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The clock next to his bed reads 15:12 when Peter Parker wakes up, which is absolutely terrifying for the five seconds it takes him to realize that he is in a spare bedroom of the Avengers tower in Manhattan. Of course they use military time, that's so lame . The Babylonians came up with a remarkable base twelve system that's still in use today just for some people to decide to count to twenty four instead. Absolutely horrific, only beaten for 'worst time idea' by daylight savings. Ugh .

Well, at least no one woke him up. At home, May usually won't let him sleep past noon; which sounds fine and reasonable for a normal teenager, but the whole superhero thing really makes it hell. Now, in this room, Peter has to ask himself how the Avengers manage to pull themselves out of these cozy beds in the mornings to go save New York. Peter is not quite sure he would be able to do it. Whatever though, that's besides the point as Peter figures that he's starting to overstay his welcome. Oh so painfully, he peels himself out from the warm sheets.

He fishes out a thick burgundy Stark Industries hoodie and slips whatever pair of shorts he grabbed on over his boxers. Luckily, it's unlikely that there will be many people left in the tower in the middle of the day to see whatever fashion monstrosity Peter has resurrected this morning and with that in mind, he doesn't care to take a trip to the bathroom sink and mirror either. What's the worst that's going to happen, Captain America is going to be coming down his hall right as he walks out?

Eventually Peter Parker will erase the words 'what's the worst that's going to happen' from his vocabulary. Except it's not Captain America, it's Hawkeye. And if Peter's half awake stumbling and mumbling wasn't embarrassing enough, the dude just walks by and pats Peter on the back with a weird look that seems to know more that it's letting on, though maybe that's just world class super spies for you. He never changes his pace, just briefly turns to make contact with Peter, and when the kid turns to ask him what that was about, he's already an awkward distance away. Alright, what the fuck . No matter, he doesn't run into any other superheroes on his walk to the kitchen so that was probably just some kind of Hawkeye thing.

Peter got back to the tower almost an hour after midnight last night and he was completely shot. Social events are not his thing. He had got back, walked through the labs at the bottom of the tower where Tony worked, and handed the staff fragment over. Tony tried to make small talk, asking how it went and all, but Peter was already halfway to the elevator by the time he realized that. Tony laughed and dismissed it, saying he'll find Peter in the morning and that his normal guest room was ready for him.

Tony must not have been too concerned with catching up since he's not waiting around any corners on Peter's way to the kitchen. In the elevator when asked, the tower's AI informs him that Ironman, Black Widow, and Hawkeye are the only ones around and none are on the same level where Peter is heading; Peter relaxes with this information and haphazardly brushed some of his hair out of his face as he's looking into his reflection in the polished metal of the elevator car.

Skating around in his socks, Peter picks up a Spider-Man mug from a drawer and definitely does not almost fall on his ass as he shoots a web across to the refrigerator door and tries to pull himself across the room with the leverage. FRIDAY announces something that Peter isn't listening to across the room as he's pouring himself orange juice into his mug and a bowl of dry cereal beside that. He then takes his prizes to a barstool sat at the kitchen island and lowers himself down onto it.

He starts his ritual of picking up individual Cinnamon Toast Crunch squares and eating them one by one and he sits in his chair so that he's able to look out the panoramic windows. It's a clear morning in the city and there's dew on the cool glass this high up. The sky is a brilliant cerulean blue that makes him think of walking home after school and waiting restlessly for spring break, then sitting on top of the playground equipment in his neighborhood and waiting for school to get back in again.

Peter catches the tenth piece of cereal in his mouth in a row and pats himself on the back. He turns to grab his bowl and hold it in front of him in his lap so that he doesn't have to keep contorting himself at odd angles to get more of his precious sustenance when he hears the sound of footsteps echo through a hall off to the left, coming from the elevator. He looks over expectantly and before long, Tony Stark is waltzing into the door in comfortable clothes that if Peter has learned anything from Harry, are deceptively expensive.

