Apparently Spider-kids from Queens took the song “Deck the Halls” very seriously. The day December hit, the boy had immediately got a Christmas tree to the penthouse of Stark Tower. Tony had suggested they wait longer to put up decorations, but after the boy had decked the tree in red and gold tinsel, Tony had given in and let him keep the tree up.
Peter slowly started to sneak different decorations around the floor everyday, but Tony never had the heart to take them down. All through December and leading up to Christmas, pillows would be replaced with Santa themed ones and little snowmen would cover every surface available. Lights and tinsel were hanging in every hallway, but it never seemed to be enough for the kid.
It was the morning of Christmas Eve, and the residents of Stark Tower were all gathered in the kitchen of the penthouse for breakfast. Peter was the last to the room due to his choice to stay up as late as possible the night before and figure out a way to add more decorations to the already redundant Christmas room.
Although getting no more than five hours of sleep, the boy looked like he was about to start bouncing off of the walls. “It’s Christmas Eve!” The boy called with a smile splitting his face in half.
“You’re right! Completely forgot! I was just thinking it was your average Thursday surrounded by the entirety of the North Pole.” Tony said sarcastically, but took all of the sting out of his words with a ruffle of the boy's hair.
“Y’know, I only think I see about 90% of the North Pole. Where’s the rest, Pete?” Sam said with a wink, smirking when he received an eye roll from Tony.
“Hey, who says I’m done?” The boy spun one of the barstools around that had been holding leftover decorations, and grabbed one of the leftover bows. “I think we could use a little something right…” He peeled the sticker off of the back of the bow, and quickly turned around and smacked it right in the middle of Tony’s forehead. “...there. Now I’m done.”
Tony slowly brought his hand up to the offending bow, and peeled it off without breaking eye contact with Peter. “Oh you’re dead, Parker,” the man said, and lunged for Peter who was quick enough to jump out of the way thanks to his Spider Senses. The boy darted around the table and hid behind the chair Natasha was sitting on, and just as Tony was about to lunge for the boy again, Steve intercepted the two with two large plates of pancakes.
“Food’s done,” He said with a smirk.
Tony glared at Peter with a finger and said, “This isn’t over.”
Peter stuck his tongue out in response and sat down next to Natasha and across from Tony. “What’d you make this time, Cap? They can’t just be normal pancakes,” Bucky asked from where he was seated next to Sam.
“Nope, they’re not. I added some peppermint chocolate chips to get in the Christmas spirit,” Steve said with a wink to Peter.
“Oh come on! Is everyone against me?” Tony complained.
“You brought this on yourself, Stark. It’s Christmas, you don’t have to be such a grinch.” Nat retaliated.
“If I recall correctly, the grinch had an entire movie dedicated to himself, and in the end people realized how totally awesome he is, so I’m going to take that as a compliment.”
Peter listened to the conversation flowing around while he began eating. After he took his first bite, he realized he hadn’t had anything peppermint since way before the spider bite. And he had forgotten how good it was. He quickly consumed the three pancakes on his plate, and then stacked four more and began devouring them. The boy felt a small twinge in his stomach, but chalked it up as himself eating too fast. He made it about halfway through his new stack of pancakes when he looked up and noticed the perfect spot on the ceiling to hang the leftover tinsel.
As a dramatic effect, he went wide eyed and pointed to the ceiling causing everyone to turn to him in concern. He stood from his chair and grabbed a couple of strands along with some command hooks, and then walked away from the table to his designated station.
“Whatcha doing there bud?” Tony asked with a mix of concern and amusement in his voice.
“I just found the perfect place to add more North Pole,” the boy said, and then he twisted around and jumped upwards so he was attached to the ceiling.
A chorus of curses came from the table as Sam said, “That will never not be creepy.”
Peter decided to ignore them in favor of waiting for his vision to return. He normally didn’t get head rushes after flipping onto the ceiling, but he also never did so soon after he woke up. He took a moment and waited, but his vision didn’t return.
