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Peter and Morgan work together to push Mr. Skeleton’s wooden boat off the shore and out into the chilly water. When he’s finally all the way in, Peter gives the boat a kick and they watch Mr. Skeleton drift further and further into the center of the lake.
He takes a deep breath, inhaling the crisp, autumn air, and appreciates the specular job he and Morgan did putting the Halloween decorations up. The skeleton floating around in the lake was just the final touch the Stark’s lake house needed for the upcoming season. Peter’s content and happy, now that they’re ready for spooks, even if not all the Starks feel the same way about decorations.
“Parker!”
Peter turns his back towards the lake and sees Mr. Stark’s car parked in front of the spiderweb covered house. Mr. Stark marches towards where he and Morgan stood by the lake.
“What the hell happened to my house?” asked Mr. Stark. “We were gone for less than an hour.”
Just like Peter had planned, Morgan is ready with their answer.
“We decorated for Halloween!” She said, too excited to keep from doing a little jump. “Don’t you like it, daddy?”
Mr. Stark glares at Peter, but when he directs his attention to Morgan he puts on a fake smile. “Sure, little miss. I love it.”
“Peter said we had to be realllllyyy fast,” she keeps going. “So you and mommy would be surprised when you got home!”
“Well good job, it worked,” says Mr. Stark. He looks back at Peter. “Jameson’s right, you’re a menace.”
“That ugly old man who’s always shouting lies about Petey on TV?” Morgan sounds outraged Mr. Stark would even dream to put Jameson and right in the same sentence. “I wanna turn him into a skeleton. Then we can use him next year as one of our decorations.”
Mr. Stark opens his mouth several times, the way he does when he’s unsure of what to say, and Peter tries to decide if Morgan’s protectiveness over him is cute or horrifying.
“Morgan,” says Mr. Stark. “Why don’t you give your mom a tour through the haunted castle that used to be our home?”
“Okay!” She races off, and Peter braces for Mr. Stark’s lack of spooky season spirit.
Mr. Stark wags a finger in his face. “I told you no decorations.”
“But- “
“-This is outright defiance,” he continues. “And you turned my daughter against me. You’re an awful child. I’m throwing you into the lake to feed the monster that lives at the bottom.”
“There’s a lake monster?” Peter lights up, excited at the possibility that Mr. Stark might tell a scary story, but his mentor just laughs and shakes his head.
“Kid,” says Mr. Stark, glancing up at the house. “Did you really have to go all out like this?”
Peter frowns, then sighs. His shoulders drop. “I was holding back.”
The house, in Peter’s opinion, isn’t all that extreme.
It’s covered with spiderwebs, and under the spider-webs, there’s black, orange, and purple lights that flash on and off. On top of the house sits a giant spider, its eight legs stretching down over the sides of the house. The front yard is littered with tomb stones and caskets, and the trees are filled with glowing eyeballs, bats, and even more spiderwebs.
Peter’s ready for his award, now, actually. He’s pretty sure that, thanks to him and Morgan, the Starks had the spookiest house in the state.
“You’re cleaning all this up.”
“After Halloween,” says Peter.
“Yes, genius, after Halloween. I’d never survive the whining if I made you take them down today, and I’m pretty sure Morgan would feed me to the lake monster.”
Peter laughs. “Can’t really cleanup the webs, anyway, I fixed the webbing solution be more durable than what I use on patrol.”
“Meaning?”
“It’s going to dissolve the day after Halloween. Not a second before,” says Peter, and after a while of Mr. Stark staring, he adds, “Impressed?”
“By your science, always,” he says. “By your application? Questionable.”
“Rude.”
Mr. Stark laughs, and Peter can tell, he’s coming around to the decorations. He looks out to the lake and spots their skeleton friend floating happily on his boat, for the first time. Another laugh, another shake of the head.
“If you’re this bad on Halloween,” he tells Peter. “I don’t want to imagine what you have planned for Christmas.” Peter’s grin grows wide, then he gets another finger waged in his face. “That wasn’t permission.”
Mr. Stark starts walking up towards the expertly decorated house, and Peter trails him.
“It’s gonna be epic, Mr. Stark…. I’m gonna have reindeer and –“
“-Peter.” Mr. Stark cuts him off and stops walking. Gerald walks by, wearing the little devil ears Peter had bought just for him. “You couldn’t even spare the alpaca, huh?”
Peter shrugs. “Pepper always says he’s a demon.”
To Peter’s surprise, Mr. Stark doesn’t rob Gerald of his devil ears.
“You know, Pete, we could probably rig up a fog machine,” says Mr. Stark. “Get some dry ice. Make things extra spooky.”
Peter gave him a smug smile. “You love Halloween. You love decorating.”
“I do not,” says Mr. Stark, with a look of disgust and a roll of his eyes. “I don’t even know why the house needs to be decorated at all. We’re too far out for trick or treaters.”
“About that…” says Peter. “You’re having a Halloween party.”
“I’m what?”
“All the Avengers are invited.”
Mr. Stark sighs. “And let me guess, it’s too late to cancel.”
“I already sent out the invitations,” says Peter. “They had glow in the dark ghosts on them.”
“Oh really? That’s cute,” says Mr. Stark. His voice drips with sarcasm, but Peter doesn’t care. He knows he’ll warm up to the part, just like he knew he’d warm up to the decorations. “I guess we better get to work on that fog machine, then.”
“Yes!”
“And maybe we can get Bruce to bioengineer a baby monster to put in the lake,” he says. “I’m tired of that threat being empty.”
“Mmhmm,” says Peter. “Then we can use Jameson to feed him.”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Morgan. She’s corrupting you.”
Peter laughs and together they walk towards the garage and began drawing up plans for their fog machine. It turns out to be an extreme version of what Peter had in mind, something that makes Pepper yell at Mr. Stark until he cranks the fog down a couple of notches and something that makes Peter realize where he got flair for being a bit extra with the Halloween decorations.