the day peter thought a dog to be a bomb
Tony Stark has seen and experienced a lot of things in life. His parents’ and Jarvis’s deaths, Afghanistan, becoming Iron Man, Obie betraying him, Hammer Industries, almost dying of palladium poisoning, carrying a nuke through a wormhole, yadda yadda. You know, average everyday stuff for a superhero.
After all that, he should expect everything. He should be prepared for everything. Right?
He thought so too.
He really did. But then, Peter freaking Parker, Spider-man, shows up. In normal, civilian clothes, at about 10 PM, time in which he always was on patrol. A hoodie over which his Stark Industries ID card stood, and some worn-out jeans, plus—Jesus, why does the kid keep these converse? However, that isn’t the weirdest part. The weirdest part is that a) He’s soaking wet, and b) Peter entered through the main entrance. He raises an eyebrow at that, because hell, he made FRIDAY open windows automatically for him, because of how many times he refused to enter through the normal, main entrance. (He also refuses to do a lot of other things. Taking care of himself, calling him when he’s in trouble instead of barging in while Tony is working in something, and most importantly, calling him Tony instead of Mr. Stark.) It was a very stormy day outside, lightning and thunder, raining cats and dogs, maybe that was the reason as to why the kid decided to use the main entrance instead of the window?
Peter seemed to not have seen Tony; he suspected it was because he wasn’t on the couch, where he usually was whenever he was in the living room. He was picking up some things next to the TV, where light didn’t quite reach at the moment. He carefully observed Peter from the shadows. The kid seemed to be looking around, and when he didn’t see Tony, he relaxed. The teen seemed to be cradling something close to his chest. Huh.
Tony forced himself to remain calm, as his— the kid seemed to reach under his hoodie, ready to grab whatever he was carrying. The man sucked in his breath in anticipation, watching closely. Was he going to pull out a beer? Some drugs? What was so bad that the kid thought he couldn’t trust Tony with?
However, all of his anticipation was thrown out of the window when Pepper entered the room, eyes busy on her Starkpad. She raised her sight to assess the room, and noticed Peter.
“Oh, hey Pete. What are you doing here?” Pepper asked the boy. The door by which she had entered was placed exactly parallel to Tony’s position, which meant that although Peter was not able to see him, Pepper could. Since she didn’t know that Tony was staying out of Peter’s sight, she raised a perfect eyebrow at him and asked, “Tony? What are you doing?”
Tony cursed mentally as Peter, much like a deer caught in the headlights, turned to look at him. “Mr. Stark! I- um… Hey! It’s uhh… What ar… What are you doing here?”
“Peter. I live here.”
Pepper chuckled softly and Peter looked even more mortified.
“Well, y-yeah! But, um… y-you know how y—“ Whatever the kid was about to spout was cut off by a whine. A whine.
Both Tony and Pepper looked around, confused, looking for the source of the sound. Could it have been a cat outside? Wait, how would a cat even get this far up in the first place? Tony’s mind raced, trying to find an explanation as to what was happening. However, his searching was quickly stopped by a hand on his arm. He turned to look and found Pepper (how had she crossed the room that fast?), looking straight at Peter. So, he too, looked at Peter.
Peter, with a puppy dog in his hands, Parker.
“Can we please keep it?”
Peter’s day had been pretty chill. Nothing too weird, he’d gotten ready for school, eaten a banana that May had thrown at him but he caught (thanks to his spidey sense), walked to school with his earphones plugged in (although one ear didn’t work), and attended all of his classes at school. The highlight of his day had been Flash being annoying, as usual. (“Hey Penis! You look like shit!”) Afterwards, Happy picked him up and took him to his apartment. He did all of his homework in about thirty minutes, spent another thirty eating with May, and then began to prepare everything to go out patrolling.
He put on his suit, put some a hoodie and a normal pair of pants over it, stuffed his mask in his hoodie’s pocket, and grabbed his web-shooters. He planted a kiss on May’s cheek as he walked out, chuckling as she exaggerated and tried to rub the kiss off.
“Be back by around 12! Larb you!”
He exited his apartment, and began walking towards an alley. He always tried to pick a different one, so that people wouldn’t always see Spider-man walking out of the very same one. He did the same when returning home.
His night began like many others: swing, ask Karen to pitch in to the police station’s radio. This time, since he began a bit earlier, there wasn’t a lot of activity right now.
“Hey Karen, what time is it?” He always brought a watch, but well he won’t be able to see it unless he takes his whole suit off, which kind of defeats the purpose. Plus, why should he, when he has an AI inside his suit?
