anyone,” Peter says nonchalantly. He reaches for the handle of the scissors. “I’ll just pull them out myself.”
“NO!” Tony yelps. “Don’t tou—!”
But Peter’s already ripped the scissors out, taking the blood-soaked false eyelid he’s created from liquid latex and a cotton pad with them. “Whoops.”
Tony’s expression quickly cycles between absolute horror, to utter confusion, before landing on a scowl as he seems to finally register he’s been played. “Peter,” he says icily, “you’re dead to me.”
A grin spreads across Peter’s face. “Actually, I’m perfectly fine, Mr. Stark.”
“Dead.” Tony points a finger sternly at the door. “Get out.”
Peter throws him a mock salute as he spins on his heel. “Yes sir, have a good day sir!” he calls over his shoulder as he races back to his own room.
X
Ever since Tony agreed to let him host Halloween at the compound, Peter’s been planning for the event non-stop. He’s stocked up on fake blood—scattering crimson handprints and creepy messages all over the common room windows—and bought a full-size vampire coffin, a couple sets of metal chains, six replica tombstones, and an actual fog machine.
(Mr. Stark now regrets letting Peter borrow his credit card after opening the broom closet to reveal two lifesize skeletons.)
The party is scheduled for that evening, but yesterday was a teacher’s in-service day at Midtown, so Peter’s been staying at the compound since the previous evening while May attends her cousin Gary’s wedding in Oregon. He’s spent the last day and a half assembling decorations, gathering supplies, and watching countless gory make-up tutorial videos on YouTube, the latter of which he’s been testing out at every opportunity. Just last night, he fooled Steve with a fake bullet wound to the point that the wide-eyed super soldier was in the process of turning his own belt into a tourniquet before Peter admitted it was just make-up.
(He can’t help himself; the team is remarkably gullible.)
Unfortunately, Hulk put a damper on the weekend’s festivities by going rogue during a mission Thursday morning and destroying a local mannequin factory. Hundreds of plastic body parts were found littering the streets—the enraged green giant standing in their midst—leaving the Avengers with a PR nightmare.
This would be bad enough, but the owner of that factory turned out to be a man by the name of Karl Jenkins—a fellow billionaire and longtime rival of Tony Stark, ever since the two of them attended boarding school together in sixth grade. Jenkins sued SHIELD, and now the entire team is working their way through mountains of tedious paperwork, leaving very little time for spooky celebrations.
(The silver lining is that Peter managed to procure a selection of destroyed mannequin parts, which he has covered in fake blood to resemble severed limbs. It’s pretty epic, if he does say so himself.)
The morning of the party, Peter is standing on a chair in the common room, struggling to attach some orange and black garland to the light fixture, when Bruce walks through with an empty tea mug.
“Oh, hey perfect timing,” Peter greets. He nods his head toward the end of the garland string. “Can you just grab that and tape it to the wall over there?”
Bruce sighs lightly; the doctor has been pretty down ever since the incident, even though everyone keeps reminding him at least Hulk didn’t hurt any real people this time. “Yeah, sure.” He picks up the garland and stretches it to the indicated wall.
Part of Peter wants to ask Bruce how he’s holding up, but the answer is fairly obvious. Bruce always takes it pretty hard when his alter ego causes unintended destruction, regardless of the level of damage. Instead, Peter settles for asking, “What have you been up to this morning?”
Bruce shrugs. “Oh, you know…” He tapes the garland in place. “The rest of the team thought all the paperwork would stress me out, so they told me to just relax in my room.” He sighs. “Except it’s a little hard to relax when all of your friends are busy cleaning up your mess…” he trails off, then clears his throat awkwardly. “But, anyway. Not much.”
Peter feels bad for the scientist. Then an idea hits him. Originally, Happy was going to help him with the cooking and decorating (his years of Eagle Scout training have made him surprisingly adept in the kitchen), but ever since his sister slipped and shattered her elbow earlier that week, he’s been on uncle duty in Chicago for his twin three-year-old nephews (godspeed). Peter could use a hand.
“Actually,” Peter begins, jumping down from the chair he’s been standing on, “if you’re not too busy, maybe you can help me with something. I’ve been working on this new web fluid formula to use for decorations. It’s not so sticky and it doesn’t dissolve after two hours, because, you know”—he gives a small laugh—“that would be sad.”
