Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time that Tony sees Peter Parker, it’s late in the afternoon in the fourth floor corridor after a board meeting that Pepper had bullied him into attending. The boy is really a sight for sore eyes with the setting sun spinning gold over his brown hair and pale cheeks. He’s wearing a white lab coat with an ID badge clipped to the breast and holding an armful of files, eyes unfocused and deep in thought. Tony’s appreciative once-over brings him to scuffed-up sneakers and really, he looks way too young to be one of SI’s scientists. Tony doesn’t realize he’s actually stopped dead to check this boy out until the kid meets his eyes, promptly blushes a lovely shade of pink and drops his files like the heroine of some trashy romance.

“Oh no, sorry,” the kid mutters, perhaps to Tony - there’s no one else in this stretch of corridor just now - perhaps just to himself.

Tony walks closer, looks down his nose to watch the boy hurriedly pick up his files on one knee, get to his feet with a whoosh of breath, and then jerk back slightly, eyes widening in surprise at Tony’s sudden proximity. The blush deepens and spreads.

“Sir. Mr Stark, sir,” he says with a deferential little nod. Tony quirks his lip in amusement, delighted that he’s found at least one perk of his advanced age if now pretty young things will call him ‘Mr Stark, sir’ in that tone of voice. Tony is generally a ‘call me Tony’ sort of guy with everyone and anyone, but let’s face it, that’s hot, and it doesn’t cost a cent.

So he cocks his head at the badge on the boy’s chest and says, “You look a little young to be working for me, Mr Parker.”

“I’m, I’m an intern, sir. I go to NYU, I’m a freshman. Bio-chem.” Parker then looks rather embarrassed at his own babbling and bites his lip.

Tony tears his eyes away from Parker’s mouth and says sort of on autopilot, “Since when do we hire undergrads? We don’t have unpaid internships of the coffee-making and file-filing variety. I don’t like wasting anyone’s time.”

“I was hired because I submitted an idea, I’ve got this formula I’m working on with Dr Cho, sir.”

“A young prodigy, are you?” Tony is mildly more interested than he was before, though biochem isn’t really his area. “Is that what you got there?”

Parker looks briefly stunned by Tony’s interest, freezing up in a deer in headlights manner. Then he jumps back into movement, pulling papers out of his arms to show Tony, babbling excitedly about some sort of high tensile strength string based on spider webs. It really is a most ingenious idea with any number of useful applications and Tony makes a mental note to consider how the thing would help his robotics ideas. He does eventually have to cut the boy off from his word spew with a practiced, “That’s impressive stuff, Mr Parker. Keep up the good work.”

He pairs it with an easy smile and a clap on the shoulder, then puts on his sunglasses and continues on his way. Something makes him glance back before he turns the corner, to find Parker leaning against the wall hugging his files and looking dazed, one hand clasped to the shoulder Tony just patted. Tony smiles, utterly lifted out of the bad mood the board meeting had put him in as he heads up to his penthouse.

On the subway home, Peter still feels the adrenaline coursing through him from the earlier encounter, which has been all he’s been able to think about since then. He’s been working at SI for two and a half months already, and the excitement of the first few days had long since died down, since he realized that even in SI’s NYC headquarters there’s like sixty floors packed with SI employees and the chances that he’s ever going to see Tony Stark is really low. He still can barely believe that Mr Stark stopped in the hall to talk to him and is kicking himself over acting like an idiot. He texts Ned on his cracked iPhone:

Peter: the most AMAZING thing happened to me just now!!!

Peter: I saw Tony Stark in the hall at Stark Tower

A typing bubble quickly appeared from the other side.

Ned: wow that’s some good luck

Ned: what was he like in person? short?

Peter: wtf no? taller than me anyway

Ned: Everyone’s taller than you

Peter: shut up. Mr Stark said my research is impressive :D :D ;D

Ned: he talked to you? Dude! how?

Peter: idk. He said I looked young to work here.

Ned: Did u get a selfie? Did you ask him how he trims his beard?

Peter: no and no?? I don’t want him to think I’m a groupie

Ned: that probably counts as trade secrets anyway

Ned: congrats P. You’ve peaked in life and in your lifelong obsession with a billionaire twice your age ;)

Peter grins, so absorbed in his phone he almost misses his stop. He decides to text Michelle too and tell her about it, even though he already knows she’s going to tease him mercilessly. He feels inclined to indulge in this giddy feeling for as long as possible, as he doubts he’ll see Mr Stark again until he’s graduated and possibly landed a real job at SI and does enough cool work that Mr Stark hears about him. He does regret just a little bit not asking Mr Stark for a selfie, however much of an idiot that would make him look, because he would absolutely, if not completely unashamedly, wank to that for years.

The next time Tony speaks to Helen Cho, he remembers the boy and asks her, “I hear you got an intern. Kid by the name of, uh…Parker?”

“Oh yes, Peter!” Dr Cho brightens up. “Such a wonderful young man, so bright…”

Tony has rarely heard Dr Cho speak of anyone with such unreserved pleasure and it tickles at him. He vaguely recalls the boy, looking achingly young even for his presumably-eighteen years, so bright eyed and pink in the face. He finds himself saying, “Well if this Peter is as great as all that, I’m mad that you’ve been keeping him to yourself. Send him over to my lab two days a week. I could use some help that I don’t want to donate to the trash pile.”

Dr Cho rolls her eyes, but agrees fairly good-naturedly.

Peter: guys. guysssss helppppp it’s an emergency

Ned: what kind

MJ: I call got a hot date emergency

Peter: my boss just told me Mr Stark wants me to be his lab assistant tmr. and possibly regularly in the future.

MJ: I was right

Ned: DUDE

Peter: what do I do what do I do??

Ned: say yes? Duh

Peter: yeah but how will I function as a human being

MJ: wear clothes that would cover it if u get a hardon

Ned: sound

MJ: not that it will be much use except for common decency

MJ: ur the worst at hiding crushes

Peter: that was three years ago :(

Ned: at least like, get it out of your system before you have to see him

MJ: he means masturbate

Peter: I got that. Yeah. thx.

Peter turns up at Tony’s lab on Wednesday, and Tony’s already forgotten he asked for the boy. He’s worked all through the night on his new project, the heavy metal is blasting and he’s covered in motor oil when JARVIS dims the music and says, “Sorry to interrupt you, sir, but your new intern has been knocking at the door.”

“Oh, new intern! Let him in, J.”

Peter’s hair looks carefully combed into place. He’s wearing a dark blue button up tucked into light grey slacks and shiny black dress shoes. It makes Tony aware, if not self-conscious, that he probably has shadows under his eyes and his hair sticking all over the place and stains on his t-shirt and jeans. Peter still looks just as star-struck as last time Tony saw him, though.

“Nice to have you here, Mr Parker. I’d shake your hand, but I don’t want to get lube on you.”

Yeah, alright, he does it on purpose and it’s childish and inappropriate for an engaged man, but whatever - Peter blushes so prettily.

“Dr Cho said you asked for me? I’m, I’m so honored, sir. Uh, what can I do for you?”

Because Tony’s a dick, and also he’s desperately in need of it, he says, “Right now you can get me some coffee.”

MJ: How’d u do with daddy stark

Peter: I totally functioned [thumbs up]

Peter: it was so hard

Peter: don’t make the joke ^

MJ: u do any dropping things and bending over

MJ: your ass is an asset to New York you know

Peter: I’m such a professional I swear I only spent like 0.5% of the time staring at him when he’s not looking

Peter: hes so hot :(((( and just sort of flirty as a person I will die

MJ: poor gay baby you need to get laid. We’re going out tonight.

Peter: MJ no ive got a group project

MJ: overruled nerd

Dr Cho was right - Peter is a joy to be around. It’s not just that he’s clearly talented and has ideas way beyond the level of a biochem undergrad, or that he’s a far better assistant than Tony’s bots, or that he quickly learns when to provide Tony with coffee without being asked like an absolute angel. Tony is aware that he has a bucketload of issues amongst which narcissism and self-esteem issues feature prominently. He likes his ego stroked. It’s undeniably nice to watch Peter blush and get flustered when Tony is close, catch him looking when he thinks Tony is unaware, look at his big doe eyes that all but hold pulsating hearts. He’s happy and eager and sweet and never stops calling Tony ‘Mr Stark, sir’ long after Tony’s started inventing him nicknames. Sure, Peter hardly has the monopoly on hero-worshipping or crushing on Tony Stark, it’s just there’s something about it. Peter’s feelings seem so pure and unselfish it makes it all the better. He lifts Tony’s mood when he’s around, so much that Tony closely tracks the progress of Peter’s work with Dr Cho and steals him full time the moment their project wraps up. Other things in Tony’s life are going to shit so quickly and completely it’s nice to have one person who thinks the world of him.

Peter: i don’t know what to do

Peter: like I get how famous ppl are just ppl too and I know him as a person now

Peter: but he’s just so brilliant. So smart and snarky and perfect

Peter: and I think I’m catching real feelings for him

Peter: that’s so bad right

Ned: isn’t he married :/

Peter: engaged. I’ve met his fiancee/CEO of freaking Stark Industries

Peter: she’s super nice and also terrifying

Peter: they go great together

Ned: yeah that’s not great…for u i mean

Ned: maybe you shouldn’t work directly with him, for your own sanity

Peter: I can’t imagine giving this up

Peter: this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me

Peter: I’ll just deal with it like a big boy

When Pepper finally breaks up with him, for good this time - because Tony absolutely does not deserve her - he retreats to his lab and sits there in the dark drinking whiskey out of the bottle. He’s not sure how long he’s been there when suddenly the door opens and the light is turned on and Peter walks in, goes to his work station, and then does a double take when he sees Tony just sitting there without a word.

“Mr Stark?”

“What do you want?” Tony says, his voice too rough, too thick.

“I- I just forgot-”

“I don’t care, get out.”

“Okay.” Peter obediently turns to leave at once.

Eyes narrowing, Tony licks his lips and says, “Actually.”

Peter stops and turns to look at him.

“Actually, come over here and get on your knees for me.” Waving perhaps a little too wildly, Tony points to the floor between his legs.

His eyesight’s not the greatest right now, but he sees Peter Parker go absolutely still for a moment. Then he says, “Mr Stark, I don’t-“ and Tony isn’t in the mood for any of that.

“Either go away or come here. Your call.”

There’s barely even a moment’s hesitation before Peter drops his backpack, comes to Tony, and folds to his knees exactly where Tony told him to. He’s got an expressive face, Peter, and he looks somewhat excited and somewhat worried.

“Just to check,” Tony says, after another big gulp of whiskey, “You wanna be here, right?”

Peter nods at once. “Yes, sir.”

“Why do you want to be here?”

“I…um.”

“Does it make your dick hard?”

Peter blushes, flicking a glance down himself that makes it clear he’s hard right now even though his hoodie’s long enough Tony can’t see it. Tony hooks a finger under Peter’s chin and tips it up until he’s gazing into the boy’s warm brown eyes.

“I got good news for you, Peter. I ain’t got a girlfriend anymore.” He spreads his arms wide in demonstration. “I’m a free man. You can look. You can touch. You want me, Peter? What do you want to do to me?”

Peter’s eyelashes flutter in reaction to the news. He looks at Tony with clear longing, his face soft and kind.

“I’d really like to make you feel better, sir.”

“Yeah? How do you want to do that?”

“Do you…want to talk about it?”

Tony barely refrains from spluttering on his whiskey and shoots Peter an incredulous look.

“You think I got you to kneel between my legs because I want to talk?”

Peter is mortified. He’s excited and elated from just the position he’s in - a position he’s only dreamed of being in since he was old enough to crush on his idol - but he’s so concerned about him and this surely isn’t the moment to be indulging his own fantasies. Mr Stark looks a mess, his eyes bloodshot and clothes rumpled, and Peter can tell from his voice that he’s way past comfortably drunk and will certainly wake up with a sledgehammer attacking his head the next morning.

“I’ll do anything you want if you tell me to,” Peter says, heart racing at his own honesty, “but I’m not sure that will actually make you feel better, right now.”

There’s silence and Peter doesn’t quite dare look up to see how Mr Stark is receiving this, scared that Mr Stark might want him to get out now Peter’s indicated he doesn’t want to give him sex. (When he does, oh, so badly.)

Mr Stark says, “Alright, talk then.”

Peter is momentarily thrown, but then he gets it. It’s surely hard to talk about, whatever’s gone so wrong between him and Ms Potts, and Peter’s got to start the conversation here. He hesitates briefly, wonders if he should get up now, but honestly he likes it so much that just being on his knees for Mr Stark has him half hard. His mind is on his admiration for the man, how much he, well, loves him, if he could be allowed to say so when he doesn’t even know him that well. He thinks that might be a nice thing to hear about, when Mr Stark’s obviously hurting. So Peter tells Mr Stark about how he’d become a fan after Mr Stark started turning around Stark Industries from a weapons manufacturer to a pioneer of the future. He tells him about the talks and interviews he’s watched and what he thought about them. He tells him how it’s been his dream for a long time to work at SI.

Somehow, it’s helpful. After a while, Mr Stark clearly relaxes, even responds to Peter’s words with comments or corrections or teasing. He begins playing with Peter’s hair, and doesn’t seem to mind that Peter’s head is on his thigh. The floor is hard and Peter’s legs are falling asleep, but it feels so good, he doesn’t want to move.

“I wish I was who you think I am, Peter,” Mr Stark says eventually, soft and sad.

Peter’s heart lurches. He barely notices that he’s got both hands around Mr Stark’s waist.

“What do you mean?” Peter says, equally soft, the tower around them silent in late night solitude.

The whiskey bottle hits the table top with a clatter, empty. Mr Stark pats his leg and pulls Peter’s arm. “C’mere.”

Peter sits in Mr Stark’s lap and strokes at Mr Stark’s chest in what he hopes is a comforting manner, held secure in the man’s arms. Mr Stark seems to like having Peter there. He nuzzles at Peter’s throat, alcohol heavy on his breath.

“I’m not a great person. I’m selfish and alone and I always will be.”

“You won’t,” Peter promises fervently, heart breaking for him. It’s arrogant and foolish and Peter’s not even drunk, but what the hell, Mr Stark is, so Peter stupidly says, “I’ll be here. If you want. If you ever want me, I’m yours, you don’t have to be alone.”

Even drunk out of his mind, Mr Stark finds this funny. He gives a condescending little smile and says, “Baby, you’re so sweet.”

Peter hates that he isn’t being taken seriously, so even more foolishly, he says, “I love you.”

This gets a more positive reaction. Mr Stark’s gaze flickers and he holds Peter breathtakingly tightly. He kisses Peter, sloppily with too much tongue, tasting sharp with liquor. Peter moans and kisses him back as eagerly as he knows how.

“Say it again,” he murmurs against Peter’s lips.

Peter, dazed and intoxicated on the chemical cocktail his brain is making him, tells him, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Mr Stark draws in and lets out a slow breath, looking satisfied. He nods and smiles and says, “Thank you.”

Peter knows that usually, that’s not considered a good response to uh, I love you. But considering the circumstances, he’s glad to get it. He catches sight of his watch then, and shit, it’s so late. Mr Stark is looking droopy and not as upset.

“Mr Stark?” Peter gently turns the man’s cheek towards himself with his hand, because he can. “You think you want to go to bed?”

“Hm?” Mr Stark blinks. “I could go to bed. Are you coming?”

“If you, if you want me to.”

Mr Stark smiles at him. “OK, let’s go to bed.”

“Yeah. Yeah, um. Where do you live?”

Mr Stark points vaguely towards the ceiling, which is not a direction Peter understands.

“I can guide you to sir’s bedroom in the penthouse, Mr Parker.”

Peter flinches violently because he’s absolutely forgotten about JARVIS and wow, JARVIS was watching/hearing all of that, wasn’t he? He tries to put aside being deathly embarrassed for now and helps Mr Stark to his feet, relieved that although he might not be the greatest at walking in a straight line right now, at least Mr Stark is successfully staying on his feet with his arm slung over Peter’s shoulders. Peter follows JARVIS’s directions towards an elevator he’s never seen before, aided by the fact that Mr Stark knows where he’s going like he’s on autopilot. A short elevator ride later, the door opens and he’s in Tony Stark’s home. This hits Peter with another wave of surrealness, even more than the fact that he’s got a drunken, pliant Tony Stark draped over him.

Mr Stark falls onto his - unmade - bed like a sack of potatoes, not even facing the right direction, and rubs his cheek drowsily against the covers. Peter melts a little, some small sane part of him despairing of how far gone he is on a guy so very, very much out of his league.

“Mr Stark? Sir? You want me to help take your clothes off?”

“‘Kay.”

It’s difficult. And, in the moment, not sexy, just struggling with Mr Stark’s weight as he tries to get the man’s pants down with almost zero cooperation (though he’ll surely savor this moment later). But eventually he gets him down to underpants and also under the covers, pointed in the right direction, discarded clothing neatly folded on the nearest surface. It’s all worth it when Mr Stark hums contentedly and tugs Peter down, trying to spoon him. Peter huffs a laugh and goes with it, attempting to shed some of his own clothes while - who knew Mr Stark could be such a cuddle monster - he gives up after he’s gotten rid of his shoes and socks and gives in to Mr Stark’s desire to throw his arm and leg over Peter and cling.

It’s such an overwhelming night for Peter he doesn’t think he could sleep. Mr Stark soon starts snoring softly against him, occasionally shifting against him, nose buried in Peter’s hair. Peter tells himself to eternalize this moment in his memory, savor it as good as he can. Hell, he’s not sure if he’ll still have a job tomorrow once Mr Stark’s sober, but for now, he’s in bed with the man he loves.

Chapter Text

The moment Tony starts to wake up, he immediately puts all his effort into not doing that with the intuition developed out of decades of drinking more than was good for him. He keeps his eyes closed and stretches slowly, pulling closer the warm body in his arms without giving a moment’s thought to why there exists a warm body in his arms. His hand smooths down rough fabric and then up a pleasantly toned abdomen. He sweeps down to jeans and flicks open the button and zip one-handedly, dipping inside underwear for a handful of hard, bare cock, without so much as wondering why his bed partner is still so dressed after a night with Tony.

He strokes, gently and without thought, pulling the velvety foreskin up and down in the limited space until the tip begins to get wet. His bedpartner in turn begins to breathe heavily and thrust into Tony’s hand, while Tony grinds his own cock in tight circles against his partner’s ass, until all of a sudden the warm body goes still and the cock in his hand releases another big spurt of precome.

“Mr Stark?”

Oh god, it’s Peter Parker. Of course it is. Memory begins to bleed through Tony’s careful denial, starting with his break up, and he resolutely shies away from that.

Without opening his eyes he mumbles, “Take your pants off.” Why does he still have them on, honestly?

After a short pause, Peter does as he’s told, and Tony gets rid of his own boxers too. Then he’s able to fit his cock against the crack of Peter’s lovely ass, and pull on Peter’s cock much more easily, listening to Peter gasp out broken moans as though he’s never had anything so good. Tony doesn’t know if he showed the boy how talented he can be with his mouth, but he’s absolutely sure that to move his head would be a terrible idea right now, so this will have to suffice. Clearly, Peter likes it well enough. Tony grinds against him gently until Peter tenses up and shoots spurt after spurt into Tony’s palm like the teenager he still is.

“Oh god, thank you, sir,” Peter gasps, bringing a smile to Tony’s lips.

“Good boy,” Tony says, and brings his come-slicked hand back to smear over his own cock and rub against Peter’s little asshole.

Peter gives a startled meep, and says, “Mr Stark, don’t-”

“Still sore, baby?” Tony leaves it alone and just slides his slick cock against the crevice instead.

“That’s- uh- I-“ Peter stutters adorably.

Before he can get out whatever it is, JARVIS says far too loudly, “Sir, Ms Potts is in the elevator up. It is 2:04 pm.”

Tony cracks his eyes open and immediately squeezes them shut again. “Indoor voice, J, for the love of god. Wait, what did you say?”

He turns his head to look at Peter in alarm, which is a bad, bad decision and he clutches his temple and whimpers. He does catch a glimpse of Peter’s terrified expression, which would be funnier if he wasn’t also terrified.

“Don’t let her in!” He demands.

“I cannot do that.” JARVIS sounds unrepentant. “Ms Potts is in the penthouse.”

“Should I hide?” Peter whispers, wide eyed.

Tony does laugh, though he pays for it in headache. “Just don’t say anything. JARVIS won’t open the door, because he loves me really, right?”

JARVIS somehow manages to convey disapproval through pointed silence, and then Pepper is rapping at his door.

“Tony? I know this is a bad time, but.” A pause. “I have a call you have to take. It’s the Secretary of State.”

It cut at him to hear her voice, though he knew he’d only seen her yesterday. Everything was different yesterday. He doesn’t bother raising his voice, knowing JARVIS will helpfully amplify it for him.

“You took time out of your busy schedule to come over here yourself? Could have just called.”

“I…I was worried about you. I hope you’re doing okay.”

Tony snorts. He glances over at Peter, who’s staring up at the ceiling looking worried and mortified, and deliberately reaches out a hand to stroke the boy’s thigh while he wraps the other around his own cock. Peter jerks, looks at him disbelievingly, but doesn’t move to stop him though his cheeks turn pink.

“I’m perfectly fine. Got the biggest headache I’ve had since ’07, but I can take the call in like, an hour, maybe. Or two.” He closes his eyes as he strokes himself. “I thought the point was that you don’t want to worry about me anymore.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t just turn off.”

The silence is so awkward, he hates it, can’t even keep up the semi-scandalous self-pleasuring.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’ve moved on.” Glances at Peter. “Line of pretty young things waiting out the door now I’m on the market again.”

“I’m sure,” Pepper says dryly. “Have you got three nineteen-year-old models in there? Ugh, don’t tell me.”

Peter cringes and puts his face in his hands, so Tony says, grinning, “Not a model.”

Pepper isn’t even moved. Sounding resigned, she says, “Well, wrap it up and get some coffee, I’ll call you again in an hour.”

Tony doesn’t reply for a long time, and then says, “Has she gone, J?”

“Yes.”

Peter has curled himself up into a little ball with his face still hidden in his hands.

“Well that was awkward,” Tony intones. “You okay there?”

Peter scrubs his hands over his face and says in a rush, “We didn’t have sex last night, Mr Stark.”

Tony blinks. “We didn’t? Why…why not?”

“Um. You were…you were pretty drunk. And upset. You don’t remember any of it?”

“It hurts to try.” Then Tony realizes the implications of that, to what they just did, and oh, damn. “Oh, so I shouldn’t have-“

“That was fine!” Peter said quickly. “Not, not fine, I don’t mean fine, it was great. I liked it. I’m- thank you. Yeah. Just thought you should know.”

Tony’s memory isn’t that awful so he does remember Peter’s sweet ‘thank you, sir’, so at least they’re okay in that department.

“Alright. Cool. I’m going to try and summon the nerve to get up-right now.”

Peter sits up with a bounce that makes Tony’s head hurt. “Of course, you’re hungover. I’ll get you some water. Tylenol? What do you want, sir?”

“Uh, Peter, you don’t have to be my intern right now.”

“I know.” Peter lifted his hands and shrugged not-so-casually. “Water?”

“Yeah.” It’s convenient, so Tony gives in to it and closes his eyes again. “Water, coffee, dry toast. Pills. JARVIS will tell you where everything is.”

“Cool.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.”

“Any-anytime, Mr Stark.”

The thing is, after a couple of hours and a lot of water, Tony feels suspiciously okay. Not the headache, though that’s getting better too, but the way his heartache over losing Pepper feels strangely dimmed, as though it happened a week ago rather than yesterday. He can’t imagine why that is when he didn’t even fuck the intern, so after he gets all his work shit done, he asks JARVIS, “So what happened last night with the kid?”

“He was a perfect gentleman, sir,” JARVIS says. “Would you like to see the recordings?”

Tony hesitates, because he just knows he acted like a complete dick and he’s not sure he wants to watch that sober. He fiddles with his phone for a while as a distraction, but is still curious.

“Alright, can you play it on 4x speed?”

JARVIS does. Tony inevitably stops and slows down for the interesting moments, like the way Peter kneels down so prettily for him, and his own utter lack of technique in the kissing. And so he hears:

“I’ll do anything you want if you tell me to…”

“I’ll be here. If you want. If you ever want me, I’m yours, you don’t have to be alone.”

And , “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Against his will and whatever scrap of conscience Tony Stark actually has, the words warm him from head to toe. He sits there replaying and replaying the footage, zooming in to stare in shock at the utter earnestness on Peter’s pretty young face. What a wonder it is to be eighteen, to be so pure and unafraid to tear your heart out and offer it to someone who doesn’t even deserve it. Tony doesn’t think he’s ever been that young and innocent, and he wishes desperately to protect Peter’s unbroken love and adoration.

Tony’s just been told that he’s childish, irresponsible, self-destructive, narcissistic. He’s absorbed in his own delusions of grandeur and he doesn’t make enough effort, doesn’t understand how he hurts the people who love him. He’s just heard these things from someone he truly loved, and he knows she’s right, which is why it cuts so deep. Then he turns around and here’s a beautiful person, a really good person, who thinks everything of him. Tony’s disappointed so many people in his life, he doesn’t think he can bear to disappoint Peter.

Peter’s never occupied much of Tony’s brain space before. He’s sweet, he’s cute, he has potential. That’s nice and all, but Tony has a bunch of things to think about all the time. Now, Tony shuts himself in his penthouse and gets JARVIS to dig for every scrap of information he can find about Peter Benjamin Parker. And it’s awe-inspiring. He’s got everything from birth certificate to school reports to Facebook account, anything you can think of, and he just barely refrains from looking at Peter’s private correspondence. He’s at it for days and Peter, oh, Peter Parker has never done anything bad in his life. He literally saves kittens from trees and helps grandma cross the road. Peter’s a fucking superhero.

And this is who loves him.

Peter sits in his Molecular Biology lecture, spacing out, staring blankly at his phone. It’s been a week since he, well, slept with Tony Stark. He hasn’t seen him since. Rationally, he doesn’t think it’s something he did, but the longer it’s been, the more anxious he gets. He’d left Mr Stark’s penthouse quite quickly after he woke up, Mr Stark too hungover and busy to pay much attention to him, and May blowing up his phone wondering why he’s stayed out all night without texting her. Then the next time he went to work, he was told to go back to Dr Cho for a while. Dr Cho just said that Mr Stark wasn’t working in the lab at the moment, and Peter figured from her vaguely worried expression that Mr Stark is still not feeling great.

He hasn’t told Ned or MJ about what happened, even though both of them are like, creepily invested in his budding relationship with Mr Stark. It feels private, different from his fanboying that he could freely share with them. He’s scared that if he does tell them, they’ll judge him for the bad decisions he made in the moment, or Mr Stark for coming onto him at all. He’s quite aware it’s one thing for him to high-key crush on Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, philanthropist, and his boss, and quite another for him to have actually slept with a forty-two-year-old billionaire who just broke up from his very serious relationship literally that day. Peter’s not sure he’s being a very good person. He also feels like just another pretty young thing that Mr Stark will forget about, and well, that is what he is to Mr Stark, he’s grateful to be even that, but the thought still sort of tears him open.

The lecture ends, and he walks out of the building still distracted, jumping out of the way of a flashy sports car that honks loudly at him. The car honks again. He looks up confused, because he’s not in the way anymore, and then the window rolls down and Mr Stark says, “Hi, Peter!”

“Hi!” Peter repeats, caught off guard, blinking.

“Get in.”

Only vaguely noticing the stares he’s beginning to get, he jumps into the passenger seat and puts on his seatbelt.

“Mr Stark, hi. Nice to see you again. How are you?” He rambles, because that is what he does when he’s nervous and unprepared, then he hears how stupid he sounds and tries to cover it up, “Are you, are you working in the lab again? Are we going to your lab?”

Mr Stark stares at him, and there’s nothing particularly sexual about it, but it makes Peter feel vaguely on edge. In a good way. Maybe.

“We’re not going to the lab. I’m taking you to dinner.”

“Uh- what? Why?”

“You’re not hungry?”

“Well, uh, yeah. But it’s half past two?”

Mr Stark considers this as though it’s new information. “So we’ll go somewhere else first. Hey, you want to go to LA?”

A strange idea begins to form in Peter’s head. He wants to ask but it seems so ludicrous, he doesn’t want to embarrass himself.

“What for?”

Mr Stark looks thoughtful, then vaguely alarmed. “Shopping? No. You’re not into that. I’ll buy you…Legos? Give me a clue here.”

OK, now Peter is a little more confident in the strange idea. “Are you trying to take me on a date?”

“Trying? What, am I not succeeding?” Mr Stark looks indignant.

