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“Hey,” whispered Tony, but it went ignored. “Hey.”
The second hey was louder. That didn’t matter. Peter buried his head in the pillow even further, determined not to hear him.
“This is no time for sleeping.”
His comforter got ripped away, and Peter groaned. He had no idea why Tony insisted on being this annoying, at this time in the night, but Peter was one hundred percent sure he’d done nothing to deserve this type of torture.
“Tony, why.”
“It’s snowing.”
Peter craned his head around, and glared at the apparent adult. “Are you five?”
“Are you suddenly an old man?”
Peter frowned. He was being played. Very obviously.
“I’ll call Cap,” said Tony. “See if they can get you a spot at the old folks home.”
“Fine,” said Peter, with a growl. “I’m up.”
He was grumpy about it, but he left his warm, comfortable bed behind in favor of following Tony down the stairs and into the living room. He hadn’t been the only family member victim to Tony’s sudden interest in the snow. Pepper and Morgan were awake, still dressed in their pajamas, with added additions of scarfs, hats, coats, and snow boots.
“What’s happening?” asked Peter, for a split moment, freaking out, thinking something must be wrong even if Pepper was down here, bundled up and ready to go.
“It’s snowing!” Morgan yelled, excitedly. “We’re gonna build snowpeople.”
“It’s 3 in the morning!” said Peter, looking back and forth between Tony and Pepper.
Pepper just sighed. “There was no stopping this, Pete. Trust me. Just go with it.”
He dropped his shoulders in defeat, and retrieved the special coat Tony had designed for him. It was thin and black and laced with technology to make up for the spider DNA in him that caused him to be extra sensitive to the cold.
An ugly reindeer hat got forced on his head, and Tony almost strangled him with a scarf, but eventually he survived to step out of the lake house and into the bright night.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sight of the lake house property covered in pure, fresh snow. The trees, the lake, Gerald’s little shed, and the car he and Tony had been working on fixing up, were blanketed by snow so white it lit up the darkness.
“See,” said Tony. “You have to see it at night, before the sun comes up, to get the full experience.”
Peter couldn’t admit it out loud, but he saw Tony’s point.
They got to work building a family of snowpeople, and Peter didn’t miss his opportunity to ditch the reindeer hat to cover the head of the smallest snow kid of the bunch.
Snow plopped in his hair, and Peter shivered, his whole body jerking in response. He shook his head until the snow was mostly gone, though his hair stayed damp.
“That’s why you should wear a hat,” Tony told him. “Someone might dump snow on your head.”
So really, it had been Tony’s fault that their family bonding activity turned into a competitive, brutal snowball fight. Everyone for themselves, except Morgan, who flatly refused to throw any snowballs at Pepper and became a minion at her mother’s side.
Peter was running away when it happened.
Tony had his arm raised and aimed, ready to slaughter him with another snowball, when Peter ran out onto snow covered ice and fell through. The icy lake water numbed his legs, and he panicked and froze, splashed around in the small hole of broken ice made of his fall.
His head went under, and he knew it was the end. He was lost under the lake. He’d drown. He’d freeze to death, right in front of his family. But then he didn’t. And he wasn’t.
His head floated back up above water, and Tony shouted at him from shore.
“Peter! Stand up!”
Peter stood up. The water went to his waist.
“Oh,” said Peter. He couldn’t exactly feel his legs, but he was glad that they still worked.
He waded out of the frozen lake, shivering, with his teeth chattering, and was greeted by Tony ushering him into the warm house, where he was ordered into dry clothes and forced to sit by the crackling fireplace.
As if that weren’t enough, Tony came at him with Pepper’s hair dryer.
“Tony,” said Peter. “No! I’m fine.”
Peter sneezed.
“That’s totally unrelated,” said Peter. “Please stop pointing the hair dryer at me.”
Tony put the hair dryer on the living room coffee table, and Peter relaxed, letting the fire warm him up. He chuckled, thinking over the events of the evening, or early morning, or whatever time it was currently.
“What’s funny?”
“Just this,” said Peter. “You, me, I guess. The snow. That was fun.”
“Falling through the ice and turning into a popsicle was fun for you?”
“Guess it was better than sleeping,” said Peter. He imagined his bed might feel warmer, more comforter, with the knowledge of what freezing cold water felt like.
“Oh,” said Tony. “So I was right.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” said Peter, then sneezed.
That one echoed through the house, causing Pepper to poke her head into the living room, and declare she would make them all chicken soup for breakfast.
“You’re getting a cold,” Tony told him. “Should’ve let the hair drying happen.”
Peter rolled his eyes. Sometimes Tony was so dramatic, as if having dry hair might have saved him from the cold he was pretty sure was already coming on before he’d gotten swallowed by the ice.
“Well, come on,” said Tony. “Up on the couch. Get cozy. We’ll turn on some Netflix.”
He did what he was told, because he knew he couldn’t deny both the hair dryer and Tony’s need to nestle him up in a thousand different blankets, as if he were a baby bird that needed protecting.
“Hey, um, Tony?”
“Yeah?”
“Since when do you like snow?”
“I’ve always loved snow.”
“No,” said Peter. “Remember last year when it snowed? And you were in a really grumpy mood about it? And you weren’t watching out for ice, so you slipped and -”
“-Kid, I remember,” said Tony. “And since you’re so curious, I still hate the snow.”
“You hate it so much you forced all of us out of bed to go and play in it?” He questioned. It wasn’t making much sense. Even for Tony.
“I suppose,” said Tony, with a sigh. “I suppose I’m just trying to make it memorable for her. And you. Creating good memories and all that shit. Something you guys won’t forget when you’re old and grumpy about the snow. I just - I don’t have that many happy memories with my dad, and I’m trying to break -”
“-the cycle of shame,” said Peter. He’d heard it a few times since the ferry incident. “Yeah, I know.” There was a silence, and the fire crackled. “You’re doing a good job, if that helps.”
Tony smiled at him, as a way of telling him it did, and ruffled his hair. He left Peter in the living room with the remote in his hand, with the fire crackling, and with his eyes drooping, threatening to take him back to the dream he’d been having before it was welcomingly interrupted.