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It’s 2:15 in the morning when the smoke alarm blasts Tony out from a blissfully deep sleep.
His eyes snap open.
“What the fuck,” he mutters, and rolls over to see Pepper watching him with annoyance radiating off her.
“Please go take care of it,” she tells him.
“Fine, fine,” says Tony, slipping away from the warmth of his comforter and putting his feet on the cold, hardwood floor. “But if it’s actually a fire this time I’m not coming back up. I’m just sending a suit.”
“No fire detected, boss,” says Friday, without Tony even needing to ask plainly. “It seems that Peter left his pizza in the oven too long.”
“Alarm off,” says Pepper. The ringing stops, and she buries her head into her pillow. “He’s a menace.”
“A dead one,” promises Tony.
He’s rubbing sleep-gunk from his eyes as he wanders into his smokey kitchen. It smells like burnt cheese, and it only gets worse after Tony finds the oven mitts, slips them on, and rescues the pizza from the oven. There isn’t much of it left to be rescued if he’s telling the truth. It’s a shade of brown that makes it unrecognizable as food, even.
Tony lets out a deep sigh, and opens a window, letting the smoke drift out into the summer night.
As the smoke thins out, he looks around for his dumbass spider-child, but he’s nowhere to be seen, even after he looks up and thoroughly checks the ceiling, his usual hiding place. Only traces of him are left behind.
His freezer’s door has been left open. Tony shuts it, just as he notices the half empty container of cookie dough ice cream sitting on the counter with a spoon stuck in it. Candy wrappers litter the floor, and an opened bag of gummy bears sits next to an explosion of cheese puffs.
It’s the puffs that bring Tony to the conclusion that a crime has been committed here, and when Tony spots the can of spray cheese, it’s only further evidence.
Peter’s been smoking the good stuff.
Too much of the good stuff, and Tony needs to find him, make sure he’s safe and tucked into bed, before he’s reunited with his cozy covers.
Lucky for him there’s a trail of cheese puffs leading towards the backdoor, so he’s at least got a good place to start. He slips Pepper’s flip-flops on, and steps outside. Summer air greets him with a fresh breeze. It’s still hot, for being in the middle of the night, but without the sun scorching down, it’s pleasant.
The trail of cheese flavored snacks stays consistent, and he follows it across the yard, and to the dock, where he sees Peter lying flat on his back, staring up at the stars.
It’s a lucky night.
Peter at least hasn’t fallen into the lake in his extremely altered state.
“Peter,” says Tony, nudging the boy with his foot. He meant to kick him harder, but the goofy grin that stretches across the kid’s face drains his annoyance about being woken up by a screeching alarm.
“Oh hey, Mr. Stark, what are you doin’ up?”
And just like that, the aggravation returns.
“I don’t know,” says Mr. Stark. “I was thinking about having a pizza.”
“Ohhhhh,” says Peter, eyes as wide as saucers. “Pizza sounds great. Can you order break sticks too?”
For a few seconds Tony actually considers whipping out his phone and doing as the kid says. It’s the Peter effect. He’s looking particularly pathetic all high out there on the dock, and it’s playing right into Tony’s parental instinct to feed, water, and send to bed until he wakes up normal, or well, as normal as Peter Parker is capable of being.
“Pete,” says Tony. “I think you forgot about something. In the kitchen.”
“Oh damn, I left the ice cream out,” says Peter. He dramatically wads his own face with his hand, then pulls it away. “Don’t worry. I can drink it. Like soup.” He chuckles at his own joke, and then refocuses on the stars above them. “You still think about space, Mr. Stark?”
“Yep,” says Tony. “All the time.”
“Mmhmm, me too,” says Peter. “Space was bad, but the stars are still pretty.”
“I suppose they are.” Tony can’t disagree with Peter when he’s all high and philosophical. Instead he sits down on the wood, and listens to the lake water gently ripple against the dock. “Never really noticed. Don’t like looking at them much, I guess.”
“Shame,” says Peter. “We got lucky, didn’t we?”
