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“Your Double knot isn’t half bad,” Tony says from behind him, not able to keep the surprise completely from slipping into his voice.
Peter is standing in front of a mirror with his tongue tucked between his front teeth so tightly Tony is worried he might bite off a chunk by accident. In his hands he’s holding the two ends of his light blue tie and finishes off the last pull with a relieved sigh. Only then does he uncramp his hands and sends Tony a lopsided grin.
“Thanks, May and the internet taught me.”
“Well, they did a tremendous job.”
Peter punches him lightly in the upper arm for that and rolls his eyes, grateful for the distraction. “I really think there’s too much sarcasm in there for me to appreciate that compliment. I’ll tell aunt May about it.”
“Oh no,” Tony fake-gasps, “Not the scary aunt that definitely knows as well as I do that you’re constantly trying to play both of us against the middle. She’d definitely be trusting your word on that over mine.”
Peter inhales sharply and crosses his arms in front of his chest. “Blood is thicker than water, Mister Stark.”
“Yeah, well, good thing you’re not blood, then.” He softens the blow with a ruffle to the yet-to-be-styled hair which Peter instantly and indignantly protests. “Now scooch, I need the mirror.”
He does as he’s told and grabs his hair gel from the dresser, standing slightly behind and to the left of Tony to get a piece of the mirror.
“What? How come you still need a mirror to tie your tie?” he asks incredulously, “I thought you have oh-so-perfect tie-tying skills. Or was that all a lie?”
Tony stops mid-movement to glare at him through the mirror. “Say the word tie one more time and you’ll find out how effective I can be with one.” He looks back at his knot and finishes it off with a last graceful pull through. “And, no, it wasn’t a lie. But have you got any idea how long it has been since I’ve done anything other than a Windsor?”
“Show off,” Peter mumbles, hands in his hair, and moves closer to the mirror as Tony is stepping away. “Then why didn’t you do your fancy Windsor now?”
“I wanted us to match.”
“What?” Peter stares at him in surprise – arms still in the air with his elbows awkwardly tucked to the side to meet Tony’s eyes in the mirror. Then he grins. “Awh, Mister Stark. That’s so cute!”
Tony rolls his eyes and ignores him like he always does – by looking somewhere else and always keeping him at the very corner of his field of vision. “It’s really not. I’ve got orders to make sure we all look nice and united on the photographs.”
“Wait, we all?” Peter finishes doing his hair and goes to the in-suite sink – because of course there’s an in-suite sink in their dressing room – to get the sticky residues from his fingers before he can accidently stain his outfit. “So May and Pepper will match us, too?”
“Have you not asked your aunt what she’s wearing?” Tony blinks at him, uncomprehending.
“Uh, no?” Peter dries his hands with one of these tiny but very soft towels and stares right back at him. “Did you ask Pepper what she’s wearing?”
“Dios mío,” he sighs, then resigns and motions for him to come closer. “Let’s focus on everything you have to learn later, young Padawan. C’mere for now, you still need your handkerchief.”
“Oh, right,” Peter’s eyes light up, “My pocket hanky.”
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that,” Tony says, though he’s not even trying to cover up his smile.
Carefully he places the handkerchief in Peter’s breast pocket and tugs at it until it meets his standard. Then he steps back to critically look over Peter’s appearance one last time, even making him turn so he can see his back, until he nods in approval.
Peter repays the favor and then considers the two of them in the mirror, noticing with a happy grin “We look exactly the same.”
“Yeah,” Tony smiles softly and pulls him into his side, “We really do. Come one, let’s go.”
“No, wait!” Peter tugs at his sleeve to make him stay put, “First we need to take a selfie.”
“Would you stop –“
Tony swats Peter’s hands away that have been fumbling with his tie for the past five minutes.
“But it’s uncomfortable,” he whines and miserably blinks up at his mentor with big brown eyes as if that would do him any good. (Honestly, Tony thinks, it might if it weren’t for the two women also sitting in the car.) “I can’t believe you wear this. I can’t believe you made me wear this,” he accuses.
“First of all,” he grabs both of Peter’s hands when he’s starting to mess up his hair, “you’d be mad if we’d let you walk out there in a punny t-shirt and Converse at the latest when you see the nice press coverage on it, so promise you’ll stop messing all our hard work up and I’ll give you back your hands.”
“Fine,” Peter mumbles, crosses his arms in front of his chest and proceeds to glare at the ground of their limousine, pointedly ignoring the laughter from both May and Pepper sitting opposite them.
Tony sighs and, over Peter’s head, helplessly shakes his head. “Secondly, you better believe me, that I’d rather slip into something a lot more comfortable, like a fu–“ he meets Pepper’s unimpressed look and smiles innocently, “a freaking coma but it’s just one evening and if it gets too bad you can get rid of the tie after the first picture is taken.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, promise,” he nods, “I’d let you take it off now but think of how happy you’d made your aunt with a decent picture of yourself for once.”
May is laughing her consent while Peter is protesting. “Excuse you, she has multiple decent pictures of me.”
“She has two, Peter,” he reifies. “You’re a toddler in one of them. Just put it in a nice frame and give it to her as a Christmas present. That’s what I did for Pepper our first Christmas as a couple.”
Peter looks up to confirm with Pepper who nods, with a grin. “He was very proud of himself.”
“But you liked it,” Tony points out.
“But I liked it,” Pepper agrees. Her gaze softens and her smile is gentle and loving and Tony decides, once more, that that smile was enough reason to go through any uncomfortable event and dress code ever to make her smile like that again.
He turns back to Peter. “Where was I?”
“Oh god, you weren’t finished yet?” he moans, “Think you’ll be done before we get there?”
Completely ignoring him and using the fact that he couldn’t really run from him, Tony grins.
“Thirdly,” he says pointedly, “There’s only so much you can complain about when sitting in a limousine on a way to the best all-you-can-eat buffet event in all of New York and you’re sharing that limousine with two beautiful ladies, all dressed up to the nines, who are perfectly color-coordinated to your tie and who will be wearing heels for the whole evening.”
Peter’s eyes grow wide at the realization and he looks at Pepper and May’s sparkly, death-bringing shoes in horror.
“Trust me, if you don’t stop complaining about the tie you will be wearing heels to your next outing.”
Both May and Pepper burst into laughter as Peter keeps staring on horror until the driver lets down the sound-proof glass window to inform them that they have arrived.
“Come on,” Tony gently squeezes Peter’s shoulder, making sure the kid wasn’t actually going into shock before gracefully stepping out of the vehicle first, then pulling Peter out with him. “It’s show time.”