Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Peter lost a lot of things in Boston. When he lists them out, they fit in the margins of his napkin; his career, his degree, his motivation, his boyfriend, and himself. Not in that order. Not all by mistake.

He’d given too much of himself away here, he thinks, and crumbles up the napkin in his hands.

When Peter asks May to come home, she says yes. He clears out his savings account buying the ticket and his fingers bleed packing the boxes. He sleeps on Betty’s couch and tapes up cardboard during the work day. He tells the newspaper he’s quitting. He keeps his phone off because it keeps ringing and Betty won’t let him answer it. He buys postcards and sends them out to people he hasn’t talked to in a very long time.

He eats all of Betty’s ice cream while he sends his resume out a thousand times. She pats his hair and kisses his forehead and tells him this is better.

It’s better.

Peter is broke, broken, and barren, but it’s better.

The move is brutal.

Peter does all of it himself like it’s a secret even though it isn’t. He sneaks around and takes what’s his and it all fits into three suitcases and a handful of boxes. Betty tells him she’ll ship the boxes to him as soon as she gets paid and kisses him on the cheek at the train station.

Aunt May is working at the shelter when Peter arrives, so he pulls his luggage off the train and lugs it into the subway by himself and tries to take up as little space as possible. He knows this area like the back of his hand, but it’s foggy like a dream. Removed. Home but painted a different color.

By the time it reaches Peter’s stop he’s nauseated and rubbing his sweaty hands on his jeans before walking out into his neighborhood in Queens.

He’s completely unpacked by the time May comes home. Peter hears her open the front door over the background noise of local news and the typing on his computer. He braces himself for something, anything.

All she says is, “Oh, Peter,” and throws her arms around his neck. She hugs just like he remembers. She smells different, less sterile now that she isn’t working at the hospital. He hasn’t seen her since he retired and started to work at F.E.A.S.T. She’s been there for at least three years now.

Peter buries his face in her neck. “I’m home, May.”

“I’m so glad to see you.” She pulls him back and gives him a clinical look over. She cups his cheek and purses his lips. “You’re so thin.” Runs her fingers through his hair. “And your hair is so long.”

He laughs. “Yeah…do you think I should cut it?” He kind of wants to. He has no reason to keep it long anymore.

“You can do whatever you want,” she says with a click of her tongue before pulling him in close again. “I’m just so glad you’re here. It’s been so long.”

Peter feels guilty. Rock in the gut, acid in the throat guilty. It must read all over his face, because Aunt May is tutting and smacking him on the back of the head.

“None of that,” she says, and smiles at him warmly. Her hair is longer than Peter remembers it, too, and littered with more gray. “I’ve been working all day. How about you cook dinner and we’ll count it even.”

“Anything for you,” Peter says, planting a kiss on her cheek.

May doesn’t mention that he has far fewer belongings than he did when he left New York. She doesn’t ask why he stopped coming to visit. She doesn’t ask about work, or what any of his plans are. She’s always had a sixth sense as to what sets Peter off, and although she often uses it for evil, right now she’s treating him with gentle hands.

Peter laughs to himself, walking into the kitchen and taking stock of the pantry while May chats with him in the background. It feels like after his parents passed away, May running hands through his hair and circling different, increasingly casual topics. Trying to hit safe spaces.

No one died. At worst, Peter’s just a stupid loser who made a couple of bad decisions.

He sniffs the milk in May’s fridge with a grimace. He starts making a grocery list.

There are a million and one jobs around New York. The things in Peter’s way are all logistics — he has no degree in his field of study, he has no funds, and he has no connections. He’s been picking up odd jobs here and there. He’s much stronger than he looks, and although he doesn’t know anyone in the sciences anymore he knows plenty of old ladies who need help with their illegal rooftop gardens. He spends a lot of time gently coaxing faulty washing machines at the laundromat in exchange for free use, and he gets by where he can.

Dr. Octavius pulls some strings and gets Peter a part time lab technician position, but he’s paid pennies on the dollar to look over blood samples and they only have enough work to bring him in a day or two each week.

May is happy to have him, but Peter has been living on someone else’s dime for too long.

He put out plenty of resumes while he was still in Boston, but as he gets more and more denials and only a handful of interviews — all of which go nowhere — Peter spends late nights downing coffee and applying anywhere that’s open through half-lidded eyes.

His phone is turned off at night and he checks it at specific times throughout the day. He erases messages and clears out phone call notifications and is very careful going through his voicemails, but as the days pass the sheer volume evens out. He can sort through things easier.

Ah, yes. Now he can clearly see all of the employer apologies in his mailbox. Charming.

It becomes somewhat of a ritual. Peter does his data entry and blood sampling, comes home, maybe cooks, maybe orders in and watches bad movies with May in the evenings, and ignores the looming terror of being thrown to the wolves without anything to keep him steady.

There’s another reason Peter keeps his phone turned off most of the time — he still knows a few people in the city who probably want to see him. Peter isn’t sure if he’s ready to bridge that gap right now. Not when he has nothing to show for burning it down. It’s a little late to bring out the fire extinguisher.

“Do you think I can just become a rock in the next life?” Peter asks the stray cat hanging out on the fire escape.

“Meow,” says the cat, which Peter thinks is a very good point.

His phone starts vibrating in his pocket. The feeling of panic Peter feels is Pavlovian; he’s never sure who will be calling, and his heart sinks no matter who he sees on the caller ID. When he pulls it out this time, he sees the number is unknown. “Hello, this is Peter.”

“Mr. Parker.” Good, solid start. A female voice, strong and accented, and at the very least pleasant to have reached him. “This is Anna Maria, from Stark Industries.”

Peter’s heart stops. It actually stops, Peter feels it skip a beat and thinks he’s dead. He looks at the cat like can you believe this? The cat cannot believe it. “Oh! Yes. Hello, how are you doing?” His throat is dry. Stark Industries. He shoots a guilty look at the posters from the Stark Expo on his walls, faded and crinkled at the edges. Can Anna Maria feel the residual lustful energy that resides in those posters through the receiver? Does she have any idea how much Peter is fangirling right now? A personal phone call to tell Peter he didn’t get the job…amazing.

They exchange pleasantries, and Peter is grateful that she doesn’t seem in a hurry to break his heart and be on her way. She seems nice; matter-of-fact and somewhat brisk, but nice.

“—Well, enough about that. I’m calling to set up an official interview.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s okay.” Peter blinks. “Wait, what? An interview?”

“You don’t want it?”

“No!” Peter’s voice cracks, so aggressive that his moral support animal scampers off down towards the alley. “No, I—I do. Sorry. Yes. Did you have a date in mind?”

Anna Maria rattles off two or three options. None of them matter because Peter is completely, totally free. He’ll do anything. This is one of the only calls he’s gotten that has potential. It’s not, perhaps, the most glamorous of things to be doing for a Fortune 500 company, but Stark Industries.

And better yet, a job with a salary. Peter hasn’t felt like that was in the cards for the past year and a half.

Peter pencils in the date and gives Anna Maria some pleasantries, but the moment he hangs up the phone the door to his bedroom slams open. Peter covers himself with his hands despite being fully clothed, an old habit in his aunt’s house, and finds May dressed in sweats and an apron, eyes wild and deranged.

“That sounds like an interview phone call,” she says lowly. There’s a spoon in her hand that is dripping something on Peter’s floor.

“Geez, May.” Peter slowly unfurls, his heart racing in his chest for a million and one reasons. His grin is spreading and contagious. “Set one up for Wednesday.”

May shouts, deep from her belly, and tosses the spoon on top of his dresser to smother him in a hug. “Oh my goodness, good for you! Where? Was it that indie lab?”

“No. You’ll never believe it.” Peter can hardly believe it, and something in his stomach knows it won’t be so straight forward, but he can’t stop feeling like the top of the world. “Stark Industries.”

“What?” May screams, and she pulls him up and tries her best to swing him around like she did when he was younger and smaller. All she does is get flour all over Peter’s shirt and make him giddy. “Oh my god, SI! Peter, that’s incredible!”

Peter falls back onto the bed with a laugh, flopping onto his back and staring at the popcorn ceiling. It looks just the same as it did when he was in high school. There’s even that hole from where Ned accidentally threw a fork like a spear and they left it stuck there for almost three months. Everything is the same as Peter left it. “It’s just the interview,” he says, but he can’t stop himself from grinning like an idiot. “She seemed really nice on the phone, though. Her name was Anna Maria.” He gives May the details of his interview and he sees the gears turning as she keeps track of the date.

“I work that evening,” she says, biting her lip. “F.E.A.S.T. can do without me for a night, though. We should go out to celebrate!” Peter gives her a look. “Or…commiserate. You know, if they’re very silly and don’t offer my very special boy a job. Thai, on me!”

“I don’t need you to take the day off,” he tells her, even though her enthusiasm seeps into a hole Peter didn’t realize he needed to fill. “We can do lunch the next day maybe? Do you work then?”

May is already tittering, making plans and reorganizing her week around supporting Peter. Peter hasn’t had that in a long time.

He knows he probably won’t get the job, but it’s hard not to feel like this is something going the right way regardless of the outcome.

Peter has no idea what to wear.

Most of his clothes he left behind, with the exception of some items that were difficult to replace for various reasons. He’d wanted to pack as little as possible — the idea of transporting everything he owned from Boston to Queens had seemed so daunting before, but when it came to taping everything up Peter realized he didn’t have as much as he thought. He had shoved clothes into garbage bags unseeingly and bought a new pack of underwear and some t-shirts when he got to his aunt’s house.

Now, he’s ripped the plastic apart with his fingers and is unfolding and refolding all the items, taking stock of his wardrobe and what might be appropriate for an in-person interview.

Peter’s put on a little weight since he got back to New York, and the slacks are a little snug around his waist but aren’t uncomfortable. They’d been a bit too big before. He fishes out a button-down and tosses it over his shoulders. He looks in the mirror.

What he sees makes him a little sick.

“Hey, May?” Twenty minutes later, Peter is shoving his wallet and his keys into the back pocket of his jeans and blasting through the living room. “I’m gonna go out really quick; do we need anything?”

They need bread and eggs, but May just shakes her head and tells him to text her if he’s going to be out longer than expected.

Most of Peter’s work outfits are very expensive and well taken care of, soft and irons and starched. He hasn’t had to wear them much in the past year or so; they smell like the other apartment and packing tape. He’s glad he brought them, because business casual is expensive, but…

Peter makes his way to the thrift to find clothes that are his own.

It’s easy to get taken in by the breath of Queens. New York is a city where plenty of people dream of living, but the reality is that New York is living and everyone just finds a corner to call their own. Queens is Peter’s corner. It always has been. Even though he hasn’t been home in over four years now, it’s incredible how much hasn’t changed. The corner store has been repainted but Bonnie the cat is still glaring at him through the window until he stops in to give her a pat on the head.

“No treats today, girl,” he tells her quietly. “It’s been a while.”

The cashier is reading the newspaper and doesn’t look like anyone Peter recognizes, but she’s got the same nose and eyes as Rob, so Peter assumes they’re related. He gives her a nod and leaves without buying anything.

Peter has fifteen dollars and his subway card. He buys a sweater that is only a little scratchy and a pair of pants with two fairly large splits in the seam that he’s certain he can repair. They don’t have any shoes in his size but they have some truly garish flannels and dress shirts that make Peter laugh enough he buys one for the flavor.

The woman checking him out is named Stacy and she doesn’t smile at him once the entire time, but puts his change in the donation jar and bows his head towards her a little before skittering out of the store.

Everything smells like mothballs. He didn’t think about asking if May had any thread before he left, but black thread isn’t difficult to find and he’s pretty sure she’ll have some somewhere. He’s mentally counting his bills when he sees red hair by the subway entrance next to Aunt May’s apartment complex.

Mary Jane is flipping through her phone, dressed stylishly. Peter recognizes the brand on her purse but isn’t sure where he learned it. He holds the paper bag tighter in his hands and edges around the other side of the street, absorbed into the mass of people moving through the city streets. He’s average and stealthy; not everyone is as eye-catching as Mary Jane.

May is dancing through the kitchen in her socks when Peter gets back, singing badly to the pizza she’s heating up in the oven. When she sees Peter she makes him her victim, doing a terrible version of the robot until the song is over and Peter has set his jacket over the back of the kitchen chair. There’s a candle burning on the counter that smells like apple and honey, and May’s hair is tied up with a pencil.

“Mary Jane stopped by to see you,” May says over dinner, and Peter nearly chokes on the massive bite he’s taken.

“Uh.” Peter wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Is he sweating? “I thought I saw her on my way in.” His feet jitter nervously. “Is she staying with her aunt again?” Not that she needs to, these days. Peter hasn’t spoken to her but he knows that she’s doing well for herself.

“No.” May is doing that face she does when she wants to pin him in his chair but is trying really hard not to. “She just heard you were home. You know Anna’s a gossip.”

Anna is a gossip because May is a gossip, and Peter rolls his eyes. He’s sure May was trying to figure out how much MJ had talked to Peter lately, and Anna probably had no idea because Mary Jane isn’t home much anymore, and then Anna asked Mary Jane have you heard Peter is in town? How is he doing lately?

And then Mary Jane stopped by to see him even though it’s been three years.

Peter thinks of his phone, turned off and sitting quietly on his bedside table. He wipes his greasy fingers on a napkin and says, “do you want to see what I bought?” and lets that be the end of Mary Jane.

Stark Tower is as huge and imposing as it was every time Peter passed it for the first time. He remembers his parents taking him to Stark Expo, he remembers seeing Tony Stark in the flesh, and now he’s standing in the lobby wearing clothes that kind of fit and kind of smell like moth balls and he’s terrified.

Anna Maria’s voice is surprisingly low in person, and Peter almost jumps out of his skin when she calls his name. “No need to be nervous,” she tells him, even though she’s holding a livable salary in her tiny, tiny hands. “I’m sure you’ve done plenty of interviews before.”

“So many,” Peter agrees, and then wonders if maybe that shows him in a bad light. “None for Stark, though.”

“Probably for the best.” She gives him a flat smile, directing him down the hallway and into a conference room with a gesture. Her hair is dark, cut short and choppy, and she wears low heels that barely click on the tile. “I hear he’s impossible to work with.”

It’s a joke and also not a joke. Peter laughs awkwardly.

Anna Maria explains that she works for HR and her office holds three of her peers during construction. “That’s why we’re in here today,” she says, like she has something to apologize for. “The view isn’t so bad, though.”

