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“Mr. Stark.”
Peter drums his thumbs against the steering wheel of Tony’s overly fancy car and watches the red light, waiting for it to turn green. When he’s met with silence, Peter repeats Mr. Stark’s name a second time, and after more silence, it’s clear the old man isn’t listening to him.
He frowns and takes his eyes off the stoplight. His mentor’s head is down, his eyes are glued to the screen of his cellphone, and his thumb slides against it as he shoots Pokeballs at the wild Pokémon on his screen.
It isn’t fair that he should have to drive Mr. Stark around the city all day long, or that the man doesn’t even appreciate it enough to hold a proper conversation with him.
“MR. STARK!” yells Peter, once he’s finally had enough of being ignored.
It doesn’t work.
The man doesn’t flinch, doesn’t acknowledge that his name has been shouted out at all, so Peter nudges his Pokeball throwing hand with his elbow, causing him to miss his target. Peter grins when the Pokémon, one of the newer ones he doesn’t recognize, runs away and Mr. Stark growls.
“Damnit Parker, that was a Froakie,” says Tony. “I needed to harvest his candies.”
“Justice,” says Peter, skipping over the part where he asked what any of that means. “Is this why Happy is so grumpy all the time?”
“One of the many.”
Peter takes his foot off the brake as the light turns. “You’re supposed to be teaching me how to drive, not playing your stupid game.”
“Lucky for me May’s done all the heavy lifting and you’re a fast learner,” says Mr. Stark. “Now I can just reap the benefits. And if you call Pokémon Go stupid again, I won’t pay your way into the zoo.
“Aww,” says Peter. “Not fair.”
“Should’ve thought of that before getting sassy.”
Peter continues driving towards the zoo, where he imagines May, Happy, Pepper and Morgan already there, waiting for them to explore and see the Christmas lights. Such a normal thing for a family to do, and the thought has Peter smiling despite Mr. Stark’s obvious rudeness.
“Look at it this way, kid,” says Mr. Stark. “You owe me a drive around the city after all the times you used me as a personal shuttle service.”
“When Pepper first told you to play Pokémon Go, it’s so you would get up and actually take walks to help you rehab, not so you could sit in the car using me as your personal driver while you cheat your way through the ranks.”
“Uh huh,” says Mr. Stark. “Whatever you say, Pete, just slow down so I can spin this PokeStop.”
Peter obliges, though he isn’t sure it’s possible to slow down to a speed any slower than he’s currently driving, especially while they’re moving through the crowded New York streets.
Eventually, even with Mr. Stark’s annoying requests to stop in the middle of an intersection so he can have another shot at a Froakie, or to turn around and drive in the opposite direction of their destination, they pull into the zoo’s parking lot, where he parks in the closest spot he can find.
Peter resists the urge to snatch the phone away and smash it on the concrete, but he isn’t that successful in resisting being a tattle tale once they pay for tickets and catch up with their group, waiting for them on the other the reception area.
“How was driving lessons?” asks May. Her fingers are locked with Happy’s, and they’re standing close, under a tree strung up with glowing, blue lights.
“Nonexistent,” says Peter. “Mr. Stark didn’t teach me anything. Just wanted me to drive him around so he could play Pokémon.”
“Tony, really?” says Pepper, lightly shoving Mr. Stark on his arm. His phone slips out of his hand, lands on the ground, and he grumbles the same time May, Happy, and Morgan laugh.
“What’s the deal with everyone causing me to miss perfectly good Poke’mans?”
Peeper picks up his phone and hands it to Peter, who takes it triumphantly and mocks his mentor with it. She turns back to Mr. Stark and says, “You’ve lost your phone privileges. Now Peter can hold it until you’re responsible enough to have it back.”
“Stop being ridiculous, Pepper,” says Mr. Stark. “I need my phone to find all the Santa Hat Pikachus.”
Their small family group goes silent, and there’s nothing in the brisk, cold air except the Christmas songs being pumped through the zoo’s speakers and the excited chattering of the other families as they pass by. After a couple of beats, Mr. Stark shakes his head.
“I just heard it,” he mutters, then doesn’t mention anything else about his phone or Pokémon Go as they follow the crowd off towards the bigger light displays.
While they stroll through the pathways, admiring the way shimmering, flickering lights have been arranged to look like animals, Peter whines at May first because the blue and red knitted hat she pulled from her purse and forced on his head and second for food.
She relents and they stop at a vendor, where she purchases two cotton candy cones larger than their heads and hands them over to Peter and Morgan.
“Thanks Aunt May!” Morgan cheers and beams up at May, before stepping away from Mr. Stark, who tries taking a big chomp off the top of the pink and blue poof. “Cotton candy isn’t for grownups.”
“It also isn’t real food,” says Happy, disapprovingly glancing at Peter who has a mouthful. He doesn’t mind the judgement. He can use it as ammunition, ammunition to convince Happy to make some of his famous soup later on when they all got back to the apartment.
