Chapter Text
"reasons to kiss him:
1. because he’s beautiful.
2. because he asked.
3. because he preceded please with, i’m not afraid of you."Natalie Wee, "Yes & No"
Tony Stark was not good at waiting. He’d been sitting in his Ferrari for ten minutes in the apartment parking lot, and his leg was finally beginning to do the jerk-shake routine that signaled impatience segueing into full-fledged boredom. Passers-by occasionally rubber-necked to get a good look at the car; he paid them no mind. His business was with one of the tenants inside.
He looked down at his phone and the last text that he had gotten.
Be down in a few
He typed a message of his own -- the stark train is leaving the station and you aint on it -- and let his finger hover over the glowing SEND button, but movement up by the building’s entrance made him hold off on following through. The kid saw him and raised a hand in greeting before slinking to the car, looking a touch self-conscious.
Tony unlocked the doors, and a moment later, Peter slid into the passenger seat. He was wearing khakis, a belt, a button-down, and a look that suggested that he’d been coaching himself on his way downstairs.
“Did I underdress?” Tony asked, eyebrow cocked as he pulled in an absentminded way at the collar of his henley.
“I told May that you were interviewing me for a scholarship.” Peter grinned ruefully as Tony started the ignition. “Feel kind of bad about it, actually. She got so happy.”
“Well, look, it’s not like I’m not willing to give you one, you know. That stickum-stuff you make’s gotta be worth at least a grant. Good job on the alibi thing, by the way," he added. "If anybody asks, that’s the story we stick to.” He gave him a sidelong glance as they pulled out of the parking lot. “You look good, by the way.”
“Are you kidding? I’m lucky she didn’t make me wear a tie.”
Tony’s lips twitched in the mirror. “How you feel about AC/DC?”
Peter shrugged, and Tony switched on his iPod.
“So, how about this Spider-guy?” Tony asked conversationally fifteen minutes later. They were packed into the corner of the restaurant. The chatter from the other patrons was loud; Tony had a sneaking, well-honed feeling at least a quarter of them were paparazzi. “How d’you think he’s holding up?”
“Don’t do that!” Peter hissed. He put down his sandwich without taking a bite of it. “I’m -- I heard that he’s, like, kind of in a lot of danger. People looking for him.”
Tony paused with his own sandwich halfway to his mouth. “How old are you?” Peter shifted in his seat, looking defensive, and mumbled something. “How’s that?”
“I said, I turn sixteen in December.”
He took a bite of his sandwich, chewed methodically, and swallowed. He put the sandwich down.
“Peter Parker, pardon my French here, but what the fuck?” The kid just stared at him. “Quit,” he said. “Finish high school, let your frontal lobe develop a little bit more before you go back out there.”
“But I don’t want to!” Peter’s lower lip jutted out for a moment. It was easy to see the fifteen-year-old. “I’m helping people. And, I don’t know, it’s kind of fun, doing this? And scary. And --” he waved his hands vaguely -- “I don’t want to stop. By the way,” he added, clearly trying to steer the conversation in a different direction, “why are we eating in a Subway?”
“Hm? Oh, I hate rich people food,” Tony said vaguely. “Seriously, though," he continued. "You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. And trust me, if you keep this up, you’re going to wake up one day maybe ten years down the line and wish that you’d gone into -- I don’t know -- plumbing, flipping houses, I don’t know --” he paused. “I don’t know.”
Peter was balling up his paper napkin, twisting it back and forth, back and forth. White fluff drifted softly onto the table. But his eyes were on Tony and were far more perceptive than they had any right to be.
“That what happened to you?” he said at last. Tony took a bite of his sandwich and didn’t answer. “I mean, don’t you save lives?” Peter pressed on. He looked confused, like he was thinking hard, like nothing Tony said was matching up with his worldview.
Tony picked some of the lettuce off his sandwich. “Allegedly.”
A shadow fell over the table, and he looked into the freckled face of a twenty-five-year-old with a notepad and a valiant attempt at a mustache.
“Since when does Subway have waiters?” Tony asked.
“Oh, um, I’m not -- I was just wondering if you could sign this?” He handed over the notepad with a shaking hand. “It’s for my girlfriend. She’s over there -- she’s a really big fan --” He was stammering. Tony looked to the table that the newcomer had nodded at, where a petite Latina girl was seated. She was blushing hard, eyes fixed firmly on her phone.
“What’s her name?”
“Ida.”
He signed the notepad and handed it back. “Best wishes,” he said. “Oh, and pro-tip --” he lowered his voice -- “next time, take her to Panera.”
The guy murmured something unintelligible yet awestruck and backed away. Tony glanced over at Peter, who was eating his sandwich with a concentrated air that recalled Ida from the other table.