Peter tries and fails to suppress a smile.

“These machines are stupid and counter-intuitive and anti-human. They’re going to take over the world. I swear. I heard there was a movie about it,” Tony tells Peter.

“It’s just patterns and reflexes,” says Peter, unimpressed. Oh god, he’s spent two hours with Tony not doing work and he’s already unimpressed.

At the very last moment, the red and blue plush robot falls back in line with its buddies, escaping Tony’s desperate grasp. He yells something rude, banging both palms down heavily on the rickety metal of the claw machine. The robot battalion trembles. A dude in a beanie with tattoos down both arms shoots Tony a dirty look as he slots coins into a shooter game. Then again, Tony is also a dude in a beanie right now. He’s left his suit jacket in the car, rolled up both sleeves, and acquired a beanie in order to be less conspicuous in a shady arcade in Queens. At first he had his sunglasses on too, but Peter assured him he was only more recognizable in those as no one else wears orange tinted sunglasses. 

“Let me catch you a robot. Which one looks good to you?”

Tony narrows his eyes, sets the kid up to fail by stabbing his finger at a lop-sided red and gold one in the far corner. The kid groans.

“Really?”

“I like that one. I’ve named it. Iron Man. Iron Man saves New York from aliens. Come on, Peter, Iron Man’s been taken away in a giant-“ he slaps the glass, “space ship and you’ve got to save him.”

Peter looks very, very amused. He puts in quarters and takes hold of the lever.

“Rescue space claws, on its way.”

It takes Peter 21 goes to get Iron Man. Before that, he also got the red and blue one Tony had been working on - Tony made sure to make it known that he contributed to the rescue of the first robot, with whom he has a lively conversation while Peter is on rescue attempts 16 through 21. Finally triumphant, he fishes Iron Man out of the chute and makes the plush robot fly victorious into the air.

“Got to admit, no one’s ever given me a plush robot before,” Tony muses. “Who’s this then, America Man?”

“Why is it America Man? The colors?”

“Yeah. You don’t think it looks like an America Man? Mr America? Captain America?”

“No, this is Spider-man.” Peter demonstrates. “Spider-man shoots webs and crawls on walls and fights crimes with Iron Man.”

“Crimes?” Tony rolls his eyes. “Like mugging and bank robbery? Iron Man has aliens to deal with, kid.”

Peter shrugs. “Fine, Spider-man will look out for the little guy. And if the aliens get to be too much, he gives Iron Man a hand, and that’s how they ended up in the space ship together. It all makes sense.”

Peter expects Mr Stark to take him to a really fancy restaurant where there’s too many forks and the food looks more like art than dinner. Instead, Tony says, “You like Chinese food, right?”

Peter does. He could kill for some chow mein. But he’s not really surprised when Mr Stark’s version of Chinese food is nothing like what he had before.

Mr Stark takes him to have hot pot at a quiet family-run place where the front door doesn’t open unless someone rings the bell, and all the guests have their own private rooms. There’s a huge, steaming brass pot filled with bright red liquid. Two Asian waitresses in tight-fitting silk dresses come in and out with small platters of things, less than half of which Peter recognizes.

“What’s that?” Peter gestures at a plate of maroon jelly.

“Duck blood.”

Wow, okay. “Is that…brains?”

“Pig brains.”

Peter must not be very good at concealing his perplexed expression, because Mr Stark smirks far too smugly.

“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to. Plenty of options. Stick to your corn and spinach and lamb.”

“I’ll eat it if you eat it,” Peter insists. “You like your pig brains and duck blood, Mr Stark?”

Mr Stark shrugs. “Sure. I had a fried scorpion in Beijing once. We should go sometime.”

Peter tries not to think about what that means while he bites off a corner of his duck blood. It’s not so bad. Pig brains are disturbingly creamy. Peter valiantly eats all the weird stuff that Mr Stark appears to enjoy - a chewy black fungus that looks sort of like an ear, a small bunch of translucent string, some tiny bird eggs. But honestly, he does like the lamb best, sliced thin and soaked in the spicy soup, hot and bursting with flavor. Mr Stark eats with his chopsticks without dropping a spot of soup anywhere on his side of the table, still finding the time to cook curls of lamb and deposit them on Peter’s plate. Peter mumbles his thanks repeatedly between stuffing his face, it’s just so good.

“Mr Stark,” Peter says eventually. “This has been a great day, but I’m confused. What uh…what are we doing here?”

Mr Stark looks like he wants to make a snarky quip. “Dating.”

“Me. You’re dating. Me?”

Mr Stark rolls his eyes. “How many dates do you get with that attitude?”

“You want to date me.”

“I am dating you. This is a date.”

“This is a date,” Peter concedes.

“And you’re not going to give me a second date? Come on, Pete. So you had to catch both our robots. At least I handed you your ass at Taiko Master.”

“I must be dreaming,” Peter mutters incredulously.

“It’s pretty obvious your imagination doesn’t extend to pork aorta.” Mr Stark gestured towards a yellowy thing that Peter now raises his eyebrows at. The meal got a lot easier after he stopped asking what everything was.

“I just…I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“Didn’t you say you’ll give me anything I want?”

Peter’s blood tries to run both hot and cold at the same time, then all rushes to his face.

“I thought you didn’t remember that.”

“Peter. Have you had a good date?”

“Yeah. Yes. Thank you.”

“I’m glad. Me too. Do you want to come back to my apartment and have some coffee?”

Peter almost laughs. That’s so weird coming from Mr Stark. Whom he should probably start referring to, at least in his head, as Tony, if they’re dating and all.

“Not sure I should put out until the third date, that’s what my aunt tells me.”

“Life is short, Petey. Let me show you how good my coffee is when I’m not blackout drunk.”

“Alright. It had better be really good coffee.”

Chapter Text

Peter looks like a goddamn wet dream, pressed against the elevator wall. Tony holds him there and kisses and kisses him while Peter’s eyes cloud over and his lips turn red. He’s soft and pliant and kisses most agreeably. Yeah, agreeably. Tony’s had dirty kisses, passionate kisses, sweet kisses. Peter kisses like he wholly approves of what Tony is doing to him and is too overwhelmed to do anything but take it. It’s hot and it derails Tony’s internal monologue regarding what the fuck he’s doing here. (He doesn’t have a plan. He stalked Peter until he just had to see him right away, turned up, and winged it. He’s good at winging it. But then Peter asked him what they’re doing here and hell if he knows.)

“You smell really nice, what is that?” Peter says, dazed, and it doesn’t look like he made an informed decision to say that. Tony might have possibly crashed the boy’s brain.

“Hermès.”

He drags Peter out of the elevator by the hand and collapses onto the closest sofa, fighting an awkward tangle of limbs until he’s got Peter splayed out under him while Tony sits between his legs. He dives down, fingers sinking into soft curls, picks up where he left off. Things are a bit of a pleasant, aroused blur until Tony’s unwrapped the boy to the last garment and leans back to admire Peter, nude and so beautiful, like some sort of Greek sculpture but for one not-so-small detail. He hadn’t even noticed last time he had his hand around it – Peter’s surprisingly hung for his petite stature. It’s fat and pink and picture perfect, and Tony has zero self-control, so of course he immediately puts it in his mouth. Mmm, it’s been a while since he’s had a nice cock and he rather wants to know if deep-throating is like riding a bicycle. Good news, it is. Tony goes down until he’s nosing curly brown hairs and swallows. Peter jerks and whimpers and pulses into Tony’s mouth, so Tony holds him by his hips and goes up and down, up and down, finally meeting Peter’s eyes with a porn-worthy smoldering look, the mushroom head of Peter’s cock lying on his tongue spurting white and trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Tony sits up, wipes his mouth and licks his fingers. “We’re gonna have to work on that if you want to fuck me, baby.”

“Hn,” says Peter. He stares at Tony, looks absolutely floored, flushed and gasping and wrecked.

Tony feels like a gladiator or something. He looks up and asks, “How long has it been since we walked in the door?”

“Seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds,” JARVIS says, sounding bored, because he’s a shit like that.

Tony nods thoughtfully, begins getting rid of the clothes he still has hanging off him. Fully naked, Tony catches Peter’s eye as he presses a kiss to his own closed fist, then drops it to his own cock and strokes lazily, lets out a low sultry groan at how good the friction feels. Peter’s watching him with parted lips, eyes so wide, so dark he can barely see the brown anymore. He leans forward to make his cock fall in line with Peter’s, rolls his hips a bit against the sensitive skin. The image is hot, but they need lube.

Luckily, Tony does a lot of fucking over random surfaces in his house and he’s prepared. The nearest bottle is just in the coffee table, the drawer springing open helpfully for his grasping hand because JARVIS can be the world’s best wingman. He slathers it over his dick, kisses Peter wet and open-mouthed, and slides one slick finger up inside Peter’s ass.

“Fuck, so tight, baby,” he mutters with feeling, eases the finger back and forth while he mouths down Peter’s jaw and sucks on a nipple.

Peter's body is so incredibly responsive. Tony’s so hard, he can’t help rushing it a little. Tony wants so very badly to sink into that tight heat, so perhaps too soon, he adds some more lube and pushes in a second finger, licking at Peter's rock hard erection to offset the sting. He has to add lube twice to counter the vice like squeeze.

"Relax, come on, sweetheart, darling, open up," he croons, breathless. He licks and kisses and bites. He digs in deeper and probes around for it.

Peter yelps, his hips snap up, his spine straightens. 

"There it is." Tony laughs, delighted. "So good, right?"

He rubs at it, switches up the rhythm, watches Peter sob and his dick drool clear liquid all over his stomach, until he can't stand it anymore. Tony's poor dick aches with how hard it is. There's nothing he can do to hold back the groan of absolute relief he gives as his cockhead is engulfed in choking tightness and heat. The ever-present, hyperactive chatter in the back of his head switches off. He hopes that he restrained himself from jackhammering straight away, but he doesn't have a moment's coherent thought again until he's squirting come deep into Peter's body and driving it in with brutal thrusts. He has a brief urge to ask JARVIS how long it has been since he last asked, but has a sneaking suspicion the answer may embarrass him.

Instead he says, "Wow." 

Reluctant to leave, he fucks into Peter lazily for a dozen more thrusts before he slips out. He goes limp around Peter's sweaty body, brushes back his damp hair, and kisses the tears from his cheeks. Tony rides out his post-coital bliss for long, happy minutes before higher brain functions makes its reappearance.

"Peter?" He says, because now it occurs to him that he hasn't heard an actual word - rather than moans, whimpers, gasps - out of Peter since they came into this room.

"Mhn," says Peter.

Tony smiles. "Peter, you having fun up there? Come back to me, I'm getting lonely."

"Hn," says Peter.

"I haven't actually fucked the English language out of you, have I?" He's getting amusedly concerned. "Hey. Give me a word. Any word. Say 'Tony'."

"Tony," says Peter in a soft, tickling whine, drawing out the first syllable of Tony's name like a caress.

"Fuck, baby. That’s - you're not allowed to call me that in public, that's indecent."

His imagination briefly runs with that scenario - Peter wrapping his lips around his name, Tony popping wood in bespoke pants that leave no space for funny business, giving him no choice but to bend the boy over in a public bathroom while everyone knows exactly what they’re up to. Not a pretty picture. Well, who is he kidding, it is, but he’s not eighteen anymore and he can’t be doing that.

Wait a second. Peter’s eighteen. Peter’s eighteen, and uh…

“Hey, babe? You’ve had sex before, right?” Tony chuckles nervously.

“Hmm? Yeah?”

Phewwww. “Oh, good.”

“You, uh, jerked me off, last week. You forgot?”

Oh, not good. “I mean, intercourse. You’ve-“

“Nope.”

“Oh, fuck.” What has he done? Tony mentally rewinds back to the moment Peter shyly tried to kiss him in the elevator and he then shoved the boy against the wall. He winces. “Damn it, I should have-“

“What? Was I not-“ Peter looks suddenly insecure and Tony hurries to reassure him.

“No no, you’re perfect. I should have gone gentle, made it to a real bed, stopped to check you’re still comfortable. I was…I was an animal.” Tony scrubs at his face, tense with frustration.

All he had wanted was to not mess this up too and he can’t even stop thinking with his dick.

“Tony.” Peter waits until Tony looks at him, and says, “You’re a sex god.”

Tony fights the urge to preen at that and quirks a doubtful brow at Peter.

“You blew my mind.”

“You sure we didn’t go too fast?”

“You have my blanket consent to fuck me whenever, wherever, however you want.”

Tony’s mouth goes dry. It takes him a moment to speak.

“You really shouldn’t say things like that to people. Especially not to me.” I’m a bad man, he thinks hysterically, but it sounds too corny, so he doesn’t say it out loud.

“I mean it.” Peter snuggles into Tony with a look of such trusting contentedness Tony has nothing else to say to that.

Tony has spent his entire life tensing in preparation for people to reject him. But the thing about Peter is, he seems categorically incapable of protecting himself from Tony, so Tony feels helplessly obligated to do it for him. Tony spends the rest of the night coddling the boy while trying not to make it obvious that’s what he’s doing. He washes Peter in the shower while the boy is far too impressed over his multiple shower-heads. He makes him a hot drink, then they lie in bed kissing and snarking at each other and flipping through movies until Peter falls asleep half way through Empire Strikes Back. Tony looks at the lights flickering over Peter’s relaxed face, cheeks still round with baby fat, and feels ridiculously conflicted. He wants to grab him and fuck all that pretty innocence as much as he wants to kiss his forehead and wrap the blanket around him. He’s so screwed.

“Peter? Peter! I’m going to throw this smoothie in your face.”

“Hm? Ah, please don’t.”

It was just his luck, wasn’t it, that the day after his very successful date with Tony Stark he had promised to hang out with Michelle, who never ever misses a trick.

Michelle leans forward across the diner table, eyes narrowed, and Peter knows he’s screwed.

“Out with it now, Parker. What’s going on?”

“…Okay.” Peter wets his lips nervously. Out with it. He can do that. He kind of needs to talk to someone about it, anyway. “Don’t tell anyone. Not even Ned, not yet. And don’t give me your judgy face.”

“So it deserves my judgy face,” Michelle muses loftily, strokes a non-existent goatee.

“Now I don’t want to tell you.”

Michelle stares at Peter with a scary poker face until he breaks. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, dangling it in front of her.

“You going to show me some screenshots? Is that a Stark Phone? You got a new phone?”

Peter flips open his backpack, puts a glossy box in plastic wrapping on the tabletop.

“You’ve got some fancy ass perfume. Go on. I’m intrigued.” Michelle steeples her fingers.

Peter swipes open the phone, pulls up the contact page, and turns the screen around.

“Is that Tony Stark’s actual number?” Michelle stares at it for a moment, then smirks at Peter. “So you’re getting somewhere with your favorite capitalist.”

“I uh, already got somewhere.” Feeling just a little smug, he shifts a bit in his seat and winces theatrically.

Michelle’s face changes. “Peter-“

“No judgy face!”

“When you’ve become like, a sugar baby to a married man?”

“He was never married and he just broke up!” Peter whispered. “Why do you all think he’s married?”

“Because he’s like fifty.”

“Forty-two.”

“And you’re eighteen and he’s giving you stuff. Still creepy, though significantly less so than when I thought he was married.”

“It’s not like that.” Peter curses his fleeting desire to show off, getting upset. “I said his cologne smelled nice, so he gave me some. He wanted to give me his number and was, like, emotionally opposed to putting it into an iPhone. We went on a date. He bought me dinner. I- I caught him a robot.”

Michelle looks less concerned and more confused when he mentions the robot, so he goes into detail about the robots. Too much detail, even.

“That’s disgustingly cute.” Michelle sucks on her smoothie, looking perturbed. “Well, okay. At least he bought you dinner before rebound sex. Was it good?”

Peter struggles to contain the size of his smile. Michelle looks grudgingly amused and vaguely pitying.

“Wow. Not that I’m not supportive of your teenage wet dream coming true for you but are you gonna be okay? When Daddy Stark moves onto some other starry-eyed fan, or…gets back together with his girlfriend?”

Peter pouts. “I think he really likes me.”

“Based on what evidence?”

Peter doesn’t know how to describe it properly. He says lamely, “He’s really nice to me.”

“What kind of nice? How nice?”

“He’s kind of, affectionate. We talk about things and he listens to me like I have his full attention. It’s, uh, hard to explain.”

Michelle’s eyes fall on the phone and then get a scary gleam. “I’m going to text him.”

“What? No! MJ no!”

Michelle picks up the phone. “Calm down, I’ll run it by you. It’s always worked before, hasn’t it?”

Admittedly, Michelle has provided Peter with useful texting assistance in the past, but, “Those were regular people.”

“We want to know if he’ll be a regular person to you.” Michelle types and says out loud, “Hey daddy.”

“No! No! I don’t call him that.”

Michelle shrugs. “Hey, loser.”

“I don’t talk to him like that.”

“What do you call him then?”

“Mr Stark.”

Michelle gives Peter a very unimpressed look. “Seriously?” Her fingers fly over the screen.

“What are you writing?” Michelle turns the screen towards him.

Peter: thinking about you

Peter: what are you doing right now

“I just left his house three hours ago! You’re going to make me sound so needy.”

“You have a text from Mr Parker, sir,” JARVIS tells Tony.

“Throw it up on the screen,” Tony says absently, deep into tweaking a bunch of wires.

He turns and looks, then pauses, smiling. He wipes his hands casually on his jeans and types.

Tony: I am making sweet science

Tony: it’s lonely without you

“That’s fast, good sign. Flirting back, good sign,” Michelle mutters, typing back.

Peter: I’m wearing your scent. I smell so good I want to lick myself :p

Peter groans in embarrassment, though some part of him is curious what Mr Stark would say to that.

“Go on then. Don’t make a liar out of me.” Michelle nudges the box of cologne at Peter.

Peter grudgingly picks open the plastic wrapping and takes out the pretty crystal bottle. Peter hasn’t used cologne before. Deodorant is good enough for him. He sprays some over his wrist cautiously and then breathes in deeply at the strong, familiar scent. Michelle leans in to take a sniff.

“Urgh,” she says.

“You don’t like it?” Peter says disbelievingly. He doesn’t think anyone could not like it.

“I do. That’s the problem.” Michelle scowls. “I’m supposed to be stronger than this.”

Peter sniggers.

“Really?” Tony says to his own dick, staring at his crotch in disgust. “That’s all it takes for you, you slut?”

Tony: I hope you’re not doing that in public

Tony: then again

Michelle taps her fingers rhythmically on the tabletop.

“Aren’t you going to reply?” Peter says.

“No.” Michelle sips on her smoothie coolly. “We’re waiting for him to double-text.”

Peter groans.

About a minute later, “Score!”

Tony: so where are we on that second date

Peter smiles. Then he remembers his audience and puts a hand over his mouth. Michelle shakes her head, smirks at Peter somewhat condescendingly.

“Peter Parker. You’ve caught the fancy of a billionaire.” She spins the phone across the table. “Use this power for good.”

Peter holds the phone and is suddenly overwhelmed with the freedom and responsibility of sending his own texts again.

“What should I tell him?”

“You don’t know?”

“MJ, come on! Help! I can’t leave Tony Stark hanging.”

“Au contraire. Tony Stark probably needs a bit of hard-to-get.”

Peter chews his lip and thinks about it. Finally, he sends:

Peter: send me an itinerary and I’ll see if I approve

Tony stares at the screen, so intent his tongue is sticking out a bit. So apparently, he needs to plan a date.

Chapter Text

"So what weird stuff are we having this time, Tony?" 

Mr Stark - hm, Tony - gives Peter a look that says he still finds the way Peter says his name to be indecent. 

"We're not going to have weird stuff every time, Peter." He grins. "I'd hate for you to find me predictable."

The digital lead-up to the second date had looked like this:

Tony: ok here's the plan

Tony: I shall pick you up in a swanky car of your choosing

Tony: then we eat something awesome, somewhere awesome

Tony: and we do something awesome, somewhere also awesome

Tony: then I reward you with sex

Tony: or you reward me with sex if you prefer to look at it that way

Tony: or no sex if you don't want sex. You should really tell me if you don't want sex. 

Tony: Not that it has any bearing on me wanting to date you I promise I want you for more than your sweet butt

Tony: feel free to jump in anytime here buddy

At which point Peter replied:

Peter: Honda

Tony: What

Tony: You want me to pick you up in a Honda

Peter: Yep :)

Tony: have I upset you honey

Tony: whatever it is I did, it can't be that bad

Giggling at his own audacity, Peter lied:

Peter: Honda or no date

A few minutes passed, during which Peter started to second-guess himself and was about to take it back when Tony sent him a torrent of photos - pictures of high-end sports cars in what appeared to be his garage.

Tony: I don't have a Honda

Peter laughed at how sulky that came off, even over text.

Peter: get a Honda

Tony: most people I've dated made me buy stuff but at least those were NICE THINGS

Peter: sorry. rent a Honda?

Anyway, Tony's driver, a guy allegedly named Happy who is anything but happy with Peter right now, is at the wheel of the black Honda Civic. Tony is not dressed down to match, still in his thousand dollar suit, looking perfect in an almost deliberate manner, as though trying to draw Peter's attention to how ridiculous his car preference is. Peter is also dressed up, though not in the same direction. Michelle had taken Peter shopping and advised that he not even try to match Tony Stark for classy when he was not equipped to try. Peter is wearing some MJ's choice tight fitting jeans and an MJ's choice tight black v-neck t-shirt with a brown leather jacket that was practically the only thing in Peter's wardrobe that MJ approved. 

Since Peter had gotten in the car, he had been sitting primly on his side of the backseat, too conscious of the driver, who was clearly familiar with Tony, probably a friend. There they'd sat throughout the car ride, eyeing each other and smirking and not saying anything more than small talk.

"We're here," says Happy.

"This isn't a restaurant," Peter says, staring out of the window. He hasn't paid much attention to where they've been going. "This is-"

"JFK International."

"Where are we going?"

"The sky."

Tony gets out of the car while Peter is still staring and opens his door for him, looking pleased with himself. He points unnecessarily at the plane they are right in front of. 

"We're going to go up and have dinner in the sunset, unless that's too corny for you."

“The Honda’s yours, by the way.”

Tony stands and watches in amusement as Peter tries not to look overexcited as he explores the interior of Tony's plane. Peter slides closed the door of the bathroom again and turns to look at him.

“What?”

“I was going to give you whatever car you asked me to drive." Tony pauses for effect. "So now you have a Honda. Congrats.” Got to admit, Tony feels a little smug about that. Of course, Peter doesn't let him be smug for long.

“Um, Tony, that’s really nice of you, but I don’t know how to drive.”

“You don’t?”

“I’m a New Yorker!”

"Well, learn to drive then."

"No, thank you. Have you any idea how much parking costs?"

"No?"

"Me neither, but I hear it's a lot."

Tony rolls his eyes. This kid, for god's sake. "Fine. You seem to like the plane. You want the plane? It has autopilot."

Peter's mouth falls open. He glances around the plane disbelievingly and then back at Tony.

"You are joking, right?"

Tony shrugs. "You can have it if you like it."

"No thank you, I would not like your plane," says Peter, voice high, with what Tony recognizes as his reflexive politeness. "It's a really nice plane, but uh, more your style than mine."

Tony grins. He finds Peter so endlessly entertaining. His reactions are adorable. It gives Tony the urge to show him all sorts of stuff and see what he does.

"Alright, didn't think so anyway. You don't seem like the type to want me for my cash."

Peter looks awkward. "Do- do people always want you for your money?"

"More often than not. I don't mind," Tony says. “The ones who don’t want my money are almost worse. No, definitely worse.”

“Really? Why?”

“Well when they want money, I give them money and they’re happy. The other type, they generally want stuff money can’t buy. Things I can’t give them.”

Peter looks even more awkward. Tony belatedly realizes that may have been somewhat rude and/or inappropriate.

"Um. You don't, you don't have to worry about that, here. I don't expect anything."

Tony feels like a dick, feels as though he just forced some sort of promise out of Peter. It's reflexive - he's always preemptively being a dick in anticipation of future messing up. 

He closes the distance between them, watches Peter's eyes darken at his proximity. 

"What do you want, then?" He says softly, tries not to make it heavy.

Peter holds his gaze like he can't look away, color blooming on his cheeks.

"I just...like your company."

"Oof," Tony teases, "Going straight for the most expensive thing on the plane, I see. I think someone told me I make about a million dollars an hour."

Peter doesn't immediately respond, blinking. So Tony snaps his fingers.

"A hundred dollars. Two hundred. Three-"

"Okay!" Peter yelps. He surges into Tony's arms and kisses him in alarm.

Peter, Tony registers as he presses his tongue into the boy's mouth, is wearing his cologne again. It pleases him a disproportionate amount, speaks to some possessive, predatory instinct he has. He clutches him tighter, kisses him harder, hands dropping lower as Peter melts against him. It would be so easy to just tear Peter's clothes off and have him right here. Tony's pretty sure the boy won't disagree. 

But he's not doing that, that's not the plan. He's seeking something other than immediate sexual gratification here, though he's not entirely sure what. 

He pulls back and says, "That was a thousand bucks well spent."

Peter knows that Tony is joking, but it's not like it's untrue how much Tony Stark's time is worth. It's frankly terrifying. What does he have to do to be worthy of the time of one of the most powerful men in America? He's always been aware that Tony is insanely wealthy, of course, but it really puts it into perspective when he says it like that. It's like a bucket of water over the head and leaves Peter shivering.

The plane takes off. Peter sits and looks out of the window and tries not to overthink everything he says to Tony. In only a few minutes, Tony catches Peter by the hand and says, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Peter says.

"You're a really bad liar," says Tony, sounding amused. "I was obnoxious, wasn't I."

Peter shakes his head. "Really, you haven't done anything wrong."

"Come here."

"The seatbelt sign is on."

"I have- I have a seatbelt sign in here?" Tony swiveled around, looking bewildered.

Peter points helpfully.

"Alright fine, I'll misbehave." Tony unclasps his seatbelt and comes to sit on Peter's side of the table. He brushes his hand against Peter's cheek and Peter leans in, he can't help it.

"You've known me for a few months now, right?"

"Yeah, since um, January?" Peter tries not to give away that he could name when he met Tony to the hour.

"Do I seem like I spend every second of my life working hard?"

"You work pretty hard."

"Huh." Peter appears to have derailed Tony's argument, whatever it was. The look on Tony's face as he scrambles for something new to say cheers Peter up a lot. “Well, sometimes, if it's something that pleases me, I suppose. And I deserve to enjoy myself, don't I?"

"Of course."

"I enjoy your company too, Peter." Tony gives him a quick, chaste kiss. "Quit whatever overthinking is going on in there."

”Favorite movie?”

“2001: A Space Odyssey.”

“Really going for the classics there,” Tony says, impressed. He swaps a slice of his pepperoni for Peter’s margarita.

“It’s so cool,” Peter says, after finishing chewing. “It’s 2020 and it still looks amazing.”

“Mhm, I haven’t seen it in a few years, I should watch it again.” Tony polishes off a slice, decides that he likes Peter’s better, and steals another slice. “Your turn to ask a question.”

“Oh, we’re taking turns?”

“We are.”

“So civilized!” Peter’s eyes flick upwards as he thinks, cheeks bulging with food, looking adorable. Then he blushes. “Um.”

“Go on.” Tony grins, stretches out his legs until he hits Peter under the table and keeps them there.

“You’ve had a lot of sex, right?”

“That’s your question?” Tony raises his eyebrows, unimpressed.

“No! Uh…is there any stuff you have on, like, a bucket list, but haven’t done?”

 “That is a better question.” Tony puts down his pizza in recognition of this, brushes flour off his fingers, wipes his hands on the napkin, takes a sip of his can of beer. “But the answer is too dark, so I’m going to plead the fifth.”

“Oh, come on!” Peter’s eyes light up like an absolute headache. “I’m not innocent. I can take it, sir.”

Tony tries to convey with his expression how transparent that flirting attempt is. “Bluffing isn’t going to work here when you lost your virginity to me three days ago.”

“What does that matter? Virginity is a construct. I go on the internet.”

“I know you do,” Tony says, trying not to sound like he’s creeped all over Peter’s internet history. “So what? Your tastes run a little on the rough side?”

“And your tastes run very much on the rough side?” Peter is so intrigued he’s stopped eating and is just staring at Tony raptly. Ugh, teenagers.

“I like pleasure in all its many forms,” Tony says, truthfully and diplomatically, an unlikely combination. “But you asked what I haven’t done. Imagine what could keep me from doing something I want.”

“The law?”

“Bingo! Among other things.”

“You could, um, do like a Fifty Shades of Gray thing.”

Tony groans loudly and emphatically. “Please don’t mention that dumb movie to me.”

