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1.
Peter is sixteen the first time he calls Mr. Stark while drunk. It is, to put it mildly, embarrassing.
Drunk is a relatively new state of being for him, and this is easily the drunkest he’s ever been, plastered on jello shots and cheap beer, celebrating the start of the decathlon season under MJ’s reign. The world tilts as he slumps on the stoop of someone’s dad’s Brooklyn brownstone. It’s the second location of the night, and he’s not entirely sure how he got here. He’s definitely not entirely sure why Mr. Stark’s voice is coming out of his phone speaker, greeting tinged with concern.
“Kid?” the phone is saying. “Kid, are you okay? Pete? I swear to god, if you butt-dialed me again…”
“No, no, I’m here, Mr. Stark!” He’s here and—oh right, Flash. Flash would not shut up about how there’s no way Peter has ever met Tony Stark, it’s all a big lie, he probably spends his internship cleaning up spills and fetching coffee. Somewhere in there, Peter had decided it would be awesome to get Mr. Stark on the phone to prove him wrong. He’s pretty sure Ned was involved in that decision.
And now he’s actually gone and called Tony Stark. Tony Stark, who has made it very clear this number is reserved for serious situations. Tony Stark who is asking frantic questions, now, increasingly concerned. Peter should probably say something before he sends a suit blasting across the city to the brownstone.
“I should not have called you,” he admits. It comes out slurring. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Stark, this was dumb. I was just so mad, and Ned, and—huh.” The world is kind of spinning. It does not mix well with his senses. He closes his eyes against the swaying of the streetlamps. “Why do people drink?”
There’s a long pause. Finally, in a tone that’s clearly trying to convey sternness but doesn’t quite mask his amusement, Mr. Stark asks, “Peter Parker, are you drunk?”
“No.” The silence on the other end conjures up images of Mr. Stark’s most skeptical expression, normally reserved for Peter’s flailing attempts to explain how going after this bank robber or that armed carjacker hadn’t actually been unsafe. “Please don’t tell May!”
“I won’t tell Aunt Hottie if you tell me why you called.”
Peter could kiss him. Of course, Peter could always kiss him. But like, especially. Fortunately, he’s not drunk enough to say that out loud. He pulls together an explanation about Flash. It’s a bit rambling, and he’s distracted by the urge to either lie on the sidewalk or vomit, but he gets the point across.
“Let me get this straight,” Mr. Stark says when he’s done. “You drunk dialed me, Tony Stark, billionaire genius international hero, so that I could tell your high school bully we’re friends?”
Peter flushes at the word friends. He wishes. “Just that you know me at all,” he clarifies. “You don’t have to say we go golfing or whatever. But…yeah.”
“Pete, what have I ever done to make you think I golf? Do you think all adults golf? No, don’t answer that, I don’t want to know.” There’s a sigh so loud it makes Peter cringe, senses recoiling. “You understand I’m not going to do that, right? Because I am a grown man, and I’m pretty sure that means I’m not supposed to talk to random high schoolers on the phone.”
“You’re talking to me,” Peter points out. “I’m in high school.”
“And I hate being reminded of that fact. Besides, you don’t count, you’re special.”
Peter can feel himself smile, so wide it makes his cheeks hurt, and he’s suddenly very glad he didn’t opt for video chat. Apparently being drunk makes it a lot harder to keep his stupid, inappropriate crush in check. “Thanks,” he mutters.
“I’m going to hang up now,” Mr. Stark tells him. “Expect a lecture about responsible alcohol usage on Monday. Until then…grey area, kid. Have fun.”
Peter decides the best way to “have fun” is to grab a taxi back to Ned’s place, where they work off the buzz trying and failing to build an R2-D2 Lego robot. He texts Mr. Stark a picture of their half-constructed attempt before falling asleep, because he’s still pretty drunk.
The next morning, he wakes up to a response: Very grey area, well done. Makes me proud.
***
Mr. Stark does give him a lecture on Monday. But two weeks later he also invites him to a Stark Industries party, hands him a fake internship certificate, and slings an arm around him for a goofy photo, rabbit ears and all.
“You can show this to that Flash jerk,” he says casually, texting Peter a copy.
Peter prints the photo and sticks it up in his locker, proof that he does know Tony Stark, thank you. (And that Tony Stark may be a billionaire genius international hero, but he cares enough to listen when Peter complains.)
