Archive of Our Own

After the Blip, everything just… slows down.

Well, things are pretty hectic for the first few months. Billions of people suddenly reappearing would do that to society, and do, in fact, do that. There’s some loss of life, unfortunately — unavoidable, really. Some people were in planes when Thanos snapped, planes that aren’t there anymore, while others were crossing the street where a car is driving five years later. There’s a hundred thousand ways for people to come back in dangerous situations, and the estimate is about 500,000 dead. Dead permanently, this time.

Peter had woken up in one of the more dangerous situations, stranded on another planet and then thrust into battle against tall, purple, and ugly, not to mention his alien army. Fortunately, they stop the bad guys. Less fortunately, Mr. Stark manages it by snapping his fingers and nearly killing himself in the process.

Key word is nearly, because Peter doesn’t know what the hell he would do without Tony. It takes the old man almost a year to fully recover, and he has to build a prosthetic arm for himself, which Peter happily helps with. Prosthetic limbs are slightly outside his area of expertise, but he squares his shoulders and brushes up, because Mr. Stark needs him.

They get the arm working like a charm, a phrase which Mr. Stark teases him about mercilessly when it slips out, and for weeks afterwards. Even with the new arm, though, Iron Man is — apparently — retired, well and truly. From what Peter can gather, Tony had hung up the suit the day he came back from Titan without his protégé, and hadn’t looked back since. That had been a night of hot cocoa and blankets and tears.

But Peter is back, and raring to go, and so he slips back into Spider-Man like an old, familiar pair of socks. A little worn around the edges, maybe, with some frayed stitching on the heel, but no less needed. In the wake of the Blip, Queens needs its friendly neighborhood Spider-Man more than ever. 

Or, well, it does at first. The first year after the Blip, crime is at an all-time high, people taking advantage of the chaos and the billions of displaced people to plunder, pillage, and loot to their heart’s content. More than that — groups form, flying Thanos’ banner, of all things, and Peter has a panic attack on a rooftop the first time he sees it, right before wading in and breaking it up. 

But in the few years that follow, life seems to… settle. Crime is on a steady downward trend, the number of Avengers is increasing every year, and Peter just doesn’t have as much work to do. He’s used to covering all of Queens, plus chipping in with the big stuff whenever needed, but even with Mr. Stark out of the picture, anything big that crops up is handled with swift efficiency. Dr. Strange and the Scarlet Witch joining the team is a huge boon, and Wanda is honestly pretty fun to hang around with. But it does mean that he doesn’t really get called in anymore for that stuff, so he sticks to street-level crime for now.

Even in that, though, he’s made obsolete. There’s a speedster and a few newer heroes that start patrolling Queens, and he shows them the ropes. He’s really proud of them, actually, pleased with how they seem to pick up on not just the physical training but also adopt his moral compass as their own. But they learn fast, and soon he’s back to square one. Recovering stolen bikes, using his super strength to help with construction, giving old ladies directions and getting gifted churros in return.

That last one seems to really kick off in popularity. He’s done it before, of course, and sheepishly accepted the churro, but this time someone films the whole thing, and it becomes a trend. Because of course it does. Mr. Stark laughs at him for a full ten minutes when he whines about it, but simply shrugs when asked for an actual solution.

“Enjoy the churros, kid,” is all the advice he offers. 

And so, enjoy them he does. It becomes a whole thing — if you’re lost in Queens, or elsewhere in New York if he happens to be swinging through, shout out and Spider-Man will show you where to go. He even starts swinging people places, on occasion. He grumbles a little about being treated like a glorified map, but getting rewarded with baked goods does help the sting go down a little easier. And besides, he feels more chill than he has in years, back to looking out for the little guy. It’s a welcome break from fighting failed science experiments and trying to stop villains of the week levelling the city.

He might be enjoying the baked goods a little too much, though. He’s getting ready for patrol, one day, and he notices the suit catch around his middle.

He doesn’t think much of it, really, at least at first. The suit is baggy by design, so he can easily slip into it quickly, and then it tightens up when he hits his chest with it on. Only, he hits his chest this time, and the way the suit tightens doesn’t leave… well, anything, really, to the imagination.

His middle has a distinct outward curve to it, accentuated by the tightness of the fabric. He gives it a pat, and watches it jiggle, briefly, before settling.

“Karen,” he speaks quietly into his mask, “have I put on weight?”

He holds still while she scans him. It only takes a few seconds, and she gives him a little beep when she’s done, like a bird chirping at him to let him know it’s successfully performed a trick. 

“Your last weight scanned in at 155.3 pounds, Peter. Currently, you weigh a total of 172 pounds exactly.”

Hesitation clouds his voice, just for a moment. “Is that… is that why my suit’s too tight?”

