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“Would you believe me if I said you were my rock bottom?”
“I believe that you believe it.”
“…What’s so funny?”
“Nothing. When you talk like that, you sound like my mom.”
“There are worse people to end up like.”
Peter considered this, wondering if Tony saw the irony in what he’d said. But this version of Tony was so different from the boy he’d known in high school — most likely Tony was dead serious.
Most pastors had a fatal sense of humour, in Peter’s opinion.
They were standing on the side of the road, wrapped in hats and thick coats, protecting them from the elements as much as from one another.
Tony barely contained his sneer, “I’m serious, Peter. Your mother is a great woman.”
“I didn’t say she wasn’t—“
“No, but your—“
“My what?”
“You just… never mind.” Tony stuffed his hands into the pockets of his long coat and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” Peter swung forward on a step to keep up with him. It was so cold that his cheeks and forehead burned, and he knew they’d turned bright pink and probably messed up his makeup.
“You should go home, Peter.”
“I am home, I’ve been home, I’ve —“
“I mean spiritually.” Tony turned on him. He’d gotten taller in his twenties, but Peter hadn’t. It meant he had to tilt his chin to look up at Tony, he notched an eyebrow and answered, voice suddenly cold as the air,
“What do you mean by that?”
“You’re home for the holidays, right?” Tony prompted, “That’s fine, and I’m sure your parents are glad to have you. But —“
“—They are—“
“But Jesus wants you home too, Peter. He wants you to ask forgiveness and to run home to Him and —”
“I’m sorry, are you witnessing to me right now?”
Tony had the good sense to wince. He dragged a hand through his hair and then stuffed it back into his pockets.
“I’m not- you don’t need witnessing, but…”
“But you think if you confront me on this sidewalk I’ll suddenly decide you’re right and that all I need to perfect my life is for Jesus to be in it?” Peter snapped. “Newsflash Stark:” — use of his last name made Tony flinch again — “I like my life right now. And I liked our life back in high school. And I—“
“That was a mistake.”
“What was?”
Tony’s voice was gruff, “High school. All of it.” He shrugged and turned away again.
Peter’s cheeks were suddenly very warm, and he fell quiet.
Tony snorted, “You should talk a little less and listen a little more, Parker. It’s a good look on you.”
At least that sounded like Tony, even if it was callous. At least that sounded like something Peter could recognise from his youth. Some of the brashness and humour of the boy he’d loved breaking through the surface.
“Peter, it’s been nice to see you. But…”
“How can you possibly say,” Peter’s voice trembled, “That you regret me and you’re glad to see me… in the same damn breath?”
Tony fidgeted on the sidewalk.
“What we did in our youth—“
“—We’re still young—“
“Was abhorrent and—“
“That’s your dad talking—“
“Well maybe we both should have listened to him more.”
Peter couldn’t help it. He barked out a sharp, stinging laugh that swarmed in the frigid December air.
“You think your dad was right, with all he did to you?” He fumed, indignation on Tony’s behalf flooding his veins. “You think your father had any business behaving and speaking the way he did, he —“
Peter stopped hard, breathless on his disbelief.
“You’ve changed so much from the man that I knew.”
Tony scoffed. “The boy that you knew was just that. A child.”
“Tony…” Emotion shredded Peter’s voice. He shook his head stubbornly, tears hanging on the edge of his eyelashes. He wanted Tony to kiss them away, to wrap him in a hug, to chase away what felt like a very bad dream.
“Look, Peter.” Tony’s demeanour softened. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, antsy in the cold, “Would you like to get a cup of coffee, or something?” He checked his watch, “I have some time before choir rehearsal.”
Peter let out a bleating laugh. Tony Stark, singing in the church choir? It was like the setup to a bad joke.
“Okay,” Peter said cautiously, afraid of the hope in his chest, “Okay, I guess I have time for a cup of coffee.”
Tony smiled and started toward High Street. Peter followed, each step further from the muddy tires of Tony’s Ram.
It was a small town, and so they were bound to have seen each other. But Peter thought they’d both done a good job of pretending not to notice the other at the Christmas Eve service. Maybe Tony hadn’t been pretending after all.
The coffee shop was warm compared to the December chill outside, and it glowed with yellow lights and lamps in contrast to the day’s dreary grey sky. Tony didn’t hold the door open. They ordered and paid separately. Then they sat uneasily in a booth with two mugs of black coffee between them.
