Chapter Text
“Hey Aunt Maay, can I borrow the Book of Shadows?” Peter bursts through the front doors like a whirlwind, dropping his backpack in the hallway.
“Oh, why hello to you too, dear nephew,” a voice calls out from somewhere in the apartment. “I’m fine, thank you for asking. No, I don’t need help preparing dinner. I’m almost done anyway. But thank you for offering.”
Peter pokes his head into the kitchen where his aunt is setting up plates on the laminate counter. “You’re cooking?” he asks apprehensively.
Aunt May looks up to give him a sardonic smile. “I’m plating. I ordered Thai. Don’t you worry your curly little head. I learned my lesson from the great Parker bonfire of December 2019.” She goes to dig out some cutlery from the drawers, but turns right back around as she recalls, “wait, what did you say about the Book of Shadows?”
“Yeah, I just wanna borrow it real quick.” Peter gives her his patented little smile and wide, innocent eyes.
It doesn’t really work on her.
“What for?” She frowns suspiciously at him.
The Parker coven’s Book of Shadows has been handed down the family witches for generations. Peter started manifesting his powers at fourteen and, after his father and uncle died, began training under Stephen Strange, the mystic arts master of Greenwich Village. The Book is technically Peter’s, but ever since he went off to college and started living in a dorm, it’s been left under Aunt May’s stewardship in the protective nexus of the Parker apartment in Queens.
And despite having no supernatural powers of her own other than as delegated guardian of the Book, Aunt May takes her role very seriously.
“I just wanna look up some stuff. We were talking about ley lines the other day and Wanda mentioned her old family home in Sokovia being in alignment with some old monuments or something and I was just wondering when we moved down here from Salem back in the day if the routes we took had something to do with the American continent lines because it was really-”
Peter tends to ramble when he’s lying. But fortunately, he also tends to ramble when he’s excited or anxious or even just slightly hopped up on caffeine so it’s not like this would add to the overall conspicuousness of this whole thing.
“Alright, alright,” Aunt May interrupts, holding up a hand to shut her nephew up. “But after dinner, okay?”
Peter grins.
--
The Book does have records of the Parker family history dating all the way back to the early settlers from Cape Ann, then leaving Salem to flee the witch trials, right up to the present day when they settled in Queens. It’s an incredibly exhaustive and very dry documentation that Peter never really got the chance, or inclination, to really study.
And he wasn’t about to start now.
The more interesting parts of the hefty tome is towards the middle, where the archives of countless spells and potions have been recorded by generations of witches, complete with trial and experimentation notes.
--
Here’s the thing about Tony Stark, though. He’s … Tony Stark.
So much older than Peter, so much smarter, so much more experienced in every sense of the word. So handsome that it should be illegal, and with a body that looks as mouth-watering wrapped in expensive designer threads as it is stripped down in a greasy tank top and sweats. And if Tony was just some rich, hot older man who happened to be Peter’s engineering mentor, then that would be … well, it would still be a bit of a problem, especially in Peter’s ‘below the waist’ area. But of course the man also had to be witty, charming, and very sweet sometimes.
It is to both Peter’s delight and detriment that they spend so much time together in the labs at Stark Tower. On the one hand, it gives Peter a chance to get to know Tony a little better. On the other hand, it also gives Peter a chance to know Tony a lot. Peter doesn’t just know what kind of smoothie the man likes, or what his favourite AC/DC song is. He’s grown to know what Tony looks like when he’s in a bad mood but trying to hide it, or how the traumas of his childhood shaped him as an adult, or the secret reason why he doesn’t like being handed things. Peter doesn’t get tired of reminding the man to have lunch when he forgets, and thinks it’s cute when he grumbles to his robots, and feels like everything is right with the world as long as he sees Tony smile.
Peter is head over heels in love with him.
--
Here’s the thing about Peter Parker, though. He’s … just Peter Parker.
