Halloween Spooktacular Special: Haunted

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**Happy Halloween!! I love Halloween. I love it. So this is my gift to you all. It's a monster - over 11k words - but I think it's pretty cute. Eh, maybe that's just me. Starts angsty, gets cuter, gets SUPER cute at the end. This was kind of a present to myself, too, because I've probably read it about 100 times this month to make sure its perfect. Enjoy and please comment on your favorite part! I love hearing feedback from you guys!**

"Do you have fleas or something?"

Tony was staring at Peter as he scratched his arm violently. The young man looked up at his dad and then down at his hand, like it was some unconscious habit he couldn't help and didn't notice.

"No," Peter said defensively. "I do not have fleas."

Tony watched as Peter fiddled with his coffee for a bit. It was barely a minute before Peter was itching again and the older man huffed. Peter dropped his hand back to the coffee cup and pulled the little cardboard sleeve a bit, ripping it along the edge. Tony briefly wondered if maybe Peter was developing a nervous tick or something. It wouldn't be totally strange - moving out of the only home you'd ever known had to be nerve-wracking.

"How's the new place?" Tony asked, deciding that a change in subject might be best.

"Fine," Peter said with a shrug. If he was being honest, talking about it made him feel a little bad. He didn't want his dad to feel as though he was running away or trying to escape. "It's nice."

"Still what you want?" Tony asked. He wasn't trying to sway Peter's plans, but he wanted to be sure. He wanted to be sure Peter was happy with his new life. "You can always move back to the tower or into the cabin with Pepper and I if you ever want to."

"Yeah," Peter said with another small shrug. Sure, the new place was lonely at times, but it was nice to have a place of his own. Somewhere he could call his and really mean it. "I know. I like it, Dad, it's nice. Besides, I couldn't leave the city. I have too much here, like school and patrols and... yeah."

It had been a while since Peter decided to move out of the Tower. It was a relatively easy choice, especially after Tony and Pepper had started splitting their time between the city and the cabin, and May had passed away nearly 3 years ago. Peter just couldn't bear staying in the Tower all the time, not when it felt like a mausoleum full of memories. Steve, Bucky, and Sam had gotten an apartment in Brooklyn, Clint was back on his family farm, Natasha was always on missions. Peter just couldn't stay there by himself anymore. Not when it wasn't a home.

The two sat in silence for a moment, but it was uncomfortable. Peter played with his coffee cup sleeve again, this time tearing it completely. Tony couldn't stand it. He hated this silence, he hated the way his son had been pulling away, he hated how-

"It's smaller," Peter said. "Than the Tower, I mean. It's just a little one bedroom, but I like it a lot. I moved some furniture from my floor over, I hope you don't mind."

"That floor was yours, everything on it is yours." Tony waved his hand. "Pretty shitty 18th birthday gift if you didn't actually own any of that stuff."

That got a smile out of Peter. He still remembered his surprise when Tony and Pepper had redesigned a floor of the Tower just for him. He still remembered the quietness of that floor, so separated from family. "Well, I didn't take everything. Just the stuff in the bedroom and, like, the couch and a few things like books or whatever." Peter took another sip of his coffee. "MJ came over a few days ago to help me unpack, and Ned was there last night to help me replace some of the wiring. The lights were going out. You'd like it, actually, I have big plans for the living room. There's a little nook that would be perfect for a lab bench."

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