Tony stares up at his new high school, the one he didn’t even need to be in given that he had two degrees from MIT, but his father insisted that he pass all his high school courses and English was the death of him. All those metaphors could kiss his ass, who thought the curtains being blue meant anything anyways? It was like those Star Ward nerds that overanalyzed everything made a damn career out of overanalyzing crap that was for some reason considered good. The Great Gatsby? More like the most boring book he’s ever read. Robertson Davies couldn’t write for shit. He’s tempted to just cut school given that he didn’t need to be there when some fat kid runs into him.
“I’m so sorry!” he says, half reaching out to catch Tony before he eats shit but he’s already righted himself. The kid beside him looks at him in wide-eyed shock and kind of looked like he had a mouth stuffed full of cotton for some reason. Weird.
“It’s fine,” Tony mumbles to get rid of them but Cotton Mouth Kid’s eyes light up as he realizes something.
“You’re Tony Stark!” he says excitedly. Great, he wasn’t even here for four minutes and he’s been recognized. The fat kid doesn’t look like he believes it though.
“Why would Tony Stark be going to a public school? Also doesn’t he have like two degrees from MIT? He wouldn’t even be in high school and he also rich kids don’t go to public schools,” he says and Tony sighs.
“Sorry to ruin the stereotypes but I am Tony Stark, yes I have two degrees from MIT, I just can’t seem to pass high school English, and to be fair I’d rather be anywhere else but here so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to do just that and skip class, thanks,” he says. He goes to turn but Cotton Mouth Kid speaks first.
“Wait, um I’m Peter Parker and this is Ned,” he says.
“What, I don’t get a last name?” Ned asks, offended.
“Ned Leeds doesn’t sound as cool,” Peter says, shrugging.
Tony, despite himself, smiles. “Ok Peter Parker and Ned Leeds, what makes you two work hanging out with?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.
Peter and Ned exchange a look and Ned blurts out, “Peter knows Spider Man.”
Peter smacks him for this and Tony raises an eyebrow higher. “It’s more of a casual relationship, I’ve like… seen him around. Nothing big,” Peter says.
Ned looks outraged, “dude you’ve had several full on conversations with the guy, that’s not ‘nothing big’. Also we’re cool, I think that’s enough to hang out with us. We’re building a Lego Death Star after school!” Ned says excitedly.
Peter could have done a lot of things, like act embarrassed of Ned and his apparent love of Star Wars but he doesn’t. That, in the end, is what sells him on Peter and Ned because it reminds him of Rhodey. All those times Rhodey could have been embarrassed of Tony but he never was, even when Tony was embarrassing like Ned sort of was at the moment. That was the mark of a true friend, Tony thought, so he agrees to hang out with them.
“I don’t really like Star Wars,” Peter tells him when Ned leaves for his homeroom class. “But Ned really likes it and I like puzzles so I offered to help him with it.”
Tony shrugs, “I don’t like Star Wars either, I prefer Star Trek but it’s cool of you to help Ned out because he likes the movies.”
Peter smiles and looks away a little, “nah, that’s just being a good friend. I mean he gets so excited, I can’t just break his heart by telling him I like Star Trek better,” he says and Tony laughs. They make small talk on the way to their shared homeroom when Tony notices the way everyone seems to be staring at Peter. When he comments it Peter doesn’t really react and tries to pass it off as them looking at Tony but he knew that wasn’t true.
“They don’t even know who I am and if they did those aren’t the looks I get,” he says, looking out over the sea of faces that were a strange mix of curious and hostile with the occasional look of… solidarity? People just looked at him in awe. This wasn’t even close to the same.
For a moment Peter looks a little uncomfortable but eventually he sighs, “they’re staring at me because I’m trans and the last time they saw me I was a girl,” he says suddenly, rushing the statement out. He looked like he was waiting for a hostile remark but Tony doesn’t really care. He had better things to waste his time on.
That didn’t mean he didn’t have questions though. “I’m guessing that came with a name change?” he asks and Peter nods. “Dude, you could have chosen any name in the world and you went with Peter? Very unoriginal,” he says and Peter rolls his eyes.