There’s a quiet hiss, and his suit loosens, slightly. It doesn’t quite hide his little gut, but it makes it a lot less noticeable, and he can breathe a little easier. 

“My apologies, Peter.” Karen says in his ear. “I should have anticipated your increased size and adjusted accordingly. I have now done so. I have also calculated your current growth rate, and will adjust the suit looser over time to accommodate — ”

“Woah, woah, woah!” Peter holds up his hands, and lowers them just as quickly. She’s not actually in the room with him, so it doesn’t really mean anything. “Current growth rate? Karen, I’m not getting fat.” He runs a hand over his middle, and presses in slightly, feeling the new softness there. “Rephrase: I’m not getting any fatter. You don’t need to worry about… um… accommodating my, uh, growth, or anything.”

His suit AI can’t hesitate, it’s not human, but he swears she does. “Of course, Peter. Shall I let Tony know?”

“No!” Peter grabs his mask and yanks it on, moving over to the window to slide it open. “No, absolutely not. He cannot hear about this, ok? I’ll handle it.” Without waiting for a reply, he flings himself out the window, and starts slinging himself through the streets of Queens.

But — wow. Maybe it’s just because he’s aware of it now, but he can feel the extra weight as he swings. He has to adjust the angle slightly, his arms are getting that familiar ache more quickly than normal, and he can even feel his middle wobbling slightly with each swing. With his suit slightly looser, no one comments, thankfully, but it’s probably only a matter of time before — 

What? No. Stop. I’m not getting any fatter.

The general public seems to disagree with him, though. He counts his haul in his head as he swings back home that night. Slipping in through the window, he cradles his paunch, and thinks about the chili dog someone bought him not five minutes ago. It had been big, overflowing with toppings and dripping with grease, and it had been one of the most delicious things he’d ever eaten.

“Peter, is that you?” May calls through to him. “Dinner’s ready!”

Goddamn it.

He goes on for a few more days like this, before realising his willpower is non-existent. Swinging is hard work, ok? And Peter is only human; he can’t help wanting a snack every so often. And it’s not like he can just refuse someone generously offering him a snack after he gives them directions. 

He waves off a member of the public, clutching the box of donuts they’ve just bought him, and swings up to a nearby roof to eat them. He notices, as he munches through the half-dozen rings of fried dough and way too much sugar, that the soft swell of his stomach sits on his thighs, just a bit. Thighs that are wider than usual, thicker than they have been in the past. Peter swings home earlier than normal, deep in thought, and gorges on two helpings of dinner before retreating to his room to think some more.

Ok, so — maybe Karen had had a point. He’s not trying to get bigger, but he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to stop eating, and there’s just not enough crime to keep him as active as he used to be. And… he’s enjoying it, weirdly. His biggest worry being his weight, rather than the fate of the world. The gentle comfort of the extra padding making him feel safe, secure in himself. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing after all.

He wanders through to the living room, where May is relaxing with a glass of wine. She pours him one too as he sits down, and he takes it, but doesn’t drink. Not yet.

“May? I’ve been, um… I’ve been thinking about hanging up the suit.”

Her eyes widen. She’s always been very vocal about how much his superhero activities worry her, but she’s also supportive of her nephew — really, her son, at this point. 

“What, well, what brought this on, honey?”

Peter looks into his wine, like he’ll find the answer there. “I dunno, really.” He takes a sip, and looks back at his aunt. “I just wanna live like a normal guy for once, you know? Work in Tony’s lab, go out with my friends, and not worry about the world ending.” He grins. “I’m basically just giving people directions nowadays anyway, and they have map apps on their phones. They’ll be fine without Spider-Man for a bit.”

Smile wrinkles crinkle at the corners of May’s eyes. She leans forward, and wraps Peter in a tight hug.

“I got a call from Tony today, actually.” Peter’s eyes light up, and she laughs. “Settle down, honey. Anyway, he was offering his home to us, so if you want to spend some time away from Spider-Manning…”

Peter raises a hand to his mouth, eyes shining. “His — his home?”

May only nods. “He wants us to move in with him, Pepper, and Morgan. Down at the lake house.” She shrugs. “He said indefinitely.”

Her nephew leans in to clink their glasses together in a toast. “Well, I guess we’re celebrating then! ‘Cause there is no way in hell I’m turning that down. You know he has a personal lab on site at the lake house? It’s sooooo cool, I can’t wait to work with him — oh! Do you think — ” 

“Peter,” May laughs, breathless, “let’s just celebrate. To Tony!”

Peter clinks his glass against hers again, but then does so for a third time. “To family,” he says, and it’s enough to get them both misty-eyed. They drink, the rush of wine washing away the melancholy, and the night is a happy one. 

