Chapter Text
“He is witty, graceful, lovely to look at, lovable to be with. He has also ruined my life, so I can’t help loving him — it is the only thing to do.”
Oscar Wilde
The sky was deep, deep gray, like factory smoke, and Peter could taste rain on the air, feel it heavy against his skin through the thin fabric of his suit. He sat on the edge of the roof, looked out across the city.
Footsteps behind him. He twisted around.
Tony stood there, hands in the pockets of his trousers. A breeze ruffled his hair as he walked over to him, his shoes making little scuffing sounds on the cement. With a sigh, he sat down beside him on the edge of the roof. Up close, Peter could see that his beard wasn’t as neat as usual, that there were bruises under his red eyes.
Tony cleared his throat. “That was smart,” he said at last, after the silence had stretched into minutes. “What you did.”
Peter half-smiled, no humor in it. “Made sense. It got you in the clear.”
“Kind of cold, don’t you think?”
“Like he didn’t deserve it?”
Tony seemed to consider it, his head cocked to the side, eyebrows lifted. “Fair enough,” he said.
They lapsed into silence. There was a distant hissing sound; Peter looked out over the rooftops and saw that the rain he’d sensed a few minutes before had arrived at last, a silver-gray curtain moving slowly across the city a few miles off.
May had found out what he’d done, of course, and he could see how it was killing her, but she’d just hugged him especially close when she returned from work that evening and, later, had made him a dish of cherry pie to eat while he finished his homework. He supposed she'd always feel a need to protect him, baby him, even. Perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing.
“When’s the trial?” Tony asked at last.
“Couple weeks from now.” He swallowed. “The news says they don’t know if he’ll make it that long? If he doesn’t make it… then I did that. That’s my responsibility. They’ll want you as a witness,” he added quickly, unable to stomach the previous thought. “We’ll have to get our stories right so they don’t think we’re lying.”
“What happened to Hammer?" asked Tony.
“I lost my temper.” Then Peter caught Tony’s eye. “Nothing bad happened. Not to me.” He didn’t need to know how close things had gotten.
Tony nodded, more to himself than to Peter, and looked away again. “He told me that the only way he’d destroy the tape was if I… if I passed you around, so to speak.”
Peter gulped, said nothing. So that was what Hammer had meant by his offer. He breathed in and out, making a conscious effort to stay steady.
“He had my back to the wall,” Tony explained. “I did what I could. And you’re right,” he added. “I should have warned you properly.” He caught Peter’s eye. “I’m so sorry.” Peter nodded and looked away. He was feeling a sudden desire to cry, but he’d done enough of that already, and he didn’t want to do it front of Tony. It’d worry him…
Silence, except for the growing hiss of the rain. Idly, he wondered if Tony could hear it.
“I’ve been thinking about retiring,” Tony said suddenly. “Hanging up the cape, so to speak.” Peter raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “I’d still be active,” he added, “just merely in a consulting capacity.”
“So I’m not going to get to fly out with you again?” Peter asked, unable to resist the small smile that pulled at his lips.
Tony didn’t quite smile back, just brushed his little finger over Peter’s where their hands rested on the concrete. His eyes were looking wetter by the moment.
The rain hissed closer. Neither moved. They had dodged a bullet. Now the trick would be staying low to the ground so they wouldn’t get fired at again.
Assuming they kept this up at all.
“You’ve really…” Tony bit his lip. “Well. Grown up isn’t the phrase I want to use. But… you’re not the kid I met back in Queens a couple months ago. That kid wouldn’t have thought up something like this.”
He frowned. “Are you angry?”
Tony studied his face. “No.” The word sounded caught between a sob and a laugh. “No, I’m not angry.” He looked away again, staring at his knees. “You know, we can’t keep this up.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“It’s not healthy.”
“Yeah.” He chewed on his lower lip and glanced back Tony, feeling suddenly helpless. “What are we going to do about this?” he asked.
Tony shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said wearily. He cleared his throat. “By the way, there’s, um, a chance that some of the others might be coming back.”
“The other Avengers?”
“Yeah. Listen, I don’t know when it’ll happen, but if and when they do get here, and for some reason, they do become official Avengers again… They’re good people,” he said. “They’re not going to —“ he floundered a little — “you know. They’ll work with you, is what I’m trying to say,” he added, rallying.
Peter frowned. “So… are you saying I’m an Avenger now?”
“Yeah,” Tony said hoarsely, not meeting his eyes. “As far as I’m concerned. For what it's worth. I mean, since Ross is dissolving the arrangement we had.”
Peter watched him avoid his gaze for several long moments.
“This is why you’re stepping back, isn’t it?” he said. “So they don’t see us working together and remember the tape and wonder if maybe the headlines were right after all…”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s why.”