Bruce nods thoughtfully and Peter swears he can see the gears in the scientist’s brain starting to turn as he mulls it over. “So, an aesthetic formula, not a functional one.”
Peter grins. “Exactly. I’ve got some prototypes in my backpack...” He inclines his head in the direction of the bag leaning against the sofa. “I can show you if you’d like?”
Bruce smiles a bit. “That sounds fun, Peter. Let’s bring it down to my lab.”
X
After perfecting the new web formula and dispensing it around the compound (Peter loaned Bruce one of his web-shooters, and as a result got to see the doctor grin for the first time that weekend), the two go on to distribute the rest of Peter’s decorations until the compound resembles a cross between a B-rated horror film and a dentist’s office in October.
Once the decorations are complete, Bruce sticks around to assist with food preparation for the first hour. They successfully apply their chemistry skills to a few Pinterest ‘spooky baking’ recipes to create Oreo bat-shaped cupcakes and a brownie graveyard scene. That’s when Steve arrives to drag the doctor away for a meeting with the Avengers PR representatives, leaving Peter alone to do the rest.
And as it turns out, baking is one thing. Cooking is another.
Peter soon comes to realize that his menu might be a little too ambitious. He’s attempting to juggle six dishes—from ghostly mashed potato mounds, to mummy-wrapped sausage rolls—and the stress is starting to take its toll as the time ticks away. Maybe he should have just stuck to the decorations and ordered pizza (like Tony suggested in the first place), but he really wanted to make this day special.
By five o’clock, he’s frantically chopping onions for the toenails on his severed foot-shaped meatloaf, regretting everything. The more he looks at the decorations, the stupider they appear. Half the food isn’t even cooked yet, and he had planned to be done already so as to spend the last hour focusing on his zombie costume make-up.
“FRIDAY, is anyone free to help?” Peter asks wearily, still chopping away.
“The entire team is currently on a conference call with a group of lawyers from SHIELD,” FRIDAY supplies. “Would you like me to send a message through?”
Peter’s spidey senses ping at him and he whirls around just in time to see the pot of potatoes boil over. “Uh…” He turns off the stove. He probably does need assistance if he’s ever going to finish setting up for this evening, but he’d hate to disturb the team in the midst of their crisis. “No, I guess it’s alright. It’s just, uh”—he grabs a towel to start mopping boiling liquid from the stove’s surface—“that they kinda said they would be here to help, so… I was sorta planning on that.”
“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” FRIDAY offers. “Do you have a specific question I can research for you?”
“Yeah, how to grow six more arms...” Peter mutters irritably. He smells something burning and quickly opens the oven to rescue his over-baked Candy-Corn Cornbread and set it on the counter.
“Understood. Pulling up articles related to radioactivity and toxic waste,” FRIDAY informs helpfully.
Peter groans. He pulls off his oven mitts and picks the knife back up to resume his onion chopping. “That’s alright, FRI. I got this.”
The bacon he’s frying to decorate the footloaf is sizzling, flinging grease splatters all around the kitchen. He still has two dozen more undecorated cupcakes to frost, and he hasn’t even started on the jello eyeballs to float in the blood punchbowl.
Peter sighs. Actually, I don’t got this.
“They said they would help, FRI,” Peter complains. “Like, I get it—I really do. It’s not every day that Dr. Banner takes out a mannequin factory and Mr. Stark’s childhood rival sues a government organization. I get it, it’s fine.” He grabs another onion from the pile. “It’s just like, of all the days this could have happened, why did it have to be right before Halloween?” His chopping speeds up as his rant builds. “Thanksgiving? Fine—who likes turkey anyway? Not me. Christmas? Mr. Stark caters.” He grabs the next piece of onion. “But this was the one holiday I really wanted to do and of course it has to be when—”
The knife comes down...
...taking off Peter’s finger with it.
At first, he’s more confused than anything. He feels the change in resistance as the blade slices through flesh and bone rather than onion layers, but it takes a second for the pain to register and the blood to start flowing. Then the panic sets in.
“Oh my god!” Peter gasps. He drops the bloody knife onto the cutting board and stares in horror at his hand. His whole left index finger has been severed, right between the second and third knuckles. “Oh god, oh god…”
His head is swimming. “Uh… F-FRIDAY?” he asks nervously. “H-How’s that meeting going?” He lifts his hand—now streaming blood—and clutches it to his chest. When he touches the bone, he half-gags. “W-Will they be done soon?”