“And since when did Mr. Stark grow up?” asks Peter.
He gets a shove from his mentor’s prosthetic arm, which sends him tumbling towards a tree, at least before Happy outstretches his arm and grabs onto Peter to steady him, keep him on the path.
“Sorry about that, Pete,” says Mr. Stark, while he flexes his arm. “Forget my own strength sometimes.”
“Thanks, Happy,” says Peter, ignoring Mr. Stark, but smiling.
It is a strange, fragile sort of feeling, one he’s afraid might leave if he acknowledges it with words. The pain uncertainty of the previous year is fading away, growing fainter and fainter with each new memory and square crossed off the calendar, and it’s the feeling that he has to be careful with it, or something stroll up and snatch the small window of happiness away.
*
They split up.
Peter accompanies Morgan on the train, while the adults and Mr. Stark rests at a picnic table, sipping hot chocolates he suspects Happy spiked with the flask he keeps in his coat jacket.
Morgan holds his hand and pulls him along, through the crowd of other families, and up the stairs leading to the platform. They take a cart in the back and wait for the ride to start. Her hand is sticky from the candy cotton and leaves his hands sticky when she lets go to hold on the rail, but Peter doesn’t mind.
Morgan Stark is one of the best changes Peter had been surprised by the day he came back to life. Before the snap, he’d never thought he’d get the chance at being a big brother, and now that he is one, he’s happy for the opportunity to have a shorter, younger partner in crime.
Peter pulls Mr. Stark’s cell phone out of his pocket and slides his thumb across the screen. “What do you think Dad’s password is?”
“Probably,” says Morgan, mimicking her favorite cartoon and rubbing her chin. “Oh, I knnowww. It’s probably honey bear!”
Peter laughs. It’s a pretty good guess, and he’s surprised when, after he types it in, the phone rumbles and tells him it’s incorrect.
“Guess that one’s too obvious.”
“Mmhmm,” says Morgan. “Oh! I know! How about, Morgan is the queen of the woooorld!”
“Somehow I don’t think that’s it.”
“Awww.” Morgan stops and thinks as the train’s engine roars to life and they slowly start pulling forward. “Try Gerald.”
Peter punches in the letters, and to his shock, unlocks the phone. Or at least, unlocks the first security screen. He fails the facial recognition and groans.
“Why even bother having a password and facial recognition?”
Morgan shrugs. “I dunno, probably to catch anyone who’s really dumb enough to try and break into his phone.”
Peter grumbles under his breath and tries to shove the phone safely back into his coat pocket, except he misses the opening in his jacket. Instead, the phone falls, first on the floor of the train cart, and then out of the cart, into the open air, until it lands in its final resting place.
Both him and Morgan stare into the Flamingo enclosure below them, looking at Mr. Stark’s cell phone with wide eyes.
“Oh shit.”
“Daddy’s going to kill you.”
*
Peter stands on the edge of the flamingo enclosure, with his eyes locked on Mr. Stark’s cell phone and his hand resting on Morgan’s shoulder.
It could be worse. The phone isn’t even that far off from the rope fence that separates the zoo guests from the flamingos, but he can’t help the steady dread he feels at the thought of entering and being among the birds.
“Okay,” says Peter. “Okay, I can do this.”
“Are you sure it’s a good idea?”
“Well, yeah. I gotta get his phone. He’ll be crushed if he loses all his progress on that stupid game.”
“Okay but be careful.”
“Morgan,” says Peter, despite feeling a bit uneasy himself. “They’re just birds. Peaceful, pink birds. It’ll be fine.”
Morgan makes a face like she doesn’t believe him, and Peter takes a breath.
He crouches down and steps underneath the ropes. The herd of flamingos are to his left, seemingly unaware of his presence. He feels his anxiety leave him. It’s fine. This is fine. The absolute worst that could happen is being told off by the zoo staff, and Peter becomes more and more confident of this as he marches towards the phone.
“Gotcha,” he says, as he scoops it up and puts it in his coat pocket.
Peter exhales, and that’s when he notices it. The flamingos are close, close enough to peck at him, which of them does.
“Hey, there, that’s not very nice.”
The bird who pecked him honks at him, and his pink buddies lower their heads and begin echoing their leader. Peter backs up. The birds continue forward, with menacing one in the center trying to bite at him a second time. Peter does the only thing he can do, he turns, and he runs.
He’s faster than the demented flamingos, and he almost makes it out of the enclosure without another bite, but just before reaching the fence, he trips over a misplaced stick and tumbles towards the ground, just inches from safety.
Within seconds there’s a bird pecking at his ankle, another climbing up on his back and a third on the back of his head, attempting to rip off the hat May knitted and forced on him. He can hear even more tiny bird claws on the ground, running towards where he lay, but before he can get up and shake them away, he hears an even stranger noise.