“Oh. Not a fan?”

“You wouldn’t believe how many women want to typecast me as the creepy male lead.”

Peter laughs. “Yeah, I have no idea where they’re coming from. Weirdos.”

Several rounds of pleasant back-and-forth’s later, Peter is apparently still stewing on what terribly kinky desires Tony has.

“So do you wanna like…kidnap people and put them in a sex dungeon or something?”

Tony gives him his best deadpan stare, as though that’s not an extremely accurate guess. “That your worst case scenario?”

Peter twitches, but still blurts out, “Do you want to have sex with a horse?”

Tony ducks his head to hide the smirk breaking his façade. “How about I tell you something I’d like to do with you.”

“I don’t know. Is it kinky?”

“My god, Peter, let’s work up to that. Second date, remember?”

Peter goes pink and looks around them guiltily as though he had forgotten his surroundings.

“Right. What a beautiful view, Mr Stark.”

Tony eyes the window, where they are currently travelling through a sea of orange and pink tinted clouds seared by the setting sun. Then, because he’s nothing if not a smooth motherfucker, he waits until Peter turns back and meets his eyes again before saying, “It is. So beautiful.”

“So I have two options for post-dinner entertainment,” Tony tells Peter as the plane lands back at JFK after their joyride. “Swimming or laser tag.”

“Woah. Um. Let me think.”

“Swimming is in my building. I have a pool. So if you’re feeling tired, or, you know, not so tired…that’s closer to my bedroom.” Tony smirks lecherously. “Laser tag is at a place I rented for the day, we can go anytime.”

Peter is so torn. He wants to see Tony wet and dripping. He wants to fuck. He also wants to play laser tag.

“If you’re ambitious we can do laser tag and swimming and go to bed late,” Tony suggests helpfully.

Peter nods. “Yeah, okay. That sounds great.”

“I’ll have Happy bring the ‘car’ around then.” Tony fishes out his phone.

“Do you want kids?” Asks Peter casually after they get into the Honda again. Peter hopes that Tony has a returns policy on it.

“I certainly try to restrain myself considering it’s a federal offense,“ says Tony gravely. “I’m grateful I didn’t meet you two years earlier.”

Peter grins wryly. The amount of defecting through humor that Tony did was, well, high. Peter just goes with it.

“How do you trim your beard?” He tries next. “Asking for a friend.”

Tony seems unperturbed by this. He shifts closer to Peter and slides an arm around his shoulders.

“I can show you tomorrow morning if you stick around.”

“Cool. Can I video it?”

“Just don’t sell it to Buzzfeed. They hate me and will probably find a way to convince people the way I shave is an enraging example of white privilege.”

The video opens on Tony Stark’s face and a slice of bare chest, with shaving cream in his beard.

“Hello, Ned. I hear you’re a young man with an interest in, the grooming of facial hair.” Tony pauses for effect and gives the camera a ‘well, duh’ look.

“Well, keep watching, because shaping perfection takes skill. And dedication.”

The camera shakes briefly as Peter snickers. Tony picks up an electric razor and holds it up to the camera.

“Now, my father used to tell me that the only manly way to shave is using a straight razor.” He gives the camera an unimpressed look. “I wouldn’t recommend that unless you’d like to give yourself some non-symmetrical decorative facial scars. Now, this is a Stark razor. As in, I’m Tony Stark and I made it. You kids at home can probably recreate the effect with lesser equipment like, uh, Panasonic. Now watch carefully.”

There is a long silence as Tony shaves, the camera shifting as Tony nudges Peter aside to get a better view in his mirror.

“Basically you need a good sense of aestheticism. Symmetry. And, got to say, practice,” Tony narrates idly as he puts the finishing touches on his morning routine and rinses out the shaving cream.

He wipes his face and gives the camera a ‘ta-da’ gesture. He grins.

“You’re welcome.”

Chapter Text

Peter doesn't see Tony for two weeks. Tony is off doing some mysterious corporate stuff that requires him to jet off to California, then DC, then Stockholm. They text sporadically, light everyday things, Tony sending him snarky comments about the people he's meeting and how bored he is. It's actually sort of convenient timing, because Peter is bogged down with finals, his freshman year of university coming to an end. If Tony doesn't text him so often, well he's busy, obviously, and Peter doesn't have time to overthink.

Then finals are over and it's summer, and Peter is at SI every day, and it's impossible not to think of Tony. It's really inconvenient, as Peter keeps accidentally smiling to himself and inviting questions from his supervisor. Or he thinks a bit too long and gives himself a boner, and that's just unprofessional, really, even if he's thinking about the boss. Especially since he's thinking about the boss.

Specifically, Peter thinks about that thing Tony said last time, whatever kinky sexual thing he wants to do but can't, because of 'the law among other things'. That night, Tony had been so gentle with Peter, fingering him loose and wet, teasing him until he pleaded, whispering endearments in his ear. (Peter suspects that Tony harbors some sort of guilt complex over being rough on Peter's first time. Honestly. Sure, it was a bit overwhelming, but it had been such good overwhelming.) Tony was good at the slow and sensual. But Peter wonders what it would be like if Tony was...mean.

Peter thinks back to that night when Tony had been drunk. The harsh tone of his voice. Get on your knees, or get out. What would have happened, Peter wonders, if he had been a bit less responsible? Perhaps if Peter had knelt for him and not said anything stupid, Tony would have unzipped his jeans and shoved it in Peter's mouth, made him cry and gag and gasp. Peter would have taken it. Peter wouldn't have raised a word of protest. And what if Tony, drunk and angry, had hit Peter? Not that Peter thinks Mr Stark is a violent person at all, but let's say he would. Imagine Tony slapping Peter across the face with all the force of misdirected anger, kicking him onto his back, planting a boot on his chest. If he tore at Peter, sneering insults not really meant for him. Just to vent. Just a convenient outlet, a distraction, a thing. Thrills of exhilaration run up and down Peter's veins at the thought.

He wants so badly to know what it is that Mr Stark wants but can't have, because if it's in Peter's power to give, he would give it to him. (If it's tentacle sex or something, then Peter may have a few logistical problems...) Surely if Peter will do for him what no one else will, then he'll hold Tony's attention a bit longer.

The thing is, Peter knows he's a rebound. Peter's not naive. Tony and Ms. Potts were together for what, eight years or something? Mr Stark must be in a vulnerable place emotionally right now, and Peter makes him feel better. Peter is very much willing to do that, and Mr Stark is so nice about it. But he knows what Michelle and also Ned, after he gained coherence at all, were worried about. Peter will get hurt, because he has nothing to his name that stands a chance of holding Tony Stark's attention for an extended period of time. He has, if he is lucky and works hard, a few months, perhaps. And when Tony isn't interested anymore, Peter will feel awful. He doubts that Mr Stark would be cruel about it. Knowing him, he'll send Peter off with a friendly pat and a recommendation letter and an envelope full of cash. Then, well, Peter will cry a lot and be miserable and have to delete Tony's number to keep from embarrassing himself. The prospect fills Peter with dread, but he's okay with it. He can exchange the best time of his life for the worst pain of his life. He only hopes that the good time can last just a little longer, a little longer.

All Peter has to do is everything he can to keep Tony interested for longer. He'll do anything.

Tony: come upstairs

The message comes in while Peter's on the toilet at work, looking at memes, and he jumps so hard he almost drops his phone when the message rolls across the screen. He hasn't heard from Tony for two days, ever since Tony sent some complaint about Stockholm's cloud formations and Peter's response hadn't been funny enough to warrant a response.

Peter: you're back?!

Peter winces and immediately reconsiders the exclamation mark, but it's sent and read and he has to live with it. He flushes and runs out of the bathroom, then backtracks to wash his hands.

Tony: no I want you to help me empty my bins

The text comes in when Peter is halfway to Tony’s elevator and he smiles ruefully. He stands in the elevator composing a witty response.

Tony: full disclosure I caught terrible Nordic flu

Tony: best bring a gas mask if you have one

Peter’s brows furrow in concern.

Peter: I think I got my flu shot this year

Then the elevator opens on the penthouse floor and Peter walks through the entryway and around to the huge open plan living area, where he finds Tony wrapped in a light grey blanket and propped up with a pile of cushions on the sofa, a box of tissues on his right, a pile of crumpled ones on his left. He’s holding an X-box controller in his lap. His nose is red. Tony pouts at Peter, completing the effect.

Peter tries not to smile. Tony looks adorable.

“Your regular American flu shots will not save you,” Tony says, his voice nasally. “I got those. Does nothing against raging Viking germs.”

Peter picks the side without used tissues and sits a few inches from Tony. Not that he’s all that concerned about Viking germs, but he hasn’t seen Tony for a while and doesn’t feel as though he’s allowed to just throw himself at the man. Even though he looks so huggable.

Tony looks Peter up and down. Peter tries to refrain from checking his outfit for stains or crumbs.

“God, I want to kiss you,” says Tony.

“Do it,” says Peter.

Unfortunately, Peter has barely stopped speaking when Tony gives a huge sneeze, quickly dipping his head and tugging another piece of tissue out of the box to clap over his face. He gives a wheezy, annoyed groan.

Peter looks away to keep from laughing out loud. He listens to Tony blow his nose, then sees him add it to the crumpled tissue pile.

“I’m so hot,” Tony deadpans.

“Literally,” Peter says, brushing a hand along Tony’s heated cheek.

Tony deflates a little. He pulls his blanket up higher until it covers his nose and mouth, then says, muffled, “I probably shouldn’t have asked you to come up here.”

“No! I’m glad to see you,” Peter says at once. I missed you, he thinks. Would that be too much?

“I was going to wait until I’m awesome again, but then JARVIS said that’s going to take. Three. Days.” Tony looks at Peter morosely.

“Estimated recovery time is three and a half days provided that Sir remains hydrated, takes his medication on time, and regularly rests his eyes from Super Mario Brothers 2,” JARVIS interjects helpfully.

“Thanks, JARVIS. Thanks for your input.” Tony glares at nowhere in particular.

Peter glances belatedly at the paused screen, grinning.

“Super Mario, huh. I would have thought that you’re more of a Call of Duty guy.”

“I used to make real guns, remember? Shooty shooty games rarely impress me.”

“Heroic Italian plumbers, on the other hand, totally your type.” Peter nods.

Tony looks as though he’s gearing to return a quip, but instead he sighs and sinks back into his cushions. Too sick to make snarky comments. Aw. Peter aches with affection for him.

“I’ll get you some water,” he says gently, unable to resist stroking his hand down Tony’s blanketed shoulder.

“I don’t want any more water. My throat hurts.”

“Okay. Ice chips?”

“I’m cold.”

“Tea?”

“…Bleh.”

“Soup?”

“Eh.”

“We have a winner,” Peter says dryly, interpreting that as ‘if you put it in front of me I may imbibe some’. He sets off to Tony’s kitchen to make some chicken noodle soup, the only thing May is known to reliably make, with extensive help from Campbell’s.

When Peter returns with soup, there’s a small pile of shiny stuff on the coffee table and a black suitcase lying open on the rug. On screen, Mario eats a mushroom, grows enormous, and tramples things for a while before he freezes.

Tony tilts his head at the pile of stuff.

“Got you some trinkets.”

There’s a box of fancy chocolates with lots of Swedish embossed in curly gold letters. A small, understated navy box with a silver brand-name Peter hasn’t heard of, containing a blue silk tie. And a brown leather strap wrist watch, classical-looking with Roman numerals on the face. Peter recognizes that brand name. Rolex.

Trinkets, he said.

“Um,” he says.

“Thanks, Tony, how’d you know exactly what I wanted, Tony,” says Tony, stirring his soup idly.

“I really like them,” Peter says, very honestly.

Tony’s face lights up with a pleased smile, and Peter finds himself unable to say what he planned to say. He’s not even sure what he wants to say. They are all very nice things. Peter doesn’t want to say, ‘I can’t accept your gifts because they’re too expensive’, doesn’t want to draw attention to this wild imbalance between them again. It had been awkward enough last time. He can accept a watch without turning into some sort of sugar baby, can’t he? It’s not a plane. Peter knows that to Tony, they absolutely are trinkets, a billionaire’s equivalent of a postcard and a key-ring. Peter’s happy that Tony thought enough of him to buy him presents, that he’s treating Peter like…a bit like a boyfriend.

Peter strategically puts down the watch and picks at the plastic sticker on the side of the chocolate box instead. Inside, each uniquely shaped chocolate is nestled in its own little golden nest. Peter picks the one that looks least like a work of art and pops it in his mouth.

“Woahhhhhhh.”

When Tony reaches for the box, Peter lifts it away and out of his reach.

“Mmm, I don’t think these are good for your throat,” he teases. “Drink your soup.”

“What, while you make noises like that’s the best thing you’ve ever put in your mouth?”

Peter doesn’t give a verbal response to that, his returning gaze flicking pointedly down before he meets Tony’s gaze and sees that he’s thinking the same thing. Peter smirks and Tony drinks his soup with an air of nonchalance for a few moments. Then he puts down the soup bowl, takes Peter’s hand, and guides him to press it over the soft bulge in his pajama bottoms. Peter is instantly aroused.

He sinks to his knees on the rug, Tony obligingly spreading his legs to let Peter press between them.

 "I'm not...molesting a patient, am I?" Peter says, tugging down blankets and pajamas.

"This is a well established flu remedy, doc," Tony replies. 

Peter has never sucked a cock before, but he thinks it can't be too difficult. He has sucked things. He has a cock. It's not rocket science. He fills his mouth with soft, warm flesh, licking curiously with his nose buried in dark curls smelling of sweat and musk. It becomes firmer under his attention, and he slides back to watch it grow. Red flesh stiffens and curves upwards until Peter has to open his mouth wide to hold it. He sweeps the flat of his tongue across the head, taking in the texture of the tight skin. He presses his lips against the bulbous glans, glancing up to see how Tony is liking it.

"Peter," he says hoarsely. "My angel. So good." He drops a hand into Peter's curls and strokes.

Warmed by the praise, Peter tries all the tricks he can imagine. He imitates French kissing against the tip, presses butterfly kisses down the whole length, licks stripes and swirls, then tries it out to see how far he can take it. It's a little more than half way before he gags. Peter makes a mental note to put in some practice with a banana. He wraps his hand around the root and establishes an even rhythm, bobbing up and down, taking short breaks to lick at the tip. It's rather difficult to keep steady, to move his hand and mouth in synchrony, and Peter ruefully thinks he may have underestimated the art of cock sucking. Tony begins to guide him, pushing Peter down at a faster pace than he could manage himself. It's easier - all he has to do is keep his mouth open wide and mind the teeth, be a warm orifice for Tony to push into. He vaguely registers the ache in his jaw and the throbbing in his pants as secondary issues. He just wants to please Tony.

Tony stops, and Peter blinks at him confusedly.

Tony says rather apologetically, "I can't come like this, baby, I need to go faster. Let me use my hand, hm?"

"Use me," Peter says without thinking.

"A lot faster," Tony clarifies, staring down at him.

"Use me. Please," Peter insists. He nudges Tony's hand. "Like you were doing. As fast as you want."

Tony's features are clouded with lust, though he is clearly struggling to say something responsible.

Peter puts a stop to that, dropping his voice lower and says, "I'm just your toy. Please."

Peter has never gotten such a great power rush as he got from Tony's reaction to that. His eyes darken with a dangerous glint.

"Move the hand," Tony says flatly.

Peter clasps his hands behind his back. Tony looks as though he's working up to say something responsible again, so Peter leans forward and licks the tip.

"Fuck."

Where before Tony's hand had been more of a polite suggestion, now it tightens painfully until it's impossible to pull away. Every rough shove pushes Peter down so far Tony's cock hits the back of his throat, triggering his gag reflex until he's worried he'll throw up. 

"Deep breaths," Tony says curtly.

Peter concentrates on dragging in air through his nose, keeping his mouth open wide, tears leaking out of his closed eyes. It's uncomfortable enough that the situation in his pants cool down, but that doesn't matter to Peter at the moment. He wants to be good, wants to impress. 

A shock of bitter taste hits the back of his tongue and Peter moans, partly in relief, partly in arousal at the idea of Tony's come in his mouth. The hand in his hair slackens, and Peter holds still for Tony to pump his cock in, shooting spurts of indescribably bitter fluid against Peter's tongue.

"Fuck."

Peter sits back on his heels and rubs a hand gingerly against his aching jaw. He swallows.

"You okay?" Tony looks down with heavy lidded eyes.

Peter nods, licking his lips for more of that strange taste.

"How's it taste?"

"I love it. Love everything you give me."

"Jesus," Tony breathes. "Come here, baby."

Tony rearranges his blankets until he has Peter curled up and tucked in in front of him.

"I will tell you how incredible you are when I wake up. Remind me," says Tony sleepily.

While Tony naps, Peter savors the bitter taste in his mouth and the ache in his jaw with a sense of satisfaction that seems barely even sexual. It's just satisfying that he made Tony feel better. Peter decides he doesn't want to think too hard on that, and he's not going to fall asleep, so he digs out the controller from under Tony's arm. He's passed fourteen levels by the time Tony wakes up.

Peter stays through the next three days. Neither of them mentions whether Peter should go home, so Peter just doesn't. He coaxes an irritable Tony into drinking a steady supply of fluids and beats him soundly at Mario Kart. He also regularly drops to his knees and sucks Tony into his mouth, developing a strange addiction for the peculiar taste of come. Tony teases him when he laps hopefully at the slit for another drop or two. Peter can't get enough of the look of dazed lust and wonder Tony gets when Peter eagerly sucks him down. He's also addicted to being able to touch Tony all the time, all he wants, to the warm weight next to him when he sleeps. For a few moments it feels like Tony might like him forever. 

Peter spends a lot of time staring at Tony while he sleeps, which - Peter's not being weird, Tony is sick and naps a lot, okay! He tries to commit to memory the lines and contours of the man's face, so familiar yet not at all like the airbrushed posters that still adorn Peter's bedroom wall. Mine, he thinks fiercely. Just for fun, of course. He knows that's not going to happen.

"Your temperature is within normal range. Your sinuses are clear. Your white blood cell count is approaching normal levels. Congratulations, Sir, you have survived this terrible plague that ailed you."

"Have I beaten out your estimates by half a day?"

"Fifteen hours even, Sir. I salute you."

Tony woops, utterly ignoring JARVIS's sarcasm. "Time for real clothes, then."

He returns in his customary fine suit, well groomed and beaming.

"Is it just me that feels like we just survived a desert island together?"

"Yes," Peter says dryly. No, Peter thinks resignedly.

Tony saunters close and loops an arm around Peter's waist.

"How shall I ever repay you for saving my life?" He asks grandly. "A full fifteen hours of it."

Peter leans closer and mimics Tony's melodramatic tone. 

"Oh, only tell me your deepest, darkest desires. I'll settle for nothing less."

Chapter Text

“Deepest, darkest desires, huh?” Tony repeats, amused. “Are you still thinking about that?”

Peter grins at him hopefully. That look, it has to be deliberate. Clearly decades of practice at the good old butter-won’t-melt-in-my-mouth. Tony ought to take notes.

Tony hesitates. The crazy thing is, he feels as though maybe he can. He feels as though Peter won’t judge him for it, maybe, though he absolutely should be judged for it. Everyone is eventually disappointed in him. And yet…maybe not Peter. Peter adores him so.

“Sure you want to know?” He hedges.

“Please, Tony,” says the little devil, in that sweet, perfect tone.

“Be forewarned: the moral thing to do with this knowledge would be to go to the police.”

“It’s something you haven’t done,” Peter confirms, wide-eyed.

Tony inclines his head.

“I won’t tell the police. I’ll keep your secret,” Peter promises.

Tony thinks about it. Thinks of Peter’s certain fear…thinks about how much that would arouse him…thinks of the possibility that Peter will run screaming, tell the press. It doesn’t seem like something Peter would do, but then again, Tony isn’t known for being trusting.

“I don’t think so, sweetheart.”

“Oh come on!” Peter actually, literally bounces on his feet. “Do you want me to sign an NDA contract?”

“What if,” Tony says slowly, backing up a few steps, hands in pockets, “I make every preparation to commit a crime. I am absolutely well-equipped to get away with such a crime. I just haven’t…done it.”

Peter’s expression flickers as he thinks about it. “That’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” Tony shakes his head in exasperation. “If someone builds a bomb but doesn’t get to set it off, they still get arrested.”

“If he planned to set it off,” Peter argues. “You’re not actually going to do it.”

“I think about it,” Tony says evenly.

“Because it turns you on?”

“Yeah.” Tony shrugs.

“That’s fine.”

Tony gapes at him in utter disbelief. “You maybe need to rethink your moral code, or just your impression of me in particular, I’m not sure.”

“You’ve basically told me now,” Peter says. “It’s sexual. It’s a crime. It’s something you need to make preparation for. I’m not sure what you could prepare for uh, pedophilia or incest…you, uh…” Peter looks at the floor. “Have you got a secret sex dungeon sixty eight floors down?”

Oh, dear god.

“It’s not in the basement of my tower,” Tony says scathingly. “That’s a car park.”

Peter lifts his head to stare at him, open-mouthed. “So it is a secret sex dungeon.”

Tony holds his gaze for long, terrified moments and wonders to himself when he got so bad at keeping his mouth shut.

“I don’t call it that,” he says, finally.

Peter nods in an entirely underwhelmed manner. “That’s…pretty normal.”

“Normal?”

“Well, not…normal. Common enough.”

Tony grins widely, aware that his expression is probably sinister. “Whatever you’re imagining, especially if you’re basing it off that dumb movie…is completely off the mark.”

Peter lifts an eyebrow doubtfully, and Tony questions his entire life and why he’s actually trying to defend the validity of his secret sex dungeon.

“Show me.”

“It will frighten you,” Tony says flatly, arms crossed.

“Try me.”

“Why do you want to know so much?” Tony demands.

Peter pauses to think about this. Then he says, sheepishly, “I think it sounds kinda hot.”

Well, damn. That’s a pretty compelling reason.

“Where are you going?” Peter says, confused, when Tony walks to the elevator.

“Sixty eight floors down, to the basement.” Tony steps into the elevator and turns around. “To get my car.”

It’s a two hour drive, mostly quiet. Peter is full to bursting with questions, but Tony seems on edge, understandably so, and Peter thinks he’d best save his questions until they get there. They turn off the freeway and onto smaller and smaller lanes.

“Scared yet?” Tony offers.

“Nope.”

Tony shoots him a long look, amused, challenging. It’s exhilarating. Off with Tony Stark to visit his sex dungeon. Peter valiantly contains a burst of giddy laughter.

They stop outside a patch of foliage and walk through to a clearing with a wooden cabin.

“It’s got some good horror movie vibes,” Peter offers. “Maybe on a stormy night, someone’s car breaks down…”

Tony gives him another long look. It’s out of character, Peter thinks. Tony always meets him quip for quip. Then again, this broody, dangerous thing he’s doing, it’s working for Peter.

Tony produces a key and unlocks the cabin door. Inside, it looks pretty much as expected for the horror movie theme, dusty, abandoned. Peter looks around and Tony does something at a chest of drawers and all of a sudden - an entire section of the creaky wooden floorboards folds itself up and reveals a four by four box of gleaming silvery metal underneath. Peter stumbles back, mouth falling open. This just turned from a horror movie into a spy movie, he thinks.

Looking unbearably smug with only minimal facial expression, Tony does something else and the top of the box opens with a neat hiss of metal. It’s lit up inside, rectangular shaped. It’s an elevator. Three rungs down one side are clearly meant to assist in climbing down.

“Shall we?” Tony says airily.

He’s in the middle of no-where, in a horror-movie abandoned cabin, about to get in a secret-passage elevator, Peter’s mind helpfully summarizes for him. I am absolutely well-equipped to get away with such a crime, his mind also helpfully recalls for him.

Peter jumps into the elevator.

There aren’t any buttons in the elevator. Tony climbs down more gracefully, and the ceiling above them slides closed again. Peter looks around the entire metal box, sees only a security camera, the regular old kind.

“Is JARVIS here?” He says softly.

“No,” says Tony, also quiet. “Just us.”

Peter is glad that Tony doesn’t ask again whether he’s scared.

The elevator opens onto a long, grey corridor, lights flickering silently to life as the elevator doors open. They step out. Doors stretch into the distance at regular intervals. It’s absolutely silent.

“How…how many guests did you expect to have?” Peter says weakly.

“None,” says Tony. “Let’s go to the control room.”

The control room looks surreally normal, like the security room of any big building. There’s two walls full of screens, all dark at the moment, a swivel chair, a sofa, a few shelves lined with non-perishable supplies such as packaged foods, stationary, canned soda, water bottles. Tony sits down in the chair in front of the screens, and again, the screens flicker to life though Peter doesn’t see Tony do anything.

There’s a lot of rooms. One looks rather like a doctor’s office. One is floored with water. One, strikingly, holds just a single coffin half buried in dirt. Several are bare cells. Peter’s heart rate rises as he looks from screen to screen.

“Did you-“ Peter stops to clear his throat. “Did you build all of this place? By yourself?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“You may recall that I’m a very good engineer.”

Very good was such an understatement.

“How do you make everything work, like-” Peter snaps his fingers.

“Sensors that scan for my DNA signature.”

“That’s possible? How did you-”

They talk about the mechanics of the place for quite some time, Tony answering every question he asks. At the end of the conversation, he is intensely aware that he has no way to get in or out of any room in here without Tony by his side. All the mechanisms answer only to him, it’s a prison for anyone else. As it was designed to be.

“This is incredible,” Peter says at last. At Tony’s look, he adds, “Oh, terrifying. But incredible.”

Tony smiles slightly. “Want a tour?”

As they walk through the cells, Tony points out cameras and air vents and equipment and explains them in an even voice. Peter clutches the hem of Tony’s jacket without really noticing that he’s doing it. When Tony notices, he takes Peter’s hand and holds it. It’s incredibly comforting.

"How often do you come here?"

"Lately, not that often. Once or twice a year to keep things working."

"And...what do you think about?"

"Isn't that evident?" Tony spreads his arms to indicate their environment.

Peter shrugs. "I get the general idea, but...what about it, do you like?"

Tony trails his fingers absently over shelves and shelves of pristine sex toys, whips and ropes and things Peter can't even name. Tony hums casually.

"To be in absolute control," Tony says, finally, not looking at Peter. "I like that. Sometimes."

In the medical room, Tony takes a syringe full of drugs from a neat case and holds it to Peter’s neck. Peter goes still.

“All I have to do,” Tony says quietly, “Is stab this into you somewhere - easy enough, even if you struggle - and you’ll wake up alone in one of these rooms. Not such an educational tour anymore.”

Peter shudders in fear. It’s not like social-awkwardness fear, or extreme sports fear. It’s so, so close to fear-for-your-life fear. God, Tony is a genius. It feels amazing.

He hugs him tightly, shaking, clinging.

“You wouldn’t do that.”

“How are you sure?” Tony doesn’t hug him back. “I built this. I made this.”

“I’m sure.”

There’s a long, long silence. Then Tony puts away the syringe and closes his arms around Peter.

It’s dark when they get outside again. They walk out to the car, still holding hands. Tony notes that Peter hasn’t let go of his hand since he took it. He’s perversely seeking comfort from Tony against Tony’s own perversion.

“I think I understand what’s wrong with you now,” Tony says as they get in the car.

Peter stares at him, then smiles. “I-I think that's my line.”

“I thought you said nothing’s wrong with me,” Tony points out with a smirk. “No, you. You…are inadvisably trusting. Lack self-preservation instinct or something. That’s why you don’t go running screaming in the other direction when anyone with sense would. And does.”

Peter holds his gaze. He looks unimpressed. “So you have the coolest sex dungeon I’ve ever seen…or imagined. You’re just a better engineer than the people with lame sex dungeons. You clearly have great taste in horror movies. You’re…amazing. Why do you think the people who run in the other direction are the ones with sense?”

Tony stares at him, unbelievably flattered in the weirdest way. So many people try to, and succeed in, flattering him. It was known worldwide: Tony Stark’s big ego. This is something else entirely. Peter is something else.

(Well, what it is probably is that Peter needs a really good therapist, but hey, so does Tony.)

A few minutes into the drive back, Peter says, “Does anyone else know?”

“Of course not.”

“What about…Ms Potts?”

Tony’s hands flex over the wheel. “Good God, no. Why are those separate questions? You understand how English works, don’t you?”

Peter is silent for a while. Then, very quietly, he says, “Why not?”

It’s quiet enough that Tony feels like he doesn’t have to respond, so he doesn’t respond.

“Would she run in the opposite direction?” Peter says a moment later, equally quietly.

Tony grits his teeth for a few seconds, eyes on the road. He doesn’t understand why Peter suddenly thinks he’s allowed to say these things.