“They are currently in the midst of a heated discussion, I am afraid,” she replies. “Do you require assistance?”
“Uh…” His breathing speeding up, Peter continues to stare at the detached finger on the wooden cutting board. The Spider-Man themed band-aids Tony ironically stocks in the bathroom cabinets are definitely not gonna cut it. “Y-Yeah,” he says shakily. “Can you, uh… can you get Mr. Stark? Tell him I have... a small issue.”
There’s a pause as FRIDAY presumably relays this information. Peter uses this moment to step backwards from the counter and grab a dish towel to press to his pulsing finger stump.
“Boss says that if this issue is related to his inability to provide a ‘warty enough pumpkin’, you are to ‘suck it up, kid’,” FRIDAY reports.
“No, nope, not that, uh…” He doesn’t want to outright state the problem, for fear that half a dozen alarmed Avengers will suddenly come storming in. “Just… maybe tell him it’s kind of important? And he should hurry?”
“Sure thing,” FRIDAY agrees.
Peter leans heavily against the edge of the counter, his head spinning and vision going fuzzy. “Uh, FRI?”
“Boss is on his way,” she informs.
“Oh good, good…” Peter breathes out. As the initial shock wears off, the pain is really starting to set in. He squeezes his eyes shut and leans forward, his arm stretched out on top of the counter as he rests his head in the crook of his elbow, still applying pressure to his finger with the other hand. It feels like an eternity before he hears footsteps on the tile.
“Alright, what’s the crisis now? Did you—” Both Tony’s voice and footsteps stop abruptly. His tone goes flat. “Ha ha. Very funny, kid.”
Peter lifts his head dizzily from the countertop and blinks up at his mentor. Tony is standing just inside the kitchen’s threshold, arms crossed over his chest, looking very unamused. “What’s this supposed to be?” Tony asks in a deadpan.
“I-I cut my finger,” Peter stammers. “Um, kinda really bad?” He nods his head in the direction of the severed digit on the cutting board. “Like… it’s completely off?”
Somehow saying the words out loud makes the situation more real. A fresh wave of horror, pain, and fear rushes over Peter and he’s trembling now. He thinks he might be sick.
Tony only rolls his eyes. “You can’t pull the same prank twice in one day and expect me to fall for it again.”
“Wh-What?” Peter asks, confused. “Th-This isn’t a prank. I really cut my finger off,” he insists, then swallows hard.
Tony sighs deeply and crosses the kitchen toward him. “You know, I think this morning’s performance was better,” he declares. “This time you might be overdoing it. For instance”—he points his finger at Peter’s face and draws a lazy circle in the air—“the paleness. It’s overkill. What is that, flour? Make-up? You look like Casper.”
Peter’s ears are ringing. “I think I need to sit…” He leans his back against the refrigerator and slides down until he’s sitting on the floor, his knees bent up to his chest.
“Wow, kid.” Tony starts doing a slow clap, his face still totally straight. “This is some Oscar-worthy material here. Have you considered a career in Hollywood?”
It’s really cold all of a sudden. Black spots dance before Peter’s eyes. “I… I don’t... feel so good.”
“Are you about done?” Tony says. “Because if you hadn’t noticed, we’re a little busy today.”
“Tony? What’s the hold up?” Nat’s voice interrupts. As she steps over the kitchen threshold, her gaze immediately falls to Peter. Through his blurred vision, Peter is able to make out her eyebrows raising. “What happened here?” she asks evenly.
“Kid’s pulling another prank,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “Got a fake finger and everything—probably from one of those goddamn mannequin arms.” He points to Peter’s severed finger on the cutting board. “What, did you use like a whole pint of fake blood?”
Nat’s expression changes, growing much more alert as she quickly crosses the kitchen floor and squats down beside Peter. Taking his limp left hand in hers, she carefully peels back the towel enough to see the stump, causing her eyes to widen. She quickly reapplies pressure. “This isn’t fake, Tony,” she mutters.
Nat is squeezing Peter’s hand now. It hurts, but he doesn’t have the energy to react more than a small moan. He’s awfully tired all of a sudden.
