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Peter remembers exactly where he was when he heard that Tony Stark was alive.

It was a little late, all considered. He doesn’t have a television in his shoebox apartment and he has purposefully turned off celebrity news on his phone. It’s a little condescending, actually, that Tony Stark returning from the dead after saving half of the population is considered celebrity news when it’s life changing information.

That’s what it feels like, anyway.

Peter is working at Delmar’s, sorting out tabloids on the rack in the front, and he sees Tony’s face plastered everywhere. His first instinct is disgust – he’s been dead for five years and people are still dragging him through the mud – but the picture isn’t one Peter recognizes. And he’s seen them all. Tony’s hair is too long and his eyes are bruised in a way they haven’t been since the 90s, but that’s Pepper and Happy and Morgan at his side and then Peter is reading words and then he can’t read anything because he’s crying and his shaking hands rip the magazine in half.

Mr. Delmar gives him the day off and Peter spends most of it staring at the grease stain on his wallpaper.

Tony Stark…alive.

He saved the world, saved Peter, and Peter never even got to thank him.

Well, it doesn’t matter now. If Peter was a factor in Tony risking the well-being of his only child, Peter will never know. No one will ever know, because Peter fucked up and now he doesn’t exist.

Ah. Peter messed up. Sorry, Aunt May.

It’s been some time since then. Peter keeps a closer eye on the news than is healthy for him. There’s only so much abuse against Spider-Man he can swallow before he spirals into the abyss, but keeping tabs on Tony is compulsive.

Tony Stark regains his legal status as a person who is alive and Peter pins it on his wall. He saves magazine clippings and reads the academic journals Tony references in passing, keeps tabs of Stark Industries and their copyright claims to see what they’re developing. It feels a little bit like when Peter was in middle school, with a giant picture of Tony Stark plastered on his wall like a shrine.

The tissue box on his nightstand was dedicated almost entirely to Mr. Stark, back then.

Peter still struggles with that temptation. It hit new heights when he came home to find Tony Stark sitting on his couch, turning his life inside out like it was nothing, and then became one of the few supports Peter had at the time.

Tony thought of Peter as a kid, treated him as a kid, but he spoke with him like he saw Peter as an equal.

It’s more difficult now, knowing that Tony doesn’t remember him at all.

It’s even more difficult when Peter realizes it won’t feel like Tony is alive until he sees him with his own eyes. He’ll never have a reason to see Tony Stark. Maybe it will feel like Tony is dead forever. Maybe that’s better.

Peter gives into himself thinking about Tony Stark being happy to see him. That’s all it takes. After years and years of dealing with everything on his own, with looking his closest friends in the eye without even the barest glimpse of recognition, Peter crumbles thinking about Mr. Stark sweeping in and taking care of him. Like he used to. Peter just wants to be taken care of.

He wonders if everyone can feel his guilty aura when he loads his sheets into the washer at the laundromat the next morning.

It’s fine. Masturbating to his friend who has been dead for a while and also doesn’t know who he is…that’s totally fine and healthy. He’s a growing boy. He’s not a boy – he’s 22 now, wow, gross – but it’s totally normal for a growing man to have the hair trigger sexual libido of a rabbit thinking about his dead mentor who isn’t dead now.

Fuck.

It’s not even the intense sexual fantasy Peter could explain away as a response to his sef-imposed celibacy. It’s of Tony holding him and kissing his hair and letting Peter cry in his arms as he ruts against his thigh and thanks him for coming back, good god, just thank you for coming back to me.

The beep of the finished wash cycle shocks Peter out of his stupor. He rubs his eyes tiredly and tries to be subtle about wiping tears away. He’s such a mess. He needs to figure it out. He needs to figure something out.

Peter has made an error.

Realistically, he’s made plenty of errors or varying degrees of severity. There was the whole ear piercing phase…and the whole Beck thing. That one time he made out with Johnny Storm and got caught by his sister who can literally turn invisible. He forgot to put his milk in the fridge last week.

He forgot that, while Peter Parker has almost no reason to ever see Tony Stark, Spider-Man has plenty of reasons to run across Iron Man.

This error, while seemingly trivial, means that Peter is wholly unprepared. Maybe if it was an Avengers-level threat he’d have thought to brace himself, but he’s in the middle of helping the police transport several pallets of illegal alien arms into the trucks when he hears the tell-tale sound of Tony’s thrusters in the near distance.

Yuri snaps in front of his face. “You alright there, Spider-Cop?”

“Your favorite tough-but-lovable, grizzled, seen-too-much detective is trying to process,” he tells her, affecting the accent of an old smoker. It’s not a good accent. Yuri grimaces but she brought it up this time, so Peter knows she’s secretly into it. He picks up one of the pallets without much effort. “Where do you want this alien goo crate? It’s leaking over my hands.”

“That’s a great question, Spiderling,” Iron Man says, walking into the room with a clunk and a swagger. Peter’s never understood how Tony can still strut while wearing iron knee-high boots. It seems very complicated. “Let the Goo Professionals take it from here.”

It’s Tony. It’s actually Mr. Stark. Peter can’t let himself crumple. He needs to say something other than babbling and broken tears. “I shoot goo for a living.”

“And I thank you for it,” Tony says, and his faceplate dissolves and then Peter is looking into his face for the first time in a new lifetime. He’s ragged. “Huge fan, really. The way you, you know, save the cats or whatever. Different kind of goo, I’m afraid.” And then he’s distracted, moving on to solve the problem like Spider-Man isn’t there at all. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., give the room a scan for me.”

Peter has seen Tony be dismissive plenty of times. It’s not a surprise. It’s just…never been directed at him. He’s so distracted by it he forgets F.R.I.D.A.Y. is likely to ping Karen in his suit. He’s made adjustments to the AI in the past few years, limiting the amount of information she collects and sends out, but he never had the heart to disable her entirely. She was a gift, and a friend. He sees the light in his mask blink once.

Tony pauses. “Nice suit.”

“Thanks.” Peter fidgets. This isn’t Tony’s. It’s Peter’s, smoother lines and less flash – color palette aside – but he couldn’t stop himself from incorporating Tony into the interface. At the time, it felt like the only thing he had left. “I, uh…made it myself.”

Tony stares at him, eyes narrowed, but F.R.I.D.A.Y. completes her scan and he’s distracted by whatever she’s saying in his ear.

Yuri immediately starts arguing over jurisdiction once Tony makes it clear he’s taking the cargo, but apparently he came prepared. There’s a warrant from S.H.I.E.L.D., connecting this to a project he’s actively working on. Yuri argues back about the logistics of the seizure, and the specifics of her team’s involvement, and by the time they all realize this is going to take longer than expected, Peter has already scampered up the walls and out of sight.

Mr. Stark isn’t dead. He’s tired, run ragged, but he’s isn’t dead.

He’s alive.

Peter sits on his favorite rooftop and watches the city live on and wonders why it feels like he’s the only one getting left behind. He doesn’t think about it for very long. It’s obvious why.

He doesn’t exist anymore. That’s even worse than being dead.

That night, Peter crawls into bed and hesitantly rolls the mask over his nose. “Karen?”

It takes a while for her to boot up. At least ten minutes, as she connects to the servers and updates her codes. “Good evening, Peter,” she says, and he knows her voice is programmed to sound warm but it still hits him in a way that hurts.

She was the first person he told about all of the Spider-Man stuff, all those years ago. Back before everything. He hasn’t talked to her much, since Europe.

“You’re upset,” she notes. “Would you like me to run through your soothing protocols?”

“Maybe later,” Peter says. He throws an arm across his forehead to keep himself from staring at the ceiling. Maybe he can hide his tears from his all-knowing AI. “Can you…can you find all of my legal identification?”

“I have it readily available, Peter.”

“Do I…” He takes a deep breath. “Do I exist enough to go…to go to school?”

“Of course, Peter.” So warm. “You exist enough to do anything you want.”

Peter wants to stop feeling stuck. The world has been ending for five years. “Can you send me the applications for the schools I’m most likely to get accepted to?”

Being alive is good and bad. It’s kind of a bummer, because it’s not like the world stops moving. Pepper got over her dead husband and remarried. He lost so much of Morgan’s life – she cried when she saw him for the first time, like she was afraid. Like he was a ghost.

Also, fuck, all of the paperwork. Existing is tough when the government is telling you you don’t anymore.

Luckily for Tony, there’s enough precedent set by the Blip that they have a procedure in place. S.H.I.E.L.D. is so invested in returning Tony to his former status – useful – that they expedite the process quite a lot, but even two years later he still has a hard time clearing background checks and registering for new patents. How did you invent ____ when you’re dead? they always ask him. To which Tony usually replies, very carefully.

He wonders how all the Blipped feel, the ones who don’t have billions of dollars and a government organization at their disposal to smooth out the rocky landing.

At first, Tony threw himself into the superhero business. It was too much too soon. His body, Strange told him, was basically new, but his soul had taken a beating and didn’t like staying in its new meat suit. He spent most of the first year constantly ill and overworking himself anyway. Physical therapy doesn’t soothe a frantic mind. Alcohol does. He went down that road towards the end of Year One. He had too many worried eyes on him for it to get too out of hand before someone was dragging him to an actual therapist. Tony limited his drinking just so he didn’t have to go as often. It had nothing to do with the exhaustion Rhodey and Pepper thought Tony didn’t notice.

He took a step back from Iron Man and tried to go back to being a full-time inventor, but his hand was so fucked from the gauntlet it took about 18 months for him to regain most of his fine motor control. It’s almost normal now. Tony doesn’t notice as much anymore, and the shaking of his dominant hand is a good reminder that he’s been in the lab for too long.

After trying all of his vices, Tony resorts to teaching.

It’s a bit pitiful at first. Tony feels too old to really thrive with people in their early twenties. He remembers going too hard when he was in school, back when the world had only hurt him a little bit. The naivete is refreshing, but sometimes he has to stop himself from viewing their enthusiasm or apathy with bitterness. Tony’s too old for enthusiasm and too entangled for apathy. Things matter and that’s rough, buddy.

After a while, he settles into the swing of things. Being an adjunct isn’t really his speed – a consistent schedule requires more responsibility and mental stability than Tony is totally prepared to give – but he guest speaks at the big New York schools, flies out to California for lectures or flash courses. It’s almost fun, sometimes. It reminds him what it was like to have ideas that weren’t bogged down by saving the world. Stupid ideas, like how to create the perfect ice cream truck. It reminds him he’s not a teenager anymore, if his old bones weren’t enough, but it’s nice to be on this side of the line too.

“Alright, whippersnappers,” he says, walking up to the pulpit and taking off his glasses. “Let’s talk about building a brain, shall we?”

It’s an easy lecture to give. He’s done it before, and creating AI is something he mastered a long time ago, improved up from Jarvis to F.R.I.D.A.Y. He created another after F.R.I.D.A.Y., right before he died, but he scrapped the plans for E.D.I.T.H. after he found the specs again. Too dangerous, he thought, unless the person wielding her was a saint. He’s no saint, certainly.