Stark Tower is one of the tallest buildings in New York and Tony Stark had a hand in the construction. Everything is stylish and built for beauty over practicality. Peter wouldn’t like to be a window washer but as he stares out the floor to ceiling windows to look over the New York skyline, he thinks it’s worth it.

“The people look like ants,” Peter offers dumbly, worried he’ll get his poor germs all over the glass if he gets too close but too entranced to keep from looking down at the street.

Anna Maria doesn’t laugh but she doesn’t not laugh. Or…laughing is a dichotomy but at least she doesn’t look at Peter like he’s an idiot. She’s got a pretty terrifying poker face, so if she thinks Peter’s an idiot at least she’s keeping it to herself.

He swallows thickly as she pulls out his resume and a notepad. She’s already got things written down in scrawl, and Peter isn’t sure whether that’s good for him (she’s given him some thought) or bad (he’s terrible and she needs to think over why he’s so terrible). “It’s not very large, for a conference room.” Is that rude of him to say? He just can’t handle the silence and the rustling of paper.

It’s been so long since he’s even met anyone new. This is going to be a disaster. Why did he think this was a good idea in the first place?

“By Stark standards, this is a closet.” Anna Maria doesn’t seem bothered by the dark aura emanating from Peter, very Monica at the front desk. “That’s part of why my office is overrun today; they’re redoing a lot of the floors to make room for more employees.”

“That’s nice.”

“Yes,” she says diplomatically. “Now, let’s talk about you.”

“Oh, yeah. Sure. My favorite.” Peter tries not to twiddle his thumbs.

Anna Maria seems nice, even if she also seems like a hard ass. Her notes are tidy, her questions are pointed, and she seems entirely unbothered by every social faux pas Peter is certain he makes. When Peter gets too tangled in his words she easily navigates around it, reorienting his answers into something pertinent to the flow of the conversation before he falls completely off the boat, and Peter only notices enough to be embarrassed.

She stops him in the middle of an anecdote about working in the labs at MIT. “I see that you went there for four years,” Anna Maria says idly, flipping through his resume. “Chemical Engineering, although I’m very familiar with the program. Looks like you took a lot of extra courses.”

He had. It bit him in the ass, later on. Well, only sort of. It’s his own fault, at the end of the day. “I was really interested in Bioengineering and medical, but…” He scratches his neck. “Honestly, the faculty in Chemical was really great and they got to me first.”

“According to your reference letter, you were a wonderful student.” Anna Maria smiles at him thinly. “I did notice that you didn’t complete the program.”

Here it is. Peter’s mouth goes sharp and sour and he tries not to look like he’s curdling. “No,” he says slowly. “I did not.” He leaves it at that.

For what it’s worth, Anna Maria doesn’t press for a reason. She crosses her hands on the table. “You applied for multiple positions here, but most of them require some sort of degree, even if it isn’t a STEM degree.”

It’s one of the reasons he’d been surprised when he’d gotten the phone call. “I’m aware.”

“So, why apply?”

Peter bites his lip before he nods slightly, taking in the question. “I suppose I should have been ready for that question,” he says with a laugh. He’d been prepared for all her others, had even answered fairly confidently for most of them. This, however, was tangentially a sore spot that Peter hadn’t really wanted to touch during his terrible two-day interview preparations. “I’m aware there’s a lot missing on my resume, but there’s a lot that’s valuable there, as well.” He has several successful internships and multiple jobs in the field, even though they’re all small like his job at the blood lab. “I’m passionate about this.”

“About…” Anna Maria references her notes— “accounting?”

Oh, yeah. He had applied for that position. “I’ll learn,” he says, and it’s genuine. “I…” He swallows thickly. “I’m sure everyone tells you this, but Stark Industries is such an incredible company and…when your options are so limited, why not hope for a little luck where it matters, right?” He dries his hands on his slacks, rough on his skin.

“But why here?” she presses.

Peter isn’t prepared but he doesn’t have to think very far, either. “I’ve got posters from the Stark Expo hanging on my walls,” he admits, only a little shamefully. “I’ve read every publication they’ve released and it’s so far beyond everything else happening in the industry. And not just…not just in a technological way, but in a humanitarian way. The new model for energy, the affordable textiles they’re releasing, the huge steps forward in health care — I mean, the way the news went on and on when he bought the patent for Insulin and, and PrEP, man. I thought they were going to lose their minds. But now so many more people have access to them.”

Anna Maria smiles, wry. “So you appreciate the business model.”

Peter laughs. “Yeah, to put it lightly. But…I don’t know. The world is changing because of what Stark Industries is doing. Why wouldn’t I want to be a part of that, even if it’s just as a, a window washer?” He grimaces. “I don’t really want to be a window washer.”

“Don’t worry,” she assures him. “We contract that out.”

“Oh, uh. Good.”

“Look, Peter.” Anna Maria leans back in her chair, looking at him thoughtfully. “I’ll be honest, your resume shouldn’t have made it to my desk. We get so many applicants that the system sifts through anyone who doesn’t meet the core requirements.”

“I assumed there was that sort of system,” Peter says, nodding. “But I still got a call.”

“Someone called me a few weeks ago,” she says slowly, pursing her mouth. “He spoke very highly of you, and told me you’d be applying here for whatever you could get because you’re an engineer at heart, regardless of what your paperwork says.”

Peter balks at her. He doesn’t think anyone would go out of their way to say nice things about him, unprompted. “I didn’t ask anyone to contact you,” he says, because he thinks if he had that would have been out of line. “I didn’t even know you were the one to be interviewing me.”

“Oh, I know.” Anna Maria scribbles something down in her notebook. It’s very intimidating when she does that. “Otto has always done whatever he wanted, regardless of what anyone else says or does.”

“Oh!” Peter jolts. “You know Professor Octavius? He’s incredible. Honestly, he’s really…helped me out personally with the transition out of Boston.”

“Buy him lunch next time you see him,” Anna Maria tells Peter succinctly. She’s still writing, looking up at him sternly through her bangs. “He got your application on my desk.”

“Wow.” Peter is not going to cry. He is not going to cry, but he is going to put his head in his hands and seriously consider his life. “Wow, I’m…” Clears his throat. “Sorry. I’m just…that surprised me. Um, but I’m glad I got to talk to you. I know I’m not a perfect candidate.”

Anna Maria checks her watch. “I’ll be honest with you, Peter. I don’t work miracles and I don’t make promises. But you’re not unqualified. Take that as you will.” She stands up, flipping her notebook closed, and Peter scrambles to follow her lead. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

Peter reaches out and shakes her hand. “Thank you for your time.”

“You’re welcome. Thank you.” When Anna Maria smiles now, it’s softer, and she sweeps an arm towards the door. “I’ll walk you out.”

Despite everything, Peter gets the job.

He gets a somewhat terse email from Anna Maria with his orientation schedule based on the availability Peter had put on his application, and there is a surprisingly direct attachment about appropriate workplace attire that Peter desperately hopes she sends to everyone.

Peter doesn’t see the email, too busy sitting on the couch next to May watching bad procedural dramas. It’s well after work hours, but Peter’s phone has a permanent home on his bedside table, dark and quiet. He checks once a day, like clockwork, and in some ways he feels freed from the binds of social media or whatever the old people say, but it also makes him feel a lot like he’s hiding. There are times where he truly does hide — he’s hiding from Mary Jane, certainly, and a few times he’s seen someone who might be, from behind…but no. It’s never him. Every time, Peter feels ridiculous for hiding.

It’s that feeling, in combination with the adrenaline from feeling like he’s getting his life in order, that has Peter going to Anna’s apartment and rapping hesitantly on the door.

There’s barking, yappy barking, and scuttling, and then Anna Watson opens the door, pushing a small terrier away from the entrance with the side of her foot. “Hello—Oh! Peter!” She smiles, warm, and opens the door fully. “I hardly recognize you! You look much better with the haircut, dear—”

“—Thank you.” Peter holds out his hands like an acquiesce, confidence flagging. He liked Anna well enough, she’d always been kind to him, but he hadn’t thought he’d be seeing her now. “Is, uh, is MJ here?”

Right on cue. “Aunt Anna?” Mary Jane shuffles into view, sweatpants and a tank top and a scrunchie, and she’s beautiful but shocked when she sees who is calling on them this evening. “Well, Tiger, who’d have thought.” She grins, devilish despite the dimples.

“I—I…” Peter falters, finally. He feels a rush of…something. A horrible feeling that Mary Jane is the same as she always has been and Peter is something strange and different. “Um.”

It’s quiet.

Mary Jane puts a hand on Anna’s shoulder, and Peter thinks she’s going to say something before he realizes she’s simply toeing on her shoes. “Let me grab my coat.”

“Oh, uh, you don’t have to.” Peter doesn’t have a plan for this. “We can just—”

“I want coffee,” she says definitely, finally getting her heel in her boot before pulling a long coat off the rack by the door. “And a bagel. Buy me a bagel.” Mary Jane gives Peter a look, and he knows that he owes her much more than a bagel. “We’ll be back later, Anna.” Kiss on the cheek, keys jingling, out the door. She threads her arm through Peter’s, a whirlwind, and smiles at him while she leads him down the stairs. “Tell me about Boston, Pete.”

Peter doesn’t tell her everything, but it’s a long walk to the coffee shop.

He tells her about Betty, and his classes, and the jobs he worked. He tells her about working for Dr. Octavius and getting this new job at Stark Industries. She asks about his phone number and he tells her it’s the same, but he doesn’t use it much. It’s still on the nightstand in his bedroom.

“Tell me about him,” she says quietly, so Peter does.

It’s harder than Peter expected, but he learns quickly that he’d been wrong about some things. Mary Jane isn’t the exact same as she used to be because it’s been so long, because people change regardless of how sweet or sour their lives are, and because she’s a girl who knows what she wants and is willing to work hard to get it.

When Peter admits that he dropped out of college, Mary Jane puts her hand over his and says, “I’m sorry, Tiger.” Everyone is sorry. No one knows everything but everyone is so sorry.

Peter swallows thickly. “I’m sorry, too.” He is. He’s so sorry.

He doesn’t cry in the coffee shop, but he does buy MJ a bagel and a panini and she gives him her new number and promises she’ll get into a fist fight if she ever sees his shitty ex-boyfriend.

“I’d pay to see it,” Peter admits, because he thinks she might win.

Mary Jane walks him to Aunt May’s and goes upstairs to his room and it’s an awful lot like high school, except she isn’t helping him pick out an outfit for a date. She tears open the trash bags filled with clothes and spreads them out on the floor, picking out something for his first day. “Is this one okay?” she asks, and Peter is surprised that most of them are.

She kisses him on the cheek and Peter feels the remnants of her lip gloss. “Give ‘em hell.”

Stark Industries is a Fortune 500 company, previously run by one of the most eccentric personalities in the commercial sciences and currently run by his extremely capable ex-wife, who has spent several years of her life reigning in absurdity after absurdity. Peter isn’t sure what he’s expecting on his first day, but it’s surprisingly normal — beyond the intense security clearance and the way the entire building seems to have a heartbeat.

Peter had done internships previously, and he’s worked as many odd-jobs as one could possibly imagine. One summer, he worked five part-time jobs for four months before Aunt May found out and beat his ass for it. Peter had expected things to feel like his previous jobs, but while the secretary shows him to his appropriate floor to introduce him to his office, everything feels…extremely casual.

The day continues on that note — there is no one to actually train Peter on his work since the previous worker had left unexpectedly and the people pulled in temporarily had skipped off to their actual positions. Instead, Peter was introduced to his supervisors who would be overseeing his work.

“User Experience isn’t the most exciting department,” Mr. Wilson tells him — after insisting on being called Sam — “but it’s important. You’re helping with that.”

It’s the kind of feel good mumbo jumbo that reminds Peter no one will tell him the dirty details on his first day, so he smiles. Sam Wilson seems genuine enough, and he takes Peter around the room and introduces him to everyone as the new admin.

“Becky left?” someone asks, a pretty girl with a flat expression who pokes her head out of her cubicle.

The affirmative has the office cheering.

“She fucked up my travel vouchers three times,” Cindy confides in Peter over lunch. “I’ve only been here a year.”

Everyone is friendly, and no one expects Peter to pick things up quickly. They’re used to the trial by fire aspect of starting at Stark Industries, but for someone who has been working to the bone for so long, trying to hunt down email threads and setting up a phone number and arguing with IT, all of it is old hat.

By the end of day three, Peter has a complete list of all of the products currently going through beta tests and is working through procuring the names of the testers. The previous administrative assistant preferred manila folders to an excel spreadsheet, so Peter spends most of his first week with files scattered across the floor, trying to piece together a cohesive system.

No one asks him if he needs help, although Cindy and the stoic girl — Michelle — both invite him out to lunch once or twice. He declines. He keeps working.

After work, he goes to the gym inside the facility and runs until he stops thinking so much. It’s been part of his routine for so long, he barely thinks about it. He takes the subway sweaty and showers all his anxieties down the drain. MJ will call some nights and ask how it went, ask if anyone complimented his very stylish turtleneck, and chatter about their other friends.

“Harry would really like to see you,” she says on Friday, and Peter is quiet for long enough she finishes up with a, “just think about it. I’ll talk to you later! See ya.”

Peter has to keep his phone on him throughout the day now. He doesn’t have a work phone yet, and May wants him to be safe more than anything. He still can’t bring himself to block the number that keeps calling, but he keeps his phone on silent and tries not to check it often. It’s much harder, when it’s always at hand.

His ex wants him back. He’s angry Peter left, and then afraid for his safety, Peter, where did you go? Then he rotates back to angry. He sends Peter photos of them together, of things Peter left around the house. He tells Peter he can’t sleep, Peter is all he can think about, please, just tell me you’re safe. Call me back.

Peter almost does but he can’t. It’s been a few months since he left Boston. The calls keep coming even though they’re much slower than they used to be. Peter works more to balance out all of his free time.

Sam Wilson is happy he’s picking things up so quickly but makes Peter take his lunch — “It’s on me!” The office takes to the cafeteria and his co-workers pretend they want to know more about him.

“All I know about you is you’re from New York and you like the color red,” Cindy says, pushing her food around on her plate. Her face flushes and she mumbles, “You don’t even have any social media.”

Michelle snorts.

“I’m on a cleanse,” Peter admits, because it’s kind of the truth but it also sounds like the sort of thing someone his age might say. “I deleted most of it like, I don’t know. A year ago?” More than. It had never been worth the hassle.

