Work Text:
“I’m really, real- ahhh”, an ear-deafening bout of violent coughs has Peter yanking the phone away from his right ear.
He winces in sympathy. Gosh, he sounds terrible. Poor Ned. He silently thanks whatever spider-deity there is that the bite has turned all of his t cells into murderous, bloodthirsty monsters that kill whatever poor virus just looks at his body the wrong way. Being sick sucks.
Ned’s coughing attack lasts several more minutes to the point where Peter starts panicking that he’s just been granted the horrible privilege of listening to his friend cough himself to death. Before he manages to do something rash though, like call 911, the coughing has died down to an unhealthy sounding hemming. “Chmchm – oh my god Peter I almost just freakin’ – chmmm- died what the hell.”
Ned’s voice sounds horribly hoarse and nasal and well, sick.
“Yeah dude I almost called 911! It’s really okay man, ‘s not your fault you got sick. I can cancel the tickets-“
“No, no-“, more coughing, “Ugh, I hate being sick. Can’t you ask if MJ will go with you? I mean- we paid extra for that special screening with the pink, alcohol-free cocktails and- “
“What? MJ?! No- you know I can’t ask her that, Ned! Because going to the cinema alone, just the two of us, would be like a”, Peter sucks in a breath and lowers his voice to an almost whisper-tone, “date. Ned. A date. And I can’t-“
“Because you have a crush on her, and you would embarrass yourself so badly you would need to fake your own death and move to Australia. I know Peter, I know. You’ve told me that at least three hundred times already, I get it.”
“Wh- Dude! Shut up! You’re such a bad friend. Like the worst. I will downgrade you from being my guy in the chair to being my guy standing up because you just lost your chair privileges-“
“Of course, Peter. What about Aunt May?”, Ned asks as if Peter just didn’t threaten him with a serious demotion. He puffs out a frustrated huff of air and rolls his eyes.
“She can’t. She has a shift until ten that evening and couldn’t reschedule.”
“Oh.”
“Hmh”, Peter hums in agreement and lets himself flop backwards onto his bed. His eyes are following the patterns of the wood panels of the second bed above him, teeth worrying his lower lip. He and Ned had bought those tickets to the special screening of the new Barbie movie a month ago already. They even went thrifting together for anything pink that they could wear, with Peter leaving that Goodwill with a fluffy, neon pink sweater and Ned with a pink cowboy hat and matching belt. Both those items Ned had found were adorned with battery powered LED’s that blink and glow. Not that he could leave those on during the movie, but maybe during the ads and trailers before the movie starts to-
“What about Mr. Stark?”
“Mr. Stark?”, Peter splutters, turning over to lie on his stomach, “He- He’s probably busy too. And anyways, I don’t think he’d be even interested in watching Barbie with me. He would take one look at my sweater and straight up leave me there alone in the theatre, Ned.”
“Well, you never know if you don’t ask him. I mean, what’s the worst he could do? Say no?”
“Dude. You know that you should never say that about freaking Tony Stark. Saying no is the best he could do! Don’t you remember the time where he took my suit and bought me freakin’ Hello Kitty pyjama pants? Or the time where he showed up at school with a Paw-Patrol lunch box and a bottle of apple juice with My Little Pony on it because I forgot to pack lunch that day? I can’t-“
“But you love apple juice.”
“That- That’s not the point! I can’t afford running around Queens with a pink and sparkly Spiderman suit! People would hurt themselves from laughing like.”
“I mean. If I as a criminal’d get confronted by a pink and sparkly Spiderman, I’d probably piss myself laughing.”
“Ned!”
“What? That would be like, awesome for you, or not? Criminals taking themselves out, haha- oh no not aga-”, this time, Peter is decidedly less panicked at the thought of his friend choking to death as another wave of coughing shuts Ned up.
Once Ned’s coughing has subsided again, he sounds a lot worse than before.
“Uh, man, I think I should, go lay down or something. ‘m really sorry I can’t go with you, dude.”
Peter sighs heavily and rubs his free hand over his face. “It’s fine”, he mumbles against his palm, “Maybe I’ll just ask him. I don’t know. I’ll let you know once I decided on what I’ll do.”