Lectures like these are a toss up. ESU is a pretty advanced science program, but since they’re open to all students sometimes you get some stupid questions. What’s your star sign, marriage proposals, stuff like that. Other times people ask him about other things not covered in the lecture. Tony put his foot down after his first panic attack on the dais, but there can still be surprises.

This one runs pretty smoothly. The students are interested in what he’s saying, and they laugh at his jokes, and some of them are brave enough to go back and forth with him on theory. Some of them put forth their own code and let Tony make adjustments for demonstration. By the time the 90 minutes is over, Tony is warm and loose. They applaud, Tony bows, says something snappy, out the door with a couple of handshakes and into the empty hall.

It takes a while to pull away. He has to schmooze the dean, who is trying to butter him up for a donation, and he chats with some of the professors he’s worked with before. Some people congratulate him on being alive. He doesn’t know how to tell them he’s not really sure what happened. Magic may or may not have been involved. Who knows.

He has an area set aside for his visits. He’s bombarded with fans too often, and after his death he’s grown more fond of his privacy. True threats he’s got covered, but a roped off hallway is usually enough to dissuade the casual threat of a girl’s hot pink camera catching him eating pizza in his makeshift dressing room.

It’s not always enough.

There’s a kid sitting on the floor in the hallway. He has a textbook open on his lap and a pen cap between his teeth. He’s been waiting long enough to spread out, between that and the notes scattered on the linoleum tiles. He hears Tony as soon as he gets out of the stairwell, looking up at him like a deer in the headlights.

His eyes are dark brown, his hair is a mess, and his outfit is thrifted. Nothing fits right, but it all fits together. The pen cap drops into his lap, momentarily forgotten, and he scrambles upright. “Uh, Mr. Stark–”

“–Forget it, kid,” he replies, not unkindly. “I’m past the point of doing freebies.”

“Huh?” The kid blinks. He looks young. Old enough to be in university but not quite. “I don’t want anything.”

“Sure.” Tony looks at the papers on the floor and notices formulas crippled in margins, notes peeking out from manilla envelopes. “You’re waiting here for completely altruistic purposes, I’m sure.”

The kid doesn’t deny it.

“The Stark Internship has an official application process. It’s easy enough. You just have to prove you are worth my time and that’s it. Simple. It’s all online. See you later.”

“I don’t need the Stark Internship,” the kid says, confused. His face is too expressive, and his confusion morphs to horror when Tony pauses and looks at him incredulously. “Not that it’s not, like, totally an honor, or anything.”

No one in science would turn their nose up at a chance to work at SI – definitely not directly in front of Tony Stark. “What, do you have another job already?”

“Well, not in tech–”

“Your own patent? Millions of dollars and an idea for the newest app?”

The boy laughs, nervous, and it pulls at something in Tony’s chest. Weird, the way old scars pull on new skin. “Sorry. I, um, I just want to thank you, is all.”

“Oh.” Tony doesn’t have the energy for Iron Man fans. At least Tony Stark fans usually have something interesting to say. “For saving the world? You’re welcome.”

“For saving me.” It’s small, worried, and vulnerable. “I…”

Tony sighs. “I saved a lot of people, kid,” he admits, leaning his hip against the doorjam to the room he’s given up escaping to. “I don’t need to be thanked by each one. It was worth it. I didn’t do it so you could come flutter your lashes at me and try to string a sentence together.” That’s a little harsh. He can tell because the kid deflates like a popped balloon. Tony clears his throat. “I didn’t do it alone, you know. I had help. A lot of help.”

“Yeah,” the kid agrees. There are holes in the soles of his shoes and they squeak as he fidgets. He’s handsome, in a soft and sweet sort of way. His hands are shoved into his pockets like he’s trying to keep them to himself. “You also invented time travel.”

“I did.” He invented a lot of things. He doesn’t mind leaving that one in the dust. Too many bad implications. “I’m also a raging asshole and well past my prime. Pros and cons.”

“I don’t think so.” Those brown eyes flick up and down, slow elevator, and Tony reassesses what kind of ambush this is meant to be. “You’re just a normal asshole.”

Tony laughs. A genuine laugh. Even if it’s mostly due to surprise, it’s still something hard to come by these days. He leans in a little. Just enough. “Tell me, kid, what’s your name?”

The light in his eyes dims, and Tony only has a split second to wonder what he did wrong before a small voice answers, “Peter, sir. Peter Parker.”

“How old are you?”

Peter pauses, his breathing heavier than a moment before, like he realizes where this could be going. “I’m–I’m 24.” He gulps. Tony watches his throat move. “I came for your lecture but I…I don’t have any classes today.”

Tony sets his shoulders the way he knows people like to look at. His hands go under the tailors tail of his jacket and fall easily into his pockets, his head cocked to the side, and he gives Peter his own elevator eyes. Peter stands at attention, almost trembling. He looks so sweet, like something Tony can bruise.

He wouldn’t be the first twenty something Tony’s rolled around with, but he’s not usually Tony’s type. Still, there’s that something pulling on the scar tissue around his heart that’s enough reason. “I could be your dad, kid.”

Peter’s eyes are blown, wide. His breath hitches, and Tony sees him steel himself into confidence. “Yeah,” he says, with a tiny smile that grows more and more wicked. “You could. If you wanted to.”

Tony pulls him in by the collar of his shirt.

As much as Tony loves a little exhibitionism, he would prefer to be asked to return sometime in the future, so the question shifts from how long can I make out with this mysterious grad student to a hurried mine or yours?

Not that it’s much of a question. Tony’s place is full of classified documents that Peter would need an NDA just to be within 10 feet of. Peter knows this instinctively, and he gives a breathy, “Mine is fine,” without prompting, even if he seems a bit embarrassed.

If Tony were inviting a billionaire into a shoe box, he’d probably be embarrassed, too. As it is, he’s embarrassed enough trying to keep his hands to himself in the back of his car.

“These are self-driving?” Peter asks, stuck in traffic. He’s slouching in the seat beside him, less nervous than before but still looking at Tony like he might disappear at any moment.

Tony laughs. “My old driver got a better job and I’m too lazy to screen applicants.”

“Dark windows,” Peter notes.

Tony hears the click of a seatbelt.

It’s not the first time Tony’s had a hot young thing climb into his lap in the back of the car. It’s not even the weirdest circumstances, but there’s something electric about the way Peter fits here. His neck is crooked down awkwardly, and his hair is wild and there’s a pen mark at the corner of his mouth but he’s looking at Tony like he’s…

Tony has seen idolization up close and personal plenty of times. He has normal moral issues taking advantage of it. Someone Peter’s age is old enough to make nuanced decisions, and if that decision is sitting on Tony’s cock in a moving vehicle in the middle of Manhattan, who is Tony to stop him. He just isn’t sure idolization is what he’s seeing written in the creases of Peter’s face.

Peter puts his hands on Tony’s hips, easing up his lapels, lingering over his beating heart, up over his shoulders. Two fingers press along the line of Tony’s jaw, under his ear, and Peter takes a shaky breath before curling his hands into Tony’s hair. “High school me is freaking out right now,” he admits.

Tony hums, leaning into Peter’s neck. Peter shivers when Tony’s beard scrapes his skin. “I don’t fuck high schoolers, so high school you need to hide his posters and get out of here.” His hands find Peter’s ass. It’s a much nicer ass that the baggy pants advertise. Good shape, lots of muscle. Sensitive, if the way Peter jerks when Tony parts his cheeks is any indication. First class ass. “You want me to fuck you?”

“Mr. Stark.” His voice cracks and Tony sees red. Peter tips his head forward, leaning it gently against Tony’s. Tony can feel his shuddered breath against his forehead as Peter rocks. “Oh…oh. Yeah. That’d be fine. So good. Whatever you want.” Peter’s thighs shake.

Incredulous, Tony kneads Peter’s ass and watches him shake. “Whatever?”

“Anything,” Peter says. He arches back into Tony’s hands, delicious. “Mr. Stark, you could roll down all the windows and fuck me so hard I scream and I’d thank you.”

Tony smiles against Peter’s neck. “There’s an idea. Let everyone know how grateful you are to me for saving your ass.” His hands slip down the gap in Peter’s waistband. “Does that mean it’s mine now? You owe me that much?”

“I don’t owe you anything,” Peter huffs between his whines. “I just…oh, I just want to. Mr. Stark, I just want to give it to you. Let me, please. Please.” His begging becomes almost unintelligible, and Tony realizes like the sun rising in the morning that Peter is about to beg himself into an orgasm. Just from Tony’s hands and his thigh.

“Shhh, baby,” he whispers. “I’ll take it. I’ll take anything you give me. You’re a good boy, aren’t you?” He wraps his arms around the small of Peter’s back, pressing them together. Peter’s motions are frantic, tiny circles and gasping breaths and the ropy muscles in his back roll like sin. “Give it to me. I want it. My good boy.”

Peter comes silently, his entire body tensing along Tony’s chest, ruining his suit as he comes and comes and comes. Tony coos in his ear, a hand petting through those messy curls while Peter writhes and slumps and then slowly comes back to life.

“There you go,” Tony hums. “There you go. Easy.” He presses a kiss to Peter’s cheek and realizes Peter came so hard fucking Tony’s thigh that he’s crying. Tony laughs, wiping tears away with his thumb. “Easy, now.”

Peter collapses into Tony’s shoulder, hiding his face. He huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, ‘m easy.” He wiggles his hips, a small joke at his own expense, but Tony holds him hard enough to bruise and he groans. He’s hard, aching against Peter’s stomach. Peter’s hand slips between them.

“Don’t you want to wait?” Tony asks. “We’re almost to yours.”

“Don’t wanna wait,” Peter said, his mouth tracing kisses against Tony’s ear, however unintentional. Like realizing he’s allowed, he mouths with purpose, rolling Tony’s earlobe between his teeth while his hand tries to pull Tony out of his underwear. He moans, the loudest he’s been the entire time, when he gets a hand around Tony’s cock. He feels the width and length with confident hands. “Want to make you feel good. Give you everything.”

Tony keeps running sweet hands up and down Peter’s spine, his will tested. “I’m an old man,” Tony admits. He touches the tip of Peter’s dick through his pants, wet at the tip and growing harder already. “You want me inside?”

Peter pulls back to look at him, mouth slack. He looks cute. His cheeks are red, flushes, and there are tear tracks that make Tony want to keep him forever. It’s a weird feeling. “Yeah,” Peter breathes. “Want you inside. Now?”

Tony isn’t young anymore. His back can’t take a car fuck, no matter how interested his cock is. “Soon. Wait like a good boy for me, hmm?”

Peter has no idea what he’s doing. That’s been the theme of the day. He signed up for the lecture last week – it was free, and there were a lot of extra seats, and Peter kept telling himself it was purely for educational purposes. Apparently, he woke up this morning choosing violence, because shortly before the end of the lecture he excused himself and wandered to where they’d roped off the area for Tony’s makeshift study.

It wasn’t wandering, exactly. Peter had to put on his suit, activate stealth mode, climb on the outer wall, jimmy the lock on the window, and then find the right classroom. And then wait. Lots of waiting. A completely purposeful attempt to talk to someone he shouldn’t be talking to that Peter can’t reason away as impulse.

