"Hey rugrat, what have you been up to?" Clint asked as Peter walked into the common room.
"Homework." He answered and jumped over the back of the couch, landing with his back on the cushions and jostling Clint. "My brain is dead." He complained, not caring if he was being melodramatic. He'd spent all morning and afternoon working on it, and he still had a lot left to do. Missing almost two weeks of school was something he definitely planned to avoid in the future.
"Rough, huh?" Clint asked with a half grin.
"That's an understatement."
"You'll survive." Clint patted his shin.
"Yeah I guess." He sighed. "I just want to be done with it so I can actually start to enjoy my winter break."
Clint nodded in understanding before gesturing toward his right thigh. "How's the leg?"
"Fine." He shrugged. "Pretty much back to normal."
"Good. That's quite the healing factor you have. If that had happened to me, I would've been laid up for weeks."
"Yeah. It definitely has its uses. Although personally, I like it better when I don't need it at all."
"I'm sure everyone feels that way." Clint nodded. "But we're all just happy you're ok now kid."
"Me too." Peter tried to smile, but he didn't know how well he succeeded. The whole event with Ross had been nothing short of terrifying and thinking about it still left a stale taste in his mouth.
"Hey, and don't worry about this media thing. Your dad's got it covered and we've all got your back, you know."
"I know." He nodded. Maybe he should be more worried than he was about his picture being splashed across all the news channels, but he had too many other things on his mind. He didn't have the mental space to start worrying about something that hadn't caused an actual problem yet. He figured he'd deal with it if it became an issue, but hopefully it wouldn't.
"Hey it's the squirt." Sam announced as he walked out of the elevator and into the room along with Steve, Nat, and Rhodey. They all had their sweat laden workout gear on.
"Hey guys." He greeted them with a lazy wave.
"You two hungry?" Steve asked, making his way toward the kitchen.
"You know me, I could always eat." Clint replied.
"Me too." Peter agreed.
"I'm starving." Sam said dramatically as he fell backward into one of the armchairs.
"Ditto." Rhodey said, sitting on the other empty couch. Nat hummed in agreement before she slumped down next to him.
"Whatever happened to the no coming in the common room without showering first rule?" Clint complained.
"That sounds like a made up rule." Nat said tiredly.
"Didn't you hear us? We're starving." Sam reiterated as if that explained everything.
"You guys reek." Clint shook his head.
Nat flipped him off.
"We do not." Sam sniffed one of his arm pits. "I smell great."
Rhodey shook his head and turned the TV on.
"What's for dinner Cap?" Sam asked as Steve walked over.
"Well since it looks like there's no food in the kitchen, I ordered some pizzas." Steve answered, sitting in the other empty armchair.
"Mmm, pizza sounds great." Rhodey said. He stopped channel surfing and settled on a news station.
"What do you mean there's no food?" Clint asked.
"Exactly what I said. The cupboards are bare."
"Sounds like Stark's been slacking." Sam snorted.
"Can you blame him?" Nat quirked a judgmental eyebrow at him.
Peter pretended to be engrossed in the TV so he could ignore the not so subtle looks they all turned toward him.
"I'm sure FRIDAY can handle it." Clint waved a hand dismissively then directed his eyes to the ceiling. "Right FRIDAY?"
"Indeed. I will order the usual shipment to restock the kitchen right away, Katniss."
"FRIDAY." Clint groaned in complaint as everyone else grinned or chuckled in amusement. One of Tony's favorite things to do was to program FRIDAY to call his teammates by their many nicknames.
"…and in other news, no progress has been made in identifying the boy next to Tony Stark in the photo that has been displayed by media outlets across the world."
Peter's attention snapped to the television as the two newscasters on the screen discussed him. Well, the picture of him. The photo popped up in the upper right hand corner of the screen. It was really weird seeing a picture of himself on television even when no one else recognized it as him.
"Maybe we should turn this off." Steve suggested but Peter shook his head when Rhodey made a move toward the remote.
"No. I want to hear what they're saying." He said softly. He'd been avoiding it, but he figured it'd be stupid to try to avoid it forever, and there was no time like the present.
"Tony Stark has remained conspicuously silent on the matter." The male newscaster said.
"And if that's not telling, I don't know what is." The female newscaster agreed. "This is the man that couldn't keep his identity secret as Ironman for more than a day, but this he makes no remark about?"