“That’s good, yeah… So. See ya.”
“Bye Ned. Get well soon.”
“Yeah, thanks. Bye Peter.”
“Bye.”
Peter lets his right hand with his phone fall on the bed next to him. After laying there motionless for several minutes, no thoughts head empty, he lets out a dramatic groan and then smashes a pillow against his face.
He’s really going to ask Mr. Stark if he’s going to watch Barbie with him, isn’t he?
-----
Tony Stark gets a call at half past twelve that night.
“Peter! Are you hurt? Did something happen, do I need to-“
“No no, I’m fine, Mr. Stark! Very fine, even, uhm.”
The lingering silence of the spider-kid is causing suspicion to rise in Tony.
“Huh. Well okay. If there’s nothing else I can go back to my project-“
“No wait! I uh, uhm, needed to ask you something.”
Tony’s face is a weird mix of an exasperated smile and confusion-frowned eyebrows as he rolls his eyes.
“Alrighty. Shoot your shot. But I swear Peter, if it’s something homework related at this time again, so god help you I will call May right now and snitch on you so hard you’ll wish you never met me. So. Go ahead.”
Peter coughs awkwardly – and Tony still doesn’t know how the kid manages to do things like coughing awkwardly – before speaking again. “So uhm. Ned is sick and, uh, we both planned on going to the movies tomorrow but, because Ned’s sick, he can’t come. And Aunt May has to work and I can’t ask MJ uhhm… Sooo. I wanted to ask, maybe, that if you are, per chance, maybe, free tomorrow night, maybe you could… come with me?”
Tony blinks. Then has to bite his lips hard from keeping himself from bursting into laughter. Oh, this kid. There’s a wave of fondness washing over him and that does let a small chuckle spill out of him.
“Sure thing, kid. I could, maybe per chance come with you tomorrow if I’m free maybe.”
“Oh”, Peter breathes out, surprised, “Oh. Uhm. Cool. Yeah, that’s cool.”
“Yep”, Tony says, popping the ‘p’, “Any reason you asked me that at half past twelve in the night? ‘Cause I’m quite sure that tomorrow is Friday, and I’m also quite certain that that’s a school day and correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that mean that spider-teens have to stand up at six? Which would be, in less than six hours, and I’ve heard spider-babies need at least eight hours of sleep at night to keep their spider-brains doing the amazing spider-things that they do.”
He hears a faint groan coming through his phone’s speakers, as if Peter buried his face in his duvet to keep Tony from hearing it. Well, tough luck kid.
“Mr. Stark”, Peter almost whines while stretching out the syllable of his last name, “Come on, please be nice. I’m tired.”
And Tony can’t keep back his laughter this time. He’s just so- Peter.
“Stop laughing at me!”
“How kid? It’s hardly my fault you’re a disaster-spider-child with a tendency to be unintentionally the funniest person I have ever met”, Peter’s stunned silence sounds a lot like the silence of a Peter that’s fighting to keep his blush at bay and Tony grins, “Anyway. So. Now. Why ask me this late? I’m pretty sure Greg’s been sick the whole day already.”
There’s an adorable, angry huff of air. “It’s Ned. N-E-D. I know you’re doing that on purpose to mess with me and I tell you to stop at this instance. Right now. ‘You shall stop calling my friend by the wrong name.’ Or I’ll go to the cinema without you.”
“Oh no! How terrible!”, Tony gasps, letting his voice waver dramatically and he can practically hear how the kid rolls his eyes.
“So, why’d you call this late, Peter?”, Tony asks for the third time, after Peter didn’t seem to be saying anything more.
“Well… I just didn’t think- I just didn’t wanna, y’know, bother you in case you’re busy and stuff…”
“Peter. Do you remember what I said last weekend?”
“Uhm… ‘Never buy an iPhone, they fucking suck’?”
Tony flounders while he hears Peter snickering through the phone.
“Jesus Parker, I never said that!”, never mind the fact, that Tony indeed, did say just that, “Also. Language. You’re gonna have to put a quarter into the swear-spider next time you’re here.”