Mr. Stark had just looked so different teaching that class. Focused, charming, comfortable, tired, satisfied, powerful. Everything. He looked like absolutely everything.

So when Peter didn’t know why he was there and Tony made the incorrect but also correct assumption that Peter was down to fuck, Peter went along with it. He thinks he might hate himself for it, but he never stood a chance against Tony. He’ll take everything and give everything and his cum is soaking through Tony’s dress shirt and how did Peter get here?

How did Peter wind up guiding Tony Stark through the halls of his terrible apartment building? Guiding him to his bedroom, pressing him against the dirty wallpaper, practically jumping into his arms.

Tony catches him easily enough, his grip strong beneath Peter’s thighs. “Kiss me,” Peter begs. “Please. I don’t want to think about anything else.” He’s tired. There’s so much.

Tony tastes like fire feels. He spins Peter around and presses him against the wall with a thud, chasing Peter with his mouth. He kisses like something Peter’s dreamed about, all confidence and experience. His beard scratches. Their hips slot together, Tony positioning Peter just right. If they were naked it’d be so easy for him to just slip inside. All of Tony…full. Oh god. Peter feels crazy, like he’s already leaking and open. Like he was made for this moment, to open up under Tony’s hands and just take it. Just take everything.

Peter can tell the exact moment Tony realizes how fit Peter is under his giant hoodie. Tony balances them both and slips a hand up the thin trail of hair from Peter’s waistband to his navel, nails dipping into the divots of his abs. God, his nails scrape across Peter’s skin in thin, angry lines. “God, Pete,” Tony huffs, groans. His cock twitches and Tony fucks up, grinding them together and grinning when Peter squirms in his strong hands. “You’re perfect. Why are you hiding all of this? I want to see.” He bites on Peter’s shoulder.

“Take it off.” Peter pulls his hoodie off desperately and throws it across the room with too much strength. It almost topples a lamp to the ground. Peter didn’t need it anyway – the lamp or the hoodie. He’s sweating in Tony’s grasp. His fingers scramble over the buttons of Tony’s blazer, tugging it down the width of Tony’s shoulders. His shoulders. This wasn’t what Peter meant to happen but oh, god it’s what he wanted. It’s what he’s wanted since Mr. Stark came to save him that night with Vulture. Since he was in middle school and trying to figure out why he liked it a little when Flash pushed him around. Since he realized that Tony Stark was the best man on the planet and he died for it. “I’m easy. I told you, I’m easy.”

Tony unbuttons his collar with one hand, the other hiking Peter’s leg up over his hip while Peter tries to get friction between them like a dog in heat. He probably looks ridiculous. He has no idea what he’s doing, but Tony’s eyes are hot and heavy. Once Peter can see the scars of the reactor on Tony’s chest Tony dives the hand down the back of Peter’s pants until his fingertips brush across his hole and Peter melts.

He comes, too. But mostly he melts.

If Tony notices that he’s taking apart four year's worth of tension with his hands and attention he doesn’t say anything. The pad of his forefinger dips inside of Peter mid-orgasm and Peter sobs. It’s too much. It’s so much.

“You’re still hard,” Tony says, staring at Peter straining in his jeans. “And so sensitive.”

Peter thinks if Tony stopped holding him up, he’d slide to the ground and become one with the filth on his floor. “More.” It’s a whine. It sounds like a kid begging for candy but maybe that’s what Peter is. “Want more.”

Tony obliges, pushing Peter’s pants and underwear down his hips with one fell swoop while Peter tugs his shirt over his head and starts attacking Tony’s chest with his mouth. He buries his face into his scars, maps out the lines of his chest with his tongue. Bites the swell of his pec before digging his fingers in Tony’s chest hair and sucking a nipple into his mouth.

It takes a lot of work to be Iron Man. Tony is one of the few Avengers who isn’t enhanced, and Peter’s felt the weight of the suit plenty of times. Tony can say he’s an old man all he wants but Peter knows the effort he puts into maintaining this body. The body that Peter gets to have for a night, if nothing else.

Or the afternoon. Maybe an evening, if Peter doesn’t do anything to freak him out.

Something like rip the button off his trousers in an attempt to get Tony’s dick in his mouth. Luckily, by the time Peter registers the ping of an Armani button hitting his floorboard, Tony is too invested in getting Peter on his knees to care.

Tony puts a hand on the back of Peter’s neck and tilts his face up. It’s not to look Peter in the eye — the angle of his neck is too harsh. It’s to bare Peter’s throat for Tony. Everything for Tony. Peter’s eyes glaze over at the view, and his mouth opens involuntarily when Tony takes himself out of his underwear and his cock hits Peter on the cheek. “How many times can you come before it’s too much?” Tony asks.

“Don’t know,” Peter admits, turning his face so his words make his lips brush over Tony’s shaft. “I managed five once.”

“Did they fuck you?”

“I fucked me,” Peter says, and he laughs when Tony blanches. He nuzzles Tony’s pubic hair now that the grip on his hair is slack. “Mr. Stark, take good care of me. I really am your good boy. I’ve been waiting for you.” It’s breathless. It’s supposed to be a joke.

Mr. Stark doesn’t know it, but once Peter says it out loud, he thinks it hits a little too close to home.

Tony is cursing, pulling Peter up bodily and throwing the both of them into his bedroom. He sits on Peter’s bed, slack around his ankles, and pushes Peter to the floor. “Suck, if you don’t mind.”

Peter doesn’t mind at all. He’s been drooling since they left campus just thinking about the weight of it in his mouth. He’s given a blowjob or two, somewhere between an expert and an amateur, but he whimpers when he feels the head on his tongue and takes too much too quick. He’s practiced on other things, even if they weren’t the real thing. He’s proud of that, at least, how far he can go. He doesn’t want to hear Tony telling him to take it easy. He feels circles rubbed into his back with a broad hand but most he feels Tony in the back of his throat. He smells Tony, hair thick in his nose. He breathes in Tony. He’s alive. He’s here. He wants Peter.

He wants this Peter that he doesn’t know, and it breaks Peter’s heart to take advantage in a way that feels cruel, but he’s never claimed to be a saint. The ugly part of his heart wants this so bad it doesn’t mind breaking itself into pieces just to get it.

Tony guides him and Peter follows thoughtlessly. He listens to the deep grunts and swallows Tony down, raising himself onto all fours at Tony’s prompting, but when he feels fingers at his entrance he pulls off before he chokes.

That’s spit, Peter thinks to himself, delirious. Tony’s spit-slick fingers opening him up, one, two, and hooking him up like an insect pinned in place. “Keep going,” Tony prompts idly, and Peter sloppily takes Tony back in his mouth while Tony loosens his hole.

Peter does choke when Tony finds his prostate. He chokes but he keeps Tony’s dick deep in his throat until he gets control of it because he’s a good boy even if his eyes are crossed and he’s drooling.

Tony curses. “Lube.”

Peter pulls off with a pop. “This is fine,” he says, all slurred. “Spit’s fine.” It’s Mr. Stark’s spit. Mr. Starks cock. Mr. Stark. Peter closes his eyes and swallows Tony down to the root again.

“You’re a virgin,” Tony says, half in awe and half as an explanation, pulling Peter off. He watches Peter’s lids flutter and looks down between Peter’s legs. “Could you come just from giving me head?”

“I could come just from you asking me to,” Peter admits, head lolling to the side, and Tony follows the instinct to cup Peter’s cheek. “Used to…listen to your interviews and just…oh, fuck—”

Tony puts a shined dress shoe firmly on Peter’s cock. “Don’t.”

Peter circles Tony’s ankle with both hands, rutting upwards into Tony’s shoe. “Please let me.”

The pressure increases, borderline painful. “Don’t.”

It’s embarrassing. Peter sobs into Tony’s knee. “Please. Something.”

The toe of Tony’s shoe digs in between Peter’s shaft and his balls and Peter sobs again, his hands holding Tony’s foot in place. “That’s why I’m asking for lube.”

There’s lube in Peter’s bedside drawer. There’s so much lube. Peter bought the giant bottle because he’s too self-conscious to buy it from the store more often than he has to. He’s splayed out on the best, presenting his ass in the air while Tony spits between his cheeks and rubs it into his perineum with a slick finger. “Since you like it so much,” he explains, before shoving three fingers inside.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter wails, and then he’s shy enough he bits onto his knuckles to try and keep himself together. He’s babbling nonsense, and Tony finds his prostate against and Peter’s knees give out and he’s flat on the bed with Tony buried between his cheeks and he’ll never make it through the night again with a wet dream. God.

“Flexible.” Tony lifts Peter up by the hips and puts him back in position. “Good to know.” His thumb digs in just below Peter’s balls.

“Oh, sir.” Peter is trying not to wail. His walls aren’t thick. He can’t think about anything like a normal person. It’s tragic. Tony is so good. His cologne is just like Peter remembers it, his hands are just like Peter thought they’d be.

Mr. Stark would never fuck his mentee, but he’ll fuck Peter right now because he doesn’t know any better and Peter is actually out of his mind. This is terrible. This is so good that there’s blood in Peter’s mouth from trying not to come, he wants to come again, but Mr. Stark said no. No, no, no—

He sobs when Tony’s hand pulls out. He can’t form words. He pushes back until his ass meets the hot skin of Tony’s cock and then Tony is pushing him flat on the bed, bearing down on him. His fist brushes against Peter and there’s broad pressure on his hole and Peter opens his mouth, silently screaming, while Tony pins him down and pushes in. The whole way, smooth, like Peter was made for it.

“Just for me,” Peter hears, and he realizes Tony was talking to him. “Made for me.”

“I was,” Peter sobs. “I wasIwasIwas.” He can’t help it when he comes again. He’s sensitive, he’s supernaturally sensitive, and he’s surrounded by Tony. It hits him out of nowhere, like a truck, and his scream isn’t silent this time. It’s a high whine that bubbles up from his belly and slides out through his teeth unbidden. Like lava from a mountain. He wants to bite it down, but Tony gently pulls his fist from his mouth and swallows down the sounds until they’re whimpers and Peter is fucking himself back on Tony’s cock again.

Tony laughs. “Again?” He spanks Peter’s side, a red handprint, in time with the sound of Peter’s ass slapping back against Tony’s hips. “You’re unreal.”

“Sir,” Peter begs. That's all he can say. “You’re…oh, Mr. Stark..”

With a grunt, Tony pulls out. He ignores Peter’s squawk of protest (Peter is getting fucked on his twin XL and has no dignity left) and manhandles Peter onto his back. Peter lets him, throws his ankles over Tony’s shoulders and lets Tony bend him in half. “Fuck, kid.”

“I’m not a kid,” Peter slurs against Tony’s mouth. “Just yours. I’m just yours.”

Tony fucks like it hurts. He fucks like he has his own tension to take out and Peter is a willing body. Flexible and soft and sweet and so willing, so willing he’d break for Tony. He’s destroy himself for Tony. He wants Tony to fill him up and leave it there so Peter can keep a part of him here because he’s selfish and horrible and oh, there’s a hot rush and Tony’s fingernails are drawing blood and Peter is screaming again, so sensitive.

