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“Camping?” Peter asks dubiously, leaning over to peer around Tony at where Happy is barely holding in his guffaws of laughter and turning red in the face with effort. Tony is pointedly ignoring the man and aggressively smiling at Peter with a manic glint in his eyes and Peter’s Spidey Sense immediately flares up in warning. “Have you ever, uh, been camping?”
“Not once,” Tony says brightly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his, absolutely garish, hiking pants. They’re new enough to still have folding creases in them. In fact, everything he’s wearing looks like he just bought it from the nearest REI on his way over to Peter’s apartment. “But I’m a genius so how difficult can it be?”
Happy chokes on his laugh so hard he has to double over coughing. Tony’s left eyebrow twitches but, other than that, he doesn’t acknowledge what’s going on behind him. Distantly, Peter can hear May’s own fluttering laugh from the bathroom where she excused herself directly after Tony had brought up his grand plan. Peter would probably laugh too if he didn’t feel the sword of Damocles swinging precariously close to the top of his head.
When Tony had knocked loudly on his front door barely five minutes earlier, interrupting Peter’s weekly breakfast with May, Peter had already known any ideas the man might have were going to be poorly thought out at best and downright disastrous at worst. His suspicions were immediately confirmed by the manic, sleep deprived look on his mentor's face and then it all went promptly downhill from there. May lasted maybe two minutes into Tony’s tirade about ‘the great outdoors’ and ‘bonding with nature’ before she had to excuse herself from the conversation. Leaving Peter alone to fight an obviously losing battle.
Tony Stark and himself. Camping. Miles from both civilization and technology.
This is, perhaps, the worst idea he had ever heard in his life.
Resigned to his fate, Peter sighs and hesitantly takes the bag Happy holds out to him (REI, just like he expected). There go his plans of a long spring break of doing absolutely nothing besides patrolling and playing video games with Ned and MJ.
May gives him a commiserating pat on the back as he passes her in the hallway. She’s laughing with someone on the phone, probably Pepper, about his misfortune and he sends her a betrayed look that she repays with a kiss on the cheek. With a sigh, Peter digs through the bag of clothes and boots.
It’s just camping. How bad could it be?
The answer, as it turns out, is absolutely terrible.
Happy drops them both and a pile of camping gear off at a campsite Tony has reserved, laughs at them one final time, and books it out of there to enjoy his weekend at a local wellness lodge. Peter, now beyond pleading for help, just glares the entire time much to Happy's continued amusement. Tony is ignoring them both for the most part except for when he claps Peter on the back and tells him to ‘smell that clean mountain air’.
This is hell. Peter is being punished for skipping all his detentions and this is his atonement.
“Tent first!” Tong says brightly, slapping his hands together and digging through their pile of supplies for the tent he had bought. It’s half under one of the overpriced coolers of food and drinks they had brought and Peter watches Tony wrestle with it unsuccessfully for a moment before he lifts it easily to allow the older man to pull the tent bag out.
“Have you ever set up a tent?” Peter asks, snagging the instructions page as it flutters out of the bag that Tony has dumped onto the ground. Peter squints at them and decides they may as well be in another language for as much good as they are going to do him.
Tony, from his position squatting on the ground and sorting through parts, brightly says, “Nope!” And promptly tangles himself in the canvas.
“Mr. Stark?” Peter asks a few minutes later as they fumble with the tent materials. “What’s all this about? You and I both know that neither one of us should be camping.”
For a moment, Tony keeps trying to force together some poles that are one-hundred percent not meant to go together before he drops them and lets out a sigh before blurting: “Pepper’s pregnant.”
“What?!” Peter yells, jumping up in excitement and pulling Tony up with him to give him a congratulatory hug. “That’s amazing!” He pulls back and takes in the cautious look on his montor’s face. “I thought you wanted kids?”
“I do!” Tony insists, kicking lightly at one of the tent poles. “But what if I…?”
Oh.
Tony’s never outright said anything about his own father to Peter but he’s said enough backhanded comments for Peter to put together a picture of their relationship. Clearly this camping trip is Tony’s way of working through his mental crisis and his impending fatherhood.
Well Peter’s just going to have to make it a success now isn’t he?
“I think you’re going to be a great dad Mr. Stark,” Peter tells him earnestly before pulling him back into a hug.
