Chapter 8
"I am not going to help you sleep with your fifteen year old intern!" Bruce lifts his glass. Green tea, not coffee, as he's pointed out to Tony oh, about a dozen times now. "Also, can I just say..."
"You cannot say 'I told you so' it's the most predictable 'I told you so' like, ever. Yes, we all knew that Tony Stark was going to sleep with his teenaged intern. You know, this is probably exactly what Norman Osborn wanted." Tony's been up for more hours before eight AM than most people log all day, so he thinks he's justified being a little jittery. "Except can I just point out that A. You know that the world was thinking female so do I at least get points for being hip with the gender expectations?"
"No."
"Okay. Well. Then, B. I don't actually want to sleep with Peter. I just want to make his life better. That's what's actually causing this..." he gestures vaguely at himself. They're about three quarters of the way through the summer and he woke up (this morning? yesterday morning?) suddenly remembering that Peter has to go back to school, and he'll lose, very soon, the not-prostitute lab assistant he's kind of looking forward to seeing every day.
Bruce frowns in the way that means Tony's acting pathetic. "I'm not actually a therapist."
"If you were, could you imagine the billables on just me?"
"I try not to actively picture how many millions my friendship with you is costing."
"The food's pretty great though. Also I'm kind of trying to save the world on a daily basis."
Bruce looks out the window at the Manhattan skyline. "I could have won a Nobel Prize."
"In...?"
"Something. Anything. Instead I'm here with you planning a statutory rape."
"You're looking at this all wrong. I'm trying to get you to give me advice so I don't actually freak Peter out and have the entire NYPD turn against me not to mention that grumpy cat coffee manager of his."
Bruce scrubs a hand over his face. Holds up a hand, pinky out. "Swear you're not going to hurt this kid?"
"Easy. Swear." Tony hooks his little finger around Bruce's. Sometimes it really is that easy.
"So Peter is..."
Tony's pacing. "Omega, but we've got him on suppressants, so he shouldn't have to worry about starting a family for at least five years. He's also brilliant, obviously, if it weren't for that omega thing there's be companies clamoring for him. As it is I think he's a shoo in for SI after he graduates MIT."
"...fifteen," Bruce finishes. He's definitely smiling.
"Yeah. That too. What, you don't think he's a shoo in for Stark Industries?"
"As you kind of run the joint, I think we may be able to find a place for him."
Tony holds up a hand, mimes writing with a pencil and a holographic notepad appears in front of him. JARVIS has been silent this entire conversation but Tony suspects that every suspicious word is getting relayed to a certain Ms. Potts who is currently giving Peter Parker aka the Object of His Affections a tour of SII - Stark Industries Infrastructure - where they're actively trying to hire omega contractors for their bigger, decades-long contracts for dams, bridges, roadways.
"We've got to make sure it doesn't look like he's sleeping his way to the top."
"He's an omega, Tone, he's going to get that anyway."
"I hate this world."
"If you do jump into a relationship, and he stays here during the school year, he should be reporting to someone who's not you. Billionaire-playboy-philanthropist relationships are one thing. Boss-employee or -intern relationships are just..."
"Skeevy? Taking advantage? You read my mind. We need to diversify the chain of command. That's why you get Peter starting September 1st. Teach him medicine. Recruit him for medicine. I don't care. You get him. Don't let him near any alpha that's hotter than me. Or any alpha in general."
Now Bruce isn't even trying to hide his smile. "Does Peter get a say in any of this?"
"Nope. He's young and impressionable. We're doing what's best from him. And also what's not going to get me beat up. Remember what I said about grumpy cat coffee manager?"
"That guy really freaked you out huh?"
Tony just shrugs. He's not actually writing anything down so he dismisses the mid-air notepad and opens a data read-out from Stark Med. "How's the new suppressant?"
"How's it working? It works fine. It's an adjustment to Depo-Provera, the birth control shot. I wouldn't use it for primary pregnancy prevention, because that should always be in conjunction with a condom, but as a heat suppressant to manage signs and symptoms it should last three to five years. Obviously we can exact that number with a larger sample size."
"You don't sound excited. Is this not exciting?"
Bruce rubs his forehead. "It's nothing new. We've had this technology for a generation. The FDA won't approve patents for long-term suppressing. It's all alpha elitist bullshit and crap 1950s precedent. The lawyers are good but we need a face for change."
"Pepper..."