Sure, he’s a witch. He has magical powers. Everyone knows that. It’s not a big deal. But his powers involve supernatural strength, being able to climb walls, and the occasional premonition. Nothing about those gives him the courage to just go up to Tony Stark and say, “hey, I have feelings for you.”
Because Tony is rich, powerful, handsome, perfect. And Peter is just plain old Peter Parker.
And it’s not like Peter is off to cast a love spell on him. He’d never do anything so distasteful and he’s also pretty sure there’s no such thing as a magical fix-it-all to make someone love you. Not in the way he’d want anyway.
No, Peter just wants Tony to know. It’s getting increasingly painful being around Tony and keeping his feelings hidden. His heart absolutely aches for it, for a way to just cross this seemingly impossible ravine, but every time he opens his mouth, the words get stuck in his throat. He can’t do it. Not when Tony looks at him like that every time Peter calls his name, those deep brown eyes wide and expectant, like they’re gripping at Peter’s very soul.
Peter is going to need some help.
--
Magic is a lot like cooking, in Peter’s opinion. Once you learn the basic physics and chemistry of it, you can pretty much tweak any existing recipe in a multitude of ways. The Book has records of a mind-link elixir, historically used by hunters or warriors to temporarily connect their psyche so that they can find each other if separated or detect if the other is in danger. It shouldn’t be too difficult to slightly alter the spell and ingredients so that the link would allow Tony to see what’s in Peter’s heart. And if he’s lucky, vice versa.
--
“Hey, Mr. Stark, I need you to sign this.”
Tony frowns at the piece of paper Peter slides towards him across the lab’s counter. “I thought we had all the internship documentation sorted out with the faculty.”
Peter shrugs nonchalantly. “I guess there’s one more. New administration, you know.”
“Hmm.” Tony reads over the document carefully, which makes Peter’s heart pound nervously. But the man finally takes out his fountain pen to sign near the bottom.
When Tony looks up to hand the document back over to him, Peter widens his eyes theatrically and swipes at Tony’s neck.
“Ow! What the fuck!” Tony exclaimed, rubbing at his nape.
“Oops, sorry, I thought I saw a bug,” Peter says sheepishly. “It’s just … lint.”
Tony rolls his eyes and turns back to his project. “You’re so weird.”
“Heheh. Well,” Peter says lamely, “let me just put this form in my bag and I’ll be right back.
Peter practically runs to the other room where he keeps his bag and change of clothes. He takes out a little stone bowl and tupperware of ingredients from his backpack and sets them on the floor, kneeling in front of it. He reaches up to pluck a strand of hair from his head and braids it with the hair he took from Tony earlier.
“Sorry, Tony,” Peter mutters with a wince, remembering the man’s yelp of pain.
Peter ties the braided hairs around a sprig of ginkgo leaves then places it in the centre of the bowl alongside a piece of polished quartz to focus the energy. Then he cuts around Tony's signature on the piece of paper, scribbles the spell and his own signature on the other side of it, then rolls it up like a little piece of parchment. Using a pocket lighter to burn one end of the paper, he quietly recites the incantation he wrote down.
“Let our red strings of fate entwine, let circumstances transform to give my love a way to know that mine is a heart that’s his for as long as I live.”
Peter places the half-singed paper into the bowl and watches it burn the tied up ginkgo sprigs in a heat catalyst. There’s no poof of smoke or dramatic sparks, no rolls of thunder in the distance, no way to know if it actually worked. Besides, there’s still one more step before he can know for sure.
Peter plucks one burnt leaf and places it on his tongue, chasing it down with a gulp from his water bottle. Then he takes another and hides it in his closed palm.
When he walks back out to the main lab, he calls out, “you want a smoothie, Mr. Stark? I can make one if you want.”
“Yeah, sure,” comes the absent reply.
Peter walks over to the bar and goes through the motions of making Tony’s favourite strawberry and banana smoothie, dropping the burnt ginkgo leaf in the blender before blitzing it.