“Where’d you go to school?” Eugene asks, and his eyes narrow when Peter tenses up. “In New York?”

“Oh, no.” Peter wipes his mouth with a napkin, trying to buy himself more time. “I went to school in uh, in Boston.”

“Where?” Eugene raises his eyebrows. “Not MIT?”

“It was MIT,” Peter admits. His hands are sweaty on his trousers, perfectly tailored. He starts rubbing his palms but aborts the motion last minute like a dog, trained. “Uh, my undergrad…chemical engineering.” That’s always what people ask next.

Michelle wolf whistles. “Rich boy.”

“Scholarships,” Peter corrects, and there’s such a complicated mix of feelings in his stomach. Embarrassment, pride, regret, anxiety — it tastes acidic on the way up. “Mostly scholarships.” And five part-time jobs, on rotation, raw to the bone. And a boyfriend who was willing to foot the bill, those last two years — until he wasn’t anymore.

They all ask him why he’s a glorified secretary, why he didn’t try to co-op program out of college, and a million other things Peter doesn’t particularly want to answer. He isn’t sure how. “I didn’t graduate,” he says.

“Drop out.” Eugene clicks his tongue like things suddenly make sense, and Peter is flush with shame. He doesn’t say it maliciously. It’s the callousness of people who have never thought about how other people feel, but it’s not on purpose. That doesn’t make the lump in Peter’s stomach any lighter. “Makes sense. It’s a hard program.”

“Yeah.” Peter only had a semester left, and some change. He was so close. He was top of his class, or close to. He’s not a crier, but he feels the thin, unhappy line of his mouth waver, and he’s glad when Michelle moves the conversation towards the horrible movie she watched the night before with her roommate.

Peter learns a lot during his first few weeks on the job. Mostly, he learns that no one really notices him.

It’s such a huge relief, even though it’s oddly anti-climactic. Peter only recently came to terms with the fact that his life was in shambles, but now that he knew he felt like it’d be written on his forehead in permanent marker. He fidgeted in meetings or in the elevator, waiting for someone to point him out and expose him as an imposter. People in this building have their lives together as a prerequisite! What do you think you’re doing here?

It’s nothing like that. It’s Sam’s occasional pat on the back, random phone calls, tracking down inventory, and people he only knows by their email signatures. He works out labor costs and reviews documents that pass over his desk. He goes home on time. He stops going to the gym so much, because he feels insane. He doesn’t have to do everything all the time.

By the end of the first month, Peter is just another cog in the machine and he is so overwhelmed by gratitude. Thank you, Tony Stark, for creating a company where Peter Parker can exist quietly while he superglues himself back together.

May checks in, MJ checks in, even Anna Maria. She messages him on Teams to see if he wants to go grab a chicken wrap downstairs, and greets him with a free meal and a Sprite. “How are you liking things?”

“I like it,” Peter tells her. She bought him a sandwich in the cafeteria and Peter is tapping nervously on the aluminum tab of his soda. “It’s, um—”

“Easy?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.

Peter clears his throat. “Not, um, not in a bad way. It’s kind of nice.” He’s bored, but there are worse things than being bored. He’s channeled his excess energy into completely reorganizing the entire Product Management office and he’s only had one complaint so far. He’s doing pretty good.

“Mr. Wilson likes you. Says you’re a good fit on the team.”

“I’m glad.”

Her nails delicately tear the plastic from around her apple. She probably had better lunch options, but Peter isn’t foolish enough to assume she just enjoys his company. He appreciates it anyway. “He says someone has asked him directly why you’re not in engineering.”

Peter blinks at her, lost like a deer in the headlights. “You mean, not assisting there instead?”

“No.” Anna Maria sighs, pulling something out of her bag, and Peter’s appetite wavers and flips over the edge of sour. On the table between them is what would have been Peter’s senior thesis, during undergrad. It feels like such a long time ago.

The paper itself is printed hard-copy, and is clearly scanned out of the journal Dr. Octavius had recommended Peter submit for. It’s dog-eared, with notes written in the margins in handwriting that doesn’t match Anna Maria’s at all.

“It’s very impressive,” she says, before blowing some of her hair out of her face. “Or so I’m told.”

Peter’s name is printed clearly on the front. He touches the ink with ice cold fingers and clears his throat. “What, someone just…Googled me and found my thesis?” He snorts, incredulous. He’d spent so much of his life on this project, finishing it late at night after the cleaning was done and the dishes done, and now it’s sitting on the table like it wasn’t so hard-wn. Somehow, this feels like a slap in the face. He frowns at Anna Maria, more tired than suspicious. “What is this about?”

“I don’t know you very well,” Anna Maria admits. She leans back in her chair, legs crossed, and sips espresso out of a company issued travel mug. She looks at ease, something Peter wouldn’t recognize in himself. “I know your school experience is unusual.”

“Yes.” He knits his eyebrows and tries not to sound too angry. “And private.”

“I’ve been told from multiple sources that you’re very impressive, Peter.” Anna Maria speaks plainly, spinning coffee in her cup. “It’s not a breach for me to tell you this, but it’s not exactly protocol,” she admits. “I want you to succeed here, Peter.”

“I just want to do my job,” Peter tells her.

“Do you want to do this job?” she asks. “There are resources for people like you—”

“—Drop outs?” Peter interrupts. He shakes his head. “I did this to myself, Anna Maria. You’ve already done a lot for me. I’m happy with what I’m doing.”

Anna Maria is quiet for a moment, but then she takes a deep breath and puts the thesis back in her purse. “It’s not a standing invitation. But let me know if you change your mind.”

When Peter goes back to work, there’s a pile of travel vouchers on his desk and he spends the rest of his day arguing with their travel agents instead of feeling the acid churning in his stomach.

MJ makes Peter meet Harry, in the end. “I don’t want to keep you all to myself,” she tells him, before running gel through his hair and sorting out an acceptable outfit from his closet. “Harry is a mess. You know he doesn’t judge you for anything.”

It wasn’t the best motivation, but MJ is a storm and Peter has never been any good at saying no to her, so she pushes him onto the Subway and they head to Manhattan where the pretty people play. She smiles at the bouncer at the club and Peter is the only one who has to pay admission. She buys him a drink, more Coke than Jack, and ushers him to the private table Harry managed to procure.

Harry looks the same as he did when Peter left New York. His face is not as drawn as it had been in high school — those first two years of college had been good to Harry, his own apartment and salary and space. He’s gained good weight, but he doesn’t smile as bright when he sees Peter as he had back when he tried harder. Instead, he raises his glass to Peter in cheers. “Pete.” Soft. “Welcome home.”

Peter is very glad they got the private table because he doesn’t want to cry in public. He doesn’t sob, or anything, but his eyes go misty when Harry tugs him by the shoulder. He smells the same, that old man cologne, and he laughs at Peter wiping his eyes.

MJ leaves to dance, or to give them time to catch up. She’s a bright red monster on the dance floor, shimmering like a star, and both Harry and Peter watch her go.

Peter’s phone lights up. He’d forgotten to turn it off after using it to start off his tab, and Harry notices Peter hastily close it and tuck it into his back pocket.

“I get it,” he says, an hour or two later. They’re sleepy from alcohol and trying to keep up with MJ, despite taking turns. Harry turns the watch on his wrist around and around, an old and thoughtless tic. “Everything with your ex…I get it.” He doesn’t say sorry, and if he had it wouldn’t have mattered.

Peter clinks their glasses together again and they drink to being out from under someone’s thumb.

May tells him he doesn’t have to work so much because he’s salaried. Peter says that SI is very willing to pay overtime as long as work is getting down, so he spends more of his Saturdays trying to log inventory and track down where all of their batteries are going. He brings a sandwich because the cafeteria is usually closed on the weekends unless there’s an event going on, and he brings his headphones because no one is around to tell him he can’t wear them.

Even when the work week is over, Stark Tower is bustling. Peter has been told that Tony Stark lives on the upper floors somewhere, and there’s always security even if all the offices are dark. There are random business meetings on the weekends because the company is so international, but very few of those have anything to do with User Experience. By the time projects get to Beta, the bigwigs turn their gazes to things that need a kick in the ass to get off the ground.

Peter is sprawled out on the floor in the main hallway of the User Experience office, surrounded by empty cubicles and random files he’s trying to reorganize. There are a million stray pieces of paper Peter is trying his best to go through. Ideally, he can enter everything into the online database, but the more he unearths from the filing system the more work he realizes it will be. He’s got his legs splayed and his work laptop between them, twisting a pencil in his fingers, when he notices there’s banging on the door.

There’s a woman in a nice purple pantsuit, knocking apologetically on the window. There’s a company ID clipped on her hip, but the cards are only office wide during regular business hours, so Peter gets up with a groan and goes over to let her in.

Instead of thanking him and slipping away towards one of the smaller offices or the supply cabinet, she clasps her hands in front of Peter like a prayer. “Thank goodness, someone is around.” She’s harried, and mildly panicked.

“Um, yes.” He reaches out to shake her hand. “I’m Peter Parker, the admin for User Experience.”

Her name is Liz — Peter can read it on her ID — but instead of introducing herself she frantically asks, “are you good at taking notes?”

Liz is having a personal emergency. Peter is not bold enough to ask what’s going on, but she mentions her daughter in passing and seems in a rush to leave the building despite being on call during the major meeting happening up on the 11th floor. “You don’t even have to understand what they’re talking about. Note down who is talking and any price points or dates, and whatever else sounds important.”

“Timelines and prices, got it.” Peter feels slightly overwhelmed. He never said he could do it, but he wasn’t going to leave her stuck in a meeting when Peter doesn’t have anything better to do. “I’m good at note taking. I can do it.”

“If you fuck up, I’ll…well. I’ll take the heat.” She runs a frazzled hand through her hair. “That’s a problem for another day.”

Peter gets it. He really does. “I’ll see if I can convince them to record it, too. Just in case.”

She thanks him profusely, running towards the elevators as quickly as her practical heels will let her. “Just talk to Natasha. Tell her you’re my stand-in. I already texted her about everything. Seriously, thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Peter takes a deep breath, waits for the elevator to hit the ground floor, and then pushes the button to head upstairs.

He’s not dressed for a big meeting. His shoes are scuffed and he’s wearing a flannel and his comfiest dress pants. He takes a detour to the bathroom and tucks in his shirt, runs a wet hand through his hair until it looks kind of on purpose, and does his best to seem like he’s supposed to be there.

Natasha is a terrifying woman. She’s got very short red hair that’s perfectly curled around her face, with red lipstick to match. Her blouse is structured and her trousers are perfectly tailored. She walks over to Peter in her stiletto heels without the slightest stumble. “You’re here for Liz?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Peter says politely, and does his best not to jump when Natasha — Ms. Romanov, according to her badge — starts adjusting his frantic attempts to be presentable. “Sorry. I didn’t have a change of clothes.”

“It’s fine. No one will pay attention to you, anyway.” She doesn’t seem flustered at all, as she sends Peter to sit at the small table by the door. “Liz had prep. I took the liberty of printing out all pertinent parties. Look at it. Use names in your notes whenever possible. Here are Liz’s papers about the meeting.”

“Oh!” Peter flips through and recognizes the diagnostics. “The new car batteries. I didn’t realize they were so far along.”

Natasha doesn’t react one way or another, but she’s less aggressive when she adjusts his collar. “Do your best. I’d do it for you, but I’ll be handling the man with the fake teeth.” She doesn’t elaborate. Her heels click on her way over to the front of the room.

Peter gets his paperwork together while people trickle in. The reason this was such a big meeting — on the weekend, no less — is because several other companies were in town and they were meeting over a wide variety of projects. Peter fidgets when the Suits come it, but Natasha was right; no one is paying attention to him.

Maybe that false sense of security is why Peter audibly gasps when Tony Stark and Pepper Potts walk in.

Tony is one of the most handsome people on the planet — that’s been verified by Sexiest Man Alive. More than once. His hair looks wild but his facial hair is perfectly groomed. His gray suit and red shirt fit him so well Peter starts fantasizing about taking it off, which makes things very complicated when Tony Stark looks towards the pre-pubescent noise and finds the slovenly Peter Parker in the corner.

Peter feels his face getting hot and does his best to look very engrossed in the paperwork on his table. He starts doodling on the notebook just to look busy.

Luckily for Peter, most people are also very distracted by Tony Stark entering the room and don’t notice Peter’s faux pas. It’s not often that Tony is actively involved in these meetings. Pepper is the head of the company, and it’s clear that Tony is only here by her request. Her hair is perfect, her dress is perfect, and she smoothly controls the room as all the men start vying for Tony’s attention.

To Peter, who has spent plenty of time with older, wealthy, powerful men, it’s clear that the high head count is mostly due to Tony Stark’s attendance. Idly, Peter wonders if that’s why Pepper Potts demanded he come — anything that gets the important people in the room is good enough. He flips his pen thoughtfully and starts putting faces to names based off of the printouts Natasha has given him.

The battery is still in prototype. Engineering has been stuck on maintaining acceptable power-levels. When they throw the drawings out on the hologram — so cool — Peter takes note that the main issue is the size of the battery. The technology they’re using is redacted, proprietary, but it seems they’re struggling to make it small enough to be portable while maintaining stability. Peter pulls up the drawings and writes down the notes mentioned, as well as scribbling a few of his own in the margins while the engineers argue with Legal about their timeframe.

Someone asks Tony Stark for his opinion only to find that Tony has, in fact, fallen asleep. Peter doodles Tony with drool on his chin.

Marketing is also involved in the meeting. Their Chief of Marketing, Steven Rogers, is heading the project, but when he’s asked to provide information on his progress he wryly admits that the project isn’t ready for a solid marketing plan. He talks through the projected prices, the cost of materials, their main demographic, and Peter takes notes but he doubts it’s anything new.

There are legal issues procuring the space where the batteries are meant to be manufactured. Stark Industries doesn’t currently make automobiles and will need a larger production house, but they’re jarred on getting rights to space. Peter makes note of the timeframe, and also notes that based on the current progress productions won’t be starting with the year. He scrolls through his company roster and notes the names of people they might be able to contact to get things moving faster.

The engineers go back to talking about materials. Peter combines their notes with his own thoughts, separated by boxes that Peter can clean up before emailing out. He chews on his pen cap. Business meetings tend to make things very complicated.

Tony Stark is still asleep.