“It’s my uncle Ben’s middle name and he died like a year ago and he was basically my father so…” Peter shrugs and Tony feels like an asshole.
“Okay, that went from a kind of funny joke to a total dick move, sorry,” he says in a genuine tone.
“Don’t worry about it,” Peter says with a smile, “you’re not wrong. But I mean the other option was Benjamin so I figured it was the less crappy option.”
Tony laughs, “I feel you. My middle name is Edward and even if it being my jackass father’s middle name didn’t ruin it Twilight did.” Thank god Edward was his middle name and not his first, he wouldn’t be able to stand being called Ed.
Peter snorts and starts laughing as they head to class finding seats by the back. “So how come you’re here? I know you said stuff about English but is that really necessary? You’re a genius, you’ve graduated college,” Peter points out.
“My father seems to think I should be able to do the courses without getting a free pass but I’m just not good at understanding all these weird answers and this interpretation,” he says, shaking his head. It made his head hurt just thinking about it.
This earns him a smile from Peter, “let me guess, you’re so used to math that you look for an immediate right or wrong answer and when you get told there is none you have no idea what to do with that information?”
Tony squints, “how the hell did you know that?”
“I tutor kids after school and the ones that are only good at math and sciences always do that. You’re looking for data in all the wrong way you know. I can help you if you want,” he says.
Like he had a choice at this point. He’s failed English like seven times so he takes Peter up on the offer as class starts.
*
Peter couldn’t believe he lucked out on not only meeting Tony Stark but actually ending up friends with him kind of. And he didn’t take the trans thing badly like Peter thought he might. When he noticed the stares Peter figured maybe it was best to tell him now instead of later because someone else was bound to do it for him and he’d rather tell people himself. Besides, it wouldn’t always be like this. Eventually no one would know unless he chose to tell them, hell, right now only people who knew him before could tell. The best part about puberty the first time around, he has decided, was that he didn’t really get boobs. It was funny that Flash used to make fun of him for being uh… less endowed than some of their classmates because it used to make Peter feel better about himself to have someone tell him he looked like a guy. Bet Flash didn’t see that coming.
He and Tony had almost the same schedules in the morning with a different class before lunch and their afternoons were almost a perfect match too. He was so looking forward to Tony’s help in chemistry given that he was currently doing a Masters degree in the subject. When he walks into the cafeteria lunchroom to find Tony surrounded by Flash and his crew though his heart drops for a half a second. Then he notes that Tony looks angry and annoyed and when he spots Peter he dodges them immediately.
“Hey,” Peter says somewhat hesitantly as Tony all but storms over.
“Those guys are assholes,” he snaps and then seems to realize Peter is uncomfortable. Remnants, he thought, from life as a girl. Angry guys were things he liked to avoid, which was why he was friends with Ned. He was like ridiculously chill all the time. Even that one time they were on that gigantic roller coaster he was like ‘meh’ the whole time. Ned joked that he was too lazy to care even though Peter knew that wasn’t true. He cared about lots of things, just not what most teens cared about. Like Lego Death Stars.
“Uh, yeah, I know. Childhood bullies of mine that I will be happy to leave behind,” he says honestly.
Tony looks him over like he’s expecting to see something but it isn’t like the usual. Usually when people did that they were looking for signs of his previous female body or any other outward sign that he wasn’t a ‘normal’ guy. The way Tony did it was like he was checking for wounds. “Well it doesn’t help that the first thing that guy said to me reminded me of my dad and everything after that went downhill too,” he says.
It’s the second time he’s mentioned his crappy father in a matter of hours but he does it casually, like this was normal for him. Peter didn’t like it. He doesn’t say anything about it either though because that was the sort of thing someone had to bring up on their own.
“Honestly I wish I could say he’s stupid but he’s actually pretty smart and that’s just… unfair,” Peter says, shaking his head. “And he has a nice car. Well his dad has a nice car. Why do good things happen to bad people?” he says.