"And not just him, but Stark Industries and the Avengers are all keeping quiet. There's definitely a story to be had here. The only question is who is going to figure it out first." The man smiled.
Peter scrunched his face up at that.
"And although there's still no official word from any of the staff involved in the signing of the Accords amendments, our sources say that the government aide responsible for the leaked photo has been fired." The woman added.
"Well that's certainly not surprising," The man said as he nodded and straightened the stack of papers in front of him, "especially if you consider—"
"FRIDAY off." Tony's voice interrupted whatever the man had been about to say.
Peter craned his head back over the armrest to see his dad standing there with his arms crossed across his chest.
"Why are we watching this crap?" Tony nodded toward the now blank TV screen. "There's really nothing more interesting on?"
Guilty silence met his question.
"It's not their fault. I wanted to watch it." Peter spoke up. He didn't want anyone getting in trouble because of him. "I should know what they're saying about me."
"They're not saying anything about you." Tony argued, and Peter swallowed hard when his dad turned his displeased expression on him. "Because they don't know it's you. They're speculating on some as of yet unnamed person. And that's how it's going to stay until they eventually lose interest and then all this will die out."
No one argued with him.
"Got it?"
Peter nodded.
"Trust me. It's all going to be fine." Tony said, voice softening as his hand landed in Peter's hair.
"Ok." Peter gave him a small smile.
"Ok good." Tony rounded the couch and gently picked up Peter's feet to make space so he could sit on the couch before settling them back in his lap. "So, now that that's settled, maybe we can watch something of actual substance?"
Rhodey turned the TV back on, but was quick to change the channel, searching for something better.
After a few long seconds of awkward silence, Clint asked with a smirk, "So you got the aide fired huh?"
"Of course." Tony answered as if it was obvious.
Peter protested in surprise, "Wait. You got them fired?"
"Don't worry about it kid." Tony patted his knee.
"But—"
"What they did was illegal. They're lucky all I did was take their job away. I could've done a lot worse. I wanted to, actually, but Pepper talked me out of it." Tony said more darkly.
"Better be careful Stark. For all you know, all they need is this grudge against you to turn into an evil supervillain intent on revenge." Nat joked, lightening the mood.
Tony snorted. "That is kind of my MO, huh?"
"I wouldn't be proud of that." Nat said dryly.
"Hey, maybe it's a good thing. I eventually have to run out of enemies, right?"
"Not at the rate you make them." Rhodey chimed in.
"Hmm. That may be true."
"Definitely true." Clint nodded. "I'm one more stupid nickname from FRIDAY away from taking you out myself."
That made everyone laugh and even Peter quirked a smile. He still felt bad that someone had lost their job over him, but if releasing that picture had been illegal then it had probably been deserved. He figured he could live with that.
Tony had been right. A couple weeks passed and the media buzz finally started to die down as they came no closer to figuring out that he was the kid in the picture. Everyone around the Tower started to act a little less uptight, which Peter figured could also be because of the holiday season, and not just his picture's fading notoriety, but either way, it was nice.
Tony went all out and literally decked the halls with the rest of the team's help. Peter had never seen so many Christmas decorations. He and May usually decorated a tree and put some baubles up around the house but that was the extent of it. Tony took it to a whole another level.
He'd bought a ten foot tree and the whole team had spent one morning decking it out in an assortment of ornaments while they listened to Christmas music and drank hot chocolate with candy canes. The kicker was the addition of everyone's specially made superhero ornament, including Peter's Spiderman. But the tree wasn't all. Garland, poinsettias, lights, and Christmas themed decorations adorned every available surface. It looked like an elf had thrown up in the room, and more often than not, Tony walked around with a Santa hat perched crookedly on his head. Peter loved Christmas, but it was almost too much even for him.
Peter didn't know if this was the usual for Tony or if he was doing it special for him, for their first Christmas together. The offhanded comments Pepper and Rhodey had made along with some of the other Avengers made Peter suspect it was the latter, and he appreciated it, but he also couldn't help the melancholy that sometimes threatened to overtake him as he prepared to celebrate his first Christmas without May. Tony seemed to sense it every time he started to feel particularly down because he'd show up out of nowhere and pull him into some festive activity.
