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The first time, it was nothing.
“Huh. Nicely done, Parker. Good job.”
“Th-thanks, sir.”
Funny, how often nothing ends up being the start of everything.
Hiring Parker as an intern is a reckless choice, Tony knows. Parker’s a smart kid—by all accounts, he deserves the internship on his academic merits alone—but hosting Spider-Man at Stark Tower multiple times a week is a dicey move for his whole “secret identity” schtick. Stark Tower is a magnet for supercharged threats, and more dangerously, loose-lipped Avengers. If Tony had half a lick of sense, he would have found Parker a nice, interesting internship at some other nice, interesting R&D lab, so Parker could have a nice, interesting summer before his freshman year of college.
Tony dabbles in “interesting,” but he refuses to touch “nice.” So he doesn’t do the nice thing. Instead, he hires Parker.
Parker takes to it like a duck to water right from first-day orientation, a friendly face in a sea of eighty-seven hungry interns for the afternoon welcome speech Tony delivers in-person. And then he and all his little co-interns get their assignments, and they’re off to the races.
Tony monitors all of them, of course, with no particular focus on any one department. If asked, he would vehemently deny allegations that this is the first time he’s paid any attention whatsoever to his interns. And he would vociferously, ardently deny making more visits to the 34th floor than he has ever made before.
It’s all a lie, of course, but Tony is a sublime liar.
The thing is, the interns that SI hires are so predictable, they’re prototypical. Good schools, good grades, good prospects, bad everything else. They’re either obnoxious, tactless nerds or swotty trust fund kids. No variation on the theme. And after all of the shit Tony has lived through in the last decade, he has no interest in humoring asswipes.
Redundancy is obsolescence, but this bears repeating: He’s not nice.
But Parker is different. Parker knows what it feels like to use his own, broken body to protect someone else’s. He knows what it feels like to face impending death and fight tooth and nail to make it out the other side. And he knows how the fuck to solder surface mount components by hand on a damn PCB, which frankly, should be part of the entry interview at this point.
The thing is, Tony sees a spark in Parker, an unrelenting drive toward the future that Tony recognizes in himself. He knows Parker will defend and innovate his way to making that future a reality, just like he has. Tony made the internship program to find new blood to keep his father’s dream alive—because God only knows Tony is too anxiety-ridden and self-abhorrent to think bringing Tony Jr.s into the world is a good idea—and he believes that Peter Parker may just be that blood. Or, at the very least, a very welcome approximation thereof.
So yes, whenever Tony is bored of tinkering with the latest suit upgrades or playing host to whichever Avenger or SI administrative personnel are at the Tower that day, he wanders down to the labs to see what his staff has cooking. And yes, he goes to the 34th floor.
Which is how he discovers that Parker is wasted in his current project. 34G, the lab to which Parker is assigned, is working on developing a system that would send thousands of satellites into the atmosphere to project high-speed internet everywhere in the world, for free. The project’s official name is StarkLink, but Tony calls it the “Fuck Shitty Hotel Internet Initiative,” or, for short, “Project Fishy.” Project Fishy is cool in concept, but in practice it’s bogged down by bureaucratic negotiations with the FCC and its various international counterparts. There’s always something to work on, but more often than not, for the interns, that “something” is paperwork.
So, after three weeks of seeing Parker plaster on a smile (albeit a delightfully eager one) whenever Tony walks in the room, Tony gives him a new assignment.
56B is a far better fit. There, the team is working on genetic testing to isolate and translate specific segments of DNA, in order to develop personalizable medical treatments. Pills for precisely, scientifically, what ails ya. SI’s competitors have been working on similar projects, using organically-derived tools, like DNA transcription enzymes and ribosomes, to do the heavy lifting. The way Tony sees it, though, why send a protein to do a nanobot’s job?
Tony predicts the project is right up Parker’s alley—a flirtatious courtship between biology and technology, not unlike his webshooters—and, as always, Tony gets it right. Parker loves the new assignment. And, quite candidly, so does Tony, which makes his entirely-normal-and-not-at-all-mother-hen-like visits to Parker’s lab more enjoyable. He actually ends up spending some time there, much to the staff’s mutual horror and delight. Parker shines in his new role, completing his assignments with ease and finding the courage to participate in the team’s advanced conversations, even when he’s out of his depth. It’s obvious he sees this internship as a chance to prove himself, and he’s taking advantage of it.
Tony could have told him that he has nothing to prove, that Tony was sold on his skill the day he saw the gadgets piled up in Parker’s bedroom years ago, but where’s the fun in that? Talent should be put on a stage, and Tony is happy to be Parker’s audience.
Though several disgruntled former employees would beg to differ, Tony is a fantastic boss. There’s a reason SI’s employee approval rating is so high. Mostly, it’s the benefits package and superior cafeteria food, but Tony likes to think his leadership is a part of it. Where he’s an arrogant bastard to the Avengers and a sanctimonious asshole to his competitors, when it comes to his staff, he’s all optimism. He picks the R&D projects because they’re awesome , and seeing progress on awesome things is, for lack of a better word, also awesome. And he lets his staff know it, when it’s deserved. Pepper once called his penchant for compliments “effusive.” Rhodey called it “pandering.” Tony calls it “morale boosting.” Based on their reactions, though, the less experienced members of his staff would probably call it “unsettling.”
So he doesn’t notice anything strange when he compliments Parker’s work the first time. Parker gives him the same surprised, stuttered thanks that many newcomers give him, which is pedestrian, but cute. Usually, Tony backs off those newcomers, focuses on the other team members for a while before giving them another compliment, as if to say, See it’s normal, calm down. He plans to do the same to Parker.
But then he walks in on Parker explaining something about CRISPR sequences, and he can’t help it. The team managers are obviously impressed, and obviously trying to hide it, because they obviously hadn’t thought of Parker’s solution on their own, and obviously, Tony cannot sit idly by and pretend Parker isn’t a genius.
“Good work, kid,” he says, patting Parker on the shoulder. “I’m impressed.”