“Don’t tell me he’s got you in on this too,” Tony grumbles. “I swear to god, Pete…”
Peter lets his eyes shut. Just a quick nap would be lovely.
“Tony,” Nat’s voice goes on, firmer now. “Just take a whiff. Does fake blood smell like iron?”
There’s a short pause. Peter feels very light, like he might just float away. Strangely, he doesn’t really care.
When Tony speaks again, his voice sounds almost like Peter’s underwater. “Oh fuck...”
That’s the last thing Peter hears before everything goes black.
X
“...think he’s coming around now…”
Peter’s eyelids feel very heavy. Slowly, he struggles to blink them open, finding himself lying on a bed in a brightly lit room. Tony is sitting in the chair beside him, a relieved look on his face. There’s the steady beep of a heart monitor, as well as the strangely cold sensation of fluids running into Peter’s arm through IV lines.
“Hey kid,” Tony greets. “How are you feeling?”
“Uh…” Groggily, Peter blinks a few more times before lowering his gaze down to the bed. His left arm is propped up on a pillow, his hand thoroughly bandaged. “Wha’ happened?”
Tony winces. “The surgeon just reattached your finger. You’ve been out a couple hours.”
“Hours?” Suddenly feeling much more awake, Peter struggles to sit up, everything flooding back to him now. “But, but the party, Mr. Stark!”
“Hey, calm down, kid,” Tony scoffs, lightly pressing Peter’s chest back to the mattress. “You just passed out in a pool of your own blood and then had emergency surgery. I think Halloween can wait a while.”
“But Mr. Stark,” Peter protests, his face falling. “I… I really wanted this to be special. I tried so hard.”
Tony gives a small smile. “I know, bud. And that was really nice of you. Just maybe not the best timing.”
Peter sighs deeply. “I knew I should have just canceled after the mannequin crisis. But… I guess Halloween was just always such a fun holiday, you know?” He bites his lower lip. “So I thought… I dunno, that still having the party might cheer you guys up or something?” He sighs again. “But I guess that was stupid. You aren’t kids. You don’t need jack-o-lanterns and severed footloaf.”
A look of guilt comes over Tony’s features, but it quickly fades again, replaced by a rather forced-looking smile. “You’ve lost quite a bit of blood, so how about you just get some more rest and finish off that IV while I take care of a few things, okay?”
“Yeah... okay,” Peter breathes out. He is still exhausted—the combination of pain meds and blood loss haven’t left him with much energy. His eyelids grow heavy again. “Sounds good…”
X
The next time Peter wakes, he startles a bit upon seeing Tony once again standing over him. But this time, the engineer is dressed in a suit with a red velvet waistcoat, a high-collared black cape held in front of him. His hair is gelled back and he’s wearing black eyeliner. He grins smugly, displaying his fangs.
“Good evening, Peter,” Tony says in a deep, put-on Romanian accent. He nods downward, and Peter follows his gaze to see a wheelchair is sitting beside the bed. “I have come to ‘visk you avay.”
Peter blinks twice at him. “Uh… what?”
Tony breaks character, his voice returning to normal. “That is, if you’re feeling up for it. You’re not in too much pain, are you?” he asks worriedly. “I told the docs to give you the good stuff.”
“No, no I’m okay,” Peter assures. The pain in his finger is a steady throb, but it’s not too bad, and he’s feeling much more with it after the nap. “Um, where are we going?”
With a smirk, Tony puts back on the accent. “You shall soon see…”
Peter grins. He sits up and transfers himself into the wheelchair (he’s wearing pajamas now, which he definitely doesn’t remember putting on, but… c'est la vie ). Tony helps maneuver Peter’s left arm into a sling to keep it elevated before starting to wheel him out of the Medical wing.
As they exit the elevator and head down the corridor, Peter frowns. He’s starting to hear spooky music playing, along with scattered laughter from the team. “What is this?” he asks, craning his neck around to look up at Tony.
“Patience, dear boy,” Tony replies in his deep accent, a smile on his lips.
They turn the final corner to the common area, and Peter gives a quiet gasp at the sight.
Every decoration Peter ordered—as well as quite a few he didn’t—are now neatly hung. The homemade webs are covered in small plastic spiders, there’s twice as much garland, the aroma of delicious food is all around, and warty pumpkins abound.
