Peter looks adorable in flannel pajama pants and a baggy shirt that says ‘I survived New York.’ His hair is messy and he looks younger than he is but it’s a good look or maybe Tony’s just a little in love. Its way too soon for that kind of thing but he’s never really been known for doing anything small so its not like he’s surprised at all by his feelings, even if he’s not about to admit them.
“So um. May confiscated all the lingerie she didn’t know I had,” he says, curling his knees up to his chest.
A mental image Tony didn’t need at the moment if he wants to concentrate on the subject at hand but he does his best regardless. “Well that’s disappointing,” he says and Peter laughs, shaking his head.
“You should see your face. You look like someone slapped your mother with a wet kitten,” he says and Tony snorts.
“Where do you even come up with this stuff?” he asks.
Peter shrugs, “no clue, it just comes to me. But um, I’m grounded until further notice so that sucks,” he says, pouting.
“If you’re grounded how the hell are you on the computer talking to Tony?” Rhodey asks from behind Tony and he jumps.
“God damn Rhodes, make a noise!” Rhodey rolls his eyes at him and Tony chooses to ignore that rudeness.
“I need the computer for school so I bartered to keep it,” Peter says.
Rhodey snorts, “man I wish I had white parents,” he mumbles, walking away. Peter frowns a little but Tony gets the feeling May isn’t terribly strict more because Peter doesn’t give her a reason to be than letting her kid run wild the way his parents did. Well, alright, Howard didn’t care if he ran wild but if Tony broke some kind of expectation of his he did get his ass beat about it so its not like things were peachy.
“In May’s defense,” Peter says as his door opens. Tony tries his best to convey to close the damn window with his face or something but Peter doesn’t get the hint, “I don’t think she’s very good at grounding me.”
In the background May looks damn unimpressed. “Well apparently I’m going to have to get better at it,” she says and Peter’s eyes go wide as he whips around to face her.
“May!” he says, surprised. May stalks forward, eyes on Peter’s computer and he whirls back around, “okay love you Tony, bye!” he says and closes the computer, effectively ending the video call.
Tony stares at the screen for a few moments in shock when Rhodey walks back in. “Wait, aren’t his parents dead? How the hell did you manage to offend them? What’d you do, pull out a Ouiji board?” he asks.
It takes a second to get through Tony’s clouded brain to think for a moment. “Um, no. I pissed off his aunt. Got caught with my hand in the metaphorical cookie jar,” he says and Rhodey lets out a long sigh.
“What did I tell you about locking doors, man? It will save your ass from a crazy ass priest with a shotgun one of these days,” he says like that’s not a highly specific to him kind of experience. Well okay, highly specific to him and Carol but they were being chased off for wildly different reasons.
Tony rolls his eyes at him, “you remember that when you’ve got your arms full of hot omega and get back to me,” Tony tells him.
“Oh my god, no wonder omegas think we don’t know how to think past our junk. Stop giving us a bad name,” Rhodey tells him.
“In his defense I’ve been there. Not fun, but good for you man,” Carol says, giving him a thumbs up from the doorway. “Next time risk sexiling Rhodey again, probably less consequences that way.”
Rhodey frowns at her, “whose side are you on here? I would never get my damn room back if I allowed Tony to just have his way with it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous Rhodes, I have class,” Tony points out. And so does Peter, plus travel time. He’s got plenty of time in here all things considered.
Rhodey squints at him, “I have class with you asshole. Don’t listen to Carol I will find a way to make your sexiling not worth it.”
“No he won’t,” Carol says, dodging a sock Rhodey throws at her head and laughing.
*
Peter sits awkwardly as May paces back and forth. He knows she’s worried but she shouldn’t be, he knows what he’s doing. Kind of. Well okay maybe he doesn’t know what he’s doing at all but does anyone?
“Peter,” she says softly. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing May, I’m fine.” He tries to put on an air of more fine for her sake because he doesn’t want her to worry about him, not when the one shitty thing that was in his life still is gone.
May doesn’t look like she believes him though. “Are you sure? Because you haven’t been acting like you lately and I’m getting worried here. Is this some sort of… I don’t know, latent reaction to Ben because you know you can talk to me, right?” she asks.