Tony holds Peter’s shoulders and fucks up into him and Peter cries because he was made for this and he’s babbling and then he’s full of hot come and it’s dripping out of him and Tony is still going. The sounds he’s making are going to haunt Peter’s dreams for so long.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says so quiet between the slaps of skin on skin. Delirious. Terrible. Stupid. “I love you, Mr. Stark.”

And god, if Tony’s hips don’t stutter and his cock doesn’t twitch inside and Peter’s body milks him for every drop. Tony collapses on top of Peter, still bent in half and forgetting what year it is, and then comes the cool down.

Orgasm aside, a love declaration is a super not cool thing to do in the middle of sex with a stranger.

Peter slaps a hand to his face. “That’s so awkward.”

Tony just laughs.

Nine is the lucky number. After Peter comes for the sixth time he starts coming dry, and it starts to hurt a little, but Mr. Stark wants to see how much he can come and Peter wants Mr. Stark to make him come so that’s what happens. They take a shower and then Tony eats Peter’s ass and then comes on Peter’s face and then they have to take another shower and they’re giggling.

Peter, gratefully, only confesses his love once.

It’s clear that Tony thought it was a joke, or a virginal slip of the tongue, but he kisses Peter more and uses gentler hands after that. It’s not exactly what Peter wants, but he’s also not sure it’s on purpose. Maybe Tony just sees him as more childish now. Maybe it’s Peter being so tired after orgasm number nine that Tony has to dress him like a child, one arm, two arms, head through the hole. Maybe it’s Peter curling around him like a cat on the couch, yawning as Tony checks his phone.

“Can’t say that was my least exciting hook up,” Tony notes after a while. Peter succeeded in stealing his evening, but he wasn’t silly enough to expect to get the night. “I had fun, kid.”

He’s not a kid. He’s really not a kid now, since Tony made his bedroom a biohazard and he won’t be able to walk for at least a day. No patrol tonight, that’s for sure. Peter just buries his face in the couch cushions and grumbles sleepily. “Get out of my house,” he grumps, even as his grip tightens on Tony’s dress pants. “So mean to me.”

“I’m mean to everyone, Petey. It’s called charisma.”

“Bad,” Peter huffs. “Toxic masculinity. Vile social conditioning. Down with the patriarchy.” God, he misses MJ. He tucks his chin into the crease of Tony’s hip and looks up at him with wide eyes. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he says, with all the genuinity he can muster. He bites his lip. “Not to make it weird.”

“Too late, buddy.” Tony runs a hand through his tangled hair. He didn’t brush it after the shower and now it looks all funny. “You stalked me, sat through a lecture you didn’t understand, messed up my shirt, came ten times, and offered me your hand in marriage.” Tony laughs. “Like I said, not the least exciting hookup.”

Peter has the grace to be embarrassed now. His shame came back once Tony peeled him off the twin XL and threw him in the shower before judging his 3-in-1 body wash. “Not the most exciting?”

“I’m Iron Man, kid.” Tony hits him gently on the head with his phone before tucking it in his pocket. “My most exciting hookup would be an international war crime.”

There’s a feeling of loss as Tony gathers his things to leave – his shoes by the door, his dress socks on opposite sides of the bedroom. “I did understand your lecture, you know,” Peter says.

Tony’s mind is already far away. “Uh huh.”

“I did!” Peter sits up, both hands on the back of the couch as he watches Tony, betrayed. “You’re an easy teacher. I had to sit through an entire guest crash course with Reed Richards and it was like reading Les Mis in the original French. He spent an entire chapter talking about the culture of the nunnery, I swear.”

Tony pauses, readjusting his cufflinks. “What grade did you get?”

“An A,” Peter says. He pauses. “On a curve. It was all experimental physics theory. Not my favorite.”

“What’s your favorite?” Tony is looking at Peter with something close to interest. It’s different from lust, and maybe more dangerous. Still, Peter can’t keep himself from preening.

“Biochem.” Peter rests his head on his folded arms. “But…well.” He swallows, hesitates. Looks at Tony with a heart blown open. “I’ll take what I can get.”

“Atta boy.” Tony grins. “Always be an opportunist. Fuck a man in the middle of Manhattan. Take the bonus credit hour. Come back from the dead to surprise your friends and family.”

Peter’s already done all three. “I’ll get on that.”

Tony winks, his hand on Peter’s door. “Stay safe, Petey. Don’t take any strange old men home.”

It’s sad to see him go. It’s better. Peter sits there staring at his door for ten minutes trying to convince himself this is better. “Thank you for coming back to me, Mr. Stark.”

Chapter Text

It’s late by the time Tony returns to ESU. He left all of his stuff in that classroom, didn’t tell anyone where he was going, and more or less kidnapped their extremely cute student to have his nefarious way with him. He enters the building whistling, keys swinging around his finger.

He’s outgrown his Dionysian days of fucking anything that moves in whatever corner they move to, but he enjoys a little hedonism when it presents itself.

Nine times. Nine times. Kids these days.

The hallway is empty now. It’s a little spooky on campus after dark. Tony’s probably the only one in the building, save the students burning the candle at both ends tucked away in the science labs. It’s for the best. Tony smells like sex, like sweat and a warm body, and his hair is curling in front of his forehead where it’s escaped from his careful styling. He looks like a heathen, certainly, like something his father would be embarrassed by. It’s enough to put a spring in his step.

The click of his heels echoes down the halls. When he rounds on the classroom he sees someone’s had the good sense to turn off the light and lock the door. Tony swipes his badge with a cheerful flourish and gets busy gathering himself together. His extra ties are gently folded on the desk, his old coffee cup goes into the garbage, and then Tony sees the textbook sitting by his briefcase.

Clearly it’s Peter’s. Not only was Peter the only person who realistically would have left it here, but Tony recognizes the notebook and the notes piled on top from when Peter was sitting out in the hallway. Someone must have thought they were Tony’s and held it aside.

Tony can see where the confusion came from; the notes themselves are extremely technical and also utter chicken scratch. He’s not interested in perusing a college student’s coursework. He tucks everything into his bag and wonders whether he’ll ever get around to sending it along. He needs to. Textbooks are expensive, or so he’s told.

He turns off the light again, locks the door one more time, and jaunts down the hallways.

Peter’s a mess. He’s been a mess for an entire 24 years. Even as a, baby Peter was colicky and gross, and now he’s gross for entirely different reasons and he has enough control of his actions to feel guilty about it.

He fucked Tony Stark. He took advantage of Tony having no idea who Peter was and encouraged a miscommunication to give Peter exactly what he’s been wanting since he learned how to want. Mr. Stark would never have wanted him like that. Peter was basically his surrogate child. God, he’s going to be sick. He’s going to think so hard about how terrible of a person he is he might actually vomit.

The sensible part of Peter’s brain knows that Mr. Stark did want him like that. Or at least thought that Peter wanted him like that (which was true, but not the point of Peter’s being there) enough to fully commit to fucking Peter’s brains out in the worst apartment in Chinatown. If Mr. Stark had looked in Peter’s fridge he would have seen three blood samples and a head of lettuce and that’s it. He probably wouldn’t even have been surprised by the blood samples.

Mr. Stark is perfect.

“Oy, mijo.” Oscar snaps in front of his face. “Don’t you have bread to consolidate, eh?”

Peter has been obsessively checking the tabloids to see if anyone noticed Tony Stark taking a minor – he’s not a minor, but he knows what he looks like – for some Afternoon Delight in the middle of Manhattan. So far, there’s been nothing. Which probably means there won’t be anything because it’s been about a week now.

He kind of misses the feeling of beard burn on his ass from Tony eating him out in the shower. Oh, god.

“Peter.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’m going now.” It’s not like Peter can tell his coworkers that he slept with someone who should know who is but doesn’t. Also this person saved his life several times over, changed it in innumerable ways, inspired him to try to get himself together after the entire world fell apart with the jagged edges all pointed his way. He owes so much to Tony Stark and Tony has no idea. Tony thinks he just fucked some random student and will probably never think of him again.

Peter has to take a deep breath before he mutilates the loaves of bread. The bread doesn’t deserve that.

There are a lot of people Peter wishes would remember him. He never had a long list of people he loved – he’s a small sort of person, and prefers a small community when he takes off the mask and sets down the weight of the world or whatever. That doesn’t ease the sting that Mr. Delmar knew him when he was still learning to walk and now looks at him with nothing deeper than a kind eye. It doesn’t change that MJ and Ned are off without him and doing just fine. May is gone, and that burns in a different way. Tony was gone, too, and now Peter could have him back but he doesn’t.

It’s fine. Peter’s gotten used to taking care of himself in the last few years.

If he has dreams about someone coming along and shaping the world for him in the little ways that don’t matter, that’s his own business. And he’s a very private person.

Peter wishes the tabloids a good day and gets to work.

Patrol gets both harder and easier as the months get colder. Organized crime slips into hibernation once the fiscal year is over which is kind of embarrassing for them, but petty crime rises out of the cracks as people get desperate. It’s easier on Peter’s body, stopping a random carjacker or taking a gun out of someone’s hands, but it’s harder on his heart. He sends a lot of people towards F.E.A.S.T. as the fall turns into winter.

Peter himself thrifts some very fashionable leg warmers. Spider-Man is a fashion icon but spandex doesn’t leave a lot of room for thermal underwear. Sometimes sacrifices must be made.

Speaking of sacrifices, Peter has slept a total of four hours in the past three days because aliens don’t understand the fiscal year, and most of Staten Island is overrun by…something. Peter is having a very difficult time describing the consistency of these things as he scraps them off the bottom of his shoe. Gross.

The only benefit of dealing with aliens is that inherently comes with backup. No one ever helps Spider-Man carry Maude’s couch up seven flights of stairs but when the E.T. comes home suddenly it’s all hands on deck. Typical.

“You’re looking rough there, buddy,” says Lisa, one of the girls in his Thermo class, after she peels his forehead off their shared desk and sticks some smelling salts under his nose. It’s most as a joke, but Peter is still groggy even with his nose on fire and she’s starting to look worried.

“Oh, you know.” Peter gestures vaguely to the window. There’s ash in the sky. The traffic has been terrible. Thor is flying across the horizon carrying the Hulk like a backpack. “Shit’s wild.”

“Tell me about it.”

After class, Spider-Man stops by the shelters in Staten Island and helps them repair windows and distribute supplies. He makes soup. It’s a lot harder to hold a ladle with spandex gloves on, and the mittens someone shoves on his hands just make it worse, but he can handle soup.

He tries not to squawk when his kitchen chaperone adds way too much salt. “This is a personal offense,” he tells them, but they just grin and shove him out of the tent and into the cold, cruel New York wind.

Peter’s danger sense pings in the direction of the Verrazzano, and he dutifully swings his way across the city, bracing himself against the wind. He tucks his new mittens into his suit. There’s a little hole in the thumb and the elastic is stretched out, and they’re a gift. Very important to treasure a gift.

An arrow whizzes by his head, and he knows it’s Hawkeye because he didn’t feel the tingles, not even a little. “What took you so long?”

“Got caught up in my side job,” Peter says, switching his shooters to something more helpful. Electricity is good against these things. Stickiness is like pouring water on a grease fire.