2.
Peter starts sneaking shots, the first few months back after the Blip. Not often, only on the days when May has a late shift and he comes home to an empty apartment after patrolling. And not many—but with his senses on overdrive, it only takes one or two to leave him loopy enough to keep away the panic nipping at his heels.
Sometimes, on the nights when two becomes three, or maybe four, he calls Mr. Stark. At first, it’s just to hear his voice, the irreverent, “You’ve reached Tony Stark. I probably won’t listen to your message, but Pepper might.” But eventually he starts leaving messages.
It begins with a casual hello, as if somewhere out there, in another dimension or another realm or who knows, maybe heaven, Mr. Stark might actually be listening. Then it’s a little more, small confessions turning into big ones: how wrong the world feels without him in it; how playing hero has lost its luster, because it doesn’t feel like playing anymore.
How very, very tired he is of losing.
He knows it’s not healthy, the drinking or the calling a dead man’s voicemail, but he can’t help it: it feels good to hear his voice, to pretend he can hear Peter’s in return. To imagine his arms wrapping around him the way they did on that battlefield, so strong and safe. If only he were here, maybe Peter wouldn’t feel like everything is draped in heavy grey cloth, weighing him down even when he’s swinging through the city.
“I don’t think you had any idea how much you meant to me,” he chokes into the phone one particularly bad night, after patrolling in a new neighborhood where every other corner displayed a giant memorial to Iron Man. “I don’t think I even knew. I hate this, Mr. Stark. I can’t—I just don’t know how to do this. How am I supposed to do this without you?”
***
After a few months, the line is disconnected. He takes it as a sign to get his shit together.
3.
Almost exactly six months after Mr. Stark’s resurrection, Peter swings by the reacquired Avengers tower for what is supposed to be their monthly lab session, only to find the lab empty and Mr. Stark in his penthouse, decidedly not sober.
“Pete?” Mr. Stark murmurs as Peter enters the living room, looking up from where he’s sprawled on the couch, glass of something dark and brown balanced precariously on his stomach. “What’re you—shit. Shit, I forgot that was this weekend.”
It stings that the highlight of Peter’s month can so easily slip his mentor’s mind, but he swallows the hurt. Given that he’s currently struggling to sit upright without spilling his drink, Mr. Stark is clearly not in a position to debate the relative importance they hold in each other’s lives.
“It’s cool. It’s not like I had to fly all the way from Boston or anything.”
(Okay, fine, he doesn’t entirely hide his disappointment. Whatever.)
He crosses the room to the couch, removing the glass from Mr. Stark’s hand and taking a seat beside him. He’s immediately hit by a wave of body heat and alcohol; it makes him shiver. He sniffs the glass—whiskey—and throws it back, wincing. It burns, strong and painful. He hasn’t drunk much, since those days after the Blip. Isn’t used to the way the booze makes itself known on the way down, as if he can physically feel it coating his stomach.
“Whoa there.” Mr. Stark makes a failed attempt to reach for the glass, hand batting at Peter’s wrist instead. “What’s this? Are you even twenty-one yet?”
Peter would be insulted that Mr. Stark doesn’t know his age, but he remembers how hard it was to keep track of stuff like that after coming back. Brains aren’t wired to relearn mismatched timelines. “Depends. Under one way of looking at it, I’ve been over twenty-one for over three years.”
He sees Mr. Stark do the math. He’s really drunk, but he’s also a genius, so it doesn’t take him long to conclude, “So looking at it in the time-actually-spent-on-this-Earth way, you’re nineteen.”
“Are you seriously going to lecture me about this?”
Mr. Stark levels him with a surprisingly clear-eyed glare, considering his options before replying, “No, Ferris Bueller, I’m not going to lecture you for being a teenage delinquent. I am, however, going to lecture you about how you just made this our first time sharing a drink. This! I’m already three glasses into a bottle of mediocre whiskey.” Peter suspects that’s an under-estimation of the number of drinks Mr. Stark has had tonight. He also suspects this “mediocre” whiskey costs at least fifty dollars, probably more. “It should’ve been…I don’t know, cracking open a bottle of a nice single malt after your graduation. Or in Paris. Something classy.”