They call Tony up the very next morning, crowding around the phone. It’s on speaker, so his voice is a little fuzzy when it comes through, but his excitement at Peter and May wanting to move into the lake house is palpable all the same. 

“Ok, ok, stay right there!” There’s a note of simple joy in his voice that Peter hasn’t heard since… before Titan, honestly. Mr. Stark had already been older than his years when Peter first met him, and his age was all the more visible in his eyes when he caught Peter on the flying donut ship. And after everything, after the Snap, and the Blip, and defeating Thanos once and for all? He looked like a hint of bad news would crack him clean in two. Like if anything happened to Pepper, Morgan, Peter, Happy, he would turn to ash on the spot.

But throughout the whole phone call, it’s like he’s got his spark back. Peter was initially a bit concerned about sharing the lake house with a husk of a man, unsure how to handle someone grieving for the people that were right in front of him. He’d still agreed to the move, of course — Mr. Stark needed him, needed all of them, maybe now more than ever. But the sheer joy radiating through the phone puts Peter’s heart at ease, a bit. 

It only takes a few days, in total, to pack up their entire lives. They’re still keeping May’s apartment — the move is an indefinite thing, no time limit, but they still want to keep their options open. Tony can’t understand it, not fully. He gets the sentiment, but he offers to just buy them a new place if they ever want to move back to Queens, or anywhere in the city. But Tony, for all his smarts and all his sage wisdom wrapped up in quippy one-liners, is a man born into eye-watering wealth, a man who’s only grown richer with every passing year, a man who will buy a skyscraper with a casual comment just so he can smash the Hulk through it. But May and Peter are used to tight purse-strings, used to scrambling to make rent each month, and so they stubbornly cling onto their apartment.

The lake house is different. Obviously, it would be, but Peter didn’t really stop to consider just how stark (ha) the difference would be. 

It’s quiet, for one thing. So quiet that when they all go to sleep at night, Peter isn’t lulled to sleep by wailing sirens and the bustle of the city around him. No, instead, he drifts off to the gentle heartbeats he can hear, listening to his loved ones fall into slumber, serenaded by quiet hoots and chirping crickets. It takes some getting used to, but he’s got time. They all do, now.

The weirdest part, naturally, is not being Spider-Man anymore. He’d meant it, when he’d told May he wanted to hang up the suit, and it’s not like there’s much opportunity for web-slinging out here anyway, in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is about ten miles away, and it’s so fantastically crime-free that the town’s police station is staffed by a single officer. So, yeah — nothing for Spider-Man to do. No directions to give, even, because everyone in that town has lived there their whole lives, and the lake house is pleasantly simple in its layout.

And so Peter tends to spend his days just… being. He takes on the dual responsibility of Morgan’s big brother and babysitter, all in one, and Pepper and Tony thank him at least once a day for it. “You’re so good with her,” they’ll say, like it’s not one of the best things that’s ever happened to him, getting a sister. 

There’s the lake, obviously, giving the lake house its name, but there’s a pool, too. And llamas, surprisingly, and chickens — really, an eclectic mix of animals dotted all around the acres of space. Morgan spends her days playing with her toys, running around the forest, and diving into the pool, and so that’s what Peter does, too. With, um… with one exception.

See, being Spider-Man isn’t just a costume he can hang up and retire from. That’s the hero side of things, and he is done with that. No questions there. But the physical side of things, there’s nothing he can do about that, and so sometimes, he’ll scoop Morgan into his arms and crawl all over the ceiling and the walls, spurred on by her shrieking and whooping the whole time. Sometimes, he’ll catch himself as he goes to open a door, remembering to adjust his grip so that he doesn’t crush any door handles. This happens often enough that Mr. Stark notices, and mere days after he does, all the door handles and other fiddly bits throughout the house have been replaced with custom-forged vibranium. Peter helps Pepper plan an extravagant date for that one, promising to look after Morgan the whole night so they can enjoy themselves.

Anyway, the physical side of things. Yeah, so that doesn’t go away. But most noticeably of all, and something that quickly encroaches onto his daily routine, is the enhanced metabolism.

Peter’s used to eating a lot, every day. With all the swinging and super strength and stuff, his body needs an insane amount of calories day to day. The past few years haven’t helped, really — sure, he’s still swinging around, but the constant diet of baked goods combined with the downturn in crime have increased his appetite along with his weight.

But at the lake house, his lifestyle becomes almost entirely sedentary. The most exercise he gets is chasing Morgan all over the place, and given that there are three other adults to help with that, he doesn’t really move much, especially compared to before. When he’s not looking after Morgan, he’s either in the lab with Mr. Stark — an entirely sedentary position — or he’s helping Pepper with admin stuff. Turns out he can draft up a pretty professional spreadsheet, and his emails are sharp without straying from polite, so she takes him under her wing, kind of.