“But you shouldn’t have to —“
“Kid,” Tony said, “I need this break. Really. And you… I think you and I both know that if either of us should be out there, it should be you. You’re better at this than I ever was. Smarter.”
They stared at each other for a long stretch of time, seconds trickling on and on.
“So,” Peter said quietly, after he’d shored up enough courage. “Is this it, then?”
Tony blew out a sigh. “I don’t know,” he said unsteadily. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“I’d miss you.”
“Yeah,” Tony whispered. “Yeah, I’d miss you too. See —“ he groaned — “this kind of thing… it alters you. You don’t come out of this the same person.” Peter stayed silent, let him wrestle the words out of himself. Finally, they emerged, rough and broken. “I’ve lost so much over you. I shouldn’t say that,” he immediately added. “It’s not your fault. I chose this. But now… now that I know what I know about you… I’m not sure that I can let this continue.”
Peter looked away. Skip Westcott, still fucking things up for him years down the line.
“But now it seems like you’re all I’ve got,” Tony muttered, looking out at the city, not at him.
“Maybe we can be okay,” Peter said weakly.
Tony gently turned his face to look up at him, brushing his thumb down his lips, and Peter couldn’t resist opening his mouth, giving him a brief flicker of tongue.
Abruptly, he pulled Peter closer, arm around his shoulders. Peter tucked himself into him, pressing his knees against his thighs. His grip around him was reassuringly tight.
The rain was about ten buildings off. Kids screamed as it hit them far below on the pavement. Tony was kissing the top of his head, nose against his scalp. Peter turned his head to nuzzle into his neck, to breathe in the scent of his aftershave and the little edge of something uniquely him that he usually only caught after sex, lingering in the sheets and on his body.
Perhaps they’d be okay, he thought. Not perfect, certainly not good. A little sullied, perhaps. But okay. Certainly better than they had been when they’d had nothing.
Right?
He tasted the rain before he felt it gush over both of them — an early December downpour that soaked the fabric of his suit straight to the skin, plastered Tony’s hair to his head, and left them shivering against each other. It was hard to tell if it was rain or tears gliding down Tony’s face. Peter figured he’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
“You know,” he said through the roar of the rain over the roof, through his chattering teeth, “I’m legal in a year.”
Tony pulled off his wet blazer and draped it over Peter’s shoulders, his hands lingering on his chest.
“We should get inside,” he said. Peter leaned against him, threaded his fingers with his. The rain was already beginning to move off again. Tony brought Peter’s hand to his mouth and bit his knuckles gently. Another gust of wind made them both shiver: a storm was brewing up. It looked to be a dark, rainy afternoon, the kind where night seemed to fall hours before the sun set and time seemed to slow to a crawl.
“I’m just saying,” Peter said. “In a year, they can’t say shit.”
“Uh, yeah, they can,” Tony began. Rain was dripping from his hair. “We’d have to wait ’til you’re at least thirty before the press stops talking —“
Peter laid a finger on his mouth. The rain had moved off, leaving them both drenched and cold. His teeth were chattering even harder.
“Your lips are blue,” Tony softly. He jerked his head in the direction of the door that led to the staircase that led down into the mansion, stood, and held out a hand. “Come on,” he said. “Get warm?”
Peter could feel the shape of the next few hours perfectly. No matter their original intentions, they’d end up taking advantage of the electronically heated sheets in Tony’s bed, their hair leaving wet marks on the pillows and each other while their clothes dried. Hold each other for a few scant hours, perhaps even sleep. And then Peter would go home, and Tony would slip away to the lab or to the TV room, each with their secret to bear like an anvil on their shoulders, weighty and oppressive and terrible, and yet uniquely theirs.
And they would push the decision off to another day, and then another day after that, and another, and another, and another, until they found themselves clinging to each other because there was nothing else they could do, or until something ripped them apart by force, muscle tearing from bone.
If he followed him, would it be to continue, or to make an end? What did he want? A better question: what did he need?
He looked away, down at the puddle he stood in.
“We can’t keep this up,” he said at last.
And Tony nodded. “I know.”
He imagined life after the others returned. Discussions, combat, coming back to lick their wounds. Slipping out of the room a few minutes after Tony, meeting someplace — under the staircase, perhaps, or a supply closet — letting Tony press him against the wall, kiss up his neck, make him breathless. More tiptoeing, more fear. The inevitable moment of discovery, mortification.
And yet, some part of him, the part that made all the bad decisions, whispered that perhaps it would all come clean in the end.
And yet, and yet, and yet…
Peter let him pull him to his feet — water dripping off their hair, their noses, their chins.
“Just the once,” he whispered, lips twitching inadvertently. And Tony nodded with a helpless little laugh like he took his meaning, his eyes low. Wrapping their arms around each other’s waists, they slipped inside.
The door clicked shut. The rain continued.