“You want to wait all the way until I graduate?” Peter asks, before realizing maybe Mr. Stark meant his high school graduation. Which…man. That hurts too much to think about, what could’ve been if things were different. Hurts like a knife through the rib cage. Worse, maybe, having experienced both. He clears his throat. “Why would we be in Paris?”
All he gets in response is a dejected shrug. “I don’t know. I go to Paris. I could take you to Paris.”
Peter’s heart skips a beat. He’s not going to respond to that. Letting his mind rest on Paris is a straight path to either bad memories or fantasies he cannot be indulging when the object of them is sitting less than a foot away. “Well, sorry. But I’ve already had the drink, so this is what we’re stuck with. Can I stay?”
Mr. Stark tilts his head in acquiescence. “You’ll need…” He gestures vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. “A glass.”
“Or I could do this.” Peter uses the slingers he rarely takes off these days to grab the bottle from where it’s perched at the other side of the couch. He takes a swig. It still burns, but he manages to hide the wince this time.
“I guess we’re leaning into the college vibe,” Mr. Stark says with a sigh, taking the bottle from Peter’s hand and wrapping his lips around it. Which—fuck. Apparently there are some things time does not quite help you get over. “So, Mr. Parker, it’s been a month. Tell me about good ol’ MIT. You finally get a girlfriend yet?”
***
Peter does not have a girlfriend (or, as Mr. Stark is quick to inquire, a boyfriend, or a non-binary friend. “No sex friends of any gender!” he finally exclaims, which means the alcohol is already getting to him because oh my god he did not just say that to Mr. Stark).
Somehow, between the teasing and the alcohol, this line of questioning leads them down the dangerous road of talking about MJ, and what went wrong. Dangerous not because that particular story is anything to be ashamed of—they tried, the superhero thing was too much, and if Peter’s being really honest they wouldn’t have lasted through college even if his life weren’t a terrifying mess, not with MJ busy leading the revolution at Berkeley—but because it brushes up on so much he’s been trying very hard not to talk about. All the ways his life went wrong, all the ways he’s not the happy, carefree kid his mentor left behind.
The very first thing Mr. Stark said to him after his resurrection—the very first—was, “Wow, it’s good to see that smile again, kid.” So Peter has done his best to be the version of himself that wears a smile all the time. It’s not hard, normally, not around Mr. Stark. Because he is happy around him, so happy, so totally and utterly amazed to be in his presence. But being that version of himself means not talking about Beck, or the six months he spent as a villain in the public eye, or the nightmares, or the fights he lost or the fact that sometimes he wonders if he started this all too young or—
“Kid? Kid, are you alright?”
Whoops. Fuck. His brain is a bit fuzzy here. “Yeah, I’m fine.” What had they been talking about? MJ, right. “Um, what about you? How do you do the whole superhero-and-relationship thing? With Ms. Potts?”
There. Safer territory. Maybe a little personal, but whatever, they are sharing a drink. Plus, superhero-life balance is the kind of thing a mentor is supposed to mentor you about, right? Right. So, yeah, safe enough.
Except apparently not, because Mr. Stark’s face suddenly goes dark, shut down. He draws back, clutching the bottle to his chest. “Bad topic, kid.”
It’s only then that it occurs to Peter that it’s getting to be late o’clock on a Friday night, and there’s no sign of Morgan or Pepper. And Mr. Stark’s openly drunk, as if he’s not expecting them to stumble in anytime soon. Which maybe means…but…they can’t be, can they? Though what does he know about their relationship, really? Maybe they can. “Oh. Um. Sorry?”
Mr. Stark waves a hand. “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine, we’re working it out. Or…maybe not, I don’t know. This whole return from the dead thing has had a bit of a bumpy landing.” He sighs and slumps, dangling the bottle between his legs. “Fuck, kid, I shouldn’t be laying this on you.”
Please do, Peter doesn’t say. He wants to be someone Mr. Stark confides in. Wants whatever form of intimacy he’s willing to give him. “It’s okay. Coming back is weird.”
“Yep.” Mr. Stark gestures with the bottle in Peter’s direction. “Except you seem to have handled it fine. Great, really. Took down Beck, official Avenger now, killing it at MIT. Honestly, it’s impressive. A little intimidating. Padawan has become the master; maybe you should be the one teaching me life lessons.”