It’s a mix between a hiss and the honking sounds made by the flamingos. Whatever it is, it gets the birds attention, and they stop their assault. They, all three of them, flee, and Peter launches himself under the rope fence.
Before he can catch his breath, he’s being pulled to his feet by his arms. He comes face to face with Mr. Stark, who looks equal amounts amused and concerned as he continues to grip both Peter’s arms, while Morgan picks pink feathers from his coat.
“What the hell were you doing in there?” demands Mr. Stark.
“I – I had to –“ says Peter, until it dawns on him where the noise had been coming from. “Was that you? Making that really weird noise?”
“How do you think I keep Gerald in line?”
Peter frowns. He tries to imagine Mr. Stark squawking like that at Gerald and the alpaca actually taking cues from one of the most bizarre sounds he’s ever heard.
“Well,” says Mr. Stark. “Better get you to the first-aid station, before another DNA mutation gives you bird powers.”
“That would be so awesome!” says Morgan.
Peter shivers just thinking about it. Flying might be nice, but after today, he wants nothing to do with pink flamingos.
*
The metal chairs in the first-aid station are uncomfy. They’re cold, and Peter’s cold, but it’s at least distracting him from the stinging created by Mr. Stark dabbing the flamingo bite wounds around his ankles with peroxide.
“Kid,” says Mr. Stark. He finishes up with cleaning the wounds and throws the cotton swab in a nearby trash can. “I gotta know. Why venture into the flamingo enclosure?”
Peter looks at Morgan. She’s sitting on one of the uncomfy, cold chairs with her tablet, paying no attention to them whatsoever. Sooner or later, the tablet will go back in Pepper’s purse, and she’ll return to being the secret spiller they all know and love. With that knowledge, Peter sighs and prepares to tell the truth.
“Umm, well I sorta,” starts Peter. “We were up on the train, right? And I went to put your phone back in my pocket but instead accidentally dropped it we were riding over the flamingos.”
Mr. Stark stares at him.
“And I had to get it back! Because I know how much you love your game, and I didn’t want you to lose all your progress.”
There’s a long pause in the air, filled with sounds of the zoo at Christmas time. Chattering families, Jingle Bell Rock playing over the speakers, and less common, the sounds of Morgan blowing up something on whatever game she plays on her tablet.
“Peter,” says Mr. Stark, finally. “As much as I appreciate you, uh, risking your life with flamingos, I feel obligated to point out something gloriously obvious that you’ve missed.”
“What?”
“I could’ve just logged into my account on a different phone,” says Mr. Stark, with a laugh.
He groans, and Mr. Stark continues laughing at his expense, leaving Peter to mentally lament about the unfairness of life and how his genius IQ let him down.
“I thought flamingos were supposed to be peaceful, anyway, what’s the deal with them attacking me like that?”
“Maybe cause it’s you’re a spider,” Morgan pipes in, still staring at her tablet.
“Awesome,” says Peter. “So now I’m bird prey.”
“Mmhmm,” hums Morgan. “Just too bad Murph wasn’t here. She could’ve saved you like she saved Daddy!”
The grin gets wiped off Mr. Stark’s face, and it’s Peter’s turn to look smug. He supposes their two animal related incidents so far this December cancel each other out. They exchange glances, and without words, agree to never speak about these unfortunate events again.
“Peter.”
He turns his head at the sound of May’s voice and sees the rest of their group walking closer to the first-aid station to join them. May is the first to reach them. As soon as she arrives, she pulls a pink feather from Peter’s hair and holds it in front of his face.
“What happened to you, huh?” asks May, handing him the feather, then ruffling his hair. “You have some kind of mission to visit the first-aid section of every New York establishment?”
Peter shoots a glare at Mr. Stark and waves the feather around. “Has this been in my hair the entire time?”
“Yep,” says Morgan.
“Mr. Stark….”
“It was cute,” he says, with a shrug.
Before Peter can enact some kind of revenge on his mentor, their family devolves into the chaos it’s known for.
It’s Morgan pleading to spend the night with her Aunt May and Uncle Happy in Queens, it’s Mr. Stark suggesting they all get together sometime and watch The Birds, and finally, once the urge for revenge is gone, it’s Peter, begging Happy to make them dinner once they get home.
“I made dinner last night,” he says.
“And it was so good ,” says Peter. “Why be talented at something if you never put it to good use?”
“Feeding you isn’t a good use.”
“Hey! May, did you hear what he just said?”
“I’m not getting involved,” says May, smiling.
“Pleeasse Uncle Happy,” says Morgan. She looks up at him with puppy dog eyes, and Peter rejoices. The fight is over. “I want grilled cheese.”
“I hate this family,” says Happy, though underneath the initial gruffness of his voice, there’s an unmistakable note of fondness that suggests he means the opposite.
Peter smiles. He feels exactly the same way.