“Which is?”

“Web developer.”

Clint boos him as he jumps into the next block.

Peter’s tired, but everyone is tired. There are plenty of heavy hitters here today – most of the Avengers are hanging around for the holiday season, so Peter gets the honor of helping Captain America sort through wreckage to evacuate civilians. “I really like your infomercials.”

Steve’s grimace makes Peter hoot. “How old are you?”

“They’ve been showing those videos for fifteen years,” Peter informs him. “Very only you can stop forest fires. Very sexy.”

The implication that Smokey the Bear is sexy seems to have put Captain America on the fritz. Peter revels in his minor victory and is half-way through excavating an apartment building by the time he realizes he’s in danger.

He overhears “...out of commission. Sending him your way…” from Steve’s comm, then he hears the cursing, then the clunking of metal as Iron Man blasts a piece of debris away and stands in front of them both in a fury. His right hand is covered in alien…whatever. He tries to blast a random piece of scaffolding away and the sound the propulser makes is goopey.

Tony’s faceplate comes up and he fiddles with his armor.

Peter’s throat is dry, but he still says, “Really sticking to your guns, there.”

“Spider-Kid! The goo expert.” Tony’s face is flat as he aims the propulser at Peter and tries fruitlessly to blast him backwards. “Just what I needed.”

“Cap, do you see this friendly fire?” It’s a good thing Peter has the mask, because Tony remembering something about him from two years ago is enough to scratch an itch he doesn’t want to have. “Can we get him Court Martialed?”

Tony’s response is absent. “You couldn’t afford me, sweetheart.”

Peter chokes on his spit. He throws himself into working and leaves Tony behind him.

Not really. Not even theoretically, because Peter spends about fifteen minutes thinking about Tony bending him in half. His own marks have faded – thanks for nothing, superhuman healing – but Tony’s probably haven’t. The scratches Peter left on his back. The bruised fingerprints around Tony’s ankle. The teeth marks on Tony’s chest. Oh, man.

He’s so lost in his terrible thoughts that he almost misses the glowing light of Karen pinging in his mask’s visual display.

Tony is staring at him when Peter jerks his head around. He must be running diagnostics on his armor and…Peter’s really stupid. Whatever. Nothing new.

“What do you have there?” Tony asks conversationally. F.R.I.D.A.Y. must be digging in, because Peter sees Karen waking up in his interface and manually overrides before she spills out into the datascape between them.

“Help,” Peter answers, in what he hopes is a casual tone. He’s holding a giant concrete slab over his head for a cat to scuttle out. He’s frozen and ridiculous. “It’s dangerous to go alone.”

“Tell your Master Sword it’s rude to piggy back.”

“Wasn’t the Master Sword but I do appreciate a snappy comeback.” Tony’s eyes harden. Peter is sweating in his suit and he can’t tell it’s nerves or his dick digging into his cup. God, he’s fucked. “Besides, I thought it was the highest form of flattery?”

Tony pauses. “Unless you’re extremely cute under that mask, I’d watch your mouth.”

“Good news.” Peter tosses the concrete aside. “I’m extremely cute.”

“Uh.” Steve clears his throat. He’s helping a disheveled woman out of a ruined car, face twisted in discomfort. “There are still civilians on the radar.”

Once again very pleased his mask hides his blush, Peter does what needs to be done and actually turns his back on Tony Stark.

Later, when everyone is safe and the Avengers have things handled, Peter buys two toothbrushes from a bodega that’s somehow still standing. He pets the cat on the head and spends his next hour helping Tony remove gunk from his gauntlets in relative silence.

It feels, frighteningly, like the before times.

Tony has really had it up to here with his stupid hand. Pepper tells him to take it easy and Rhodey commiserates and also tells him to take it easy. Hell, even Bucky is telling him to take it easy and they still don’t like each other.

The third time Tony drops the soldering wire he throws his mug on the ground and screams, guttural.

This whole back to life thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Dum-E is hard at work cleaning it up by the time Tony is finished with his tantrum. He collapses into his work chair and pats the anxious thing on the head before running a hand over his face. He needs a shower and a shave. Maybe some deodorant. Probably something to eat.

“I’ve sent a request for lunch to be brought to the lab, sir,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. echoes. “It should arrive in approximately fifteen minutes. Would you like your request to be expedited?”

Tony waves her off with his good hand and picks up the stress ball his PT gave him. His joints ache. Everyone says he’s crazy but he knows his fingers are crooked now. He worked with his hands every single day for a lifetime. It’s driving him crazy that he can’t do what is necessary, but it’s just par for the course. It’s never been his mind that limited him; it’s always been his body.

Maybe he should give his body a rest. It’s too bad that his mind can’t stop. That’s never been his strong suit. He needs something to do or he’ll spiral, focusing on the crooked joints of his fingers and the smell of war lodged so deep up his nasal cavity he’ll be smelling copper and ash for the rest of life.

Peter’s textbook is sitting off to the side, frayed cardboard at the edges. He meant to send it off. He really did. But then he realized no classes at ESU require this textbook and all sense of urgency dissipated. Also they got attacked by aliens. Very unfortunate.

There are notes in the margins, highlighter on almost every page. Most of it is in short hand, but there are some theoretical equations that catch Tony’s interest enough to reach for the notebook Peter left behind.

Those notes are incredibly clear. The presence of another set of handwriting implies these notes are meant to be shared with a partner, and everything is extremely developed. The dates on the initial composition and structure coding is from before Tony came back to life, but the writing there is still jumbled.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., run these structures for me, would you?”

Medical adhesive. A good one, at that. Clean, cheap, more effective than the more commonly used competitor. It’s strong enough to handle an Olympian gymnastics routine, with variations of how quickly it dissolves depending on the needs of the wound. And it bends. It’s flexible enough to handle natural movement and then some.

It’s incredible. Not life-changing – there aren’t many gymnasts competing with super glue on their heads – but industry-changing, certainly. Tony can think of plenty of applications for heroes, policemen, and other emergency responders. The cost of product and flexibility make it noteworthy for the common man, but it’s the heavy duty nature of the design that peaks Tony’s professional interest.

Peter is 24. That means he started working on this when he was 21, at the latest.

Tony feels almost bad, now, for some of his off-hand remarks. Peter didn’t just understand Tony’s lecture. He’s probably intelligent enough to talk about it with Tony eye-to-eye. Assuming he had any interest in AI development, of course. But there are other sciences to talk about. Tony considers himself a mechanic first, and a jack of all trades second.

He wants to talk to Peter.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. is more than happy to create a profile for Peter, although the information only confuses Tony more. Excellent schooling, disappears off the educational grid for a couple of years, shows up at Tony’s doorstep some time later. No family, no official work beyond some freeland coding and a sandwich shop.

Tony calls Midtown High because he’s an insane, traumatized man with nothing better to do.

“Peter Parker?” says the secretary. “I’m sorry, Mr. Stark, I don’t remember anyone by that name.”

“Weird,” Tony says. “He graduated Salutatorian and you don’t remember him.”

“I’m not accusing you of anything, Mr. Stark.” She’s flustered by his name as much as anyone, but Tony’s always found people who work in the school system are made of sterner stuff than the rest of them. “I found his file; he definitely attended. He must not have been very active in extracurriculars. I can’t disclose much more, sir, not even for you.”

Tony doesn’t like weird. Weird makes him itchy. And something about Peter is weird.

It’s not the way that Tony keeps circling back to that stupid kid with his beat-up sneakers and his pretty noises and the theoretical ability to keep Tony on his toes. It’s not about his grades, or the adhesive, or the notes scribbled onto scrap paper for something different that Tony spends an extra ten minutes trying to parse. It’s not his hair or his body – it’s a little his body – or his eyes or his tears.

It’s the overwhelming feeling that Tony is missing something.

Tony squeezes the life out of his stress ball absently and makes another call.

Educators are tough nuts to crack but university professors need money and that means they need Tony Stark. “I’d be more than happy to answer any questions you might have. Of course, of course.”

“Thank you so much, Greg. I appreciate it.” Tony took that shower and shaved and thought about how creepy he was willing to be for a few days. Now, he’s standing in front of the Dean for the School of Science, Mathematics, and Technology looking like a million very charming dollars. “I had such a good conversation with Mr. Parker, I thought I’d look into him. For future purposes, you know.”

“Mr. Parker?” The name registers recognition, but also surprise. “Well, yes, he is very bright. If you’re interested in hiring him post-graduation, I’m afraid it might be some time.”

“And why is that? Is he putting off his thesis?”

“Oh, sir, he isn’t a graduate student. He’s still a freshman.”

Tony chews on that for a moment. “I assume he started late.”

“A couple of years ago. Just takes a few classes a semester.” Greg scratches the scruff of his beard. “He’s an absolute delight to teach. I thought Dr. Connors was going to poach him for a startup. We offered him scholarships, of course, but…on paper it’s difficult to justify.”

From there, it’s much of the same. Peter is brilliant, well-loved, quiet, and moving through life at a snail’s pace. His attendance was spotty, and there were a few filed notes of him falling asleep during courses, but mostly that was attributed to his grueling life outside of school. “He doesn’t mention it often,” Greg informs Tony. “It’s just easy to read. You learn how to spot trouble, after a while. Even if it’s not their fault.”

Peter never attends school events. Peter never fails an exam. Peter doesn’t speak to his peers. Peter has a smile that makes up for his reluctance to participate.

And no one can tell Tony anything about Peter from before. He has no ties anywhere, adrift, but Tony gets the feeling Peter is so settled into New York that he could never leave. He feels like that kind of native, loyal to the subway and the pies and the people and the gum on the pavement. He feels dirty and deep.

He feels familiar. It’s driving Tony up the wall.

It’s not normal for him to think this much about a hookup. Sure, Tony hasn’t had as many of them in recent years. He’d been married to Pepper, and then he suddenly wasn’t married to Pepper because he was dead, and then he had a short fling with alcohol. He’s not well-adjusted and he prefers being busy to feeling any sort of real emotion. He’s also famous and full of more classified information than the Vice President, most of the time. He’s a cocktail of reasons for not hooking up.

But he’d taken one look at Peter and thought, yeah, why not? Like it was easy.

Well, Peter certainly was easy. He was easy over and over again. He was so easy it felt like Tony living in some fantasy, where someone didn’t care that he was a neurotic mess and just wanted him to be around. Felt like he was chasing a ghost. Terrible.

Peter is exhausted. He still hasn’t slept, pulled at double at Delmar’s. His bedsheets still smell like Tony because he can’t bring himself to wash them, which has the added bonus of making him fucking disgusting. The lettuce in his fridge is all brown now. He thinks he has some freezer burnt Hot Pockets beneath the overflow from his ice maker. Maybe.

Rent is due in a week. Peter has to stop by the landlord and ask for an extension. He brings up the fact that everyone he’s ever loved is dead and she gives him an extra week to pay up. He only does this every three months or so, but it’s always the same conversation with the same outcome. If she weren’t such a hardass he’d think she was soft on him.