“No idea but they don’t serve food here, what even is that round thing with what looks like cheese on it?” Tony asks, looking at a pizza from across the room.
Peter frowns, “pizza?” he asks more than states. Sure Tony was rich but he couldn’t be so rich that he didn’t even know what pizza was right? He’s at least had to have seen an advertisement or something.
Tony wrinkles his nose, “that is not pizza, that is an abomination. No wonder people are upset about school lunches in America, what the hell? Where’s Ned, we’re going out for food.”
“Ned’s probably running on Fat Boy Time but he should be here soon and I’m kind of poor you know,” he says somewhat tentatively.
“So? Was that relevant to the conversation?” Tony asks, looking genuinely confused.
“Uh, it is when I can’t buy food. I’ve just got bus fare to get home,” he says. Actually he’s pretty sure he’s a little short but still, he’ll figure it out.
Tony goes to speak but Ned shows up looking harassed, “sorry, I was running on Fat Boy Time and also I really hate the pre-calc teachers here. Why are they all basically demons bound in human skin?” he asks to no one in particular.
“I know the feeling,” Tony says. “I had this asshole of a teacher in MIT and he tried to tell me a semi autonomous AI was impossible and that I was wasting my time so I wrote the code for the world’s first semi-autonomous AI over the course of the weekend just to prove him wrong. Nothing like a little spite for motivation. Also lets go, I want real lunch, not this round crust thing they’re trying to pass off as pizza. It’s on me,” he says.
Ned considers this for a moment and frowns, “how are you in high school again?” he asks.
“I told you, my asshat father seems to think I should pass all my high school classes on merit, not because I’m clearly way smarter in other subjects and will never use literary analysis ever in my life and should therefore get a free pass,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“Man, I wish I could get a free pass out of gym because I’m good at computer science. Sports aren’t my thing, if you see me running you should too because I’m running for my life,” Ned says and Peter laughs.
“Me too,” he says because he hates sports more than Ned did. Ned was actually pretty decent at them but Peter? Even with his heightened reflexes soccer balls still found their way to his face when he wasn’t looking. And when he was looking. It was like magic but crappy.
“Me too. You think I can pass any fitness requirements? Nope, but thankfully when I did high school the first time around my teacher gave me the credit because I used math and statistics to get the basketball team to state championships and they won so,” Tony shrugs like this was normal.
“I am a field of question marks,” Ned says and launches into a long debate of the pros and cons of using math to figure out if a team would win a game. Peter watches on in amusement, shaking his head even as he feels Flash’s glare on the back of their heads as they all head out of the cafeteria.
*
Tony could do impossible things but no one really knew what he was capable of, not really. Even though the whole public knew about Iron Man they didn’t know it was him. It had started as a challenge to himself and then when he was testing things there was this store getting robbed and, well, he couldn’t just let the store get robbed that was unethical. So he stopped the robbing and then things kind of blew up and he kept doing things on his own and then one thing led to another and he was suddenly a famous superhero. He hadn’t run into Spider Man yet though and now that he knew about this supposed connection to Peter he was totally going to stick around to see if good old Spidey showed up around him.
He hoped so because that would be pretty cool. Maybe they could like work together every once and awhile like super hero buddies or something. Tony has been dying to tell someone about Iron Man and if he told Rhodey he’d skip out on the army just to come home and beat Tony’s ass and he was doing well there so Tony didn’t want to mess it up. Also Rhodey promised him a ride in one of those planes he flew around and he wasn’t about to give that up because Rhodey wanted him to stop superheroing. He’s a superhero, how badass was that?
He’s contemplating new designs for the suit and his stupid English homework- what kind of asshole gave out homework on the first day- when his mom sticks her head in his door and he jumps. “Mom, knock, Jesus! I could have been getting changed or something!” he says, offended.
Maria rolls her eyes, “Tony I’ve seen it all before, who wiped your ass as a baby?” she asks.
“The nannies,” he says and Maria clicks her tongue.