“Thanks Pete,” he says, squeezing him back before clearing his throat and patting him firmly on the back as he steps away. “We should probably finish setting up camp before it gets dark.”
Peter looks up and squints at the late afternoon sun. They have, maybe, five hours of good light left to get everything ready and Peter bites his lip. Making this trip successful might be a little harder than he thought.
“It looks nothing like the picture,” Tony says forlornly over an hour later. “I’m an engineer. I have an MIT Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering and Rocket Science . I should be able to put up a fucking tent.”
“Its close enough?” Peter tries, attempting to control the grimace on his face. The tent’s roof has already buckled in the middle somewhat and the rain tarp over the top is lopsided and wonky and loose. The motor on the air pump blowing up the second of their air mattresses sputters and Peter feels his heart go with it - if it breaks there’s no way either of them can blow up the thing themselves. Tony’s hands twitch but he drops the packaging’s picture of a perfect tent into their trash bag. Peter fishes it back out just in case.
“I suppose it will be good enough for four nights,” Tony agrees and Peter does his level best not to flinch. Four nights means four more days of camping. Of wilderness and no air conditioning or indoor plumbing and, apparently, wearing matching outfits because Mr. Stark is an actual menace to society and Peter in particular. He needs to tell the Bugle about this and maybe they’ll finally get off his back.
Neither one of them look good in olive drab hiking pants that can turn into shorts and lavender hoodies with bright red boots. In fact, Peter doesn’t really think anyone could pull off this look.
“Yeah,” Peter agrees weakly. “Just four nights.”
“Well,” Tony says, clapping his hands. “Let’s divide and conquer: I’ll make a firepit if you gather some wood.”
Peter waffles on whether or not he should bring up the fact that, likely, neither of them know how to make a fire but he ultimately just goes along with Tony’s delusions and wanders out of the clearing and into the trees. He’s only ever seen campfires in TV shows and movies and they always seem to have larger logs broken into pieces so that’s what Peter goes for. Most of the trees are pines though so he has a hard time finding more than just twigs and dead pine needles lining the forest floor. He’s actually about to give up and just take back an armload of the twigs when he comes across a fallen tree.
“Finally some luck,” he mutters, hefting the end of the trunk over his shoulder with little effort and dragging it behind him. He’s already lost but he follows the sounds of Tony’s cursing and the squall of their dying air pump back to camp. “Got some firewood!” He announces as he drops the tree to the ground.
Tony turns. Stares at the tree. Stares at Peter. Blinks. Looks back at the tree.
“You sure did,” he mumbles faintly before clearing his throat. “Good job Pete but buddy, and I hate to tell you this, but I don’t have an axe to chop that with.”
Peter, who had started tensing at the ‘but’, relaxes. “Oh! No need! I can take care of it!”
Mr. Stark looks a little confused until Peter picks up the tree and snaps the end off into a foot long log that he drops to the side. He repeats this with the whole tree before he goes to tear the thicker logs into thinner logs. The branches he puts to the side in case they need them later.
“I always forget about the super strength,” Tony tells him as Peter carries over an armload of tinder and starts to arrange it into the aesthetically pleasing shape he has seen in movies before. It’s a lot harder than it looks.
“Proportional strength of a spider,” Peter offers, giving up on the shape he wants and calling the unwieldy pile good enough. “So how do we get fire now?”
“With this,” Tony says, holding up a weather proof lighter and a fire starter log. “I’ll set this on fire and then the wood you brought will feed it.”
Huh. Cool.
And, lucky for them, that’s exactly what happens. The fire starter log takes the flame easily and, soon, they have a roaring campfire to cook their dinner over.
Unfortunately, they also have an ungodly amount of smoke billowing out of the fire pit.
“This is not how it goes in the movies,” Peter coughs, trying to clear the smoke out of his face so he can get a clean breath of air. He and Tony have vacated to the edge of the campsite to get away from the noxious buildup but the wind seems to keep blowing it at them even when they move. “What did we do wrong?”
Tony coughs a little harder and Peter helpfully thunks him on the back to help clear his airway. “I’m guessing the wood wasn’t completely dry.”
Oh.