“Uh, Tony?” He said. Or he thought he said, but he didn’t hear his voice. “What’s happening? I can’t… help… dad?”
And then he was falling. He was falling and he didn’t have his web shooters to stop him and he couldn’t see and he couldn’t hear… and then nothing.
“Uh, Tony?” The moment the boy said that, everyone shut up.
“Kid? You oka-”
“What’s happening?” The boy sounded scared. Terrified. “I can’t… help… dad?”
Tony watched in slow motion as the boys hands and feet unstuck from the ceiling... as he stuck an arm out to try to shoot a web… as Steve jumped from his chair and raced for the boy.
As Peter’s head hit the hardwood floors with a loud crack.
That seemed to break Tony out of his trance; he raced forward and dropped on his knees next to Steve where the man was checking Peter’s pulse.
“Friday… Friday, what’s going on?” Tony asked, sounding like he just ran a marathon.
“I am unsure, boss, but Mr. Parker needs immediate medical assistance. I have contacted Helen Cho, she will be here shortly” the AI said calmly.
“Is it safe to move him?” Steve asked from next to him.
“I don’t detect any neck or spinal injuries, but I would recommend waiting for the medical team to bring a gurney.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Tony mumbled, moving to cradle the boy’s head in his hands.
They waited about fifteen more seconds before the medical team was in the penthouse, wrapping a brace around Peter’s neck and lifting him onto the gurney. A woman with a tablet started listing off his known injuries as they rushed to the elevator, forcing the team to stay where they were while the doors shut.
By the time Tony and the others got to the medbay, there wasn’t a single person in sight. Tony’s knees threatened to buckle at the eerie silence, but Rhodey caught the man in time and helped him to one of the many chairs in the waiting room.
“Friday, what are his stats?” Natasha asked as she perched herself on a table by Tony’s side.
“I am not aware of the situation as Mr. Parker has never lost consciousness whilst being Spider-Man, all though the medical team has recorded one fractured rib, one broken, a grade two concussion, dislocated right shoulder, and a fractured right wrist.”
Friday finished speaking just as Helen Cho ran through the elevator doors and straight through the waiting room, through another pair of doors and gone again.
“Jesus,” Sam muttered quietly, but everyone's main focus was the man that looked like he was about to fall out of his chair.
“Tones, just relax man. He’s in good hands, the best there are. He’s going to be fine.” Rhodey assured his friend. Pepper, who had previously taken a seat next to her boyfriend, grabbed his hand and pulled Tony into her arms, slowly rubbing his back to keep him grounded.
They sat like that for another hour, everyone waiting silently to find out if the boy was going to be okay. Not a single person spoke, or left, or even moved, for that matter. Their eyes were either glued to the floor, or to their clenched fists, and it didn’t even seem like a single person blinked. They were all paralized with fear, fear for the boy that had wormed his way into all of their hearts.
By the time Helen made her way back out to the waiting room, appearance disheveled and tired, everyone was on autopilot. Tony rose to his feet, Pepper following soon after, and the doctor smiled softly at the fear on Tony’s face. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the doctor to tell them what could be life or death for most of them.
“He’s going to be just fine,” She said with a smile, and everyone in the room visibly slumped with relief. “He suffered from an allergic reaction to peppermint extract, something I have come to learn that repels spiders. All of his injuries should heal just fine, our biggest concern is the concussion. With his healing, it should be gone in just a few days, but for the time being he may just be disoriented and confused. We reset his wrist and put his arm in a sling, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if that was healed by tomorrow morning. Luckily, his ribs weren’t an issue and are healed for the most part. His chest may be a bit sore for the next few days, but otherwise everything wasn’t too bad.”
“So how long are we going to be stuck down here?” Someone said from behind Tony.
“I want to keep him here for the rest of the day so I can monitor him, but I feel pretty comfortable with him being moved back to his floor after I clear him. I’m putting him on bed rest until his concussion is gone, which shouldn’t take more than a few days. As long as he isn’t jostled too much, he shouldn’t feel much pain to the point where he needs an IV or anesthetic. His healing is playing a huge favor for him here. If it weren’t for his enhanced metabolism, I would guess you all would be spending Christmas in the Medbay.” She finished with a smile.
