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The road is an endless place.
Peter knows this by heart, though he’s not sure where he heard it from. Road trips are one of his favorite things to do with May, and ever since he got bitten, he’s been able to handle long trips without getting sick. And so, when Mr Stark asks him if he wants to take an eight-hour road trip to his lake house, what is Peter supposed to say? No?
Mr Stark and Ms Potts are supposedly going to have their wedding there that weekend, and while Mr Stark had wanted to just fly there and be done, Peter had thought this would be a nice way to get closer, except he hadn’t really known the trip was eight hours long until they were already thirty minutes in. Oh, well. Just more time to spend with Mr Stark.
They’re on a highway that takes them out of New York, the Jeep (that Peter had forced him to take, because who drives a Lamborghini for a road trip?) jumps every few potholes, which has Peter flying only slightly out of his seat, since Mr Stark decided he didn’t care if he got a speeding ticket.
“Hey, uh, you know that if we crash at this speed, we’ll both die?” Peter says at one point, fingers white from gripping the seat.
Mr Stark slows down after that.
They’re an hour in when they finally make it off the highway and into country territory. The only time Peter was out this far when they went to a nice café in Germany surrounded by poppies and wheat. They’re not too into the country, yet, though, since he doesn’t see any cows or farms yet, just open grazes.
“Have you ever been out of the city, Mr Stark?” Peter asks, turning to face him. Mr Stark gives him a deadpan glance. “No— I mean, like, have you been out to the countryside before?”
Mr Stark sighs, tapping his fingers against the leather wheel. “Kid, I own a lake house in the middle of nowhere.”
Right.
“Right.” Peter nods. “Do you own any cows there?”
“No, Peter, I do not own any cows at my lake house.”
Peter blows out a breath. “Bummer.”
The ride is silent after that, and Peter finds himself listening to AC/DC and glancing out the windows, trying to find a cow somewhere in the pastures. He doesn’t know what he’ll do when he finds one, maybe jump out of the window to try and give it a pet, but he just knows he needs to find a cow.
Peter starts texting MJ and Ned halfway through his boredom.
pp
hey, im on a roadtrip w mr stark rn
and im bored out of my Mind
mj
jump out of the window.
ned
No! better idea. force him to take
you to a strawberry farm
pp
ur a genius, ned
ned
I know
“Hey, Mr Stark?” Peter asks, leaning back into his chair. Mr Stark glances only shortly toward him. “Can you turn right? I just need to use the bathroom.”
Mr Stark sighs. “Alright but be quick. We need to be at the house by five.”
The car’s tires swivel, and they make an abrupt turn into a stone road. It takes about two minutes for them to reach any type of building, which is a large farmhouse surrounded by muddy parked cars. A large sign on top of a store building reads: CAROLINE’S STRAWBERRY PICKING.
Ned is a genius.
They pull into an empty spot which just happens to be in the middle of the dirt and stone road, wherein Mr Stark complains just for a moment about southerners and their ‘not real parking spots’. When he opens the door and takes a step out, Peter quietly snatches the car keys from the cupholder, stuffing them into his back jean pocket. Mission successful.
Peter jumps out of the car, slamming the door behind him. He bends his back just for a moment as he hears Mr Stark screech.
He pops his head back into the car, raising his eyebrows in faux surprise. “Hey, everything alright?”
Mr Stark quickly glances at him, frowning. “I can’t find my keys. Have you seen them?” he asks, looking into the cupholders. “We obviously can’t leave without them.”
Peter shakes his head solemnly. “Nope. I guess we’ll just have to stay here until we find them.”
And that’s just what they do.
While Mr Stark keeps glancing suspiciously at the dirt every once and a while, Peter takes this to get a picking basket and pick as many strawberries as possible. Once they’ve completed their second row does Mr Stark talk to him.
“You know Pepper is allergic to strawberries, right?” he sniffs, bending down to look at a large, green one.
Peter did not know that. “Let’s just eat them and never tell her,” he says, nodding sagely to himself.
Mr Stark huffs, still looking around for his keys as if they’d pop out from the ground. Peter’s already gotten enough strawberries and out of the car time to be happy, so he digs his other hand into his pocket, finger looping around the chain and handing it to Mr Stark.
“Here,” he says, open palm and everything. Mr Stark’s eyes are wide. “I sort of stole them so we could get out of the car. Sorry.”
Mr Stark snatches the keys from his hands. “You’re never going to drive the Jeep ever,” he mutters, turning around to get back to the farmhouse, “And I’m going to steal all of your strawberries.”
A win is a win, Peter thinks.
They end up paying ten dollars for the entire basket full of strawberries, and once they’ve got them in a neat plastic bag they get back into the car and begin driving again. The silence is a bit easier now with fruit to munch on, so Peter doesn’t think it’s all too bad.
Mr Stark does end up eating most of the strawberries, though he stuffs them quickly in his face rather than easily chewing them, and every few stops he’ll send Peter a small glare with gobbling up another.