The swear-spider is their version of a swear-jar. A piggybank in the shape of a spider that Tony bought from a garage sale he happened to walk past some months ago. For additional effect, he had made an extra effort painting its legs with blue and red stripes and a big, fat, silly smiley face Tony says that looks like Peter each time one of them has to put a quarter into it. Which is most often than not, Tony himself because Peter has better self-control than he has. And he’s not ashamed to admit that, as long as Peter keeps getting annoyed by Tony saying that the swear-spider could be his long-lost twin.
“Nuh-uh, Mr. Stark. I was only quoting you here so. I’m not the one that owes a sacrifice to the swear-spider.”
Now it’s Tony’s turn to roll his eyes.
“Oh lordy, no. I will never financially recover from this”, he deadpans, while extra-noisily dropping a quarter he fished out of the swear-spider back into it. “There. You hear that with your freaky super ears? I put one in. You happy now?”
“Very, Mr. Stark.”
“Good. So. What I actually wanted to hear instead of that vulgar slander of my persona, was this. Peter, I told you it’s okay to call me or text me with stuff not relating spider-man in anyway. I lo-“, Tony coughs because there’s suddenly something in his throat, “I like having you around, and that means all of you and not just your spidersona. Capiche?”
“Capiche…”, Peter mutters abashedly.
“Good. What movie are we going to watch?”
A beat. Silence.
“Uh- what?”
“What movie-“
“Oh, uh, yes! I uhm, I’ll send you the details tomorrow morning, I need to sleep now, like you said, it’s late and spider-men need their beauty sleep, heh, uhm, bye Mr. Stark!!”
And before Tony can utter another word, the kid just hangs up on him. He takes the phone away from his ear and stares at it incredulously, before shrugging and going back to work. Teenagers.
-----
As promised, Tony receives a text message from Peter the next morning while he’s sitting in a meeting. Peter texted him the time, which cinema they would be going to. Oh, and also what movie they are going to watch.
When Tony read that tiny little detail, he couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter that bubbled up in his throat and startled the poor intern doing his part of the presentation half to death. After Tony practically giggled out an apology and waved for the intern to continue, he opens his chat log with Friday.
hey fri, what are people on twitter saying about the new barbie movie?
He waits three seconds for Friday’s answer.
Most people seem to have enjoyed the movie. There are some ‘incels’ claiming the movie resembled and I quote ‘the biggest pile of woke, man-hating trash to ever been out in cinemas’. Others say it will change cinema forever. And there’s also a trend of women and men alike, wearing pink to the screenings.
Oh, that piqued Tony’s interest.
well well, if that doesn’t sound like fun. do we still have that suit I wore to the met gala in 2007?
Indeed, we have, Boss. Should I let it get prepared?
you know me so well, Fri
-----
Peter is tapping an anxious rhythm with his foot against the linoleum floor of the cinema. It’s bustling with people, of which over half are wearing something pink even if it clashes horribly with the rest of their outfits. He feels less out of place with his overtly fluffy, pink sweater at least.
But still. He’s not exactly looking forward to Mr. Stark’s reaction. It’s not as if his mentor would be downright mean about it, of course not. Tony Stark may be ruthless and an asshole and has no qualms about making other people cry with his honest opinions and sharp words and shark-like smiles and… Peter forgot where he was going with this.
Okay so, Tony Stark may act like that with people he doesn’t know, but he’d never do that to Peter. Tease him incessantly and make bad jokes? Yes. Definitely.
But he wouldn’t laugh at him maliciously or just leave him standing there alone. That’s not how Mr. Stark is with him, he thinks, and pointedly ignores the warm feeling in his chest spreading in slow-motion to his cheeks.
For what feels like the tenth time this evening, Peter unlocks his phone with a quick press of his thumb against the finger-print-sensor and is promptly met with Tony’s last message to him.