The rest of his time, which there’s still hours and hours of, is usually spent with his feet up, playing games online with Ned and MJ, usually with three or four snacks to tide him over between meals. Again, not the most active activity, if he’s being honest with himself. But when he’s a dozen hours into a Minecraft session, he finds he doesn’t really mind when his fingers scrape the bottom of his fifth (family-size) bag of chips for the day. Just like he’s found with the ‘rewards’ people gave him for doing his job as Spider-Man, all this food just leaves him feeling warm, content, satisfied. Whole. 

And so, rather than throw himself into a gym routine that wouldn’t even make a dent anyway, he gives into his insane appetite. Meals become entire affairs, always with at least two helpings, but usually more. The amount of money Mr. Stark spends on snacks nowadays must be truly absurd, but he doesn’t say a thing to Peter, so he figures it’s not making that much of a dent in his mentor’s billions. 

Of course, this newfound dietary freedom comes with its own consequences and results. 

Peter quickly becomes familiar with tight buttons, straining seams, and so on. His stomach had nudged the top of his thighs before they even moved out to the lake house, but now it’s like it swells out more with each passing day. His whole body seems to soften, like his very physicality is growing comfortable, reflecting the peace he feels every day through waking up with his whole family under one roof. His strength stays — superhuman abilities aren’t reliant on gym reps, it seems — but his physical muscles disappear under a fluffy coating of fat. 

It doesn’t bother him, and it seems to not bother anyone else, either. Or so he thinks, until one fateful evening.

Peter’s spending it the way he spends most evenings, curled up on the couch with his family around him. Tony and Pepper are curled up on the loveseat, and May sits along the couch from him, with Morgan in between them. They’re watching the How To Train Your Dragon duology (Peter and Tony adamantly refuse to acknowledge the existence of the third movie), and Peter has a tub of ice cream positioned on his lap. There’s an open packet of cookies beside him, half-eaten, and he’s enjoying the process of scooping a hearty amount of ice cream onto each cookie before levering them into his mouth.

He works his way through most of the tub and all of the cookies by the time the movie finishes, and Pepper and May take Morgan up to bed. The remaining ice cream has melted, so Peter tilts his head back, tips the tub over his mouth, and chugs the cold, sugary soup that remains. It’s delicious, and once he’s done, he wipes a hand across his mouth. He’s in that wonderful place, just past full, in a bit of a daze, when Mr. Stark clears his throat.

“Uh… kid? You okay there?”

Peter brings a fist up to his mouth. “Ye - urrrrrp - yeah, Mr. Stark. What’s the matter?”

His mentor doesn’t say a word, but his gaze drops down slightly, and Peter feels his chin squish as he follows what Mr. Stark’s looking at.

Ah.

He’s eaten so much that his T-shirt is riding up, barely stretching over the top of his gut. This isn’t new — the first time it had happened, he’d freaked out a bit, hugging a pillow to his middle and dashing to his room before anyone could see. But he’s used to it now, like he’s used to a lot of things, and so the sight of his wobbling stomach sitting round and fat on his thighs doesn’t faze him at all. 

Maybe it’s the thighs. He’s wearing pyjama shorts that are… a bit skimpy, to be honest, but still perfectly decent. His stomach covers most of them in his current position, rolling out over the waistband and resting on his legs, but it’s still clear that his thighs are pressed together from knee to hip. Given the warmer weather, he’s taken to shaving them, recently, and so they’re smooth and soft to the touch.

Maybe, thinking about it, maybe it’s his chest. Peter has always had pecs — nothing as huge as Cap’s, but still impressively muscular, nonetheless. Now, his chest is soft, plump, curving out in puffy mounds that jiggle far too easily. Again, it doesn’t bother him; they’re just another part of him that’s more relaxed than before. But from the exasperated look Mr. Stark is giving him, he figures that something must be wrong.

“Look, Pete,” he begins, running a hand down his face. “I know that you’re taking a break from Spider-Man. Heck knows you’ve earned it, kid — ”

“Not a kid.” Peter pouts.

“You’re 22 years old.”

“Exactly! Old enough to drink, Mr. Stark.” He puts a hand to his chest, and his mentor’s eyebrows crease as he watches how far Peter’s hand sinks in. “I’m a full-fledged adult now. Have been for a while.”

Mr. Stark snorted, and shook his head. “You’ll always be my kid, Peter.” Peter’s eyes water at that, and he gives a shaky smile. “Which is why I… I gotta say, bud, I’m a little concerned.”

Peter blinks. This is clearly about his weight, which leaves him conflicted over what to say. He rather likes his new plushness, and he doesn’t want to change anything about his eating habits, but he also doesn’t want to disappoint Mr. Stark, and the man in question looks pretty disappointed right now.