They become low on gas almost three hours in, and Peter has to spend ten minutes trying to find the nearest gas station with zero cell service, which just ends them up at an old run down one with a sign that reads: BABY ALLIGATORS FOR SALE!
Mr Stark ends up calling animal control and the police.
They sip on orange juice in the car as they watch the police handcuff the owner, a balding man who had several gold teeth. Peter doesn’t think he looks like the guy to sell alligators, but each to his own and all that. Once the police are done thanking and questioning the two of them can they continue their drive, a full tank of gas and an empty bag of strawberries later.
It starts getting hotter as the drive progresses, and Peter convinces Mr Stark to let him keep his window open after the tenth try. It’s nice. He can see the sun rising to the midday point, the wheat stocks fluttering with the breeze. Mr Stark has stopped playing his old CD playlists, instead letting them drive in silence.
Peter can just lay and have the sun graze over him, the wind through his hair and the smell of grass at his nose. He’s missed these types of trips, and while he can’t be here with May, he’s happy he’s here with Mr Stark.
He peeks open one eye as he hears the telltale rumble of clouds. Peter sits up slowly, turning his head toward out the window and glancing above. While the clouds above them are just slightly gray, and not taking up too much space, he notices that way out west seems to be a large storm. Not hurricane or tornado worthy, but a rough one, nonetheless.
Peter brings up his window, glancing at Mr Stark. He has a lollipop stuck between his teeth. “Hey, I think there’s a storm coming our way.”
Mr Stark shrugs. “It’s fine. We’re in a car, remember?” his words are slightly muffled from the candy.
Peter nods. They’re in a car, and unless a tornado decides to show up and devour them, they should be perfectly fine. There’s no worry at all.
The rain starts hitting the windshield fifteen minutes later, which means the winds are blowing high today. Definitely thunderstorm material. Mr Stark turns on the windshield wiper and calls it a day.
Five minutes later the rain worsens, and soon, Peter can’t see anything out of the rain. Mr Stark tells him that the Jeep is already up to date with protocols like this, meaning the lights in the front and back are already, and have been, on. He tries to look through the haze of pouring rain and headlights, but all Peter sees are the dull red lights of a car in front of them.
A flash of lighting has Peter jolting, hand accidentally sticking to his door. He attempts to pull it out, yet it’s stuck like superglue. He sighs. “My hand is stuck.”
“What?” Mr Stark glances at him. Peter gives a pull to showcase. “You and your spider-ness. Just don’t get any web stuff on my seats. It’s real leather.”
Peter rolls his eyes, one hand taking out his phone from his pocket. He unlocks it with his face, thankfully, and goes to the group chat again.
pp
you guuss woulr not bbeli,ube
whast my hanfd ixs syuck to
ned
Peter????? Are you okay ??? ?
mj
you can’t die before the finals
i’ll kill you.
pp
bnoooioooooo
Totally scored it.
The rain gets bad enough that Mr Stark actually starts glancing at the temperature levels, because while it had been getting hotter, it suddenly cooled down in the past thirty minutes. Peter blinks as they turn off the highway, parking right underneath a large tree that covers the entire car.
He turns to him, one part of his body unable to turn with him. “Why’d we stop?”
Mr Stark doesn’t say anything, just points upwards to the sky. Peter furrows his eyebrows, turning to look back out, when something hard hits the road next to them, and one moment it’s raining, and the next large hail is thundering about.
Peter grimaces as one big piece hits the fence next to them. “Do you have a sixth hail sense?”
Mr Stark snorts. “I’m just smarter than the average man,” is all he says.
Ten minutes later the hail starts to slow down, large pieces becoming smaller pieces. Peter feels himself calm down, the rhythmic thrumming like a lullaby. He pulls his hand one more time, it unsticks, and he goes to stretch out his fingers. The thudding abruptly stops, and when Peter looks up, he realizes the hail has stopped. Mr Stark unparks the car and easily thrusts it back onto the road.
The rain seems to have stopped as well, and the gray clouds are lifting into pearl white. Peter can finally see the road again, though it’s covered in small balls of ice. The trip is a bit bumpier after that, though the hail starts to melt away once the sun comes out five minutes later.
They’re already over halfway with their trip being done, and that’s when Peter starts to get hungry. He has a fast metabolism, yeah, so he’s been hungry most of this entire time, but now he’s hungry hungry, and nausea is starting to climb up his throat.
“Can we stop and get something to eat?” Peter asks, sock covered feet up to the seat with him.
Mr Stark nods. “We’re about six minutes from the next town. We’ll get something there.”
Six minutes later they find themselves in a town that looks like it has been runover by a herd of cows. Peter isn’t one to judge towns like this, except their department store doesn’t even have a roof. They park in front of a diner two minutes later, with a cursive neon sign that Peter can’t read but he assumes to spell out “TILLY’S DINER”. Or maybe it’s Tiffy’s. Or Telly’s. Or maybe it’s Candance’s, he can’t tell.