“Don’t be a smart ass. Besides, when you’re changing you go tearing through your closet like you have no idea what you own and it isn’t exactly quiet. With you silence only comes with sleep or studying,” she says.
Sometimes he forgot how well his mom knew him. “Well I am diligently studying,” he looks down at his English papers, “some Shakespeare shit. So what do you want?” he asks, smiling at her a bit.
“To liberate you. I’ve got popcorn and Wonder Woman if you don’t feel like doing English homework neither of us see the point of,” she says.
He jumps out of his chair and snatches his phone before she’s even finished her sentence because he was so much more down for watching Wonder Woman than reading Macsnitch or whatever. “You’re the best,” he tells her and she smiles at him.
“I know. You did get your homework done for that Master’s program, right?” she asks in a stern tone. She was a cool mom but that didn’t mean he got to skip out on the homework she saw as worth Tony’s time and efforts. Unlike Howard she didn’t think his English grades mattered but he never listened to anyone but himself.
“Yes, mom. And the new two weeks’ homework too for good measure. I figured I could use the extra time to pass my stupid English class,” he says, rolling his eyes.
“I have no idea why Howard is so dead set on this, it isn’t like he passed his English courses,” she mumbles and shakes her head. “Regardless, how was your first day of school?” she asks.
Tony shrugs, “I found out why no one likes public school and also why people think American lunches are disgusting. They were serving this round disk thing,” he says, wrinkling his nose.
Maria frowns, “pizza?”
“No, round disk thing. They called it pizza but I know pizza and that was like pizza’s demented mutant brother that they kept locked in the attic for twelve years whom they only fed cheese through the keyhole and then one day he escaped, hopped on a plate, and some high school decided ‘neat, food’ and tried to pass it off as normal pizza,” he says.
“That is… very specific imagery for a bad pizza. Other than that though was it alright? Did you make friends?” she asks anxiously. He’s only known life in a boarding school so he guessed he understood the concern but it wasn’t too different.
“I’m just saying that round disk thing is probably alive and it needs to be put down. And yeah I made a couple friends, they seem pretty cool,” he says.
“As cool as Rhodey?” she asks, smiling.
He rolls his eyes, “don’t be ridiculous mom, no one is as cool as Rhodey. Maybe as cool as Hope though,” he says. Hope would probably like Ned too; they could have a snark off while Tony and Peter watched. And then when Rhodey came to visit they could all have a ‘who delivers the best one liner’ even though Rhodey would definitely win.
Maria wraps her arm around Tony’s shoulder, “good. I’m glad you’re making friends, it’s good for you,” she says.
*
Tony is trying to find out where those damn guys went, the ones with those ridiculous guns, when he feels something attach to his suit. “JARVIS, what the hell just attached itself to my ass?” he asks.
“It appears that your dingleberry is Spider Man,” the AI tells him and Tony sighs, looking for a building to land Spidey on so he could go back to heroing. He finds one to his left and sets them both down on it before he turns to Spider Man.
“Hey man, good to see you. Don’t web yourself to my ass, that’s weird. Also what is that awful get up you’re wearing dude? Oh, and where’d those gun guys go?” he asks, getting back on track a little.
Spider Man, who looked like he was wearing bad goggles and freaking pajamas, frowns at him. “I had to get your attention and yelling ‘Iron Man’ didn’t work,” he says in a very familiar voice. “Those guys were laying out a trap, I heard them so I was trying to warn you before you got hurt. Also I like your suit, it’s really cool. My suit is… well my uncle’s old pajamas,” he says, looking down and that’s when Tony recognizes the voice.
“Peter?” he asks in total disbelief. “Peter Parker?” Ned said he knew Spider Man, not that he was Spider Man. What the hell? Wait, did Ned know or did Peter just tell him he knew Spider Man to get him off his back? He had like five billion questions right now.
Peter looks around, “where? Where’s Peter Parker?” he asks like a total dumbass. Tony lifts himself off the ground and flies over to Peter, lifting his mask off as he settles back on the ground.
