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He stumbles, with a purpose only a boy beat down by his lack of luck in love could have, into Stark’s office.
He’s drenched head to toe due to the hard pour of the rain that’s currently pouring down on all of New York. His rain coat is dripping it’s own small version of rain on the floor and, when he takes it off to put it on the coat hanger just outside the door of Stark’s office, it causes a small puddle. His sweatshirt is oddly completely dry, but it’s the sound of his sneakers squeaking as he moves across the, might Tony add, freshly cleaned marble floor that really proved Tony’s first thought when he saw him through his glass wall.
Peter Parker looks like a mess.
He strides in, wordlessly, and sits at the chair in front of Tony’s desk.
“I need your advice.”
Tony raises a brow.
“Girl advice. I- I need your advice on girls.”
“You’re on your own there,” Stark mumbles under his breath.
“More specifically,” he says as he tries to regain his breath because, woah, the climb up to his office since the elevators were broken was no joke. Honestly, it was quite a work out. And, to put this into perspective, he’s Spider- Man.
“-how do I get a girl to fall in love with me?”.
See this, this darn damn question, is why Tony has never and will never want kids.
“Kid, you can’t make a girl fall in love with you.”
Peter objects. “There’s got to be a way.”
Tony looks at Peter quizzically. “You genuinely believe that there is a way to get girls to fall in love? Peter, I know you stop drug deals once and while, but have you yourself done some?”.
Peter blushes and shakes his head. “N- No, sir. I’m just having girl trouble.”
What’s worse than doing drugs? Spending your lovely rainy day inside your own, emphasis on ‘own’, building being pestered by a teeny bopper on his teeny bopper love.
This may have caused Tony to frown. Actually, it caused him to have a look of pain on his face that Peter interpreted differently.
When he sees Tony’s face of, what he deems, ‘indifference’, he says, “I’m really really sorry for barging in on you like this. I know you’re a busy man and I probably should have asked Happy. Wait, have you noticed that Happy is happier than usual?” he stops to look at Tony. Tony shakes his head ‘no’.
“-That’s besides the point. I- I’ll just ask him. I’m sorry, again, uh, Mr. Stark. I’ll just lea-.” While he says that, being the clumsy boy Tony knew he was, Peter hits a vase. Not just any vase. A vase Tony spent an embarrassing amount of money on that was directly imported from China. A vase that was a precious artifact, really.
Also, a vase Peter broke. Along with the other twelve, but who's counting?
Why do I even put one there?
“Oh, shit.” He looks up to see Tony’s face. “I mean, uh, oops?”.
Tony rolls his eyes.
“Just sit, Peter, so we can get this over with. Okay?”.
Peter quickly sits down and eagerly smiles.
What a kid.
“The first advice I have to give to you is that the mind is-.”
He looks at Parker and stops. He sees him pull out a notebook, pencil, and an eraser.
It’s truly comical.
He hides his delight at how much this kid paying attention to him gives him a greatly appreciated and deserved ego boost.
“Is what, Mr. Stark?”.
“-is foolish. The mind is foolish. The sooner you get that, the better.”
Peter makes a confused face.
“Look it up, Peter. I can’t do your googles for you.”
Peter quickly looks back down and writes “Look up: Mind is foolish.”
Nice notes.
“Second advice is that love is not a nice feeling.”
Peter nods in agreement. “Amen,” he says with a sigh.
Tony raises his eyebrow again.
“Oh, uh, sorry. I just really felt that.”
“Look, kid. There’s no definitive way to get a girl to even like you. You’re wondering how to get a girl to love you? I’m only a bit sad to say that finding how to learn that is way less likely than how to get someone to like you.”
Peter seems glum for a moment and Tony sighs again.
“I don’t make the rules, sorry kid.”
Stupid teeny bopper love infecting everyone. It’s disgusting.
“Well, how did you get Pepper to love you?”. Peter uses one of his arms to lean on his leg and, using one of his palms to rest his chin on to let him get more comfortable, he looks at Tony straight at the eye.