Peter laughs, dark, a sound ripped from so many nights screaming into the emptiness of his dorm room. He drops forward, elbows to knees, so they’re face-to-face.
“I wasn’t fine,” he admits. Which is definitely the opposite of where he meant this conversation to go. This is exactly what he was trying to avoid. But his desperate desire to keep being bright and eager and undamaged in Mr. Stark’s mind is dulled and muddled, drowned out by the needs of the moment. Also, maybe he’s not thinking the straightest. “I was a mess for a while. Kind of still am, really.”
That gets Mr. Stark’s attention, eyes sharp and searching on Peter’s face. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” He’s tempted to tell Mr. Stark about the drunk messages that must still be drifting through the cloud somewhere, but those are probably better left lost in the digital void. “I don’t know. I mean I get it? Some of it? I’m not the master of anything. That’s all.”
Mr. Stark observes him with a steady gaze that burns down his neck. Then, suddenly, unexpectedly, his fingers are on Peter’s face, knuckles trailing across his cheek. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Peter doesn’t want to answer, not really, not honestly, but with Mr. Stark touching him and the room dancing on the edge of spinning, he’s not capable of coming up with anything but the truth: “I didn’t want to disappoint you.”
Mr. Stark’s hand drops away. “You could never,” he whispers, raising the bottle to his lips again. “Pete, you could never disappoint me.”
Peter’s not sure he believes that, but when Mr. Stark abruptly changes the subject to the upcoming Oscars race, he lets it go.
4.
Peter is very drunk. He hadn’t intended to be very drunk, but first of all, it’s a party, so he’s entitled. Okay, technically it’s an office holiday party, so maybe it’s not professional, but half the staff is totally drunk, too, so, see again about being entitled. Yeah.
Also, second and more importantly, he’s been forced to watch Mr. Stark flirt with that lady from accounting (Sherry? No, Shelly) all night. Which, like, yeah, what did he expect? It’s Mr. Stark; his bachelor lifestyle has been well documented over the past two years. But he normally doesn’t do it in front of Peter. Which, to be very, absolutely fair, is perhaps because they’ve never actually been at a party together before. Sure, they’re practically attached at the hip in the lab, and sure, they eat most lunches with each other, and go to movies and out to dinner and sometimes even patrol together. But none of that is a venue where Mr. Stark would be flirting.
Peter isn’t sure why he thought his presence would stop Mr. Stark from doing exactly what the tabloids have made painfully clear he does at every even vaguely party-shaped event he’s attended since his split with Ms. Potts. Okay, correction: he knows why he thought it, but it was based on a stupid, childish, completely off-base hope that he knows is stupid and childish and—fuck. Sometimes he thinks he should’ve taken the job at Oscorp. Then maybe he wouldn’t be so hopelessly, pathetically, totally in love with Mr. Stark.
Okay, fine, he totally would be; that shit set in before he took this job. But at least if he were at Oscorp he wouldn’t be crawling out of his own skin at the office holiday party.
“Sucks,” says Delilah, Mr. Stark’s secretary and keeper of Peter’s secret. By which he means that a few months ago she cornered him in the bathroom, announced that he is clearly in love with their boss, and offered to be a shoulder to cry on if he ever needs it. Which was honestly pretty alarming at the time, but she hasn’t told anyone else, and it’s nice to have one sympathetic person in the building. “Need that shoulder yet?”
Peter hands her his empty wine glass. Third of the night. Fourth? He’s lost track. “Nah, but I’m going to the lab. If Mr. Stark asks, don’t tell him where I am.”
Not that Mr. Stark is going to ask. That’s kind of the whole point.
***
Peter meant to work on his latest R&D project, a medical application of his web formula for emergency wound setting, but three failed attempts to type his password in are proof that he’s not the right frame of mind for successful sciencing of the higher order. He settles on tinkering with his webslingers instead, trying out the newest settings against the wide back wall of the lab. He’s reminded, with sudden, startling familiarity, of being stuck in a warehouse, the weight of failing his academic decathlon team the heaviest thing on his mind. Those were the days.
“Mr. Parker! Did our very expensive holiday party bore you?”
Shit. Shit. Peter spins to see Mr. Stark striding across the lab, absolutely unfairly attractive in a tux. He’d been handsome from a distance at the party; up close Peter wants to actually, literally die from looking at him. It’s physically painful, as if his desire is trying to rip its way out of his body.