Peter should have known that. He’s taken science classes before. He knows how fire works. “Maybe we just do canned food tonight. Or cold hotdogs, I’m not picky.”
The look Tony gives him is nothing short of disgusted. “You eat cold hotdogs?” Peter shrugs. He isn’t, and has never been, picky about food. Clearly Tony hasn’t scraped mold off of an everything bagel from Astoria Bagel from the back of his pantry before. Waste not want not. “Look we’ll just put them on a spit and put them kinda over the fire and sit in the tent for a few minutes and then grab them. Then we don’t have to stay in the smoke.”
This sounds logical to Peter so they pull their shirts over their noses and race around as fast as possible to set ten hotdogs (what? Peter’s hungry!) around the fire to cook before ducking into the tent. The inside is fairly spacious even though the roof is dropping in on them but it very quickly fills with the smell of smoke from their clothes and maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to hide out in here. “We shouldn’t have done this,” he voices and Tony nods grimly next to him, a look of resignation on his face.
“It can’t get much worse at least,” Tony tries but he’s proven wrong less than fifteen minutes later when they emerge from the tent to get their hotdogs and all that are left on the spits are cylindrical briquettes.
Peter could cry.
His stomach grumbles and, before Tony can stop him, he pulls one out of the ground and waves it in the air to cool it before taking a tentative bite. It falls apart in his mouth and dries it out immediately. Not one to give up, Peter fights down the urge to spit it out and scrap his tongue with a rock and swallows it. Tony actually looks somewhat impressed underneath the mortified grimace. “How was it?”
“Well it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten,” Peter answers, considering the burnt hotdog again. He’s almost decided to take another bite when Tony takes it from him.
“I’m thinking canned beans,” he says, pulling the hotdog off the spit and throwing it out of the camp. Peter mulls this over for less than a second before going along with it. He really wanted hotdogs.
When they finally bed down later that night in the brand new, top of the line, sleeping bags that Tony bought they are both tired and unsatisfied.
But, hey, Peter thinks, tomorrow will be easier.
‘Have we not tempted fate enough?’ Peter muses to himself as he dutifully packs up supplies into a hiking pack while Tony smothers the remains of their fire. While he thinks the mountain views are stunning and he’s definitely down to see more of them, Peter’s not really interested in getting lost in the woods.
“Lost,” Tony scoffs with an obnoxious eye roll that makes Peter’s eye twitch after he brings up these, very real and likely, concerns. “I have GPS.”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” Peter points out. “What if you lose signal?”
Tony looks scandalized, cradling the tiny piece of tech close to him like he needs to protect it from Peter’s heretic words and Peter dies inside just a little more. “Stark Tech never loses a signal.” Peter begs to differ since his, supposedly, top of the line Stark Phone definitely couldn’t make calls from the sewers a few weeks ago but whatever. If they get lost and eaten by cannibals or something at least he doesn’t have to take his finals in a few months.
Peter wonders what May’s doing right now. And Ned and MJ. He bets they aren’t covered in bug bites with sore backs from sleeping on the ground. In fact, they’re probably all still sleeping in since it's a Saturday.
He lets out a heavy sigh and pulls the pack onto his back
“Ready to go?” Tony calls. He’s looking a little rougher this morning without his state of the art bathroom and closet. A little more ragged and with fluffier hair than Peter has ever seen him with and he’s honestly a little shocked that Tony - the most high maintenance person he has ever met - didn’t bring at least ten grooming products with him. Of course, Peter didn’t either and he’s glad they don’t have a mirror with them because he decidedly does not want to see what kind of tangled mess his own hair is. The humidity is already making it poofy around his ears and hairline.
“As I’ll ever be,” Peter mumbles.
“What was that?”
“All ready!” Peter says, louder this time and praying for patience. Or maybe an alien invasion that requires their immediate assistance. He isn’t picky.
The hike actually starts off pretty great, surprisingly. The air is clean and fresh, it isn’t too hot out and the GPS does keep them from getting lost. Well that and the marked trails around the camp of course.
“Can’t get a view like that in the city,” Tony huffs out, winded from the slight incline they walked up to get to the viewing area that gives a stunning panoramic view of the Adirondack Mountain range. They look almost blue from where they are standing and the clear day means that none of the peaks are obscured. It doesn’t look real.