“So I can see him?” Tony asked.
“Of course. He should be waking up in no more than fifteen minutes, but it would be best if he only had one person in the room at a time so he doesn’t get too stressed.”
Tony nodded and glanced at everyone in the room. They all gave him a soft smile as Pepper let go of his hand, kissing him on the cheek and moving to sit back down next to Rhodey.
“Right this way.”
Tony followed Helen down the hallway to a wooden door. “I know some of the machines may look intimidating, but they are all helping him one way or another. He was breathing on his own once we got out of surgery, so there are only a few things in there, nothing harmful, okay? I have his vitals hooked up to my watch, but you can always hit the call button on the left side of his bed if you need anything.”
The man nodded his head but couldn’t manage to make his mouth form any words. Cho smiled and opened the door just a crack before turning and walking away. Tony stood outside of the room for a few moments, trying to get himself under control before he entered it. With the way Helen had warned him about the machines, he knew they would scare him. Turning and walking away wasn’t an option, not when there was a boy waiting inside who would wake up any minute and wonder why he was alone in a foreign room. With a few labored breaths, Tony lifted his hand to the door and slowly pushed it open, his breath immediately catching in his throat when he saw the boy in the bed.
Peter looked so small amongst the machines covering him, and the white of the sheets somehow made the boy look more pale than ever. His right arm was resting on his chest with a sling around it, and a bandage was wrapped around his arm where they had removed the IV.
Tony walked around the bed and took a seat by the boy's left side, deciding to sit on the edge of the bed rather than the chair next to it. He grabbed Peter’s hand in his and rubbed his thumb over the boy’s small knuckles, eliciting a small groan from the boy.
“Pete? Can you hear me, bud?” The man asked, and his chest warmed when he felt Peter squeeze his hand softly. “Wanna open your eyes for me Kiddo? Let me see those bambi’s.”
Peter’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and after a bit more supporting words from Tony he managed to flutter them open.
Peter was floating. It was like he was sitting on a cloud, swarming in and out of a quiet darkness. He didn’t know what he was doing or how he got there, but he didn’t mind it too much. It was sort of peaceful. If he listened closely, he could hear multiple heartbeats coming from… somewhere, somewhere close but far, and the distinct sound of a feminine voice talking.
Then there were footsteps that were getting closer. Should Peter be worried? Maybe he was supposed to be ready for a fight? He didn’t know. But then the footsteps stopped and he could hear the woman’s voice again. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, but the sound was somewhat comforting compared to the silence of the darkness that was consuming him. He waited and listened, finding peace in the background noise and was ready to drift off again when there were more footsteps. This time one of them walked away, leaving a single heartbeat to be the only thing Peter could hear.
Then the heartbeat got closer and closer, and then he was shifting a little. Something warm caught his hand that immediately let calm wash over him. He heard someone groan softly, (Was it himself? He didn’t know), but then a voice was talking. One he knew to listen to. He strained his ears and tried to sort through what was being said, but all he could make out was ‘eyes’ and ‘see’.
They wanted to see his eyes? Why did they want to see his eyes? Peter was confused by the request, but somewhere in the back of his head he knew he trusted the voice. With a maximum amount of effort Peter managed to pull his eyes open to reveal a white room with a man looking over him.
Tony, he thought. That man is Tony.
But this wasn’t his room. Why would he wake up to a room that wasn’t his own? His eyes filled with hot tears as they danced around the room, taking in the white walls and white cabinets and white chairs. Then he felt warm hands on his face, tilting his head toward the man next to him. That’s when he realized that Tony was talking to him and his mind seemed to have cleared enough to understand what the man was saying.
“It’s okay bud. You’re okay. Why the tears, is something hurting?” The man's eyes seemed to look a little shiny and made Peter wonder why the man would be crying. Was it because he was crying?