The rest of the meeting passes by slowly. Peter takes his notes dutifully, if not messily, and tries to cover Liz’s ass so she doesn’t get in trouble when she returns. Natasha brings him hot soup during their fifteen-minute break at the two-hour mark, and smirks at Peter’s doodles. The work isn’t difficult. Listening to old people drone on and not being able to contribute himself sends Peter’s brain into an easy haze, and he’ll admit his notes become much less specific as the day passes. He’d only originally planned on being in office for a couple of hours. He starts playing Minesweeper near the three-hour mark.

Natasha’s job is clear from the start; she’s there to guide conversation when the attendees get too focused on minutiae. Pepper is formidable on her own but is stuck behind the red tape of pretending to care, something that Tony is clearly uninterested in, as he came back from the break with a coffee that smells slightly of liquor and has been making paper airplanes for the past thirty minutes.

One of them hits the back of Peter’s computer. Peter looks shyly over the top of the screen and sees Tony…back to making paper airplanes.

“So,” Natasha says, at the end of the meeting. “What did you think? Everything you’ve ever dreamed of?”

“Sure,” Peter replies easily, organizing his handwritten notes. “Although, I can’t say I dream much of work.”

“Mr. Pratchett, nice to meet you.” Tony Stark slides into Peter’s view, raising his coffee cup like a goblet, and Peter is too starstruck to correct him. He looks even better up close. There’s a gray hair or two in his dark hair and his eyes are so warm and the hand around that cup is so big and calloused and also he’s a genius in a suit that costs more than Peter’s rent for the year. God.

“It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stark.” He can be Peter Pratchett. That’s fine.

“It’s Parker,” Natasha says. “Thank him for saving your ass. How was the nap?”

“Worth the ire of Ms. Potts, for sure.” Tony takes a dismissive drink of his coffee and looks at Peter, conspiratorial. “Every day she begs me to sleep but the day I do, she drags me out of bed and doesn’t feel bad at all. I’m just a man, Ms. Romanov.” Hand on the chest, wounded. Hand. Very nice watch. He smells very good.

Peter has a type. Peter’s type is older, powerful, intelligent, and financially stable. He’s had pictures of Tony Stark in his bedroom since he attended the Stark Expo when he was eight. He left that poster there through his teenage years. He’s not ashamed.

He’s extremely embarrassed that he’s a stuttering mess, but he’s not ashamed. The number of science nerds with a hard-on for Tony Stark is innumerable. Tony Stark has been a known playboy for most of his life — one more scraggly intern giving him bedroom eyes won’t ruin his day.

Peter is spinning through this rational when Tony plucks the hand-written notes right off of Peter’s makeshift deskspace. “Thanks, kid.” He gives Peter a mock salute and Peter gapes like a fish.

“Oh, uh…” Peter blinks into reality. Tony is already on his way out the door, and Peter’s confused look at Natasha does nothing to halt Tony in his tracks. “Those notes aren’t very good. I still need to organize them and email them out!”

“I can type,” Tony says airily. “It’ll be fine.”

It won’t be fine. Peter has doodles of Mr. Stark drooling on those notes. He’s going to get Liz and himself fired in one fell swoop. “Sir, please allow me to do my job! Don’t waste time on something I would prefer to do myself, anyway.”

Tony turns on his heels, already out in the hallway, and raises one expertly maintained eyebrow at Peter’s boldness. “Say it without blushing and I’ll give you your doodles back.”

Natasha doesn’t laugh but there’s a smile hidden in the sides of her mouth that Peter does not appreciate.

“I…” Peter clears his throat. This is like asking him to perform an entire ballet. “Mr. Stark—”

“—Oof. That’s rough, buddy.” Tony clicks his tongue and Peter raises his hands to his face, hot red. “Cute, though. See you.”

“He’s like that with everyone,” Natasha assures him, after letting Peter stew in his mortification long enough to clean up. He helps her with the paper coffee cups and the wiring for the projector. “He’s harmless, really. And I’m sure your notes are just fine.”

Peter rubs a headache away and tries not to linger on Tony Stark calling him cute. His brain is so fried. “I’ll go over the slides again if he doesn’t send it out by Tuesday,” Peter says, morose. “I barely remember the second half of the meeting, though.”

“Nothing important happened, beyond us keeping their noses out of places they don’t belong.” Natasha pulls her business card out of her bound folder and slips it in Peter’s computer case. “You did us a big favor. Don’t let Tony bully you into feeling stupid about it. Ms. Allen and I are both very grateful.”

“Yeah.” Peter scratches his head and checks his watch. “I should go clean up the office and head out. I didn’t mean to pull this much overtime today.”

Natasha assures him he’ll be compensated, although Peter mainly meant that he is incredibly hungry and cranky and would like to stop thinking for at least eight hours. “I’ll see you on Monday. I’ll let Sam know how big of a help you were.”

Peter thanks her absently and says goodbye, already planning on what he can scavenge in their pantry at home and how he can convince May she doesn’t need to cook. He did a good deed today and he wants pasta he can enjoy.

“So, how is New York?”

“Well, you know.” Peter tucks the phone more firmly under his ear while he folds his clothes at the laundromat. “It’s home — same as always.”

“Don’t give me that.” Betty laughs on the other end of the line. “I know you missed her.”

The last few months of Peter’s stay in Boston had been rough on them both. Betty never said anything about it, would never bring it up when Peter was going through so much on his own, but it’s been a long time since Peter heard her laugh. It had mostly been worry, Peter thinks, but it still hurt him to see how drawn she looked that last couple of weeks.

“I did miss her,” Peter admits. He digs through his pockets for more quarters. “I miss you, too.”

It’s nice talking to her, even though it’s hard. Boston in general is a reminder of all the mistakes Peter has made, but it’s not Betty’s fault that Peter is a mess. He’s doing better about it, lately, and he can remember the good things, too. He can tell Betty is maneuvering around the elephant in the room, but she does it like a pro.

“How are you doing, Pete? For real.”

“For real?” Peter sighs. The washer beeps unpleasantly and Peter gets up from his plastic orange chair to switch over his laundry. A lot of his work clothes are supposed to be dry cleaned, but Peter doesn’t have that kind of money. Even if he did, he wouldn’t spend it on the dry cleaners. “I’m doing okay.”

He tells her about MJ and Harry, and he mentions some of the people at work. He mentions meeting Tony Stark, and how embarrassing it had been, but he still has Tony’s over-engineered paper airplane sitting on his desk in User Experience.

“Is he as hot as people say?” Betty asks. “Is…is that a thing I can ask?”

“I have eyes,” Peter says with a shrug. “He’s very hot. I’m pretty sure he was at least hungover.”

“Very classy.”

“God, I’d climb him like a tree.” Peter pulls cashmere sweaters out of the machine and opens the dryer. Quarter, quarter, quarter…quarter. Plink, plink, plink. “It’s probably better that he doesn’t remember my name. Those notes were such a mess. I’m embarrassed.”

By the time Peter is done with his laundry, Betty and he have run through all of the small updates they’ve been holding in their pockets. Betty circles back to details — “I still have some of your boxes here. Do you want me to mail them to you?”

“How big are they?”

“I’ve got a small, heavy box and a larger, light box. But I’ll help out with postage.”

The small one is probably old books. “How’d you get them?”

Betty is quiet for a while. It’s long enough that Peter’s anxiety starts to ping, and for good reason. “Your ex dropped them off.” Their old rental is empty now. A couple of months after Peter left for Queens it’d been posted online. “He must have been clearing things out. I think he still has some of your stuff but…”

Peter feels like he’s been dumped in ice. “Where did he go?”

“I’m…I’m sorry, Peter. I asked around but I don’t know.”

It takes a moment for Peter to start thinking clearly. He doesn’t move until he gets nudged out of the way for a stranger to get to the machines, and then he starts hastily putting his folded laundry back in the hamper. “I’m sure you did your best. I…” Peter pushes out of the laundromat and into the open air. It’s getting colder now. Peter is wearing the coat his ex bought for him because he can’t afford to get a new one. He runs a hand down his face. “Did he, uh…are you okay? He didn’t do anything, right?”

“I wish he would have,” Betty says, bitterly. “I’m a little girl and I would have called the cops. He’d be toast.”

“Don’t say that.” Peter wants to go home right now. Everything feels too big and too small. “I…listen, Betty, I should go, I—”

“—I get it. Text me when you can, yeah?”

“Yeah.” They say their goodbyes. For the first time in a while, Peter turns off his phone before he slips it back in his pocket. It’s a long walk home.

Peter isn’t special; he hates Mondays.

It’s a difficult trudge into the office that morning. The weather isn’t good, but Peter is used to that as a city boy. His shoes are soaked when he makes it into the lobby, but someone has turned on the heat so the offices are almost too warm. Peter waves hello to the people in their cubicles when he gets in and starts organizing his desk.

Michelle has already started the coffee and Flash is already bothering Cindy at her desk. He’s too loud in the mornings. Peter guesses that’s what happens when you’re in the military — you become a horrible morning person.

Peter starts up his computer and idly flips through his filing system. He hadn’t gotten as much work done as he wanted because of the meeting…he rolls his eyes. He needs to see if Tony went over his notes and distributed them. If not, Peter needs to go through the presentation and see what he can remember.

Nothing like that in his inbox, although there are a million other things that tangentially need his attention. Peter will give Tony until close of business before he starts giving himself extra work.

Data entry isn’t Peter’s favorite part of the job, but it’s easy and it lets Peter hyper-focus on a task. He gets up for coffee and tries not to grimace when Sam comes in with a joke and pat on the back. Too early.

At least Sam brought donuts. Peter won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

Peter wishes he could say it was an interesting day at work, but in reality the donuts were the most exciting thing on his plate. It was just a gray, rainy Monday morning of plinking away at his keyboard and ignoring Flash trying to hit the hanging paper lantern by his desk with a rubber band.

He gets a message on Teams from Elizabeth Allen a little after he comes back from his pathetic lunch break, and context clues — a very effusive apology and an equally effusive thanks — tell him it’s Liz from Saturday. He grins, spinning in his chair.

No need to thank me! Everything worked out okay?

yeah!!! my thing is all settled and natasha said your notes were good
i’m really sorry about mr. stark tho

What, him falling asleep? It was worth the entire thing hahaha

oh he’s not there yet?

Peter squints at the ominous message, and by the time he’s fully thought through the implications there’s the beeping of someone being let into the office and everyone around Peter goes quiet.

“You,” Tony Stark says, wearing the same slacks and button-down as he had been on Saturday. He looks at Peter accusingly over the rim of his tiny, ridiculous red glasses.

Peter barely stops himself from stuttering in response. “Yes. Can I help you?” He blindly types out a message to Liz — Am I getting fired oh my god what why — and calmly closes his laptop.

Tony looks…worse. He doesn’t smell like coffee liquor, but he has dark circles like tar and his hair is loose around his head. Where on Saturday he’d looked meticulously put-together, right now he looks like he remembered two minutes from leaving that he had to get himself in order. Luckily, Tony Stark is extremely attractive, and it takes very little for him to look presentable.

If Peter came into work like Tony has, he thinks a cane would appear from the wing and pull him off-stage immediately.

“Are these your notes?” Tony slaps the tablet in his hands on the desk between them and Peter tries not to jump but doesn’t succeed.

He swallows thickly. In the corner, Michelle is actively mocking him, which is rude but enough to make Peter clear his throat and look at the screen. Tony has already transcribed Peter’s handwritten notes digitally, but Peter doesn’t recognize all of the content as he scrolls through. Most of the business notes are missing actually, leaving only Peter’s comments on the design flaws and his musings about the potential solutions to the battery problem. In shock, he realizes that Tony has added his own notes alongside Peter’s, which makes Peter swallow his tongue and straighten up like he’s been electrocuted.

“I didn’t mean to overstep or anything,” Peter begs, his hands splaying flat over the screen. His nerves are rising like bad acid in his stomach, like he actually ate the lasagna May made the night before. “Obviously I haven’t seen the project. I’m sure a lot of this is already, you know, done or looked at or whatever.”

Tony just keeps staring at him with wild, almost manic eyes. Peter feels like if he twitches he’ll die.

He sinks a little further down in his seat. “They were mostly just…you know…they were for personal use. This is why I wanted to clean things up.”

Tony still stares, looking down at Peter over the rim of his silly glasses, working his jaw, before he takes the tablet back off the desk and sniffs. “Your doodles need work.”

Nervous laughter bubbles up from whatever is going on in Peter’s stomach, and Peter tries to cover it with his hand and a badly timed cough. “Those were also, um…you weren’t supposed to see that.” None of them were malicious, but Tony Stark probably doesn’t get many caricatures put on his desk.

Tony’s eyes flick down to the name tag sat innocuously on Peter’s desk. “You’re a secretary?”

That’s not technically Peter’s title, but Tony Stark owns the building so who cares. Peter kind of cares but also it’s Tony Stark. “Yes, sir.”

“And you just happened to be here on a Saturday and also have an extensive knowledge and understanding of electrical engineering.” It’s not a question.

Peter flushes. He can feel the expression on his face getting more and more nervous, panicked, and he knows that the first row of cubicles have stopped their work to watch Peter falter in front of one of the most powerful men on the planet. “Yes. Well…” Peter scratches his neck. “Electrical isn’t really…my thing. I’m more of a, uh…” Can he even say this? He never finished school, certainly wouldn’t consider himself an engineer. “I’m a biochem guy.”

Both of Tony’s hands are placed flat on either side of Peter’s name plate and Peter feels his heart stop as Tony leans in. His nails are short, filed smooth. He smells really good. When Peter was in high school he knew the name of the cologne Tony Stark claimed was his signature but the name escapes him now…the information would also make him look like a freak, probably.

“Who do you work for?” Tony demands in a quiet whisper.

Peter’s brain short circuits and falls back on what comes naturally. “You, Mr. Stark.” It’s a little too breathy. What is happening?

Michelle’s jaw drops in her cubicle.

Tony’s face does something very complicated.

“Is that…” Peter is really starting to freak out. “Is that not the right answer?” he asks.

Sam, finally, notices that his boss is in the office and comes out of the back workrooms to greet Tony with a smile. “Hey, man! Long time, no see.” He reaches out for a casual handshake — one that Tony completes with a lingering, suspicious look at where Peter is trying to become one with his desk chair. “You’re never down with the worker bee’s anymore. What’s up?”

Tony finally snatches his glasses off of his nose and tucks them into the pocket of his suit. “I’m interrogating your employees, Mr. Wilson.” It’s flippant, like a joke, and Sam laughs even though Peter is close to cowering.