“It is currently 7:23 PM, Peter.” The kind voice of Karen replied, interrupting the radio transmission. The police radio was quiet for a lot of time. It wasn’t long before he got bored, so he sat on the edge of a building and swung his feet. He tried counting cars, then counting only the red cars, then calculating the average number of people each car carried… It was undeniable; Peter was bored out of his mind. Almost as if she had read his mind, Karen spoke.
“Peter, how was your day today?” And just like that, he began to blurt his usual word vomit.
They talked until 8:11, when Peter interrupted himself mid-sentence. He heard something, and without thinking it twice, swung his way to the commotion.
There seemed to be about four men, all of them cornering a single woman. All of the men were wearing dark clothes, plus some kind of garb covering their face. The woman (who, now that he thought better of it was not a woman but a girl, she seemed young.) was sheltering her purse behind her, and was getting closer to the wall behind her.
“C’mon, beauty. Let us get a taste.”
“Pl-Please get away from me…” The girl seemed close to crying, and that was when Peter decided to make himself known.
“Hey, hey, guys. I think we all heard her. She doesn’t want you any closer.” Immediately, all four men turned at him, and the girl began crying (from relief, Peter hoped.) As the attention was shifted from the girl to him, he prepared himself for a fight. Lo and behold, they charged at him, and Peter was quick to notice how they seemed to not have a lot of experience with fights. In record time, he had them all webbed up and unconscious.
He turned to the girl, who still seemed to be crying. Peter frowned and tried to approach her. “Hey, hey, it’s all okay now,” Slowly, she seemed to calm down. She had stopped crying, only small sniffles escaping her body. “Would you like me to help you get home?” He asked her, thinking how if that were him, he wouldn’t be okay walking home alone after what had just happened. She softly nodded her head, voicing a small “My apartment is right next to this building, don’t worry.”
Peter nodded and walked with her to the entrance of her apartment building. By the time they had gotten there (It really was next to the alley building!) she had completely calmed down, even smiling at the neighbors they passed by (it was still relatively early after all, only 9:30 PM)
Suddenly, she turned to look at him. “Hey, Spider-man. Do you like dogs?”
Peter’s eyes opened briefly in surprise. Was this how people nowadays flirted? He gave her a quick glance, and realized that she was probably older than him, by at least 5 or 6 years. What was he supposed to answer? Briefly, his mind flashed back to all of his previous experiences with dogs. His parents’ friend, Rosie, Mr. Cuddles (who sadly passed away 2 years ago), and Un—wait! The girl was still waiting for an answer. Peter seemed to have taken a lot of time, because she seemed to be regretting her question more and more.
“You know what, forget it, it’s stupid in the first pla—“
“Yes! I do like dogs.” Peter interrupted her before he even realized so himself. She seemed to look at him in surprise for a bit, before giving him a small smile. Peter smiled back at her.
“Wait here for a second, please.” She told him, then hurried upstairs. Peter’s mind began to work before he could stop himself. He had smiled at her before, hadn’t he? What an idiot, he thought. She wouldn’t have been able to notice if he smiled or not. Right? Gosh, he hadn’t even asked her what her name was, had he? Was she going to keep calling her girl? God, what if she wasn’t even a she? It’s plain 2020, people can be whatever and whoever they wa—
Peter tried to stop himself and his crazy thoughts by fidgeting a bit. He tapped his gloved fingers together, tried to do a little dance with his feet MJ taught him the other day, tried not to notice the looks people passing by kept giving him, because what was Spider-man doing in the middle of an apartment lobby?
Just as his mind began racing again, the girl came downstairs again. She seemed to be carrying something in between her arms. Peter wondered if he should accept whatever she was carrying. What if she was handing him a bomb?
Stop being ridiculous, he chastised himself. If it really was something dangerous, his spider-sense would have gone off. Right? He watched as Girl fixed whatever she was carrying. Covering up the bomb so that he wouldn’t see it?
Then, he watched in almost slow motion, as she grinned at him and handed him what appeared to be a small box, with no lid, but a small blanket covering it. Ohgodohgodohgodohgodit’seventickingandeverythingwhywouldyouacceptarandompacketfromarandomwomanyoujustsavedfrom--
Wait. What was he hearing?
Suddenly, he halted his every move and though, and observed in quiet shock as the girl handed him the box.
The box, which seemed to have a heartbeat. There was no denying it once he was this close to it. He held it in his arms, and slowly and quietly picked up a corner of the blanket, which then revealed what laid inside.
A goddamn sleeping puppy.