“Hey, Pete, I gotta go down to the office for a bit. Can you keep an eye on this thing? Just make sure the temp doesn’t go above 150.”
“Okay,” Peter says, pouring the smoothie into a tumbler. “Here, take this with you.”
Tony takes it from him with a smile - that soft smile that gets Peter every time. “Thanks, you’re the best. I’ll be back soon. Don’t burn down my lab.”
Peter watches the man take a sip of the smoothie as he leaves through the elevator doors.
Peter sighs. He doesn’t know whether or not to be relieved that he gets some more time to stew in his nerves. If the spell works, it wouldn’t activate until the next time they make eye contact, which would be … ‘soon’.
Peter slumps down on a stool in front of whatever it is Tony’s working on, feeling like there’s no way he’d barely be able to concentrate enough on eyeballing the temperature indicator let alone on any of his own projects. Maybe he should change the music for a bit. All this classic rock is just reminding of him of Tony and he can’t-
Ding.
The elevator doors open back up again to reveal Tony, walking towards him. “Did I leave my pen up here? I swear-”
Peter looks up, startled.
Tony stops dead in his tracks, just a few paces away.
They stare at each other.
It’s a good thing Peter’s already seated because he feels like he would faint from all the feelings suddenly coursing through him like a wave of vertigo. He feels light-headed, his mind opening up to receive emotions that don’t belong to him.
“Peter, what did you-” Tony whispers. He’s grown pale and his eyes are wide. “Is this real?”
Peter’s heart sinks to his stomach. “Mr. Stark, I’m so sorry, I just- I couldn’t tell you. I had to- I didn’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable, it was just- oh God, I’m so sorry, I-”
Tony rushes over to Peter and takes his face in his hands, making soft shushing noises. “Hey, hey, Peter, it’s okay. Take it easy. Slow down a little and just… just, breathe, come on now.”
Peter looks up at the man fearfully.
“There we go,” Tony says, a slight quirk of a smile on his face. “So I don’t know what kind of mojo you put over us or even how you did it, but … tell me this is real. Tell me you really … that this is really you I’m feeling and not some manifestation of my wishful thinking you’ve somehow conjured up, ‘cause geez, Pete, that would be really mean.”
Peter blinks. “What?”
“Don’t play with me like this, kid.” Tony still has that slight smile, but the corners of his eyes droop a little, lines forming in his brow, voice shaking almost imperceptibly. And even without the mind-link, Peter has already grown to know what Tony looks like when he’s trying to hide his upset.
“I love you,” Peter blurts out. “I love you, Mr. Stark. That’s why … that’s the reason for all this. I needed you to know. That I love you.”
Those words. The words that he’s been agonizing over for months, the words he could barely shape in his mouth without a little magical interference. Now that he’s said them, he can’t seem to want to stop saying them.
I love you I love you I love you
Tony lets out an incredulous exhale, smile growing wider, and before Peter knows it, they’re kissing.
Peter makes a soft, surprised sound against Tony’s lips, hands coming up to clutch the front of the older man’s shirt, practically melting in his embrace.
“I can feel it. I can feel you,” Tony murmurs between kisses, sounding astonished. “God, how is this real?” He threads his fingers through Peter’s hair, pulling back to look him in the eyes, searching them with a little concern. “You can feel it too, right? What’s in here?”
Peter is still a little dazed from the kiss, but Tony’s gaze is an anchor that holds him steady. Tony’s lips are a little pink and wet, they’re holding each other close, so close, and Peter does feel it, the beating of Tony’s heart beneath his ribs, the humming and thrumming that surges between them, the electricity that lights them both up like fireflies. Love.
“Peter?” The furrow between Tony’s brows dig deeper, fear starting to take root in his face.
The electric current that Peter feels coursing through his body starts to sting, starts to hurt, starts to burrow into his sinew and bone.
Tony? Peter tries to call out, but the voice that comes out is one that he doesn’t recognize.
Tony’s wide, frightened eyes are the last thing he sees before darkness consumes him.