“Do you think this makes you…special?” He says without looking at him. “Knowing this about me?”

Peter visibly flinches, his face turning pale. It makes Tony feel like shit, so of course his mouth runs on.

“What, you thought you’d dig out my biggest, baddest secret, and then we’ll live happily ever after?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Peter says, barely above a whisper, breath hitching like he’s about to cry.

Tony glances over in alarm. Yep, Peter’s eyes are shiny. God, why? Why do the people he dates always cry on him?

“What do you mean then?” Tony makes an effort to keep his voice pleasant.

Peter is silent for a while. Tony has been cried on enough times to recognize a biting-back-tears silence.

“I just...think it might be nice…to have someone who loves you, as you are.”

He needs that therapist, right here, right now. Why is he doing this again, Tony asks himself furiously. Lashing out at Peter, it’s like kicking puppies.

“It is nice,” Tony says. It’s as close to an apology as he’s going to get.

Another long, awkward silence.

Then Peter says softly, “Except when he asks inappropriately probing questions.”

Tony tries not to wince, doesn’t know how to respond otherwise.

“Sorry,” Peter says.

The worst part is, Tony’s at least 98% sure Peter’s not being passive aggressive. He just means that. Tony vaguely wishes to lock himself in the coffin room.

He stares unseeingly at the road, trying to compose something to say that would balm over the nasty things he said a few moments before. Tony has an unerring instinct for coming up with things to say that will hurt like a motherfucker with barely a moment’s thought. Sweet, healing things, not so much. That part of his social skill set is mainly superficial charm.

“It does make you special,” he says at last. “You’re very special.”

Peter doesn’t reply. Tony thinks maybe Peter doesn’t believe him. He turns to look at him - but while his head is turned he sees Peter’s eyes widen in fear and he yelps, “Tony!”

But before Tony can react, his body is thrown up into the air, and everything goes black.

Tony wakes up with a splitting headache. What did he drink? Nothing, he recalls. He had flu, then Peter wanted to see his bunker, then…oh. Hospital? He blinks his eyes open.

Not a hospital. Tony is tied to a post in a wooden cabin. Peter is also tied to a post, still slumped over unconscious. It’s not Tony’s wooden cabin, this one is clearly lived-in.

“Oh good, you’re awake.”

Tony cranes his head, but is quickly relieved of this need as the speaker comes into view. He’s a tall fellow with a buzzcut and stubble and a bit of a belly, wearing khaki shorts and a Save The Trees t-shirt and an unpleasant smile.

“Oh no,” he deadpans. “Whatever have you captured us for.”

He’s really not in the mood for a kidnapping, especially not one of this apparent caliber. Bit worried about Peter, though. He forces himself not to look at him.

“Captured is a bit harsh. You ran into my truck.”

“This was, clearly, the only logical response.” Tony looks down at the ropes. They are unfortunately quite well tied. “How much do you want?”

“Everything.”

“What do you mean, everything?”

“Everything in your bank account. I want your net worth, Stark.”

“Those are completely different things.”

“Sign this.”

The guy thrusts a bundle of documents at him. Tony peers at it. It appears to be a contract printed off the internet, declaring that Tony will give all his money to [FILL IN BLANK].

“Jesus. Even pretending that’s a real contract, you realize that the United States does not recognize legal documents signed under duress.”

“They will if you’re dead,” the man says affably.

Tony stares at him in disbelief. “And why would I sign it if you’re going to kill me?”

The man points at Peter. “I’ll let him go.”

Well, that’s not such terrible reasoning, Tony thinks. He moves on, therefore, to, “How will people not realize you killed me when I bequeath my fortune to Random Randy?”

“Jim,” says Jim, stupidly. “You totaled your car. I’ll just put you back in there.”

There are so many holes in that plot Tony has no idea where to start. He laughs.

“Okay, Randy. This is a terrible idea. Seeing as you probably don’t reach the required IQ for military service, I’m willing to pretend this never happened as long as you stop now. Good deal, yes?”

“I don’t think you understand your position,” Random Randy says pityingly.

Before Tony can scoff at that, Randy reaches for Peter. Before Tony can so much as react, he has slashed a gleaming line of scarlet across Peter’s neck. Tony loses the ability to speak for a moment, his gaze drawn to the blood quickly running down Peter’s neck. Peter’s face crumples, he begins to wake. It’s a shallow cut, Tony can see that, but long and certainly painful.

“There’s no need for that, Jim,” Tony says, biting back his fury. “Give me the ‘contract’. We’ll do as you planned. Absolutely no need for any of that.”

“Better,” says Jim. “Ain’t that better? He’s a pretty one, ain’t he.”

Tony watches Peter open his eyes and take in the situation, confused. He winces.

“Just give me the damn contract, Jim.”

When Jim loosens an arm for him to write, training a gun on Peter the whole while, Tony feels, with another rush of disbelief, that his phone is still in his pocket. In that case, JARVIS will certainly have help on its way, depending on how long they had been out cold. He hesitates and pretends to read through the contract, dragging out time.

“What are you even going to do with all that money, Jim?”

“Save the planet,” says Jim. “Plant trees in the Sahara, clean up the oceans and the like.”

Someday, Tony is going to laugh hysterically and rate this kidnapping among his top 10 most entertaining kidnappings. Now, however, Peter is in danger because of him.

“That’s admirable,” he says. “You know I’m the number one supplier of clean energy in North America and donate to a great number of environmental charities?”

“That’s barely nothing,” Jim sniffs. “You don’t do nothing yourself. I’d do it all myself.”

Tony bites back a number of things he wishes to respond to that.

“Well, I’d take my girlfriend.”

“You have a girlfriend!” Dear Lord, let them not procreate.

“Kitty. She lives in Japan.”

“She’s from Japan?”

“She lives in Japan.”

“Have you met her, Jim?”

“We video chat about whales and stuff.”

“Sounds really romantic.”

Tony catches Peter’s eye. Peter looks really confused and also about to laugh. Tony shakes his head at him minutely.

“Hurry up and sign it!” Jim demands, suddenly slashing his knife down on Peter again, this time making a cut across his shoulder.

“Alright, none of that!” Tony furiously scribbles his name on the paper and pushes it back at the idiot.

Jim peers at the paper. “You always sign it like that?”

“Yep.”

He shrugs. “Alright, nice one. Next step then.”

“Let him go,” says Tony.

“Kill you dead,” says Jim.

“Wait, what?” Says Peter.

“You let him go first, then he won’t know that you kill me!” Tony hisses.

“Oh.” Jim pauses. “Bit late for that now. Just have to kill you both.”

“What?”

Jim points the gun at Tony. “You first. Might have a bit of fun with him before I do him in.”

Ignoring his rage at that comment, Tony yells, “How are people supposed to think I died in the car crash when I have BULLETS IN ME?”

Jim heaves a sigh. “Fine.”

Then he comes over and slams Tony’s head against the post. Tony struggles with him, but it’s hard even with the loosened ropes, and his head is smashed against the post again twice. He hears Peter shouting, but it’s very blurred. Is he really going to die at the hands of insurmountable stupidity?

There’a a gunshot. Jim goes down groaning. Pepper stands in the doorway with a handgun, Happy by her shoulder. Happy immediately steps in to deal with the sorry bastard while Pepper walks right up, picks up the knife and starts untying Tony.

“I thought you said you had the flu,” she says, by way of greeting.

“I recovered,” says Tony, eyes drawn to her face, so close by. So damn familiar. He looks away. Peter. “Other hostage over there.”

Pepper only then notices Peter and goes to untie him at once with a small smile. Doesn’t recognize him. “Who’s this?”

Tony sees the way Peter looks at Pepper. Awed, intimidated, embarrassed. He glances at Tony and his face falls.

“My boyfriend,” Tony says.

Peter's eyes snap over to stare at him. Pepper barely even pauses in cutting ropes.

“I hope he didn’t get you kidnapped on your first date,” says Pepper to Peter.

Tony can’t see Peter’s face, Pepper in the way, and he doesn’t speak.

Then Pepper pauses to stare. “Are you even eighteen?”

“Y-yeah.”

Tony hears a hail Mary even if Pepper doesn’t say it. She finishes with Peter’s ropes, then cocks her head again.

“Do you work at Stark Tower?”

“Yeah.”

Pepper shoots Tony a brief, judgmental look. “Right. I’ll put a word in with HR to talk about work injury compensation with-”

“Peter,” Tony says. “But there’s no need for that.”

“He’s an employee,” Pepper says blandly.

“We’re not at work.”

“Actually…I told Dr Cho I was working in the lab with you,” Peter says weakly.

Tony rolls his eyes to the ceiling and wishes JARVIS had called anyone other than his ex to rescue him. But, oh right, he doesn’t have any other friends.

He deserves all this, doesn’t he.

Chapter Text

Peter glances longingly across the room, where Tony and Happy are talking to the police. Tony has somehow made it so the police barely spoke to him for a minute before leaving him alone, so now he’s sitting with Ms Potts, who has a first aid kit and is helping him wrap his open wounds.

You know, Ms Potts, as in Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, love of Tony’s life that Peter’s not allowed to so much as mention, who dumped him less than two months ago. Peter would be terrified of being alone with her even if he doesn’t have a concussion and bruised ribs and bandages wrapped around his throat. He’s so deeply uncomfortable he sort of misses Jim the wacky kidnapper. Thank god Ms Potts hasn’t said anything to him outside of asking after his injuries.

“Alright,” says Ms Potts, putting the finishing touches on the bandage on his arm. “I’m going to take you to Tony’s doctor.”

“Uh-what, why?” Peter blinks.

“We’d like to keep this incident out of the news, so no hospital.” Ms Potts smiles. “Don’t worry, Dr Strange is very well qualified - used to be a renowned neurosurgeon, but after an unfortunate car accident that injured his hands a few years ago, he’s been styling himself a ‘consulting doctor’ to clients in need of discretion.”

That isn’t at all what Peter was wondering about, even if he sort of wants to know if Dr Strange is the doctor’s real name.

“Uh, okay, that’s fine. But are we going n-now?”

“Of course.”

“We’re not going to wait for- Mr Stark?”

Ms Potts glances over to where Tony, Happy, and the police are still deep in conversation.

“They’re going to take a while. Don’t worry, they’ll catch up. I don’t want you to be sitting here in pain for hours while they deal with that stuff.”

That’s…that’s a very good point that Peter really can’t argue without sounding weird, so he nods reluctantly and follows Ms Potts to her car. One of his legs feel a little weird. He’s actually in less pain than he probably should be, maybe he’s in shock - he still has very little idea of how injured he is - there was a car crash, right? Really, a person ought to be allowed to take a moment after they get out of a car crash, not immediately deal with kidnapping and get stabbed a few more times. 

This day. This freaking day. It’s been hands down, the weirdest day of Peter’s life.

“Here.” Noticing Peter’s limping, Ms Potts gives him a hand. Embarrassingly, Peter recoils a little.

He gets into the backseat, puts on the seatbelt. Ms Potts starts to drive. Peter looks out the window and hopes, probably very futilely, that Dr Strange happens to live less than ten minutes away.

The drive is silent for maybe a few minutes before Ms Potts catches Peter’s eye in the rearview mirror and says, smiling, “You seem to be uncomfortable with me.”

“Oh- uh- I,” Peter splutters awkwardly.

“No, not to make things weird, I just wanted you to know it’s fine, okay? Tony and I were friends for a long time before we dated and we parted on good terms. There’s no need for you to…I don’t know what it is you’re thinking.”

Well, possibly they parted on good terms from Ms Potts’s perspective, but Tony clearly has a lot of issues with it. Then again, what does Peter know.

“Yeah, yeah,” he says weakly. “It’s just…you’re, really cool.”

Ms Potts tilts her head in acknowledgement of the compliment, smiling still.

“I don’t know much about you, but you survived your first kidnapping with impressive dignity. I think Tony likes you a lot. That’s good.” 

“Do you think so?” Peter says, without thinking much, not all his filters in place with the concussion and blood loss and all. “Not like with you, though. I-I couldn’t dream of measuring up to you.”

Ms Potts’s eyebrows shoot up. “Peter…can I call you Peter?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, great, because I don’t know your last name and I’m about to impart some hard-earned wisdom. Don’t think like that, Peter. That’s a really bad mindset to give yourself.”

“It’s Peter Parker. And I know. But it’s true.”

Ms Potts’s expression slowly grows concerned. Maybe it was Peter’s tone, maybe he had sounded too depressed. He can’t really tell at the moment.

A long, rather awkward moment passes, then Ms Potts says, “Okay, it’s…really not for me to ask, but…has Tony done or said something to make you think that?”

Peter closes his eyes. His head hurts a lot.

“He’s really touchy about you. He snaps at me. If I mention you.”

“Yeah, he does that,” Ms Potts says under her breath, then louder, “Don’t let him get away with that.”

“With what?”

“The snapping.”

Peter is quiet. He has no idea how he’s supposed to do that. Ms Potts doesn’t elaborate. Peter imagines Tony trying to be mean to Ms Potts and getting shut down in like a second. It seems a very likely scenario, but it’s not clear in Peter’s head on exactly how that comes to pass but for Ms Potts looking extremely impressive and intimidating. Peter doesn’t really have the face (or the guts) for that.

They drive for maybe another ten minutes in silence, Peter keeping his eyes closed.

“Peter? Don’t fall asleep, okay?”

“Hm?” Peter blinks and shifts. “Okay.”

Ms Potts smiles at him in the mirror again, and she looks so nice. So nice Peter can’t help blurting out, “If you don’t mind me asking, why’d you break up with Mr Stark?”

Ms Potts looks taken aback for a second, then she shrugs and appears to think about it.

“Tony- well. He’s incredible. Of course. You seem to like him a lot.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. A lot. A lot a lot.

“And kudos to you for your good taste, but it’s…it’s hard. Really hard. To be his…anything, his secretary, his CEO, his partner, I was constantly revolving around him and Tony is just, constant drama. He’s a lot. It was just a bit too much, and I still care about him a great deal, but I needed some distance.”

Peter ponders this drowsily. He doesn’t really relate to the feeling of having had too much of Tony Stark.

“We’re not going to get back together, if you’re worried about that.”

“Okay,” Peter says, trying to summon something polite to say. “Thanks…thanks for talking to me about this, Ms Potts.”

“Pepper. Not at all. Feel free to talk to me again if you need to.”

“That’s really nice of you.”

Pepper smiles. “So, how did you start working at Stark Industries?”

They keep up a light chatter of normal topics until they get to the doctor’s house. Pepper asks about Peter’s work and school, where he’s from, that sort of thing. Once they’ve gotten to know each other a little, Pepper is really easy to talk to. Peter chatters without too much thought and tries not to fall asleep until they finally reach the doctor.

Tony has a moment of de ja vu when he wakes up and sees Pepper sitting by his bedside tapping away at her laptop. Then he registers that he’s in Strange’s house, not his penthouse.

When Pepper notices he’s awake, she says, “Hey. How are you feeling?”

“Any chance that weirdo kidnapper was a dream?”

“That was real.” Pepper shakes her head. “I’m barely even surprised considering the way your life goes.”

“Damn. Was my Maserati salvageable?”

“Not even a little.”

As Tony becomes more conscious, his eyes fly open. “Peter! Is Peter okay?”

“He’s fine. Still sleeping. A little more bashed up than you, but he’ll recover.” Pepper folds her laptop closed and pushes it aside. Tony doesn’t like the look on her face. “Let’s talk about Peter.”

Tony groans. “Pepper, I’m sick.”

“Not too sick to ask after your Maserati.”

“I know what you’re going to say. Eighteen-year-old intern. Position of power. Yada yada. I swear, I’m not screwing him around.”

“I know you’re not.” Pepper’s expression is complicated. “You both clearly have feelings for each other. I’m happy for you. It’s just…do you think it’s maybe a little too soon?”

“Too soon?” Tony furrows his brows in confusion. “Am I- is this making you uncomfortable, Pep?”

“I don’t mean me, Tony. I mean for you.”

“Where is this coming from?”

Pepper shrugs. “I just think you might need a bit of time to process.”

“Oh, you know how good I am at that.”

Pepper laughs a little. “I sure do. Look, Tony, maybe this is really weird for me to say…”

“Go ahead, I love the weird things you say.”

Pepper gives him a smiling glance and the awkward tension fissions through him. Check the flirting, Tony reminds himself tiredly.

“Peter is…adorable.”

“I’m glad you think so. Dibs, though.” 

Pepper smacks him lightly on the arm. Tony feigns terrible pain.

“It’s the other arm you injured.” Pepper rolls her eyes. “Peter is adorable and apparently thinks you hang the moon. I’m sure you love that.”

Tony closes his eyes. “Do you think I’m taking advantage of him?”

“I don’t-”

“Yeah, I guess I probably am.”

“I don’t think you’re taking advantage of him,” Pepper says firmly, which is quite frankly a relief to hear. “I just, I really do want you to be happy. And I know how rare it is for you to connect with someone. I don’t want this thing you got going to not work out because of our left-over issues. That’s all.” Pepper lifts her hands and brings them down lightly on her laptop with an air of conclusion. “Now I’m going to exit this conversation and maybe bring in Rhodey for the bro talk.”

“Don’t tell me you called in Rhodey,” Tony whines, somewhat amused and really not looking forward to sorting through his feelings. “The situation is not so dire it calls for Rhodey.”

Pepper grins (evilly. Evilly!) “Rhodey sends his love and concern and will be visiting your sickbed tomorrow.”

Tony groans.

“Peter.” Tony rubs Peter’s hair affectionately. “Darling Peter.”

Peter looks pale and tired, so breakable, with the bandages and the IV in his arm, no color in his lips. Tony had quickly grown frustrated of lying in bed himself and snuck himself into Peter’s room to sit on his bed and pet him. It makes Tony feel better to be touching Peter while he thinks about whether he’s ruining the boy’s life by foisting himself and all his issues on him. It doesn’t actually help the thinking, but nothing’s perfect.

“Would you stop molesting my patient, Stark?”

“I’m your patient.”

“Yeah, well, that one’s a lot nicer.”

Tony looks up to find Strange leaning against the doorway looking bored as usual.

“Why are you turning everyone against me?” Tony complains to Peter’s sleeping form.

“Of course it’s too much to ask that my patients get bedrest in their own beds,” Strange grumbles. “No, I obviously don’t run that sort of establishment. Feel free to get lovey-dovey in my house. Shall I bring you the complimentary condoms?”

“Ooh, if it’s not too much trouble. Have you got any strawberry flavor?”

Still looking wildly unimpressed, Strange pushes away from the doorframe. “Don’t mess up his tubes and tell me if he wakes up.”

“And that’s why we don’t go to real hospitals,” Tony tells Peter as Strange wanders off.

Peter, obviously, doesn’t answer. Tony sighs and plays with Peter’s hand, the one that doesn’t have needles in it. It’s pale and smaller than Tony’s – Tony finds this out by putting their palms together – so he supposes that thing they say about hand size and dick size is scientifically inaccurate.

“I’m not sure if I’d be able to stay away from you,” Tony muses aloud. “Though maybe I should. I’m not good for people. I’ve been informed by doctors – not this particular one, mind – that I have an addictive personality. You come around, I feel good, I want you to be around more. But then again, what’s good for you, hm?”

Tony tucks Peter’s hand back under the covers. He fiddles with the covers, tucking it around Peter, running his hands lightly over the boy’s cheeks and hair, unable to keep his hands still.

“Seems like you have this effect on everyone. Is that how it is, is that your superpower, baby? My doctor prefers you. My AI, I suspect, prefers you. My ex-girlfriend even, who’s admittedly not the jealous type, seems to really like you. I’ll have to keep you away from Rhodey or I’ll have no friends left.” He shakes his head mock sadly. “Is that what you do, walk through life being this bubbly little fountain of goodness, making everyone’s lives better? And I’m pretty sure you don’t even know it. It’s like that pop song where the girl doesn’t know she’s beautiful, but less stupid, because what, does she never look in a mirror? Why does this dude find self-esteem issues so hot? Uh, anyway.”

Tony peers at Peter, wondering when he’ll wake up. He’s not sure he really wants Peter to hear all this, but it’s not like Peter’s in a coma. He could wake up any time. And that wouldn’t be a problem. It’s just easier to say things when Peter’s asleep.

“I think, sweetheart, that you’d let me get away with murder. Really. I show you one of the darkest places my brain can go and you say it’s fine. I’m fine. You trust me. Why would you trust me? I don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me not to shit all over your trust because that’s what I do. Perhaps you haven’t noticed that I have no friends and the ones I do have can only stand me in small dozes before they shut my bullshit down. That’s why I build nice robot friends who don’t have lives of their own, but hey, even JARVIS gets fed up of me. Though, wait a second, I did design him that way. The point is. The point is. If I do something to hurt you because you’d never stop me…I could never forgive myself.”

Staring transfixed at Peter’s face, Tony notices Peter’s eyelashes flutter a little. He watches a little longer, but Peter doesn’t otherwise move.

Tony groans. “This is bullshit, this feelings business. I don’t know what to do. The best thing for you would probably for me to leave you the hell alone, but I’m not as altruistic as all that. On the other hand, I’m also not as heartless as all that.”

Peter’s eyelids twitch. Tony grins.

“Let’s see if I can wake the prince with true love’s kiss.”

Tony leans forward and presses his lips to Peter’s. Peter immediately moves his lips against him in response, and they share a sweet kiss before Tony pulls back.

“So how much of my heartfelt confession did you hear?”

Peter blinks at him.

“You have an interesting take on the song What Makes You Beautiful.”

“Not my favorite. I’m more of a Metallica, Guns n’ Roses sort of guy.”

“I like Beyoncé.”

“Cool. Want to dump me for Beyoncé?”

“I didn’t know I have anything to dump you from.” Peter blinks and shakes his head. “Please don’t spring any more conversations on me when I just wake up. Or when I’m still asleep. Muh, just give me a moment.”

“Okay, that’s good, good communicating.” Tony nods enthusiastically. “No conversations when you’re asleep, easy. Done.”

Peter laughs softly. “So, uh-hm. You want to be my boyfriend.”

“Well, yeah. But I shouldn’t. That’s the problem.”

“Why…why is it a problem again?”

“Your listening skills are terrible when you aren’t conscious,” Tony remarks. “Well, Pepper thinks I should take some time to get over her. Pfft, real ego on that one.”

Peter looks as though he’s having some dawning realization or recall of something. “Did Ms Potts say something to you?”

Tony squints. “Did Ms Potts say something to you?”

They stare at each other.

“Pepper is so weird,” Tony says.

Peter just looks bewildered. He slowly props himself up with his pillows for a better conversational angle.

“Okay, what did Pepper say to you.” Tony prompts.

“Um.” Peter tries to lift both hands to rub at his temples, but then finds he has to content himself with one as the other one is attached to a bag. “She said. That you broke up because you’re like…too overwhelming for her? Something like that? And that I shouldn’t compare myself to her.”

“Huh.” Tony loves it when he gets some of that he-said she-said to ponder over. He usually doesn’t have enough friends to play this game. “Then she said to me, that I should sort my issues out before I ruin what we got going on here.”

“I said TELL ME when my patient wakes up,” says Strange, who has all of a sudden appeared at the door again, glaring.

“Ha-ba-da shush!” Tony says, flapping a hand at him. “Stevie, we’re having a moment here. He’s clearly alive, check back in ten minutes.”

Muttering something probably extremely rude under his breath, Strange walks away again. “Hurry it up!”

“Okay, we’re on the clock, baby, let’s figure this out.” Tony chews his lip. “So.”

“I don’t want to not be with you because you’re worried you’ll hurt me. Isn’t that what relationships are like? I-I mean of course they’re good as well. I haven’t had one. But there’s always potential hurting going on when people like each other.”

“Hmmm. I’m not sure if that view of things is healthy,” Tony says slowly. “But I’m not an expert on healthy relationships.”

He ponders this. Then he shouts, “Stevie, come back here!”

Peter stares at him in confusion. A moment later, Strange appears again, looking put out.

“You ever had a healthy relationship, Stevie?”

Strange gives Tony a dead-eyed stare. “I’m not that sort of doctor, Stark. What are you doing?”

“Just take a seat and tell me whether you’ve had a healthy relationship,” Tony demands.

“In my own house, charming,” says Strange, taking a seat grumpily. “Not sure I have.”

“But you’re a doctor,” Tony says with an exaggerated gasp.

“For brains.”

“Exactly!”

“Tony eats brains,” Peter interjects.

Strange gives him a disturbed look.

Tony has had this reaction before. It’s a story he likes to tell. He explains, “When I first went to China, my business partner said, in China we believe you get more of what you eat. Have some pig brains, Mr Stark.”

Peter starts to laugh. Strange barely gives him a twitch, but he’s a miserable bastard.

“Do you want my medical opinion on that?”

“No, I want your medical opinion on healthy relationships.”

“Why can’t you get a therapist?”

“They’re not as cool as you, Strange-boy.”

Strange gives a long-suffering sigh. “Whether you and pretty boy here can have a healthy relationship, is that it?”

“Hm, yep.”

“Dear God.” Strange ponders this. “When did you and Pepper break up again?”

“In May.”

“And now it’s July.” Strange nods. “No, too soon. Give it at least a three-month gap before pursuing your next serious relationship.”

Tony thinks about this. “So I can get with Peter in…late August?”

“Sure.”

“But then he’ll have to go back to school,” Tony complains.

Strange gets a vaguely grossed out expression. “Also maybe reconsider dating kids still in school.”

“I’m in college,” Peter clarifies.

Strange does not grace this with a response. He heaves himself out of his chair and goes over to fiddle with Peter’s IV.

“I don’t care. Doctor’s orders. I will tend to actual physical injury now. Stark, go away.”

“But-”

“Go rest in your own room and think about it.” Strange pauses, looks exasperated. “You may resume your relationship discussions when I don’t have to listen to you.”

“I don’t know why I like you when you give me flashbacks to my father,” Tony complains, but he is getting real tired, so he happens to want to go have another lie down. That is all.

Chapter Text

The rules, made with input from Tony’s friends and Peter’s friends, are like this (It’s a little weird that Tony’s friends are Ms Potts and Colonel Rhodes while Peter’s friends are Ned and MJ but hey, nobody has a degree in relationships or anything):

-Peter will not be Tony’s lab assistant anymore. He will work on his web fluid formula with Doctor Cho.

-Texting is allowed.

-Sexting is not.

-Phone calls can be made in reasonable amounts.

-They are allowed to hang out no more than twice a week with no staying overnight.

-No sex, not even a little.

-They will do some thinking.

-They will revisit their relationship status at the end of August.

This is how Peter feels about the rules: hopeful. It kind of sucks that they have to cut down contact so much, but he does think it’s a sensible idea for Mr Stark to get over Ms Potts a bit. And for Peter to maybe get a bit of a grip on himself. Peter wants to be with Mr Stark, with Tony, literally all the time, but it makes him optimistic that they’re doing this because Tony Stark wants an actual real relationship with Peter. So much has happened in the short time he and Tony have been…let’s just say involved…and it would probably do Peter good to think about that too. Also, May’s been getting real cross that she’s seeing none of Peter even during the holidays, and now Ned’s back for summer. If Peter was allowed he’d be a real dick and just abandon them all to sit around doing nothing with Tony, but that’s definitely not healthy.

This is how Tony feels about the rules: doubtful. Apparently, rules are made to be broken and the first thing he starts thinking about is abusing blurry definitions such as ‘reasonable amounts’ and ‘twice a week’. So two days, dawn till dusk, is within the bounds of the rules, yes? He said. Peter is flattered, but he doesn’t know if Tony actually wants to hang out with him from dawn until dusk or if he has some sort of pride issue on finding loopholes.

“Peter’s birthday soon.” Pepper drops this comment on Tony along with a huge stack of documents for him to sign.

Tony jolts, spins around in his fancy, spinny Chairman chair. “Why do you know that?”

“You’re terrible at remembering dates and celebrations, just thought I’d remind you. And I had to go through his employee profile after he was injured.”

“I’m not terrible,” Tony retorts. (He was. He rarely ever kept track of what date it was currently unless he had something in particular to count down to, and he could lose days at a time when he got going on a project. But he does have something to be counting down to right now. August 31, the big day.)

“Okay, what day is his birthday?”

Tony frowns in concentration as he thinks back to his intense cyber creeping. “August 23^rd?”

“August 10^th.” Pepper shakes her head in amusement. “So you have less than a week. Have fun.”

“Waiiiit, Pepper,” Tony calls out as Pepper starts walking out. “Help me. What am I supposed to do?”

Pepper turns in the doorway, her no-bullshit face on. “I reminded you. I really have to draw the line at thinking of birthday gifts for your new boyfriend for you.”