Peter clenches his jaw and looks away because he didn’t really need a reminder of that. He misses his uncle and if he’s honest he hasn’t totally made peace with his death but that’s not influencing his actions. “No, its not that,” he murmurs.
May sighs and sits beside him, wrapping an arm around him. He leans into it, pressing his face to her shoulder because it feels like its been a long time since they’ve done this and he kind of misses it. They used to do movie nights, but Ben was always the one who chose the movie and when they realized too late they kind of fell out of the habit. He thinks that neither of them really wanted to take his place. “Peter,” May murmurs. “In the last couple months you have broken up with a guy who by all accounts did not seem to treat you right and I suspect I don’t know the half of it, then you pretty much immediately moved on to someone new and I don’t want to consider what the two of you have been doing together, I found a bunch of lingerie in your room and I don’t even know when or even how you got it, and you’ve been doing an awful lot of sneaking around lately. I’m sure you can see why I’m worried.”
Okay, from her point of view he gets why things might seem so off. “Its not like… I mean yeah Quentin pretty much sucked and yeah I know I moved on a little fast but Tony’s really great, you should give him a chance. He’s smart, and funny, and he’s really supportive and sweet and I really like him. And also you can buy things online,” he says in way of explaining the lingerie. Liz’s dad still has a PO box in the city so they all send their goods there and Liz picks it all up before anyone else can and distributes it all. Peter has no idea why Ned thinks his Star Wars collectibles count as contraband, he was a little surprised to discover that MJ mostly got her cousin to mail edibles from California, and he and Liz share a love of all things lacy. Their system works pretty well or at least it did until May busted him. Not that she knows about the PPO box thing and he’s not about to rat everyone out. No one is even sure anyone knows about Liz’s dad’s PO box in light of him going to jail and they aren’t about to say anything either.
“Peter,” May says softly, squeezing him a little. “Are you… sure about this guy you’re seeing? Because I did find you two in a pretty compromising position,” she points out.
They’ve been in more compromising positions than that but Peter doesn’t mention it. He figures he will spare his aunt and also himself from spreading that knowledge around. “Yeah, I am. Like I said, he’s really sweet and supportive and stuff. You’d like him.” Probably better than Quentin, no one had liked him but both Ben and May let him come to his own conclusions even if their facial expressions told him all he needed to know about what they thought.
“I sure hope so because you told him you loved him before you closed your computer,” she says and Peter’s eyes probably triple in size.
“Please tell me you’ve told me that as some sort of cruel and unusual punishment,” he says, horrified. They haven’t even been together that long, definitely not long enough to go professing his love even if its true he’s going to die.
May frowns, “no, you said that.”
Maybe if he feels enough shame he can use it to power himself back in time and undo this mess.
*
Peter is distant but Tony figures that’s mostly because he’s been banned from most of technology on account of his aunt is trying to actually ground him. Tony has decided he should bridge the gap because he misses Peter and MJ is a good conspirer if he bribes her with driving time in her choice of car so he has it on good authority that Peter will be brought right to him. He looks at his phone, considering pulling a fire alarm to speed this process up when students start pouring out of the school. Yeah, he doesn’t really miss high school not that he went for long. Genius brain and all that, he got to skip out early.
Peter is walking with MJ, Ned, and Liz predictably and when he sees Tony he looks panicked. He’d be worried, but MJ has already informed him that his accidental declaration of love has freaked him out and Tony suspects MJ hasn’t told Peter he feels the same way because she likes the drama of it all. She will deny it, he’s sure, if he confronted her about it, but she does like the drama. So she and Liz shove him forward and Ned quickly takes his place in the line so he can’t try and slip behind them.
Tony grins and reaches out for him and that seems to be enough encourage Peter to come to him. He all but runs over, launching himself at Tony and he catches him easily, happily kissing him as he holds him up. “I love you too,” he murmurs when Peter pulls away. Its so worth it to see the look on Peter’s face because he glows with happiness.
“I love you,” Peter says back, pressing in to kiss him again and Tony could do this for the rest of his life, hold Peter in his arms like this.
