The Plan
“So, what’s the plan?” Peter-Three asked once he slid back through the window of Peter-One’s dorm, lugging the bags from CVS.
“Why am I supposed to be the one with a plan?” Peter-Two sighed as he followed through the window with a squirming Peter-One tucked carefully into his jacket. He turned around to check that no one saw them and firmly shut the window against the cold night air.
“I dunno, you’re the one who-” Peter-Three made a look-at-this hand gesture in the other Peter’s direction, “- looks like a dad?”
“I knew you’d say that,” Peter-Two grumbled. He came over and set Peter-One carefully on the middle of the bed, studying the still-very-much-naked baby (who was chewing happily on his dog plushie) with a critical eye and a frown. He held out his hand to Peter-Three. “Pacifier?”
Peter-Three set the bags of groceries down on Peter-One’s table and fished around in one of them. “Catch,” he said, tossing said pacifier to his elder.
Peter-Two snatched it out of mid-air and knelt by the bed, holding it up to the gurgling baby. “Peter, I need you to let go of the dog,” he said, tugging gently at the toy. He gave the baby an encouraging, gentle smile. “I swear you can keep biting –or teething, or whatever you’re doing– but just not on the dog.”
The baby’s brow furrowed and he spitefully bit harder into the toy, clinging to it with all limbs like a little koala.
Peter-Two’s steely eyes flashed right back at the challenge. “Peter, ” he stressed, dropping the smile and hooding his eyes until just a sliver of his blue irises were visible, “Give. Me. The. Dog.”
The baby seemed to at least understand his icy tone of voice and shrank into the bed a little, relaxing his tight hold on the toy. Peter-Two quickly pulled the dog toy away and slid the pacifier into the child’s open mouth before there were any further noises of complaint. The baby blinked once, then twice, his little hands tugging questioningly at the unfamiliar contraption in his mouth. He suckled cautiously at it and decided, well, it wasn't so bad after all. Sucking on it in earnest, he made grabby hands at the dog toy still hovering just out of his reach.
Peter-Two sighed in relief and returned the plush to him, unable to keep a faint but genuine smile off his face as the baby curled happily around the soft dog.
“You’ve got a bit of a scary side, you know that?” Peter-Three observed with a tilt of his head. He dumped all the CVS items out on the other end of the bed to survey what they had.
Peter-Two’s eyes flitted over to him and there was -for a brief second- something that looked like anxious embarrassment in his gaze. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said lightly, but there was something final in his tone that told Peter-Three the older man didn’t want to discuss it.
“Uh-huh.” Peter-Three was suspicious but didn’t push it. Despite becoming as close as blood brothers over the course of the last year, there were still moments between the three Peters that made them realize that they had lived *entire lives* without each other. There was still much to learn about each other’s pasts.
“We do need a plan,” Peter-Two admitted, standing and putting his hands on his hips. “We have to find a way to travel with all this stuff. We have to feed him, put him to sleep, and make him some clothes. And-” he cringed, “there’s the whole diaper thing.”
Peter-Three put a finger on his nose at the mention of a diaper change. “Not it.”
Peter-Two looked at him with his lips drawn tight in sheer disappointment.
Peter-Three lifted his shoulders helplessly at the silent accusation. “ Listen , the ven-diagram of ‘fighting skills’ and ‘taking care of a baby’ is just two circles with no overlap. This isn’t my forte and it’s not yours either, unless your crime-fighting career took a sharp turn somewhere that I don’t know about.”
“We’ll just have to learn,” Peter-Two reasoned stubbornly, “Peter-One learned magic. We can definitely learn how to babysit a baby for a weekend. It can’t be that hard, right?”
Multiple YouTube videos later (thank god Peter-One’s laptop let them on using admin mode), the two older Peters stared down at the baby Peter-One with trepidation.
Laying on the bed with a clean towel underneath him and various baby supplies scattered around his body, the naked child blinked back at them. As the staring continued, Peter-One gurgled around his pacifier and lifted his grabby hands at them, clearly expecting to be held or played with.
“Flip you for it,” Peter-Three sighed.