He pops open the faceplate on his armor and grins, “dude!” he says excitedly.
Peter’s eyes triple in size, “dude!” he says back. “Holy crap, you’re Iron Man!”
“Hell yeah! And you’re Spider Man! Does Ned know or does he only think you know Spidey?” he asks.
“Ned knows, he’s been trying to get in on it but I won’t let him. It’s dangerous. I can’t believe you’re Iron Man!” Peter says excitedly.
“Well believe it buddy because I am. Now lets go kick villain ass and no, you can’t attach yourself to my ass again. Seriously man, that was weird.” Peter grabs his mask and yanks it back over his head and he and Tony hatch a plan.
*
“Tony English doesn’t work that way,” Peter says. Tony is ready to throw the stupid novel they were reading out the window but Peter seemed to have an endless supply of patience.
“Than how the hell does it work because none of this makes sense!” Tony snaps and, much to his embarrassment, tears start to come to his eyes. He just wasn’t made for this and he saw no real reason to learn it anyways, why did this stuff matter to him? And why did English class consist of literary analysis instead of sentence structure and grammar? It wasn’t like they learned that anywhere else in the curriculum. Also he really didn’t care about some stupid play that was written three hundred years ago.
“It’s okay Tony, I know you can do this you just need some help to think the way you need to. For English you have to know how to interpret things and-” Tony cuts Peter off.
“I have no idea how to do that!” he snaps.
Peter sighs, “yeah you do, Tony. Like… like when you flirt with people how do you know they’re interested?” he asks.
“That is not the same as some shitty play where they aren’t even speaking English,” he mumbles.
“Is so. It’s all interpreting the data, just in a new way. Books are the same and they’re just as weird as people. Like the other day when you were flirting with Liz and you knew she wasn’t interested but only because she was having a bad day, not because she had no interest at all. You need to apply that to books. Like all the evidence is there, you just have to put it all together to figure out what it means in that moment,” Peter says.
Tony frowns, “are you comparing Liz to a Midsummer Night’s Dream?” he asks.
Peter laughs, “No, I’m comparing her to Macbeth because that’s what we’re working on but solid Brother Bear reference. But for English you have to take a theme and then look at your text. What in the text shows an example of that theme? What doesn’t? And like when you were flirting with Liz sometimes things fake you out and they look like they aren’t talking about the theme but that’s because they’re saying other stuff,” he says.
He’s pretty sure Peter thinks he’s sounding less complicated but Tony is pretty sure he just got dumber. “I’m going to fail this course again,” he says bluntly.
“You are not, you just need to know that these things have more than one answer sometimes and that’s okay. You’re mostly overthinking it in all the wrong ways. Books are complicated like people, analyze them like you do with people and you’ll be okay,” he says.
“I still don’t get it,” Tony says, still feeling stupid.
“I mean when you read people you know they could be doing something for seven different reasons and they’re all right, books do the same. Looking for one reason isn’t going to help you like it does with math, you gotta be open to books doing all sorts of weird things,” Peter says.
Tony gets what Peter is saying finally but if he was going to do books like people he was essentially going to just make shit up on the fly and hope he’s right. To his astonishment he actually gets an A on the first English paper he tries that on.
English, he decides, is total bogus.
*
“Let me be the guy in the chair,” Ned says, “You guys will be like my Kim Possible’s and I can be your Wade. Except I’m a fat Filipino guy instead of a fat black guy,” he says.
“Ned, it’s too-” Peter starts but Tony cuts him off.
“I can do that for you,” he says.
Peter smacks him a little too hard and Tony winces, “ouch you jerk, I’m not enhanced, I’m just a man in a can.”
Ned laughs, “man in a can, I like it. Also, also, I have these,” Ned says, pulling out honest to god action figures of Iron Man and Spider Man out of his backpack.
Peter and Tony snatch their respective action figures and marvel over them for several long moments. “Children play with me,” Peter says in wonder and Ned frowns.
“Dude, that didn’t come out right,” he say and Peter looks horrified for a moment. “This man in the chair thing, I can totally do it and I’m behind a desk, how dangerous could it be?”