He gets most of the way to his door before his danger sense buzzes in his ear. It’s slight, no threat of bodily harm but definitely something he doesn’t want to deal with right now – certainly not in his own home. He huffs, rearranging his backpack on his shoulders so he can use it as a ranged weapon before turning the key in the lock and bracing himself.

It’s not the first time he’s come home to Tony Stark sitting on his couch, but it’s still unexpected.

Peter blinks at him, backpack falling slack in his fingers. “Did you break into my house?” he ask dumbly. Of course. Of course Tony Stark broke into his house.

“Of course I broke into your house.” Tony snaps shut the book he’s been reading. It’s Peter’s dog-eared copy of The Watchmen, spine broken, like Tony had picked the most brutalized book in the room and said yes, that’s the one. Maybe he did. “You did leave your key above the door jam, though. That’s the third place anyone would look. You don’t even have a flower pot.”

“I’ll get one for next time.” Peter rubs his eyes. He toes off his shoes and stretches his spine and just…ignores Tony. Not complete, because how could he? But just enough to gather his wits. It’s going to take a while. Everything is moving in slow motion.

Tony points at him over the back of the couch. “You have any pizza bites?”

Peter does, in fact, have pizza bites.

“Depressing college kid staple.” Tony nods firmly, like he knew it all along; Peter Park is, in fact, depressed and in college. “I’ll take some. Thank you.”

“What are you doing here?” Peter demands weakly, but he digs through the chunks of ice in his freeze for the pizza bites anyway. “Did I leave that much of an impression?” He tries not to sound too hopeful. He wouldn’t mind part two, but…morally he shouldn’t. The thought of Mr. Stark fucking him over his kitchen table isn’t exactly unfamiliar – Peter should stop there. He should really fucking stop there.

But then Tony laughs and says, “You sure did, kid,” and Peter thinks he would give up everything he’s ever had if Tony would just make that sound forever.

Too bad he already gave up pretty much everything. All he has now is a piece of lint, some elbow grease, and…twenty seven pizza bites.

“Put those in the oven, young man. I expect to be romanced.”

“By my pizza bites?”

Tony chuckles. It’s deep and low. “I do love to be served by greatness. I’ve got a big competency kink.”

Peter freezes, midway through pulling on his horrible oven mitts. They look like Buzz Lightyear gloves. “Uh.”

“Called your school.” Tony says it like it’s simple. Like, whatever, I’m about to end your whole career. “Secretary had no idea who you were. Mrs. Hutchinson. Nice lady.”

“Yeah.” Peter clears his throat. She was nice. He played soccer with her son, before he’d realized he was terrible at sports. She used to bring ice cream bars for everyone. “I was, uh, bit a wallflower.”

Tony squints at him. It’s all theatrics. “I can see it.” Tony has a way of putting on a show; he has a place he wants the conversation to go and he takes complete control of the air in the room until he gets it there. “Robotics awards, first place with the Academic Decathlon, a horrible stint as a French horn in the marching band…Salutatorian.” Every word feels like the pounding of the gavel. “F.R.I.D.A.Y. dug up numerous bullying incidents your aunt reported. Completely forgettable. Why would Mrs. Hutchinson remember you?”

Peter stares at him until his stomach growls. He scowls, pulling the stupid mitt on and getting to work. “I’m sorry. Did I miss the part where you explain why you broke into my house?” he grumbles.

Tony crosses his legs. He’s wearing a tailored suit with the jacket tossed over the back of Peter’s Depression Chair. His tie is loosened, the top button undone. His shoes are shined and his socks have tiny Iron Men on them. He looks like every single one of Peter’s fantasies, save the cut on his chin and the bruises under his eyes – those just make him look human.

A human that Peter has fucked. God, he’s going to throw up.

The vision that is Tony Stark seems unperturbed. “Just returning some goods.” He holds up a tattered notebook.

Peter’s stomach drops. His eyes dart to his backpack, because it should be…but he’s been so busy he hasn’t had time to work on anything. The last time was…in the hallway. Just before Tony grabbed him by the collar and shoved his tongue into Peter’s mouth. Oh, good times.

The old book on cloning that Peter got from the thrift shop is sitting on the coffee table (which is actually an upside down crate with a piece of very classy walnut wood on top) and there is a napkin with Tony Stark’s handwriting on it, like he’d made notes. Peter looks back at Tony and sees a cat who caught the cream. He’s not sure why, unless Mr. Stark is going to make fun of his handwriting.

But that would be too much like before and Peter might start crying and that would be less embarrassing that confessing love to a stranger in the middle of sex but like, it’d still be up there.

So he just goes pink in the cheeks and says, “Thanks?”

Tony waves the folder dismissively. He only does that when he’s very distracted or very focused, and there’s nothing going on except for Peter lusting after him over here in the corner. “It’s good stuff, the glue. You should patent it. The trials are clearly over.”

Oh. “Patents require money, Mr. Stark,” Peter tells him, mildly forlorn. He stares at the pizza bites in the oven and wishes Tony would just get the point. “The school provides funding for clinical trials so…we’re just…doing that. For a while.” The product is done. Gwen swears she’s going to help produce it once she gets out of school, but Peter knows better than to depend on anyone for anything.

Tony hums agreeably. “And the fabric? Have you started work on that?”

Peter’s stomach is in knots. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a filthy snoop?”

“Normally they call me an absolute joy, but filthy snoop works just as well.” Tony stands then, with the folder in one hand. He slips his other hand into his pocket like he’s completely at ease sticking his nose in Peter’s business. “The idea is only half-developed, but there are a lot of uses for it.”

It’s not half-developed – Peter is using most of those theories on his suit already. A material that offers protection from bullets but retains flexibility. Some individual ideas he’s converted into his webbing, the strength and flexibility separated from the stickiness for barrier building.

But Tony isn’t his mentor anymore, and Spider-Man is Peter’s and Peter’s alone. “It’s none of your business, Mr. Stark.”

Tony steps over to the kitchen and leans his elbows on the counter. He’s so close to Peter. He smells like every good thing. “You don’t want to make it my business?” he asks, sliding in a little closer. Peter’s eye’s flutter shut and he holds his breath. The sound he makes when Tony noses at his jaw is not okay. “I’m pretty good with this kind of thing.” His free smoothes up Peter’s side beneath his sweater. His fingers splay over Peter’s abs to pull him closer into Tony’s chest. “God. Aren’t people with bodies like yours supposed to be wearing tight shirts and assless chaps?”

“Strippers, Mr. Stark. You’re thinking of strippers.” Peter’s head hangs forward, eyes pressed tightly closed, and the scrape of Tony’s facial hair against his sensitive skin sends shivers down his spine. “I’m more of a spandex guy myself.” He shouldn’t be like this. Mr. Stark wouldn’t do this if he remembered.

For the first time, Peter doesn’t wish for recognition so desperately. He’s not sure he should trade Tony’s support for his board hands pressing down the front of his thighs, but for a moment…for a moment, if someone asked him whether everything is worth it, he’d say yes. It’s worth feeling Tony so solidly behind him, feeling him getting harder and harder as he feels up Peter’s thighs, chest, stomach. His mouth speaking silently against his cheek, like butterfly kisses or a prayer.

Peter wants to sob. It’s a lot. It’s more than he’s had in such a long time. “I can’t…oh, shit.”

Tony’s thumb finds Peter’s pulse for a split second before tilting Peter’s head to the side and then Tony is kissing him so sweetly. So sweet, like when they pulled him out of the dirt they replaced all his blood with honey. Like Peter wouldn’t fall to his knees with a stiff wind and the promise of his mouth around Tony’s cock. And Peter does sob. Tony swallows it before he even registers what it is, down down down and Peter is arched backwards in his arms and Tony is still kissing him. They’re swaying, just a little, back and forth in Peter’s terrible kitchen like there’s music playing somewhere that’s not just Peter’s head. It feels like more.

More is so dangerous. Peter doesn’t get to be selfish but he stops the dance long enough to turn in Tony’s arms and cage him in against the kitchen counter and take. Give me more, Mr. Stark. Give me my life and my future and the universe and every kiss you’re going to give for the rest of your life. What Tony has already given the world isn’t enough for Peter. He wants his tongue down Tony’s throat like they’re two kids rutting behind the bleaches. He wants Tony to laugh at how desperate he is so Peter can run fond fingers over the laugh lines by his eyes.

He wants more.

Peter fucks his hips up against Tony’s and he hears Tony hiss through his teeth. He swallows that like Tony swallows his sob and he keeps going. Tony puts his arms around Peter’s neck and says, “just like that. My good boy.”

“Sir,” Peter says, and the word shakes like Peter is shaking. Breaks like Peter. Tastes like Tony and feels like Tony and oh–“Mr. Stark, I want you to fuck my throat, I want you to–”

Tony surges up into Peter. “Do you think you could? Have you been practicing?”

Peter shakes his head, and he’s so turned on his mouth isn’t moving much anymore. Tony is rolling over him, taking control of him. Tony can use Peter however he wants. “Want to choke.” Wants to look up at Tony drooling and crying with Tony’s spit-shined shoe on his stomach. “Want it to hurt.” He digs his teeth into Tony’s collarbone.

With a growl, Tony’s hands go for his waistband. He untucks his shirt and takes off his tie and goes for his belt–

The moment lingers on, the clinking of fumbling, and Peter notices Tony has stopped kissing him before he notices that Tony’s fingers can’t undo the latch.

Tony looks pale. He curses. He grabs his wrist with his…with his good hand. Shakes it, like it’s needs a jump start to work.

“Do you…” It’s so quiet all a sudden, awkward, and Peter realizes it’s because the adrenaline is gone. Sucked out of the room. A void. So weird. “Do you want me to help?”

“No, kid.” Tony sighs. He holds his face in both hands. “No.”

Maybe Tony tastes a little broken, too.

“Stupid hand.” Tony’s jaw clenches. “No one said I came back right.”

Gently, Peter takes Tony’s right hand in both of his, pulls it away from Tony’s face and sees that suddenly Tony looks his age. Tired and exhausted. He probably hasn’t been sleeping much either. He’s here in a 24-year-old’s terrible apartment because he’s trying to do something that doesn’t hurt him, so he’s going to do Peter.

Peter does what a part of him has wanted to do for a long time. He presses a kiss to the heel of Tony’s hand. To the love line running across the palm. He looks at Tony and sees dark eyes, half-way to dead. Peter kisses each knuckle, each fingertip, even as they twitch against his lips. “It’s a good hand,” Peter whispers, digging his thumbs into the tension in the center. He spiders his fingers out from the center, ticklish, until their fingertips touch.

Those eyes are still half-dead, but Peter’s never seen Tony cry – not since Peter fought the dust back that extra minute and begged – so that’s what he notices first.

“Hi,” he says gently with a small, incredulous laugh. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.” He drops Tony’s hand and wipes away tears, clumsy and too much.

Tony grips his wrists, iron. “I know you,” he breathes, and Peter’s heart skips a beat. Panic. Unreasonable panic. “I know you. It’s driving me crazy.”

“You mean…” Peter clears his throat. “You mean, like, in the Biblical sense?” Haha. He steps away and Tony Stark slumps against his counter like Peter was the only thing keeping him standing. “I’ve got…one of those faces. You know.”