He has a stupid looking tabloid magazine in his hands, inspecting it as he comes around the corner. Peter waves to him but was not expecting the strange look that he receives. Disappointed, maybe? Perturbed? Whatever it is, Peter notices it and it affects him equally. Maybe it's whatever he's reading . Peter starts preparing for the worst even though he doesn't know what ballpark 'the worst' is in.

"How was that party last night, kid?" Tony asks, looking up from the article, and that look was gone. Maybe Peter imagined it? Whatever. He turns to Mr. Stark and places the bowl he just picked up right back down and swaps it for his mug of orange juice.

Peter shrugs, "it was alright. Those kinds of events aren't really my style I guess, but I really appreciate the experience!" This is actually Peter's specialty, telling adults what they want to hear; it's why all of his friends' parents love him. "I mean, I retrieved the staff and everything, so it was overall a success."

"Good, alright. I'm glad you thought it went well." He walks around the counter to the coffee machine with a mug in hand. "Yeah, Clint came in this morning with this paper after his run–"

"--That's weird actually, cause he like, gave me a pat on the back when I walked by him this morning? I thought that was weird." Peter says and takes a swig of his juice, watching Tony as he places his own cup down to fill it with a cappuccino.

Tony nods and pressed the button to start and then props his back up against the counter so that he's facing Peter. "Mh, yeah, he would do that. Especially since everybody in this damn city now knows–" oh god, everybody knows he's Spider-Man? Oh god, oh shit, ohhhh what did he do? "--that my intern's favorite game is tonsil hockey against my sworn enemy Harry Osborn!"

Tony tosses down that tabloid magazine and in fact, right smack-dab in the center of the very front cover, is a rather incriminating picture from the end of the party last night. From when Harry walked him down to his car and Peter kissed him for the hell of it and definitely for no other reasons . Peter feels himself blush. The only response Peter has for Tony is a question in a tiny voice; "your sworn enemy is a nineteen year old kid?"

"That's not the point I'm making," Tony emphasizes as he taps the paper. Peter quickly snatches the magazine into his hands and shifts it from side to side, fighting the glare of the bright white lights above his head. Peter hadn't even realized there was a photographer looking over at them, and he doubts Harry did either, oh shit he has to call Harry, but he'll have to wait on that.

The Stark Industries pin Peter was wearing is perfectly catching the light and is painfully readable in the photograph. Across from that of course, Harry's face is immediately recognizable with his eye visible to the camera; open and surprised. The caption reads 'Return of the Capulets and Montagues? ' In a big, bright, and eye-catching font with a page number below it and a synopsis. Peter frantically starts turning to the designated page but he's cut off by Tony smacking his hand down onto the middle of the magazine and preventing Peter from flipping any further.

Slowly, hesitantly, Peter turns his head upwards to look at Tony with a painfully guilty look. Tony above him, on the other hand, is unreadable to Peter. No way outta this one, Parker, he thinks to himself as he slowly and deliberately looks back down at the magazine. "Well... I don't think I would call it that ," he says, motioning back to the Romeo and Juliet reference on the cover. "First off, we're both legal adults. Secondly, we don't we have a double suicide planned out. So we're really nothing like them."

"This is not the time to be a smartass," Tony dryly responds as he props himself up on the other side of the kitchen island on his elbows, leaning in. "Why is this what I wake up to? With no warning! Goddamned Clint Barton showed me this!"

Panicking, the best excuse Peter can come up with is a hesitant, "...I was drunk?"

"Try again, Spider-Man !" Ah yep, there is an obvious flaw in that explanation now that Peter says it aloud . "I know you can't get drunk, first off, and secondly, you better not have been drinking anyways! You, young man, are nineteen and they better not have been–"

"Okay, yeah, that was not the right response," Peter says, putting his hands up and leaning back in his chair. "I'm sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear me say? But you didn't let me try and explain myself before you sent me off on this mission–I tried to tell you that I shouldn't go! I've known Harry for years and–"

"'Known Harry for years'" Tony parrots back in disbelief. "You're on a first name basis with that guy?"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you!" Peter gets a little louder than he was supposed to, but dammit this guy just needs to listen for once in his life . "I've known him forever! We met in middleschool, we stayed friends all throughout highschool; he got into Horizon first and then encouraged me to get in too! And yeah, all that stuff with his dad happened, but we're all good now. In fact, do you remember how I said I already had plans for last night?"