“I agree, so I’m totally going to set you up in the lab because someone running over the logistics outside of my suit and Peter’s weird goggle things is useful. And also Peter I made you a new suit because seriously, you can’t wear uncle Ben’s pajamas, that’s sad and he would want better for you. It has a spider on the chest!” he says excitedly.
“We aren’t using Ned to do superhero things!” Peter hisses at him, giving him a look.
“We can give him a go and if he sucks we find someone else. I’d vote Rhodey but he’s in the army so he can’t so I guess maybe Hope would do it,” he says. Hope would probably end up making her own suit to join in but still.
“Dude, I want to see Peter’s new suit!” Ned says, leaning across the table in interest. He gives Peter a pleading look for a few long moments and Tony joins in, pouting a little until he finally agrees to put it on.
*
“That is awesome!” Ned says as Peter dangles himself from the ceiling of Tony’s room. Tony has pieces of the armor scattered around and a gauntlet on his hand trying to fix it. The pieces are designed to scatter when his mom is in close proximity for protection of his identity purposes.
“Right?” Tony says.
“What’s with the weird amount of crotch padding?” Peter asks, poking at his crotch.
“One, not with us standing right here dude. Two, I figured it might help with you know, body image things and also coot punches hurt too, I’m just trying to look out for your junk,” he says.
Peter’s eye goggles narrow a bit in what Tony decides is confusion. “Did you just call my vagina a ‘coot’?” he asks.
“Yeah, short for ‘cooter’. Have you never heard the term?” Tony asks.
Ned giggles, “cooter,” he says softly.
“Oh my god Ned, be mature. I don’t laugh at the word ‘penis’,” Peter says.
Tony snickers, “penis.” Ned starts laughing harder and he’s positive Peter is rolling his eyes. The gauntlet jerks on Tony’s arm as he screws a plate on and he shakes it a bit to get the glitch out. It jumps again when he tightens the screw and he rolls his eyes, giving it another shake as Peter takes off his mask.
“Thanks for the coot protection I guess. It does kind of hurt when you get vagina slapped, I have no idea why guys make dick punching a game,” he says, frowning.
“Bag tag is beyond me too my guy,” Tony tells him and Ned nods. “Hey, can you pass me that-” Tony’s door bursts open right as he’s about to ask Ned for a different screwdriver.
Maria and May stand there looking shocked at Tony, who was wearing a gauntlet from the Iron Man suit, and Peter, who is currently stuck to the ceiling in his fresh new Spider Man suit, stare back just as shocked.
“Peter what the fuck!” May yells at the same time Maria yells, “Tony what the fuck!”
Peter unsticks from the ceiling, flipping and landing on his feet. “It’s a Halloween costume?” he tries.
“Originally it was made for me but sadly my beautiful thunder thighs were too much for the suit,” Ned says solemnly.
“Halloween costumes don’t make you stick to the ceiling!” May yells.
“Tony, what the hell is that thing on your arm? Is that a piece of the Iron Man suit? Because I had my suspicions but I didn’t think you were that stupid! I thought it was Howard!” she yells at him.
“Iron Man isn’t Howard!” Tony yells back, “he isn’t even smart enough to make my suit!”
“So you admit that you’re Iron Man, then?” Maria asks, giving Tony a shrewd look. Tony wilts, knowing he’s been defeated by his mom, who has used his bad relationship with his dad to confirm that he was indeed Iron Man. God damnit.
“Um, it’s a really good Halloween costume?” Peter tries with May but she just puts her hands on her hips and glares.
“I’m their man in the chair!” Ned adds excitedly. “It’s totally a contribution. I mean I haven’t done anything yet but I’m totally going to help them out.”
“You’re grounded,” May and Maria tell Tony an Peter in sync.
Peter wilts now too and Tony turns to Ned, “man in the chair, it’s your job to spring me from the house when the world needs me. Be warned this house is an electronic fortress,” he hisses too loud because his mom glares at him.