“Right.” Tony picks his tie up from where it’s fallen over the kitchen faucet. “Wallflower. I remember.”

It’s quiet. Neither of them move because they’re both magnetically attracted to things that will ruin them.

“Thanks for bringing me my notes,” Peter says. It’s as close to a dismissal as he’s ever given Mr. Stark.

“Don’t mention it, kid,” Tony says, like he means it.

After Tony has gathered up his strewn belongings, in a strange deja-vu of the last time he was here, and the door is closed between them, Peter whispers out into the empty apartment – “Thank you for coming back to me, Mr. Stark.”

The over timer dings. Peter eats twenty seven pizza bites by himself and now he has dangerously close to nothing.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., but that data from the tap back, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir. There’s no data on the device currently.”

Tony is spinning lazy circles in his office chair. He built this lab full of windows, but it’s dark out and he’s been here for hours just thinking and all the windows are doing is making him remember he’s alone. Morgan is here sometimes and Pepper is here sometimes but he’s the only one who’s here. Stuck here.

The first thing he did when he got back was take off his belt.

“What do you mean there’s no data?” He’d left the tap there before Peter had even gotten home. At the very least it should have recorded their conversation. Tony wouldn’t even mind if that was all he got, because he keeps running it back through his brain and he’s not sure he’s remembering the right things anymore.

“There’s no data on the device.”

Tony pulls up the data manually and looks through his code. What was supposed to be his code.

Everything has been deleted, completely wiped, and all the hacker left behind is a tiny

>:(

Tony spins lazy circles in his office chair for another hour at least, wondering what it feels like to fall in love with someone he doesn’t know but thinks he should.

The next week, Peter looks into the patenting process because he can never just leave what Tony says alone. He was right, it requires money – oddly, the thing that stops Peter the most is the idea of putting his name on something permanent.

He’s existed as a ghost for so long, he thinks he’s forgetting what it’s like to have a heartbeat. A papertrail. A body that does more than float along.

Spider-Man isn’t a ghost, but he’s not a person either. He’s a thing that Peter uses, a tool. There was a time where it felt like Spider-Man was a person and Peter Parker wasn’t, but Peter Parker is the one who goes hungry and cleans the blood out of the floorboards. Spider-Man takes the punches and Peter bears the bruises.

He thinks about it now, pulling himself in through his bedroom window, smearing blood on the windowpane. He thinks about how Spider-Man isn’t alive and Peter is, and there was a time where neither of them were, and there had been several times where Spider-Man was the more alive between the two of them.

There’s spandex melted to his thigh he pries off with his fingers. When he looks in the mirror he sees sweaty hair and a bruised mouth. When he looks at his bed he sees Tony Stark, sees himself taking more than Mr. Stark would ever have given him.

But Tony and Mr. Stark are the same and it’s Peter who’s different.

Peter laughs in the middle of sewing up his suit. He laughs because he told Tony to go and the Peter that Tony had known wouldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t have dreamed of that. He’s laughing because his whole life is him giving up every little thing and still feeling selfish when he takes something that’s offered to him.

He laughs because he makes things harder on himself and doesn’t know a better way to live.

Peter peels his suit down to his waist and counts the bruises on his arms. He smears the blood on the wood with his thumb and hangs his top half out of the window, looking at the skyline. He laughs again. At himself. At the universe. He died and Tony brought him back over and over and over again. Peter keeps forgetting the most important thing.

He’s alive.

It’s cold outside. It’s not so cold that he needs mittens but there is still a pair with a hole in the thumb in his bag . Peter has his hands pushed inside the pockets of Uncle Ben’s old coat. He doesn’t wear it as much anymore, but he needed it today. He stands in front of the Avenger’s Tower and tries to count the windows. It looks huge, like it did before, but he’s older now. Taller.

Apparently, like, significantly more sappy.

He pushes through the doors and makes sure to smear his nasty, undergrad fingers on the glass.

The receptionist is a red-haired man in a polo eating a banana. He’s only kind of paying attention – it’s a Sunday, and no one is in the building – but he’s paying enough that he notices Peter scuttling in from the weather. “Hello, sir. Do you have an appointment?”

It’s now or never. “No, sir.” He pulls the card out of his bag. “I was just stopping by.”

His old intern pass. Clearance Level Alpha. His face is printed on it. There’s no expiration date.

Dubiously, the receptionist scans his card and purses his lips when it clears. “The elevators are down the hall to the right.”

Peter knows. “Thank you.”

It’s a long ride to the penthouse. “F.R.I.D.A.Y.?”

“Yes, sir?”

Peter swallows, throat dry. “Do you, uh, do you know who I am?”

“Of course, sir,” she says, and if Peter were feeling a little insecure and a little emotional (which he isn’t) he might think she sounds fond. “You’re Peter Parker.”

“Okay.” Peter hops a little on his feet, trying to beat the cold out of his bones. “Okay, cool.”

He has to scan both to get on the elevator and to get out of the elevator, and by the time he feels like he’s been on there too long the doors ding and he’s fumbling to scan his way free.

The loft is just like he remembers. Well, not really. There are children’s toys and books scattered around, and a lot of the furniture has been replaced for something more reasonable. The white couch is covered in blankets and throw pillows. There’s a wrench set out by a lamp that looks like it was recently bought second-hand or found on the side of the road. Peter thinks Aunt May used to have one just like that. His heart hurts.

There are family pictures on the walls instead of just modern decor. Tony had just been starting on that project when everything happened. In a trance, Peter traces the empty spots where he remembers his photograph being. In a fit of anger, unreasonable and unbidden, he wants to dig his nails into the drywall and tear it apart. He gives it a solid pat and turns back to the living area. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., please let Mr. Stark know he has company.”

Peter knows exactly when Tony gets the notification. There’s clattering from the stairwell that leads to the lab, and it’s only a few extra seconds before Peter sees Tony pushing open the door. It’s better that way, probably, because Peter was seconds away from going back down the elevator and bidding the entire excursion good day.

Tony takes it in stride. When your life is aliens and ninjas and coming back from the dead, Peter imagines your booty call appearing at your doorstep is low on the list of Things To Freak Out About. “Wow. Kind of weird that you’re here.” He’s wiping oil off his hands with a cloth. He’s swearing a tank top and sweatpants and his hair is on his forehead and Peter’s still in love with him.

He clears his throat. “Uh, had to, you know, return the favor. Break into your house.” Like a completely normal person. What is it about superheroes and grand gestures? Is being dramatic an unrecorded side effect of radioactivity? Why couldn’t he have just sent an email or something? Or a dick pic.

Tony raises an eyebrow and tosses the rag over his shoulder. “I had a key.”

Peter holds up his access card. “So do I.”

Tony is a smart man. Peter used to love to watch the gears turn – he still does, usually. Right now, it’s terrifying because it’s heavy and Peter doesn’t know if he’ll like the conclusion Tony finds. When he reaches to pluck it out of Peter’s fingers, Peter lets him. “Where’d you get this?” Tony looks over it like the receptionist did; photo ID, expiration date…clearance level. Tony thumbs over the bar code, and the bent corner. “You know how many people have this kind of access?”

“The Avengers,” Peter offers. “Pepper. Happy.” Pause. “Me.” Jazz hands.

The suspicion is the hardest thing to swallow. “I thought you said you didn’t need the Stark Internship,” Tony snips, handing the card back to Peter like he doesn’t believe it.

“I already had it,” Peter says, looking at the card fondly. “It was…it was created for me.”

Tony chews on it. “I would remember.”

Peter shrugs. “No one else does.”

There’s no good way to tell Tony the truth. Peter’s been thinking about how to approach someone, anyone, on and off for nearly seven years. He’s never found a good opening line. Hey, MJ, I know all about your trauma and we made out in Europe. Hi, Ned, your mom used to pack you two lunches because you noticed I didn’t have enough money to eat.

Hey, Tony, I’d die for you again and again and again and again–

Tony grabs Peter by the shoulders so hard it’ll leave a mark. His eyes are wild and red and Peter wonders how long he’s been down there, how long since he’s seen another person. Maybe not since he left Peter’s apartment with his hand cradled to his chest. “I would remember.” Like it hurts.

And Peter…Peter knows Tony better than he should. “It’s not your fault.” It’s Peter’s fault.

With a huff Tony pushes off and walks back towards the lab. For a moment, Peter thinks that’s it – that’s all Tony is going to ask. Peter is too big of a puzzle and Tony has too much on his mind.

And then Tony says, “hey, kid, where’s the bathroom?”

Tony knows where the bathroom is. Peter gestures towards it anyway.

“What’s the code for the lab door?”

“Uh.” Peter blinks. “It used to be Pepper’s birthday. I’d guess it’s Morgan’s now.”

“What’s the blue stain on the wall behind the curtain from?”

Peter pales. “I…I have no idea, sir.”

“Damn.” Tony wipes his brow. “I was hoping you would. It’s been a mystery for years.” He collapses onto the couch like his bones are so heavy they can’t keep him up anymore. His head lolls back and Peter sees his throat, all skin. There’s a mark by his collar that might be from Peter. “Nothing makes any damn sense anymore. Or…not that way I wish it would.”

Peter is still hovering by the photographs. Ben’s jacket is too big and smells old and like home and Peter kind of prays that it will swallow him up when he says, “I’m Spider-Man,” and Tony just says, “Yeah, I know.”

He sputters. “Wait, what?”

Tony sighs, sitting up and leaning his elbows on his knees. “I’m not an idiot. I can figure out the same problem twice.” Peter can see down his shirt, the casing for the Iron Man suit pressed against his chest like a lifeline. “YouTube is really not your friend, kid.”

“Call me Peter,” Peter says.

“Did I call you ‘kid’ before, Peter?” Tony asks tiredly.

Peter hesitantly makes his way over and sits on the other side of the couch. He pulls at the frays of a pillow and hugs it to his chest. “Yeah.” His throat is chalk now. “You…called me a lot of things.” He smiles, hurt and small and far away. “Underoos.”

Tony looks like Peter just stabbed him in the chest. “That was my password out of the panic room. I couldn’t figure it out.”

Peter buries his face in the pillow. “You gave me E.D.I.T.H.”

For a second, Tony’s face turns red, and then he’s shouted, “What?”

“Yeah, man. You gave the most dangerous weapon in the world to a sixteen-year-old.” Peter laughs, almost manic. He hasn’t told anyone this…not since Beck. No one ever really knew the full story of what happened. People were there for parts of it, but all the pieces to put together were forgotten by everyone except for Peter, and he never had anyone to tell. He pulls the glasses out of his pocket. “They don’t work anymore. I looked at them after you came back but…I guess you shut it down.”

Tony recognizes those. He has to. He runs his fingers over the groves and shakes his head at himself. “You were in Germany. I never thought about how you ended up there.”

“Yep.”

“You were twelve or something.”

“Or something.” Peter chuckles to himself. “I just…oh, god, Mr. Stark, I wanted to impress you so bad. I would have done anything you told me. You asked me to cross the world to fight for something I didn’t understand and I went and I was happy about it.”

Tony looks at Peter like he’s never seen him before. “That’s not healthy.”