Tony gulps.
“Now that, son, is a good question.”
Peter smiles when he hears that.
“I don’t know.”
Peter frowns.
“I- I mean, come on, Mr. Stark. There must have been something you did or something you said that caused Pepper to at least notice you.”
“See, getting someone to notice you is easy, depending upon the person. There’s no full proof way, though. We may be Avengers, Peter, but we’re no way Gods. We can’t control people’s feelings.”
Tony waves his hand off when he sees one of his assistants going near his door. Screw a meeting. This was more interesting, and, depending on who Tony was talking to, more important.
“So, from what you just said, all I’m hearing is that you were able to do something that may have made Pepper notice you and thus like you?”.
This kid.
“No. Kid, look. All I’m trying to say is that if you get her attention in a romantic way, she might just see you that way. You should probably start doing somethings that she likes and make sure she knows you’re doing them. Support her. Be her biggest fan and advocate. Say the things that she might want to hear. I’m not saying to become her full on twin, you’re not going to get her like that. But maybe, just maybe, if you do what I just said, you might just catch her attention.”
He peers down from his seat to see Peter hunched over writing down “1. Do stuff she likes (causes increase in interaction) and do them with her (increase in notice)”.
What a love sick fool.
“Once you do that, you guys will start talking. Hopefully, you’ll start to have some inside jokes. Those cement a relationship, Peter, so make sure you got some of those. And-“.
“If she calls you, um, certain nicknames, does that count as an inside joke?”.
“What names are we talking about, Peter?”.
He blushes and says, “She calls me by a lot of things.”
Tony is surprised when this is when Peter decides to become shy.
“Well, what? Continue.”
“Um, sometimes she calls me lame, nerd, loser," and when Peter starts bringing out his fingers to track the so- called names, he dozes off a bit. He returns his attention to Peter in time to hear him say "-and anything degrading, to an extent that I’m okay with, sir. But, I promise, it's just MJ's way of showing affection. I think? The only thing that's cool about it is that she only lets herself call me by those, um, words. One time Flash tried to call me like a loser or some other lame Flash thing to say and she totally went off on him. It was so-“.
“I don’t need anymore details, kid. No thanks.”
Spare me your worshiping stories and tell those to Happy.
“In that situation, I think that might just count as an inside joke. Try to make jokes on her too, you know? Like how when you’re younger,” Tony abruptly stops talking in order to laugh.
Hah. Him ‘younger’.
“Sorry, kid. I meant at that age you are right now, you tease the girl you like. So, uh, tease her. Make fun of her. At least attempt to seem cool.”
“But, Mr. Stark, you don’t understand. This is her that we’re talking about. She’s cooler than me in every way imaginable. Seriously, I've tried. It doesn't work, at least on me it doesn't.” Peter gives a defeated sigh and brushes his hair back.
“Who’s the girl, Peter?”.
Peter softly smiles and says, “MJ. Well, she hasn’t allowed you to use her nickname so you know her as Michelle.”
“Oh! That girl. She-.”
~
“So you're the MJ Peter is always mumbling about." Tony has to take off his sunglasses when he meets the girl that Peter likes, right? That’s like common decency in the parent-but-I’m-not-the-stupid-kid’s-parent book.
He decides not to take the sunglasses off just yet.
He hears Peter continuously babble on and on to excuse what he had just said.
What can he say? It’s his job to embarrass Peter. Who else but him and Peter himself will do that?
Tony hears Peter stutter something along the lines of ‘he’s crazy’ towards him. As in, he thinks Tony Stark is crazy.
He looks at him as if he’s odd. Nope, Peter Parker is odd.
Yeah, okay buddy. Tell me that when you’re not making a fool out of yourself for a grouchy little girl.
He lets Peter’s little comment slide (other than because Peter repetitively apologized once he said that) because, honest to God and truly, his favorite past time was seeing how nervous Peter could become near him.