“I’m happy you’re able to relax here. God knows you deserve to take a load off more than any of us.” Tony’s voice is low, gentle, like he’s approaching a frightened animal. A spider, Peter’s mind helpfully supplies. “And I know your metabolism is probably still crazy high, which means you want to eat a lot.”

Peter opens his mouth, but Mr. Stark isn’t done. “And that’s fine!” He says hurriedly. “I don’t want to make you self-conscious, or control your eating or anything. Like I said, you deserve to kick back for once. Just… let me know how you’re feeling, ok?” He sighs. “I know how it is. You find something that takes your mind off things, and it’s easy. Too easy to just keep taking your mind off things, but trust me, kid, that’s not a path you wanna go down. I know food is delicious, and I know you need a lot, but remember we’re here to talk if you ever want.”

A more insensitive person might have snapped at Mr. Stark, or denied any weight gain, or a million other things. But Peter was raised by May and Ben Parker, and so he sees right to the heart of what his mentor is saying. 

“I’m ok, Mr. Stark, really.” He leans forward — it’s a struggle, with how much food is packed inside him, but he manages to pat the man’s hand before slumping back against the couch cushions. “I’m not… eating my feelings, or anything. I’m just happy like this.” He slips his hands under his belly and lifts it up a bit. He’s still not used to that, being able to grab handfuls of his gut, but it’s useful for illustrating his point (and kinda fun to play with, too). “I like being all soft and warm, you know? Is that weird? It’s probably weird, but, I dunno.” His gut drops back onto his thighs with a gentle smack of skin against skin, the weight coming down causing ripples that spread throughout his new heft. A shrug, and he continues: “I like it.”

Tony cracks a grin and shakes his head. “It’s not weird, Pete. I won’t pretend I understand it, but it’s just another part of you, and I love every part, kid. Even the weird bits.”

A watery chuckle escapes Peter’s lips, and suddenly Mr. Stark is all around him, pulling him into a tight hug. “You’re safe here, kid. I promise.” He sits back. “And if that means you wanna gain a bunch of weight, then as long as you’re relatively healthy, I don’t care at all.” 

Peter smiles, relieved, but Tony’s not done. “Wait, no, that sounds bad. I do care. I care because it makes you happy, and that’s all I care about, bud.”

They fall into another hug, and Peter lingers this time, wrapped up in the closest thing he’s had to a father since Ben died. They spend a minute like that, letting the comfortable silence fall over them, until Mr. Stark breaks it with a snort.

“What?” Peter pulls away. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, bud, just,” Mr. Stark waves a hand, “you’re much less pointy when you hug people now. I don’t have bruises from your elbows sticking into me anymore.”

Peter shakes his head. “Ok, I wasn’t that bad a hugger.”

“The worst, Pete. The worst.”

Peter feels a little lighter, after that night. Everyone notices, for the next few days, how he’s got a bit more of a pep in his step, but he and Mr. Stark refuse to tell anyone, sharing knowing glances whenever anyone asks. It drives Pepper and May mad, which just encourages them. Maybe they’re bad influences on each other.

With the go ahead from his mentor to continue as is, Peter starts to settle in fully. He’d been relaxed before, but now he’s talked it out with Mr. Stark, he feels like he can really start to treat the lake house as his home, rather than acting as a guest. Months and months tick past at a leisurely pace, and this new level of relaxation really shows, at least to Peter.

It’s little things, piling up. His lifestyle was already a massive change from the busy double life he was used to, but now, it’s a life of parking himself in front of a screen and eating himself silly. He still looks after Morgan, but there’s a screen in front of them more often than not, and when he’s not looking after her, he’s either playing videogames or doing admin work for Pepper. He still makes sure to spend time outside whenever Morgan wants, and at least once a day takes a walk outside, but he’s getting more and more sedentary as time goes on.

He’s getting lazy. That’s the thing, really — with near unlimited food at his disposal, and a life free of Spider-Man and college and part-time jobs, he takes Mr. Stark’s advice to kick back very literally. It’s rare, nowadays, to catch Peter without a snack in at least one hand. He’s started midnight snacking too, often enough that Mr. Stark has caught him a few times. It was awkward, at first, Mr. Stark hunched over a desk with several empty coffee cups around him, jumping out of his skin when Peter tried to sneak by with an armful of chips and donuts and cookies. It happens enough that Tony just waves him on, now, whenever he sees him.

Peter really starts to balloon, more with each passing week. He was getting a double chin already, but now it’s there in full force, thickening out his neck. Along with his cheeks rounding out, it makes him look… well, different, that’s for sure. He’s never had a hugely high opinion of his own appearance before, but with his face all round and full and cushioned by his double chin, he thinks he looks kinda cute. In a soft, friendly sort of way.