Peter feels awful. Peter needs to know how to respond immediately or he’s going into a downward spiral. Peter does not like not understanding what’s going on. He can’t work around things if he doesn’t understand. He can’t apologize if he doesn’t understand. He can’t—

Sam claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder and it’s jarring, but it grounds Peter in a necessary way. “Peter hasn’t been with us even six months. Quickest learner I’ve ever seen.” The hand is gone and Sam is looking at Tony, stern. “Don’t scare him away.”

“Excuse me?” Tony purses his mouth and shoves his hands in his pockets. He looks over the knick knacks on Peter’s desk and Peter prays he doesn’t notice that Peter kept the stupid paper airplane from the meeting. “I’m a delight. Everyone says so.”

“And don’t try to steal him, either.” Sam rests his elbow on the short lip of the front desk. It brings everything down in a casual way, and Peter takes a measured count of his heart rate. “I’m shocked R&D didn’t snatch him up. He’s a genius — aren’t you, Pete?”

“I—what?” Peter blinks.

Sam continues without a hitch. “Went to MIT, didn’t you?”

“...yeah.” Peter tucks his hands between his legs nervously and keeps his eyes on the keyboard. “For a while.”

Tony works his jaw. “MIT, huh? What a coincidence.”

“Oh, lay off, man.” Sam laughs good-naturedly. “Don’t scare him. He couldn’t hurt a fly.”

Peter expects Tony to snap or yell or set his shoulders and say something back-handed but he doesn’t do any of those things. “Corporate espionage is the new frontier, Mr. Wilson. Have you seen the youths and their new technology? I heard you can hack a person’s phone through the bird drones these days. I have to stay on top of it.”

“Bird drones?” Peter repeats, dazed. “Like the conspiracy theory? Or that old movie?”

Tony frowns. “Birds?”

“Must be a storm at sea,” Peter says. “That can drive them inland, you know.”

“Those weren’t drones, they were just terrible,” Tony says with a sniff. “Weak connection to the thread of conversation, and you lose extra points for calling it old.”

“It’s from the 60s, Mr. Stark.”

“I’m in charge. I give out the points.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Calm down, Drew Carrey.” He squints at Tony, then looks over at Peter, then back at Tony, unimpressed but comprehending. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Saturday,” Tony says flippantly.

“Saturday morning?”

“Time isn’t real.” Tony puts his hands like blinders on either side of Peter’s face suddenly, and Peter jolts in his seat. “Forget the birds. Battery, kid. The battery. Corporate espionage. Who sent you?”

“Liz Allen.” Peter has lost this conversation completely. He frowns. “Have you really not slept since Saturday?”

“Negative points, kid. You’re in the red.”

“Tony.” Sam snaps in front of Tony’s nose. “Have you eaten? And, no—” Sam holds up a hand in front of Tony’s breath to interrupt — “Coffee doesn’t count.”

Tony holds up an accusatory finger, thinks about it, and is still thinking about it when his stomach gurgles so loudly Peter has to hide a laugh behind his hands. “I eat.” Tony shrugs. “That’s a thing that I have done in my life.”

“How about this?” Sam walks over into Peter’s area and grabs the back of his chair. “You take Peter out to lunch. Buy him something nice.” He wheels Peter out from the safety of his desk and in front of Tony Stark before putting his hands on Peter’s shoulders. Peter does not appreciate it. “Eat a sandwich. Interrogate him on his espionage rates. Just remember he’s my favorite new employee and please, for the love of god, go to sleep after.”

Peter looks up at Tony and then at Sam and then back at Tony and he takes a deep breath to — decline? He’s not sure. “What?” he says instead. He frantically tries to think of a way to scoot his way back to safety without looking silly.

Tony snorts. “Alright, I’ll eat a sandwich.” With a careful hand he smooths his tie down back into the clip and puts his glasses back on. Despite the messy attire, he looks put together and extremely intimidating. “Come on, kid.”

“Uh…me? Sir?”

Sam tips Peter out of his chair like a traitor.

“I already, uh — you really don’t have to!” Peter holds out his hands, white flag. “I already ate.”

Tony is holding the door open already with the side of his shoe. “I said come on, didn’t I? My time is valuable.”

Sam waves them goodbye and Peter trips over his feet into the hallway, trying to convince Tony Stark this isn’t necessary all the way to the elevators. “Really, I packed a lunch today. I’m perfectly fine. I don’t know why Mr. Wilson was trying—”

Tony hits the button on the elevator and puts his hands back in his pockets, looking at Peter with a sniff. “I’ve only got one good deed in these old bones a week, Mr. Parker. Corporate greed keeps a tight lid on that sort of thing. Don’t take it for granted.” He gestures Peter into the elevator ahead of him.

Peter gives up and braces himself for the most stressful non-meal he’s had in a long time.

Despite only having had two conversations with Tony Stark before, both of which ended distinctly not in Peter’s favor, it’s not as terrible as Peter expects. There’s a car waiting for them in the back lot, and it’s surprisingly nondescript for someone so famously flashy.

“You like Indian?” Tony asks, walking over and opening up the door for Peter before the driver even gets out of the car. “I would kill for some samosas.”

“I, uh…” Peter clears his throat, trying not to take a deep breath of heady cologne as he slips into the backseat. “I like anything, sir.”

“Good boy. Happy, you know where to go.”

Good boy. Oh god. This is awful. Peter realizes how completely awful this is when Tony also slides into the backseat, and he spends the entire drive to the restaurant trying not to freak out while Tony clicks around on his phone. What is happening?

Luckily, the restaurant is a little hole in the wall joint. Peter has done his time with fine dining and he doesn’t think he has the mental faculty to handle it right now. He sighs in relief when the driver drops them off and Peter recognizes the area. Tony holds the door open for him when he goes into the restaurant, he leans his elbow on the podium and flirts with the hostess, and orders the entire menu before Peter has even gotten his wits about him.

“This is a lot,” Peter says out loud, carefully unfolding the napkin and putting it in his lap.

Tony taps a finger on the glass of the Thai coffee he’d ordered for himself. “What? Don’t dine with the big guns very often?”

“I really did already eat,” Peter says. He feels bad for the waitress, who is clearly frazzled by Tony Stark’s sudden appearance. He hopes Tony tips well. “There’s no way I can eat my share of all the food you ordered.”

“Eh.” Tony shrugs, swirling the drink in his hand like it’s a wine with a delicate bouquet. “Whatever we don’t eat we can give away. Or keep. You can take some home, if you want.”

This isn’t how Peter expected his Monday to go. An hour ago he’d been counting down the minutes until he could leave and get into his sweats and do nothing for several hours. “Is this…technically a work lunch?” Peter frowns, looking up at Tony through his lashes and drawing circles on the table with the tip of his finger. “I promise I’m not a spy or anything. Liz told me to take good notes.”

Tony seems more interested in his phone than on Peter, but he raises his eyebrows and gestures, flick of the wrist, flippant in a way that Peter is starting to associate with Tony Stark paying attention to you but pretending he’s not. “On fusion nuclear science? Weird.” He takes a pointed sip of his coffee. “Did they go over that during your three and a half years at MIT? Or did you just pick it up? Maybe a little birdy told you.”

Peter is saved from having to make a quick comeback — he could, okay? — by not one but two food runners coming out of the back and bringing them more food than Peter has seen on one table even in his life. He awkwardly tries to help place the plates down but the two men work around them with ease, all smiles and careful, it’s hot.

Tony is already taking two samosas for himself by the time Peter has unearthed his silverware from the mountain of dishes. It smells incredible, spicy and delicious. Massaman curry and biryani, butter chicken, tikka masala, a large handful of dishes that Peter doesn’t recognize. The rice in the center could feed a family of four for a week.

“For the record,” Peter says once the clinking of Tony serving himself is too loud and pointed, “they do go over fusion nuclear science at MIT.” Peter looks at Tony, jaw clenched in challenge, and takes the rest of the samosas and a giant portion of rice.

To his surprise, Tony allows the insolence. “To undergrads with a different focus?”

Peter tears a chunk of naan very violently. “If you ask.”

“Ah.” Tony takes one of the samosas off of Peter’s plate and replaces it with some kind of paneer. “See, I love asking. It’s the student’s Golden Ticket or whatever—”

“ —Let me guess; you’re Mr. Wonka?”

“Please. Call me Willy.” Tony Stark winks at him. Winks. That’s flirting. Peter is pretty sure that’s at least tangentially flirting. “That’s a euphemism, by the way. You seem like the type for that to go over your head.”

“I got it,” Peter says smoothly. He’s actively trying not to blush and hides it behind taking whatever looks the spiciest onto his plate.

“I did a little asking of my own, on the way over here.”

Peter looks sharply at Tony but, unsure on which way the conversation will tip, says nothing. Four years ago, maybe Peter would be able to keep up a little better with Tony Stark. Being quiet will have to do for now.

Tony doesn’t notice the turmoil, or, if he does he ignores it. “Some squishy science major, chemistry, amazing—” He clears his throat and looks more closely at his phone in a way that seems to be purposefully goading. “Top of the class, dropped out over winter break of your senior year, told your supervisor that you changed your mind.”

“Google did not tell you all that,” Peter says slowly, calm as he can. His stomach is churning. There’s sweat at the nape of his neck and by his brow. “What do you want?” His hands fiddle with the paper napkin in his lap.

“Do you understand why you’re out to lunch with one of the greatest minds of the generation?” Tony asks through a mouthful of rice he washes down with the last dregs of his glass. Before it’s down on the table the waitress comes by with another one and Tony shoots her a lovely smile before smirking at Peter.

It’s difficult, with men like Mr. Stark. He’s used to having power, and Peter won’t judge him for that, but the way he talks around in circles means he wants something, and it’s different every time. Peter hasn’t learned him well enough to know the right answers.

Peter rubs his forehead, swallows thickly. What a headache. “Mr. Wilson made you take me.”

“Mmm, nope. Factually correct, good guess. Still in the red, though.” Not angry, but flippant. Dismissive.

“Is it because I’m very cute?” Peter asks with a sigh. He knows Tony is flirting with him — which he cannot wait to tell MJ about — but he also knows all about Tony’s playboy tendencies. He remembers reading all the tabloids when he was young, sneaking them off of May’s nightstand.

Tony’s smirk becomes a more genuine grin. “No, but not untrue.”

Peter flushes despite himself. He feels like he should be fangirling but he also feels like he should be throwing up. Overall, he just feels kind of lost.

“You blush very cutely,” Tony notes, “but still. I’m a busy man, you know.”

Peter wants to yell. You brought me here, he thinks with more fury than he could ever manage. Rich men like games but Peter can’t play if he doesn’t know the rules. He’s spent so long learning one set of rules but he doesn’t think they’ll apply here. Tony doesn’t seem to have the same kind of temper, the explosive or cruel kind, but he must have one. All men like Tony have one. No one writes tabloid articles about Tony Stark and call him kind or patient.

Where’s the line?

“I’m sorry.” Peter looks at the plate on the table between them. He feels a bit sick. “I just started this job. I would really like to go back.”

“Right, your cushy job at a computer.” Tony rolls his eyes, sitting back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. His shoulders fill out the suit he’s wearing extremely well. “Tell me, kid; everyone in your office, how many of them could have made those suggestions with only the information you got in that meeting?”

Peter looks Tony in the eye and immediately back at the table, but it’s enough that Tony knows what the answer is.

The answer is none of them. Peter has consistently made adjustments to plans and scopes and projects and he’s rarely gotten pushback. Most of the work in User Experience is on products that are already on the market or are ready to hit the street, so there aren’t many glaring issues to fix.

Peter doesn’t say anything.

“And you’re just a secretary.” Tony tuts.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a secretary,” Peter says, pushing chicken around on his plate. “Your old secretary is the CEO of SI, these days.”

“Pepper Potts is the smartest woman I’ve ever met,” Tony agrees. “And she never let anyone call her ‘just a secretary.’”

Peter grimaces. I liked you better hungover he thinks, shoving his fork through a piece of lamb and shoving it in his mouth. It makes him bitter. “I never got my degree. You really expect me to be an engineer? Not happening.”

Tony barely reacts to the impolite tone. If anything, he ignores it entirely, pushing on to something that’s more interesting. “These concepts are modern. You’ve been out of school for years — you keep up to date, at the very least.”

Peter swallows thickly. “I like it.” A small admittance. “I really like it.” There was a time that science was his entire life. He misses it like a child he had to let go. “But I’d rather be left alone.”

Tony is quiet, for once, and Peter realizes he’s been staring at his own hands tearing up that poor napkin and quickly looks up through his lashes to find Tony inspecting him like a puzzle piece.

Peter writes out his list in his mind of things that catch Tony’s eyes: interesting things, things he doesn’t understand, and things in the wrong place. He likes logical order but physically doesn’t seem to care about much of anything. Once he understands something, maybe he stops poking at it entirely. Peter isn’t sure.

“Is this the real reason you asked me to lunch?” Peter asks wryly, a tiny smile tucked away in his mouth. “You hate not knowing the answer, huh?” Peter takes a deep breath and reaches for his water. “I’ve met plenty of men like you.”

“Baby.” The word curls around Peter’s shoulders and makes him shiver, good and bad. Tony’s gaze is intense, and he leans forward on his elbows. Peter gets a whiff of his cologne again, earthy and hot. “There’s no other man in the world like me.”

The name clicks in his brain. “Gendarme V.”

Whatever Tony was expecting, it wasn’t that. He balks. “What?”

Peter blinks, dazed, before he realizes what he said. “Oh, shit.” He puts his face in his hands. It’s a vestige of his fangirling, back when he kept up with the magazines. “No. You’re, uh, the cologne. I couldn’t remember the name of the…one you wore. That’s so creepy.” Peter should just quit. He should just quit his job.

Tony laughs. He laughs from deep in his belly, and it’s loud and obnoxious and it fills up the whole restaurant and Peter kind of falls in love with it. Oh god. “Old news. What, you read it in an interview? Must have been at least ten years ago.”

“I can’t study my childhood crush and fusion nuclear science with the same fervor, Mr. Stark,” Peter jokes to curb his embarrassment. He wants Tony to take control of everything and make things easy, but also that’s his worst nightmare. Or fantasy. “Sacrifices had to be made.”

“Tragic,” Tony agrees. His eyes are warm and his face is smug and that stupid grin — so stupid. God. “I’ll just have to make it worth your while, won’t I?”

Peter looks at Tony’s grin a little too long.