Peter’s mouth curls around an emotion he doesn’t want to let out. “No. It wasn’t our best move.”

It’s so quiet. The sound of Tony thinking has always been loud. He’s a loud person, taking up a lot of space, allowing just enough room for Peter to squeeze in. “I think about Titan a lot.”

Peter closes his eyes for a split second while the memories roll over him. “Yeah.” Peter thinks about Titan more than he wants to. There are enough bad things in his life that dying is just one more chip in the bag, but the look on Tony’s face as he went makes his stomach fester.

Tony’s hands are shaking, rubbing up and down his thighs at an attempt of self-soothing. He’s a terrible self-soother. Peter knows that firsthand. “I think about why I put on the gauntlet and died. Why would I do that when all I wanted was to live and watch my daughter grow up.” Digs his palms into his eye sockets. “Why did I do that?”

For you.

It’s the second time he’s seen Tony cry. Peter scuttles over on his knees and pulls Tony’s hands away from his face. “You did it because you’re a hero,” Peter says. He means it. Mr. Stark is the best person Peter knows, and if Peter has to sit here and hold him together with his bare hands he’s going to do it. God knows Tony’s done it for him.

He tells Tony snippets. How Tony showed up and changed his life. The dinners and the family outings and the internship. The Staten Island Ferry. The giant donut in the sky. Meeting Dr. Strange the first time. His voice trips over meeting Dr. Strange the second time, but Tony deserves to know and Peter deserves to be known.

He thinks. He thinks he deserves it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” Tony has stopped crying and is leaning his forehead against Peter’s shoulder. Peter fiddles with the hair at the base of Tony’s neck and rocks him back and forth the way Peter likes to be held. “I never told anyone and then–with everything…I thought you’d, you know…” He buries his face in Tony’s hair and breathes deep. This is the hardest. “You’d regret it. I didn’t want you to regret me.”

Not about this. It would rip Peter in half.

Tony is shaking his head and this is the part Peter knew was coming. “I don’t love you.”

Peter holds onto Tony for dear life.

“I don’t know you.” Tony pulls back and he looks tired, old, and sad. He cups Peter’s face with his greasy hands and shakes them both. “So why does it break my heart that I left you alone for so long?”

Peter gapes at him, useless, and he would probably be there for an hour looking for something to say if Tony didn’t pull him and crush their mouths together like he wanted it to hurt.

It does hurt. It hurts good, like a wound healing, like a tooth pulled, like something worth holding on to. Their first kiss was all lust and their second was all sweet and this one is desperate. Like neither of them can hold it together for a second longer. Like they’re marionettes and someone finally snipped their threads and they can finally escape the stage, tangled up in each other. Tony bites at Peter’s lower lip until Peter squirms. Tony pushes the jacket off Peter’s shoulders. Tony stops kissing long enough to pull Peter into his lap and listen to his heart beat.

“You’re alive,” Tony says with reverence.

Peter is on his knees, straddling Tony, and smoothes down Tony’s hair while Tony crushes his face into Peter’s chest. Babump, babump.

“I don’t know why this feels like the most important thing,” Tony whispers into Peter’s stomach. “You’re the most important thing. I’m losing my mind.”

Peter rubs his hands down Tony’s shoulder blades, feeling the muscle. Tony’s breath leaves a damp spot on his shirt, or maybe it’s Tony’s eyes, but Peter just keeps soothing, soothing, soothing because he knows Tony can’t do it himself. “You’re…thank you for coming back to me.” Peter presses his cheek to the top of Tony’s head. “Tony. Thank you for coming back.”

This kiss tastes like salt. Like nostalgia. Tony doesn’t remember and Peter does but Tony pulls Peter apart piece by piece like he’s trying to learn. Jacket off, shirt on the floor, mouthing at Peter’s chest until he’s shaking and there’s a spot on the front of his pants from precome. Tony mouths at that too, pushing Peter’s pants down and soaking his boxers. He throws Peter’s legs over his shoulders and grunts happily when Peter can’t help but squeeze Tony’s head between his thighs.

“Oh, Mr. Stark.” Peter tries not to rut into Tony’s mouth. “Oh, I’ll–”

Tony presses a thumb down Peter’s perineum and swallows him down.

Peter tastes himself on Tony’s mouth. “I want you so fucking bad,” he hisses. “I want you to buy me things. I want you to show me off and push me down. God.” He pulls Tony down on top of him, his ankles digging into the back of Tony’s ass. “Want you inside. Always want you inside.”

Tony groans, his cock pressed against Peter’s ass with only his sweatpants in the way. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“We’ve both died once already.” Peter laughs at himself. He can’t believe it, his own audacity. The way the stupid macabre joke makes Tony’s eyes glitter. The way Tony is beautiful and alive and right here between Peter’s legs like it’s where he was supposed to be the whole time. “What’s one more little death, huh?”

“One or nine?”

Peter grins. “Think you can keep up?”

Tony huffs out a laugh, and then pauses to mouth at Peter’s collarbone. “I can’t believe you came like a firehose and I didn’t stop to think maybe that wasn’t normal.” He pulls Peter’s ass into his hips and it’s enough for Peter to black out for a second.

“I was too enthralling,” Peter mutters, already flushed like he can’t get the words out in a serious voice. “Beguiling. Your Venus. Your Cleopatra. Your…I can’t think of anything else.”

“Stop thinking, then.” Tony kisses Peter quiet.

Peter’s nails go up Tony’s sides and down his chest, hovering over scarred skin. Pressing into the mottled muscle. Digging into the heartbeat. It’s racing now. Peter did that. He bites Tony’s lip through his grin because he did that. Tony is hard beneath him and Peter did that.

Tony sucks at a spot on Peter’s neck that makes him shudder. Precome sticks between them and the sound Tony makes when Peter grabs him through his sweats is unreal. It plays like the radio between Peter’s ears.

“This is enough spank material for a decade,” Peter admits, pressing his face into Tony’s stubble. He licks up the sweat, all greed and tongue. He pulls Tony’s ear into his mouth, suck on the curve of his jaw. “You ruined me for anyone else, you absolute bitch.”

“There it is.” Tony looks at Peter pulling out his cock with something terribly close to tenderness. “You’re just like all the others.” He fucks into the tight circle of Peter’s grip and leans down to kiss him gently on the nose. “You’re after my money, aren’t you?”

“Would you buy me that patent?” Peter asks, making his eyes wide and innocent while his hand moves slick. “Make me rich?”

Tony breathes out against Peter’s cheek. “Anything.”

“Would you buy me something pretty and parade me around like a doll?” It’s Peter who shudders this time. “Oh, maybe fuck me in it after? Yours? Oh.” His hips jerk.

“Fuck you on the floor in front of everyone if you’d let me.” Tony grinds into Peter, pressing down his hips and thighs and nipping at his throat, scraping teeth up his jugular like Peter’s prey on the spit. “Put you in a pretty dress, push you around a little.” He pauses, like he thinks maybe Peter won’t like it, but Peter is leaking and he’s so close and Tony digs his thumb into the slit. “Flip the skirt over your head so you can’t see who’s walking by to watch me make you feel good.”

Peter’s thighs clench and he rocks in Tony’s grip but he wants to be held down. He wants to be destroyed. He loves this thing that will ruin him. He holds Tony’s cock with both hands now, trying to stay steady. “I’ll let you. I’ll let you.”

Tony moves to Peter’s hole. He spits on his finger and circles Peter’s entrance with a calloused thumb. “You’d let me do anything?”

“I’m selfish,” Peter admits, chest heaving. His mouth drops open as Tony pushes a finger inside. “Want you, want everything. Gimme, oh, give me a car and a country and oh—” He sobs, panting as he covers Tony’s hand in white. He feels Tony push in another slick finger as he spasm and Peter sobs again. “Want everything, oh, please. Mr. Stark.” He keeps coming and coming as Tony’s fingers curl.

“I’ll give you whatever you want,” Tony promises, pressing kissing over Peter’s face. “I’ll give you love, even, after a while.” He finds Peter’s prostate, oversensitive. “Doesn’t that sound nice? That I could love you? Keep you forever. Dress you up and fuck you and give you the world.”

Peter throws his arms over Tony’s neck. “I just want you here,” is all he says, and when Tony slips his cock inside it feels right. The perfect place.

The roll of Tony’s hips is perfect. He’s exhausted and Peter’s sensitive and neither of them are their best but it’s perfect. The rug burn on Peter’s back and the skyline outside of the window and fingers in his hair. “God, kid,” Tony grunts into his chest. “You’re how I die.”

Peter threads his fingers through Tony’s. Sucks Tony’s thumb into his mouth and keeps in there to keep himself from crying anymore.

They both come, that time.

If Peter throws Tony backwards on the couch and just sinks down on Tony as he softens and waits, warms, that’s their business. If Tony lets Peter choke on his cock after he hardens, that’s just a good teacher.

If Peter holds up Tony’s right hand and says, “hey, why are your fingers all crooked?” then Tony just laughs and laughs and laughs.

Peter gets the night, this time.

It’s been a long time since he was in the tower. He remembers the first time he tried climbing in through the window and set off every single alarm by accident. He remembers lying to Thor about how to play poker and stealing all his chips. He remembers movie nights with Tony, blueprints spread out on the coffee table, smearing butter popcorn stains across the specs.

Peter remembers a lot of things that don’t remember him.

“No patrol tonight?” Tony has showered. He was gross even before the incensed rounds of athletic sex, but he’d still forced Peter shower first — alone.

“I can’t get it up again, Petey,” he’d said, pushing a whining Peter into the bathroom. “Have mercy on an old man.”

Peter can’t really complain. The water pressure was so good. A huge improvement from the last time he was here.

Now they’re both soft and loose. Peter is wearing an old band t-shirt, faded and too big for either of them, and he’s glad the balcony is heated because the shirt only covers mid-thigh. He sees Tony looking him up and down when he turns over his shoulder. “What happened to taking it easy?”

“Old men are lecherous,” Tony says sagely. He’s wearing a robe, white and flutter, and Iron Man slippers. He hands Peter a mug that smells like coconut and oolong. “I’m a Sugar Daddy now. Let me live the fantasy. Erectile dysfunction comes with the territory.”

“Good thing I’m with you for your money instead of the sex.” Peter takes a sip even though he doesn’t like tea much. It’s good, though. Warm. He leans his elbows on the railing and watches over the city. “I’m too…tired for patrol,” he admits, taking another sip like it’ll chase away the taste of defeat. “There’s just…a lot.”

“You’re telling me.” Tony walks over beside him, arms brushing. “I had my own twink and no one told me.”

Peter sputters.

“Calm down.” Tony sets his own mug on Peter’s head until he stills. Tony is grinning, and then he hunkers just a tiny bit closer. “You wanna know a secret?”

“Sure.” Peter leans in until their noses almost brush. “Is it fun?”

“Yeah.” Tony kisses Peter’s cheek. “I think I’m going to keep you around.”

Peter laughs. “That’s not a secret, Mr. Stark. You couldn’t get rid of me now. Not even if you tried.”

Tony hooks their arms together. “I’ll do my best to remember that.”

Together, they watch New York.