Peter shook his head and tried to urge back the tears, but the only thing that he thought could make them go away were Tony’s arms. He couldn’t figure out how to make his mouth work, so he tried to signal with his hands, but didn’t make it very far before Tony was stopping him.
“Hey, you gotta keep this arm down, okay Pete? You tousled it up a bit, so you need to keep it still so it can heal.”
Peter looked down to his right arm, frowning when he saw a cast and a sling. He looked back to Tony as more tears ran down his face and he tried to signal with just his left arm. He pulled it from Tony’s hand and grabbed the man's shirt, tugging a bit in hopes of getting the man closer.
It worked for the most part, Tony had to lean in a bit so Peter didn’t rip his shirt right off, but Peter whined again when Tony grabbed the kids hand and forced him to ease up.
“Okay, okay I get it kiddo, you’re clingy, but there isn’t much room for me, bud,” the man said with a soft smile.
Peter just lifted his left arm with a determined look on his face and shoved himself as far as he could to the right side of the bed.
Tony sighed with a fond look as Peter looked back to him expectantly. “I’m really not getting out of this one, am I, bud.” Tony said it as more of a statement than a question, but Peter hummed nonetheless, grinning slightly as Tony stood and lifted the blankets that were covering his kid. “The things I do for you, Pete.”
Peter waited for Tony to crawl in next to him, and the second Tony had the blankets pulled back up Peter was moving back towards him and squeezing himself in between Tony’s side and arm. The boy rested his head on Tony’s shoulder, and sighed happily when the man started running his hands through his hair.
“The things I do for you,” he repeated as Peter drifted off once more.
When Peter woke again, things weren’t as floaty as last time. Tony was still on the bed with him and it appeared his arm had never left from around the boy. He felt a dull ache in the back of his head, curling into Tony’s side even more when it went up a notch.
“You awake, kiddo?” The man asked from above him.
“Mmmm.”
“Does anything hurt?” He asked with concern, lifting his hand to start brushing through Peter’s curls again.
“...No,” Peter said quietly.
“I think I’m gonna take that as a yes, buddy.” Tony grabbed the call button next to the bed and clicked it. “We’ll get you some more of the good stuff, okay? Keep you nice and comfy.”
Peter hummed again, shutting his eyes and waiting for whatever was going to happen. Helen came quietly into the room no more than a minute later, smiling when Peter opened his eyes and met hers.
“It’s good to see you’re awake, Peter. Is something hurting?”
Peter looked up to his father-figure who was giving him a pointed looked, and sighed before nodding. “My head, a little.”
“Well, that is to be expected. You got a grade two concussion when you fell.” The woman continued to retell Peter’s diagnosis while pumping him full with pain medicine. “We’re hoping that by tonight, actually only a few hours away by now, you’ll be in a good enough condition to be moved back to your floor. For now I need to keep an eye on your vitals and healing process, but I’ll be back in a few hours to see how we're doing.”
Peter nodded and watched her type something in on her tablet, then say a farewell and leave the room.
“Well, Pete, looks like you’ll be spending Christmas on bedrest,” Tony said with a squeeze to the boy’s shoulder. Peter groaned in response, mumbling something about ‘Parker luck’. “Hey, it won’t be all that bad, kiddo. Think about it, you get to spend Christmas being babied by Earth's Mightiest Heroes.”
“Not exactly my type of holiday,” the boy mumbled.
Five hours later, Peter was settled onto the couch after being cleared by Helen to leave the medbay. Tony had turned into a Mother Hen ever since the boy had sat up from his bed. He carefully helped Peter into a wheelchair, much to Peter’s dismay, and harassed him the whole trip up with things such as, ‘Are you okay?’ and “Does it hurt?’. Peter would be joyed by the man’s obvious show of affection for him if it weren’t for these circumstances.
Peter had been carefully helped to the couch where Tony propped up pillows for him to lean on, and before they knew it, the entirety of the Avengers were all crammed into the living room watching Christmas movies.