“It’s Tom Ford, Tobacco Vanille.” Tony wraps his knuckles on the table. “You can write that down. There’s a quiz. We can review, if you want. What’s my zodiac?”

Peter, who knows Tony’s zodiac, chooses to test limits instead of answer. “What if I don’t pass? Am I fired? Will you invade my privacy in a deeper and more personal way?”

“Only if you ask.” Tony wiggles his eyebrows. It’s ridiculous. He’s the hottest man Peter has ever seen. Ridiculous.

Peter whistles appreciatively, and he can’t quite keep the straight face. “You’re good. I’ll give it to you.” It’s almost like being normal, if normal was talking to a near stranger in a random restaurant and not feeling like you’re making every wrong choice.

Some things used to be easy, and then they became so hard they were nearly unbearable. Peter will take this as progress, despite the blips.

Wordlessly, the waitress brings over boxes and starts to package up the food they haven’t eaten, and Peter blinks before checking his watch. Neither one of them has eaten a bite in the past fifteen minutes and they’ve already been there for over an hour. Tony must have said something, made an obscure hand motion only understood by the rice and terrifying.

“You can take this all home with you,” Tony says casually. “Better, I’ll just have it dropped off at your address. No use carting it around all day.”

The fridge at work probably couldn’t hold all the extra food, but he can’t imagine May’s reaction to the containers showing up on the doorstep, either. “That’s really not necessary.”

“It’s too late, already done.” Tony claps his hands, leaning forward again. Tobacco Vanille. “Now, Peter, Mr. Pratchett—”

“—I know you know my names—”

“—do you have any plans tonight?”

Peter freezes like a deer in the headlights. He blinks so cartoonishly he swears he can hear the plinking sound effects. “Uh…what? No?”

“Perfect!” Tony pulls over the check and signs the paper. He doesn’t even leave a card — is it on file? — but he does leave a 100% tip on the table before standing up and leading Peter out of their table by the hand. “Let’s do dinner. Maybe something a little lighter. There’s a vegan place Pepper has been trying to make me go to.”

“I…what.” Tony’s hand is his hand. Peter’s hand. He can’t wash it. Dinner? “You mean…” Peter swallows too thickly, trying not to trip over his feet as Tony expertly maneuvers them out of the restaurant. “Like a date?”

When they’re outside Tony’s hand lets go and finds its way to the small of Peter’s back, hot. “If you’d like. I’d like, just to be clear. Cute isn’t why I asked you to lunch, but when it’s true it’s true.”

Take control, make things easy. Just let him. Peter might vomit.

The same nondescript car is waiting for them in the back, as well as the backend of a couple of photographers that the driver is in the process of clearing. Peter immediately turns his head, accidentally hiding his face in Tony’s collar. Just what he needs, photographic evidence of the day’s clusterfuck. He nearly sighs in relief when Tony opens the door to the car and helps him inside.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Peter says, as soon as Tony opens the other side and slides in. “The date thing. Vegan would be fine, theoretically.”

“Noted on the vegan.” Tony frowns. He gestures between them. “Did I read this wrong? The crush, the cologne, the paper airplane I totally noticed on your desk.”

“I…well.” Embarrassing. Peter clears his throat. “No, you’re very, uh.”

Tony leans back in the seat and crosses one ankle over his knee, holding it there as he assesses Peter over his glasses. Dress socks, expensive watch, hand. “Don’t worry, you’ll get there. You can say I’m charismatic and stimulating. I get it all the time.”

Older, smarter, powerful, charming. Peter has a type and it’s fucked. He’s fucked. “You didn’t read it wrong,” he admits slowly. His heart thumps in his chest. “I just, you know, it’s a bad idea. You’re my boss.”

“Technically, Pepper is your boss.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Yeah, you have no power at Stark Industries whatsoever.”

Tony grimaces but doesn’t push. “There’s precedent.” Plenty of it, considering how free Tony is with his attentions. “It doesn’t have to be a big deal if you don’t want it to be.”

That doesn’t make Peter feel any better. “I just…it’s not a good idea.” He tries to be firm, and then he turns his head to watch the city run by. “I just moved, and got a new job, and…I ended a long relationship. I don’t need anything new.”

“It’s just a date.”

Peter raises an eyebrow and looks delicately at Tony. “Just a date? With Tony Stark? Be real.” To Peter, Tony calling him cute is a dream come true, but the idea of anything closer than arm’s length feels so overwhelming in all the wrong ways. To Peter, just a date would be a lot.

“I’ve learned not to argue,” Tony says after a long while, like it pains him. “Just so we’re clear, this has no effect on your job. Even my snooping, whatever, if you want it left at the restaurant, it’ll stay there.” He wipes a hand down his face. “I’m usually better with this sort of thing.”

Peter smiles at him. “Maybe you should take Mr. Wilson’s advice and go to sleep.”

Tony makes a gagging noise. “Gross. I’ve got very important work to avoid. No time for a nap.”

“Maybe if you had slept you’d be able to convince me to go on a date with you.”

It’s a surprise to them both. “Is that all it takes?” Tony laughs, outright, like he had at the restaurant. “I can sleep. You can join, if you want. My bed is extremely comfortable and there’s room for ten people — tested and verified.”

Peter grimaces. “Hope you’ve changed the sheets since then.”

Tony grins, spins

his finger at the driver as they pull out of the lot, and looks at Peter like he’s the only thing in the universe. “Anything for you, kid.”

“And you’re sure he was flirting with you?”

Peter rolls his eyes, tucking the phone more firmly under his ear and rolling more firmly in the blanket. “I’m not that oblivious.”

MJ clicks her tongue. “I knew you in high school. I dated you in high school.”

“He called me cute and asked me out to dinner. The word ‘date’ left his mouth. It’s hard to misconstrue,” Peter argues. He tugs on the knit fringe and groans. “It’s Tony Stark. How hard is it to believe he’d flirt with someone?” Even if that someone is Peter.

“It’s not that.” It’s almost dinner time, and Peter hears MJ clanking pans on the other side of the line. “I mean, you’re a steal. It’s just…Tony Stark.”

Peter grins. “I know.”

“I can’t believe you said no.” MJ whistles. “Like, he’s your dream guy. I’m pretty sure he was your gay awakening. You used to drool when he came on stage at the Consumer Electronics Show, like a loser.”

Back in high school, Peter would have been beside himself to deny it, but he’s older now. Not only that, but he’s met Tony Stark in person and he’s feeling particularly valid. “Me and every other science nerd who liked men.” Peter isn’t going to admit that he spent a very long time perusing the Tony Stark section of his first porn site, but he doesn’t think MJ would be particularly surprised. “Besides, I doubt Mr. Stark would be interested in anything if he knew the…you know. If he knew the whole thing.”

“What whole thing?”

Peter looks up from where he’s splayed on the couch and sees May walking into the apartment, balancing the mail and her keys as she toes off her shoes. Her head peeks out over an awkwardly sized package. “Hi, May. I’m talking with MJ. She says hi.”

May puts her load down on the table by the doorway with a huff, blowing stray hair out of her face. “Those stairs get steeper every time I use them, I swear.” She comes over and kisses Peter on the head. Peter turns on the speaker so she can tell MJ hello before she straightens her back with a crackle. “Oof. What does Mr. Stark know about?”

“Nothing,” Peter says flippantly, desperately trying to turn off the speaker before Mary Jane says, “Tony Stark asked Peter out and Peter said no.”

“I’m sorry, what?” May’s mouth drops and she hurries around the couch, bodily pushing Peter’s feet off the cushion so she can crowd excitedly into his space. “You said Stark wasn’t even in the building that often?”

“Well, he was at that meeting on Saturday—”

“—What?” May smacks him lightly on the back of the head. “You come into my house and hide things from me? About Tony Stark? I raised you.”

Peter pointedly ignores MJ’s snickering on the line. “It really wasn’t a big deal. And he just…you know.” Despite believing that it isn’t a big deal (really, it’s not) Peter can’t stop himself from blushing. He feels like that’s all he’s done today. “He took me out to lunch.”

May screams, shrill, the way Peter hears in all the tween movies. “Peter, are you serious?”

“You’re worse than MJ,” Peter tells her, and MJ makes indignant noises that Peter can barely hear while May is shaking his shoulder violently. “May, May, seriously! It’s just a thing!” He’s laughing.

“A thing, he says.” May throws her hands in the air. “I work for a living, to the bone, and he won’t let me celebrate his childhood dream coming true. Ridiculous. I swear. I don’t even know you. He took you out to lunch and then he…” She trails off pointedly.

Peter looks at her, waiting, unsure what she expects him to say.

“He asked you out?” May finishes for him.

“Oh, uh.” Peter smiles, small. “Yeah.” He can hardly believe it himself. “Yeah, he did.”

“And you said no?”

Peter grimaces, and it’s enough for May — the person who knows him the best in the world, or did, before everything — to figure out the heart of the matter.

“Oh, Peter.” May loses her girlish enthusiasm almost immediately, its absence leaving a vacuum in its place. She picks up Peter’s phone. “MJ, he’ll call you back, okay?”

MJ was probably planning this the entire time, and casually says goodbye before the click tells Peter he’s alone with May.

Peter hadn’t wanted to hide it from May, but he knows that she worries. She’s been worrying since he left for Boston. He can hardly imagine what it was like while he was impossible to contract, living with a man she had never met, never coming home. At the time, it hadn’t felt like losing anyone, but he wonders what it felt like for her. Coming home felt like returning from war, just a little broken.

“You’re not broken,” May tells him, over and over. His face is pressed into her shoulder like he hasn’t done since he was a teenager. “You’re not.”

Peter doesn’t want to be broken. In most ways, he believes her. But he doesn’t know how to tell her he doesn’t know if he’ll ever trust anyone that way again — not even himself.

The package May brought home is from Betty. There’s a handwritten note that Peter reads and tucks away with his few favorite things, and some of his favorite coffee and tea from the local vendor. Half a scarf that Betty had tried to knit and given up on but sent anyway. When Peter takes the scarf out, he’s left with everything from his old life packed neatly into a smaller box that Betty admits she hadn’t opened.

There’s nothing in here that Peter needs. When he left, it had been a mixture of panic and raw acceptance. Some kind of mania, swinging back and forth between being overly emotional and completely empty. He took with him the things that he needed, and then the things that he wanted, and noticed there wasn’t much of either.

Some things, he’d left on purpose.

Most of those things are in the box now. Old pictures of them, ticket stubs Peter had kept from their first dates. Journals, silly things. Coffee mugs, the ones that were his favorites. There’s a crack in one — he wonders if his ex even remembers breaking the handle on purpose, or if all he remembers is how happy Peter had been when it had been carefully glued back together. There’s a rabbit that he had won Peter at the stupid school carnival. The fur is worn because Peter loved it so much.

This is the hardest thing to explain to anyone — the way the bitter end melds with the sweet moments until neither of them is sour. Sometimes, Peter felt like he was waiting for the next sweet moment because all the bitterness was worth it.

Peter had judged wrong. By the time he figured it out, he was too deep. It doesn’t matter that it wasn’t his fault.

Gently, Peter puts the rabbit back into the box next to the photographs and the cups. The scarf and tea and coffee remain out on his desk. The box stays in his mind.

Peter isn’t sure what he expects on Tuesday. Most of the team had gotten their ribbing out on Monday after he’d gotten back from his second lunch, but they’d all noticed he seemed slightly off and the teasing pittered out quickly. Sam asks him into his office on Tuesday morning.

“I hope I wasn’t overstepping,” Sam says.

“What do you mean?” Peter likes Sam a lot; he’s a very straightforward leader, conscientious and well-spoken.

“Tony and I know each other pretty well,” Sam continues, and he definitely notices the way Peter shifts in his seat. “He can be a lot.”

Peter swallows. “Yeah.” Clears his throat. “You weren’t overstepping by joining the conversation.”

Sam smiles, a little crooked. “Thought I’d save you from the brain fry, but I might have been too late.” He waves Peter’s reply off. “No, I meant sending you two out of the office.”

On top of being a good leader, Sam is smart when it comes to people. A lot of the technical aspects go over his head, but there’s never been a problem that Sam can’t solve somehow, because he knows what people want. And apparently he’s been talking with Anna Maria.

“I think you’ve got a lot of potential, Peter,” Sam tells him.

Peter is tired of hearing it. “I’m happy where I am.”

“I know, I know.” Sam holds up his hands, white flag. “But if there ever comes a time where you don’t, I want the people who can do you a favor to know it’s worth the plunge.” Delicately, he leans forward on his elbows, casual. “It’s my job as your supervisor to make sure my team is acknowledged for their hard work. I’ve done it for Michelle and Eugene, and for plenty of other people who have moved on to other departments. Some have left Stark Industries entirely. Some of them never needed my help or took it when it was offered. All of that is fine with me.”

Peter wrings his hands in his lap and says nothing.

Sam sighs. “That’s all. I won’t do it again without involving you more directly. I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilson.” Peter inclines his head as he gets out of the seat, and he knows Sam understands more than Peter is comfortable with because for once he doesn’t argue Peter’s formality.

Where Stark Industries is starting to pull Peter through the wringer, his job in the blood lab has been an oasis of admittedly boring work that requires almost no thought.

“Do you even need this job anymore?” Riri asks, when she comes to take over his shift. She works with him most often, with a high schooler’s schedule. “Now that you got some fancy tech job?”

Peter doesn’t tell her that he’s not sure how long that will last, when they decide the degree thing is an actual issue, or when he has some kind of psychotic break and they ship him off into the abyss. He doesn’t know how to tell her that he has no savings because he’s been on a joint account for the last three or four years. “It’s nice to do something with my free time,” he says instead. If he’s being productive, he doesn’t think as much.

Riri snorts. “You could be having fun. Aren’t you in the prime of your life, or something?”

Ah, yes. The grace of a teenager. “I can’t think of anything more fun than titrating blood samples.”

“Hear, hear.”

Before moving in with his ex, Peter had never had only one job. He worked like a dog, never took a minute to breathe, and then didn’t work much at all. He feels…it’s complicated. Peter doesn’t really get it himself.

“You’d miss me if I left,” he says instead, settling in for the late hours at the lab.

“True.”

It’s the best Peter will get.

Peter knows that Tony reads his thesis because he gets his name called out over the intercom like a child going to the principal's office. He’s in the middle of making a salad at the bar in the cafeteria and spills several cherry tomatoes onto the floor.