That was a question Peter didn't actually wait for an answer for, and it looks like Tony is stuck a few sentences back anyways. "Harry invited me to that stupid gala before you did! Do you know how awkward it was to explain that yes, hi, I'm Peter Parker and yes that is me with both Oscorp and Stark Industries –"

"--But you went with the Stark Industries one, correct?" Tony butts in to ask.

Peter gives him an unimpressed look, and he hears someone chuckle behind him where Hawkeye and Black Widow have reappeared. "Stop being so dramatic, Tony," Clint says and shrugs his shoulders, "it's not like he actually did anything wrong."

Tony props his hands up on his hips and declares, "I take corporate espionage very seriously, Mr. Barton!"

Natasha Romanoff, for the first time that Peter can recall, genuinely laughs. "That is not how corporate espionage works."

Clint points over his shoulder at her with his thumb and nods along, "and she would know."

"I don't know why I invited you two to live with me if you don't even take my side." The two world-class spies shrug and Tony incoherently grumbles until his attention is brought back to Peter. He sticks out an accusing finger, "but you're not getting out of this that easily. You've got some explaining to do, kid."

Peter scrunches up his shoulders and looks elsewhere, "I mean where do you want me to begin? It all started when on a rainy afternoon in the fifth grade—"

"—no, no, no! I don't need your whole meet-cute with my arch nemesis," who is nineteen , Peter thinks but chooses to keep that to himself this time. "Tell me why exactly this image ended up on my coffee table this morning!"

Peter has slid down so far into his chair that his head is barely above the island counter. His eyes flicker from Tony to the spies on the other side of the room, who are now also intrigued and have no interest in departing. He sighs, and gives in to his fate with his face stained an embarrassing red.

"Well, to preface, this is really all your fault," Peter quickly says, motioning to the billionaire. "You wouldn't let me go explain why I couldn't go, and so I went and just met Harry there. He used to invite me to events like that all the time when his father was still around, and he's always been good at introducing me to people who I wouldn't otherwise walk up to and just... start talking to. Which is what I know you sent me there to do."

Tony nods along, "so I lingered around with him and he introduced me to a few guys who I spoke to for most of the night. You'll find this funny, actually; I got handed four people's personal business cards 'just in case' you know."

"As if any of them could give you even half of what SI is giving you," the CEO of said company scoffs and rolls his eyes.

"Exactly! That's what I was thinking the whole time, but shoot your shot I guess," Peter shrugs. "And then we got to the bidding at the end of the evening and the staff was the last item sold and the prices kept hiking up every time. The item before the staff though was sold somewhere around twenty five I think, and you said not to go over fifty, so I was like, sweet! I'm set!"

Tony raises his eyebrows, "and then?..."

"Harry said I had been too obvious on what I was going for, since I didn't place any other bids. Three different companies came together to outbid me and I was starting to panic because oh my god I'm about to fail the one thing I was asked to do and after fifty, I hesitated for too long."

The three pairs of eyes on him all widened and Hawkeye laughed at him, doubling over the counter, "did you steal it?" His eyes are bright and amused, "please tell me you stole it that would be so funny—"

"No!" Peter quickly defends himself and meets Tony's worried look. "No, I didn't steal it!"

Tony fills it, "so you bought it. Alright, how much do I owe?" Peter sits there, quiet, sucking on his bottom lip and looking away now but he see's Tony's incredulous look as plain as day. " Peter," he repeats in the kind of tone Aunt May uses when she sees that Peter skipped gym class again and she wants to get to the answer quickly.