“So,” Peter said slowly, “My mom says you’re almost done with seminary. That’s…” He trailed off. He didn’t want to say great or wonderful or anything he didn’t mean. Finally he said, “Not what I expected from you, after high school.”
Tony laughed, “Well I don’t think anyone was prepared to give you a superlative for running west. But here we are… what’s LA like?”
“Warm,” Peter said, taking a big gulp of coffee. He meant it in more ways than just the weather. Los Angeles was a warm place with warm friends and smiles and hopes and dreams.
“A little uhh… a little wild, I take it?” Tony gestured to Peter’s face, and Peter lifted a finger to flick up his painted eyelashes. It came away wet with sparkly blue eyeshadow and he smiled.
“Wild and free.” He said, lifting his coffee cup as if in a toast. Tony didn’t mirror him, instead he grimaced down at his own mug and so Peter took a hurried sip.
“Actually, though, Los Angeles is great.” He said, dabbing again at his eye makeup as if he could fix it without looking in the mirror. “I’m applying to doctoral programs right now, looking to get my PhD in Queer Studies.”
“Queer… Studies.” Tony repeated slowly, like he was trying to wrap his tongue around the words themselves. As if he’d never heard them before.
“Yeah,” Peter shrugged down at his coffee, “Like LGBT history and culture and social change, challenging heteronormativity, that kind of thing.” He forced a smile across the table and Tony snorted. But he didn’t say anything derisive about the major, as Peter expected. Instead he just said,
“You don’t need to fake smiles with me Peter.”
Peter’s gaze dropped to the table again and the brightness on his face flickered. He almost defended himself, but there was nothing to latch onto. Tony was right, was maybe the only soul in the world who could tell.
“Easy for you to say, when I’ve been missing yours.” Peter said gently. Tony offered a soft, genuine smile at that and it made Peter’s chest swell with longing. He missed long nights tucked away in church eaves, whispering soft secrets and exchanging hurried kisses.
“You shouldn’t say things like that, Peter.” Tony’s voice was gravelly and rough. “It’s not appropriate anymore.”
“Anymore,” Peter echoed quietly. Like it ever was? Wasn’t blasphemy in biblical times the same as blasphemy today? That was the whole point, wasn’t it?
“Sorry.” Peter said, voice disingenuous.
“The, uhh, the school thing sounds interesting though.” Tony coughed, and Peter peered up at him through his eyelashes. “Interesting stuff you’re studying…”
Peter didn’t know if he was supposed to lie and say Tony’s schooling sounded interesting too, but after the warning about faking smiles he decided to hold his tongue. Instead he pivoted,
“And I guess we switched places in the church choir, huh?”
Tony laughed at that. “I guess, but you were always better than me… choir boy.” The old nickname ignited colour in peter’s cheeks and Tony smirked in response, for an instant something old and long-ago lost flickered between them.
Peter’s next sip of coffee tasted sour like wine. The light in this diner was gold instead of silver, but beautiful and holy nonetheless. Something consecrated between them years ago now bubbled in the surface of their coffee mugs and on the edge of their lips, but…
“You could’ve gone to LA to sing, or to act.” Tony went on, pushing gently on an old wound, “why didn’t you? Why academia?”
Peter turned over the question in his mind. Because it was the easy way out, perhaps. Because then he didn’t have to be so vulnerable with his art, with himself. Because in academia he could back himself up with sources and proofs and evidence whereas in art he had to be raw and wholly open, like an exposed nerve.
“Wasn’t in the cards,” Peter answered at last, “Like us, I guess.”
He crumpled a napkin in one hand.
Tony said, “We were a mistake.”
“Yeah,” Peter growled, “You’ve made that pretty damn clear.”
Tony cleared his throat. One hand fluttered at the high collar he wore.
“You know I’ve been seeing Pepper, you remember Pepper, from high school? And I know Michelle was looking your way at Christmas Eve, maybe you could—“
“I thought you didn’t notice me on Christmas Eve!” Peter snapped, “Anyway if I wanted to know who you were hanging with I would’ve asked you!”
They glared at one another.
Peter asked through painful slices in his throat, “Do your parents even know? About the shit we used to get up to?”