“Mr. Stark! Wha-what are you doing down here?”
“Looking for you. Delilah said I could find you here.”
“I told her not to tell you,” Peter says without thinking. Great, now he’s going to have to explain that.
“Yeah, she told me that, too. But seeing as I’m the one who writes her paycheck…” Mr. Stark grins, mischievous, as if this is all a big joke. As if he hadn’t just spent the last hour with his hand on someone else’s back. “Seriously kid, what gives? Was the party too much for your senses?”
He looks genuinely concerned, which makes Peter feel guilty. Just because he doesn’t care about Peter the way he wants him to doesn’t mean he doesn’t care at all. It’s kind of unfair to sulk.
And yet—it’s also kind of unfair for Mr. Stark to be standing there, looking so good and so worried, as if Peter’s well-being is the most important thing in the universe to him when it’s clearly not. Can’t he get a break?
“Not my senses,” Peter says. His attempt to sound casual is stymied by the slur of his words and man, he may be drunker than he thought. He wants to sit back down, but that feels like it would be conceding something. “I just needed some…space.”
Space, which is exactly what he doesn’t have with Mr. Stark creeping closer, until he’s only a few feet away, the smell of his cologne overwhelming. Peter inhales deeply, forcing his eyes not to flutter closed. He smells fantastic, and it’s not fair; Peter’s no good at filtering his senses when he’s drunk.
“I get that,” Mr. Stark says gently. “These things are a lot. In fact, mind if I get some space with you? The razzle dazzle is getting old. All the smiling strains my face.”
“I, uh, kinda do mind?” Fuck. He definitely had not meant to say that, and the booze must really be getting to him because, without his permission, his mouth adds, “I was, um, actually looking for space from you? Which your whole”—he waves his hand—“being here thing isn’t helping with.”
“Me?” Mr. Stark tilts his head, taking Peter in—really taking him in, eyes skimming down to his toes and then back up to his face.
For the first time all night, Peter registers that Mr. Stark bought him the suit he’s wearing—a college graduation gift, now over a year old, but it still fits perfectly, more perfectly than anything he’s ever owned (other than the Spider-suit, of course). The thought just makes him feel guiltier. “Um, yes? Sorry.”
“Me?” Mr. Stark repeats, incredulous. As if he honestly can’t believe what he’s hearing. “What’d I do? Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that some people find me grating with prolonged exposure, but I haven’t even talked to you—” Peter can hear the moment he gets it, words cutting off with a snap. “Oh.”
“Now you’re getting it.” Pressure that feels suspiciously like tears builds behind Peter’s eyes. Which—no. Absolutely not. He is not crying in front of Mr. Stark like some little kid. Or, worse, like exactly what he is: a jealous, pining idiot who doesn’t stand a chance. “It’s fine. I just want to be alone.”
Mr. Stark’s face scrunches, brow collapsing. “I didn’t mean to ignore you, kid. There’re just a lot of people I have to please at events like this—”
“Yeah, like Shelly.” Fuck. So much for not sounding like a jealous idiot. He needs to get out of this situation before he and his runaway mouth manage to mess everything up. Who let him have so many drinks? Bad. This is bad.
“Shelly?” It’s not an act: the blank look on his face means Mr. Stark literally has no idea who Peter is talking about. Which. Wow. “What…?”
“The woman you’ve been flirting with all night?”
“Oh.” Suddenly, Mr. Stark’s eyes go round; Peter can practically see the pieces click into place. “Wait, is that what you’re upset about?”
And there it is. Damn. Oh well. What was that saying Uncle Ben liked? In for a penny, in for a pound. Or, to put it another way: his stupid drunk mouth got him this far, there’s no way to back out now. At least not one his stupid drunk mind is capable of coming up with on short notice. He shrugs.
“I mean…yeah? Which is like…not your fault. I’m not trying to make it weird or anything.” Mr. Stark is staring at him. This is not good. Very bad. Abort, abort. “Seriously, I mean it. I’m dealing! This is me dealing. It’s totally fine, I just need you to not be here while I’m dealing. Please.”
Mr. Stark keeps staring. He doesn’t say anything. He stares some more. His mouth moves but doesn’t make words. He keeps staring. Finally: “I’m…I think I’m going to need you play that out for me, kid.”