"Has done enough. And she's been thinking seriously about children, so she doesn't exactly want to be the face of birth control at the moment."
Tony looks at the stats. They're in beta testing for the suppressant - which is how Peter got the shot before it got to the market - but with the closure of the last clinic in the five boroughs he knows, everyone knows, that the first person to put out a long-term (not solution, a solution would mean a societal change...) stop-gap to the problem would be a very rich man.
Luckily he's already a very rich man. Sometimes that works to his advantage.
"Before I met Peter," Bruce says, slowly, "I would have mentioned that I know a very photogenic alpha/omega couple from Brooklyn."
"Who are currently spawning."
"I would like to branch into the idea of suppressants that aren't birth control. That work to mask the hormonal differences between omegas and betas. It could help to get omegas more places. They don't have to worry about being jumped one week out of every month."
"But until then..."
"Well, after I met Peter..." Bruce jerks his head at Tony. "I mean, you're the one spending all this time with him. He's smart, he's attending one of the best high schools in the city despite all the odds stacked against him. Omega and orphan with an aunt living paycheck to paycheck. Goes to work at a coffee shop that serves mostly veterans two days a week, spends the rest in a laboratory few omegas have gone before."
"And he's cute."
Bruce makes a face. Tony knows he's not happy, even with the measures that they're putting in place, that tony would pursue a kid so much younger than him. Age of consent for omegas in New York was a ridiculously low thirteen, a hold over from when omegas were little more than bargaining chips between families, so none of it was illegal. For a rich playboy alpha, it wasn't even unique. But Bruce couldn't help his gut instinct response of child when he looked at Peter's hair falling in front of his face, his blush and stammer, the way he lit up in a lab and submitted naturally, quietly, to authority, the better to protect himself.
"You'll ask him?" Bruce asks. "Warn him what marketing really looks like. Long days in the studio. So many people touching him. It'll be uncomfortable."
"I'll be there," Tony says. "It won't be a problem."
.
Peter, unsurprisingly, says yes. He's nodding before Tony's even finished with his pitch. "That's a bad habit of agreeing that you've got there, Pete." Tony resists the urge to ruffle the kid's hair, just barely. "Never agree until you hear the fine print."
"Dr. Banner's suppressants are the best I've ever been on. This shot? Lifechanger. Really. I'm due for a heat in a couple of days and usually I'd have skeevy creeps on the subway getting too close, you know?" Tony doesn't know. Like he'd told Peter, alphas rarely think about their privilege the same way that omegas think about their disadvantage. He'd been attacked on the subway once, as a child, for being the child of an important man, and then he was promptly banned from slumming it on the tracks and given a driver.
Peter's still talking. "This time? Nothing. Ned asked me if anything was wrong. I think he has my heat cycle on his phone, which is kind of cute but also a little creepy? Anyway, he was like 'your heat's coming up?' and I'm like 'yeah dude I got it under control' and he's like 'I can't even tell' and I'm like 'bam! new suppressants!' and also we were hanging out with his new girlfriend who's all hacker chick and skater and into cool music so whatever, she's not terrible, and she's an omega too and she can't really afford to get into Jersey and I was like 'well I'll see what I can do.' So like, maybe one day Dr. Banner could like set up a free clinic? Downtown? Man, that would be awesome."
It's more words than Peter usually says in a day, and Tony feels like he's crushing the kid's little bubble when he reminds the teen that the suppressants he's on are beta-test only.
Peter shrugs. Smiles, blindingly. "Yeah, but after the ad campaign that's going to change, right?"
"So you'd do it? Be the face of Stark Suppressants?"
"I feel like perhaps Dr. Banner's name should be on it," Peter says, grinning behind his hair. "Though I like the alliteration."
"See! That's what I keep telling Pep. She's not a fan of alliteration."
"She probably has better taste than me," Peter says. Sheepishly. Everything about this kid is sheepish. "I don't mind being a face. I don't know if, you know, this beautiful face can sell anything...but...."
Tony thinks carefully about his hand placement before putting a hand on Peter's shoulder. "I promise not to let you look stupid."
Peter turns his face upward, eyes wide like Tony had just read his mind. But Tony remembers being a teenager and going to photoshoot after photoshoot and being terribly, self-consciously awkward. He was young, and convinced beyond all reason that he was doing everything wrong. Making everyone, including himself, look stupid.
"Trust me."