Peter

When Peter woke the next morning, the sun was already well up. He glanced around the room, then smiled to find Tony reading on his phone and sipping a cup of coffee in the only chair in the bedroom. There were probably more comfortable places to sit, but it made him feel kind of warm and fuzzy inside to know his soulmate would rather be close to him. Peter blinked slowly against the light, marveling that they'd only known they were soulmates a little over a week, but he couldn't imagine life without their bond now.

Tony looked up at him and smiled. "Nice of you to join us."

"What 'us?'" Peter scoffed back at him. "It's just you and your coffee, old man."

"Sometimes you just need to use the 'royal we,' Spiderling," Tony said haughtily.

"Can we go to the beach?"

Tony dropped the high-brow attitude for an incredulous expression. "Pete, it's like eight in the morning."

"When is a normal time to go to the beach, oh wise one?"

"Hmm. Eleven?"

"Acceptable." Peter stretched out in the bed, yawning and letting his fingers brush against the headboard. He glanced over at the other bed in the room, but it was untouched. Apparently Tony hadn't used it. Maybe they'd try tonight. He didn't have that much interest in being far from his soulmate either, but he had no intention of taking Tony Stark with him to class, but he also didn't really want to miss school. So they'd better start working on being able to be apart for longer periods of time. He wrinkled up his nose at the necessity. Why would anyone want to be away from their soulmate? See lots of other people, too? Sure. But he didn't feel any need for personal space yet.

Suddenly his stomach rumbled, loud enough that Tony must have heard it, too.

"So, ready for breakfast, then?"

"Yes, please," Peter said, jumping up and looking around for his bag. He was very glad he'd already showered last night.

"There's a place called Hot Stacks Café down the road that gets good reviews. Let's try it." Tony, already dressed in jeans and a dark blue t-shirt, stood up and stretched, finishing his coffee with a longer sip.

"That sounds like pancakes. Lead the way!"

A few hours later, several stacks of mouth-watering pancakes forgotten, Peter was yelling.

Tony was there almost immediately. "What happened? What's going on? What hurts?"

"Ugh, my foot !" Peter managed to get out. He was sitting in the shallow water, and Tony knelt next to him, small over-crashed waves sweeping against them both. Peter raised his foot out of the water and there was a gelatinous blob on his ankle. It burned and stung. His spidey-sense had warned him, but not soon enough, and he couldn't avoid it with the water pushing it straight into him.

Tony swore under his breath. "Jellyfish." Can you stand and walk up to our bag? I've got some vinegar and tweezers in there. He pushed his hand into Peter's shoulder, right where his soul mark was, and even through the wetsuit, it did help.

Peter hummed in appreciation for the moderate pain relief. "You thought this might happen? You warned me about sharks, but not about jellyfish?"

Tony rolled his eyes slightly, but his face was creased with concern. "I know it hurts, bud. I'm sorry!"

Peter tried to smile at Tony, but he was pretty sure it came out as a grimace. "Let's… let's get to the stuff." He stood up, and leaned against Tony, who was awkwardly trying to support him and also keep a hand over his soul mark. They hopped their way up to Tony's bag, and when his mentor had to use both hands to find the first-aid kit and then use the tweezers, Peter hissed in renewed discomfort.

"I got it out. Let's get you back to the house and get your wetsuit off and get that sting into some hot water."

Peter took a deep breath and stood up again. Having his foot down low made it start throbbing, but Tony quickly gathered up what he cared about of their stuff ("I'll come back for the rest once you're doing better") and made contact with Peter's soul mark again. The relief was instant.

"Crap. Why does that hurt so much?"

"Well, they have venom, Pete," Tony huffed, doing his best to support the teenager while he hopped along. "I just hope you're not allergic." They paused to shower some of the sand off quickly, and Tony huffed some more as he helped pull Peter's wetsuit off one-handed while he tried to keep contact with Peter's soul mark.

"It's okay, you can let go for a few minutes, Tony. This is not working," Peter laughed. He regretted his words a bit when the sting renewed its intensity, but overall they were much faster at divesting Peter of his wetsuit when Tony wasn't trying to hold onto his arm, too.

A few minutes later, Peter sighed as they immersed his stung foot in the hot water (Tony grumbled about being anywhere FRIDAY wasn't wired in when he just had to guess at the temperature). He was perched precariously on the edge of the tub, leaning back against Tony, who was standing, hand holding the boy's shoulder.

"Well, this feels kind of dumb. Between the water and the 'soul mark magic,' I can barely feel it, so it's like we're just sitting here awkwardly."

Tony laughed, some relief apparent in his voice. "Well, let's lean into the awkwardness. I'm just glad it's not hurting anymore. FRI identified that ugly blob as a small box jellyfish, which are actually super poisonous, so I'm just glad you're doing okay," he said quietly.

"Oh. That's bad, right?"

"Well, yeah. But your body seems to be handling it okay. There wasn't much swelling in your foot, and it looks like it's already going down. You're super-crazy spider-healing is doing its thing, and I'm super-grateful."

Tony sounded tired. He'd probably been pretty worried. Peter sighed and leaned back against him a little more, almost tangibly pulling comfort from their contact.

"So… no more beach today?" Peter couldn't keep the wistfulness out of his voice. He really loved playing in the waves. It had been kind of nice to actually feel tired last night.