“ Actually , I’ll go first,” Peter-Two said mildly, tearing apart the diaper bag.
Peter-Three’s eyebrows rose in surprise before his face melted into a suspicious stare. Peter-Two never let him win that easily. “Why?”
“Because,” Peter-Two said, giving him a smirk as he opened the soft wipes and the squeeze tube of diaper cream as well, “he hasn’t wet himself yet. And if we’re taking turns, that means you’re changing him when he’s actually done something.”
Peter-Three’s face sank. “ Oh. ”
“Only fair,” Peter-Two said with a growing smile. “If you want to be helpful, go find an old t-shirt or something and make him some clothes.”
Grumbling, Peter-Three went to go do just that, fishing around the teenager’s closet for the necessary materials. Both older Peters had been sewing their suits since the very beginning of their crime-fighting journeys; Peter-One was a relative newbie at it, but at least he brought his sewing machine and thread with him to college. Peter-Three pulled the machine out of the closet, then began to sort through the shirts that were hanging in front of his face. “So do you think he’ll miss his… Science Olympiad shirt more or his…” Peter-Three studied one of the shirts that was hanging with a raised eyebrow, “...Stark Industries Intern shirt?”
“Don’t pick one that he’ll miss,” Peter-Two said from where he was batting aside Peter-One’s kicking little legs. The man looked up, his brows drawn. “I’m serious. Those are precious to him.”
“Right,” Peter-Three agreed. “M.I.T. shirt it is, we can always buy him another one. This one is fugly anyways, what is this color combo ?”
As demonstrated at the Statue of Liberty, they could be quite efficient when they did have a plan. Peter-Three quickly cut up some shirts and sewed some onesies for the baby, then found Peter-One’s backpack, which was thankfully big enough to fit all their baby supplies with room for their civilian clothes.
Peter-Two, meanwhile, worked on trying to get the fussy baby to eat. It didn’t seem to be going particularly well.
“ Peter , c’mon-” Peter-Two gasped as the baby grabbed the spoonful of mashed-up peas and released it with just enough tension to fling it into the older Peter’s left eye and hair. The older man stared down at the baby in half-shock, half-outrage; his spider-sense didn’t activate as it didn’t view the other Peter as a threat.
Peter-Three snorted, slapped a hand to his own face and began to wheeze-laugh into it. Peter-One’s adorable baby giggles soon joined him. The infant clapped his hands together in excitement, spreading more sticky food amongst his fingers.
“Haha yes, very funny,” Peter-Two deadpanned, sighing as he sat back on his heels as he surveyed the damage on the bed. There were mashed peas spread all over the now-dirty towel and smeared across Peter-One’s chubby face, some of it dripping into the child’s curly hair. He gently pushed away some of the bedsheets with his elbow so he could save them from the same fate. “He’s only finished half the tub,” the man said softly, brows furrowed. “I don’t know if that’s enough.”
Immediately sensing that the older man was more anxious about the child’s health than his own dignity, Peter-Three did his best to reign in his laughter. His eyes watered with the effort. “I’m sure if he needs more, he’ll complain later. Go shower or something, it’ll probably be your only chance before New York.”
“Wait, hold that thought.” Peter-Two stood, somehow managing to look incredibly serious despite the peas in his hair and the tiny tub of baby food in his hands. His eyes were wide with alarm. “ Showering. The showers are communal in a dorm.”
Peter-Three’s mouth made an ‘o’ as he caught on to what the other was saying. “Yiiiiikes. We already look sketchy as hell just being here.”
“Right, and-” Peter-Two gave the baby a withering side-eye, “-he’s going to need a shower, too.”
Peter-Three clasped his hands together and tapped his fingertips impatiently on his chin. His dark eyes flitted this way and that as he thought hard. “So, um, well , I have an idea.”
Peter-Two pointed the spoon at him with narrowed eyes. “...I’m not going to like this idea, am I?”
Peter-Three shrugged one shoulder, smirking. “Probably not, but it’ll get any stragglers out of the bathroom.”
And that was how the fire alarm at the M.I.T. dorm got pulled at 12:30 AM.