“Mr. Peter Parker, please report to the nearest elevator for an important meeting.” It’s a pleasant British voice that Peter has definitely never heard before.

Cindy jolts, staring at the ceiling. “I didn’t even know we had that.”

They probably don’t. If Peter has learned anything about Tony Stark in his time at Stark Industries, it’s that Tony does whatever he wants. “What kind of meeting happens in an elevator?” Peter kicks the few cherry tomatoes under the salad bar and goes to swipe his card. He’ll eat his very sad salad on the way.

Nothing unusual is going on at the elevators, but when he walks up one of the cars opens up immediately. A handful of the people waiting for the elevator move to take it, but the floor number blanks and says Parker Only, which is very strange and extremely awkward.

“Excuse me,” Peter says with his eyes on the floor.

He has no idea what button to press, but the elevator starts moving without any interference from him, so Peter leans against the wall and tries to pour salad dressing over his lunch with one hand.

Peter wouldn’t have been able to press the correct floor anyway, because the elevator car passes the top floor and keeps going. When the doors open, Peter expects to see dim hallways and more suits. Instead, he sees a tiny robot rolling by vacuuming the hardwood floor of what is, inexplicably, a penthouse.

It’s not a secret that Tony Stark lives in the tower, but Peter has never thought about it enough to imagine what it might look like. Peter hesitantly steps out of the elevator and sees a huge, plush living room that looks like it came out of a catalog. There are lots of modern art pieces hung on the wall, paperwork tossed over the sharp edges of the coffee table, and the tiny robot running into the couch over and over.

Peter carefully walks over and turns the robot enough that it can be free.

“Mr. Parker!” Tony comes out from the hallway around the corner, and Peter straightens up like he’s been caught doing something illegal. “So glad you could join me.”

Tony doesn’t look like he does in the magazines. He doesn’t look like he did sleep-deprived and feral in the office. He’s wearing a tank top and sweatpants, and he’s sweating. His hair hangs damp on his forehead, curling at the ends. The tank top is worn, a faded navy, and it stretches across what is an extremely nice chest. Peter had not expected to see so much skin today. It’s making things very difficult.

And then Tony crosses his arms and hides the chest which is good except that Tony’s arms are also unexpected and not allowed in most business offices and all Peter has to protect him is his empty salad tray.

“You could have just called,” Peter says, once he picks his jaw up off the floor. “No need to invent an intercom just to get me into your house.”

“A call is enough for you, huh?” Tony snarks, moving past Peter in the entrance — grabbing the trash from his hands — and going over to the bar in the kitchen. He pulls out a Gatorade. “Thought booty calls were uncouth these days.” He holds one out to Peter, who declines, before twisting off the cap and chugging half.

“I’m, uh.” Peter swallows thickly. “I assume it’s a work call. Most people just text for, you know, the other stuff. Or so I’m told.” It’s been a long time since Peter has been available for hookups.

Tony wipes this mouth with the back of his hand, the tip of his tongue idly meeting the corner of his mouth. “Work, right. Jarvis?”

Something bright is displayed against the nearby wall and Peter blinks at the display, then at the ceiling. There isn’t any visible projector, and when Peter looks back to Tony, the man is smirking.

“Go ahead.” Tony gestures loosely with his wrist, wiping his face on the towel he has thrown over his shoulder.

The display doesn’t surprise Peter. If Anna Maria had his thesis, and Sam seems to be trying to get Peter more notice than he deserves, it makes sense that his research is making the rounds. There are simulations and notes made in Tony’s handwriting, and when Peter reaches out he’s able to interact with the display in a way that bogles his mind. Peter reaches in and is able to remove the bond structure, holding it in his hands like a bird with a broken wing.

Tony walks over, so close Peter feels the heat at his back. “You like?”

Peter bites his lip. When he adjusts the bond structure, it reflects in the simulation. “It’s workable.” He doesn’t want to give Tony any firepower. Peter already feels like he’s part of a rhythm he has no control over. The older parts of him are thrilled — Mr. Stark with the firm hand and the experience and intense way of looking at things that he wants. It’s just what Peter dreamt of, when he was younger and let himself imagine the perfect man.

The newer, slightly broken — you’re not broken — parts are terrified.

“This work is solid,” Tony tells him, and when Peter doesn’t seem shy of physical contact Tony hooks his chin over Peter’s shoulder and looks at the display in front of them both. Peter shivers with goosebumps when Toony’s breath brushes his ear. “It could change the world.”

“Don’t exaggerate.” Peter rolls his eyes, but he leans back a little. He lets Tony put hands on his hips. It feels heavy and good. Inappropriate for work. Peter steps out of the way, just enough. “You can just say it was good. I know it’s good.”

Tony doesn’t press when Peter puts the line in place. “I thought your name sounded familiar.” He swipes his hand and the display switches to something Peter doesn’t immediately recognize. “We’re working on a textile they want to use for the military and one of the researchers referenced your work.”

Something small and happy bubbles up in Peter’s chest. It feels weirdly like pride. “I’m really good,” Peter says softly. He had been.

But here is where things always, inevitably sour.

“Let me send you to school.”

Whatever pride Peter feels drops like a rock. He can’t say he didn’t see it coming. “No.”

“Come on, kid.” Tony is frowning, his arms open wide like he could possibly be vulnerable. “You’re a genius. I know you’re a genius and you know you’re a genius. We all know.”

“No.”

“Peter—”

“I’m not letting you.” Peter looks at the floor. “Is that all you called me here for? Can I go back?”

“I have so much money.” Tony laughs. He understands people but there’s no reason to look more deeply into what has Peter darkening by the second. “A few thousand? Nothing.”

Peter is going to puke. “I don’t want your money.” He finally looks Tony in the eye, holding himself around the middle. “I really don’t.”

Tony pauses, his mouth caught crooked, like he doesn’t know how to react at all. “Come on.” Soft and chiding and joking and confused because Peter is a raw nerve and Tony probably hasn’t found someone so willing to look a gift horse in the mouth. “You went to MIT to get a degree.”

“And I didn’t finish because…?” Peter waits to see if Tony can pull the answer out of thin air. Tony does them both the service of not pretending he understands what’s happening. “You’re not the first guy who's offered to help me out a little, Tony. I’m just smarter now.”

It’s very quiet.

“You really don’t want my money.” Like it’s only just hitting. “Bear with me, kid. I’m still processing — that’s never happened before.”

Peter laughs with a shake of his head. He puts his face in his hands. “I know it’s not like that,” he mutters through his fingers. “It’s just…it’s too much. This is embarrassing. I’m sorry.”

Tony doesn’t touch him easily like he did before. Peter isn’t sure that’s what he wants, anyway. When he looks back at Tony he sees the other man searching Peter’s face, his hands, his body, his stance, and finding something he hadn’t expected.

“Come on.”

Peter would like to get back to work, frankly, so he lets Tony guide him back to the elevator. He’s mildly surprised when Tony gets into the elevator beside him, not only because Tony is wearing socks without shoes. They stand in opposite corners of the elevator and the doors don’t open even after the car stops moving. Peter doesn’t notice because he’s too busy getting himself under some semblance of control. It’s not until Peter rolls his shoulders and straightens his spine that Tony steps away from the wall and the doors open.

It’s Peter’s floor, but Tony takes him around the corner and, with a grand gesture, says, “pick anything you like.”

Peter stares, and then he laughs incredulously. “From the vending machine?”

Tony pulls his wallet out of his pocket with a flourish and swipes his card. “M’lady.”

“You’re…ridiculous.” Peter covers his mouth and laughs even more. “I didn’t realize refusing your Gatorade had such an impact.” He gets a Sprite. $1.50, out of pocket.

“Come on, Pete.” Tony puts a hand over his heart. “That’s it? All you had was that salad. You’re breaking my heart.”

Peter rolls his eyes and presses another button at random, and Tony leans down and picks up the soda and the candy bar to present them to Peter with a sideways grin. “Thank you.” Peter takes them delicately.

“Most people actually do want my money, you know.” Tony puts his hands in the pockets of his sweats. “My apologies, kid. I’m not used to watching my mouth.”

Peter twists the soda bottle in his hands. He’s well out of his lunch break, and Cindy will at least have a question or two once he gets back. He’s got a lot of work but…those older parts that aren’t broken don’t want to leave.

Too bad.

He opens up the candy bar and hands Tony half. “To remember me by.” Peter grins, small, and then he thanks Tony and turns on his heels to head back to the office.

“I still don’t have your number,” Tony says at Peter’s back.

“You can look it up,” Peter allows, and he gets one last look at Tony in all his glory before he turns the corner. “I signed the waiver.”

Peter put himself through college for the first year. He worked several jobs and had several scholarships. He lived with a terrible roommate. He did his best. He didn’t hate it.

Realistically, he could have done that for the four or five years it would take to complete his degree. When someone very handsome and charming and loving had offered to help him out and pay for school, he had thought it was a dream come true. He didn’t need to work. He could study and sleep and be in love like other kids his age.

But then Peter’s schooling wasn’t in the budget, and it wasn’t like Peter needed to graduate anyway. They were together, going to get married, and his boyfriend had plenty of money to support them both. Their accounts were already the same. Peter bought groceries using a card in his boyfriend’s name. They had plans to buy a house in the country once his boyfriend got that promotion. Maybe then, Peter could go back.

It had been years of Peter taking advantage of someone’s generosity. Even without university, he was living rent free in a nice apartment and all he had to do was smile and be happy. Asking for more felt ugly. He was so lucky already.

It didn’t occur to Peter that he could have gone back to doing it on his own. It didn’t feel like he could have; that was the whole point, now that Peter looks back.

UNKNOWN NUMBER

Sorry about today. And I don’t apologize very often.

who is this???

You know who I am.

:)
don’t worry about it
i won’t freak out next time
promise

If you do I’ll take care of it. We’re friends now, right?

sure
thanks tony

Being Tony Stark’s friend doesn’t change much at work, to Peter’s surprise. Honestly, Tony wasn’t down in the offices unless under extreme duress, and Peter doesn’t get strong armed into any last minute meetings. The biggest change is that Peter starts getting emails from one of the engineers working on the textile project Tony had mentioned. Tony must have given out his name.

It’s kind of sweet.

Peter also starts getting significantly more phone calls, mostly from the upper floors of the tower — Tony whenever he’s bored and looking to bother someone.

“Pepper just gets mad when I want to make conversation,” Tony says. It’s insane that Peter is talking to Tony Stark who is talking casually about Pepper Potts. Absolutely unbelievable. “She tells me I should be working. I’m a genius, and she doesn’t think I can multitask.”

The first few calls had been awkward. If it’s difficult for Peter to feel out a conversation in person, it’s much harder without any body queues, but Tony made it abundantly clear how little could truly irritate him. Quite the contrary; Peter is mostly certain that Tony goads him until Peter starts talking back, like Tony thinks of conversation as more of a friendly duel than getting information across. Peter hasn’t had that in a very long time.

“Maybe you should be letting her work,” Peter responds, clicking idly through his computer. He’s already put through the vouchers for Flash’s travel to San Francisco and he’s waiting for more information from Contracting before he can make an inventory order. Right now he’s shopping for vacuums. “She’s the CEO. I’m sure she’s very busy.”

“Too busy for me? Come on.” Tony whines. He’s a grown man and he whines.

Peter looks at the paper airplane tucked atop of his computer monitor and bites his lip. “I’ve been wondering what you actually do all day,” he risks, although it doesn’t come out coyly like it would have a few years ago. “Since all you do is call me and complain and send me chess match invites.”

“Easy.” Tony is grinning. Tony grins obviously, with his voice. Even when it’s not a real smile, you can hear that too. “I call you and I play chess.”

Peter knows that isn’t true — just the other day he read an article on Tony Stark trying to synthesize a new element.

He doesn’t call Tony out on it, this time. “Fancy a game?”

The dialogue box pops up on Peter’s screen before Tony says, “I thought you would never ask.”

There are other, smaller ways that Tony makes his friendship known. Suddenly Peter has a tab in the cafeteria, and the first time the cashier tells him how much is under his name he almost blacks out. He calls Tony immediately and asks about it, but Tony says it’s as payment for the chocolate bar and Peter is too busy stuttering to properly fight back before Tony hangs up the phone.

Peter has a parking spot now, despite not having a car. He doesn’t tell Tony he doesn’t have a car because he thinks Tony might look for an excuse to buy him one.

“Is he like this with all of his friends?” he asks Sam shyly one day, while he’s in Sam’s office for signatures. “Mr. Stark, I mean.”

“With the gifts?” Sam grins, crooked and knowing. “Yeah, he’s like that. Don’t mention Valentine’s around Pepper or she’ll have war flashbacks.”

That isn’t incredibly helpful because Pepper had dated Tony pretty publicly and that’s decidedly not what Peter and Tony are doing.

“He’s a good guy. He’s annoying, but he likes to take care of people.” Sam slips Peter the signatures he needs and clicks his pen thoughtfully. “At the very least, he’s a good guy to have on your side.”

Peter Parker has Tony Stark on his side, however unbelievable that might be.

He doesn’t see Tony in person for over a week, until the engineer in his emails invites him to R&D to see how the textile project is progressing. Peter is more than flattered — the project is fairly far along and only used a portion of Peter’s research in conjunction with other, far more prominent research, but he’s delighted Shuri thinks so highly of him.

When Peter walks in he sees Shuri sitting cross-legged on her swivel chair and Tony sitting on one of the workstations with a cup of coffee in his hand. Peter balks, stopping outside the windows, but Shuri misinterprets his hesitation and waves him in with a grin.

“He’s got no teeth,” she assures him, linking their arms together. “Just bark.”

“I paid a lot of money for these,” Tony argues, looking at Peter like a shark. “The better to eat you with, my dear.”

Shuri is too busy rolling her eyes to notice the way Peter shivers. “Peter, this is Tony.”

“We’ve met,” Peter admits quietly.

Shuri doesn’t seem particularly surprised, even looks a bit triumphant, but Tony just shrugs. “Just pretend I’m not here, kids.” He seems tired, low energy, and the smell of the full coffee pot is almost enough to overhaul the smell of chemicals and bleach in the rest of the work area.

Peter doesn’t think he could ignore Tony if he tried, but it’s the end of the day and Peter can’t begrudge Tony a chance to unwind where people won’t find him. The lab itself is full of several workstations, some covered in the scraps of projects only half put away, but Shuri pulls Peter to her station and gets out material after material. It has Peter’s head spinning, asking questions and hearing the backfire bullet quick. Peter hasn’t really dug his fingers into anything since he left MIT.

