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Peter has had the kind of bad day that tops all other bad days at school. Just the fact that his favorite gray hoodie is covered in nasty cafeteria chili should be enough to tell Happy that. The stain hadn't been caused by bullying this time, but still, some kid had tripped and sent his bowl of chili down the front of Peter's hoodie. He hadn't had another one in his locker to change into, and it had been too cold outside and in classes to go without, so he's been stuck wearing it like this for hours. MJ thinks the new massive chili stain looks like a Van Gogh painting. Peter thinks it looks like him wearing a stained hoodie for the rest of the school year.
Usually Peter slides into the back of Happy's SUV three days a week and rambles to Happy about his day. Today he slides in and sits silently, not wanting to tell him about the stain, the C minus on his Spanish test, or the way he feels sluggish and tired because he was up all night cramming for a history exam he probably failed. So yeah… crappy day.
Happy notes the chili stain right away and asks about it. Peter doesn't answer and proceeds to pull his hood up over his head, pulling the strings tight so it covers most of his face, trying to seal himself off from Happy and away from the world as much as possible.
"Some kid do that to your sweater?" He doesn't pull away from the curb in front of the school, and probably won't until he has an answer.
"No."
"You spill your lunch?"
"No."
"Is that chili?"
"Happy!" Peter snaps. He's a little surprised with himself. Peter finds himself leaning forward towards the front seat and breathing a little heavily. Honestly, he just wants to go home and take a nap and forget that today ever happened. But it's a lab day, and lab days are his favorite, so there's no way he's skipping out.
He feels bad for snapping at Happy, so he flops back against the seat and then looks away, ashamed. "Just- don't want to talk about it. Sorry." Now that he's thinking about it, he doesn't want Mr. Stark to ask about his hoodie either. It's a silly thing to be so upset about a sweater getting ruined, he thinks, but he still is. He will be for a while. Mr. Stark had bought him this one a couple months ago at the start of the school year, and it had been the nicest, warmest, softest hoodie he'd ever owned. Now it's ruined.
Happy looks a little startled that Peter snapped at him, but seems to understand that Peter is having the mother of all bad days without Peter answering.
"That kind of day, huh, kid? Tony is grumpy today too."
"Psh." Tony, grumpy? Peter has never seen him grumpy. Even when he was upset and angry with the other Avengers on the tarmac in Germany, he hadn't seemed grumpy or angry then. The one time Peter has seen the man angry is after he took out that ferry, but even then, he'd seen Iron Man reel his anger in and temper it while he finished telling Peter that he wanted the Spidey suit back.
"You want me to drop you off at home instead of the tower?" Happy asks, finally pulling away from Midtown.
"I'll go to the lab," Peter says quietly, and then he turns his attention to the people and buildings they pass by and tries to zone out and forget about the chili, the bad grade, and just how tired he is. He thinks that maybe he can pull himself together enough to still enjoy time in the lab with Tony for a few hours.
Twenty minutes later as Peter opens the door into Tony's semi darkened lab, he understands two things right away: Tony seems just as grumpy as Happy promised. And if Tony is grumpy, Peter isn't sure he's going to enjoy his time there or be able to stop being grumpy himself.
"FRIDAY, I said isolate the subroutine, not delete the damn code," Tony snaps at the AI. He reaches up and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Fine, you know what? Just forget it."
"Yes, boss."
Peter has never seen him be upset with FRIDAY before. He treats FRIDAY like she's his baby.
Peter drops his bag on the floor by his workbench, and plops down onto his rolling stool, shoulders rolling forward a little like he's melting. Mr. Stark usually greets him with a cheerful, "Hey, kid!" or, "How was school, Roo?" Today, he's silent, and Peter mumbles out the answer to the unasked question himself. "School sucked."
Tony doesn't hear him, and huffs out, "You're late."
Peter doesn't think he is, but a quick glance up at the clock above the door tells him that Mr. Stark is right. He is late, and if that doesn't just add to his bad day misery just a little more…
"Guess I am." He pulls out a circuit board he'd been working on the day before, and starts pulling out tools. Then he shudders because he's feeling a little chilled. He'd taken his stained hoodie off in the elevator on the way up and stuffed it into his backpack. He doesn't want Mr. Stark to see it and get upset that it's ruined.
Generally Tony takes note right away if Peter is less talkative than usual, but today he doesn't seem to notice, or he does, but is too stressed out himself to bring it up. So they sit in silence for a few minutes, each at their own workbench, until Tony mutters to himself, “I swear, if one more person emails me about a budget approval…” he snaps his laptop lid closed, gives it a look like it's personally offended him, and then picks up a wrench to work on something else.
"Maybe you need a nap," Peter mumbles. This time, Tony hears his mumbled words.
He sets the wrench down and turns to frown at Peter, leaning hard on the workbench with both hands, clearly irritated. "What was that?"
Peter knows that Tony has somehow heard every word just fine. On a normal day he wouldn't push it. He'd say something like, "Just joking, Mr. Stark," or, "Huh? I didn't hear anything." But today he doesn't have the energy for that. "You're kinda grumpy. I said maybe you need a nap."
"Right back at you, spider boy. You've been grumpy since you got here."
"Yeah, well I need a nap too," Peter huffs.
On a good day they banter back and forth like this in jest instead of because of a foul mood, and Peter doesn't agree with him just to be contrary and to keep the banter going.
Tony is surprised that Peter is agreeing with him now. "So nap," he says shortly. He points at the lab couch with a frown. "Couch is right there. I'm not stopping you."
