Comfortember Day Twenty-Three: Hiding

"Alright, Underoos. I'll set a timer for thirty minutes and I'll find you in half that time. I'll probably find you faster than that actually."

"Please, Mister Stark. This Tower is huge! You won't find me in that amount of time unless you cheat and you promised not to cheat."

As Tony set the timer on his phone, he raised a brow. "What counts as cheating? It's not like you have any tracking devices on right now. There's nothing for me to follow."

"No but you can ask FRIDAY," Peter pointed out. "That's cheating."

Tony scoffed. "Please. I don't need FRIDAY's help finding you. I can do that on my own, right FRI?"

"Yes, Boss."

"You see?"

"She's just being nice, Mister Stark. You won't find me that fast without help."

"I will if you keep standing here blabbering. I'm counting to fifty...Now. Move it."

Peter bolted down the hall and jumped up on the wall. He started crawling as fast as possible while Tony started counting to fifty. Peter had the perfect place to hide, a place that Tony wouldn't think to look.

This was the fourth time they played hide-and-seek today. Peter had hid in one of Tony's out of place closets, under Tony's bed, and a vent above the lab. Tony somehow managed to find him in all those places. His answer? He apparently knew Peter too well.

Well, little did Tony know that Peter was going to play him.

Peter crawled up into a vent and made his way to the laundry room. It was the one place Peter rarely went to while he was in the Tower. He never really had a reason to go in there, the closet he had in his room was almost always full and so having to do laundry wasn't often. At least not while he was around.

Tony would never look for him in the laundry room. He'd sooner check all the bathrooms to see if Peter hid in the tub or under the sink, which Peter was thinking originally but knew Tony would figure that out faster.

Peter closed the vent lid silently and crawled down the wall to the closet where plastic wrapped clothes hung. He pushed them out of the way and hid inside, sitting down and pushing the clothes back into place in case Tony did think to search for him there.

He leaned against the wall and waited.

XXX

Tony's timer beeped and he still hadn't caught sight of his Spiderling. He searched the kid's usual places and when he found nothing there, he tried other places. He tried looking at hidden passages, rooms Tony rarely ever went to, his office. He checked just about every closet he came across but there was nothing.

Tony started to wonder if Peter went outside but that would be against the rules. They agreed he'd only hide inside, not looking for places on the outside. Tony doubted there was reason for concern, but he didn't like the idea of the kid hiding and him not being able to find him. Especially because this was his Tower.

It'd be different if he asked FRIDAY for help but he promised he wouldn't. Still, he was really close to caving in.

Really, where had Peter run off to?

XXX

Peter yawned and opened his eyes. He hadn't even realized he fell asleep. How long has it been? It was obviously more than thirty minutes if Peter fell asleep and there was no Tony Stark around. Peter checked his watch and his brows rose. Four hours had passed and there was no sign that Tony was in the laundry room at all. If he was, Peter would have woken up in his presence.

Peter stood with a frown. Did Tony give up searching for him? The thought made his heart sink. Sure the Tower was huge and it might be annoying to search for one kid in it but...Would Tony really give up on finding him?

Or perhaps Tony saw him and was waiting outside the door to give him a jumpscare. If that was the case, Peter wanted to hold out and see how much longer he could keep Tony waiting until he caved.

It was a battle of wills now, apparently.

XXX

It was not a battle of wills.

Peter realized after an hour that Tony had not come across the laundry room and was not waiting to give him a jumpscare.

Peter sighed and left the room. Tony said that no matter what happened, he would always, always find Peter. No matter how long it took or how far away Peter was, Tony was going to find him. The man promised him that. This wasn't even as dramatic as an actual search, it was just a game.

"FRIDAY, where is Mister Stark?" Peter asked, heading to the kitchen. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't hungry.

"Boss is currently in the lab," FRIDAY answered, dutifully.

"Ouch," Peter mumbled to himself.

So instead of looking for Peter, Tony gave up and went to the lab to tinker. It shouldn't have hurt the way it did. After all, it was just a game. If Tony got bored, he got bored.

Peter grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and headed down to the lab. He didn't really know what he was going to say to Tony. Maybe call him out for giving up on him. When he entered the lab, Tony's back was to him. He was working on some kind of machine Peter didn't recognize.

"Hi," Peter said awkwardly.

Tony swiveled around in his chair and smiled. He took his glasses off. "Hey, bud."

Peter shifted awkwardly. "So…"

"How was your nap?" Tony asked.

Peter tilted his head. "What?"

"I saw you napping in the laundry room."

Peter blinked. "What."

"I thought it'd be rude to wake you up, so I left you there to rest up." Tony shrugged.

"So...You didn't give up on finding me?"

Tony frowned. "No. What makes you think that?"

"Because it's been hours and you weren't there when I woke up and…"

"And I just told you why I left you there when I saw you. You were snoozing the day away."

Peter said nothing.

"Either way, you win. It obviously took me more than thirty minutes to find you. Took almost two hours. You know, I really didn't think you'd fall asleep so soon."

Peter smiled. "Me either...but next time, wake me up okay? I thought you gave up on me."

Tony huffed. He half-heartedly threw a hand towel at Peter that Peter easily dodged. "I'd never give up on searching for you, kid. Never. I'll always find you."

Peter's smile widened. Any anxiety and sadness he felt earlier was gone now, hearing those words from Tony.

"But this is the last time we play hide-and-seek for a while," Tony said. "It's not good for my stress levels when I have no idea where you are in my own Tower."

Peter laughed.

Author's Note: This one was a little more fun to write compared to yesterday's prompt. I was originally gonna have Peter hide in the washing machine and then I remembered that he has claustrophobia [a personal headcanon], so I had him hide in a closet in the laundry room instead.

That's all for now. I'll see ya'll in the next chapter.

Thanks for reading!

~Kurosaki