Peter, not winded at all, can only nod dumbly in agreement. He still, and likely always will, prefers the city over the wilderness (he’s a born and bred New Yorker after all) but he can appreciate the beauty. “Thanks for bringing me along Tony.”
“Thanks for coming with me,” the older man says, slinging his arm around Peter’s shoulders in a rare, but quick, side hug. “I think I needed this.”
“You’re that worried about Ms. Potts being pregnant?” Peter queries, trying to gauge Tony’s reaction to make sure he isn’t pushing too far.
Tony laughs loudly. “I’m not worried about her being pregnant, Pep’s great at everything and I doubt pregnancy will prove any different.”
Treading lightly Peter says, “I was serious yesterday you know. I think you’ll be a really great dad and any kid will be lucky to have you.”
Tony’s quiet for a second and, when Peter glances over, his eyes are a little misty but he clears his throat and drops his sunglasses back over his eyes from where they had been perched on his head. “Thanks kid.”
Peter doesn't want to comment on how rough his mentor’s voice is so he instead says, “Next time you can drag your own offspring on a surprise, forced, bonding trip in nature with next to no tech and burnt food.”
Mr. Stark laughs uproariously and, after a second, Peter joins him, the sound echoing back to them. Once they calm down enough to talk again Tony says, “Oh they’ll need an experienced woodsman to come along with us of course! Don't think you can get out of your babysitting duties that easily!”
Peter turns, fully prepared to snark something back about capitalism and billionaires expecting free nanny services from their underaged interns, and freezes. There in the treeline not even one hundred feet away is a fully grown bull moose staring right at them.
“Pete?” Tony asks, concern lacing his voice. Peter lifts one shaky hand to point at the animal. How was anything that big? Were they supposed to stand their ground or run? Holy shit he was going to get trampled to death by a moose. God what a headline.
Spider-Man and Iron Man Die In Tragic Moose-Related Trampling
This is too dumb of a way to die even for him.
Tony is pale white staring at the animal as well as it chews some plants and eyeballs them.
“Do we run?” Peter whispers, clamping his mouth shut when the moose stops chewing to stare at them harder. Tony doesn’t get a chance to answer because it charges and Peter just grabs the other man and books it in the opposite direction.
“We can’t outrun a moose!” Tony shouts, breathless and frantic as they crash through the underbrush. “They have more legs and longer legs than us!”
“Good thing I brought these then,” Peter shouts back. His web shooters activate with a tap of his wrists and he grabs Tony in one hand and uses the other to web them into a tree.
In the end, Peter’s sure they make a ridiculous sight. He’s hanging upside down with his legs tossed over a branch and his hands are under Tony’s armpits to hold him up. Below them the moose has stopped, probably confused about where they disappeared to, and has started pulling leaves off a nearby branch. “No offense,” Peter says, readjusting his grip on Tony to try and get more comfortable and almost dropping him in the process. It doesn’t help. “I kinda hate you right now.”
“Yeah none taken,” Tony gasps out as he tries to catch his breath.
Below them, the moose rubs his antlers on their tree and grunts.
It takes long enough for the moose to wander off that Peter’s arms have started burning from the strain - no small feat - and he nearly drops Tony as he lowers them back to the ground.
“Never again,” he pants, sitting on the ground with his head between his knees and his arms limp next to him. His hands are tingling and itchy from the strain he assumes and he scratches absently at his palms before burying his face in his hands.
“Agreed,” Tony says thinly from where he is, likewise, collapsed on the ground with his own hands covering his face and muffling his voice.
They lay in silence, beyond their heavy breathing that is, for a moment more and then Peter tilts his head over to look at Tony, mouth open to ask for the overpriced bottle of water in the pack. Instead he loudly blurts out, “Holy fucking shit!”
“If the moose is back just let it take me,” Tony grumbles, scratching at his beard and cheek. He cracks his eyes open to look back at Peter and then gapes comically with mounting horror. “The fuck happened to your face?!”
“ My face?” Peter asks, panicked. “What about your face!”
And, indeed, Tony’s face is covered with a raised and red looking rash. A quick glance down shows it on his hands as well and, after taking a deep breath for strength, Peter looks down to see an identical rash covering his own hands. The itching feeling that had been a minor annoyance is suddenly the only thing he can think about and it takes every bit of will power he has left to not scratch.