Then she’s gone, and Tony grouchily tears the lid off his fountain pen with his teeth, beginning to review documents and sign with his non-dominant hand, his left hand still in a wrist cast.

“Has to draw the line,” he mutters under his breath, sulky. “That’s where she draws the line. I very much suspect that Peter and Pepper have been talking about me between themselves. It’s so weird. Isn’t there a rule that bans them from being so chummy? Isn’t there, J?”

“I do not know of any such rule, Sir,” JARVIS says, amused. “However, I may be of assistance in arranging a birthday gift for Mr Parker.”

“Yes!” Tony pumps a fist into the air. “This is why robot friends are better. Alright, what should it be?”

“What message would you like to convey? As I understand, you are on a curious romantic hiatus. This may affect the choice of gift.”

“Very good point.” Tony signs a document with a flourish and turns over to the next one. “How about uh… ‘looking forward to getting back in your pants’?”

“I may suggest something in better taste,” JARVIS replies dryly.

Tony shakes his head in annoyance. “I hate this message conveying shit. Why does 500 fucking roses signify affection in any way? It’s a fucking mess and will wither all over the place within a week. I prefer useful stuff.”

“I suspect Mr Parker prefers useful stuff himself. He does not seem like the 500 roses sort of person.”

“Well, I already know he doesn’t want a car. Or a plane.” Tony wishes that Peter did want a car. Cars are simple. He even understands what is signified with what brand of sports car. (Hondas, on the other hand…not an expert in those.)

“I do not think Mr Parker would appreciate an opulent display of wealth. As we have previously discovered, he is uncomfortable with gifts that would be too lavish considering his own financial background and spending habits. He has been pleased with gifts that would be frivolous for him to buy himself based on his spending habits, but still within a limited range. I recommend keeping below 5,000 dollars.”

“Nice, but not too nice.” Tony summarizes. “Useful.”

“I also believe that in gifting to close friends and romantic partners, customization and personal effort is appreciated.”

“Wow J, you’re starting to understand humans better than me,” Tony says irritably. He knows that much, knows the concept. It’s the practice that’s the problem.

Tony continues to stew in this problem that Pepper has sprung on him, not coming up with anything good. He tries not to remember all the times he blotched his gifts to Pepper. He sighs again.

“He didn’t get me a gift on my birthday.”

“Mr Parker gifted you with a stuffed robot from a claw machine on May 30^th. You did not celebrate your birthday this year. You could, in fact, see it as Mr Parker was the only person to give you a birthday gift.”

Oh yeah. Tony smiles as he thinks back to that day. He’s not even sure where he put that stuffed robot. When they got back here, he had been rather focused on getting into Peter’s pants.

“What car was I driving that day?”

“The Lamborghini Aventador.”

“Is the, uh, Spider-man still in there?”

JARVIS pulls up an image of the car in the parking garage. Tony enlarges the image, finds the little toy in a footwell.

“Hmmmmm,” Tony says, getting an idea.

Tony: what are your plans next Monday

Peter: think I will be at work :)

Tony: what about Sunday

Peter: I’m having lunch with Ned&MJ and dinner with May :(

Tony: did you know SI has complimentary leave on an employee’s birthday

Peter: how long has that policy been in place…[thinking face]

Tony: that is not the point

Tony: can you come over after dinner on Sunday

Peter: I mean I could but I’m not allowed to stay overnight

Tony: you won’t be

Tony: I have a plan

Peter: do I wanna ask

Tony: a most ingenious plan

Peter: okkk [thumbs up] I’ll text u when I’m done with dinner xx

“I see now,” Peter says with dawning realization as the plane lands. “Japan is 13 hours ahead of New York. We left around 10 pm, your plane gets to Japan in 6 hours. Now it’s 5 pm in Tokyo. No overnight happening.”

Tony smiles smugly.

“Or is it just a really long night?” Peter wonders.

“Semantics,” Tony says. “Come on, we have somewhere to be with a closing time.”

The place they have to be happens to be the International Robot Exhibition. It’s an incredible show for two nerds on a date. It’s near closing time on the last day, but the exhibition hall is still crowded. They walk through and chat about the exhibits, trying to figure out what could help with the tech that Tony and SI’s robotics department is developing.

“Have you still got my Iron Man?”

“Oh, yeah. Has a place of honor on my desk right next to the photo of my parents with me when I was a baby.” Peter draws shapes in the air to indicate this placement.

Tony is, for some reason, tickled by this description. He realizes that while Peter has been in and out of his house frequently at this point, he’s never seen where Peter lives, and he has a sudden urge to see what it’s like.

“You live with your aunt?”

“Yeah.” Peter seems to get what Tony’s thinking after a second, because he says apologetically, “She doesn’t know about you. I mean, she knows I was your research assistant for a while but that’s it. It’s just that if she knew…she would freak out.”

“Oh, I see. You’re that sort of kid.”

“What sort of kid?”

“The type that’s all picture perfect, the adults all think you’re so well-behaved, straight A’s, never gets in trouble. Oh, we don’t have to worry about Peter.” Tony smirks. “Then he sneaks out at night and gets it on with his forty-two-year-old boyfriend.”

Peter shoves him in the chest, smiling. “Not my boyfriend yet.”

“Uhuh.” Tony rolls his eyes, starting to think the ‘rules’ they came up with idiotic. Why three months? Why this arbitrary date? He already feels like he’s in a much better place and he wants Peter. “Just your not-boyfriend taking you on a not-date for your not-birthday.”

Peter turns away and looks at a humanoid robot, smiling widely but not responding. Tony also eyes the robot.

“Maybe I should build a life-size Iron Man,” he remarks. “I once built this cool armor to get out of a terrorist cell. Had a biohazard issue with the fuel for the energy source, not safe for long term use. Still. Maybe I could work on that.”

“And what would you do with it?”

“Battle aliens. We established this before, keep up.”

“We haven’t had an issue with aliens so far,” Peter points out, moving onto the next exhibit. “You just going to keep it in your garage until they turn up?”

Tony considers this. “Urgh, I suppose if I start superhero-ing around in it the government will want it for military use.”

“Probably,” Peter sighs. “We don’t live in the sort of world where problems are solved through fighting villains in cool robot suits, more’s the pity.”

“It broke my heart when I realized that,” says Tony, hand to heart. “Luckily I can still solve a lot of problems by designing cool robot stuff in my lab and throwing money around.”

They take a short walk through the busy streets of Tokyo to get dinner, Peter marveling at the foreignness of the city. He’s never been abroad, rarely left New York, though Japan’s a place he’s always been interested in due to cartoons and arcade games and the like. It’s so strange to think that he’s on the other side of the globe, countries away, worlds away. And in just a few hours, he’ll be right back. Peter’s never cared much about having material things, but these experiences that come with Tony’s wealth and power are awe-inspiring, unforgettable. He’s grateful to have this opportunity, wishes that he could show this to May. He really hopes that when he graduates and makes his own money, he can take May on a trip somewhere cool.

Peter’s literally turning circles on the sidewalk to take in the view like a complete tourist while Tony saunters along, all elegant and indulgent.

“So, uh,” Peter says, “How come you don’t have a disguise or something?”

“I’m not nearly so easily recognized in Tokyo,” says Tony. “We all look the same to them.”

Peter suppresses a smile, scanning the crowds.

“I wonder if somewhere here is Kitty.”

“Who?”

“Jim’s girlfriend, remember?”

Tony frowns and then barks a laugh. “What do you wager the odds that Kitty’s a big hairy dude with heavy photo filters and a voice modulator?”

Peter snickers. “Jim has ruined me for future kidnappers. I’ll be so disappointed if their jokes are bad.”

“I’m here once again to renew your understanding of Japanese food,” Tony says as they sit down to eat.

“What is there, sushi, ramen? Do they eat brains? Do you have any anecdotes about how the Japanese subtly insulted you through food?”

Tony laughs. “Nah, they’re the polite sort. No brains. Lots of raw seafood.”

The chef, as though on cue, brings out a huge bowl of ice with rising cold steam, decorated with artfully placed pieces of raw fish on green leaves. Peter inspects it doubtfully. It’s certainly pretty, but he’s never had sushi minus the rice and wrapping before.

Tony makes him a dipping saucer of soy sauce with a dab of wasabi. “Try it wrapped in that leaf.”

“Wow.” Peter chews. “Huh.”

“Good?”

“I like it.”

“Best thing you ever put in your mouth?” Tony teases.

Peter ducks his head and pokes his chopsticks in the blob of wasabi, not really watching what he’s doing. “Not quite,” he says, and puts his chopsticks in his mouth with some vague idea of looking sexy. He chokes.

Tony, halfway through chewing, leans back and puts his fist to his mouth as he starts to laugh. Peter tearfully accepts the drink that Tony pushes at him. Inside, Peter mentally bangs his fists against the tabletop in mortification.

“I want to take you to so many weird restaurants,” Tony says through his laughter.

“To watch me suffer?” Peter complains, tugging a leaf out from under its load of fish slices and chewing it to cover up the taste of pure wasabi.

“You do this face that’s part startled New Yorker who thought he understood ethnic food and part brave soldier approaching the battlefield,” Tony informs him. He then attempts to imitate this alleged face Peter makes.

Peter sips sheepishly on his drink. It’s nice and soothing, sort of yogurt-y but lighter.

“I think my favorite is this drink,” he says.

Tony grins. “That’s called Calpis.” He pointedly drinks his sake.

Peter stares at the glass in some dismay. “Seriously?” He turns back to the huge bowl of ice, unseats another trio of fish slices for their leaf. “My favorite is this leaf,” he revises.

Tony raises his eyebrows, then shrugs and beckons the waiter, says something in Japanese. The waiter gives him a weird look, but soon comes back with a saucer of just leaves.

As Peter eats a lot of leaves, Tony says, “I do actually have a birthday gift for you too, by the way.”

He produces a jewelry box from a pocket. It’s suspiciously-sized. Peter tries not to look taken aback. When Tony catches his eye, he smirks. “It’s not a ring. We’re not quite there yet.”

It’s a necklace, a coiled piece of thin black leather with a small silver disc bearing a geometric pattern that, when he looks closer, includes the letter P. Peter doesn’t usually wear necklaces, but it’s pretty, he thinks. He picks it up to admire it and turns it around, to find on the other side, in very small print: A.E. STARK. Peter’s breath goes short at the implication. He stares at the neatly embossed name, rubs a finger over it, before looking up to find Tony looking at him intently.

“Thank you,” he says, unable to think of anything else.

This seems to make Tony a little agitated, perhaps misunderstanding, thinking Peter doesn’t like it. He says, “A bit corny, I suppose. I just liked the idea of you…wearing my name.”

“It’s not corny,” Peter assures him. A little shyly, he holds it out. “Do you- do you want to help me put it on?”

Tony’s eyes darken. He leaves his seat and circles around behind Peter, lifting the necklace off Peter’s palm with a tickling curl of fingers. Peter tips his head back against Tony’s abdomen, feels the cold disc settle against his skin, then bends forward to allow Tony to fix the clasp. He hears a soft click, and yet Tony’s fingers linger at the back of his neck, warm in contrast with the cold metal in the hollow of his throat. Peter swallows to feel the thin strip of leather shift, easily able to imagine it wider, heavier. He thinks of collars he’s seen on dogs - the dog’s name on one side, the owner’s name and number on the flip side. Tony’s given him a stylized, understated collar. It's so possessive in the best way. Peter’s almost all the way hard just at that thought.

The atmosphere through the rest of dinner is different, weighed down by the mutual knowledge that they’re both hard in their pants. Peter can’t stop fingering his metal disc and Tony can’t stop watching him do it.

Chapter Text

“It’s my liiiife. It’s now or ne-ver. I ain’t gonna live for-e-ver. I just wanna liiiive while IIIII’m alive.” Tony spins around dramatically, strikes a pose, holding out the microphone in Peter’s direction.

“IT’S MY LIFE,” Peter shouts obligingly.

“Yeah baby!” Tony thrusts his mic into the air in a power pose and then bounces down on the couch next to Peter. “Cut to the next song.”

“I…can’t read Japanese.” Peter peers confusedly at the control screen on the wall above his head.

“It’s that nice big red button over there with the character that looks like a nacho. That’s the one.”

Tony chugs his Kirin beer, probably needing to rehydrate after the excellent performance he’s been putting on. It’s a little known fact to even Peter the die-hard Tony Stark fan that Tony is a great singer. He’s been hitting every note with his rich baritone on his favorite old school rock songs while Peter makes excuses and flips through the digital catalogue for a song he would be any way confident singing in front of Tony.

Peter is totally on board with this karaoke thing they have going on in Japan, where they have nice, comfy private rooms you can rent with your friends to sing in and not have to work up the guts to sing in front of a roomful of strangers. Peter is an okay singer, he supposes, but it’s not anything to write home about. After dinner, Peter had yawned and asked if they were going to get back to New York now. It was getting pretty late, Japan time, and Peter has had a very long day. Tony had just grinned and said he knew just the thing to get Peter to stay awake.

The music plays in the background. Peter looks up to see Guns and Roses rocking it up on the big screen while Tony unperturbedly works his way through the fruit platter.

When he catches Peter’s eye, Tony says, “Oh, I’m taking a well-deserved break. It’s your turn to dazzle me, pretty boy.”

He then slides over and slings an arm around Peter’s waist, breathing down his neck while he swipes through the catalogue.

“You’re not helping,” Peter complains half-heartedly, smiling.

“I’m helping,” Tony murmurs, brushing his hand up and down Peter’s thigh.

Peter spreads his legs and leans into him, fingers carelessly hitting buttons on the display.

“Didn’t you say you like Beyonce?”

“I can’t sing Beyonce.”

“Fine then, do Taylor Swift. Her songs are easy.” He hums a bit of We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.

“No no, I got this.” Peter finally just mans up and taps on Umbrella by Rihanna.

“Ohhh. Nice.” Tony slides back to give Peter his performing space and hands him a mic.

The words ‘Umbrella Rihanna’ splashes across the screen in vivid blue. Peter seizes up a little, at which point Tony wordlessly passes his beer. Peter briefly wonders if he’s legal to drink in Japan, decides he doesn’t care, and chugs the rest of the bottle while he watches the intro roll across the screen. Tony flicks between watching the lyrics roll and Peter drink with a look of indulgent amusement.

“Rihanna where you at,” Tony says into his own mic as the words roll across the screen.

Well, screw this. Peter gets to his feet. You can’t do half-assed karaoke.

“You had my heart…and we’ll never be worlds apart…”

This room must have magic or something, because Peter never sounds this good even in the shower. It emboldens him to lift his volume on the next line and lock eyes with Tony, who holds a new bottle of beer to his lips and watches Peter with smiling eyes.

The thing is, Peter picked this song because he knows this song. In 7th grade there was a school show, long story short, Peter had a brief on-stage role as a shirtless back up dancer in leather pants with gelled back hair dancing around an upperclass girl with an umbrella. There were a lot of rehearsals. He may or may not have had an unrequited crush on the girl with the umbrella. Without too much active thought, he starts dancing to the familiar routine. Tony clearly approves of this. He sips from his bottle, eyes fixed on Peter, legs spread, arms stretched along the back of the couch, looking so confident and masculine.

“That’s when you need me there…with you I’ll always share…”

The song goes on and Peter dances closer, until he’s close enough for Tony to tug him into his lap and then they’re kissing, Peter moaning unreservedly under cover of the loud music. Tony’s hands cup the back of Peter’s head and the curve of his ass, pulling him in tight until their cocks rub together through layers of clothing. It’s so good.

Tony’s lips suck down Peter’s neck and find the disc at his throat, teeth closing around it with a tug. Fingers pull taut in Peter’s hair. Peter doesn’t hold his liquor so badly that he gets drunk off half a bottle of beer, but he feels drunk now, dizzy and sensitized, music pulsing, Tony’s hands all over him, the familiar scent of Tony’s cologne filling his nose. Before Peter knows it, Tony has his jeans open and his hand wrapped around Peter’s bare cock.

“Mm-hn- Tony,“ Peter pants, glancing over at the door to the private room and the window on it, probably designed to prevent exactly this scenario.

Tony rearranges the angle so it would be less obvious to a random person passing by in the corridor what they’re doing. He rubs at Peter’s cock and Peter can barely speak.

“How about I show you another fun aspect of Japanese culture?” Tony says into Peter’s ear, licking it as he speaks. “Want to see a love hotel?”

That, for some reason, is what brings Peter to his senses a little. He pushes himself back a bit with his hand on Tony’s chest and shakes his head.

“No, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t, we promised.”

Tony strokes Peter’s cock a bit more, which is totally unfair. “What could it hurt? Why’d we want a date so far off anyway? It’s almost three months. What’s the difference between a few more days?”

“Because,” Peter gasps, holding Tony back from kissing him again and taking the remaining portion of Peter’s coherent thought. “Because you’re supposed to learn to respect my boundaries.”

Tony drops his hand from Peter’s cock at once; Peter feels the absence keenly.

“Right. You’re right.” But his face falls and Peter feels so bad.

“‘m sorry,” he says, and kisses Tony lightly on the lips in apology.

Tony chuckles. “Don’t apologize. You were supposed to learn to cut me off if I go too far and you did perfectly. Typical. My smart, perfect Peter.”

Peter relaxes. He’s glad Tony thinks he’s done the right thing. He really has been thinking, and talking with Ned and MJ and Pepper, even with May, in a roundabout, this-isn’t-about-anyone-in-particular way. He adjusts his position on Tony’s lap to a less provocative one, not quite wanting to get off entirely.

On the plane home, Peter is drowsy, yet reluctant to fall asleep. He drinks some coffee and lies with his head in Tony’s lap, fiddling with his necklace while Tony strokes his hair.

“Are we allowed to talk about sex?” He wonders.

“Up to you.”

“So I was thinking,” Peter says, “About your sex dungeon.”

“Yeah?” Tony responds, part wary, part amused.

“I don’t think I want to use it. I mean, I kind of like the idea, I get where you’re coming from. I think I might like it…if you want to, control me. But, um. The whole design is sort of really scary.”

Tony doesn’t immediately respond, which makes Peter look up at him nervously.

“I’m glad you think so,” Tony says at last. “That was never meant to be used anyway. I designed that with the darkest fantasies in mind. Nameless, faceless strangers. Things too hardcore for reality. If you like the idea…if you want to do that with me…I’ll build you a better one.”

I’ll build you a sex dungeon, Peter thinks, amused. Unexpected pick up lines from Tony Stark. He lies there musing for a few moments, sexual ideas spinning around his jetlagged head.

“I want to fuck you,” he blurts out, then blushes and regrets saying it so bluntly. He could probably use some practice with those pick up lines.

“Totally on board,” Tony says, smirking. “What else do you want?”

“Lots of stuff.” Peter closes his eyes and rubs his cheek against Tony’s shirt. “Have you ever put your whole fist in someone?”

“Giving and receiving,” Tony says.

“Would it be weird if I want you to um…pee in me?”

“Peter, I’d be very surprised if you could name anything legal between consenting adults that I haven’t at least tried. Feel free to let me know your weirdest, kinkiest desires.”

“Oh. Good? ‘Cos…I was just fantasizing…if you were doing me and you needed to go, and you didn’t want to stop, so you just, don’t…maybe you’re working and I’m kneeling at your feet, and you just decide to go in my mouth, ‘cos you can…maybe…I don’t know, it got me so excited…I don’t know why, I don’t actually think pee is sexy…” Eyes still closed, Peter rambles on, sleepy and trusting, recounting that one strange fantasy that had gotten him off a few days ago.

Tony taps him gently on the shoulder.

“Get off my lap, sweetheart.”

Peter sits up, blinking, confused. Tony meets his gaze and pointedly adjusts himself in his pants.

“Sorry.” He shrugs. “Needed to not have your pretty mouth so close to my crotch.”

Peter grins, glancing away, glad it’s not that he weirded Tony out with all that.

“Also, it sounds like you have a humiliation kink.”

“Really? But I don’t think I want you to call me names or anything.”

“Mmm.” Tony leans towards him, gaze intense. “You want me to use you like a whore, but call you a good boy.”

Peter tries not to look away, eyes wide. He hadn’t considered that might be a thing he's into, doesn’t think he’s seen any porn like that. But, “That- sounds good.”

Tony turns forward in his seat again, unbuttons another button of his shirt like he’s feeling hot. His expression is neutral, but it also looks like it’s taking him some effort to keep that poker face.

“I see,” he says.

“Peter, you left your stuff in the shower!” May calls.

Deep into reading a research paper for work, Peter responds, “Sorry, I’ll get it in a minute!”

He reads through another paragraph before he suddenly registers what Aunt May meant by ‘your stuff’.

“Oh shit,” he breathes, bouncing up and running for the bathroom, almost colliding with Aunt May in his doorway. May is holding his necklace in one hand, his watch in another, and is looking really, really, unimpressed.

“So,” she says. “Birthday gifts from Ned and MJ, you said?”

“Um,” Peter says, trying to keep his voice normal. “Yeah. Don’t worry, that’s not a real Rolex. It’s a knock-off. It's nice though, right?”

“Uhuh,” says May. “Interesting inscription on your present from MJ.” She turns the disc over pointedly.

Peter makes a valiant attempt to laugh it off. “Yeah. Yeah, I know. She thought it was funny.”

“Peter,” May says, with that awful, I’m-not-angry-just-disappointed sigh. “Do you realize you haven’t talked about Tony Stark for weeks?”

“Well, I haven’t been working with him anymore,” Peter says defensively.

May smiles, shaking her head. “That hasn’t stopped you from talking about him for the past ten years. It’s weird, you know? Not even a, ‘I wonder what Mr Stark is working on now.’ Uncharacteristic of you.”

Peter knows the game is up. Tony was right, really – he has always been the type of kid to keep the misbehaving on the down low, not that he misbehaves a lot – and he knows the moment where more acting dumb will only get him in deeper shit. He sighs, dreading the conversation.

“Okay fine, you caught me. I just…didn’t want you to worry.”

“Sit down,” says May, pointing at the sofa. “We’re going to talk about this.”

Peter sits. He watches, agitated, as May continues to examine the watch and the necklace. “It’s not like you think.”

“What do you think I think?” May says, eerily calm.

“That he’s taking advantage of me or something. He’s not my sugar daddy. That’s not what those mean.”

“So those questions you were asking me. About how to keep relationship dynamics equal, how to say no without hurting their feelings…”

Peter winces. God, it looks bad.

“You’re an adult now, Peter. There’s nothing I can make you do. But this concerns me, it really does.”

“Can you just…suspend judgment until I tell you what exactly is going on? Please?”

“Fine. I’ll do my best.”

Peter pauses and thinks quickly about how to spin this so it sounds least bad.

“When Mr Stark and Ms Potts broke up, he was really upset. I happened to be in the right place at the right time, so I talked to him, tried to make him feel better. Nothing happened at the time! After that, we got to know each other better. We started dating. Then, he was concerned that dating me so soon after Ms Potts would be unhealthy because he ought to have time to process, so we…agreed to take it slow. And that’s where we are now. He actually cares about me, I swear.”

May holds an unreadable expression while Peter waits with bated breath.

“Why do I get the feeling that’s the heavily edited version of events?”

“It’s just the summarized version of events,” Peter insists.

“Okay, well, if he cares about you and wants to date you, why don’t you invite him over for dinner. Tomorrow? Yeah, ask him if tomorrow’s good.”

“I mean, I can,” Peter says quickly. “But…you’re not going to…”

“What could I possibly do?” May flashes a smile of the ‘I’m just a poor unassuming woman’ variety. It’s terrifying.

"Hey...Tony...hi," Peter says into his phone, pacing up and down his room. "You remember how I said my aunt doesn't know about us? Yeah. Well, she does now."

"Oh dear," Tony replies, amused. "Are we in trouble?"

"Um...you're invited to dinner tomorrow."

There is a long silence from Tony's side. 

"Tony?" Peter says weakly.

"Am I allowed to bring back up?"

"By back up do you mean Pepper,” Peter says flatly.

"Pepper would make sure I get outta there alive."

Peter wants to laugh, but he's too stressed for that. "Think it through, Tony."

Tony, apparently, does. "Damn it!"

Peter does laugh now. "It'll, it'll be okay, just turn up, please."

"And then what if she hates me. What then."

"Then...I'll..." Sing your praises more than I have been doing for the past ten years of my life? “…Work on it."

Tony puts on his best suit, a tie, has JARVIS arrange a bouquet with zero romantic connotations and a tasteful bottle of wine. He stands outside Unit 7B, just, you know, giving himself a moment to get into a meeting the parents mood. Thank god Peter only has one. Wait no, that's awful, he did not think that. Many condolences on the unfortunate passing of Peter's parents, may their souls rest in peace.

He's Tony Stark, genius, billionaire...no. He's Tony Stark, dependable, easy-going sort, the kind of guy you want dating your teenage nephew. Ha. Sure he is. Whatever.

Tony knocks on the door. Peter's aunt opens the door. Tony restrains himself to a single blink and is very proud he does not whistle.

He had planned to say, you must be Mrs Parker. There's no way he's going to be able to call this woman missus.

"Hello," he says.

May Parker looks him up and down while Tony makes an effort to keep his gaze relaxed and above the neck. She finally thrusts out a hand.

"Tony Stark. What a pleasure. Come right in."

She opens the door wider to reveal Peter hovering anxiously in the background. The both of them are watching Tony so closely he doesn't even have a chance to lift his eyes to the heavens and ask why Peter's allegedly fifty-five-year-old aunt is so insanely attractive. Someone up there hates him.

Chapter Text

Tony is having a staring contest with the unusually attractive Aunt May, and he’s pretty sure he’s losing. Every time he feels like he can start a conversation, she glares at him a little harder and he loses it. Jesus.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, which is a convenient excuse to look away, so he checks his phone. Work email. Work email. Work email. 15% off on your next purchase at Tiffany’s.

“I hope we’re not taking you away from anything important.”

Tony looks up with a start. “Oh, of course not. Nowhere I’d rather be.”

“So tell me about yourself,” May says brightly. “You know, it’s helpful that Peter’s dating a guy with a Wikipedia page…but what’s it like, you know, the real you?”

She gives a tinkling little laugh that has Peter pulling a grimace next to her where she can’t see. Or maybe that’s just his reaction to the lasagna. Tony feels so sorry for Peter’s culinary experience growing up. He’s resolved to take him to eat a lot more of the good stuff.

“I’m just a regular guy, really,” Tony says, giving his best smile. “Peter and I have a lot in common actually. I like to invent stuff, I like sci-fi movies. I also lost my parents when I was…young.”

May’s laser stare was putting Tony off again. “Uh-huh,” she says, in a completely unconvinced tone.

“This lasagna is great,” Tony says, forking a big mouthful.

“-I’ll just show him where the bathroom is,” Peter says, jumping out of his seat.

“Because our apartment is an absolute maze to navigate,” says May dryly.

Peter ignores her, pushing Tony down the hall, into the bathroom, and closing the door. He leans against the door and rubs his face.

Tony looks at his reflection in the mirror, finally letting out all those expressions he wanted to make but held back to a polite smile with more self-restraint than he’s shown for years.

“Okay, on a scale of light groin injury to carving knives in the back, how bad is this getting?”

“Oh, not that terrible. I think she’s only at a, slap you and throw a drink in your face,” says Peter.

“Good!” Tony nods. “I’ve had plenty of those. I’m a pro.”

“Maybe less twitching when you smile,” Peter says, then leans forward and puts his cheek against Tony’s shoulder, laughing quietly. “I’ve never seen you so tense in my life.”

Tony closes his arms around Peter and rubs his back gently.

“Thanks for doing this for me,” says Peter.

“I think I’m supposed to say ‘anytime’,” Tony replies, “But let’s never do this again.”

Peter pulls back.

“Okay,” Tony says. “Let’s go out there and convince your aunt I’m a decent human being, once and for all.”

When May gives an excuse to get Peter out of the way for ten minutes, Tony knows the real inquisition is coming. May leans forward, scowling, and Tony carefully puts down his glass of wine to keep an eye on the placement of May’s.

“I don’t like you.”

“I’m aware.”

“Peter could do better.”

“I’m sure you’re right.”

May stabs a finger at Peter’s bedroom door.

“That boy’s had pictures of you plastered to his bedroom wall since he was nine years old, and I’ve been reading articles of your sexcapades since before he was a dot in my brother-in-law’s balls. Sure, he’s nineteen, but nothing about this is right.”

Tony can’t think of a response. It’s all he can do not to wince. Boy does Aunt May have a way with words.

“I’m sure you think there’s nothing I can do to you.”

“I’ve very scared,” Tony confesses truthfully.