Parker freezes like a rabbit, blushing. “Uh, yeah, sure, of course, Mr. Stark. H-happy to help.”
Three days later, it’s the same. Tony spots a series of chemical equations on Parker’s StarkPad that he has no business knowing how to solve at his age. “Parker, you did this?”
Parker gazes up at him with doe-eyed hero-worship, like he always does, and Tony preens under it like he always does. “Um, yes? Sir?”
“You mind?” Tony asks, gesturing to the pad. Parker hands it to him. Tony’s organic chemistry is rough at best, but he knows enough to sort through the stoichiometry of it, at least. Some of it, though, is beyond his ken. “Where’d you learn this?”
Parker licks his lips. They shine under the lights of the lab, and Tony spends a moment too long staring at them before he catches himself. No, he tells himself. Bad touch. No. “Uh… YouTube?”
Tony raises an eyebrow down at him. “YouTube?”
Parker tinges pink. “And… other places. I have a friend, Karen, who knows a lot about this kind of stuff. We talk sometimes.”
Tony’s lips quirk up. If they were in private, he’d laugh. Parker’s doing research on patrols. It’s smart. And cute. Again.
Parker’s eyes crinkle at the corners, like they’re sharing a joke, and Tony puts the StarkPad down. “Resourceful, Parker. This Karen sounds like a good friend to keep around. You’re smart to ask her, good job.”
Parker, who was lifting the pad to look at it, drops it on the counter in surprise. His face goes red and he looks down at the table, as if mortified. “Th—thanks.”
Cute.
Tony smirks again, salutes Tobey, the lead project manager, and leaves.
He visits 56B more consistently after that, ostensibly to bone up on his biochemistry know-how so that he can play a role in developing the nanobots. If he manages to spot more impressive work on Parker’s workbench while he’s there and feels obligated to express his satisfaction over it, that’s just icing on the cake. And if Peter goes red and awkward, that’s the cherry on top. Needless to say, Tony gets a lot of icing and a lot of cherries, and lucky for him, he enjoys sweets almost as much as he enjoys bad analogies.
Tony’s coming out of the bathroom on the 56th floor when he overhears a whispered conversation down the hall. He ignores it until—
“He’s Stark’s, through and through. You know that.”
That gives Tony pause. He’s dealt with corporate espionage too much not to take notice of clandestine conversations about loyalty. Is someone trying to suss out potential turncoats?
“He’s just so pretty,” the other person replies plaintively, and Tony sags momentarily in relief when he realizes the conversation isn’t about trade secrets. He could certainly handle an in-house investigation on SI’s staff, but that doesn’t mean he wants to do it. “It’s not fair.”
“You just have to get through this summer, Irene. Then you never have to see him again. College boys.”
The other voice pauses, giving Tony time to put two and two together. One of the interns has a crush on him—one of the male interns, how spicy—and this Irene person is upset about it.
Once Tony understands what the conversation is about, his interest in it evaporates. Thousands of people have set their sights on Tony Stark, handsome billionaire that he is, including members of his own company. Idle gossip about another lovestruck Stark employee, particularly an intern (it’s always the interns) is nothing to write home about.
He opens and shuts the bathroom door loudly to act like he’s just coming out, then strolls away. He hears the muffled gasp from down the hall and smirks.
He forgets all about the whispered conversation until a week later, when he’s walking down the hallway on the 56th floor and a young girl frowns at him. Openly. Employees don’t frown at him openly. In general, no one does, unless they’re rich, powerful, or working with SHIELD. Tony takes probably more offense than he should but hides it. He has more important things to think about than whatever has that girl’s panties in a twist.
He winds up in 56B again (by this point, even Bruce is starting to tease him about how often he spends in the lower levels of the Tower these days), chatting with supervisor Tobey, a few of the Lesser Tobeys, and Parker. The girl from the hallway walks in, ducking her head when she notices Tony’s eyes on her, and walks to the opposite corner of the room.
“Hey,” Tony whispers to Parker while Tobey is explaining something to one of the other team members. “Who’s that girl? Over there.” He subtly tilts his head to the corner where Irene is wielding a pipette the size of her forearm.
“Hm? Oh, that’s Irene!” Parker says, in his usual eager, helpful way. “She’s great. Super nice. She brought us cookies last week, and between you and me, she totally gave me the biggest one.”
Tony acknowledges that with a hum, staring at Irene’s back. “Aren’t you not supposed to have food in here?”
Parker reddens immediately. “Um. N-No, Mr. Stark, that’s not what I meant at all, you see the internet has cookies, and—”
Tony breaks away from watching Irene’s back to look down at Parker. “Relax, kid. I’m teasing.”
Parker puffs out an exhale and relaxes his shoulders.
“Also,” Tony continues, frowning in dismay, “internet cookies? Really? She brought you internet cookies? That’s what you went with?”
Parker winces. “I didn’t mean to get her to get in trouble, Mr. Stark.”
Tony is struck, for what feels like the millionth time, by how purehearted Parker is. Most of the interns here would jump at the opportunity to throw one of their colleagues under the bus. Anything to get a step ahead. But not Parker.
Although, if Tony’s being cynical about things (and Tony is always cynical about things), it’s not like Peter Parker, teenaged superhero and friend to most of the Avengers, has much competition. Tony would give him a job in an instant, if he asked.
“You’re good at a lot of things, Parker,” Tony tells him, amused. “Lying is not one of them.”
Parker chokes on air, then crosses his arms over his chest. “... I can lie when I need to.”
That’s true. Parker’s sitting on one of America’s (hell, the world’s) largest secrets, and he’s doing a bang-up job. “Touché.”
By a few weeks later, Tony can’t help but admit it to himself: He gets a kick out of watching Parker squirm. There’s just something about the way Parker perpetually gets flustered over inane compliments. It’s innocent in a way Tony hasn’t seen innocence in a long time. By the time most people have the chance to meet Tony, they’re usually savvy, jaded, ambitious fuckers who only see him for what he can give them. Or they’re Happy. Happy’s a good egg.