So far, he'd gone ice skating at a rink Tony had rented out for the afternoon to keep it free from bystanders, he'd made a gingerbread house, he'd gone upstate to go sledding, and he'd decorated Christmas cookies, the activity he was currently attempting. He and May had never really done the Christmas cookie thing since most of her cookie baking attempts ended up blackened. The store bought kind had been a Christmas staple in their house ever since Peter could remember.
But Peter had to admit, Steve's homemade cookies tasted way better.
"You're supposed to decorate them, not eat them." Tony said as Peter munched on his only partially iced gingerbread cookie.
"I can't help it. They're too good." He said through a mouthful of crumbs.
Tony shook his head in mock exasperation. "Well hopefully Cap doesn't mind making more or all his hard work is going to be gone by the end of the night."
"I don't mind." Steve said from the other side of the kitchen where he was rolling out more dough to cut with the cookie cutters.
"I've only had like two." Peter rolled his eyes.
"I counted at least three." Bruce piped in but didn't take his concentration away from frosting the snowflake cookie in front of him.
"Five." Nat said with a quirk of her lip while she sprinkled green and red crystal sprinkles over her tree cookie.
"No way I've had that many." Peter protested. "You must be losing your touch."
Nat sent a fake glare his way and Peter tried to act appropriately cowed in the face of the Black Widow's displeasure. It didn't work so well. He broke into a grin instead.
"I also counted five." Vision added from where he decorated his cookie, which looked more like something out of MOMA than a Christmas cookie. He and Wanda had returned the night before, from wherever they'd been, to celebrate the holiday with the team while Clint and Scott had left a couple days earlier to spend Christmas with their families.
"Whose side are you on?" Peter asked with feigned betrayal as Tony cackled beside him.
"I was not aware there were sides." Vision cocked his head sideways.
"There aren't." Wanda answered as she laughed softly next to Vision. "It's a joke."
"Oh. I see." Vision nodded and went back to his cookie.
Peter reached to grab another fresh cookie, a sugar cookie this time, in the shape of a candy cane, but Tony lightly swatted the back of his hand.
"Nuh uh. No more cookies for you."
"I'm going to decorate it, not eat it."
Tony shot him a flat look of disbelief. "You said that last time. And the time before that."
"Well this time I mean it."
"Fine, but if you eat this one, you're cut off for good."
"Way to stick to your guns Stark." Sam snorted over his snowman cookie.
Tony flipped him off without looking up from frosting his own cookie, but he didn't stop Peter from grabbing the candy cane cookie.
As good as it looked, and as tempted as he was to eat it, Peter resisted and started frosting it instead, going for red and blue stripes instead of the classic red and white.
"Are spiders colorblind?" Rhodey poked fun at his miscolored candy cane cookie as he finished sprinkling his own bell shaped one with silver sprinkle balls.
"No." Peter said and checked to make sure the frosting had hardened enough before he leaned over to start piping white frosting in a thin and delicate rendition of his spider webs over the blue and red.
"Because last I checked candy canes are red and white."
"Hmm." He said, distracted as he concentrated on finishing one of the webs and then starting on another. "It's my theme cookie."
"Your what?"
"My theme cookie." He explained as he finished the webbing overlays and leaned back. "See? Spiderman candy cane."
"Nice." Rhodey nodded and raised his eyebrows, clearly impressed.
"That looks good kid." Tony smiled, clapping him on the back.
"Damn. Why didn't we think of that?" Sam asked.
"Yeah and what would your theme even be?" Rhodey asked. "A bird? What are you going to do, put one in a tree?"
Sam glared at him.
"If he made it look like a pear tree he could put a partridge in it." Peter joked.
Everyone laughed.
"Not a bad idea kid, but it'd have to be a falcon, not a partridge." Sam argued.
Peter shrugged and grabbed another cookie to decorate. "Semantics."
"Two turtle doves might be cuter." Wanda offered with a smirk. "One could be Falcon and the other Hawkeye."
That got even more laughs.
"Ok. That's enough of making fun of the bird themed superheroes." Sam said. "Especially when Clint's not even here to defend himself. Besides, pipsqueak here is the only one who's identity can even be turned into a cookie."
"What are you talking about? I just did it." Nat smugly held up the cookie she'd just finished, an ornament shaped one, decorated black with her red Black Widow logo embossed in frosting on it.