His arms are getting thicker, too, which isn’t something he’d expected. His biceps, once muscular and toned, are now flabby and shapeless, the meat on his upper arms drooping a bit when he lifts them up. His forearms are silky smooth, and his fingers are chubbier, dimpling at the knuckles. He wonders, briefly, how difficult his thicker fingers would make web-slinging, but decides concisely that he doesn’t care. That’s behind him, now. He can rest.

Further down, his chest is getting big. Affectionately, he calls them man-boobs, which fits, kinda. They puff up over the top of his belly, and recently, have started to swell out sideways, too. There’s a roll that runs from the side of each moob under his armpits and forms the uppermost crease on his back, meaning he can never quite have his arms flat against his sides. It’s an odd sensation, especially when walking, but he adjusts.

Even walking is different now. He doesn’t do it much, mainly back and forth from the kitchen to the couch, or his desk if he’s not looking after Morgan. It’s most noticeable when he goes for walks outside, though. His thighs are… well, they’re massive, no getting around it, and they struggle to get around each other. Walking has become a bit of a pantomime of heaving one leg round the other, which gives him this odd kind of waddle. Morgan finds it hilarious, of course she does, but he tries not to make it too obvious around the other adults. His calves are fatter too, and so he’s started having to wear a bigger shoe size to accommodate for his ankles, which was a part of getting bigger he really hadn’t anticipated.

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to ask for anyone to order him bigger clothes. Mr. Stark gave him a card with a mind-blowing amount of money on it, and told him to use it for anything he needed, so he’s been covertly ordering larger and larger clothes every month. He’s up to 3XL by now, a fact that knows for certain Mr. Stark would tease him about if he knew — but his mentor finds out one day, when taking down a load of washing, and he just pats Peter on the back. Later, when he’s done with the washing, he pulls Peter in for a long hug, and checks in with him to make sure everything’s still ok. Peter reassures him, and Mr. Stark goes back to the lab, while Peter goes back to the jar of peanut butter he’d been spooning his way through.

The biggest part of him, though, the part that he spends the most time staring at in the mirror, is his belly.

There’s no other way to put it, really. It’s a belly, a proper one, rounding out from his middle right over where his abs used to be. His flab bubbles up over the waistband of even the loosest jeans, and he commiserates with May over the woes of a muffin top. Or, he tries to, anyway, but she just laughs her head off, and it’s only when she points to the tray of muffins he’s midway through devouring that he cracks up too. 

The muffin top is the least of it, though. A pair of thick rolls hang from his waist — love handles, he calls them, sturdy and solid proof of just how safe and warm and loved he is nowadays. Although sturdy isn’t the best word, perhaps, given how unbelievably soft they are. How unbelievably soft his whole body is, really. He’d expected some firmness to his body, given how muscular he used to be, but the evidence he was once Spider-Man has fled his body completely, leaving only a pillowy squishiness in its wake. Morgan proclaimed him marshmallowy, one night, and ever since, Mr. Stark hasn’t been able to stop himself smiling whenever Peter reaches for a bag of marshmallows, or a s’more when they have a campfire.

The belly itself is pretty impressive, in Peter’s humble opinion. Like the rest of him, it’s soft, and saggy. There’s a deep crease right along the middle, where his belly button is, meaning that his belly is kinda split in two. The upper half is the bit that gets bloated whenever he’s stuffed, and it’s in the perfect spot to massage and work up burps. The lower half curves round into his love handles, and the front of it hangs down over his crotch. There’s a little divot in the middle of his lower belly, right at the bottom. That whole bottom roll is the softest thing he’s ever felt, and he spends most mornings before getting up just playing with it, squishing it between his fingers, picking his whole belly up and letting it slap back down onto his thighs. It’s surprisingly fun, and with how amazingly sensitive his lower belly has become, stretched out by all the fat puffing up, nipping to the bathroom to take care of himself is becoming a regular part of his morning routine.

Being twenty-two in the modern day, Peter isn’t ignorant. He’s looked up a lot of things online, gone down a lot of rabbit holes, and given his increasing weight, took it upon himself to learn everything there is to learn about feedism. He’d come away more informed and more sure of himself, but he’s satisfied with what he learned. He likes his weight gain, and parts of him — the fatter parts — are a lot more sensitive, with how big he is now. But he’s not necessarily turned on by eating, or gaining, or anything. Just content in his body, and taking full advantage of the new sensitive areas. 

Peter wakes one morning, and casually slips the covers off to start his morning ritual. 

He’s started sleeping propped up with pillows, rather than lying completely horizontal. On his back, as he used to prefer, there’s just too much weight pressing down on him for him to sleep soundly without snoring the house down, and even then, it’s not the most comfortable. Sleeping on his side is fine, most nights, but he finds it’s easy to overheat that way, and it makes getting out of bed in the morning a little more difficult than he’s comfortable with. So, sleeping sort of semi-sitting up is the compromise he’s come up with, and it’s honestly pretty comfortable.