Peter had to take a large amount of pain meds throughout the day, making him much more drowsy and less energetic than normal. When he started to have trouble keeping his eyes open, he snuggled as far into Tony’s side as he could before drifting off to sleep.
Peter blinked his eyes open, lifting his hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. There were hushed whispers to his left, where he found Natasha and Clint bickering over something on one of their phones. Natasha spotted him watching them and smiled.
“Look who came back from the dead.”
Tony showed up from behind the couch with a large plate of what looked like caramelized bread. “Wow, Pete, I thought you were going to leave me to spend Christmas all alone,” the man said while handing Peter the plate. “Try it. It’s monkey bread, my moms recipe.”
The boy accepted the plate and took a bite, eyes widening at the flavor that covered his taste buds. He quickly shoveled the rest of the pastry into his mouth before anyone had the chance to speak.
“I’m gonna take it you like it,” Tony said with amusement gracing his features.
Peter nodded vigorously and held out the plate, which Tony took to fill up once again. When the man came back with Peter’s plate and one for himself, he dropped onto the couch and kicked his feet up on the coffee table.
“Where’s everyone else?” Peter asked through mouthfuls of food.
“They were all complaining I was taking too long so I sent them to their own floor until I finished making it. I slave over the stove for them, and all I get is attitude.”
Peter giggled around the food in his mouth causing caramel to spill down his chin. Tony started laughing at the boy's childish look, and before they knew it they were both a fit of laughter, choking around their food.
Pepper walked in when the two started to catch their breath, giving them both a fond look but not asking any questions.
“Hey, where have you been? Now that I think about it, I haven’t seen you all morning.” Tony said as she pecked him on the cheek.
“I was just spending this lovely Christmas morning with myself,” she said with a smirk on her face. Obviously, Tony wasn’t buying it.
“I want to keep questioning you-”
“But your not going to get an answer-”
“But I’m not going to get an answer-”
“Therefore you don’t want to keep questioning me.”
“Right,” Tony sighed, accepting his defeat.
The elevator dinged and the rest of the team walked in, reminding Tony that the two superspies must have snuck away at some point. They passed the few in the living room and headed straight to the kitchen.
“Not even a greeting, I’m wounded,” Tony said with a pout, causing Peter to giggle again.
Sam walked into the room first, ruffling Peter’s hair and sitting on the chair opposite him. “How ya feeling, squirt?”
Peter blushed at the nickname and hesitated before answering. “I feel pretty good.”
“You’re a terrible liar kid.”
“That, I have to agree with birdbrain on. Does your head hurt?” Tony asked, pulling a bottle of pills out of his sweats.
Peter thought about denying it, but the pain was at a six and only getting higher. “And my arm a little, yeah.”
Tony hummed and dumped a pill into his hand, giving it to Peter who swallowed it quickly. By then the rest of the team had made their way into the seating area, all with a plate of food in their hand. They started to chatter, spending their breakfast with light jokes and conversation. They opened presents soon after, and Peter gawked at the amount that lay before him compared to everyone else. They ignored his rant and watched as he spent more time than everyone else combined opening presents.
An hour later Peter was covered in piles of presents and wrapping paper, a grin splitting his face in two. He lunged at Tony, who had given him his last present, and pulled him into an almost painful hug.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Peter said squeezing the man impossibly tighter.
Tony wrapped his arms around the boy and kissed the top of his head. “Not a problem, kiddo.”
Peter suddenly relaxed in the genius’ arms, seeming to start falling off some adrenaline rush from opening presents because this fucking kid.
“Tired, bud?”
“No.”
Tony attempted to detach the boy from him only to find that he was literally stuck to the man.
“Whatever you say, kid.” Tony pulled the rest of the stuff off of Peter and then leaned back, tucking the blanket a little more firmly around the boy's shoulder.
Peter was already dead asleep on Tony’s shoulder by the time they were situated.
“So, Christmas movie?”