But Parker isn’t like that. Parker is painfully, jarringly genuine in everything that he does. It pours off him like honey, sweet and warm, sticking on the back of Tony’s tongue and cutting off his usual barrage of sarcastic comments whenever he’s around. Instead, his jokes come out lighter, softer, more friendly than feisty, careful not to disrupt the glowing contentment that radiates out of Parker whenever he’s working.
Maybe that spider bite actually was radioactive, because whatever energy Parker gives off starts to follow Tony around, so much so that eventually, Bruce gives him an inscrutable look and goes, “He really makes you happy, doesn’t he?”
Tony doesn’t dignify the question with a response, because really, Bruce should know better by now than to ask Tony about feelings point-blank.
But also because, selfish motherfucker that he is, Tony’s beginning to realize that it’s not just happiness he feels around Parker. He’s noticed too many times how pretty Parker looks when he blushes, how perfectly his eyelashes fan over his cheeks when he looks down in embarrassment, how bright his eyes shine when he gets proud of something. How drawn Tony is to all of those things, and how much he’s willing to give to see them again. It’s dangerous, like toying with fire, but Tony’s careful to keep his distance.
Except no, he’s not. If he were, he would have known better than to invite Parker up to his personal labs after work one Tuesday afternoon to work on a “mystery project,” namely, developing homeostatic thermoregulation for the Spidey-Suit. It’s an easy enough task, one that Tony could complete in an hour or two, but he wants to give Parker the chance to work on it himself. Tony’s done the heavy lifting of thermoregulating his Iron Man suits, but Parker’s outfit is tighter, thinner, and more flexible, which means the mechanism will need adjustments to work. Parker’s a capable kid, and he should really know a thing or two about the systems that make his suit work, so it makes sense to assign him the project.
Parker is all moon-eyes when he follows Tony into the lab. He’s been here a couple of times before, back when Tony and Steve were at each other’s throats, but that was years ago. Tony’s made a few upgrades since then. To him, it’s the natural order of things—improvement, progress, momentum—but to Parker, it’s like glimpsing into the future. (Which, technically, it is; Tony outfits his labs with prototypes that he eventually sends to one of the relevant departments for beta-testing and mass production, so whatever is in his lab could be household tech a few years down the line.)
Tony pulls up a hologram of the suit on the central projector and isolates a cross-section of the material. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it,” he says, pulling up his blueprints for the Iron Man thermoregulators, “is to incorporate this design into your suit.”
Parker gasps and steps close to peer up at the blueprints. His arm brushes against Tony’s, and Tony is a bad person for how it makes him feel. “Oh,” Parker says, pulling his arm back. “Sorry.”
“It’s nothing,” Tony lies. He nods his head toward the projections. “You up for it?”
Parker’s face splits into a grin. “Yes.”
The next half hour is wonderful. Tony usually has some measure of fun whenever he tinkers with personal projects, but nothing like this. Initially, he heads to his workbench to put a few more hours into his idea for a guerilla-capable War Machine suit, but after hearing a handful of excited gasps and thoughtful hums from Parker’s direction, he gives up on trying to distract himself. It only takes Parker a few minutes to adjust to working with holograms, instead of the touchscreens they use on 56, and once he gets used to it, he’s off, muttering to himself and flitting around the circular projector.
The kid is beautiful while he works; Tony has accepted his place in Hell enough to admit such things to himself. Parker’s body is a smooth line of movement, graceful and deft, as he stretches and bends to examine different components, his face alight with the glow from the holograms. His eyes are sharp, critical, and whenever he hesitates over something he draws his lower lip into his mouth and gnaws on it. Tony has self-control to beat the best of them, but faced with something as exquisite as Peter Parker, he’s glad he’s ten feet away from him.
So, naturally, because he hates himself, Tony leaves the safety of his bench to check in on Parker’s progress, coming to stand next to him.
“Impressive,” Tony says, once he’s taken a look over the holograms.
Parker jolts, but doesn’t turn to face him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tony says, ignoring Parker’s predictably startled reaction. “I would have gone about it differently, but… this works.”
Parker worries his bottom lip, which is swollen and red by now from all the abuse. “Is your way better?”
Probably, Tony thinks. Out loud he goes, “Not sure yet. Not sure it matters. It’s not always about being the best.”
Parker furrows his brow, adorably confused. “What does that mean? You are the best. Always.”
“Not always,” Tony says, pleased despite himself. He opens his mouth to continue, then hesitates. He doesn’t generally talk about himself as anything less than exemplary, for fear that once he starts, he won’t stop. But it feels safe, with Parker, to let down his guard. Just a little. To help the kid grow. “You should have seen some of the things I developed when I was first starting out. Stupid shit. Slippers that lit the floor ahead of you when you stepped on them—I called them ‘Twinkle Toes.’ Baseballs that flew back when you hit them, which was interesting in theory but a disaster in testing. All sorts of dumb ideas.”
“Those aren’t dumb ideas,” Parker argues. Apparently his loyalty to Tony Stark extends to disagreeing with Tony, himself. Tony tries (and fails) not to find it helplessly charming. “I would have loved a baseball that I didn’t have to run and get in gym class.”
“Not if it gave you a concussion on its flight back,” Tony retorts, smirking when Parker laughs. “For real, kid. Put your ideas out there. Some will work, some won’t. You won’t know which is which until you build them and see for yourself. For the ones that don’t, take them apart and figure out what’s wrong. That’s how you become the best.”
Parker stares at him for a moment, hero-worship gleaming in his eyes, before he pulls himself together. “Okay,” he says, turning back to his holograms. “I’ll keep at it.”
“Good boy,” Tony says, without even thinking about it. It’s what his dad always said to him when giving him the same pep talk. But Parker isn’t his kid, and Tony’s feelings aren’t paternal. Far from it.
Parker makes a noise as if punched, and his eyes go glassy. “Thanks,” he mumbles, his voice breaking.