It also means that he can get right to it in the mornings, rather than procrastinating sitting up. His hands gravitate to the bottom of his gut. Sitting down, it bulges out onto his thighs, a third roll forming just under his moobs given the decreased space his belly has to properly spread out. It sags between his thighs, somewhat, and he takes the time to cup the bottom of his stomach, just to see how close it is to resting on the bed between his legs. Not long now, he thinks, and laughs to himself.

He plays with his belly for a bit, hands squidging and jiggling and patting, enjoying the cascade of wobbling that his actions set off throughout his corpulent body. Normally, this gets him worked up enough to head to the bathroom before properly starting the day, but he’s extra hungry this morning, and so after a few minutes he heaves himself up.

Having a shower is something he normally does, but he’s feeling extra lazy today, so he pulls out a fresh pair of pyjamas and yanks them on instead. They’re tight, the seams straining around his chest and the waistband struggling to contain all of him, and he makes a note to order some new ones soon.

It’s early, when he waddles downstairs. As he’s learned, Pepper and Mr. Stark are late risers, and May’s sleep schedule is permanently fucked by her hospital shifts, so she can get up any time between the crack of dawn and mid-afternoon. It’s peaceful, the gentle morning quiet, and he starts to cook up a big stack of pancakes. Mere moments after the smell starts wafting through the air, he hears footsteps behind him, and turns to see Morgan making puppy-dog eyes at him.

“You know I’m already making you some. Go sit.” Peter waves her off, and she runs through to the living room, collapsing on the couch. If it were Pepper making her breakfast, she would be sitting at the dining table, but the rest of them all just let her eat on the couch. Crumbs can be hoovered up, and mornings are for relaxing, anyway.

Peter finishes up before long, and he waddles through to the connected living room, setting Morgan’s plate down in front of her. His own plate is stacked staggeringly high — nine perfect, plump pancakes, drowned in syrup and muffled in whipped cream (from a spray can; he’s not making whipped cream from scratch just for breakfast). He starts in on them, and Morgan eagerly tucks into her own five pancakes.

Like he thought, it’s a lazy day. Pepper’s out for the day, taking the lunch he makes for her and giving him a kiss on the cheek in thanks. Mr. Stark is holed up in his lab, furiously making improvements to his prosthetic, trying to figure out how to make it cheap without compromising quality so it can start being mass-produced for people in need of prosthetic limbs worldwide. May’s away at college today, having enrolled recently in a creative writing course, and Peter knows she’s volunteering at F.E.A.S.T. afterwards. So, he and Morgan basically have the run of the house.

Not that they do much with it. It’s a bit dull outside, rain threatening to fall. Morgan just wants to sit on the couch and play games with Peter, an increasingly common occurrence, and they only really move to get snacks from the kitchen. Peter, in his newfound laziness, is more than happy to indulge, and so they spend the day grazing on junk food. They gorge on the PB&Js Peter makes for lunch, and even he is a little surprised at how much Morgan eats.

He draws the line early evening, when she asks if she can eat a jar of peanut butter.

“But Peter, I want one!” She tries the puppy-dog eyes again, and he has to muster all his big-brotherly authority to not crumble.

“Not allowed, Morguna.” He wags a finger at her. “That’s bad for you, you know! And you’ve had a lot of snacks today already.”

Morgan’s bottom lip trembles, which Peter is sure is half-real and half-acting. “But… but… YOU have tons of snacks every day! AND you eat peanut butter out the jar!” She actually stomps her foot, and Peter has to stop himself from smiling. “I want a jar! I WANT A JAR!”

Peter holds out, amazed at himself. “No means no, Morgan.”

“B-but why? It’s not FAIR!” She whines.

“Like I said, you’ve had a lot to eat today already!” He reaches forward and pokes her in the stomach. “You’re getting pretty chunky there, Morguna!”

Stubbornly, she crosses her arms, but seems to concede defeat. She turns her head away and scowls at the wall, and Peter sighs with relief, turning back to the TV. With his enhanced hearing, though, he doesn’t miss her closing statement.

“So what? You’re chunky.”

This has started to become a problem, one that Peter is considering talking to Mr. Stark about. Peter is the one who looks after Morgan most days, with her dad tucked away in the lab, her mom out working, and May out at college. Given that Morgan idolises the living hell out of Peter, she wants to be just like him — which is fine, and he’s flattered, really, but nowadays, all he really does is sit around and eat. With the unintended result being that’s all that Morgan wants to do, too, and so she’s gotten a lot less active. More than that, though, she’s getting pretty chubby. Through his totally normal need to be well-read and researched on anything relevant to him, Peter’s done a bunch of reading on the topic of weight gain in general, and he knows that childhood obesity can easily snowball into keeping those habits into adulthood. 

