Chapter Text
It had taken Peter a while to fall back asleep with all his senses screaming at him and trying to pound their way through his skull, but when he had, it’d been an absolute relief. Something that helped surprisingly a lot, however, were the fingers running through his hair. Pounding headache aside, that nearly immediately lured him to sleep.
Peter stayed peacefully asleep while Tony worked, only moving to switch his head from one side to the other every now and then. He did, however, stir a bit when he heard and felt rhythmic vibrations from Tony’s side of the couch. It didn’t last too long, but there was a shift in weight in the furniture that came with the silence, along with the hair caresses ceasing. Still, Peter remained asleep, and therefore wasn’t consciously aware that Tony had left. He also wasn’t consciously aware that he was missing the other, nor of the feeling that something just… wasn’t right. Not exactly danger, per se, but just not right.
Still slumbering like a Disney Princess, Peter sat up, the blanket rolling off of him and onto the floor. “Mmmis’er Star’?” he mumbled with a slur, spinning in a little circle. His eyes fluttered a little, just barely opened, and the spiderling began to lethargically make his way to and out the door of their little mini living room.
Peter’s walking path wasn’t exactly what one would call straight-- it was anything but that, honestly. Resembling a drunk who had gotten pulled over, Peter veered from side to side, and sometimes even walked up on the walls, across the ceiling, down the other wall, and then back down onto the floor where people without spider-powers walked. The boy came to a halt when everything went completely silent, including the annoying vibrations that constantly ran through the floors and walls. Normally, electrical vibrations didn’t bother him or weren’t even noticeable. Today, however, they felt like pins and needles pricking at his skin. A loud thunderclap caused Peter to crouch down and cover his ears with a childish whine. “Make i’ stop, please…” He’d whined, but after a few moments of letting his nausea subside, Peter was standing up normally and searching for Tony once more.
After searching this floor, or the rooms nearby him at least, with no sign of his pseudo father, Peter made his way to the elevator. When he pressed the button and nothing happened, the boy took it upon himself to pry the door open and then crawled along the inside wall. Just them, the horrific electric vibrations returned, causing the sleeping spider to wince and grow frustrated. But, even in his sleep, Peter was as stubborn as ever and took a detour.
Said detour led Peter up and into the electrical maintenance room. Inside, there was the electrical box, generator, many sensors and circuits belonging to FRIDAY, and much more machinery. Each was practically ringing with buzz, and each made Peter want to claw and tear at his own skin. Or brake something.
He went with the latter.
It wasn’t unusual for Peter to sleep with or walk around, both now in this case, with his web shooters on-- it was a comfort thing, and no one really mentioned it-- so it wasn’t too odd for him to be wearing them now. “Web,” he mumbled, words still quite the jumbled mess. “Web beb, no… web med beb. No… Sparky, taser. Taser webs!” With a few quick bolts onto the machines, the room was silent once more, as was the rest of the building. The sleeping spider almost sighed in relief as he left the room, satisfied with a job well done.
Back to the original mission: finding Tony.
Peter made his way out of the electrical maintenance room and then back up the elevator shaft he’d previously climbed down. He went up to the floor he’d last felt Tony on, but after not hearing any of his movements, continued up two floors. The elevator door wasn’t open from when he had pried it open before, so as he crouched on the shaft’s walls, Peter pushed it open like it was an everyday sliding door. Considering the heavy metal, it was surprisingly quiet. Peter crawled out the top of the elevator opening and up onto the ceiling, then proceeding past the kitchen, and towards the hallway.
The sleepwalking-- or sleep-crawling in this case-- spiderling made his across the hallway ceiling silently, following the vibrations he could feel in the walls from Tony walking and the occasional muttering sound. Peter went undetected by the older man, the only noise coming from him being a soft snoring that Tony didn’t notice in his stressed state.
“Can’t I just have one nice day?” Tony muttered, unaware that the person causing him such stress and worry was stalking him almost like prey. “Doesn’t even have to be ’nice’ , just quiet. Boring. Uneventful. Is that so much to ask for? I’d like to think I’ve done enough good to deserve that, right? Well, apparently not. ”
Soon enough, Peter was positioned right above Tony and stopped in his tracks. He seemed to wait a few moments before lethargically raising his left hand and carefully shooting the web to the center of the man’s back. “ Thwip, ” he imitated to sound of the web shooters as he made his shot.