“Does that happen to you a lot?” Peter asked eventually.
“Um, yeah.”
“Wow.”
“Wow.” The kid was staring around the lobby of the mansion with undisguised awe. “And this is where you -- where you all --”
“Yup.”
Peter gave a low whistle. “Like -- what do you all have in here? I mean, I’ve read stuff, but I mean, everything online is pretty inconclusive and vague, and just -- goddamn, this is so cool!”
Tony grinned at the kid’s unbridled enthusiasm. “Wanna see the lab for starters?”
“Hells yes.”
Per request, he’d brought the suit. Tony stretched one limp leg between his hands, watching the light filter through the spandex.
“I swear I washed it last night,” Peter said. He was sitting on the counter by the sink, shirt untucked and the top few buttons loose.
“Sorry that it's not more protection,” he said. "I was pressed for time when I knocked it together." Peter waved a hand.
“Seriously, it's not a problem," he said. It's cool as it is. I mean, sure, kevlar'd be great, but I have to be able to move --”
“-- and go about your arachnid way,” Tony finished. "Right. Still. I'd like to take another look at it. At least so I can rest in the knowledge that, if for some reason you are getting shot at, you're not gonna get yourself killed."
"I have a healing factor," Peter said defensively.
"That doesn't mean bullets don't hurt like a bitch, Parker."
Peter gave him a good attempt at a tough look. “What, you think I couldn't take it?”
Tony smiled, more to himself, as he stretched the suit around. “Cap would’ve liked you,” he said. Jesus, part of the ankle was already fraying. He really needed repairs.
When Peter spoke again, he sounded more hesitant. “If you don’t mind me asking… what happened? Like, you guys had the world at your feet and then…”
Tony groaned and put down the suit on the lab table, leaning against it and crossed his arms. “Basically, too much ego and not enough brain,” he said. “We all screwed up on some level.” He didn’t feel like adding the part about Steve dropping everything for the man who’d murdered his parents. The kid didn’t need to know that. “Let that be a lesson to you,” he added, trying humor. “Group work is hard.”
“So…” Peter screwed up his face. “Who’s actually an Avenger now?”
“That is a great question, and when I find out the answer, you’ll be the first to know.” He poked at the thin fabric of the suit. “Totally unrelated, when you’re out chasing your bad guys, what do they usually carry?” Peter gave him that perplexed look, raised eyebrows and wide eyes, that was rapidly becoming familiar. “Do they use their fists, are they firing AK-47s in the air, what?”
“Hm? Oh, anything goes, I guess.”
Tony gave him a look, frowning a little at the blasé attitude the kid had used but said nothing. It was highly unlikely the kid would listen to any word of caution that he gave him. “Okay,” he said at last, “think you can hold off from saving the world for a week or so while I tinker around with this?”
Peter tilted his head to the side. “Define tinker.”
“Would you say no to a bullet-proof suit?”
“Seriously?!” He looked like he’d just been told that Christmas would fall on his birthday that year. “Like, you mean, bullet-proof bullet-proof? Holy crap. You can do that? What am I saying," he continued, "of course you can do that, but like, do you know how yet? ‘Cause, like, I love science -- and I mean, I wouldn’t want you to think I was just leeching off you or something -- I’d love to help out --”
Tony waved a hand, and the kid hopped off the counter to join him. “Take a look, young padawan,” he said. He held up one limp leg of the suit. “This is at best glorified spandex.” Peter nodded attentively. “I’m thinking that there might be a way we can reinforce this with titanium or something like it. And still find a way to keep it lightweight so you can still do that swinging thing.” He shrugged. “All guess-work, and still kinda hand-wavy, but I’ll figure it out. Shame Rogers took all the vibranium when he ran off to go screw his boyfriend, or whatever he’s up to these days…” He’d added that last part more to himself, but the kid had clearly heard because his head shot up.
“Hold up -- did you just -- is Captain America gay?!” It wasn’t so much incredulousness on his face as much as sheer delight. Somewhat amused, Tony raised an eyebrow.
“Some shade therein, yeah.”
“You’re telling me that Captain America -- Captain America -- is queer?!”
Tony gave him an amused smile. “You good?”
Pulling up a bar stool, Peter sank onto it, eyes huge. “I just had no idea that -- well, like, I mean, you’ve been out for ages, but I didn’t know there were more queer Avengers!”
“Well,” Tony reminded him, “Avengers is kind of a subjective term these days.”
“Yeah, okay, but are there more?”
“Let’s just say that it’s not outside the realm of possibility,” Tony said. He grinned crookedly. “What is it?” The kid was starting to turn red.