Parker’s expression makes Tony’s gut coil hotly. He knows it’s just hero-worship driving Parker’s awkwardness, but there’s something primally satisfying in how easily Tony can knock him off kilter. He wonders how undone Parker would look, spread out on silk sheets, pink and gasping while Tony murmurs a filthy litany of compliments into the crease of his hip.
He should walk away before he does something he regrets. He should sequester himself to his desk and give Parker some space. He’s just a kid.
But he’s not, a dark voice whispers inside Tony’s head. He’s eighteen. Legal. And you’d done so much worse by his age.
And then, he remembers that whispered conversation from the hallway: He’s Stark’s.
Tony doesn’t give Parker space.
Instead, he watches Parker stumble over the holograms for the few seconds it takes for him to regather his bearings. Soon enough, though, Parker gets absorbed in the puzzle of the work, zooming in on microcircuits and jotting down observations on a StarkPad. Tony all but looms behind him, watching over Parker’s shoulder at the way his fingers dance around mechanisms.
“Nice,” Tony says a few minutes later, when Parker finally figures out how to prevent heat from leaking out the exoskeleton of the suit, increasing energy efficiency by 38%. “Well spotted, Parker.”
Parker’s shoulders are a tense curve in front of him. “You can call me Peter, Mr. Stark.”
Tony licks his lips. He should back away now, or he’s done for. He should end this before it starts.
“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”
Parker—Peter—freezes and darts an incredulous look over his shoulder. “What?”
“Names,” Tony supplies, light enough to play it off, if need be. He takes a step back, casual, but his heart is racing in his chest with a flighty emotion he can’t place. “You want to go first names, that’s a two-way street up here.” He gestures with his pointer fingers around the lab. “Got it?”
Peter, now half-turned to face him, swallows visibly and nods. “O-okay. Mr.—T-Tony.”
It’s Tony’s turn to swallow, hearing his name tumbling out of Peter’s mouth like it was born there, all too-long limbs and too-little coordination. Given the chance, Tony would make Peter a master at saying his name, having him repeat it over and over until he got hoarse. “Hi there, Peter.”
Peter shudders and spins back to the projector. “H-hi. Okay. First names. Cool.”
He gets back to work and Tony watches the line of his back pensively. There’s something between them here, a frisson of energy that Tony thinks he might recognize. He can’t be sure, and if he’s wrong he’ll have ruined a mentorship that could change the trajectory of Stark Industries. Now is the time to tread carefully.
Peter swipes component parts together and they fit into a seamless blend; he’s put together the material layers for the body of his suit. “Excellent work, Peter,” Tony says, using the same tone he always uses, though he aches to pitch it lower. “Magnificent. You did so well.”
Peter shivers and hunches forward, clasping at the edge of the projector with both hands. There it is, Tony’s answer. He knows hero-worship when he sees it, and this ain’t it. No, Tony knows exactly what this is. He slides forward, closer than he was before. Peter could walk away if he wanted—he could walk away no matter what Tony does, as strong as he is—but Tony doesn’t imagine he’ll want to.
“You always do so well,” he whispers, swallowing around a mouthful of saliva when he eyes the delicate curve of Peter’s neck. “So smart. I’m so proud of you.”
Peter whimpers, sinking further into his shoulders. “Mr. St—Tony, please.”
“Anything,” Tony breathes. “Whatever you want. Anything for you.”
Peter’s arms shake as he tries to hold himself up. “I—I can’t—”
Tony can’t wait anymore. He takes the final step, lining his body up against Peter’s. He leans forward to press a hand against Peter’s chest so he can straighten the boy up against him. Peter goes as if unable to resist, pliant and trembling.
“So fucking perfect,” Tony murmurs, and this time, it isn’t even for Peter. He just means it. “Always so perfect for me.”
From his new vantage point, he can peer down the line of Peter’s body and see the erection straining against the front of his pants, and the last of his doubts fade. “How long? How long have you—”
“F’rever,” Peter mumbles against his front, head lolling against his shoulder. “Since… always. M’sorry, I know I’m not—sorry.”
Tony takes a fortifying breath to calm his heartbeat. He’s hard against the curve of Peter’s ass, and he’s sure Peter can feel it. “Don’t apologize. God, kid. I need to know—you want this? You’re sure?”
Peter’s spine moves in one sinuous curve, unthinkingly seductive, so his ass drags along Tony’s dick. “‘M sure. Wanted you so long. So bad. All those times in the lab.”
Tony thinks back to the countless times he complimented Peter’s work, and how every time, Peter had the same pained, startled reaction. If only Tony knew.
“Tell me.” Tony wraps his other hand around Peter and rests it on the line of buttons on his shirt. He starts undoing them in the middle, working his way up to the collar, then down. “What did you want?”
Peter moans and shivers, and Tony has to clench his teeth against the urge to rip Peter’s shirt off and bend him over the projector. “Wanted—wanted you to tell me how good I am,” he confesses, speech slurred with pleasure. “How much you liked me. Wanted to be on my knees f’r you, have you tell me how you liked it so I’d get it right. Jerk m’self off or finger m’self while I’m doin’ it. It’d get me so hot, makin’ you feel good.”
Tony presses his forehead to the side of Peter’s head, panting harshly to keep control of himself. Fuck, the kid has a mouth on him. Tony can think of at least a dozen ways to put that mouth to use. “You do,” he says raggedly, tugging Peter’s shirttails out of the waist of his pants. Peter has a t-shirt on underneath; Tony tugs at that, too, until he can get his hands on the bare skin of Peter’s torso. “You do make me feel good. So good, Peter.”
He gives himself a second to revel in the silken heat of Peter’s flat, muscled stomach, but he has other plans right now. One hand slides up Peter’s chest to rest at his sternum, keeping him upright, while the other undoes Peter’s belt and works open the button of his slacks.
“What’re you—oh,” Peter moans, when Tony slides a hand into his underwear. “Oh, gosh, please.”
Tony bares his teeth at the last word. Peter’s killing him with all this soft, supple submission. He wants to bite down on Peter, use his nails, tweak his nipples, tug at his cock until he weeps from how good it feels. And then, after, he wants to soothe all the scratches, the bites, the spots that have turned red from friction.