At first, Tony nearly jumped a foot in the air as he was unsure of what, or who, this was. However, before he could do anything drastic in order to defend himself, he felt a gentle tug from the owner of whatever sticky substance hit his back.
“Mis’er Tony,” said substance owner mumbled sleepily.
You’ve got to be shitting me , Tony thought and sighed with relief aloud. He took a few steps backwards, then turned around to see the web attached to him leading up and connecting to the wrist of his now found kid. The boy hung off the ceiling now, suspended in the air by a separate web, which caused his oversized ‘borrowed’ grey MIT shirt, that was actually Tony’s, to bunch up around his chest and exposing most of Peter’s stomach. His navy blue, fuzy sweatpants also bunched up, of course, around the knees, and his messy brown curls hung loosely while a few jutted out every which way. His big, brown eyes remained mostly shut, but occasionally, they’d flutter a little. As much as Tony wanted to be mad at Peter for scaring him like that, not only was he not even consciously doing any of this, but the kid looked absolutely adorable and he couldn’t resist taking a picture.
“So, this is where you ran off to,” Tony spoke softly, removing the webs from his person after stowing his phone. “What were you doing, kiddo? Trying to give me a heart attack? It almost worked, y’know. What would you have done then?”
“Tryin’ t’ find you,” Sleeping Peter answered.
“I was gone for less than five minutes.”
“Missed you. I didn’t like you gone.”
Wow, okay. So maybe he had gotten a little soft since the kid came around, because that made Tony melt into a puddle right then and there.
“Well, I don’t plan on leaving you again anytime soon,” Tony assured, rubbing Peter’s arm. “Now c’mon, let’s get you down from there. You’re making me nervous.”
Peter wordlessly lowered himself a little more, nudged Tony’s shoulder to tell him to turn around, and then proceed to attach himself onto the man’s back like a little human-spider-koala.
That was a comparison Tony never thought he’d make.
“You’re unbelievable, Pete,” He sighed as the kid let his head fall against his shoulder. “I’m going to guess you’re somehow behind this power outage and why FRI isn’t online.” Tony started walking them back to their private living room.
“‘Lectric buzz b’thered me. ‘T’s the v’brations,” Peter explained, words slurred.
“Of course it did,” Peter was that sensitive? Shit, Tony had his work cut out for him to make sure electrical vibrations weren’t going to disturb him anymore. “You’ll just have to deal with them for the rest of the day, Mister Pretentious. I can only do so much sitting down with you.”
No answer.
“Pete?”
Peter’s response came in the form of light snoring, and all Tony could do was smile. This kid might’ve gotten into the weirdest shit sometimes, but truthfully, Tony wouldn’t have it any other way. It was all just apart of what made the kid, his kid, so special.
He got the kid settled back on the sofa, but he latched onto him like an octopus still. Though the kid was laying across him, Tony was able to sit up still, but it had to be long ways to support the kid’s clinginess. Once again, the man snapped a quick picture and sent it over to May. They may or may not have had their own little trade of pictures like this, especially baby pictures on May’s end. He could get his paperwork for Pepper done,
and turned in
, in a bit-- sharing Peter’s cuteness was more important at the moment. She’d understand.
[M Parker & T Stark CHAT-- 01:13PM]
T Stark: [Attachment: IMG]
So, is he always this clingy? I don’t remember signing up for it.
M Parker: You signed up for this when you invited him over. You can’t say that you’re not loving it.
T Stark: I have no idea what you’re talking about
M Parker: Mhm, sure.
Is he feeling alright?? He usually only gets like that when he’s not feeling top notch
T Stark: Kid has a pretty bad headache, but alright otherwise.
Don’t worry, I’m taking care of it
M Parker:
I’m sure you are.
If you need any Peter-care help, just say the word
T Stark: I’ll keep that in mind.
Actually, do you know anything about him sleepwalking?
M Parker: Sleepwalking? He hasn’t done that in years
T Stark: Well, it seems like that’s happening again.
I swear, he’s trying to stop my heart
M Parker: My best advice, honestly, is just to go along with whatever he does and try to get him to lay back down
T Stark: I can’t like strap him down or anything?
M Parker: You could, but I don’t really recommend it
T Stark: Wonderful