But they end up walking into it either way, and Peter is pleasantly surprised to find that the only theme that irks him here is the mounted deer on the ceilings. It’s a ‘sit and we’ll come to you’ policy, so he and Mr Stark sit at a booth right next to the window that looks over a wheat farm.
A woman with blonde hair and a missing tooth takes their orders, and Peter finds out that she’s a nice mother who’s been working at the restaurant with her mee-maw, Tilly. He congratulates her on owning a nice diner with her grandmother, and once his pancakes come, she gives him a free chocolate chip cookie on the side.
Mr Stark ends up eating eggs and bacon with steaming black coffee to go with as well. When he asks Sheran, the waitress, why they’re still selling breakfast items at lunch, Sheran responds to say that they don’t believe that specific items should be kept to specific times. Mr Stark just hums along.
Once Peter finishes his remaining pancakes and cookie, and also downs his cup of orange juice, do they pay and leave a cash tip of ten dollars on the clothed table. They jump back into the car and continue their trip, only three hours left on the clock.
They keep driving for another hour in silence, though Mr Stark ends up putting in the AC/DC CD again, much to the dismay of Peter’s aching need for the sound of nature. The tunes and the rolling hills are nice, though, and at one point they cross a small wooden bridge that goes above a lake dubbed “STORK JAY LAKE”. Peter doesn’t notice any storks.
The road goes from pavement to stone and then to dirt, and almost at two hours left they pass a large truck that’s hauling items from Osborn Corp. Peter smiles and waves giddily at the driver, who gives him a nice thumbs up and two loud honks.
After reaching the two-hour point, Mr Stark seems to peer into his driver screen, eyes narrowing smoothly. Mr Stark is a pretty weird guy, Peter thinks, but then he takes it back, because that’s judging someone, but then he puts it back there again when the car abruptly jolts to the side, hitting the curve and quickly parking off the road.
Peter heaves a breath, shooting Mr Stark an accusatory glance. “Tire’s flat,” is all he says before he jumps out the car, shutting off the engine and walking away.
Peter stays stuck in his seat for another moment before he suddenly unbuckles his seatbelt and jumps out as well. His sneakers are hit with a dust of dirt, and when he walks down to the back of the car does he notice Mr Stark taking the extra tire from the Jeep’s harness.
“How’d we lose a tire?” he asks, peering down as Mr Stark opens the trunk. He pulls out the jack and lug wrench.
Mr Stark hands him the tools before grabbing the tire himself. He walks over to the bottom left tire, dropping the spare down. “Probably somewhere along one of the dirt roads. I’ll just change it quickly.” He puts out his hand and Peter automatically hands him the jack. Mr Stark places it in between the bottom of the car and the ground, he turns it for a minute or so before the side of the car is lifted enough for him to swap.
Peter has never really, you know, changed tires, but he’s seen May do it loads of times on their own road trips. She would always try her hardest to explain what she was doing and why. He hands Mr Stark the lug wrench afterward, and watches as he undoes the nuts and bolts of the tire. A minute or so later, he’s popping off the flat tire from the car and popping in the new one. He tightens the nuts by hand, lowers the car, and tightens harder.
Peter is fully focused at this point, until, well, he hears a noise that sounds oddly like—
“Cows!” he yelps, rushing to the pasture fence as a large, yellow cow chews on grass in front of him. “Mr Stark, there’s cows!”
Mr Stark huffs, still tightening the bolts with the lug wrench. “Cool, kid. Real cool.”
Peter grins, holding out his hand. The cow raises herself, and her nose goes to his hand, sniffing it gently. “I’m going to name you Spider-Cow,” he whispers. Spider-Cow just licks his hand.
Mr Stark grunts behind him before shutting the trunk. He sighs. “Peter, stop playing with the cows. It’s already four.”
Peter gives Spider-Cow a gentle scratch behind her ear before he leaves. He gives her a wave as he jumps back into the car, shutting the door behind him. He buckles his seatbelt and gives Mr Stark a glance, who seems like he’s ready for the whole thing to be over.
The remaining two hours is full of rock tracks and Peter chatting about Spider-Cow, and at six p.m. with the sun already starting to set they’re at the lake house. It’s a nice, wooden building that Peter could totally see himself living in, but only if they were to find Spider-Cow and bring her here.
They meet up with Ms Potts and Mr Wilson afterward, with Mr Stark speaking unending about the horrifying trip they had. When they’re all eating dinner and talking, Peter opens his phone and shows Ms Potts the photo of Spider-Cow he has, and then the one of Mr Stark yelling at the alligator guy. All Ms Potts does is smile and laugh, and when Mr Stark goes to peek at the phone, Peter hides it with a grin.
The road is an endless place, and now Peter knows to always ask Mr Stark to drive him to places.