Someone lets out a soft ‘aw’ and Tony pulls away, noting the small crowd around them. Ugh, okay. He wrinkles his nose a little and lowers Peter back to the ground not that he pulls away much. He pretty much stays glued to Tony’s side, arms around his neck beaming at him. A slow clap to his left catches his attention and he looks over to find, presumably anyway, Peter’s ex standing there looking super impressed about this whole thing.
“Great, Peter. You’ve made your point, now get rid of this guy,” he says and Tony squints.
“Its been months buddy, take a fucking hint.” He knows he texts Peter a whole bunch too not that Peter complains much. He suspects he doesn’t want to trouble anyone with it and Tony thinks that’s a bit of a mistake but he’ll mention that to Peter if he ever choses to say something about it.
Quentin, if Tony’s remembering the guy’s name right, doesn’t even bother to look at him and that kind of pisses Tony off. Especially since he’s decided to look at Peter like he’s the authority on the situation as if he doesn’t want Peter to just do what he wants. “I’ve told you like a million times that we’re done and we have been for months can’t you just give it up?” Peter asks, sounding exhausted.
Quentin takes a step forward and Peter is pulled from his grasp by Liz, who’s giving Quentin suspicious looks and oh Tony so does not want to get in a fight with this guy. First of all he’s like a foot taller than him, which isn’t hard because he’s so short, but still. Peter mentioned football and Tony doesn’t like the idea of constant training to keep in shape. Not, he supposes, that he’s lacking his own. Lab equipment isn’t exactly light but that isn’t the same thing and he’s not much of a fighter. He prefers to keep things a battle of the brains, no risk of him losing that way.
“Why don’t you just admit that you don’t even know how to deal with Peter and go away,” Quentin tells him.
Tony rolls his eyes, “seem to know how to handle him much better than you given that he was in my arms like four seconds ago,” he points out.
God, this is why Rhodey tells him to keep his mouth shut but he can’t help it if its true. If the truth pisses this dude off so much maybe he should have grown the fuck up and pulled his head out of his ass. Its not Tony’s fault he didn’t. “Yeah, you don’t know shit if you let him walk around dressed like that,” Quentin says and Tony knows he’s making some type of face because people start laughing. Mostly omegas, he notices, not that he’s surprised by that. Alphas would be more likely to sympathize with Quentin for some stupid ass reason.
“I don’t give a fuck what Peter wears, its his body. Besides, unlike you apparently I figure when Peter wakes up in the morning and goes to look at his clothes he thinks to himself ‘I like this piece of clothing and it looks cute on me, I’ll wear it’ rather than ‘every alpha in the immediate vicinity will assume I’m sexually available and simultaneously try and get up my skirt while also degrading me and treating me like shit. I will wear this because I love being verbally abused and treated as a sex object! Its my favorite past time!’ Use what little brain cells playing football hasn’t knocked out of your head and consider how fucking dumb you sound,” Tony tells him.
Its not the right thing to say because he ends up crowded against his car and oh this is so not an ideal position to be in but true to his personality he can’t just keep his mouth shut. “What the fuck kind of intimidation tactic is this? Feels more homoerotic than intimidating,” he says, leaning further into Quentin’s space and reaching up to touch his face. “I wish I could quit you,” he says in a bad southern accent that gets him shoved away for it and Quentin lurches forward but Tony panics and he doesn’t mean to, really, but its like his hand moves on its on accord and the heel of it slams into Quentin’s face.
The results are crunchy and immediate as he falls back, clutching his face. “What the fuck?” he yells, blood falling from his hands. Tony looks at his uninjured hand because that was a fluke of some epic proportions and he already knows it was mostly Quentin’s own momentum that resulted in a broken nose. The fact that Tony managed to get the angle right and not injure himself is pure luck.
“No!” someone yells off to the side and Tony turns to find MJ throwing her book at the ground. “His throat was right there! Fucking throat punch him! Is no one ever going to do it!” she yells, throwing her hands into the air.
*
They’re all driving back to Peter’s house silently and Tony’s real worried he over stepped his bounds because that seems like the kind of macho shit Peter has shown a distaste for and its not like he meant for any of it to happen but-
“‘I wish I could quit you?’” Liz asks, leaning forward from the back seat of the car with questions all over her face.