"Yeah, no. We're good on the beach. And look, you've already got a bit of a tan just from these last two days. Beach? Check. Done. Possiamo fare qualcosa di più sicuro per il resto della giornata, cucciolino? "*

Peter wrinkled his nose at the saccharine diminutive for a kid his age, but then tipped his head to the side in curiosity. "Sicuro ?"

"Safe. Più sicuro: safer." Tony rolled his eyes. "You know, that tracks that you don't even know that word."

*Can we do something safer for the rest of the day, little cub?

Tony

"Something safer" ended up being second lunch (they'd had sandwiches at the beach already) at a highly-rated burger place, and then a few hours at a local art museum. Peter really enjoyed a lot of the ocean-themed paintings, and Tony made a note of one of his favorites, planning to send someone to grab it for Peter's room at the Tower.

As he watched his kid move through the rest of the gallery, Tony's thoughts drifted to living arrangements. They couldn't really live apart for several weeks or probably months still, which would take Peter through most of his senior year. Well, they could, but it wouldn't be easy, and there would be a lot of travel for both of them, trying to get some contact every day. Even if their bond was on the weak end (which he was guessing it wasn't) it would be a month at least before they could spend twelve hours apart comfortably. Six weeks was a more likely timeline. He wondered if May would finally be open to moving to the Tower. It would be so much easier if they could start and end the day in the same place, getting in some couch time most evenings for the first few months. Tony wasn't even sure what to think of Peter's college plans (he hadn't made any decisions yet) but if he had to commute to Cambridge once or twice a week, he was willing to make that work, too. He didn't want being his soulmate to be any kind of limitation on Peter, especially with how smart and capable he already was. He just hoped he didn't want to go to Oxford or Cal-tech or Florida or something…

Unaware of Tony's slight insecurity, Peter bounced back over. "I think we've seen everything. Can we check out the gift shop, though? I want to see if they have some postcards of some of these. I think MJ would really like them."

"What about Ned?" Tony teased, letting himself reach out and ruffle the teenager's hair, the touch immediately calming him a little.

Peter gave him a disapproving look, but didn't pull away. "Nah, Ned isn't super into art and stuff. I'll get him something at Universal Studios."

"Who said we're going to Universal Studios?"

Peter's eyes widened. "Oh, uh, I just thought maybe… maybe since we're going to be right there, we might be able to check it out? I mean, they've basically got a Harry Potter world, how cool is that? And they've got like some Avengers-themed stuff, which is pretty awesome, too." Peter relaxed his expression, affecting an air of casual indifference. "I mean, if it's not too expensive, and if it doesn't interfere with whatever plans you have, otherwise I'm happy to do whatever…"

This kid. "Yeah, Pete. We can go to Universal." Tony grimaced. What had he just signed up for?

That night they packed up all their stuff in preparation for taking off the next morning.

"Jellyfish aside, this has been fun. Thanks for bringing me here," Peter said, leaning against Tony's arm on the couch as he ate his second Chinese entree. They had opted to grab something and bring it back to eat so they could just relax.

"No problem, kid. Just the first of many places I'd like to take you, now that I've got you."

Peter side-eyed him with a little grin.

"I mean, not that you're mine, or that I've… just a figure of speech," Tony fumbled.

"It's okay, Tony. It was right the first time. You've got me."

Tony gripped the back of his neck gently. "You've got me, too, Pete."

That night Tony started out in the twin bed, with the reasoning that he'd probably have symptoms sooner, and if he did, he could just move over to the king with Peter. They both tossed and turned a little, already used to having that soulmate contact to help chase away insomnia and bad dreams. Which is what woke Tony, rather than soulmate-separation symptoms.

He found himself tangled in the sheet, almost off the bed at some point in the night. "FRIDAY?" he asked, not sure where he was. Pepper and Peter had both been calling for him, and they sounded terrified, but he couldn't find them or get to them.

She didn't answer, but his wrist buzzed, and he raised his watch to his face.

It looks like you've had a nightmare, Boss. It is 1:20 AM. I'd recommend rejoining Peter to help your vitals return to normal, and before he also wakes.

Tony, remembering where he was finally, sat up and looked over at Peter, who was stirring. Probably feeling the tug of Tony's fear a few moments before, if his experience with his bond with Pepper and nightmares was any indication.

He untangled the sheets from his legs and moved quickly to Peter's side, climbing in behind him while trying not to jostle the teen. As soon as he made contact, his young soulmate sighed and stilled. Tony tugged an extra pillow over to go under his head, and let his tension melt away as well, trying to clear the unsettled feelings. He didn't think it meant anything, but heaven knows he had plenty of trauma with losing people who were important to him. Projecting anything via his unconscious mind was usually a bad thing.

He knew Peter needed to get used to sleeping alone, but Tony was a little nervous to try it again until he had Pepper back with him. He really didn't do well sleeping soulmate-less, and just tended to stay up most of the night in his lab when she was out of town. Unless she was gone for several days, then he just held out until he crashed, and then still had nightmares. Actually last time she had a week in Hong Kong, and Tony really needed to stay for some other important SI business, Rhodey had come over for a few days, and forced Tony to sleep while he stayed nearby to help with nightmare aftermath. And lately, Pepper had been inviting Peter over to stay when she had to be gone more than a night. Like he needed baby-sitting or something.

He really did have great people in his life. As he drifted off, he tried to focus on his gratitude for them. Especially for this one next to him. The sunshine kid who really was his now. When he fell asleep again, it was with a smile on his face.