“Of course not,” Tony’s voice was stone cold, “And neither should they. It was crude and vulgar and—“
“I loved you!” Peter leaned across the table, his voice stringent and tight. “Fuck Tony maybe I still do — or a different version of you. You were the warmest soul I ever knew, you were the only — the only person who — fuck.”
“So what are you saying, Peter?” Tony lifted his shoulders higher and his gaze remained neutral and cool, “You’re saying the road not taken looks real good now, huh? Well you’re the one who gallivanted off to—“
“I didn’t gallivant off anywhere, I just needed some space and you could’ve come with me!”
“Well thank goodness I didn’t.” Tony dismissed him with a wave of his hand, “Can you imagine? Me in LA? Spinning in circles and painting rainbows with sidewalk chalk—“
“God you are so thick! You always have been! You’ve always been infuriatingly stubborn!” Peter snapped.
“So you admit it’s a good thing you left me.”
“I left home. I never meant to leave you.”
The waitress came around to top up their coffees, mostly untouched and now lukewarm. Peter waved to show he didn’t need any more. Tony quietly thanked her by name. She lingered for a moment, as if wanting to eavesdrop, but when neither of them said anything she wandered away for more interesting booths.
“Well I didn’t leave home.” Tony said softly. “I stayed here, and I will be welcomed into Christ’s Kingdom when the time is right.”
“Oh give me a fucking break—“
“I’ll keep praying for you, Peter.” Tony stood up abruptly, “But I don’t think this conversation is productive for either of us.”
Peter stared up at him, surprised at the wetness lingering in his own eyes.
Maybe Tony saw this, something in him softened. “Where did you park? Let me walk you back to your car.”
Peter wiped his eyes, more eyeshadow and mascara smeared on the back of his hand.
“Between the Methodist and the high school,” He managed to choke out, wishing Tony would just smile at him again. Would stop staring down at him with so much pity.
Shouldn’t Peter be the one pitying him?
Tony nodded and gestured to the door of the diner.
Peter felt the ache when he passed Tony, the dull pain between them and the way they couldn’t call it even.
Peter sniffled as they stalked back into the cold, he reminded himself he had escaped this. He’d left. On purpose. He didn’t need the damn town or any part of it or any person in it.
So why did all roads lead to Tony? Even so many years after they’d broken up?
They walked in a tender silence, one that couldn’t be shattered but instead could be twisted and wrenched out of shape. Remnants of the holidays lingered around them like a bad perfume, laden down by Christmas garlands on balconies and twinkling lights fading out in house windows.
They stopped outside the church, by Tony’s truck, even though the claim had been to take Peter to his car.
Peter scuffed his feet and looked at the Methodist across the road. A hundred yards away and they might’ve grown up very differently. But here they were, other choir members waved to Tony as they arrived for rehearsal. They stared queerly at Peter, like he was something familiar that it made them uncomfortable to remember. Or maybe they wanted to take a picture: look at that strange boy in pink pastels with painted eyes in the middle of January.
In their hometown, of all places.
Tony flexed his hands where they were stuffed into his pockets.
Inside, voices began to filter out through brick walls.
And when I think that God, His Son not sparing,
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in –
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin!
Peter tried to imagine Tony’s voice joining them, rough and earnest. It was a strange thought. But everything about Tony felt strange now.
“How long are you in town?” Tony asked, never taking his eyes off the high school.
“Two more weeks,” Peter answered, gaze still fixed on the Methodist. Both of them lost in what once was or else what could have been. “Get through New Years, spend some extra time with Uncle Ben while he’s got it. Then back to work, back to the real world.”
Tony chuckled, because Peter’s real world in Los Angeles must seem so foreign to him. With a bright sun and crystalline ocean and unabashed rainbows on all sides.
“You staying with May and Ben?”
“No, I’m staying at my parent’s house… sleeping in half the day, wasting my vacation time, you know.”
Tony scoffed, “Tis the damn season, Peter.”
Peter turned to face him, and Tony dragged his eyes from the school, as if fully appraising him for the first time.
Peter whispered, “Maybe we can hang out next week.” But he knew when he said it that he was breaking his own heart.
“Maybe.” Tony said, and he turned to go inside, “Goodbye Peter. I’ll… I’ll keep praying for you.”
The church door slammed shut behind Tony, and Peter stood absently in the cold for a moment.
“Goodbye Tony,” he blinked away the tears in his eyes, afraid of ruining his makeup even more.
“I’ll pray for you too.”