Tony shrugs, “because he looks like that guy from Brokeback Mountain. The one that wasn’t Heath Ledger. You know the guy. Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he says, wincing. He gives a small glance to Peter, who isn’t looking at him at the moment. Shit.
“That’s… hilarious,” Ned says and they all start laughing, including Peter a little bit so Tony feels a little better.
“His face!” MJ wheezes out. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so pissed.”
“That whole bit about being sexually harassed being Peter’s favorite pastime,” Liz says. “Great way to put that.”
“The look on Tony’s face when Quentin implied he should control what Peter wears,” Ned says.
“Yeah, that was funny but leads to some worrying questions about Quentin’s relationship with Peter,” Liz says, effectively ruining the mood.
They go back to being silent for a few moments before Tony speaks, “yeah, I don’t care what you wear. Its not my business and unlike that ignorant ebola virus I think your skirts look great so I would be real fucking happy if you continued to wear them. But if you do or not is your choice,” he says. “If you do though those long socks look really nice with them,” he adds.
Peter frowns, “thigh highs?” he asks and Tony shrugs.
“If that’s what they’re called,” Tony says.
“Who doesn’t know what a thigh high is?” Ned asks.
“You’re only jealous because you can’t find a pair that fits,” Peter tells him, laughing a little.
Ned lets out an offended noise, “it is not my fault that the beauty industry discriminates against thighs as bountiful and beautiful as mine, okay?”
*
Peter figures he should maybe do some thinking about why Tony punching his ex is so attractive to him but for the moment he works on keeping it to himself on account of it’d be pretty embarrassing for everyone to get a whiff of that. Tony’s polite and walks him to the door of his building though so Peter figures he’ll let go of the pretenses and drag Tony into a kiss. He makes a surprised noise as he wraps his arms around Peter’s waist and lets Peter pull him in. He lets out a soft moan as Peter moves a hand to his thigh and Tony pulls it up to his hip.
“Fuck, who cares what your shitty ex thinks you’re so fucking hot like this,” he murmurs into Peter’s mouth. He moans, curling his fingers into Tony’s hair as Tony’s hand flexes on his thigh a little.
Tony lets out a soft noise as he pulls away, “okay, okay. I um. Maybe should go before I get arrested for public indecency,” he says, giving Peter a lusty once over.
Peter glances into the building to see if anyone is there and winces when he notices May standing in the lobby and she doesn’t even look angry or disappointed, she just looks worried and that’s worse. “Um. Yeah maybe for the best,” he says. Tony looks over, sensing the mood change, and winces hard. Yeah, this isn’t looking very good for him. He goes to pull away but Peter pulls him back into a kiss for a moment, “I’ll try and sneak out to see you soon, I have plans,” he murmurs against Tony’s lips. His face brightens significantly so Peter feels better about leaving him like this.
“Great!” he says enthusiastically.
*
May paces back and forth, clearly worried and Peter wilts under her gaze. “Do I need to have the talk with you?” she asks and Peter swears to god he almost gags.
“No, I’m good thanks. We got plenty of that in school,” he says. Also Ben had awkwardly explained a few things a few years ago and he’s pretty sure they both would have liked to have been spared from that.
“Are you sure? Because it really seems like I should have the talk with you,” she says.
Peter is going to die of embarrassment. “Its fine May, I know what’s going on and it’s a little late anyway,” he says accidentally and May’s eyes basically double in size before she presses her hand to her forehead. “Can we please act like I never said that?” he asks fast.
“No, we can’t. We really can’t please tell me you’ve been using protection,” she says, looking horrified to be having this discussion.
She isn’t really alone there. “Yeah May I know what a condom is and how to use them can we drop this now?”
He can see her consider it and he really hopes she stops considering it because this is awful and he hates it. “Okay, for now fine. What were you doing with your boyfriend? You’re grounded, remember?”
Shit, right. “Can you call the school and do something about Quentin because he won’t leave me alone and its been months and he keeps sending all these texts and he almost got into it with Tony and it would be really nice if he just backed off,” he says, tears springing to his eyes fast.
May frowns, sitting down beside him, “Peter what does that have to do with anything? And how come this is the first time I’ve heard about any of this?”
Peter throws his arms around her instead of answering, letting her comforting hug back calm him a little before he explains some things.