"So that's actually the funny thing! Uh, you see, you actually don't owe anything becauseHarryboughtitforme—" Peter thinks that maybe if he's lucky, he will say it fast enough that Tony won't comprehend what he's saying. By the look on his mentor's face though, his plan did not work as intended.

There's a long pause and Tony just stares at him, Peter is pretty sure his eyes might just pop out of his head before he takes in one deep breath.

" WHAT ?" If this were a cartoon, there would definitely be a jump-cut to the outside of Avengers tower where there would be birds suddenly flying away after being startled.

Peter throws his hands up and honestly he could probably throw up too, but that would only make this all more embarrassing. "Look, okay! Harry was kind of drunk and asked if I wanted the stupid stick and I nodded and he bid seventy five million and everyone was so taken aback that he won! And I was like holy shit! but Harry just shrugged it off and started quoting Jimmy Buffet!"

Tony Stark is legitimately slack-jawed. Peter is so laser focused on trying to make it through this horrifying moment that he doesn't see how the two master assassins are reacting, but he thinks he hears snickering. He decides to just power through it and as quickly as he can spits out that, "Harry wouldn't even let me buy him a cheeseburger afterwards, man! And so then he walked me to the car—and this is where the root of the problem comes in—because he was joking around and said something like 'I think I deserve a kiss for my hard work' and I was like yeah, you do buddy!"

Peter pauses to catch his breath. The red from lack of oxygen going to his brain only complementing what was already there from the sheer abashment of this all. Nobody says a word, and so Peter is forced to continue. "So I kissed him, 'cause we've done that before ," Peter says that last segment under his breath and then picks back up, "and that was that! I didn't know there was a camera on us..."

Try as he might, Peter is in fact Spider-Man and not Turtle-Man , which unfortunately means that he cannot retract his head into a super cool exoskeleton and never have to be seen again. Maybe the best thing is to try and explain himself further? He thinks and goes to speak once more but Tony shakes his head before Peter can get a sound out. "No, just don't do it. Don't even try."

In the wise words of Taylor Swift, Peter has never heard silence quite this loud. Another long moment before Tony makes a clicking noise from his tongue and teeth like he's about to respond, but then covers his mouth back up with the hand he was about to use to emphasize his point. Another long moment.

"Are you..." unfortunately, Peter is able to correctly predict Tony Stark's next words, "... sugar babying for Harry Fucking Osborn ?"

"I promise you, I am definitely not doing that!" Peter quickly exclaims, standing up from his chair and swinging his arms around to make his point heard. Now, all three superheroes in the room are laughing their asses off at Peter as he tries to make amends, "I really don't like taking his money! I'm being serious guys, don't laugh at me!"

"I can't believe this!" Hawkeye wipes a tear from the corner of his eye and continues, "this is actually the best thing that has happened to me this week. I can't believe it! Oh, I don't know if I should congratulate you or–"

"--definitely not, as that is my business rival! " Tony cuts him off while still wrangling in his own chuckling.

Black Widow silently picks up the magazine again and studies the front page. "Don't give the kid too hard of a time, Tony." The Black Widow gives him , the lowly Peter Parker, a friendly clap on the back. "I couldn't have done it better myself," she sounds strangely proud which would usually make Peter feel good about himself if this wasn't about to drown in discomfort.

Peter resigns himself to sitting back down and hoping that a radioactive turtle will in fact come after him. Natasha's companion takes the magazine out from her finely manicured hands and holds it up to the light like it's translucent and he squints up at it, "at least you've got good taste! This kid's not bad, you definitely could have done worse."

" Could he have? " Tony argues back, at this point he's cradling his head in his hands, pushing his hair back out of his eyes as he stares blankly into the marble countertop. The two assassins simultaneously responded with agreeing answers; something along the lines of 'yes' and ' oh, absolutely .' Tony groans.

Clint looks down at his watch and notes the time, and shows it to his partner beside him who nods. "Well, we hate to leave you right now, kid, but SHIELD called us in half an hour ago and I just wanted to stick around to see what would happen." Tony and Peter both give him unimpressed looks but neither acknowledge the other. "Now Fury is going to be on our ass."