But, damn. That, Peter stuttering and some random girl ignoring him, would have to go down as his favorite thing ever. No one could tell him otherwise that witnessing a stressed Peter try to coax a clearly angry girl into talking to him was not entertainment at its finest.
How cute. Angsty, little puppy love. I knew Peter would be up to these teeny bopper shenanigans.
"And you're the man always making Peter late to practice and today at the semi- finals." She squints at him and raises her eyebrows. "What's your excuse for Peter now?".
"I have no excuses, Miss Jones. I'm just here to support one of my interns and his classmates at their Acadec competition." He takes off his sunglasses and assesses the environment.
No alerts of some random weirdos here going off just yet.
"Walk with me?" he asks MJ.
He sees the girl give him an incredulous look and he shrugs back in retaliation.
Unfortunately, Peter didn’t get the hint.
Must be harder to be smooth now than it was then.
"Sure, let's go. The exit is this way, Mr.-" and, because Tony has the scouts honor to never let Peter be right because his little teen body could not handle that, Peter gets cut off again.
"Ah, not you, Peter. I'm talking about Miss Jones here. You up for it?" he says and looks at MJ square in the eye.
MJ just sighs and scrolls through her case for her Mock Trial tournament next week and says "I'd rather not. I don't like voluntarily spending time with Caucasian men who let people, including, but not solely, just me, down, but here I am conversing with both of you."
Tony and Peter's mouthes hang wide open.
This girl has a lot of nerve. Interesting.
More interesting in Stark’s opinion is when Michelle gets up, smooths down her blazer, and heads towards the exit.
When she's half way there, she looks back at the two and says, "You coming? I thought I'd be hypocritical if I let Peter ramble with me and not let you."
~
“-had a lot of character from what I remember.”
“You really shouldn’t have gone to the Acadec tournament Mr. Stark. MJ’s always stressed as captain and you just saw her in full on captain mode. Plus, she was so mad at me for being late to the tournament. I have to make it up to her by going to the library and meeting her up in,” Peter looks at the clock on Tony’s computer before continuing, “-about an hour.”
“No, I liked that part. It shows she’s a driven lady who won’t take any bs. You,” he points at Peter to emphasize his point. “-need that, you know. Everyone needs a person like that.”
“Yeah, kind of. She reminds me of how lame I am daily and what’s due the next day in Lang, so she keeps me in check. She’s really smart, smarter than me probably.”
“Really?” Stark says sarcastically.
“Seriously! She’s always one step ahead of me and I should be because of the whole Spider and Man stuff.”
“Huh. Interesting.”
Peter just clicks his tongue and, to the amusement of Tony, shyly laughs. “Yeah. I think I like her. I don’t know.”
“No, trust me. You like her, alright.”
Tony shakes his head and thinks, Oh, the rush of teen angst and baby love.
Thank God I never have to go through that again.
“That MJ girl-.”
Before he could continue, Peter interrupts and says, “Um, Michelle?”.
“Sorry,” he rolls his eyes, “I meant ‘Michelle’ girl. What does she like? Other than making fun of you, obviously.”
The joy that spread on this boy’s face when he talks about how much his dear MJ loves books and tea, it’s too much.
It was reminding him of how much he was in a twist when he first started liking Pepper.
Peter is way too young for this.
“-and don’t get me started on if she likes earl grey or lavender tea. It all depends on her mood and what genre of the book she is reading that morning. So, this is how you know. First, she’ll talk to you in the morning with either a happy or sad face. Actually, she calls me in the mornings to make sure I’m up and that’s how I hear her voice which let’s me know what mood she’s in and et cetera. Happy face, you have to interrogate more. Also, by happy I mean light scowling. But, back to my main-.”
“Peter, breathe. It looks like you forgot to breathe while you were explaining the oh-so important way to decipher MJ’s changing attitude on tea flavors.”
Peter scrunches up his eyebrows in annoyance like a little kid. “You’re making fun of me!”.
“Would I be Tony Stark if I wasn’t?”.
“No, sir.”