“Must have touched some poison ivy or something,” Tony says faintly, giving his hands a detached look. “Hey, quick question, do you feel the intense need to scratch all your skin off?” Peter groans and flops back onto the ground. This can’t be happening. What did he do to deserve this? “Oh don’t be so dramatic! We passed a river on the way here - we can wash off the extra oil and I know that I have… something for this back in the first aid kit. I think.”
There are about fifty things that Peter would rather do or say right now but instead he just lets out a sign and says, “Fine,” before levering himself up off the ground. Tony smacks his hand away from his face about five seconds later and Peter starts to wonder if anyone would really find his mentor's body if he dropped Tony here and now. Maybe the moose would do him a solid and eat it.
“Scratching makes it worse,” he chides and Peter can feel his eye start to uncontrollably twitch.
It's an awkward walk full of stony silence back up the trail to the river but the absolute relief Peter feels putting his hands in the cool water is indescribable. His shoulders droop in relief and Tony is making similar noises of contentment next to him. Peter leans forward a bit with the intention of splashing some of the water on his face but, as it tends to do at the least opportune moment, Parker Luck strikes hot and fast and he, somehow, falls face first into the water. He’s only under for a second and emerges spluttering and gasping from the chill and he shakes his wet hair out of his face. Tony, still on the bank, looks shocked for a split second and then bursts into uncontrolled laughter.
Something deep in Peter’s core snaps and he lifts a single arm to fire a web that sticks to the center of Tony’s chest. The laughter stops and the man’s eyes narrow. “You wouldn’t.”
Peter smiles beautifically and pulls.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Tony gripes an hour later as they approach camp. Both of them are still damp from the water and Peter can feel the blisters popping on his ankles. Why is he wearing brand new boots on a hike?
“You laughed at me,” he says primly to Tony as he limps along.
The man scoffs. “How could I not laugh at you? You looked like a drowned rat.”
“And now so do you,” Peter smiles back, all teeth. There’s a stand off for a brief second and then Tony rolls his eyes and keeps walking to camp. The clearing is just ahead.
“I just want dry clothes and food and then to sleep for the next ten hours,” he complains, slapping lightly at his rash so he doesn’t scratch it. Peter’s about to agree when they stumble onto the, completely wrecked, campsite.
Their cooler with all their food has been ravaged; half eaten pieces strewn across the ground along with all the trash that had been in their trash bag. The tent has collapsed and looks trampled and is far too flat for the air mattresses to be inflated still. For a moment they both just stand there and stare at the carnage.
“Fuck this noise,” Tony says loudly, digging out the GPS from his pocket and hitting the panic button on the side to call Happy.
“Oh thank god,” Peter sighs, knees weak. He just lets himself drop to the ground right there and feels like he could honestly sob in relief.
“It isn’t funny,” Peter whines.
“It’s kinda funny,” May retorts with a chuckle as she slathers more calamine lotion onto his face and neck.
After Tony had hit the panic button they had both done their level best to clean up the campsite before, finally, Tony had dug out his phone and had FRIDAY send some drones out to do it for them. While this, normally, would have irritated Peter, he couldn’t help but be a little grateful this time because all he wanted to do was take the longest nap of his life.
Lucky for him, Happy had arrived to pick them up within the hour. Unlucky for him, Happy had laughed his ass off at both of them and had definitely taken way too many pictures and probably video of their suffering.
Whatever. Peter could see if Ned wanted to help him hack Happy’s phone later to delete any potential blackmail.
“I’m not made for the wilderness May,” Peter told her very seriously as she lightly wrapped his hands in more calamine and gauze before slipping oven mitts on them. “Did I tell you about the moose?”
She snorted and patted him on the head. “Yes honey, you told me about the moose,” her voice was tight from holding in laughter and Peter pouted, settling more firmly into the penthouse couch. Tony was next to him getting similar treatment from Pepper who wasn’t even bothering hiding her own chuckles. Tony was clearly so enamored with her he couldn’t even look mad about it.
“Think about it this way Pete,” he said, wrapping his own bundled up arm around Peter’s shoulders. “Now we know what not to do next time!”
Peter’s answering groan was immediately drowned out by May and Pepper’s raucous laughter.