ETA 5 mins kid 😎😜👌👏💯
It says. It also says ‘sent fifteen minutes ago’ and hm well. Ignoring Mr. Stark’s god-awful use of emojis Peter’s pretty sure he only does to make him cringe, it’s a perfectly normal occurrence. Mr. Stark… isn’t the most reliable with stuff like punctuality. But that’s totally okay. Peter knows and understands he’s a busy man and is already so grateful to be spending any time at all with his childhood hero. That being said, writing a message and asking where he’s at wouldn’t hurt, right?
Just as Peter is finishing his text, there’s the sound of people shouting. His heart leaps in his chest and he almost drops his phone. His eyes frantically scan the room for any sort of danger before realizing… Huh. His spidey-sense didn’t even tingle.
And then, then his ears pick up a rather annoyed sounding voice speaking over all the bustling and excitedness of the people around him.
“Thanks everyone! Really awesome of you all to obstruct my way like that! If you were so kindly inclined to move the fu- the frick away!”
And that’s- Mr. Stark. His heart does another jump in his chest, now out of nervousness than out of alert. Okay Parker, get ready to get teased all the way through the film and-
Oh. Oh my GOD.
Mr. Stark is suddenly standing right in front of Peter, billion-dollar smile plastered on his face with pink, heart-shaped sunglasses and oh my god this is the greatest thing Peter has ever seen.
His mentor is standing there, cool as a cucumber as if he’s waiting in line for a coffee at Starbucks, but what’s definitely not like that scenario at all is the fact he’s wearing a bright pink suit that sparkles when he moves, complete with matching tie and shoes.
“Nice sweater, kid”, Mr. Stark tells him, grinning crookedly and he stems his left arm into his hip, glitter fracturing the light into rainbow-sparkles. Apparently not caring about the crowd of people gathered around them gawking at him as if he was a bird of paradise. There are phone flashes going off in a steady stream.
Peter can only mimic the crowd of people, gaping at freaking Tony Stark wearing the pinkest suit to ever pink, jaw almost touching the floor.
His mentor lets out a laugh.
“Like my outfit?”, he asks, smug grin still splitting his face apart and shimmying his shoulders to make himself twinkle, “I hope it’s what you had in mind for this. Although you could’ve told me yourself, I had to ask Friday what people are saying on freaking Twitter, Parker. Y’know I hate that website.”
Peter can only nod, still in disbelief this is actually friggin’ happening and that all his fears seem to have been so, so arbitrary.
“Shall we?”, Mr. Stark says, ruffling Peter’s hair and nodding in the direction of the auditorium showing the special screening of Barbie.
Peter is keenly aware of the throng of people following them to the entrance of the movie hall, where an equally flabbergasted employee is handing out pink, alcohol-free mojitos. Once it’s their turn, he stammers a star-struck “Have a great movie – uh um I mean, have fun!”
Tony offers a nonchalant ‘Thanks’ in return and smoothly sidesteps the clerk handing him his mojito. He takes three more steps and vanishes into the theatre hall. It’s then that Peter comes back to himself again.
“Oh- uh I’ll take it for him, he uhm. Doesn’t like to be handed things”, Peter explains while taking the two mocktails carefully out of the employee’s stunned hands.
“Thanks!”, Peter calls over his shoulder as he follows Mr. Stark into the auditorium and promptly has to hold back a disbelieving laugh. It’s just, so completely ridiculous seeing his mentor all dressed up in a sparkly pink suit casually glittering in his seat in the practically full cinema hall– Peter shakes his head, although not getting rid of the silly goofy smile on his face.
He apologizes repeatedly as he’s squishing himself past the people already sitting in their seats, but they don’t care at all. Everyone is too distracted by the spectacle that is Mr. Stark. And honestly, same.
“Thanks, kid”, Mr. Stark takes one of the mojitos once Peter reaches him and his empty seat. “Is there something else I missed? Pink mocktails and…?”
“Oh! Uhm, yes actually… There was another employee handing out pink popcorn and uhm at the end of the movie…”, Peter trails off, momentarily mesmerized by the sparkles and twinkles of Mr. Stark’s suit while he lifts his mojito to his lips.
Mr. Stark smacks his lips loudly after he tried the drink. “Huh, doesn’t taste as bad as I thought. So, what’s at the end of the movie kid?”