He spares no time in curling a hand around Peter’s dick, warm and silky and firm in the cup of his palm, and stroking up firmly. Peter convulses in his arms, crying out. “‘M sensitive,” he hisses, voice breaking. “You do it like that, ‘m done for.”
Tony files the information away with a dark sort of delight and lightens his grip to a teasing, barely-there glide. Or, rather, he tries to. It’s hard to navigate the tight space of Peter’s underwear. Brilliant inventor that he is, though, Tony finds a fix: He pushes Peter’s pants down to his ankles.
Now that he has the space, Tony drags his fingertips over the length of Peter’s dick—a pretty, pink, delicate-looking thing that Tony instantly wants in his mouth—and basks in Peter’s responding groan.
“So, Peter,” he rumbles, fully aware of what this pitch of his voice does to people that want him, and fully wanting to pull out all the stops for the stunning creature in his arms, “talk to me about super healing and refractory periods.”
Peter gasps and shudders, hips arching into the feather-light touch of Tony’s hand. “K-keep talkin’ like that, an’ you’ll find out.”
Fuck it, Tony thinks. He has time—he cleared his schedule for this. He’s happy to wait however long it takes to get Peter hard and aching again. He grins, feral, into the shell of Peter’s ear. He speaks just as he tightens his grip. “Good boy.”
Peter cries out again, this time even more desperately, as his body bows into a hard, taut line. Tony has just enough wherewithal to cup his free hand over the head of Peter’s dick, conscious of the multimillion dollar projector in front of them, before Peter is pulsing out spurts of hot come in his hand. Tony lightens his grip back to what it was a moment ago, coaxing Peter through his orgasm softly.
He can feel Peter’s strength keenly like this, with Peter’s muscles clenched against him, hard like rocks. He finds comfort in knowing that Peter could easily have broken away if he wanted. Or, better, he could have turned around, pushed Tony onto some surface, and had his wicked way with Tony’s body. Tony has too many memories of secret nights in dingy bars and stolen moments in bedrooms at MIT house parties to pretend he wouldn’t be completely into that, too. But no, Peter—lovely, perfect little thing that he is—took all those superpowered muscles of his and melted them into Tony, gave Tony control of his everything, even if just for a few moments.
Tony’s used to getting the things he wants, but this is a treasure he truly doesn’t deserve.
As Peter slowly comes back to himself, his slack body starts to tighten. Tension seeps into his shoulders, down his spine, through his arms. “I—Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry, I—”
“Don’t apologize,” Tony soothes, itching to touch him but forcing himself to take a step back, instead. “You did nothing wrong, Peter.”
Peter’s head ducks, ears red. “I—I shouldn’t have—I just wanted—”
“I was the one with the hand down your pants,” Tony points out. The words come out crass, confrontational, and suddenly he realizes just what he’s just done, and to whom. “Unless you didn’t want this, in which case, I’m the one who should apologize.”
Peter shakes his head sharply. “I wanted it,” he insists. “I did.”
Tony releases a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “Okay. Because if you didn’t, or don’t, you can walk away. No strings, no fallout. It’s fine.”
Silence hangs between them heavily, as if made of lead. Peter takes a deep breath, then straightens his spine. “You’re talking to someone who finds a lot of safety in strings.” He flicks one wrist out to the side meaningfully.
Tony’s relief is near tangible. “Yeah. You’re pretty good at strings, kid.”
“I’m pretty good at a lot of things,” Peter says quietly. He darts a look back at Tony. “Will you let me be good for you, Mr. Stark?”
Tony swallows hard, feeling like a fly caught in a web. He nods jerkily as his dick, which had softened in his concern, plumps up again. “God, yes.”
Peter kicks off his pants and pulls his shirts the rest of the way off. He turns to face Tony, entirely naked now, obviously drawing from his reserve of courage and being adorably stubborn about it. “How do you want me?”
Every way I can get you. He has half a mind to clear off the bench he’d been working on and lay Peter across it, like a new project for him to toy with. But no. No, he’s smart enough to see this as the gift it is. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., anyone else on this floor?”
“No, boss. You are alone.”
“Lock all entrances and exits,” he orders. “No one gets in or out but us. While we’re at it, give Peter Parker Zeppelin-level access to this floor.”
“Entry points locked. Mr. Parker now has executive access.”
Now that he knows no one will interrupt them: “There’s a bedroom down the hall. Follow me.”
He waits for Peter to scoop up his clothes, which he uses to cover himself, and leads him to the bedroom.
It’s not Tony’s main bedroom. That one is a few floors up, in the Avengers suite, artfully decorated in case he ever has to take meetings while on bedrest. After years of being a frail human in a kit of superheroes, he’s learned the importance of being prepared for downtime.
The room where he’s taking Peter is less curated, more personal. This is the room he uses when time runs away from him in the lab and he needs a fast place to crash. Scattered with mechanical parts and discarded StarkPads, it looks a lot more like his pre-Avengers bedrooms than the one he has upstairs.
Peter takes in the room with wide eyes, lingering on the more rare bits of tech, before his gaze lands on the bed. He walks over and sits on it, clothes in his lap, testing the bed’s give. He looks up at Tony, expectant, and Tony feels himself go to pieces inside.
“God, you’re so pretty,” he hears himself say. Peter flushes and licks his lips. “Put the clothes down and lay back.”
Peter does as he’s told, giving Tony full view of his hardening cock. There’s the answer to his refractory period question. Jesus, the things he wants to do with that knowledge. For now though…. “Roll over.”
Peter swallows hard, then does so. His calves stick out over the edge of the bed, and Tony walks around them, admiring the firm curve of Peter’s ass. He’s seen the acrobatics Spider-Man performs, but he’s always been careful not to notice what it does to his body. Now that he has permission, though, he can’t help but take in Peter’s musculature. The lean, straight slope of his back, the breadth of his shoulders and lats, the heft of his thighs. But nothing compares to this ass.