“Of ruining your stellar reputation?” May gives an unfriendly smile. “I’m not going to tell you to stay away from him, not when you’ve already started this thing and given him hope. I appreciate you coming down here, putting on a show for me. That takes effort. All I want you to know is that I’m watching out for him. Don’t ever treat him like a starry-eyed kid you can play around with without consequences. Peter has people who love him and won’t stand to see him hurt.”

Tony swallows. He realizes that he’s unconsciously pressed back into the sofa as far away from May as he could, so he straightens up.

“I understand. I hope I can become one of them.”

May nods and lifts her glass of wine to him in a toast. Tony picks up his own glass, gestures, and knocks it back.

When Tony gets home, he heads straight to the bar, pours out an inch of scotch, and throws it back with a groan. He feels like such a creep. Nothing to remind you that the guy you’re screwing (well, hoping to continue to screw) is barely more than a child than seeing his messy bedroom with the twin bed and the posters and the Lego models on the shelves. He’s always been aware that Peter is young, but that has only shown up, before, in the best of ways.

Peter has daddy issues, doesn’t he? The kid lost his dad when he was six and his uncle when he was fourteen. Does he really like Tony all that much, or is it more, what Tony represents? A strong, powerful man, an idol, a celebrity. They had barely known each other when Peter was pouring his heart out, all, I love you, I’m all yours, I’ll do anything you want.

Maybe he ought to have just fucked Peter, like all the other fans and gold-diggers he’s slept his way through. None of them left a mark on him, he doubts he gave them anything more than a good time to boast to their friends (and sometimes the media) about. Now that, that’s healthy. Why did he ever think he could have a healthy long-term relationship with Peter? Why did he ever think he could have a healthy relationship at all?

Why is it, Anthony Edward Stark, he says to himself as he works his way through the bottle, that the only person you’ve decided you can be attached to is a nineteen-year-old boy who’s apparently worshipped you half his life? What do you see in him but your own reflection, dazzling and airbrushed like a magazine spread? Why can you not be a decent human being for more than a few hours at a time?

All great questions, but he doesn’t have a great answer. What he does have, though, is a well-stocked bar. And that’s almost good enough.

“And now he’s not texting me back,” Peter concludes, his voice dropping into a wail as he thunks his head on the table, having recounted the excruciating dinner in all its awkward detail.

Both Michelle and Ned are laughing hysterically, the traitors.

“Aunt May put the fear of God into that man,” Michelle says, wiping her eyes.

“What could she possibly have said to scare off Tony Stark?” Ned wonders.

“I don’t know! She says she just gave him the old, hurt him and I’ll hurt you talk!”

“Maybe that’s never happened to Mr Stark before,” Ned points out reasonably.

“Well.” Michelle shrugs, spinning her phone between her fingers. “He ought to have thought of that before he started robbing the cradle.”

“I’m not a fucking baby,” Peter complains, half-heartedly. Michelle pinches his cheek in response, completely ignoring Peter’s protest. “I don’t know what to do, guys. Would it be really inappropriate of me to…show up at his house?”

“Let me have a look at that thing.” Michelle extends a hand in Peter’s direction.

Peter hesitates, embarrassed, but he’s desperate enough that he does eventually give Michelle the phone. Ned crowds in to look at the screen and Peter puts his face in his hands.

Michelle swipes up three or four times before she reaches the top of Peter’s unread messages to Tony Stark. She glares.

“Have I taught you nothing?”

Peter shrugs and buries his face in his arms on the table. This was a bad decision, because the next thing he hears is,

“Hello, Mr Stark!”

He jolts upright and looks in horror at Michelle, who has her own phone clapped to her ear and Peter’s phone open to Tony’s contact page.

Peter mouths at her desperately, makes cutthroat gestures across his neck. Ned has his hand clapped to his mouth, shaking with silent laughter.

“My name is Michelle Jones,” says Michelle, smiling. “Oh, you’ve heard of me! That’s…haha. Peter speaks very highly of you too.”

Briefly putting her hand over the bottom of her phone, Michelle whispers, “He’s really drunk.”

“Hang up!” Peter hisses desperately.

“Yeah, uh…we’re at a party. Peter’s distracted talking to this guy and left his phone, I thought we might…have a chat. Oh no no, he’s just so worried that you haven’t been contacting him. What’s that? The guy’s kind of cute, I suppose.”

“What are you doing?” Peter hisses, staring in bewilderment at the bright sunlight outside Michelle’s bedroom window.

“Can I talk to him?” Ned says.

Michelle glances at him, clearly listening to speaking from the other side.

Ned leans in and says, “Thanks so much for the beard grooming video, Mr Stark!”

“Et tu, Brutus?” Peter says in disbelief.

“Oh, well, of course you can.” Michelle holds out the phone to Peter. “He wants to talk to you.”

“You’re insane,” Peter tells her, lifting the phone to his ear. “H-hi.”

“Peter?” Tony says, his voice thick and slurred.

Peter stands up, glares at his cackling friends, and walks out of the room with the phone pressed to his ear.

“Yeah. Listen, I’m sorry about Aunt May. Are you, are you okay?”

“I’m great,” says Tony. “I miss you.”

Peter pauses briefly to savor the trickle of warmth he gets from that. “I miss you too.”

There’s a loud crash from the other side, what sounds like shattering glass.

“Tony? Hey, you alright?”

“Owwwwww.” He hears. Then, “Oh, I’m fine.”

“Are you at the penthouse?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Okay, I’m coming over.”

“Don’t come over.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not…decent.”

Peter huffs a confused laugh. Not decent? If he means naked, well, Peter is more than fine with that. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“I said don’t come over.”

Peter stops and stares at the mess Tony’s made in his living room. The blinds are drawn, the light turned dim. Broken bottles all over the place. Tony’s sitting propped up against a wall, still in his dress pants and the white shirt he wore to dinner at Peter’s place. His shirt is open and there’s blood on his sleeve.

“Oh my god.” Peter intends to skid to his knees in front of Tony, but he seems to be sitting in a mine of broken glass. He pauses and looks around. “Do you have a…broom?”

Tony shrugs apathetically. Peter improvises, using a sofa cushion to push enough glass out of his way to kneel in front of Tony. He carefully inspects Tony’s bloody sleeve, trying to figure out where he cut himself. He has a couple of shallow cuts on his hand that seem to have stopped bleeding, but there could be more.

“Do you want to, uh, not sit in broken glass anymore?”

“Why bother,” Tony says. He trails a hand over the floor and plays idly with a piece of glass.

Feeling very concerned, Peter catches the hand and pulls it up to his throat, where he wears the necklace Tony gave him. Tony looks at him, expression subdued.

“Does your aunt think that’s creepy?”

Peter blinks. “Who cares? I love her and everything, but this isn’t her business. Just ours. And I love it.”

Tony rubs his finger against the indents on the underside of the metal, tugging Peter closer by it. Peter slides his hands inside Tony’s open shirt and hugs him around the waist.

“Did May make you feel so bad? Tony, I’m so sorry.”

“She thinks I’m disgusting.”

Peter closes his eyes briefly, wincing. “She’s my aunt, she’s basically obligated to be concerned for me. She’d be just as scary if I was dating someone else. Really.”

Tony looks so miserable it makes Peter’s heart ache with sympathy. He hugs him tighter, pressing kisses against Tony’s cheek.

Tony says, “I don’t think we should be together.”

Peter’s blood goes cold. He pulls back to look Tony in the face in horror.

“No, no no no. No. We definitely should.”

“You deserve better.”

“Stop it!”

Tony sighs. “Would you let me do the right thing for once in my life?”

“No!” Peter glares at him, getting ferociously annoyed not at anyone in particular – well, mostly at May, but he knows he shouldn’t be blaming her. “It’s not the right thing, it’s a stupid thing!”

Tony sighs again. “You don’t really like me.”

“Yes, I do.”

“I don’t really like you.”

Wow, that’s a lot harder to stomach. But Peter steels himself and thinks of all the times that Tony hadn’t been drunk out of his mind, laughing with warm affection in his eyes, calling him pet names and asking about his childhood and holding him close like Peter was something precious.

“I’m not going to believe you unless you say that to me sober,” he decides.

“I’m sober.”

“Said no sober person ever,” Peter says calmly. “Pepper warned me about this.”

“Doesn’t it worry you that I come with warning labels?”

“Everything good comes with warning labels. MJ said earlier that they’re gonna start putting warning labels on avocados cos people keep cutting themselves slicing avocados.”

Tony appears to be bewildered by this information, so Peter takes the opportunity to grab his hands and tug him to his feet. Drunk people, as he has noticed before, get at least 50% heavier. Tony sways on his feet and leans heavily on Peter.

“…When’s the last time you washed?” Peter says, muffled. Tony grunts. “Let’s do that now.”

As Peter helps Tony strip off his clothes, Tony says half-heartedly, “I don’t consent to this.”

That gives Peter pause. Tony’s very drunk, and he just said that he doesn’t want to be with Peter anymore. Maybe Peter isn’t allowed to strip him naked and help him wash. But neither does it seem good to just let Tony sit in dried blood and possibly vomit. Peter doesn’t think Tony really minds Peter touching him…but that’s not for him to decide, is it? He wishes that video on consent and tea had included a segment for this situation.

“Do you want to shower by yourself?” Peter tries, though Tony doesn’t seem to be in any state to do that.

“I don’t want a shower,” Tony proclaims, damningly. Then, even more damningly, “Go away.”

“Ummmmmm,” says Peter, stepping back to pull at his own hair in distress. “Next time you’re sober we should really talk about a safeword. Well, if you still want me around.” Peter’s voice drops into a mutter.

“What do you want then?” He tries.

“Vodka,” says Tony.

Peter thinks about that some more, so frustrated he’s smiling a little at the stupidity of this dilemma.

“How about…vodka after you shower?”

Tony heaves a huge sigh. “Fine.”

Well, that’s a relief. Tony makes no more protest as Peter finishes undressing him, sits him down on the marble bench inside his enormous shower, and turns the water on.

“Argh!”

“Sorry, sorry.” Peter scrambles to turn up the temperature. It had come out at the perfect temperature last time he’d been in Tony’s shower.

Tony relaxes as Peter rubs shampoo into his hair, massaging his scalp with gentle fingers.

“I don’t want vodka anymore,” Tony says, beginning to sound sleepy.

“Great,” Peter murmurs.

“I want whiskey.”

“…Okay.”

Peter squeezes out a few pumps of body wash, then hesitates, wishing that Tony owned a loofah so he wouldn’t have to touch Tony and worry if he’s molesting a drunk person.

“Is this okay?” Peter sweeps his hands across Tony’s chest, on his knees for a better angle.

Tony stares at him, then tugs Peter’s wet hair and shoves Peter’s face into his crotch.

“Mmm,” Peter mumbles, caught off guard. He’d been concentrating so intensely on consent issues he hadn’t really registered that he was on his knees in front of a very naked and wet Tony, his own clothes soaked and clinging to his skin. He opens his mouth and sucks, Tony’s cock filling his mouth before he can process any more thoughts. He hears his own moan echo startlingly off the walls of the shower and forces himself to pull back. Nope, nope, consent issues. He really needs to talk to Tony when he’s sober.

“Keep washing me,” says Tony, his voice a new shade of low and dark.

“Right,” Peter says shakily.

He intends to be perfunctory, but he doesn’t get very far before Tony has grabbed his hand and wrapped it around his cock, enclosing Peter’s hand in his as he rubs up and down. After this, Peter thinks faintly, he’s going to go right on YouTube and leave a comment for those consent tea people that they should make a sequel: what to do when you get mixed signals about whether he wants tea.

“You’re good at washing,” Tony whispers, using Peter’s hand to jerk himself harder, faster, the familiar sound of flesh slapping against flesh echoing around the shower.

There’s something sensible and mature in the back of Peter’s throat, but he can’t bring himself to say it. He kneels there, frozen, allowing Tony to use his hand as he pleases, until Tony orders, “Open your mouth.”

Consent, he thinks desperately, the word losing all meaning. Peter leans forward and sticks out his tongue and lets Tony put the head of his cock into his mouth as he comes. It tastes really bad. Peter swallows.

“Good boy.”

Peter closes his eyes, shivering in pleasure. He fists his hand against his thigh, where his erection throbs uncomfortably in its wet confines. Tony slumps suddenly, almost falling on top of Peter.

“Tony?” Peter pushes him back against the wall of the shower.

Tony has passed out on him, Peter discovers with rising panic. He leans limply against the smooth marble wall, eyes closed, face slack, his hand still wrapped loosely around his own dick.

Oh god. Oh god. Oh god.

Chapter Text

“Sir is awake,” JARVIS informs Peter.

Peter immediately pauses the screen on the game he’d been playing while waiting for Tony to wake and scrambles up. He picks up the tray he’d prepared, all the things that Tony needs when he’s hungover, that Peter learned from his last time in this situation. Heart in his throat, he knocks lightly on the door, then lets himself in, not really expecting a response.

“Peter?” Tony mumbles, squinting. “What are you doing here?”

So he doesn’t remember anything. Probably good, Peter thinks. He offers him his hangover cures and sits on Tony’s bed quietly waiting for him to become functional enough to talk to.

After some time, Tony says, “Did I call you? Did I say something stupid?”

“No and yes. What’s the last thing you remember?”

“I got back from dinner. Had a few drinks. Woke up hungover, had some more drinks. That’s it.”

Peter begins to tell Tony what happened, beginning with Michelle dialing him, knowing that would be impossible to hide considering phone records. He omits the fact that Tony tried to break up with him, glossing over the conversation. He does confess the incident in the shower.

“And then you passed out, which was. Alarming. Anyway, then I got you into bed and let you sleep.” He doesn’t bother to describe his freaked out conversation with JARVIS and the frankly miraculous strength with which he’d managed to drag Tony into bed. He swallows. “Um, I’m sorry I took advantage of you when you were so drunk.”

Tony doesn’t speak for a very long time. Peter sits and watches his face, trying to tell what’s going on in there from Tony’s expression alone. He can’t. Tony just looks…tired. He wants badly for Tony to tell him it’s okay, wants to touch him, hug him. He had refrained from touching Tony any more than he had to when Tony was unconscious, feeling that would be wrong of him.

“Peter,” Tony says finally, voice scratchy, eyes closed. “Take this at absolute face value, will you?”

“What?” Peter has a bad feeling about this.

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

Peter blinks.

“Let’s just be friends.”

Peter lets that hit him, incredulous disbelief slowly becoming the dominant emotion. 

“Let’s just be friends?” He repeats slowly.

Tony hums in affirmative.

“Why?”

“You know why. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

Peter doesn’t, really, know why. He doesn’t know what has changed before and after Tony meeting May. Peter’s still the same person, he still feels the same way. The same concerns existed then and now. Why is Tony reacting like this? He wants to ask, but misery is beginning to surface through his surprise, and he feels like he shouldn’t press Tony when he’s in such discomfort.

“What if I don’t want to be friends?” He asks instead.

“Then it was nice knowing you.”

Peter swallows. The misery begins to turn to terror at the idea of not having Tony in his life at all. He doesn’t think he can live with that.

“Okay. We can be friends.”

Tony reaches for his hand, squeezes lightly, and cracks open his eyes to look at Peter.

“Good. I could do with more of those.”

“Peter, what are you doing?”

Peter looks up from trying to stuff his pillow into his suitcase and finds May standing in his doorway, just home from work.

“Oh, hi.” He tries not to look mad, isn’t sure how much he’s succeeding. “I’m moving into the dorms at NYU.”

May looks taken aback. “Why?”

“Uh, well, with how much I’ve earned at SI this summer I can afford it, and, you know, the commute isn’t so great,” Peter says, continuing to stuff things into his suitcase. “It’ll be good to get the full college experience, with all my internship work and commuting I never made a lot of friends in the first year. It was kind of last minute but I got really lucky. So…yeah.”

It’s too much, he knows. May knows all about Peter and his rambling. She looks hurt.

“Peter…this is about Tony Stark, isn’t it.”

Peter takes a moment to school his expression. He doesn’t want to yell, doesn’t want to say anything mean when May is just looking out for him. It’s not fair to let his misery overflow into how he treats others. That’s something Ben always taught him. He zips up his case and looks up.

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“Peter-”

“Look, I know what you think, and I get it,” Peter interrupts, unable to hear May say something else like ‘I just want the best for you’. “I love you. But I’m an adult now and I’d like to be a bit more independent.”

May is silent for a long time. Peter catches sight of tears gleaming in her eyes and looks away quickly.

“Okay, I can relate to that,” she says finally. “I’ve been there too. Are you going to move right now?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll drive you.” She scrambles in her purse for her car keys.

“You don’t have to.”

May gives him a look. “Don’t tell me you’re stubborn enough to lug all your worldly belongings on an hour-long subway ride.”

Peter was exactly that stubborn, but he doesn’t think he ought to go that far. So he carries his suitcase and his backpack and all the other inconveniently shaped things that don’t fit into bags down to May’s car and they drive away. He doesn’t really want to talk.

While they’re stuck in traffic, May says, “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Peter can’t resist glaring at her, just a little. “He wants to be friends now.”

May doesn’t respond. Peter can’t help adding, “I’m sure that makes you happy.”

May sighs, and continues not responding. So they just drive on in silence until they get to the dorm.

May helps him carry his stuff up to his new room, noting that his roommate has already moved his stuff in but is nowhere to be seen. They say an awkward goodbye.

“We’ll see each other, right?” May says, as though to reassure herself.

“Of course,” Peter says hastily. “Yeah, I’ll come for…chats.” He revises the word ‘dinner’ at the last moment.

“We can eat out,” May says, rolling her eyes.

“It’s not you it’s me?” Michelle shouts over the phone. “Let’s just be friends?”

Peter winces. “I know.”

“And you just took that?”

“He tried to break up with me twice. Drunk and sober.” Peter tries not to make it heard how hurt he is over that.

“He clearly doesn’t mean it if he’s molesting you in the shower!”

“The molester, molestee relationship may be a little blurred here,” Peter says dryly.

“I did not put in so much work for Daddy Stark to pull a ‘it’s not you it’s me’ play,” Michelle fumes. “Unless, of course, you’re sick of his bullshit and ready to party it up properly, NYU style.”

“Nope.” Peter sighs, flinging himself onto his back on his new dorm bed. “I’m not sure what I can do though. He doesn’t want to talk to me about it. Like, he’s been returning all my messages except anything remotely flirty.”

“Be flirty in person.”

“What if it doesn’t work and he stops wanting to hang out with me altogether?”

“Unlikely. Then again, this was unlikely. I know you think even his farts are great, but your man needs to get over himself.”

“Uhuh,” Peter responds, cheered as always by Michelle’s charming view of the world and relationships. Come to think of it, he’s not sure Michelle’s had a relationship herself.

“Try making him jealous. He responds to that.”

“With what?” Peter says. “Imaginary guys at imaginary parties? That won’t hold up a minute when he’s actually clear-headed.”

Michelle’s talking, but Peter’s stopped listening, distracted by his door opening and his new roommate coming in. He sits up, hoping to make a good first impression on whoever he’s going to spend the next year sharing space with. The guy meets his eyes and smiles.

“I’ll call you back, MJ, I gotta go.” Peter hangs up at once. “Hi! I’m Peter Parker.”

“Harry Osborn.” His roommate walks forward and shakes his hand with the sort of casual confidence Peter’s never been able to project.

Pepper walks into the room, then just stands there not saying anything. Tony keeps tapping away at his computer for a long time, composing a very scathing email to an annoying dick, and sends it. Pepper's still there, just watching him. Tony sighs.

"Can I help you?"

"Can I help you?" Pepper says, folding her arms. "What's going on? That's the third lawyer you've fired this week."

"This acquisition is bullshit," Tony says crossly. "It's too good to be true and none of these idiots know their shit enough to get us a look at the books. Osborn is hustling us."

Pepper shakes her head. "You voted for this at the board meeting."

Tony flaps a hand carelessly. "I wasn't really listening. Doesn't matter, I'm on it now."

Pepper peers at him curiously. "Have you slept?"

"Yeah," Tony says dismissively. It's true, he has slept. Just not that previous evening. Or the evening before that.

"Have you been drinking?"

"Not enough to be a problem, Pep, will you drop it?" Tony knows it's bad as soon as the words are out. Pepper reels back in surprise at his tone, staring.

"Is everything okay with Peter?"

"Who?" Tony says without thinking it through, then grits his teeth. He doesn't look up to see what Pepper's expression is like at that. "Peter's good, we're good."

"Only four more days until your self-imposed deadline," Pepper says slowly. "Will you be in a better mood then?"

"Oh, yeah," Tony says, faking a big grin. "Just can't wait for the wait to be over."

Frowning, Pepper checks her phone. "Okay...well, if you need to talk about anything..."

"I appreciate that, Pepper. You're extraordinarily generous."

Tony watches Pepper leave, then leans back in his seat and sighs, closing his eyes. It feels like he's doing the right thing. This is what doing the right thing usually feels like, right? Painful. That's why they say do what is right, not what is easy. Tony will have to take conventional wisdom at its word, since doing what is right is not something he's extensively experienced in. He shutters his expression again, turns back to his screen, and clicks on the first of the three new messages.

“So what are things like at NYU?”

Peter’s grabbing dinner with Harry, just to get to know each other. The guy seems friendly enough, confident, stylish, handsome, everything Peter’s not.

“Oh, you didn’t go here before?”

“I got expelled from Harvard,” says Harry, flashing a smile and a shrug. “Daddy donated a library or something to get me in here.”

Peter blinks at that, unsure of the polite response. Then his brain catches up. “Wait, Osborn as in Oscorp?”

Harry smiles a little wider. “I wondered when you were going to realize that, so-called biochem major. We must be losing our reputation as a top employer. ”

“No, no, Oscorp is cool!” Peter says. “I think we went on a field trip there when I was in high school, it’s awesome. I just didn’t make the connection.”

“You want to do an internship with Oscorp? I can see if we’re still hiring,” Harry says.

“Oh, no, that’s really nice of you,” Peter says, slightly embarrassed, but, “I already have an internship with Stark Industries.”

Harry’s eyebrows shoot up. “Wow. You must be really good if SI got there first.”

Peter is pretty damn drunk. More drunk, possibly, than ever before in his life. As he and Harry were finishing up their sandwiches, a girl from Peter’s group project last term came over to say hi to them and invited them to go out with some other students. Peter doesn’t usually go to these things, busy, as he said, with commuting and work and keeping on top of his grades - but Harry was eager to meet some more new people, and it wasn’t like Peter had anything better to do this evening.

Harry quickly wins over everyone with the same effortless charm Peter had admired upon first meeting him. He seems to have that power of walking up to a group of strangers, fitting in, and becoming the center of the social group within ten minutes. Some of the spotlight rubs off on Peter, who has never been the greatest at starting conversations or meeting new people, but can carry a conversation just fine. Harry buys everyone drinks, not making a big deal of it, just keeping the liquor flowing. Peter finds pretty girls laughing at his jokes, and it’s nice to just not think for a while.

Now they’re at least three bars away from where they started, in the sort of place where the music is deafening and everyone’s on their feet and mingling. Peter has had maybe five beers? And one of those pink fruity drinks a girl gave him when she decided she didn’t like it. He’s a little dizzy and hopes that he’s not going to throw up. He squeezes through the crowd to get to the bar, wanting to get some air. He sees Harry over there somewhere - he has two girls hanging off his arms, laughing.

“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in a place like this?” A guy says close to his ear, the only way to be heard in this place.

Vaguely amused by how sleezy that line is, Peter turns to see a man in his thirties, in a suit, with dark blond hair and a goatee. He doesn’t look like Tony, not really, but there’s enough of a resemblance to Peter’s intoxicated brain that Peter smiles at him.

Peter has no idea how much time has passed - maybe twenty minutes? - when Harry catches his wrist and gives it a hard squeeze. Peter blinks at him, finds that the guy, not-Tony, has an arm wrapped around his waist. He doesn’t recall how that happened. Harry’s eyes flick between Peter’s face and the guy holding him with far too much clarity for what Peter has seen him drink.

He leans in, saying, “I’m heading back to our dorm. You coming?”

Peter does feel like going home. He nods. Harry keeps a hand around Peter’s wrist as he leads him through the crowded bar and out into the night. The sudden silence is deafening.

“Incoming call from Peter Parker.”

Tony checks the time, eyebrows going up. He’s sitting in his kitchen nursing his scotch at 2:34 am, and it’s an odd time for Peter to be calling. He picks up.

“Peter?”

There’s the sound of cloth rustling and noisy breathing, but no one speaks. Tony’s heart rate accelerates. Then, an unfamiliar voice says, “Hey, give me that, what the fuck? I said no drunk dialing.”

The line goes dead. Tony blinks. Then he calls back.

PAIN. Peter whimpers. His tongue tastes like sick. He needs rather desperately to pee, but any attempt to move sends the world spinning wildly out of control.

This is awful. Like, absolutely terrible. Why does anyone drink this if it ends up like this? Did Peter do it wrong?

There’s a sound like a clap of thunder. It takes Peter a while to register that it’s only the sound of the door opening and closing.

Then Harry says, far too cheerfully, “Morning, party boy. Oh, afternoon, actually. How’s the hangover?”

“Baaaaad,” Peter groans. “Why are you so…alive.”

“All the better to inform you of all the shit you did last night, my dear.”

Peter frowns through the throbbing in his head. He searches his memory, which vaguely involves lots of drinking, flirting with girls, a sleezy dude, and then going home with Harry. Well, to be specific, his memory stops like a blank wall at the sensation of the night air after they leave the bar. Did he pass out then?

He voices this question to Harry. Harry laughs a lot.

“Oh no. That’s not where your night ended, I’m afraid.” He laughs some more. “I admit, I was a little mad at first that I had to give up a threesome to check if you were okay with that sleezy dude all over you. But you being drunk? Is way more entertaining.”

Peter starts to feel some dread and something like subconscious memory pulling at him. He gropes for his phone under his pillow, where he usually puts it.

“Here,” Harry says, helpfully handing it to him. “You have five missed calls from Tony Stark, by the way. Oh, it’s seven now.”

“Uh-” Peter gapes. “Why- why’d you have my phone?”

“Because friends don’t let friends drink and dial.”

Wow. Peter takes one glance at the notifications on his screen and closes his eyes again, mortified.

“Um, shit. Thanks? I, I guess I should explain-”

“Don’t worry about it.”

Oh wow, Harry must be an actual angel. He’ll have to send a thank you note to Student Accommodation.

“You already told me all about it last night, between crying...and kissing me...and throwing up. You also claimed to be very good at blowjobs and offered to give me one. Though at that time you seemed to think I was Tony Stark. But then again, at the points where you realized I wasn’t Tony Stark you kept trying to call him, so it ended up being easier not to correct you. Don’t worry, I didn’t take up your offer on the blowjobs. Do you want to see the video?”

Peter pulls the covers up over his head and tries intensely to cease to exist.

Chapter Text

Peter lets his phone drop onto his chest for the fifth time, sighing, failing to think of something to say to Tony. On the other bed, Harry sits cross-legged with his laptop in his lap, occasionally sipping from a cup of coffee on his desk. When Peter glances over at him, he catches Harry’s amused gaze.

“Do you want my advice?” Harry offers.

“Yeah, please,” Peter says. What does he have to lose? Dignity? Ha.

“Ghost him.”

Huh. Peter has the urge to turn the other way and pretend he didn’t hear that. But that would be rude.

“Uh…why?”

“You want to figure out a guy like Tony Stark?” Harry lifts a hand and gives a sarcastic wave. “I’m a guy like Tony Stark. Younger and better looking, but…I’m not going to judge your taste in men. Anyway. Do you know where you’ve gone wrong?”

Peter swallows. He has quite a number of theories in regards to that, but he doesn’t think that’s what Harry wants him to say. He shakes his head.

“I’ll bet that you’ve made yourself too available. Too convenient.” Harry tilts his head and makes a face, as though to soften the blow. “Answering every call, every text, rearranging your life so that you can say yes every time he wants to see you.”

That’s…humiliatingly on point. But then again, after watching the video, he doesn’t feel like he has any shame left to feel in front of his new roommate.

“Sounds like me,” he says.

Harry grins. “Right. And I’ll thank you not to repeat this to anyone you catch dating me - but guys like us, we have it too good. Everything’s handed to us and we’re used to that. And it’s not that he doesn’t like you - clearly he’s into you if the half dozen missed calls mean anything - he’s just used to it being easy, and the second it’s a little hard, he’s noping out of here.” He pauses thoughtfully. “Make him see that you won’t be waiting around however long it takes for him to pull his head out of his ass, and he’ll be all over you again like that.” He snaps his fingers.

“Really?” Peter is really, really doubtful of that idea. It seems…counter-intuitive. “Won’t he just…go for someone easier, then?”

