It started with the bed— May was the first to notice.
“Peter,” she said, stood in the doorway holding a small stack of folded laundry. “Honey. Why is your bed in the middle of the room?”
He looked up from magazine he’d been flipping through. He was laying on his bed. The one smack-dab in the center of his bedroom.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, his lips pulled into an apologetic smile. “I just wasn’t... comfortable against the wall.”
She stared at him. He stared at her. They both blinked.
“Right,” she said. “I have your laundry. I’ll just put it...” She placed it on the dresser. “Here.”
“Okay,” Peter said, weirded out by the entire interaction, “thanks May.”
“Are you packed for this weekend?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m heading upstate in the morning.”
“You live in the middle of the woods,” Harley reminded Tony for the thirtieth time. He swatted at a mosquito that landed on his bicep. “What do you want to go camping for?”
“The better question,” Tony said, “is why we didn’t give Peter more to carry.” His back was arched with the weight of the tent and the cooler. Peter eyed him with feigned annoyance.
“I think it’ll be fun,” Peter said. “Morgan will like the s’mores, at least. And probably sleeping in her sleeping bag.”
“Or she’ll end up sharing a sleeping bag with me or Pepper,” Tony said. That was likely. Even though she was good about sleeping in her own bed, whenever they went on trips it never failed that she ended up with them.
Harley shrugged. “At least she’s small.”
“You have clearly never been kicked by toddler feet in the middle of the night,” Tony said.
“Whose bed do you think my sister climbed into when she was scared?”
“Fine, I’ll send Morgan to you then.”
No one— not even Peter— had noticed the distance he was keeping from Morgan. Not until it was time to make s’mores.
Before, the night had been calm and filled with the incessant screech of cicadas. They’d made hot dogs, watched Tony, an engineer who graduated with a degree from MIT, struggle to put up a tent (it hadn’t helped that Happy was also trying to put up the tent).
Peter was on his third La Croix of the night when:
“Peter, do you mind making sure Morgan doesn’t burn herself?” Pepper asked. She was on her third glass of wine. He had a feeling she wasn’t a fan of camping. Or maybe she was taking advantage of having built in babysitters. Either way, Peter didn’t mind. Harley was deep in conversation with Tony and Happy was trying to find the campground bathrooms.
“Yeah, sure, Mrs. Potts.” Morgan’s face lit up. She hopped up from the log she’d been perched on.
“Don’t run near the fire!” Peter warned for the fifth time that night. This kid didn’t fear anything. Which was... impressive, considering who her parents were.
When she had nearly crossed the distance, Peter tensed. One moment, he was sitting on a log. The next, he was across the clearing.
“Peter!” Morgan scolded. Peter blinked. He didn’t remember getting up.
“Uh,” he said, and tried to play it off with a laugh.
She took another step toward him.
It was almost a waltz. Morgan stepped toward him, Peter scurried back. The hair on his arms stood up straight, his shoulders tensed. Tony and Harley both looked at him like he had three heads. Morgan looked like she was about to burst into tears.
“Wait!” He said, holding his hands out, “don’t cry!”
He wanted to move toward her, but his feet wouldn’t budge from the ground. He was stuck.
He was stuck, and Morgan was about to cry.
He could feel his cheeks heating up. Everyone was watching him. The conversations around him had ceased.
“Peter, what’s wrong?” Pepper asked, concern knitting her face.
“I...” Peter looked around. “Don’t know.”
This didn’t feel like his Spidey sense. It wasn’t rooted in anxiety, wasn’t gnawing at his stomach. No, it just felt off. Like the bed against the wall, or standing too close to train tracks. When he stepped away from Morgan, he didn’t realize he was doing it until the motion had been completed, until the distance had been crossed.
Tony rose from his seat. His arms hands were out, cautious. When he stepped toward Peter, there was no urge to move. No involuntary shuffling.
“Morgan,” Tony said, straining to not sound freaked out. “Why don’t you have Harley help you make s’mores?”
Morgan looked like she wanted to protest, but Harley was already scooping her up.
“I make better s’mores than Peter, anyway,” he said. “He skimps on the chocolate.” But when he shot Peter a look, it was tinged with worry.
Why did these nice trips always have to end with someone being worried about him?
Tony put an arm around Peter’s shoulder, guided him out of sight of the clearing, toward the river.
“Something wrong?” He asked, quiet enough that no one else would hear. And Peter knew what that question really meant.
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what that was. I couldn’t—“ he cut himself off. “Everything’s fine.”
“You sure? This isn’t one of your...” Tony looked thoughtful. “Tingles?”
He really needed to get May to stop saying that.
“No,” Peter said, and he was more confident in that answer than the last. “I don’t know what that was but it was different.”
“Uh,” Tony said, because that was an extremely unhelpful response, “okay.”
The think tank took place out of earshot of Pepper, Morgan and Happy. Peter’s face was buried in his hands. Harley’s knee bounced. Tony sniffed. They’d already been there for fifteen minutes, and their brainstorming had turned up empty.
“What, is it the bug spray or something?” Harley asked. His attempt to lighten the mood was still thick with stress.
“No it’s not the—“ Peter paused. The day before he moved his bed into the center of the room, the apartment had been sprayed for insects. They sprayed where the wall met the floor.
Before sending Morgan up the path, Pepper had sprayed her with bug repellent.
For a moment, the three of them watched each other. Then, Harley reached into his bag and pulled out some OFF! He stared at Peter. Peter stared at him.
Peter had put ten feet between them before he’d even popped the cap off.
“Well,” Tony said, “that clears that up.”
“Holy shit,” Harley said. He was doubled over, his face red with laughter. Peter pouted.
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