It’s something that he feels a bit hypocritical about, really. Peter is, of course, pretty far into obesity himself, and well aware of the risks to his health. But he’s an adult, and has made that choice and made sure he’s informed about it, too. Morgan is a kid — nearly a teenager, sure, but still just a kid, and so Peter worries about her getting big. Especially since it’s something that seems to be happening entirely through proximity to his eating habits. Peter getting fat is a choice, his choice, but Morgan doing the same is something entirely out of her control, and Peter doesn’t want that. He wants her to have an active lifestyle, and to be able to make that choice for herself when she’s an adult, and so he resolves to talk to Mr. Stark about it tonight. Tonight, definitely.

When Tony finally gets in from the lab, he finds the two of them curled up on the couch, asleep in front of the TV. Peter is slumped back, his belly tumbling out the bottom of his T-shirt, one hand in a bag of chips. Morgan is curled into his side, a mostly empty jar of peanut butter loosely gripped in one hand, and a spoon resting in the other. When Tony goes to lift her into his arms to take her to bed, he struggles, surprised by the weight, and he notices the prominent double chin that’s taken root. He tugs her pyjama top down where it’s ridden up over her fluffy belly, and carries her off to bed, thinking to himself.

Peter and Tony talk it out, and they work out a routine. They’re both in agreement that Peter being the one who looks after Morgan most of the time isn’t something that’s sustainable, and Tony decides to put the lab work on hold to be around more for his daughter. He reassures Peter that he doesn’t blame him for Morgan’s weight gain, not really, and together they work out a diet and exercise plan that will help Morgan get back to a healthy weight safely.

Of course, that leaves Peter a bit bereft of stuff to do, most days, and for a few months he starts to gain a lot of weight very fast. His double chin starts to triple, his moobs puff out more, and his belly finally hits the bed between his pillowy thighs. He’s still enjoying his weight gain immensely, but he’s honestly getting a little bored just sitting and gaming all day, and he’s a little worried about his mobility, so he sits down with Pepper to work something out.

She’s been really impressed with his admin work as of late, and so she offers to make him her personal assistant. Sort of what she once was to Tony, only more… professional, to put it diplomatically. Peter readily agrees, and his life becomes a lot busier.

He’s out of the house a lot more often, working away in the office alongside Pepper, and it’s honestly great. It’s a really nice change of pace, and not only is he more engaged, but his gains have slowed considerably. Not normally something he’d be happy about, but with the way he was going, he would have been bed-bound within a year, and Peter can’t imagine enjoying his size nearly as much if it renders him too fat to move.

They’re up in the office late, one night, working well after everyone else has gone home for the night. Peter doesn’t even realise how late it is until Pepper taps him on the shoulder and offers him a glass of wine from the secret stash in her office he totally doesn’t know about.

“Take a pause for the night, Peter.” She sits down across from him and sips from her own glass, sighing and closing her eyes. “Oh my god, that’s better.”

Peter rubs a hand over his eyes and chuckles, taking a swig of wine. “Yeah, it’s been a long day. How was that meeting with the Japanese office?”

Pepper rolls her eyes, and they chat about work for a while, until Peter’s eyes start to droop. She smiles at him, all fond, and helps him up. Together, they head to the elevator and take it up to the penthouse. It’s much more sparse now that the Avengers have relocated, but they make sure to keep a few bedrooms decorated, in case Pepper — and now Peter, evidently — ever want to kip at the office instead of driving back out to the lake house.

“You know,” Peter yawns as they head to the bedrooms, “I’ve been thinking about moving back to the city.”

“Yeah?” Pepper rubs a hand across his expansive back. “What brought this on?”

“Just some things I miss.” He shrugs. “Delmar’s. Street musicians. The friendly neighbourhood.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and he shakes his head, chuckling. “I don’t mean — you know.” He pats his gut, and she tears her eyes away as it wobbles. “I’m a bit heavy, these days, to go swinging around buildings. I just… I miss Queens, you know? I miss my city.”

Pepper nods. She gets it, surprisingly. The lake house is fantastic, and it’s perfect for her, but being in the office is nice too. And even when she’s at home, she does miss things about New York. Central Park, for one, which is weird, given that they live on acres of private woodland next to a gorgeous lake. But there’s something about the city that even the lake house can’t replace, not really, and so she promises Peter that she’ll let Tony know about his proposal in the morning.

“Goodnight, Peter. And good work today.”

He waves her off with a sleepy smile. “Just doing my job, Pepper. Goodnight!”

The night falls around them, and they head for their respective bedrooms to finally rest.