Rhodey—dressed as a very convincing Terminator—is carving a jack-o-lantern at the table next to Thor, who is wearing a classic sheet ghost costume.
“I do not understand this traditional Midgardian garment of yours,” Thor is complaining to the colonel as they approach, tugging at his sheet to better align his eyes with the cut-out holes. “I can hardly see this massive gourd, let alone properly sculpt it.” He rotates the pumpkin around, displaying a near-perfect likeness of the wolf Fenris’ head.
Rhodey rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, Michelangelo. It’s clearly cramping your style.” He shakes his head slowly and gives Peter a wave as Tony drives him by.
At the food table, Bruce has on an authentic Scottish kilt and is holding bagpipes as he unwraps a bat cupcake. “Hi Peter,” he greets kindly. “How’s your finger?”
Peter raises his bandaged hand from the sling a bit. “It’s back on!”
Bruce chuckles a bit. “Glad to hear it.”
Steve walks over, eating a mummy-dog covered in ketchup. “Hey champ,” he greets. “It’s a really nice party you arranged.”
“Oh, thanks,” Peter answers in a daze as he takes in the soldier’s costume—a more colorful version of Pennywise, probably from the original 1990’s film. It’s definitely not something he would have imagined Steve would pick.
Tony looks equally surprised at Steve’s choice of outfit. “Wow, Capsicle. Can’t say I expected you to go full-on creep.”
Steve’s brow furrows in confusion. “What are you talking about? I just asked FRIDAY to order me a nice clown costume.” There’s a beat. He looks uncertain. “People still like clowns, right?”
“Oh yeah, yeah definitely,” Peter quickly assures, plastering on a smile. He gives a thumbs up with his good hand. Clowns must have had a different vibe in the 30s. “You look awesome!”
Steve relaxes at that. “Ah good. Okay.” From his pocket, he produces a deflated red balloon. “I can make animals!” he says brightly, raising it to his lips.
“That’s nice, Rogers.” With a small shudder, Tony quickly wheels Peter away toward the punch bowl—complete with floating jello eyeballs. But upon seeing Clint standing beside it, Tony scowls.
The archer is grinning from ear to ear, completely decked out in what appears to be one of Tony’s pinstripe suits. He’s drawn Tony’s iconic facial hair on with make-up and is wearing a pair of colored sunglasses, along with a replica Iron Man gauntlet on his right hand. His stance radiates confidence and Peter can’t help but grin back.
“Wow,” is all Peter can say.
“This is going to haunt my nightmares,” Tony grumbles, sharply turning the wheelchair in the other direction.
Pepper and Nat are chatting by the bar. Pepper is wearing a slim-fitting three-piece tweed suit and deerstalker hat, a pipe sticking out of the corner of her mouth. She’s in the process of drawing eyeliner cat whiskers on Nat’s cheeks. The assassin is simply dressed in her Black Widow tactical suit, but with the addition of cat ears.
(Sam is dressed as a gigantic M&M. He looks a bit drunk.)
“What do you think, kid?” Tony asks, then coughs. “I mean, are you enjoying the festivities, child?” he says in the Romanian accent.
“It’s… amazing,” Peter says in awe. “I don’t even know what to say.” He looks down at his SpongeBob pajama pants. “I feel underdressed.”
“Gotcha covered,” Tony says. He moves around the chair to stand in front of Peter before producing a red-horned headband from under his cape. “This is for being a devil child,” he announces as he sticks it on Peter’s head.
Peter grins. “May hand-sewed me a whole devil costume one year when I was seven. Tail and pitchfork and everything.”
“Aw, shit...” Tony mutters, smacking a hand to his own head. “I totally forgot to tell your aunt you just had surgery.” He heaves out a sigh. “Fuck.”
Peter laughs lightly. “I mean, to be fair, Cousin Gary knows how to throw a party. She’s probably not very sober at the moment.” He shrugs before adding, “Plus, I doubt she would believe us.”
Tony raises an eyebrow. “And why exactly is that?”
“Uh…” Peter rubs his good hand at the back of his neck. “I maybe kinda pulled a couple of pranks on her last year?” He smiles a little sheepishly. “Uh, and also the year before that?”
With an amused snort, Tony just shakes his head slowly. “Goddammit, kid,” he mutters as he wheels Peter over to the couch. “Next year, we skip straight to Thanksgiving.”