Safe & sound

17

They parked a few blocks away from... nowhere, they were just going to wander around and hope to find something to do, really. Tony was the first to get out, trying to escape Peter and Harley chattering about Kiwis and Coconuts and Dragonfruit. The noise hurt his ears, although he chose not to say anything, like a good dad.

The boys were the noise, and the noise followed Tony wherever he went.

So he took the opportunity to listen to them, and observe their speech and mind. While Harley added funny comments here and there, Peter was telling a story and while speaking made hand gestures, an unconscious movement and natural to the human eye, but also aiding the speech and interesting him more. It was a tactic he'd learned in school- not in a class, that was useless, just in his spare time- that people will pay more attention to the speaker if they are either pacing the stage, doing hand motions, or something of that kind.

"...And her name was Summer, and her sister's name was Meadow, and I was like um, ok I think we get it, you -the parents like that season..." He and Harley laughed and added comments on how the next child would be named Fleur or something.

They continued to talk while walking the streets, sometimes asking Tony a question or listening with all-ears of one of his stories. Tony wasn't really paying attention but at one point he's pretty sure Peter and Harley traded their head attire, so now Harley had the crimson earmuffs and Peter had the black tuque with the words on rainbow cursive, small font 'Treat people with kindness'.

They came to the yellow glowed-up stores with fake red fuzzy Santas and toy elves with Christmas lights, and Peter was skipping down the street without a care in the world, occasionally running to a window so he could admire a white Christmas tree ("Look! It's white!" Tony smiled softly at peter's excitement. "It is fake though." Peter turned to him and Harley, eyes twinkling and mouth grinning. "But it's white!") he smiled at everyone and said hi to a dog covered in snow that passed, bouncing like a young child and his face never breaking that endless smile.

They walked past many stores that looked so inviting, and even though Peter was tempted to go in, he had his mind already set to one destination: The Metro.

Yeah, it didn't sound very exciting, but he was extremely set on making his Birthday dinner from scratch, and to do that they needed food since the cupboards there mostly consisted of Pizza Pockets, pop tarts and candy bars, with plenty of frozen berries and juices and jams for some reason- He was pretty sure Loki liked the taste of fruity things, but it was just a guess.

When he told Tony it was where he wante to go, Tony replied, "We can do that at the end, so we won't be carrying heavy grocery bags around for hours. Capische?"

" 'Kay."

They wandered around for about twenty minutes until a certain pet store captured and held Peter's attention hostage. It didn't have anyone except a little girl and her mum, and the two employees.

"Please can we go in there? Please please I wanna pet the an-e-mals!"

Tony smiled. "That is where we were headed, in fact. Yeah, we can go in."

And that was Tony's worst mistake.

---------------

20 minutes later:

"Please?"

Tony bit his lip. He couldn't spoil the surprise, but he also needed to leave.

You see, Tony has already spoken with the manager, and he said he would keep the certain dog named Tessa as 'sold' until Tony is ready to pick her up and deliver it as Peter's Christmas gift.