Peter shakes himself out of his glitter-induced hypnosis. “Uhm, we’ll get a ‘I am Kenough’ sweater.”
Mr. Stark blinks as if he didn’t hear right.
“A what?”
“Uhm”, Peter stammers, “I think you’ll get it once we watch the movie.”
Mr. Stark lifts one eyebrow at him, but then shrugs his sparkly shoulders and takes another sip of his mojito. Peter turns and tells him he’ll get their popcorn, and just as he sits back in his seat, handing Mr. Stark his bag of pink popcorn, the lights dim and the screen springs to life.
They watch the trailers and the ads (of which one was of the newest iPhone and Mr. Stark threw a piece of his popcorn at the screen) playing before every movie and everyone is still buzzing with excited energy, whispering with each other and Peter’s ears take up ‘Tony Stark’, ‘pink’, ‘amazing’ more than he could count.
And then finally, the pink Warner Bros. icon spins over the screen and Peter grins. This is going to be awesome!
-----
Peter has to correct himself. That was – more than awesome oh my god. He thinks, this must’ve been one of his top three cinema visits ever, like. Of course, the movie was brilliant, incredible, amazing, showstopping-
But the true highlight? Was definitely watching the movie with Tony Stark. He thinks, the other movie-goers would one hundred percent agree with him. He knew that Mr. Stark is funny, but Peter didn’t know the man could easily quit his job as an engineer and make a living as a comedian, or at least, commentary youtuber doing video essays.
Each one of his one-liners landed perfectly and made Peter and the people sitting next to them splutter from laughing so hard at scenes he would’ve laughed at anyways. And honestly, just seeing Mr. Stark enjoying himself so much made everything even better. It almost feels like their mojitos had been spiked with something regardless their claim of being alcohol-free, because Peter feels almost drunk, he’s smiling so hard as they stand up and wait in line to receive their Ken sweater.
“Enjoyed the movie, kid?”, Mr. Stark asks him then, sunglasses firmly in place again after he had taken them off during the movie. One of the corners of his mouth is turned up into an easygoing smile.
“Oh my god, yes! It was awesome, Mr. Stark! Ryan Gosling as Ken really stole the entire show! Like, Margot was amazing too as Barbie, but just the plain kenergy radiating off Ryan Gosling oh my god”, Peter rants and Mr. Stark’s half smile blooms into a full one.
“You’re not wrong there, kid. I’ll let Ryan know you liked his performance the next time I’ll see him”, Tony says conversationally as if he just didn’t drop that bomb on Peter.
“You- you know Ryan Gosling?”, Peter almost screeches, turning to face Mr. Stark completely and staring up at him in astonishment.
“’course I do. What do you think I do when I attend all these stupid celebrity galas? Stand in a corner and get drunk by myself?” Mr. Stark laughs, before he frowns pensively and lifts two fingers to his chin, “I only did that like, twice, before Pepper threatened to cast- uhm, do something not PG-13 to me after that.”
Peter lets out a disbelieving noise at the back of his throat and stares at Mr. Stark again as if he just saw him for the first time tonight. Mr. Stark rolls his eyes at him before pushing Peter forward.
Before the employee handling the sweaters can even say as much as hello to them, Tony waves two one-hundred-dollar bills in his face. “I’ll give you two hundred dollars if you give us one extra for the kid’s friend who got sick and couldn’t tag along. Interested?”
Peter tries to protest, “But Mr. Stark, you can’t do that!”, but the man just shushes him and gives him one of his ‘Shut up, Peter’-looks over the edge of his pink sunglasses. He informs the employee of their sizes (with Peter ignoring the fact that Mr. Stark knows both his and Ned’s size somehow) and then Peter has his arms full of tie-dye sweaters.
“Oh look! Let’s take a picture together!” And then Mr. Stark grabs his arm and drags him all the way across the cinema.
They come to a stop in front of a picture taking booth that was designed to look like an exact replica of the carton the businessman at Mattel tried to lure Barbie into and okay yeah that’s pretty cool.