“No,” Harry scoffs. “He doesn’t actually want it easy. He’s just lazy. Human nature. Trust me.”

“Okay,” Peter says slowly, trying to wrap his head around it. He likes getting advice about things, and Harry has a point, probably, about understanding the way Tony might think. “So…I don’t call him back?”

“Nope.”

Well, that is awfully convenient when Peter still hasn’t thought of what to say to him.

“I don’t call, I don’t text, then…what? Is there some sort of sign I’m waiting for?”

Harry opens his mouth, then makes a face like it’s too complicated to explain. “I’ll tell you when. Keep me updated.”

“Okay, thanks,” Peter says. Then he can't help adding, “You’re…very invested for having met me yesterday.”

Harry laughs so hard his laptop falls off his lap. “Peter. I don’t think our relationship can be judged in days with all we’ve been through.”

Peter turns pink.

“Those first five minutes I met you you seemed so straight-laced.” Harry shakes his head mock-mournfully. “Five hours later, you’re monologuing about your amazing skills at giving head while hugging the toilet bowl.”

Peter closes his eyes in embarrassment and sinks further into his blankets. “I’m never drinking again.”

Harry laughs incredulously and throws something at him. Peter fishes around until he finds it in the folds of his sheets - a pen - and lobs it back.

“Okay, that’s it.” Tony slams down his phone, turns around, and demands, “Find out what Peter’s been up to.”

“Are you certain?” Says JARVIS.

“Well, what am I supposed to do?” Tony fumes. “I’m not gonna keep calling. He has all my texts on read. Peter’s not usually the type to play games, I want to know what’s going on.”

“Initiate social media, GPS data, and CCTV searches for Peter Parker?”

“Yes,” Tony says, glaring.

“Screening.”

Tony paces restlessly while JARVIS works. His mood, which has been bad ever since he decided he ought to be friends with Peter, has taken a turn for the worse since Peter has stopped talking to him entirely for no reason he can figure out. It’s been so terrible, in fact, that Pepper has shooed him home and demanded that he not come back until he doesn’t make his employees cry. So Tony has been brooding, and pacing, and trying not to be annoyed with absolutely nothing to distract him.

“16:45 pm, August 27th,” JARVIS says. “Peter Parker’s Stark Phone was located at an NYU dorm building and has been frequently located there since. It seems he has moved in. The signal was then stable at this restaurant on the same street,” JARVIS pulls up a map, “then later at 7:13 pm, this bar, one frequented often by students of NYU, according to its Yelp reviews. At 1:26 am, August 28th, CCTV captured Mr Parker exiting another bar two blocks away.” The CCTV image lights up the screen. Peter is clearly drunk and stumbling, blinking up in the direction of the camera for a few seconds before his companion leads him away.

“Who’s that with him?”

JARVIS works on that for a few seconds, then replies, “Harry Osborn. 87% facial recognition match. He is also listed as Mr Parker’s roommate in NYU student accommodation records.”

“Norman Osborn’s son?”

“Yes.” JARVIS pulls up a picture of Norman and Harry Osborn at an event to compare with the small, grainy CCTV image.

Tony grits his teeth. “Go on, J. What else?”

“Mr Parker and Harry Osborn have been seen together in public frequently since they moved in together.”

JARVIS fills the screen with a number of images: CCTV snaps in various locations, someone’s Instagram post tagging both Peter and Harry Osborn. In the Instagram post, a selfie with a group of students around a restaurant table, Peter sits next to Harry Osborn smiling and leaning into him to get his face into the frame.

Tony fights the urge to throw something. “Tell me more about Harry Osborn.”

It takes JARVIS almost no time at all to pull up various articles from websites familiar to Tony, the same ones that are always publishing gossip about him. Harry Osborn, born December 2000, went to Bronx Science, then Harvard for chemistry. There are pictures of him with beautiful women at various parties since he was fourteen. The tabloids have plenty to say about his colorful night life. He is suspected to have been expelled from Harvard due to drug use.

What a dick.

“Where’s Peter now?”

“Mr Parker is currently in Organic Chemistry, at 650 First Avenue. It is his last class of the day.”

Tony pockets his phone and heads to the elevator without another word.

Tony: did you drunk dial me?

Tony: you okay?

Tony: call me back when you wake up

Tony: I have wisdom to share on the art of drinking

Tony: [eyeroll]

Tony: you know I can see you have me on read right

Tony: this is just insulting

Tony: ???

Peter is looking at Tony’s texts for probably the millionth time while he fumbles his keys out and unlocks his door. Tony stopped calling so often after the first day, only once or twice a day. Peter watched his phone ring out while he was in class - that makes 22 missed calls. He feels bad. Anxious, on edge. He was more tempted at first to text Tony back, but as it went on for longer and Harry still said it wasn’t time yet, Peter is no longer tempted to text Tony, too scared of how mad he must be about it, though he’s obsessing about it every spare moment, wondering when he’ll call again, if he’ll call again. He still doesn’t know what he’s waiting for.

It’s so stressful. And stupid. Why can’t people just, like each other, and be up front about it, and be together?

He opens the door and freezes at the sight of Tony Stark sitting on his narrow dorm bed, flipping through one of his textbooks.

If there was a sign or something, Peter guesses this must be it.

Heart hammering away, Peter puts on his best poker face and closes the door behind him. Tony looks up.

“You’re trespassing,” Peter says, with barely even a waver. So far, so good.

“You’re avoiding me,” Tony returns. Peter tries not to shiver at the sound of his voice.

“You said let’s be friends.”

“What sort of friend never calls you back?”

“Friends don’t have to talk to each other all the time.”

“Oh?” Tony shoots a venomous glare at the opposite bed. “I guess you’ve been busy.”

Peter frowns at that, alarm bells ringing, because there’s no particular reason Tony should connect Peter not talking to him to Peter’s roommate. There’s no reason he ought to know who Peter’s roommate is. Come to think of it, how did he even know which dorm Peter lives in?

“Did you…stalk me?”

Tony squares his shoulders defensively, glaring at him. “You wouldn’t talk to me!”

Peter tries not to laugh, because he really shouldn’t find that cute. Really. He swings his backpack off his shoulder and flings it onto his bed for something to do.

“Tony, that’s creepy. And not appropriate behavior. Between friends.”

Like a child throwing out distractions when confronted about their bad behavior, Tony looks at Harry’s bed again and announces, “He does drugs.”

“He went to rehab,” Peter says, giving him an unimpressed look. “You went to rehab like, three times.”

Tony scowls. “His old man’s a dick. We’re acquiring their pharmaceutical wing - real suspicious deal - and suddenly his son is rooming with the only NYU student who knows me. It’s a plot.”

“Harry’s dad bribed Student Accommodation to put him with me, when I applied like five days before move-in, so he can somehow wrangle SI secrets out of you, through me?” Peter clarifies, staring.

“Exactly! You gotta admit, his motives are extremely suspect.” Tony crosses his arms.

“Okay, Harry barely even talks to his dad-” Peter begins, then stops, because why is he even bothering to try to argue the corporate espionage point? It’s clearly not the actual point. He smiles, though he tries not to. “I’m surprised you don’t like him. He’s a lot like you.”

“He is not,” Tony says, surging to his feet in indignation, bristling. Peter ignores the instinct to step back. “So what, you’re replacing me?”

Peter shrugs. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just friends.”

“Fuck that,” Tony snaps. He shoves Peter against the door with a hand to his chest and forces a kiss on him, angry and possessive.

Peter is ecstatic. He struggles, just to feel Tony pin him down. Somewhere deep in his head there’s a voice that sounds like MJ remarking on how deeply unhealthy this is, but he’s hardly going to be listening to that while Tony bites at his lip, hand around his throat. Tony comes up for breath, panting and triumphant, holding in his fist the silver disc Peter wears everywhere. He tugs lightly.

“Not very friendly of you,” Peter quips, squirming in pleasure.

“Mine,” Tony tells him sternly, and kisses him again.

Tony lies in Peter’s narrow bed, the boy squashed up against him. Peter’s head is pillowed on his arm, Peter’s arm wrapped around his waist, their legs tangled together. He’s half hard in his pants but not about to jump Peter right now - the bed would probably break. It’s enormously satisfying to have Peter, right there, to touch him wherever Tony likes, pull him close and lick and bite.

Tony knows that he’s been played, because he’s not actually stupid, okay? That’s annoying, of course. Some of that annoyance is tangled up in the possessive rage with which Tony sucks bruises into Peter’s neck, high above his collar. But Peter looks so happy, his eyes shiny and adoring, cheeks flushed, lips bitten red. He can’t be very annoyed at him when he’s always known what Peter wants. And Tony only has so much self control. Now he has his arms full of the boy, pliant and sweet and willing, he can barely remember what possessed him to want to do the right thing. So he’s a sinner, an asshole, and he’s never going to be perfect. So he doesn’t deserve Peter’s uninhibited admiration. So what? He doesn’t deserve half the things he has and that hasn’t stopped him from enjoying the fuck out of them.

“This isn’t a healthy relationship,” he tells Peter petulantly, in case he hasn’t noticed.

Peter, busy groping between Tony’s legs, doesn’t even look up at him.

“Those sound kind of boring anyway.”

Tony pulls that roaming hand away from his crotch, because he’s not going to be tempted to have sex in a squeaky dorm bed, he’s drawing the damn line.

“You should come and live with me,” Tony says. It sucks here, and he doesn’t want Peter rooming with Harry Osborn, corporate spy or not.

Peter blinks at him in surprise, then shakes his head and presses a kiss against Tony’s jaw.

“No, thanks.”

“Why not?”

“You can’t go from ‘let’s be friends’ straight to ‘move in with me’,” Peter says, voice muffled with his face buried in Tony’s neck. “Even I know that.”

“Fuck the rules,” Tony declares. “I’ll be good to you, darling. Promise.”

Peter shakes his head minutely. Tony’s neck feels somewhat damp. Alarmed, he pushes Peter back slightly and yep, he is crying.

“Okay, fine, stay in this hovel if you like,” Tony concedes quickly, “Don’t do that!”

Peter shakes his head, hiding his face against Tony’s neck again. Tony stares at the opposite wall in abject terror. He really, really hates it when people he dates cry on him. He never knows what to do.

“I don’t want to live without you,” Peter says after a moment, his voice shaking with tears.

Tony pulls Peter closer, unable to speak due to a momentary tearing sensation in his chest region. Maybe he should ask Strange about that.

“We’re on the same page there,” he says eventually, keeping his voice soft.

Peter shakes his head again, not appeased if the damp feeling on his neck is any indication.

“What if, next time someone says something mean to you again and you don’t want me anymore?” Peter’s voice breaks.

“I won’t,” Tony says at once, but that’s clearly not good enough. Peter’s shoulders are shaking. If he lets Peter start sobbing he’ll have proven himself right and ruined this within half an hour. “Peter, angel, look at me. Please. You’re killing me.”

Peter blinks fat tears out of his eyes, sniffing. Tony has to force himself not to look away, wincing.

“I love you.”

“R-really?”

“I think so?” Tony shrugs, lifts a hand in a ‘who the fuck knows about my feelings’ gesture, then quickly catches himself. Not helpful. “I don’t want to live without you either. And fuck anyone who doesn’t like that.”

Peter smiles wetly. Then he does start sobbing.

“Stop,” Tony pleads weakly. “What…what do you want me to do? I could buy you a house?”

“Don’t want a house,” Peter says, hiccuping.

Well, there goes his only idea.

The door suddenly opens, Harry Osborn freezing as he catches sight of what’s going down in his dorm. Tony meets his eyes, caught between the urge to glare at him and the urge to grasp for help. Harry’s gaze flicks between Tony and Peter, then he gives Tony two thumbs up and backtracks away, closing the door quietly behind him.

Fuck. What a dick.

“I love you,” Peter sobs.

“I know,” Tony says, about to reconsider his belief in God just for the convenience of praying to someone else to fix this.

“Not for your fame or fortune, as cliché as that may be. I love you because you suck at Mario Kart. And you’re really whiny when you’re sick. And you said you’d build me a better sex dungeon. And you take me to eat weird ethnic food. And you want me to wear your name around my neck. And I like your cock. I really like your cock.”

Tony huffs a laugh that’s mostly bone-deep relief.

“I like your cock very much also. It’s real pretty. You’re the prettiest.”

Peter giggles.Tony kisses him, which is salty, and helpfully wipes the tears from Peter’s face with Peter’s sheets. So apparently, despite the crying, he’s doing okay at the moment.

Chapter Text

“Tonyyyyy,” Peter sings, the moment Tony picks up the phone. Tony smiles, yawns, and checks the time.

“Hello, sweetheart. Breaking your oath to never drink again, I see.”

Peter giggles. “I’m not drunk.”

“Where are you? Where’s your little bestie?”

On cue, Harry Osborn takes over the phone and rattles off an address. “Come and pick him up. It’s definitely your turn to hold his hair for him while he throws up.”

“On my way. Twenty minutes,” Tony says as JARVIS pulls up the route for him.

“Okay, hurry up. Peter! Stop lying on the sidewalk. No, I told you it’s not a fucking swimming pool. Shit.”

Smothering a laugh, Tony hangs up and pulls on the closest items of clothing he can find, makes his way down to the garage, slides into a car and steps on the gas.

It’s been a month since Tony and Peter officially embarked upon a relationship. They didn’t actually have sex that night, after they relocated to Tony’s penthouse. Peter had been rather embarrassed about the bursting into tears, quiet and clingy. They cuddled in bed together and kissed and talked, until Peter fell asleep in Tony’s arms.  Tony had lain awake, petting him, feeling more possessive than he’s ever felt in his life.

Tony has never been a particularly possessive person, actually. All of his things are easily replaceable. He has a soft spot for his robots, and JARVIS, particularly - but he wouldn’t say that he’s possessive of them. And he certainly would never have thought to be possessive of Pepper. Ha, never would dream of it. Pepper’s not that sort of person. Peter, though. Tony wants to collar him and mark him and put a tracker in him, wants to keep him safe and happy and loved. Is that weird? Does that mean he respects Peter less than he does Pepper? Or maybe it means he’s more attached? Tony isn’t sure. Either way, no one needs to know how often he checks Peter’s location through his phone.

Things have been going…well, he’d say. Peter’s so easy to get along with. Tony had wondered whether Peter would have more expectations of him once their relationship is official, but Peter seems pleased with their dates, though Tony hasn’t pulled anything particularly extravagant lately. He’s pleased with staying over most nights after his work at Stark Tower, with texting Tony in class and sending him memes he thinks Tony would appreciate. Peter doesn’t get upset by Tony not replying to texts or missing mysterious dating cues. And the sex - fuck, it’s hot. Let’s just say, Peter takes to everything Tony teaches him with curiosity and great enthusiasm.

Tony pulls up outside the bar and searches the loiterers outside until he sees Harry Osborn holding up Peter against a wall. He honks, which doesn’t immediately get their attention. He rolls down the window, inching forward closer to where they stand. Then he gets a closer look and his jaw drops. Peter’s draped all over his taller friend, his arms wrapped around Harry’s waist, his face buried against Harry’s shoulder. Tony can’t see Peter’s face, but from this angle, illuminated by streetlight, he gets a clear view of the soft affection all over Harry Osborn’s face.

Okay, what the actual fuck?

Tony presses on the horn again, this time letting it ring out long enough everyone in the area turns to glare at him, finally catching Harry Osborn’s attention. He tugs Peter over to the curb, Tony leaning over to open the door on the passenger side so Harry can dump Peter inside.

Harry closes the door and leans briefly on the open window to meet Tony’s outraged, WTF look. He doesn’t acknowledge it.

“You kids have fun,” he says, then disappears back into the bar with a little salute.

Tony turns to Peter. Peter’s looking at him with a big, silly, drunk smile, soft with adoration. All Tony’s outraged jealousy chokes in his throat.

“We are gonna talk when you’re not all blissed out,” Tony promises darkly.

Tony leans over to put Peter’s seatbelt on for him, and Peter leans in with his entire body, rubbing his cheek against Tony’s shoulder and clumsily groping his crotch.

“You’re even more like a puppy than usual when you’re drunk,” Tony mutters, pushing Peter back with a smile. “Sit, boy.”

Tony is starting to get real worried about Peter drinking in public, because it turns out that when Peter is drunk he has zero filter, zero inhibition, and is extremely horny. He keeps up a happy babble on the drive back to the tower about how much he loves Tony, with a short tangent into a tricky project in Organic Chemistry segueing straight into how he has found a porn actor who looks a lot like Tony and has been devouring his videos. He begins to rub himself through his pants while he describes to Tony a very imaginative gangbang.

Tony manages to get Peter into the elevator before Peter starts trying to climb him like a tree. Tony’s still filled with spiky annoyance, torn between Peter in his arms, happy and adoring, and the image he can’t get out of his head: Peter draped all over Harry Osborn, who looked at Peter like he was something precious. He is, of course he is. But he’s Tony’s.

“Down,” he orders curtly, peeling Peter off himself.

Peter drops to his knees at once, arms still wrapped around Tony’s waist. It’s an appealing sight, one that goes straight to Tony’s cock. The elevator dings and opens on the penthouse.

“C’mon,” he says, giving Peter’s hair a pull.

Peter crawls after him, full of fluid grace he never has when he’s sober.

If he were a better man, he probably ought to put Peter to bed and fend off his drunken advances. But he’s Tony Stark, so instead, when Peter tries to touch his cock for the twelfth time, he shoves it down Peter’s throat, rougher than he’s ever been, and takes vicious delight in watching Peter choke on him, tears spilling down his cheeks, black smudges against his eyes - wait, what? Tony pulls out his dick and cups Peter’s chin to inspect his face. Yeah, he is wearing eyeliner. Tony hadn’t noticed before in the low lighting.

“Well, aren’t you pretty,” Tony says, practically sneering, arousal warring with the knowledge that Peter got all pretty to go drinking with his roommate.

He gets the same feeling when he takes Peter’s pants off and finds that his boyfriend is wearing black lace panties against smooth, shaven skin. Peter is eager to show off, turning onto his hands and knees and pushing his butt back in a feline stretch. Tony peels the lace back, grabs a plump handful in each hand, and pulls Peter’s ass cheeks open to find a black silicone handle nestled in the crack. Aha. Maybe that explains why Peter’s so fucking horny this evening.

Tony works the plug out. It’s thin, about two inches long, nothing too intimidating or too uncomfortable to wear for hours on end. Peter moans at the loss and spreads his legs wider.

“Please, Tony.”

Tony finds that he’s not in the mood to go slow, not even to reach for the nearest lube bottle. He grips Peter by the hips and slams it in. In all honesty, he relishes Peter’s gasp of pain, the way his hips jerk away for a moment before Tony presses down on him with his full body weight and forces it on him. He pumps for a while before Peter relaxes. The force of Tony’s thrusts propel Peter flat on his stomach, legs shaking. Peter’s clutching the pillow, knuckles white, and Tony takes Peter’s wrists and pin them down, spreads his legs for better purchase, and fucks Peter so hard the bounce of the mattress throws Peter back up to meet him on every thrust.

Peter wakes up aching. His memory’s a little hazy - he may have overdone it a little on the Dutch courage - but he didn’t go so far as to actually black out, this time. Good, he would hate to lose the memory of such steaming hot sex. He lifts his wrist to check the time, and is surprised to find bruises blooming around it. He presses it, drawing in a sharp breath at the satisfying burst of pain.  He reaches back to trace a finger gingerly over his rim, and bites back a wince at how sore he is. Peter blinks at the ceiling, wide-eyed. Wow. Tony’s never been so rough with him before. He supposes his preparations paid off, then.

Smiling, Peter turns to his still slumbering boyfriend and presses kisses against his mouth until Tony drowsily kisses him back.

“Too early,” he complains, voice rough.

“It’s half past twelve,” Peter informs him.

“Yeah well,” Tony yawns. “Someone needed chauffeuring at 3 am.” His eyes snap open so suddenly it startles Peter. He frowns at Peter, his expression making Peter feel a little unsettled. “Huh. You…feeling okay?”

“Yeah!” Peter says enthusiastically. “So good. I’m so sore for you, sir. I love it.”

Tony gives him a half smile and sits up to check his phone. That leaves Peter blinking. That’s not the reaction he expected. Tony loves it when Peter says things like that. And he’s always extra affectionate after he’s been rough with Peter during sex. Peter expected to be kissed and petted and praised. Is he becoming too spoilt, too attention-seeking? Tony not doing that makes Peter feel wrong-footed, like he’s done something wrong.

“Do you want to shower with me?” Peter asks tentatively, trying to figure out if he’s being oversensitive or if there’s something actually wrong.

Tony shoots him a smile, barely looking away from his phone. He seems to be responding to an email. “No, darling. I’ll make breakfast. Pancakes or waffles?”

“Both?”

“Both it is.” Tony winks, and Peter feels a little better.

But then Peter sits down to his plate of pancakes and waffles, and gives a surprised gasp at how much it hurts to sit. Tony glances at him and wordlessly goes to fetch him a cushion. That’s…odd. Peter wants Tony to make a fuss over him so badly tears prickle at the back of his eyes. It’s stupid.

Feeling down, Peter pokes half-heartedly at his breakfast and sips at his coffee. They make small talk, and it seems like it’s fine, but Tony checks his phone every few minutes, which Peter hasn’t noticed Tony doing when he’s around before. Maybe Tony just has something urgent going on, but by the time Peter’s reached the bottom of his coffee he’s so anxious he just blurts it out.

“Have I- um, are we, are we okay?”

Tony lifts his eyes from his phone and gives Peter a measured stare.

So they’re not okay. Peter’s heart sinks and he swallows nervously.

Tony rolls his eyes to the ceiling, slaps his phone down on the counter, shrugs and says, “Okay, okay, fine. Let’s have it out. You and Osborn Jr - what’s going on there? What’s happening?”

Peter’s jaw drops. He utterly did not expect that. “Are we still on that?” He says, without thinking it through.

It’s a bad choice of words that he regrets even before Tony’s gaze narrows into a glare.

“I’m imagining things, am I? I’m being irrational.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean that. It’s just, there’s nothing going on. Really.” Peter half laughs at the ridiculousness of the thought.

“You still remember everything that happened last night?”

“Yeah, uh, I think so?”

“Cool. So you remember clinging all over your friend, with whom you have nothing going on.”

Peter frowns as he tries to recall this. Maybe that had happened. Oh yeah. When he was waiting for Tony…he’d somehow decided that the floor was a great place to swim and refused to get up until Harry bodily pulled him off the floor. Then he’d clung to Harry for a while because the world was spinning. Oh. Peter deflates.

“I- I did that. I’m sorry. I was drunk. I won’t do it again?” He says, hopefully.

Tony’s still looking unreadable, which means he’s still annoyed. Peter watches him anxiously while he tries not to get turned on, because that intimidating vibe totally does it for him.

“Is that all?”

“What?” Peter blinks a moment before he catches on, because seriously, the idea that he might cheat on Tony Stark is one he has difficulty wrapping around his head. In the spirit of full disclosure, he says, “Um. Before we got together, that time when I was drunk? I don’t remember it, but Harry says I kissed him.”

Tony’s face darkens. He looks so upset Peter’s too alarmed to be turned on anymore.

“We were on a break!” He says, hoping for a smile.

Tony doesn’t smile. “And your little get up last night?”

“You mean the-”

“The panties. The butt plug. The make up.”

At this, Peter is unexpectedly hurt. He dips his head at the sudden rush of tears.

“Oh, no no no no no,” Tony says, getting out of his seat. “You don’t get to do that. That’s playing dirty.”

“Okay, give me a moment,” Peter says, putting his face in his hands and forcibly blinking the tears back. When he succeeds, he says haltingly, “That was…for you. Of course. It’s just…we’ve been dating a month, and I know it’s not a real anniversary or anything, and I didn’t want to sound silly, but I kinda wanted to do something special. And I mentioned it to Harry, and then he got me the stuff and dared me to do it…”

“Wait, wait,” Tony interrupts, standing right next to Peter’s chair now. “Harry bought you the stuff.”

“Yeah?”

“Harry bought you a butt plug and panties.”

“Um…yeah.”

Tony stares at him. He doesn’t look angry anymore, just really confused. He pinches the bridge of his nose, takes a deep breath, and says, “Peter, do you think that’s a normal, thing, for friends to do?”

“Well,” Peter says, “you know, kids these days are a lot more open about these things?”

Tony gives him a face of outrage. “You’re really pulling the age card, kiddo?”

“It’s not weird,” Peter insists beseechingly.

Tony shakes his head. “So why didn’t you tell me you were coming over instead of calling me at 3 am drunk at a bar?”

“I was a bit nervous about it. Harry said maybe it’ll help me to have a beer or two.” Peter kicks his legs out half-heartedly. “I guess I overdid it.”

“Right,” Tony says, sounding resigned.

“Are you upset with me?”

Tony spins back around to his side of the counter again and runs his hand through his hair, looking frustrated.

“I can never tell with these things if I’m being a neurotic creep, so, whatever, here’s what I want; feel free to not listen to me. I want you to not get that drunk in public anymore, I worry about you. I want you to not live with Harry Osborn anymore, because the ‘boundaries’ of your ‘friendship’ seem a little blurry to me, and frankly, it bothers me. And thirdly, it seems necessary that there be a thirdly - maybe in future wear butt plugs only with my supervision.”

Peter thinks about that.

“Am I being controlling?” Tony asks evenly.

Peter shakes his head.

“Point one is sensible. I’m cool with point three.”

Tony gets a ‘oh, of course’ look at Peter’s omission of point two. Which really, really sucks. Because it’s kind of hot when Tony gets jealous, but Peter really doesn’t want this to be an actual problem for them, especially not a recurring one.

“If it really bothers you, I’ll apply to change roommates. But honestly, you have nothing to worry about.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “You’ll switch roommates.”

“Yeah.”

“And you won’t be all sulky about it.”

“No.”

“Or passive aggressive.”

“No! I want you to be happy. I’ll do it today if you like.”

Tony still looks vaguely suspicious, not entirely convinced, but he nods. “Good. I’d like that.”

Later in the day, some time after Peter goes back to NYU, Tony gets a video call from him.

“Harry wants to talk to you,” Peter says. He pauses, then says in a doubtful tone, “He also wants you to know that I’ll be leaving the room for this man-to-man conversation. He may have forgotten that I too have a dick.”

“It’s still man-to-man,” Tony hears Harry Osborn say in his usual, slick, charming voice.

“Fine, bring it,” Tony says.

The camera moves, Harry Osborn’s face coming into view, and he briefly switches to the back camera to show Peter walking out of the room. Then it switches back.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Harry says.

“Excuse me?” Tony says.

“You got all bent out of shape because Peter hugged me?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Anthony, I grew up on your sex tapes. That threesome with the guy and the girl? Spicy. What’s the deal? You embracing monogamy?”

Tony narrows his eyes at the kid, bewildered. “What’s your point? Are you trying to tell me you thought you had my blessing to seduce my boyfriend?”

“Don’t forget I had a hand in that being the case at all.”

“So you’re telling me you told Peter to ignore me. Yep, drowning in gratitude here.”

“Anthony,” Harry says with emphasis.

“Don't call me Anthony.”

“The first day I met your boy you were all he could talk about. I mean, I was still trying to figure out if it would make the rooming situation weird if we hooked up, but then he was all, Tony doesn’t want me, woe is me. So of course I gave him a hand. I’m practically your Cupid. I don’t know why you’re mad about my very tame suggestions for your monthiversary. You didn’t like it?”

“That’s not the problem,” Tony says diplomatically.

Harry smirks. “Good to know. So the problem is what? You think I’ll steal your boy?”

Tony glares. “It doesn’t sound like you don’t want to.”

“I never thought you’d mind even if I did take up Peter’s offer when he said he’d give me head. Oh don’t look like that. He was so fucking drunk he thought I was you. I’ll send you the video. But anyway, I have morals.” He shrugs. “If you’d prefer a more hands-off approach, I’ve got the message. But no way are you and your insecurities taking my pal away from me.” He scowls, looking serious for the first time Tony’s ever seen. “Peter’s the best friend I’ve had so far in my life. I’m not giving that up. So get over yourself, Anthony.”

Tony stares at him, begrudgingly a little impressed. A few seconds pass.

Harry says, “Well?”

“I thought you were going to hang up,” Tony says. That seemed to be where the tirade was leading.

“I have manners, man.”

How inconvenient. Tony would have preferred to not have to respond to that.

“Alright, Harold,” he says. “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

Harry grins cockily. What a dick.

“I’m your friend, not your enemy, Anthony.”

“Let’s just maintain polite disinterest,” Tony suggests.