Tony reaches out to knead one globe, and Peter whimpers, tucking his face into the sheets. “Did you imagine this, too?” Tony asks roughly. He presses his free hand to the aching line of his cock, trapped in his jeans. The zipper is tight against him, digging in, so he undoes the button and pulls down the zipper. He doesn’t go further—he has plans before he gets naked—but his dick pulses with relief regardless. “Did you imagine me touching you like this?”
Peter takes a shuddering breath. “Only in passing,” he confesses. “Thought more about doing stuff to you. And—”
He stops, and Tony has a sudden, desperate urge to know what he was about to say. “And what?”
Peter brings his arms up and hides his face in them. When he speaks, his voice is muffled. “And it’s hard to imagine things you haven’t felt before.”
The weight of that confession sinks into Tony in waves. He stares down at Peter for a moment, growing more and more horrified at himself by the second. The kid is a virgin. He’s a virgin, and Tony just spent twenty minutes putting his grimy paws all over him. Shit. He’s not de-virginizing material. He’s “jaded, meaningless romp” material. This isn’t good.
He drags his hand away from Peter’s ass, down the length of his thigh to safer territory near his knee. “Peter… I didn’t know.”
“Didn’t want you to.” Peter exhales, face and shoulders pink. “That’s why I didn’t bring it up.”
“That’s… special, kid,” Tony says. “It sets the standard for the rest of them. I threw away mine, and….” And he can’t bring himself to say it. He can’t talk about the years he spent crawling inside other people, searching for love and acceptance he couldn’t find in himself. He can’t talk about trading quality for quantity, settling for feeling wanted instead of feeling needed.
He doesn’t want that life for Peter.
Peter turns back over, drawing the corner of the bedspread over himself to be less exposed. “Mr. Stark… to me, this is special.”
Tony shakes his head. “No, kid. No, you deserve someone your own age, someone with doe eyes and soft skin and big plans for the future, like you. I’m a tired, sick old man. You don’t want that.”
“No, you’re not,” Peter says, voice steely despite him being in such a vulnerable position. God, he’s just so brave. “You’re Tony Stark. Iron Man. You know what it feels like to get up when all you want to do is stay down. You know how scary it is to take off the suit and let people see what’s inside. And most importantly—” here, he swallows, gets pinker, “—you know how to handle yourself around, uh, uncontrolled superpowers.”
The scene paints itself in Tony’s mind. Peter, driven to the brink after an hour of teasing touches (and oh, Tony would give him that hour, he would spend all night taking Peter apart like a gadget in his lab, just to spend another night putting him back together), losing control of his super strength, crushing the headboard, the edges of the bench in the lab, the mattress. Tony wonders how easy it would be for Peter to ride him until they broke the bed.
Lucky for them, he’s a billionaire. He would replace the bed a thousand times over if he had to.
Peter fidgets, and Tony realizes he’s been silent too long. “That’s all true,” he allows.
Peter nods. “I don’t want someone normal, not for my first time. I want someone who understands me. Someone I can trust.”
“You can’t trust me, kid,” Tony warns, feeling the edges of panic go rough and raw in his chest. No one should trust him.
“I can,” Peter replies firmly. “With this. I’ve thought about it. Through it.”
Tony purses his lips and huffs out a breath. “I’m sure you did.” It’s obvious he has. Those lines are too well-said to be anything other than rehearsed, and they make a case that Tony can’t refute. Peter’s right: There’s a grim solitude to their line of work that makes it impossible to connect with civilians. Tony’s tried. It’s easier to be alone, to find casual partners that he can take to his fancy room upstairs and let them swoon over the glamour of the Avengers memorabilia, than it is to let anyone in down here, where Tony can be himself.
But Peter’s here. Peter gets it.
Something hard and twisted in Tony’s chest loosens.
“Well, then. I think it’s time we give your imagination a helping hand.”
He pulls the bedspread off Peter’s lap and flips him back over, taking a moment to consider his options. Decision made, he has Peter go up on his knees, then urges him to shuffle back to the edge of the bed. Once Peter’s in position, Tony drops to his knees, eye-level with Peter’s ass. Perfect.
“What’re you—?” Peter stutters, but then Tony takes a cheek in each hand and kneads, hard. Peter shivers. “Oh my gosh.”
Tony works his hands, letting his thumbs inch closer and closer to Peter’s hole. He leans forward and exhales, letting the hot air soak into Peter’s pink, delicate skin. He leans back for a second, giving Peter an out if he doesn’t want this.
Peter melts onto the bed, making a broken noise that Tony reads as encouragement. Tony rotates his jaw, warming up for the inevitable stretch, and licks once, broadly, up the cleft of Peter’s ass. He used to love this, back in his promiscuous days. He loved the shock it gave people when the great Tony Stark ate their ass, the way the power rush would make them hotter. And he loved doing it, too, pressing at the tight muscle until it softened for him, let him inside.
There’s probably some deep-seated issues there that a therapist would spend hours unpacking, but that’s besides the point.
Here, with Peter, it’s different, better. Here, it’s not just that Peter’s letting Tony in, it’s that Tony is giving him this. Tony’s taking his time, going slow, careful of Peter’s touch sensitivity. He licks lightly at the silky skin around Peter’s rim, flicking his tongue into the pucker of Peter’s hole. His hands alternate between soothing, soft caresses and firm, spreading massages. Tony tries not to make things too wet—this isn’t supposed to be filthy, not yet—but after a few minutes spit starts to trickle down Peter’s crack to his balls, regardless.
Peter is a mess of gasps and shivers in front of him. As soon as Tony works him loose enough to slip the tip of his tongue inside, the gasps pile together into words. “Oh gosh, unh, please, yes please,” Peter begs, almost too quiet for Tony to hear over the wet sounds he’s making into Peter’s ass. Almost. “Please, feels so good, I can’t—god—don’t stop, please, keep going.”