“I dunno --” he ran a hand through his hair sheepishly -- “it’s just, like -- ever since I started doing this, I was like, oh, I could be an Avenger one day, too bad I’m going to be the odd guy out, but now, it’s just -- wow.” Before Tony could figure out how to respond to that, he added, “So were there ever, like, I dunno -- inter-Avenger relationships?”
Tony tilted his head to the side and squinted as he pondered how to address that one. “Where’d you get that idea?” he said at last. Peter shrugged.
“I don’t know. I mean, you know, people make jokes about you and Cap all the time.”
Clearing his throat, Tony rolled his shoulders back. “Yeah. I’m aware.”
The odd, teasing Buzzfeed article about their bromance or whatever the kids called it these days was one thing. Someone -- Tony suspected Clint -- had actually printed it off and stuck it on the fridge, complete with little hearts drawn in metallic gel pen. They’d all laughed about it. But the tabloid headline from just a week ago proclaiming LOVER’S SPAT in neon pink had been a little too much too soon. Had Pepper been there, she would have quietly gotten in touch with the rag in question and gotten them to alter their phrasing. As it was, he let it go.
He mentally sloughed off the storm clouds and snorted. “Trust me, they all look great on camera, but they’re sort of assholes when you get to know them. Like, take Black Widow. Great woman, great addition to the team and all that, but she had this habit of watching security footage for fun, and it got really Orwellian after a while, like, Big Brother Is Watching, And He’s Judging.”
“Oh.” Peter nodded slowly for a second, digesting. “It’s weird hearing about your faves like this,” he added. “I mean, Black Widow isn’t -- wasn’t -- my favorite -- I mean, she’s cool, but --””
“Dare I ask who was?”
“Hulk,” Peter said without missing a beat. “Radiation. I can relate.”
“I bet.” Yet another friend gone by the wayside.
They sat in silence for a while. Then Tony looked over at the digital clock on the wall. 2:55. He slapped the counter. “Well, Spiderling. Better take you home before your aunt starts calling the cops.”
Peter stood up and stretched. “Hey -- do you think you can take a less conspicuous car?” he asked. Tony gave him a look of mock affront.
“Got a problem with my ride, Parker?”
“No, it’s cool, it’s really cool,” he said quickly, “it’s just that I don’t want people to start wondering why Iron Man is driving me around everywhere. I just want to stay anonymous.”
Tony looked at him for a moment. “You’re kind of freaked out, aren’t you?” he said at last. The kid didn’t meet his eyes, instead, he played with the suit’s left ankle and chewed on his lip. At last, he gave him a jerky nod. With his face downcast like that, it was suddenly easier to notice the dark circles under the kid’s eyes and the scrape on his temple, just concealed by his hair. Something constricted his chest, and after a moment, Tony recognized the feeling to be guilt.
“We’ll take a taxi, how does that sound?” he said at last.
Peter nodded again. “Thanks.”
They were nearly out the door when the kid stopped short.
“What?”
“It’s just -- I feel weird. Leaving without it. Sort of -- exposed.”
Tony reached out to touch his shoulder, then thought better of it and crossed his arms, leaned against the door frame. “You don’t need a suit to make the world a better place, kid,” he said.
“No,” Peter replied, “but it does make it a lot easier.” He sighed and chewed on his lower lip some more. “If something happens when you could have stopped it…”
“Yeah, and thinking like that is going to drive you crazy. You can’t be everywhere at once, Peter.”
He didn’t reply to that, eyes fixed on the floor, and Tony recognized the look of someone wandering into an ugly memory, getting lost there. He touched his shoulder tentatively. He jumped a little and looked up at him. “You okay?”
He nodded. “Yeah. Just -- um -- yeah, I’m fine.”
Tony watched him for a moment longer, brow furrowed. Then he nodded. “Come on.” He ruffled his hair, snorting as Peter ducked to avoid his hand, face going red again. “Let’s get you home.”
The taxi ride was spent in silence, mostly, Peter watching the buildings go by and Tony pretending to read texts he’d gotten days ago. Several from Rhodey, and one, of all people, from Pepper: talk to me if you need to. Yeah. Not happening. Not dragging her back into this mess.
They pulled up to the apartment, and Tony watched the kid insist on nearly cleaning out his pockets to tip the driver. As he was getting out the car, Tony leaned over.
“Hey, you.”
He turned back to him, eyes wide in expectation. “Mr. Stark?”
“How’re you sleeping?”
The kid frowned for a moment, brows furrowing in confusion, and then shrugged. “Fine?” he said at last, waiting a moment too long, and then headed across the parking lot towards the large double-doors of the apartment building. Tony leaned back against the taxi seat and sighed.
He knew a liar when he saw one.