"Nice." Peter grinned. It looked awesome. "The spiders for the win." He reached across the counter and high fived her.
"Where did you even get black frosting?" Sam asked, looking around the countertop and not seeing any.
Nat just smiled.
"I don't know. I think I like this one better." Tony said and held his own cookie up. A snowman with red and yellow Ironman armor on and a blue arc reactor in the center of its chest.
"That looks awesome." Peter said, impressed. He didn't know Tony could draw like that, even if it was only with frosting. When he thought about it, though, he didn't know why he was surprised. Creating and engineering probably required a lot of skill in drawing.
"I know. Don't eat it." Tony pointed a finger at him in warning as he set it back down on the counter to finish drying.
"No, this one's definitely the best." Bruce said, holding up a gingerbread cookie he'd frosted completely green with purple shorts.
"Nice." Peter nodded.
"Looks good." Tony agreed.
"How does this look?" Vision asked, holding up his own, an elaborately decorated tree cookie with two birds in it, one adorned in red and black with large wings and the other in black and purple with a bow across its back.
"That's amazing Viz." Wanda nodded.
"Yeah." Rhodey agreed. "See Sam? You get your cookie after all."
"Ok but seriously, where the hell is all the black frosting coming from?" Sam asked, scanning the counter top again.
Peter couldn't help it. He burst out laughing and everyone joined in.
The theme cookie decorating turned into a thing. An ornament decorated to look like Captain America's shield was next. A snowman in the War Machine armor followed. Then Vision made a gingerbread man cookie with the mind stone affixed to its forehead and Wanda made one with red in its palms and eyes.
Peter had to admit, it was a great way to spend the afternoon of Christmas Eve. The easy camaraderie and happiness of the season was infectious. There was no way he could stay sad even if he'd wanted to.
"You good?" Tony leaned in and asked when he'd been uncharacteristically quiet for a few minutes.
"Yeah. I was just thinking."
"Uh-huh. About what?"
Peter smiled at the man that had become his dad as he answered, "May would've loved this."
"Yeah?" Tony gave him a soft smile in return.
"Definitely."
Tony wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tugged him in for a sideways hug. "I think you're right. And I have to say, this has been one of my favorite Christmases so far."
"Really?"
Tony nodded.
"Why?"
"Because I get to spend it with you."
Peter's eyes were twinkling as he smiled up at his dad.
"And I know it's probably tough for you, but I hope you're having at least a little fun."
"I am. You've been trying really hard."
"I have." Tony admitted. "Is it working?"
"Yeah. It's working."
"Good."
Tony ruffled his hair and they went back to cookie decorating. And eating.
A part of Peter's heart still constantly ached from the emptiness of May's absence, but a larger part was filled with happiness and the joy of the season that Tony's efforts had inevitably brought.
He knew May wouldn't begrudge him his holiday cheer. Just like he knew she wouldn't mind him changing his name. He wondered again if the whole Ross kidnapping him and almost dying thing had been worth it in the end just to know that his family loved him and only wanted the best for him. For him to be happy.
A wet tap on his nose snapped his attention back to the present.
"Smile Rudolph." Nat grinned as he touched the tip of his nose where she'd smeared a glob of red frosting.
Peter gaped for only a split second before retaliating by flinging a handful of his white frosting at her. She tried to duck but still ended up getting it on her cheek and in her hair.
"Oh, now you started it." Nat warned.
"No, you did." Peter countered.
"No! Don't even think about it!" Tony warned holding his hands up between them, but Nat was already dipping her hand into the red frosting bowl next to her.
"Guys let's not—" Steve tried to reason with them. He was cut off as Nat splattered Tony and Peter with a fistful of red frosting.
"—do this." Steve sighed.
Peter laughed at Steve's resignation and his dad's face covered in frosting.
"You're dead Romanov." Tony threatened, and then it was an all out frosting food fight.
As Peter ducked down beneath the counter to avoid getting splattered, he had to admit that the Avengers sure knew how to liven up the season.
Annnnd have a little fluff to ring in the fall. I can't believe it took this long for me to update. Sorry! Although I did have a baby (she's three and a half months old now) so I'm going to use that as my excuse. Updates might take a little longer because my free time has become pretty much nonexistent along with my sleep. :-)