Peter’s hips twitch, searching for friction, but Tony picked this position for a reason. Knelt in on himself like this, Peter’s dick can’t get purchase on the sheets, nor on the skin of his own thighs. He could move if he wanted to—they both know Tony couldn’t stop him even if he tried—but they also both know Peter wants to be good for Tony too much to get selfish like that.
After Tony starts licking his way in, Peter’s hole gives way with practiced ease. Tony has to let go of one of Peter’s cheeks to palm himself when he realizes what that kind of “practice” looks like. His dick thrills at the contact and he loses control of himself, ditching the careful, encouraging kisses and nudges to fuck his tongue deep into Peter. Confronted with the evidence of Peter’s experience, Tony knows he can take it.
Peter’s begs give way to high-pitched whimpers as his hips work backwards onto Tony’s tongue. Tony replaces the hand on Peter’s ass and uses his thumbs to spread Peter even further, so his tongue can get deeper. The skin here is satin soft, plush, sensitive, and Tony grates the texture of his tongue everywhere he can reach.
Peter’s whimpers get even higher and more desperate. “Please, Mr. Stark, oh please, I’m close, I’m so close, please let me—”
Tony slides his thumbs in further yet, enough to catch at Peter’s rim. He hooks them, tugs, and plunges his tongue inside as deep as it can go.
Peter seizes around him, moaning brokenly as he comes untouched, curling into a tight ball with the force of his orgasm. Tony doesn’t stop, keeps fucking his tongue into the warm give of Peter and using his thumbs to rub Peter open even more.
He can tell when Peter finally comes down by the way his body sinks, putty-like, against the mattress. Only then does Tony lean back, wiping the wetness away from his face on his arm. He’s outdone himself, he knows. He can see it in the molasses-slow movements of Peter on the bed, the way Peter’s hole keeps fluttering with aftershocks: Peter’s just had a killer of an orgasm. Tony’s dick throbs hotly, desperate for a release of its own.
Soon.
While Peter’s still down for the count, Tony takes the opportunity to stand, slowly due to the stiffness in his joints. Once he’s upright, he smoothes a hand up Peter’s spine, mostly to check in on him as gently as possible, but partially to feel the soft warmth of his skin again.
He’s getting hooked on this kid, he can already tell. He doesn’t want this just once. And that’s dangerous on so many levels (at least 56), but that’s a problem he’ll deal with once he’s alone.
Peter rolls onto his back, seemingly careless of the mess on his thighs and stomach. It’s a gorgeous sight; Tony would be sad if he had missed it. Peter blinks up at him, quiet, thinking.
“I want you to fuck me now.”
“We don’t have to,” Tony says automatically. It’s true—if Peter were to end things now, Tony would back away, let Peter get dressed and leave, and take the world’s coldest shower. “You don’t have to.”
Peter licks his lips, nerves forgotten in his afterglow. “I want you to fuck me now. Please.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, nodding. He can sense guilt on the edges of his consciousness, primed to sweep in when all of this is over, but right now he can’t be bothered to care. He’s given Peter more than enough chances to walk away by now. But Peter’s still here, pale and pink and perfect all over, and Tony wants.
He rips his clothes off, ignoring his self-consciousness about the slight curve of his belly, the folds of delicate skin around his armpits. Peter knows how old he is, there’s no hiding it now. Still, he hesitates, giving Peter one last out.
Peter takes advantage of the opportunity and vaults at him, spreading hot hands over Tony’s chest, down his arms, across his shoulders. Knelt on the edge of the bed, Peter is Tony’s height, so it’s effortless for Peter to tug Tony forward until they’re touching from knee to chest. Tony’s cock glides against the mess on Peter’s hip, frictionless pressure right where Tony wants it most. He groans as his dick pulses. He’s closer than he expected, worked up from the wait.
“Yes,” Peter breathes eagerly, working his hips into a rhythm against Tony. “Wanna make you feel good, want you to use me, please, give it to me, I’ll be so good for you, I’ll make it so good for you, please.”
Tony clutches at Peter’s hips to stop them, squeezing his eyes shut. Fuck, Peter’s going to give him a heart attack if he keeps talking like that. “I need a second.”
“Get on the bed,” Peter replies quickly, walking backwards on his knees and gesturing to the space he’s just made. “Lay down, let me—I’ve imagined this so many—let me take care of you, please, let me do this.”
Any blood left in Tony’s brain floods south. He wants to be taken care of so badly. He shuffles dumbly onto the bed and lies back, letting Peter adjust his limbs just so. Peter climbs on top of him, bright eyed and thrumming with energy. How does he still have energy?
Peter traces soft fingers over the ridges of scar tissue on Tony’s chest, across to his nipples, the thick veins on his arms. “So much better,” he whispers, more to himself than Tony. “Amazing.”
Without further ado, he reaches back to grab Tony’s dick, lifts his hips, and sinks down. The stretch is almost too tight at first, as Peter takes shivering breaths and slowly works his way an inch at a time down Tony’s shaft. Tony’s eyes roll back in his head at how fucking good it feels, overwhelming and hot and soft and needy. Tony’s saliva isn’t going to work for long as lube, but right now it’s perfect.
Peter seats himself on Tony’s lap, breathing out through pursed lips.
“You okay?” Tony slurs out, drunk on pleasure. “Feel okay?”
“So good,” Peter whispers. “I… it’s so much better than I thought. So full.” Tony’s hips twitch up involuntarily at the words, and Peter groans. He grinds his hips in a circle, flat against Tony, as if to test for angles, before lifting up ever so lightly. The drag of skin is shuddering, hot and tight. It feels amazing for Tony, but he knows enough to know that this is the first sign of things getting too dry.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y., initiate the Slip’n’Slide Protocol.”
A hidden panel in Tony’s headboard drops, and a metal tray holding a line of bottles of lube slides out.
Peter takes one look at it and bursts out laughing. “Oh, man, that’s hilarious.”
Tony barely has the druthers to smile, but he does it anyway. “It’s essential. You should make one.”
“I will,” Peter promises. He bites his lip. “You need this often?”