He sounds dazed, as if he hadn’t been expecting what Peter just said at all. Which—how? Peter’s been told by many reliable sources that he’s not exactly subtle when he has feelings for someone. He stares, he babbles, he gets extra fidgety. He figured Mr. Stark had been kindly ignoring the situation. “I—what? You have to know, sir. This can’t be a surprise.”
“I very much assure you it can be.” Peter wouldn’t believe it, would think Mr. Stark is just being polite, except he sounds breathless in a way that’s hard to fake.
“Well, um, okay. Sorry?” This is not the direction he was expecting this conversation to go, and his mind’s not fully equipped to deal with the swerve right now. “I promise it’s really—it’s fine, you can totally ignore it, I’m fine, I don’t want to make things awkward. I love working with you so much, I really don’t want to mess that up, and I can handle my feelings and—”
“Pete,” Mr. Stark says sharply, crowding his space, finger coming to his lip. “Shut up.”
Repeat: Mr. Stark’s finger is on his lip. Help. Someone help. This is very bad. This is can’t-breathe, heart-racing-so-fast-it-hurts, if-Mr.-Stark-doesn’t-move-Peter’s-stupid-overactive-senses-are-going-to-ruin-the-inside-of-these-expensive-pants bad.
“No, really, sir, I promise, please don’t be mad, I thought you knew, I wouldn’t have told you like this—”
“Peter, I said shut up. I need a second to think.” His hand slides from Peter’s lip down his chin, tracing along his throat before finally stopping to clutch his tie. “Correction: I need to not think, because if I think I’ll talk myself out of this, and I really don’t want to talk myself out of this.”
Before Peter can ask what “this” is, Mr. Stark tugs him forward by the tie, slamming their lips together into a rough, sloppy kiss. Peter opens his mouth, half acceptance, half surprise; he makes a squeaking sound that would be What? if Mr. Stark’s mouth didn’t swallow the word.
Peter twists his head, breaking the kiss. “I—I’m sorry, what is happening right now?”
Mr. Stark raises an eyebrow. “I’m responding to newly acquired information. Unless I totally misunderstood the conversation we just had?”
“But—but.” But. But what? But how. “I—what?”
“But shut up and let me keep kissing you before I remember all the reasons it’s a bad idea.”
“It’s not a bad idea,” Peter whispers, even though kind of maybe it is. He’s not sure he’ll ever be able to recover from this, after Mr. Stark comes to his senses.
But when Mr. Stark’s lips meet his again, Peter decides whatever pain is waiting down the line is totally worth it.
5.
Mr. Stark doesn’t come to his senses. He keeps kissing Peter, every day.
Kisses him the morning after the holiday party, when he wakes up groggy and disoriented, with a throbbing headache, half convinced the whole thing was a hallucination. Kisses him a week later, saying lightly, “Kid, if we’re going to do this, you really have to start calling me Tony.” Kisses him on their first real date, in public. A declaration of intent: he must really like Peter if he’s willing to put up with the amount of PR shit—not to mention screaming from May—that brings down on his head.
Kisses him the first time they have sex, deep and long and gentle, breathing his name against his mouth, bodies trembling at the intimacy. When they stop kissing, Tony has tears in his eyes; that’s the moment Peter realizes maybe this can last.
Kisses him a few months later, as he helps Peter move into his apartment—their apartment, now—a beautiful but sparsely decorated penthouse he lets Peter adorn with nerdy posters (“I particularly like that one,” he says after they’re all hung, pointing at the Stark Expo poster Peter has religiously kept in mint condition since he was a kid).
Kisses him after their first fight, a stupid argument over dishes, and their second, a much less stupid argument over Peter, okay, to be fair, kind of almost getting himself killed on patrol (listen, if he didn’t run into that burning building, that little boy would’ve died, he’s not apologizing for it). Kisses him after their first dinner with May (which is really less a dinner than an extended interrogation), and before Peter is introduced to Morgan in his new role as daddy’s special friend (which goes smoothly, thanks mostly to Ms. Potts being absolutely wonderful about helping explain things).
Point is, by the time New Year’s rolls around, Peter is used to the kissing. What he is not used to is the amount of noise twenty of their closest friends make when packed into their penthouse. Turns out champagne glasses make very high pitched clinking sounds. Knife-in-his-ear high pitched.