Tony is quiet while Peter and Shuri go back and forth. Peter is surprised to find that Tony isn’t obtrusive at all, just watching and drinking through the entire pot of coffee himself. The lowering level of the pot is the only way Peter is really keeping track of time, because it feels like only a few minutes have passed by the time Shuri snaps her fingers and says that’s it!

“I’m happy I could help,” Peter says with a laugh, while Shuri scuttles around to gather more components from around the room. When he looks at the clock it’s well past his scheduled hours. He should have headed home over an hour ago. “This nanobot aspect is completely foreign to me—”

Shuri makes a dismissive noise. “Read a book of theory and you’ll be the next SME. You’re a smart boy.” She ruffles his hair, even though he’s much taller than she is. “Pick things up so fast, shame on all my colleagues! My new white boy.” She looks over Peter’s shoulder pointedly at Tony.

Tony snorts. “I’m a man,” he says flatly over the rim of his cup, and it’s the first time Peter really registers he’s been watching this entire time. “What’s your ranking on men?”

“Boys are more fun.” She nudges Peter with her shoulder. “What do you think?”

Peter chokes on his own tongue. “I think, um. Both are good?” His neck feels hot.

Tony is looking at Peter darkly. He looks tired and there are dark lines where Peter can tell concealer is smeared over dark circles. He’s not as energetic as Peter has seen him. He looks like a man trying to do too much at once, has given up on a thing or two, and he looks at Peter like he’s tired of trying not to.

But that would be silly, since they don’t know each other very well.

Peter’s phone rings, shrill, and Peter scrambles over to his bag to stop Carly Rae Jepson from blasting too loudly for too long. “MJ? Hey. Did we have plans?”

“Where are you?” she asks, quick and breathless. “Are you on the line?”

“No, I, uh.” Peter looks at the clock with a grimace, and Shuri snorts before nodding and starting to organize her desk to head out. “I haven’t even left work yet. Sorry. I got caught up in stuff…did May ask?”

“No! No. May’s fine. Just making sure you…you know. Do you have your other job today?”

Peter frowns, slowly gathering his things from where they’re scattered around. Mindlessly he takes Tony’s empty coffee cup and takes it over to the kitchenette. “No. I only work that twice a week now, tops. Honestly, I’m ready to be home.”

“Don’t come back just yet, okay?”

“MJ.” Peter sighs, setting the cup down more firmly than he means to. “What is this about? Is something wrong?” She rarely calls him unless he’s forgotten something.

There’s a lot of shuffling, and Peter hears MJ talking to Anna in the background somewhat frantically. The dog is yapping, and Anna sounds like she’s two wrong turns away from a blown gasket even if Peter can’t make out the words.

Peter holds the phone tighter. “MJ?” Quiet. “I’m getting worried now.”

Someone bumps Peter’s hip, and Peter looks over to see it’s Tony casually cleaning out the coffee pot. He starts cleaning the cup as well, looking at Peter — okay? — and when Peter just nods Tony gestures for him to head out.

“I’ll take of it,” Tony says in a low, soft voice, and Peter is so drawn in for a split second before he decides other things demand his attention.

“Thanks, guys!” Peter calls over his shoulder, ignoring whatever MJ is saying — “I’m serious, Peter, just work late. You love that!” — “Sorry. Next time I’ll help clean up!”

MJ has her no-bullshit voice on by the time Peter is paying attention again. “Take the long train, okay? Peter, I’m not messing around.”

“Is everyone okay?” Peter checks his watch. He works in Manhattan and it’s not a quick trip to Queens. Adrenaline is pumping, just enough to make time slow down. “I’m just leaving. Is May alright? You and Anna?”

“Anna just got back from nearly kicking his ass,” MJ says with a derisive laugh. Softer. “We’re fine.”

“Whose ass?”

“Some creep.”

Peter almost misses the first step out of the elevator. “What? At your door?”

“No. Yours.” MJ slows down, a break from spitting fire. “Talked to the landlord, said he kept buzzing in asking if you lived there.”

“What.” Peter’s heart is going to stop. It’s stopping.

“He didn’t get in, or anything. You know Jonah wouldn’t let that fly.” Jonah is brash and terrible about most things, but the things that are important to him he guards like a pomeranian smelling blood in the water. “The guy was just parked out front in that yellowed out space like an asshole until just now.”

Peter takes a deep breath. He has been bolting out of the building and down the street to the subway, but he thinks if he takes another step he’ll collapse on the asphalt. He leans his back against the stained tile wall and looks off into the distance, unseeing, white the gears turn. “He’s gone?”

“I just got his plate,” MJ says triumphantly. “May called the police before Anna went out there and took care of it herself.”

“Anna can’t go out there again,” Peter says. God, he’ll be so angry. He hates strangers. “Don’t let her go out there if he comes back. Why didn’t you call me sooner?”

“He won’t come back. Not if he knows what’s good for him! Didn’t you hear about the police?”

“MJ, this is serious.” Peter clutches the chest of his shirt. It’s a stupid sweater that his ex had bought him and now he’s wearing it like a ball and chain. “He’s not…he’s not good like you guys. He gets angry.”

And of course, MJ has already put two and two together and has the grace not to bring anything up. “Oh, she’s not going anywhere next time. I’ll go out there myself!” Her voice softens. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten all the punches I had to throw in high school for you. I’ll do it again, you know? Some of them will be just for me, for hiding you away.”

Peter slides down the wall slightly, eyes closing. He listens to the rush of the subway coming through, red line, coming and going before he hears a quiet, “Peter?”

“Sorry.” He wipes his eyes and doesn’t find any tears, just the headache pounding behind his eyes. “Stay inside. I’m coming home.”

“He’ll be long gone, hopefully.”

Peter hopes so too, but it feels silly now, after hoping he’d left everything behind in Boston. “Yeah.” He straightens up, rolls his shoulders. “Hopefully.”

He hangs up and waits for the next red line.

The next few weeks are a blur of paranoia. It kicks off with Peter answering questions for the police, but he can’t confirm who came to the door and May and Anna have never seen his ex boyfriend before. He doesn’t want to press charges, sir. Yes, he’s sure. He’d just like to go home, even though home feels a little tighter and more terrifying.

Jonah calls up. He doesn’t check in on anything, mostly just yells about the things he always yells about, but he sounds relieved when it’s Peter who picks up the phone.

Peter starts taking roundabout ways to work. It makes him more tired, as if he weren’t already on edge enough, but it’s easy to forget about his troubles in the hustle and bustle of the daytime. He starts spending more time in the office, working awkward intervals, staying after to go to the gym, shaking up his schedule. He used to see similar faces on the subway every day, but he doesn’t have that anymore.

He picks up extra hours at his part time job where he can. There aren’t many hours to choose from, but RiRi is still in school and doesn’t hate giving shifts away. “Don’t know why you’d wanna be out here on a Saturday night,” she tells him over their Facebook page, “but have fun with all the vials.”

Dr. Octavius calls him late that night, just to check in, and Peter is happy to have more good than bad to share. “Thank you for putting in a good word for me with Anna Maria,” he says.

“Ms. Marconi? Well, she’s a gem herself…” The doctor clears his throat. “And really, Peter, I was so disappointed when you left Boston. I miss you terribly; these new interns aren’t worth half of you. I’m happy to help out where I can.”

Dr. Octavius doesn’t ask Peter to come back to Boston and Peter is grateful because he isn’t sure what he might have said.

Stark Industries lives and breathes like New York City, chaotic and fast-paced and no one bats an eye. Peter spent the first few months keeping up with the revolving door of information, and now he’s finally settling into something that might last a little longer. He eats lunch with Cindy, he argues with Flash, he bears Michelle’s teasing. Tony calls him randomly and Peter tries not to let anyone in the office know who has his ear so often.

Frankly, Peter is surprised Tony has enough time to bother him — it’s the end of the fiscal year and everything is kicking into high gear. He’s seen more of Ms. Potts in the past few weeks than the others have seen all year as she maneuvers the tower to keep track of anything she considers a loose end.

“Funding pitters out at the end of the month,” she says during her open forum. Peter has his headphones on and is watching through the call-in, but he thinks she looks extremely intimidating. “Make sure you keep track of everything so nothing bleeds over.”

In the corner of the video Peter sees Tony asleep and smiles, soft.

Tony Stark is becoming a bit of a problem.

Uncle Ben used to tell Peter he had a good head on his shoulders but no sense of danger. “You’re smart, Petey,” Peter remembers hearing as Ben leaned over to tuck him into bed after a trip to the doctor. Peter doesn’t remember how he broke the arm, but he remembers how tired Ben looked. “Not a lick of sense, you work on that, but you’re smart. Need to be safe to keep being smart.”

Be safe, be smart. Tony isn’t either.

Even knowing that, Peter can’t stop himself from reaching for his phone. who is taking notes for you today? maybe you should sleep at night instead of in front of ms. potts

On camera, Tony cracks one eye open when his phone lights up and Peter laughs. He’s not sure what will irritate the others more, pretending to be asleep or answering a personal message.

Baby texting me first? Don’t get that when I’m a good boy

Not safe, not smart.

Peter puts his head in his hands.

Tony has been nothing but a gentleman — or, as gentlemanly as he can be. Peter isn’t under any illusions. Tony Stark is a huge character in the tech scene, big enough that Peter has been following his career since Peter was in elementary school, and that means he knows the kind of person Tony Stark is. Or, at least on some level. The debauchery, the girls, the drugs and the drinking, the rehab, the way he bites at paparazzi.

But Peter also knows the way Tony cares about the things that he values, how easy he is with his affection and his money, even if he hoards his time. Peter has seen the way Tony cherry picks what to show the cameras, even the bad stuff, the gleeful way he plays on people’s worst expectations. He thinks about Tony buying him a candy bar because Peter admitted paying for school was too much.

He thinks about Tony’s hand on his lower back, on his side, fingers grazing flesh.

Michelle flicks the back of his head. “What’s wrong with you?”

Peter jolts upright, rubbing the sore spot and glaring. “Nothing is wrong. I’m perfect.”

She snorts.

“Shouldn’t you be attending the forum?” Peter asks mulishly.

“Yeah.” She comes around his desk and unplugs his headphones, so the presentation flows over the small desk. She sits on the ergonomic stool so lovingly provided by the office and wobbles back and forth. “This is good enough.”

Peter’s phone lights up again but Michelle is nosy enough that Peter locks it and puts it face down before going back to watching them talk about silly things like productivity and safety regulations.

“I’m not a snitch,” Michelle says defensively.

“There’s nothing to snitch,” Peter argues.

Michelle twitches her eyebrow. “Then show me what Tony Stark just texted you.”

It’s not a challenge Peter can take. “How do you know it’s him?”

“I’m a girl, mostly.” Michelle rolls her eyes. “And you’re not subtle. I see you sneaking around corners.”

“I don’t!”

“Necking with the boss, huh?” She whistles, spinning lazily on her stool. “I never would have thought Pretty Peter Parker would play such wicked, underhanded games.”

“I—I don’t! I wouldn’t!”

Michelle shushes him. “Calm down.” She leans over and picks up his phone. “You don’t even have a password?”

He wasn’t supposed to have a password, before. Peter doesn’t really think about it, usually, but now he regrets it. “That’s private,” he tries weakly, and Michelle scrolls through the messages. It should be significantly more offensive than it is, but mostly Peter just feels…silly. He feels silly.

The further Michelle scrolls the further drawn her brow gets, and she scrolls back up and down and starts reading things over again like she’s having trouble getting the idea of the conversation. “This is all?” she asks.

Peter snatches his phone from her loose grip like it’s water to the desert man and tucks it away in his pocket. “I told you; there’s no sneaking.”

Michelle is quiet for a moment.

The moment is long enough that Peter goes back to pretending to listen to the meeting, before Michelle says, “he’s really flirting with you.”

Peter rolls his lips between his teeth. “Yeah.”

“Like, haven’t fucked yet kind of flirting.”

“Michelle,” Peter chides, looking around to see if anyone overheard, but there’s no one paying attention. Everyone is either watching the forum or out on lunch. “We aren’t doing anything. We’re just friends.”

She shrugs. “Okay.”

It’s quiet again.

“We really aren’t.”

“Okay.”

Peter taps his fingers on the table.

Michelle spins in her stool.

“He probably isn’t even really interested,” Peter says a second later.

“I don’t think Tony gives out his number to people he isn’t serious about,” Michelle argues, with an amused gleam in her otherwise deadpan expression. “I read online that he hooked up with that actress and left her alone in Barcelona with just his driver, not even a phone.”

“That was a while ago,” Peter defends. “Pre-Pepper.”

“He gave you his number. He takes the time to talk to you. How often?”

This is starting to sound a lot like his imagined conversations with MJ would go, if he admitted that his love life was in such shambles. “Every day, usually,” he admits quietly. “Sometimes he’s busy, but never more than three days without hearing from him…so far.” Tony himself had mentioned he tends to go on work benders, forget what day it is.

He’d apologized for it in advance, like Peter was going to be around for that long.

Michelle just grunts, leaning her elbows on Peter’s desk.

“He asked me out,” Peter tells her privately.

Her eyebrows raise.

“I said no.”

Michelle doesn’t react, not like May or MJ. She just blinks, slowly. “You’re thinking about it pretty hard, there.”

Peter bites his lip. “Yeah. I don’t know.”

“You regret it?”

Everyone has asked why he said no, even though the answer seems obvious to Peter. Michelle doesn’t even know that part of the equation, and Peter isn’t inclined to tell her. “No.” He doesn’t. He’s right to say no. He’s such a mess. Peter puts his head in his hands.

Michelle doesn’t say anything else. She just turns her attention back to the meeting and is quiet next to Peter, who is spiraling. If she leans in a little closer, a small comfort, Peter barely registers it.

“How am I supposed to know if he’s like, good for real or not?” Peter asks his shoes.

“All men are bastards,” Michelle responds.

Peter laughs.

“If you’re this torn up about it, maybe just say yes once.”

Once, like if Peter opened the floodgates he could close them again. “No.” He knows himself too well, the way Tony fits into all of Peter’s boxes — literally the blueprint for most things Peter likes in a partner. “No, not even once.”

Michelle gives him the side eye but shrugs. “Then stop moping.” She goes back to the droning of the meeting and Peter tells himself over and over again that she’s right.

He has no idea what the meeting is about, when it’s over. His eyes keep drifting to Tony.