Peter dumps their sweaters unceremoniously on the ground of the booth once it’s their turn and Tony hands the employee taking the pictures his phone. The poor woman looks completely dumbfounded standing there just having been handed Tony Stark’s phone and Peter can relate to that. But then Mr. Stark throws an arm over Peter’s shoulder and the rest is a blur of ridiculous posing and a competition of who can distort their face into the most outlandish grimace.
It's the most fun Peter’s had in a while. He still can’t stop smiling once they leave the theatre and walk to Mr. Stark’s car and-
“Oh my god!”, Peter exclaims and comes to a full stop. “Are you kidding me?”
His mentor throws his head back from laughing so hard as he slips into the hot pink, freaking glittering Lamborghini Peter hasn’t noticed before because he had been waiting for Mr. Stark to arrive inside the cinema. He waves his arms around in utter disbelief, before Mr. Stark starts the engine and calls an ‘Get in here, Pete’ out of the window.
And once Peter lets himself sink into the freaking light pink leather seats and they start driving, he gapes at Mr. Stark, again, with wide eyes. “Mr. Stark”, Peter breathes, “You didn’t- you didn’t have to do all this, it’s-“
Mr. Stark steps on the brake, hard, causing the Lamborghini to stop right there in the middle of the driveway. “Peter.”, Mr. Stark says, taking off his sunglasses in one smooth gesture, “If I do something, I do it the right way, capito? And also.”
He hits the gas then.
“I knew it would make you laugh so. Of course, I had to do all this.”
Bonus:
The next day, Peter wakes up with his Instagram exploding with notifications.
“Wha..”, he grumbles sleepily while scrolling to the source of all the new follow requests he gained overnight. And wow.
You Know Who I Am (@thetonystark) has tagged you in a post
And oh my god.
It’s – It’s a carousel post of ten pictures of Peter and Tony from yesterday’s Barbie screening with seven million likes and the caption ‘You couldn’t afford us. #barbie #kenergy #bestinternintheworld’ and. Peter is dying. He really is. This can’t be real. These last hours must’ve been a fever dream.
He doesn’t know how long he’s been scrolling back and forth through all the pictures. There are at least four pictures of them in the photobooth. One in which they’re both giving each other bunny ears with their fingers, one where they’re standing back-to-back with their arms crossed in front of their chests and Peter wearing Mr. Stark’s sunglasses, glaring menacingly into the camera. Then there’s another of them posing in ridiculous fighting stances against each other. The rest are pictures Tony must’ve gathered from Twitter and other social media sites because Peter can’t remember asking someone to take those pictures of them.
One of them pictures Tony ruffling a perplexed Peter’s hair before the movie had started. Another is them leaving the auditorium together, Peter with his arms full of sweaters and the biggest grin on his face and Tony with one arm slung around his shoulders and laughing. Another is a shot from inside the auditorium, Mr. Stark looking offendedly at Peter with a popcorn piece stuck in his hair and Peter doubled over from laughing. The last picture was a picture of the Lamborghini and Tony leaning back on it’s hood with his signature, haughty Tony Stark press smile on display.
Then Peter continues reading the comments and he should never have done that. Because now he’s. Really. Going to die.
@rhodeyrhodes how dare you go without me!!!!!! 😭😭😭😭 youre definitely not invited to movie nights anymore tony stank (17k likes)
@natasha.romanova looks like you had fun girls (24k likes)
@captainsteverogers 🤩🤩🤩 (8k likes)
@hawkeyebarton hot damn that suit can I borrow that some time? for personal reasons? (11k likes)
@pepperpotts my boys 💖💖 (19k likes)
And once Peter scrolls down far enough, he stops in his tracks as his eyes catch sight of the account names of his schoolmates.
@guyinthechair AKJCBAIUSDBFOASIDFBAPFAKSBFUAISFGAIVFAUIFEAJKFVUIFBEUIASFBA (100 likes)
@michellemj lol what losers (3k likes)
@flashingThompson WHAT (0 likes)
@bettybetty22 omg omg omg omg (3 likes)
And Peter is full on giggling now. He can’t stop. Doesn’t even want to. He’s just so unbelievably happy and grateful for his life and especially Mr. Stark.
He can’t wait for the next time they are going to the cinema.