And, okay, yeah, it probably doesn’t help that he’s drunk, intoxicated on booze and the flushed excitement of finally having the person he most wants to kiss by his side to ring in the new year.
So this time when he slips out of the party, into the cold night air of their balcony, he wants Tony to follow him, which—exactly zero surprise here—he does.
“Please tell me you’re not trying to escape me again,” he says as he slides up next to Peter, leaning against the banister with his back to the city. He’s joking, mostly, but a little he’s not: Peter can hear it in the slight tinge of hesitation in his voice. It’s the tone he gets whenever he’s not entirely sure he’s doing the boyfriend thing right.
Peter reaches out, hand finding Tony’s arm. He’s wearing a cashmere sweater; Iron Man red, a Christmas gift from May that isn’t his style. It’s sweet he wore it tonight—it made May smile, which Peter knows is why Tony did it, and he appreciates it. And, bonus, it feels really nice under Peter’s fingers, soft and relaxing. “No, you’re good. It actually is my senses this time.”
“Ah.” In a swift movement, Tony launches off the banister, wrapping himself around Peter from behind, arms folding across his chest, face nuzzling into his hair. “So I’m guessing that means you don’t want to go back inside for everyone shouting a countdown in two minutes?”
“Mmm,” Peter agrees. “If you don’t mind.”
“Why would I mind? I have the best view in the city right here.”
Peter turns his head to confirm that Tony is looking at him, not the jagged rise of Manhattan skyscrapers. “Shut up,” he protests, attempting and failing to elbow him from this awkward angle. He knows he’s blushing, only a little bit from the cold. He’s mostly adjusted to the entire amazing situation he’s somehow found himself in, but he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to Tony Stark looking at him like this, as if he means the most cliche lines in the world down to his core.
“Never,” Tony says, with a swift peck on Peter’s lips. “I am going to keep”—another kiss—“using”—another—“cheesy lines”—another, deeper—“until you get so sick of me”—deeper still—“you call this whole thing off.” He ends with a kiss on the nose. “Until then, you’re stuck with them.”
Peter, dizzy with the love of it, and maybe with Champagne, murmurs, “Guess I’m stuck with them for the rest of my life, then,” not thinking through all that implies. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, his heart drops to the bottom of his stomach. That was too much. That was so totally not where they are yet, they don’t say stuff like that, they—
“Peter Parker, did you just propose to me?” Tony grabs Peter and spins him, so they’re face-to-face. “You better not have just proposed to me.”
“Um…no?” His heart sinks even further, all the way to his feet. He hadn’t, but that doesn’t mean he has to like obvious rejection, either. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—I just—I mean, I would—one day—but that wasn’t—only when you—”
Wait. Tony is grinning, teeth bright against the dark night. Why is he grinning?
“Good,” he says, landing another kiss on Peter’s forehead. “Because I have this whole thing planned, and it’s taken months and I was going to be annoyed if you beat me to the punch.” Peter has nothing to say to that, but it doesn’t matter, because Tony is barreling on. “Actually, this is good. You’re supposed to talk about it first, right? That’s what all the advice columns say. So now we’ve talked. Check it off the list. Teamwork, well done. A-plus top notch relationship management right here.”
“Wait. You’re…you’re planning to propose to me?” Peter stammers, in case he’s not following correctly. It feels very possible that he’s not following correctly.
“Yes, hello, keep up. But the how and when is a secret and don’t think you’re going to be able to use your wiles to get it out of me, young man, because you’re cute but I—”
He doesn’t get to finish the thought, because Peter is too busy kissing him.
***
Technically, Peter doesn’t get his New Year’s kiss. Or maybe he does? He’s not sure if it counts if you’re kissing before and after and don’t even notice when the clock strikes midnight.
He’s not particularly worried about it.
+ 1
Peter has a single shot before walking down the aisle. Just to steady his nerves, except his nerves also mean he hasn’t eaten all day, so that one shot is enough to make him slightly tipsy as he stands, hands in Tony’s, drowning in the warmth of his gaze.
Maybe it’s the shot, or maybe it’s the impossible joy of it all, but he doesn’t really notice the vows he’s repeating. Barely even registers saying “I do.” It doesn’t matter; he means every word.