Tony can hear the self-conscious question Peter isn’t asking. He normally dislikes this conversation—too many partners wanting to feel special, asking Tony about who he brings to bed, and Tony feeling vaguely worthless and slutty while he lies—but this time, he can be honest.
“Yeah,” he says. Peter’s face falls, and Tony hides a smirk. “Work in the lab by myself a lot, crash in here, can’t get to sleep. I’m sure you know what I mean.”
The resigned curve in Peter’s spine vanishes as Peter peers down at him, lips curling into a grin. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. After patrol, sometimes—” he reaches for the nearest bottle and uncaps it, pours some onto his fingers, “—I get home exhausted. Get myself all clean and naked, get into bed.” His hand travels down, between his legs, and he lifts up to give his hand room to spread lube over the base of Tony’s dick and the skin where they’re joined. “Mm. Get into bed, but I'm still wired, so I gotta—ohhhh gosh.”
He swirls his hips, gliding easily now. Tony curls his fists in the sheets, desperate to fuck up into the heat of Peter’s body. Not yet. Patience. Patience.
“So you gotta...?”
Peter lifts up, smooth this time, and reseats himself. Again. Again. He builds up a slow rhythm, more experimental than focused, but still mindbogglingly good. His dick is already hard again (Jesus Christ), flushed red and gleaming against his messy stomach. “Touch m’self. Work off the energy. Sometimes I just jerk m’self off. Sometimes I need more.” He shudders and groans when he finds an angle he likes, and then his thrusts come harder, faster. “Use my fingers, get m’self all open and slick. Got a toy a couple months ago, early graduation present for myself. Unh. Heavy. Doesn’t stay in by isself, ‘m too tight, but if I h-h-hang from the ceiling the gravity does it f’r me. Gosh this is so good.”
“You’re so good,” Tony grits out. “Jesus, kid, you—I’m not gonna last if you—”
He hasn’t felt this out of control over his orgasm in years.
“Fuck,” Peter squeaks, clenching tight around Tony. He shoves himself down onto Tony a handful of times, punishingly intense. “Love it when you say that stuff. God. ‘M so pathetic for it.”
The coiled heat in Tony’s gut flares up, tightening his balls. He’s so close. He’d be more embarrassed if he didn’t feel so justified; faced with the perfect clutch of Peter’s ass, the art of his body, the heady sound of his voice, the things he says, anyone would be lost to pleasure.
“You feel so fucking good,” Tony tells him, meaning it more than he may have ever meant anything else in his life, saying the words aloud because he wants Peter to come, too, one last time.“So fucking good for me, Peter, so perfect. Such a perfect boy.”
Peter whimpers and falls forward, catching himself on his elbows right above Tony’s shoulders. This close, Tony can see every twitch of every muscle in Peter’s face, every microexpression as Peter fucks himself onto Tony, harder yet, pounding onto him.
Tony wraps his hands around Peter’s thighs. The heat is coiling tighter, spring-loaded, pressured, ready to combust. “Want you to come for me, Peter, want to watch you. Bet you look so beautiful when you come. Be a good boy. Come for me. Be my good boy.”
Peter makes a high, punched noise at those last words and goes tense all over as he comes. His ass clenches almost painfully tight, tighter than a normal human's could, and it’s that show of strength that finally sends Tony over the edge. His vision goes grey as he arches up, mouth agape, utterly gone in the throes of orgasm. He might make a noise, but he can’t tell over the rushing in his ears. His hips piston into Peter, shoving his come up, up, up into that perfect body—and the thought of that alone makes Tony want to come all over again.
Peter is collapsed on top of him when he finally regains awareness of his body. Tony exhales, enjoying the warm weight, and pets at Peter’s thighs. It’s several minutes before either of them speaks.
“Stay,” Tony says softly. It’s a selfish request, stupidly so. He shouldn’t have indulged in this indiscretion to start with; prolonging it is only going to make the impending separation worse. He can feel the hooks of addiction setting in already, the ache to rediscover this joy with Peter again as soon as he’s able, and then again after he’s slept. He wants to give Peter everything he has, if it means feeling like this again sometime in the future.
But he can’t. Peter is eighteen. He’s a bright, beautiful, charming, young man who has a life of adventure ahead of him, and Tony is too old and too broken to have any claim to him.
Except.
Except Tony can’t get over what Peter said, about those things they share. The martyr complex. The drive to protect people at all costs. The comfort in hiding behind a suit, because there are things worse than death and those things need layers of protection to hide. No one else, not even any of the other Avengers, gets that. But Peter does.
Tony knows that’s why he’s been drawn to Peter from the start. He’s seen the same exhausted weariness in Peter he sees in himself. But he never expected Peter to notice it back.
It’s not enough to convince Tony one way or another, but it is enough for him to respect Peter as a peer. Enough to trust him.
The next time Tony says the word, it comes out stronger, more confident. “Stay.”
Peter glances out the window at the dimming light, disappointment etched in every line of his body. “I—I told Aunt May I’d be home for dinner,” he confesses. “I… I want to, though.”
Tony makes a very warm, very stupid decision.
“F.R.I.D.A.Y., please contact May Parker. Tell her that I’m sorry I kept Peter late, but he made some great progress in our project and time got away from us. I’ll give Peter dinner and bring him back in a car.”
“Sent.”
“Oh, and F.R.I.D.A.Y., order us… Vietnamese?” He directs the question to Peter, who is staring at him, open-mouthed, eyes shining. Peter clicks his mouth shut and nods, and his stomach growls as if on cue. Tony grins, and it’s one of the most honest expressions to cross his face in years. “Vietnamese. A little bit of everything. Send a drone.”
“Understood, boss.”
With that out of the way, Tony settles back into the pillows, trying his best to appear casual and not like his heart is swelling too big in his chest with hope. “So. Stay?”
This third time, the word’s changed yet again. This time, it’s gentle, easy, light on the edges, vulnerable. This time, he isn’t just talking about tonight. And they both know it.
Because this time, it’s nice.
Peter bites his lip, pinking, beautiful, perfect, and he beams. “Yes.”