Peter sets down the circuit board he's been messing with, walks over, and drops down onto the couch heavily. "Yes you are," he says with a huff.
Tony turns to him, feeling unsettled. "What?"
"You are stopping me from taking a nap."
"How exactly?"
Peter points at what Tony thinks are the tools he's pulling out to work with, and Tony assumes he's making too much noise. "I can work on the computer instead."
"Nuh uh." Peter lifts his other arm up, and makes a grabby motion towards Tony with both hands.
Tony blinks and then stares at him for long moments. What the heck does the kid want now? A bedtime story? Does he want the tools in Tony's hands? The green pullover he's wearing? Well Peter can forget it if that's what he wants, because Tony has felt chilled all day, and he's not giving up his favorite soft sweater for anything. There are three hoodies floating around this lab somewhere, and Tony will find one of them to give to him if he's cold.
"You can't have my sweater."
Peter frowns at him, and makes the 'gimme' motion towards Tony with both hands again, clasping them open and shut.
"What do you want, kid? I'm too tired to try to read your mind today."
"A pillow."
"Then why are you making grabby hands at me?"
Peter just stares at him. "You need a nap too, Mr. Stark. Even Happy said you were grumpy today. Do you know how grumpy you have to be for Happy to call you grumpy? A lot. You have to be all the grumpy for that to happen." Peter knows, because Happy had called him out on it too.
"I'm not grumpy. I'm tired, overworked, and I'm pretty sure I'm coming down with something."
"A nap fixes two of those things."
"Kid-" he pauses, mid sigh. He's not wrong about a nap fixing two of those things. He's not used to napping though. He's got twenty things that need to be done by the end of the week and it's already Thursday. Then again, he's not sure how much he'll get done when he has a headache growing behind his eyes, and he feels sluggish. He's not always the best at knowing when to call it quits for the day.
Tony sets the black plastic case of micro screw drivers down on his workbench and turns to walk the few feet to the couch. He puts his hands on his hips and looks down at Peter, who has dropped his arms now. "Are you just demanding to use me as a pillow because you want me to nap?"
"You're pretty grumpy," Peter reiterates.
Tony huffs and turns back to his workbench, but Peter stops him with, "I need a pillow, Mr. Stark. You already said I couldn't have your sweater."
"This is my lab you know. You can always go home and nap where you have a pillow." Tony says it, but it feels wrong the instant it comes out of his mouth. In the last year and a half, this has become Peter's lab too… his space as much as it is Tony's. Peter has an extra hoodie here somewhere, his own workbench, and tools that Tony has purchased just for him.
Peter doesn't seem to care about what Tony said at all. He just reaches up towards Tony and makes grabby hands again. Tony sighs, like this is the biggest imposition he's ever faced. It's really not.
A few months back, Peter caught a summer cold and fell asleep against Tony in the penthouse living room while watching Star Wars. And once, when May had been gone overnight for training, Tony had gone to Peter's apartment to check on him, and they'd fallen asleep against each other on the little couch there watching Mythbusters. May had come home the next morning to find them that way and had taken a picture, which she now lords over Tony as proof that he does in fact have a heart, even if it's hidden under seven layers of sarcasm, ego, and red and gold metal plating. Sometimes he wonders if May and Pepper have each other's number and gossip about him behind his back.
Tony flops down onto the old, ripped up lab couch next to Peter. Peter wastes no time leaning against him and putting his head on his chest, scooching down on the couch so he can lift his feet up and lay sprawled across Tony.
"You could at least let me lift my arm up first," Tony gruffs.
"You are definitely grumpy," Peter murmurs, though he doesn't sound as though he minds. He sounds totally content instead.
"That's the pot calling the kettle black, kid."
"Mmm." He snuggles down more after Tony wrenches his arm up from under him to settle down over the top of him. "I yelled at a teacher today." Oh yeah, Peter almost forgot about that part. Luckily it had been Mr. Harrington, and he doesn't have detention for it.
"What? Why?"
He shrugs. "Tired. Grumpy I guess."
"See."
"Shh, I'm tryin'a sleep. Unless you want to tell me a bedtime st-"
"No. Nope. Shh. It's nap time for spider babies. No talking." Tony shuts his eyes. Now that he's sitting down and Peter is warm against his side, he feels warm for the first time all day, and the full weight of his exhaustion settles in over him like a blanket.
As his breathing slows, he can't see Peter's face, but he thinks the kid is probably smiling to himself. He wonders if Happy put him up to this… put him up to trying to get Tony to nap when he drove him over from Midtown forty minutes ago. But Peter looks tired, and has been grumpy since he walked into the lab, so maybe not. Maybe the kid needs a nap as much as Tony does just like he'd said.
They don't talk anymore, and it's only a few minutes until both of them have drifted off.
Hours later, when neither of them have come up for dinner, Pepper comes down to the lab because FRIDAY said she refused to deliver messages to Tony but wouldn't tell her why. She finds them both sleeping on the couch, Peter's chest rising and falling slowly as he dreams, and Tony's face looking more relaxed than she expected given all the stress he's been under this week.
Normally she would take a picture and send it to May, but she thinks that's unfair this time around. Both clearly needed the nap and weren't expecting to fall asleep and then be teased about it later. It was funny the first time May had sent her a photo, and Pepper had sent one of her own back just a few months ago. But Peter and Tony hadn't been stressed out and exhausted then, so it had been cute to snap a quick photo.
For now, she smiles down at them and turns to leave the lab. She'll let them rest for another hour and then come back to get them for a late dinner before they have to drive Peter home for the evening.