He squints at Peter. He can see how genuinely sad he is at this little dilemma he has.
Tony doesn’t like it. Not because he actually likes the kid, hell no. It just makes him uncomfortable. It reminds him if his dad and that he refuses to recall at all circumstances.
“Look, kid.” Peter looks up from looking at his hands in his lap. “All you have to do is be better than me. I didn’t have it smooth all the time with the ladies. Contrary to popular belief, there was once a time where no girl thought of me as remotely attractive. And now, well, the one girl that I want to think of me that way does. And that is nice.”
Peter makes a look of disgust and doesn’t disguise it well.
“Grow up, kid. I have romance too, you know.”
He rolls his eyes and continues. “When I was- like what? Sometime around your age, maybe, all the girls wanted me.”
Peter snorts.
Rude little punk.
“Hey, it’s the truth.”
Peter nods hesitantly.
“What’s the moral of this story?”.
“If,” he glares at Peter, “you hadn’t interrupted me when I was talking, I was going to say that it was all because of the image I portrayed.
“You want all the girls?” to which Peter responds by shaking his head feverishly.
Smart.
“Good. You don’t want it. You only get the attention of those who like the person you’re portraying or showing, not you. When you can be yourself and you find that person, who may or may not mock you, who accepts you for you,” he says and he notices that Peter was paying extra attention to every single word.
Even smarter.
“-then shit. You’ve found the one.”
Peter blinks.
“So I have to ‘be myself’? No offense, Mr. Stark, but I could have just googled that.”
“And what? Miss a good story? Cause me to actually do my work?” and Tony’s happy when Peter rightfully looks guilty. “No, that would have been blasphemy.”
Peter nervously laughs.
“Look, kid. Be yourself. Maybe be a bit better than your average self once and while so she’s intrigued, but overall, be yourself. You won’t win anyone over that you should want to win over by being a Flash or Ned or Abraham. You can only do that by being a Peter Parker.”
"You remembered the other kids on my Acadec team!"
"I made Happy make a folder for each member just to make sure there's no random people plotting to kill you."
“Wow,” Peter says as he slowly nods. "But, seriously Mr. Stark, that little motivational speech you just did-."
“I know, right. I hired someone to help me deliver speeches. I should have given them more money.”
“Yup, I agree.”
They’re interrupted by his assistant, who Stark didn’t realize was already there, saying something about some meeting. He was going to wave his hand again, but Peter loves to butt into things.
“That works well. I have to go take the train back if I want to meet MJ up on time. Can’t have her more mad at me, right?”.
Tony smiles. “Yup. That's only going to give you negative attention to her and we want-" he looks at Peter so he gets the hint to conclude that sentence.
"-positive?-".
Tony nods and says, "-positive attention. Remember, be yourself." Tony shakes his head slightly, "But, just a hint better and smoother.”
He sees Peter harshly scribble “you BUT better” and a ton of exclamation marks around it.
When Peter has got his rain coat zipped up with his notebook securely tucked into his bag and moves to leave his office for good, Tony stops him.
“Hey, Peter.”
“Yes, Mr. Stark?”.
“Don’t forget to hide that notebook of yours with notes on our talk. Can’t have her seeing that, right?”.
“Oh, shoot, yeah!”.
He quickly balls up the sheet further down his back pack and excitingly waves goodbye.
Tony nods a goodbye and quickly looks at the growing files on his desk.
Gross.
"Hey," he looks to the intern on his left, "go tell Happy to tell me if Peter Parker gets home safely, okay?".
"Yes, sir."
When Peter's just about the leave the building itself, he gets three texts.
11:27 AM
MJ: Hey, dweeb. You better be on your way by now. You’ve got thirty minutes before you’re late and I’m not waiting up for you. Also, get me some tea while you’re at it, plz. You know which to get me.
11:31 AM
Tony Stark: Don’t forget to tell MJ I said hi.
11:31 AM
Tony Stark: And DON'T forget, be you but cool. You got this, kid.