Harry makes an ‘as you wish’ gesture.

“Well,” Tony says, the call quickly getting awkward.

Harry inclines his head in that well-bred manner Tony finds most familiar.

“Anthony.”

“Harold,” he returns, rolling his eyes as he ends the call.

Harry Osborn seems like a crazy little bastard, but hell if Tony doesn’t feel a bit better about the whole thing anyway. And he’s actually rather looking forward to that video. So much he might even give the little shit his number to get it.

Chapter Text

“How was the talk, big man?” Peter says, coming in with the coffee he’d gotten at the cafe down the street while he was exiled for the great man-to-man talk.

“You don’t have to move,” Harry says casually, lying back on his bed swiping at his phone.

“Really?” Peter’s first reaction is to pull out his own phone and text Tony to see what he says.

Harry catches sight of him doing it and stares. “Are you actually checking with him to see if you’re allowed?”

Peter freezes, because, uh, that seems like an accurate description of what he’s doing and also, that sounds like a really cringy thing to be doing. He sinks to sit on his bed under Harry’s incredulous stare.

“I’d make the whipped noise, but you seem to have realized by yourself.”

“Have I…screwed up?” Peter says slowly.

Harry snorts, lifting his phone again. “Oh no, I’m staying out of this. I just promised His Majesty I’d butt out of your…thing.”

“Now you’re taking orders from him?” Peter says indignantly. “And I’m whipped.”

“I’m not dating him.” Harry shrugs. “Frankly that would be a bit narcissistic.”

Peter sits there thinking for a long moment, while Harry continues to type on his phone. Then he says, musingly, “I don’t think I should be okay with him telling my friends what they can talk to me about.”

“No comment,” says Harry without looking up.

Peter continues, mostly talking to himself. “Why did it make so much more sense to go along with it when he was right there?”

Harry snorts again, then sits up and starts putting on his shoes. “Okay. I have a Tinder date. You have fun figuring out how you feel, how you’re supposed to feel, the differences and overlaps thereof, etcetera etcetera. Don’t wait up.”

Peter flops down on his back, procrastinating on said thinking while he watches Harry trying to pick a jacket. “Go with the blue.”

“Blue it is. I hope Tara appreciates it. See ya.”

Peter closes his eyes as the door shuts. How does he feel?

Well, kind of anxious. He’s been kind of anxious since that morning, when Tony didn’t react like Peter wanted him to, and he’s just been trying to get back their usual camaraderie since then. Peter had wanted to be reasonable, to be understanding of Tony’s feelings, so much he hadn’t really taken a pause to consider how he feels.

He also feels hurt, that Tony thinks it’s a possibility Peter might cheat on him, a possibility that can be erased through physically separating Peter and Harry from the same room. When Tony had said he’d feel better if Peter didn’t live with Harry, all Peter had thought was that he doesn’t mind all that much, since he can still hang out with Harry, and it was okay as long as that made Tony happy. That’s not really making the problem go away though, is it?

Beyond that, he’s still not sure where he stands with Tony, and what the hell Harry could have said to make Tony change his mind, which - in his defense - is part of the reason his immediate reaction was to text Tony and see what he says. If Harry could have convinced Tony to drop it in like ten minutes, does that mean Peter could have done it too, and just didn’t make the effort to reassure Tony rather than going along with what he wants? Or maybe, Tony was only worried that Harry might be into Peter, not vice versa, and Harry persuaded him against that?

Peter grips his hair in frustration. He’s gotten used to having someone to talk through his feelings with and he’s rather tempted to text Michelle. But he has a feeling Michelle would find this whole situation weird as all fuck, and he doesn’t want Michelle to think badly of Tony.

He’s also…uh, disappointed, actually. He’d wanted to do something special, to give Tony a sexy surprise, but instead he got this. And…oh. Last night, when Tony had been so rough with him…that hadn’t been because Tony thought he was hot, had it.

This realization makes Peter’s mood dip sharply. It colors the entire experience in his mind differently. Peter can’t quite pinpoint why, but it makes him feel like a real idiot.

He lifts his phone, finds the top contact, and dials Tony Stark on that thought. Tony picks up on the first ring.

“Peter?”

“I’m upset,” Peter says. “With you.” He clarifies.

There’s a pause.

Then Tony says, “I’ve always dreamed of dating someone who straight up tells me when that happens.”

Peter laughs a little despite his mood. “Does it live up to the dream?”

“Will you be even more perfect and tell me why and how to fix it?”

“Uhh. I actually only reached this far in my processing of feelings before I called to tell you about it.” Peter now feels that he may have jumped the gun a little.

“Do you want to come back over to finish that processing?”

“Can’t. I have an eight am class tomorrow.”

“Fuck that shit - I mean, education is most important, young padawan.”

Peter smiles. “You could…come over? Harry’s not here. He’s on a Tinder date with someone named Tara.” He’s not sure why he felt the need to share Harry’s whereabouts in such detail, but okay.

There’s a silence.

“What?” Peter says.

“Definitely not thinking how weird it is that he needs a one night stand the moment I tell him to leave off you,” Tony says.

“Okayyy,” Peter says. “I’ll have to finish the processing before I can respond to that.”

“I’ll come over in about an hour?”

“Okay. See you.”

Roughly an hour later, Tony knocks on Peter’s door with a big bouquet of roses. He hands it to a surprised-looking Peter, then pulls out a stack of apology cards from his inside pocket.

“I came prepared,” he says. “I will sign whichever of these turn out to be most appropriate after we talk.”

By this age, Tony has a wealth of experience in what to do when he upsets his boyfriend/girlfriend. Apologizing is most effective. He ought to go around all the time wearing a T-shirt that says ‘sorry for being awesome’. It can be the new fashion.

Looking amused, Peter says, “So it’s like a quiz on how well you understand my being upset via greeting card.”

“Damn. I didn’t think of it like that.” Tony abruptly wishes he’d grabbed the whole selection of apology cards instead of just the first row.

“Don’t worry,” Peter says, looking around for somewhere to put the roses. He settles on his desk. “Everybody passes.”

“Oh, I’m not going to settle for a participation award.” Tony closes the door and leans on it. “Talk to me, sweetheart.”

Peter turns to him, crosses his arms, then thinks better of it and puts his hands in his pockets. He looks as though he’s mentally arranging words.

“Were you so rough with me last night because you were angry at me?” He says finally.

Well, shit. Tony ducks his head and shuffles through his greeting cards. He holds up one that has a cactus on it and says ‘I’m sorry I was such a prick’. Maybe he should have gotten a cake too. But alas, time constraints.

Peter takes the card, has a look, and slaps it lightly against Tony’s chest.

“Tony,” he says, sounding more sympathetic than upset, “That’s…not good.”

“One sec.” Tony shuffles through his greeting cards some more.

“Tony.”

Tony sighs. He doesn’t really want to look at Peter’s expression of restrained hurt. He steps forward, and when Peter seems receptive, wraps his arms around him.

“I’m sorry. That was bad. I know.” Peter relaxes in his grip and Tony strokes his hair. “What can I do to make it up to you?”

Peter looks up at him suspiciously. “You’re thinking about buying me stuff again, aren’t you?”

“N-no?” Tony says. Peter is really tearing apart his problem-solving skill set here.

Peter shrugs exasperatedly. “Moving on…I should probably have addressed this in the morning, but it was early…why, uh, why exactly do you think I might cheat on you? I’m…like, hopelessly in love with you. I would have thought, if anyone was going to worry about that in this relationship it would be me.”

“I don’t…think you’ll cheat on me, exactly.” Tony furrows his brow, thinking it through. “I don’t even approve of fidelity as a concept. I just don’t like the way you interact with that kid.”

Migrating to sit on his bed, Peter frowns at that. Tony follows, reaching out to stroke Peter’s thigh, not sure if he’s trying to comfort Peter or himself.

“If it’s not about fidelity, why don’t you like it?”

“‘Cos it’s way too flirty and you’re mine.”

Peter stares at him. Tony has the distinct feeling of having said something wrong, instinct born from decades of saying shit wrong during such discussions. He examines his apology cards. When the silence goes on long enough for him to dismiss ‘sorry I’m a little shit’ and ‘I’m sorry, oh wait…I’m not’ and ‘my bad’, he checks on Peter’s expression again.

“Not good?”

Peter shrugs helplessly. “I…that has me hard and also that’s definitely unhealthy. My processing has errored out.”

Tony’s brain, of course, zooms in on the first part of that statement and he pulls Peter in for a kiss.  He suggests, “We need a 'that's too crazy' button. A balance between hot and healthy. I can write an algorithm.”

“Like a safeword?”

“I thought safewords are like crying chicken when you’re playing chicken.”

Peter gapes at him. “That’s definitely not what safewords are like.”

“How would you know?”

“I go on the internet.”

“I’ve been to a bunch of BDSM clubs.”

“Maybe you misunderstood.”

“I’m a genius.”

“At making robots.”

Tony pouts. Peter, on the other hand, perks up.

“I have an idea. We should try doing the BDSM stuff, negotiating safewords, all that. It can’t hurt to try, right?”

Tony grimaces. He doesn’t like having that many rules and discussions to go with his sex. When he’d first heard of the concept, the first thing he’d thought was that he’d never heard of anything so un-fun. But he wants to do right by Peter, and he has a sneaking feeling he’s failing at the moment.

“Sure, we can give it a try.”

Peter gives him an enthusiastic kiss. “Cool! I’ll do some research.”

Tony pulls Peter close, trying to find words for that tender, achy feeling he has towards him, and along with it, the fear that Peter will be disillusioned once he knows Tony well enough. Peter is so sweet, so unfairly understanding. He suspects other people would have slapped him at this point. God knows that’s happened often enough.  He hardly knows what he can do to deserve Peter.

"I love you," he says, and hopes that's good enough.

Tony is a grand gestures sort of boyfriend. Peter is starting to get the fact that Tony substitutes grand gestures for actually communicating with people, which is relatable, because communicating is hard. In the next few days, Peter gets couriered a vase to put his roses in (a Chihuly, according to Harry), a steady supply of new flowers to put in it, chocolates, a cake, a pen, a notebook. Peter can just imagine Tony stopping to think of him at some point during work and demanding to JARVIS, “Send Peter something nice. Uh…a pen?” It makes him smile.

The safeword Peter picks is Iron Man, inspired of hours of glancing aside at the plush robot sitting on his desk while he does his Googling. “Iron Man says STOP”, he sends Tony a picture of the toy with some doodled pow-wow effects. A few hours later, Tony returns a picture of his plush robot sitting in the center of his bed, captioned “Spider Man says yeah baby”.

Peter’s BDSM research is also eye-opening in terms of the processing of feelings. Before, Peter hasn’t really had an interest in delving into the more technical side of how it all works, not having anyone to practice with - basically, he just watched porn. But now he discovers that the way he feels is not unique. He’s conflicted about this, because some part of him refuses to accept that what he has with Tony Stark is in any way replicable. On the other hand, it’s helpful to read articles on how other people set the boundaries of their interactions. Peter gets so far down the kinky internet hole that everything is filled with jargon, and he begins to understand why Tony doesn’t want to bother with it. But they don’t have to do it that way.

He knows that Tony thinks BDSM negotiations are boring, so he makes a game of it. They play blackjack, and whoever loses has to pick a kink from the list Peter printed off the internet and talk about whether they want anything to do with it. (Peter has already diligently thought through his answers to the questions on several variations of the list. It’s been eye-opening.) It does not end up being boring at all. In fact, Tony ends up showing off his shibari skills, becomes inspired, and gets JARVIS to order a new bed. They talk about things that are okay for Tony to control Peter in, like orgasms. And things that are not okay for him to control, like how Peter interacts with his friends. Peter gives the green light for Tony to order him a whole lot of underwear and tell him what he should wear.

“Pepper and I used to have an open relationship, at some points,” is one of the most unexpected things Tony says during their game.

“What was that like?” Peter asks, curious.

“Oh, that worked fine.” Tony says, shuffling the cards. “I wouldn’t say that had anything to do with our break up. We were apart a lot, and we’re both good at having lighthearted fun.”

“Is that why she wasn’t really mad when uh…you had me in your bed the same night you broke up?”

“No, but…” Tony shrugs. “She knows what I’m like.”

Peter chews his lip for a moment. “I don’t…I don’t think I want that. Polyamory, I mean.”

“Not sick of me yet, huh?”

“Never.”

Tony gets a wicked smirk. “Let’s practice that safeword thing.”

Peter doesn’t have time to figure out what he means by that before Tony pounces on him, cards flying everywhere, and starts tickling him mercilessly. Peter squeals and struggles wildly, laughing and flailing and cursing his lack of athleticism.

“Stop it, stop it, Tony, please!”

“Hot,” Tony says, tongue in cheek, pressing his advantage. He has Peter’s arms pinned to the floor with one forearm and has managed to sit firmly on Peter’s thighs, leaving Peter’s sides completely open to attack.

Peter buckles and begs, giggling helplessly, until Tony stops and complains, “You’re supposed to call for Iron Man, Defender of Earth.”

Peter shakes his head firmly, catching his breath. “I told you it’s not like crying chicken. You’re supposed to stop before I want to say it.”

“Did I?”

Peter makes a thinking face. Then he uses Tony’s distraction to escape his hold and turn the tables on him.

“I’m not ticklish,” Tony says, fending him off with a forcibly straight face.

Peter goes for his feet. Tony’s poker face crumples in like a second, and he emits a surprisingly high pitched squeal. They have a brief tug of war, Peter hanging onto Tony’s ankle, before they flop on top of each other, both laughing.

“Now I know how to effectively wake you up in the morning,” Peter says, thinking of the grumpy monster that is Tony when he has to get up any time before noon.

“I would like to safeword out of that,” Tony says.

Chapter Text

Peter has his hands tied to the headboard, two pillows stuffed under his waist. He’s completely naked but for the pendant at his throat, while between his legs, holding Peter’s legs open as he thrusts into Peter, Tony only has his flies undone. He’s still wearing his tie, for god’s sake.

“There’s this Christmas party I want to take you to,” Tony says, voice completely steady, as though this is perfectly normal conversation to be having.

Meanwhile, his cock brushes Peter’s prostate again and Peter clenches reflexively, biting his lip to muffle his moan.

“S-seriously?”

“Yep. Next Saturday. You don’t have plans, right?”

“You seriously - want to talk about - that now?” Peter gets out with a bit of a hitch in the middle as Tony picks up the pace slightly.

Tony grins smugly, leaning forward to look into Peter’s eyes, grinding the full length of his cock into Peter’s ass. He dips his head to bite a nipple, laving it with his tongue and tugging meanly.

“Payback’s a bitch, isn’t it?”

Peter’s brain is too fried to understand what he means for long moments. He throws his head back as Tony sucks wet kisses up his neck and jaw. Then he giggles.

“Just cos, last time I was on top, I made you do physics questions?”

Yes, Tony clearly still holds that grudge. He nips at Peter’s bottom lip.

“High school physics questions.”

“That was awesome,” Peter whispers, laughing breathlessly. “You only got 75% - ah, Tony!”

Tony slams into him punishingly, one hand coming up to grip Peter’s throat.

“I got one question wrong,” he corrects sulkily.

“Ye-yeah, 75%, I can still do math, see?”

Tony squeezes until Peter can’t talk anymore. Peter’s laughter trails off into whimpers as Tony hitches one of Peter’s legs over his shoulders and fucks in still deeper, the wet slapping sounds mixing obscenely with Peter’s moans.

“So, Saturday?” Tony prompts, finally sounding out of breath himself.

“Yes,” Peter says, having lost any idea what he’s agreeing to.

Afterwards, while Peter is lying there feeling like a liquid rather than a solid, he thinks back and says suspiciously, “Wait, what devil’s bargain did I agree to while you had your dick in me?”

Tony casually trails a hand down to push his fingers into Peter’s relaxed hole.

“A party, I said. You never listen to me, honestly. There’ll be a bunch of rich assholes I see regularly enough they pretend to be friends with me when we’re in the same room. You’ll need a suit.”

“I’ve got a suit.”

“The four-figures kind. I’ll get you one.” He curls his fingers lightly into Peter’s sensitive prostate.

“Hn, stop it.” Peter squirms out of Tony’s reach and stares at him. “Is this like a high society, Forbes Top 100 thing?”

“Ehhh,” Tony says dismissively.

“I can’t go! We’re not telling people about us, I thought we agreed.”

“We’re not telling the public,” Tony says, kissing the panic from Peter’s face. “It’s just a private thing. It’ll be fine. I have to show my face every so often, and these things are so dull. Don’t make me go by myself.”

Over breakfast the next morning, Peter announces, “I want to buy my own suit. Let me surprise you.”

“Sure, take my credit card.” Tony fishes out his wallet and hands Peter one of the cards.

“Um,” Peter says, blushing. He doesn’t want to take money from Tony, but he definitely can’t afford to drop money of his own on four-figures suits. “Thank you.”

Tony grins and kisses him, sliding the card into Peter’s back pocket as he does.

“Don’t thank me, you dork. Come here and let me give you a lesson in how to pick suits.”

“Ooh, can I wear those wacky movie star suits? Plaid? Hot pink? Sequins?”

Tony shoots Peter a dirty look as he guides him towards his walk-in closet.

“Go ahead. I won’t let you come for a week, though.”

“Worth it,” Peter says under his breath.”

“Now it’s a month.”

“Damn it.”

“Stark is taking you to the Annual Rich Bastards Pat Themselves on The Back Gala?” Harry snorts.

Peter frowns, worried. “He said it’s a private party. You’re saying it like it’s a…Thing.”

Harry gets that look. The ‘aw, look at innocent naive lil Peter’ look. Peter hates the look.

“There won’t be any reporters there. Just lots of rich bastards, sipping champagne, trading insults, making backroom deals that influence the country and the world.”

“What, like in the movies?” Peter tries to wrap his head around this allegedly private party. “Will the president be there?”

“Oh, Donald never misses it.”

Peter gapes. Of course. Of fucking course.

“You’ve been?”

“My dad dragged me along a few times when I was younger.”

Peter grabs the front of Harry’s shirt and shakes him theatrically. “You gotta tell me what I have to do to not embarrass myself.”

Harry shrugs. “Smile, pretend to know everyone’s names, don’t gossip about anyone to their face.”

“That’s wildly unhelpful,” Peter tells him.

It’s the first time Tony’s taken him out in any sort of social event, and Peter badly wants to impress. Bottom line, he wants to not be an embarrassment. He’s starting to regret saying that he’ll pick his own clothes, but he can’t go back on it now. Desperate times call for desperate measures. He calls Michelle to go shopping with him.

Peter goes shopping on Fifth Avenue with Michelle and Ned, recently home for Christmas break. Both of them are very interested to hear the scoop on his high society life. He half expects to encounter snootiness in all these glamorous stores he’s previously known only by their window-fronts, but the shop people are all impeccably nice and helpful when Peter tells them he’s looking for a suit to wear to a fancy party.

“So when are you gonna be Mrs Stark?” Ned says, trying on sunglasses.

Peter rolls his eyes. “Excuse me, why can’t he be Mrs Parker?”

Ned shoots him an incredulous look and Peter deflates.

“Yeah, okay.”

They wander through the displays in the almost empty stores, trying to keep their laughter quiet and making silly remarks about all the weird-ass luxury designs. Peter snickers at a lime green suit and insists on trying it on. In the changing room, he snaps a photo and sends it to Tony.

Peter: am I pretty?

Tony: you are always pretty

Peter: so I can wear this to ur party

Tony: like I said, no orgasms for a month

Peter: :(( you’re no fun

Tony: oh, I’LL have lots of fun ;)

When he hits on a suit that looks nice, Peter checks the price tag and winces, because woah. He knows that Tony sent him out to get, specifically, a four-figure suit, but it still makes him feel kind of awkward, the credit card burning a hole in his pocket.

Peter: what’s the price range for this suit I should get again? Like 1k or 9k

Tony: don’t try to save me any money

Tony: if you see something else you like, get that too

Peter: im okay thanks

Peter: I don’t need any more four-figure clothing

Tony: get something for your friends if you like

Tony: no need to check with me

Tony: I won’t even notice until you’ve hit seven figures

Peter bites his lip as he smiles down at the screen, embarrassed yet touched at Tony’s generosity. He’s been living with the reality of Tony being insanely loaded for quite some time now, and Tony’s always been carelessly generous in a way that doesn’t make Peter uncomfortable. Peter’s never even seen a bill at any restaurant they’ve eaten at, never dared to look up the prices of the gifts Tony gives him all the time. This, though, is more intimate for some reason. Maybe because it feels like something people do when they’re married, and Peter’s been idly imagining that since Ned joked about it. Or maybe Peter’s just romanticizing his own innate greed or something.

Peter: wow

Peter: thanks daddy

Tony: oh? [smirky face]

Tony: don’t worry about it, baby boy

Tony: I won’t make you work for it

Peter: maybe I will anyway

“Hello?” Michelle says, rapping on the door. “What are you doing in there?”

“One sec,” Peter says, hurrying to put away his phone and open the door. He strikes a pose.

Michelle nods approvingly. “I think that’s the best one we’ve seen so far.”

“Uh, you guys see anything you like?” Peter blushes, but continues, feeling oddly pleased. “I can get it for you if it’s not outrageously expensive.”

Michelle raises her eyebrows at this. “Everything here is outrageously expensive.”

“Tony says anything under seven figures, but let’s stick to three figures.”

“Can I get this hat?” Ned says, pointing to the black fedora on his head.

Both Peter and Michelle stare at him.

“Dude, isn’t that exactly like the one you used to have in high school?”

“Yeah, but this one is Prada.”

Peter shakes his head. “How much is it?”

Ned pulls it off his head and checks. “$440.”

“Yeah, okay,” Peter says, shrugging.

Ned woops. “Consider me bribed. Team Stark all the way.”

“Against who, me?” Peter says indignantly.

“No, but he has a bunch of rivalries with other industrialists, right? Like Hammer Multinational? I’ll leave comments backing him online.”

Michelle doesn’t want anything from Prada, but she lets Peter buy her some vegan lip gloss from a boutique store and says, “You still owe me a Christmas present, though.”

They see a cool looking cafe and go in for some coffee and cake, Tony buying again. When Peter catches Michelle’s amused look at his giddy pleasure over scribbling Tony’s signature on the receipt, he blushes self-consciously.

“It’s not weird, right?” He asks. “Should I be saying no?”

Michelle shakes her head indulgently. “As long as you’re comfortable with it. I mean, free money.”

Peter appears in the doorway of Tony’s closet wearing a fitted white shirt, black dress pants, a double breasted black jacket with satin lapels and a bow tie hanging open around his neck.

“Uh, how do these things work?” He says, tugging at the end of the bow tie.

Tony stares at him appreciatively. Peter has suited up to go out with him once or twice, but this is on an entire other level. He’s immediately hit with the urge to mess up those lovely clothes, get Peter flustered and panting. How important is it to talk to senile old coots, anyway? He walks up to Peter, steps into his personal space, and takes both ends of the bow tie, pulling him in. Peter turns a little pink, pupils immediately dilating at how close Tony is to him. Even after several months of seeing Tony naked all the time.

“Pay attention,” Tony says in a low, conspiratorial tone.

Peter nods, eyelashes dusting the top of his cheeks as he looks down to watch Tony’s hands move. And he’s not even wearing make up this time. Jesus, so damn pretty. Tony finishes and makes a little ta-da gesture with his hands, tugging on the edges to straighten the bow.

“Thanks, Mr Stark,” Peter murmurs.

Tony pauses in surprise, because Peter hasn’t called him that in ages now. They are a little past last name terms, after all. But he’s always found it hot, how respectful towards him Peter used to be. Maybe there’s something a little mentorly, a bit paternal, about tying a tie for someone. Peter’s cheeks color even more as his brain catches up to what he said and he shoots Tony an embarrassed glance. So Tony restrains the fond smile trying to burst out.

“You’re very welcome, Mr Parker,” he says teasingly, instead. “Now do a twirl. Slowly.”

Smiling wryly, Peter steps back and makes a display for him, lifting his chin and pulling at the lapels of his jacket to show off the effect as he turns. When Tony’s heated stare makes its way down to grey socks, he says, “Where are your shoes?”

“There.” Peter points.

“Sit.” Tony grabs the shoes, pushes Peter down to sit on the end of the bed, and gets to one knee. He lifts one of Peter’s ankles and slides on the shoe.

Peter says, sounding startled, “Uh, I do know how to tie shoe laces.”

“Humor me,” Tony replies. “You’re so gorgeous tonight. It inspires me to chivalry.”

Peter huffs a laugh and says no more. When Tony finishes double-knotting Peter’s laces and looks up, he’s momentarily struck breathless by the happiness shining out of Peter’s face. He looks beautiful, so beautiful, eyes warm and shining, skin flushed and unblemished. Tony thinks, if he can make Peter look like that, he can’t be doing so very badly after all.

He stands up and offers Peter his hand with a dramatic flourish. “My prince.”

Going along with it, Peter takes his hand and replies, “Thank you, good sir.”

Tony pulls Peter in and kisses him chastely on the lips. “Our carriage awaits.”

Peter instinctively reaches for Tony’s hand as they walk into the room. It’s just so glamorous, all glittering perfection. Light music plays in the background courtesy of a quartet on a raised platform. H ors  d’oeuvres on silver platters line a long table to the side. Waiters walk around with platters of champagne, and scattered around the room, men in suits and women in evening dresses talk with glasses in their hands. It’s so exactly like the movies, so not like somewhere Peter should be. He feels like a fraud.

Tony squeezes his hand and leads him towards the table with the food, which Peter very much approves of. It’s super hard to get there, though. They barely get a few steps into the room before people start coming up to Tony, all of them sounding very familiar and absolutely delighted to see him. When Tony responds to them, Peter realizes with some surprise how very different Tony sounds when he’s talking to other people. It’s his public persona, all bravado and cheer and snappy one-liners. He doesn’t sound like a completely different person or anything like that - this is the persona Peter pined after for years - but it hits him how intimately he knows Tony now. He’s the man Peter falls asleep spooning with, who color-codes his suits, rolls up the end of his toothpaste, and keeps losing one sock no matter how many times he yells at DUM-E about it.

“-My boyfriend, Peter,” he hears Tony saying, and hurriedly turns his attention back to functioning as a human being.

Luckily, none of these people want to talk to Peter all that much. He makes small talk: yes, I work at Stark Industries part time, NYU is great, I do hope it will snow this year. But outside of eyeing him speculatively, their attention is on Tony. Peter smiles and keeps his spine straight and tries not to get any crumbs on his nice suit.

“Let’s bail soon and get ice cream,” Tony whispers to him after a while.

“It’s December,” Peter whispers back.

“Are you in or not?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Anthony!” He hears, for like the twentieth time tonight. He looks up, it’s a man with straw blond hair and glasses.

“Justin,” Tony says, distinctly unfriendly. Peter wonders if that’s because Tony particularly dislikes this guy or if he’s just really craving that ice cream. “To what do I owe the displeasure?”

Justin laughs. “I was just having the most interesting discussion with Norman and his son.”

Peter blinks and immediately looks in the direction Justin vaguely gestured towards. There’s a guy who, from the back of his head, might be Harry. It’s hard to tell when everyone’s wearing dark suits.

“And who is this lovely creature?” Peter tunes back in to hear.

Tony looks distracted. Peter vaguely registers hearing something business related that he didn’t pay attention to. Maybe it was important.

“I got to speak to Osborn,” Tony says, guiding Peter with a hand on his back, utterly ignoring Justin.

It is Harry. Relieved to see his friend after all the tiring posturing he’s been doing, Peter opens his mouth to greet him, but pauses when Harry gives him a pointed, loaded stare. Then Tony and Norman greet each other, and Harry proceeds to pretend not to know Peter.

“Harold studies at NYU as well,” Norman says, followed by a disappointed sigh. “Have you met?”

“It’s a big school, father,” Harry says, his voice colder and more detached than Peter’s ever heard it.

Peter feels bad for him. Harry hasn’t ever said anything about why he doesn’t get on with his dad, but clearly, it sucks.

“But I’ve heard of Harry, of course,” Peter says, hoping to help. “He’s a real influencer with uh, the students.”

“Of course he is,” Norman says dismissively.

“And my professors keep talking about how talented he is.”

Norman shoots Peter a look and a non-comital hum, then goes back to his conversation with Tony. Peter and Harry eyeball each other, not getting much communication across. They need practice. Peter is great at eyeball communication with Ned.

“Let’s not talk shop tonight, Tony,” Norman says.

Tony looks clearly pissed off. He takes Peter’s hand again and pulls him towards the door.

“Are you okay?” Peter asks softly.

“Just work stuff,” Tony says shortly. “C’mon. I really need that ice cream.”