“Lucky?”
“Well you got Morgan and Pepper and Happy and Rhodey,” he explains, “and I’ve got May, Ned and MJ. We’ve got all that and the stars.”
“Did you smoke weed or turn into a therapist?” asks Tony.
Suddenly serious, Peter sits up, and blinks, his brown hair falling into his not-so-innocent eyes. “I didn’t smoke. I am not high.”
“Peter, my entire kitchen is wrecked. I saw the spray cheese.”
“It’s Happy’s fault.”
“It’s Happy’s fault that you’re high? How?”
“Dunno,” Peter shrugs. “Just felt like I should blame someone.”
Tony laughs. “You don’t. You’re not in trouble, but you will be scrubbing the insides of my oven and the entire kitchen tomorrow.”
“Aww.”
“Now, let’s get you off to bed, so I can go back to sleep without worrying about you drowning in the lake.”
A flash of sadness crosses Peter’s face. “I woke you up? I’m terrible.”
It’s such a small thing.
A normal inconvenience any parent would expect to have. Kids woke you up in the middle of the night. Even the teenage-shaped ones. It’s an inconvenience that’s well worth the title of parent, and it pains Tony to see Peter looking so distressed, even if he knows it’s mostly his altered state doing the talking and enhancing his emotions.
“You’re not so terrible,” says Tony. “I’m lucky. I’ve got you back and the stars are still pretty.”
Peter’s grin comes back. It isn’t so goofy this time, and when he looks up at the stars, there’s a peace radiating off him. “You know they really used to freak me out, like, when we first brought everyone back. I don’t know when they stopped being scary.”
Progress, Tony supposes. The kid is healing. He’s resilient, in a way Tony hopes to be someday. He’s always admired Peter’s strength, his optimism, despite his life being made so difficult.
“Just looked up one day, and everything was alright.”
“That’s great, kid.”
Peter tenses up, without warning, and his eyes lock on something in the lake water. He stretches out his arm and points to a bloated, orange puff of cheese floating in the dark water.
“Mr. Stark,” he says. “I gotta save the puff.”
“Hey, no –“ says Tony.
He tries to grab Peter before it happens, but he’s too late. The boy rolls off the dock, and splashes into the water. He disappears under the surface. There’re a few terrifying seconds where Tony believes he’s going to have to jump in and rescue him, but luckily, Peter’s head emerges and he’s saved the trouble.
“Mr. Stark,” he says, sadly, as he splashes around and treads water. “I lost the puff.”
Tony closes his eyes and takes a deep breath in, then out. With his head tilted upwards, he opens his eyes. Peter’s right about the stars. They’re bright, and they’re far away, and Tony’s reminded of what really matters.
“Pete,” he says. “Look up.”
Peter lifts his head, and says, “Oh yeah.”
“Now please get out of the lake before you drown.”
Peter laughs at him, and sloppily swims to shore, where Tony greets him and guides him back inside the house with an arm slung around his shoulders. He tracks water all over the place, but Tony doesn’t mind, as he fully intends on putting the kid to work cleaning up the kitchen mess and the lake water once he wakes up.
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” says Peter. He stops at the kitchen counter, and stares at the burnt pizza. “My pizza!”
He grabs the crusty brown pizza and chomps his mouth into it before he can be stopped. Tony can only watch in horror, and a little amazement, as the boy munches happily on the grossest pizza Tony has ever laid eyes on.
“Alright, alright I can’t let this go on any longer,” says Tony. He slaps the pizza away, and it falls from Peter’s hands and onto the floor. “Step away from the pizza, Parker. It’s bedtime.”
Peter pouts about it, but eventually lets Tony coax him up the stairs, where he dries off, gets into clean clothes, and disappears under a giant comforter. Tony wishes him goodnight before returning to his own bedroom, and slipping back into bed with Pepper.
“Everything good?” she asks, sleepily, with her eyes closed.
“Yeah,” says Tony, opting not to mention the state of the kitchen. “The stars are really pretty tonight.”