"Or worse, Coulson ," Natasha adds and the archer beside her mocks a shiver running up his back at the threat.

Clint nods, "yeah, we'd better get our asses over there." He and Natasha remove themselves from the counter, "good luck, Parker!" And just as swiftly and as quietly as they arrived, they're gone again; leaving Peter staring longingly down the hallway they left down with the knowledge that Tony Stark is staring bullets into the back of his head.

Peter turns his head halfway back, but hesitates. He really has no clue what his mentor is going to say next and honestly, being fired doesn't really feel too far out of an idea. Maybe it would actually be okay because if he sticks around he is never going to hear the end of this, and that might just be worse. Tony lets out one more long, pained sigh and Peter finally turns himself back towards the other, and keeps his eyes glued on the counter top.

"So..." Tony begins and looks past Peter, over his shoulder, slowly nodding his head up and down. "You let me send you to a party with your friend-with-benefits Harry Osborn?"

"I wouldn't call us that..."

Tony looks back down at the paper with an incredulous look and asks, "What would you call it then?"

"Uhh.. buddies?" Peter gives him an awkward, toothy smile on the side of his attempt at comedy.

Tony pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and first two fingers. "And you didn't feel the need to mention this to me? Ever?"

Peter doesn't say anything for a long moment. His sheepish embarrassment is nothing compared to the sheer amount of guilt he can conjure up in mere milliseconds. He hesitates, opening and closing his mouth before he just spits out the truth. "I was scared you would be mad."

Tony softens up at that, loosening the choking atmosphere between them. Peter looks away again, over his shoulder and pops the joints in his knuckles, just to have something else to do. Tony tilts his head and asks why he would be mad.

"Well, every time Oscorp is brought up, you have something to say about it. I've just learned to shut up at this point because I really value this job and I don't want to lose it over something stupid like that," Peter explains. "My Uncle Ben always taught me to be self-sufficient too. And so I don't like to lean on my ties to Oscorp. I want to know that I deserve any recognition I get, and that it's not just handed to me."

Tony nods thoughtfully, of course he would understand that , Peter thinks, admonishing himself for not realizing that. "And I guess besides that, my uh, orientation doesn't have anything to do with my work, so it's never come up. And that's something else that I don't want affecting my position."

"Peter..." Tony starts, but he trails off into silence. Peter makes himself look back at Tony and he doesn't really know what he's expecting, but Tony is looking back at him with a small smile. "I'm sorry if at any point you felt like you couldn't disclose that with me. You're right, it doesn't change anything about your position and it never would. I'm sorry that this is how you were outed to us instead of being able to do it yourself one day, if that day ever came."

"It is what it is, I guess. It probably would come up eventually between everyone's teasing and Pepper always asking me if I'm seeing someone."

Tony takes the magazine up in his hands and rolls it up, then slips it into a hidden away recycling bin. "Well sure, but that's still something about your personal life that you should get to choose to tell people, Pete. If you want, I can have this whole thing scrubbed by the end of the day."

The kid at the kitchen island shakes his head, "no, it's alright, I don't actually mind." Tony raises an eyebrow as if to ask if he's sure about that, and Peter nods. "Plus, it's not like we're actuallydating," he shrugs.

"Peter, I'm telling you, it's alright if you are, everybody in this damn tower is queer, myself included–"

Peter's eyes widen, "No! No, we're seriously not dating! We've never–no, no at this point I would tell it to you straight.. or, well.." Tony chokes and Peter feels his cheeks turning a warm red again. "He says that he's too busy."

"Does he know that you're Spider-Man? I feel like that makes it somewhat even."

"Exactly! This is what I'm saying!" Peter exclaims, "but he doesn't think it would be fair to me." He crosses his arms across his body and sits on his barstool with a pouty lip.

Tony chuckles, "well that's too bad." Finally, the silence between them is amicable and not awkward. Peter takes a sip of his orange juice and when he puts it down, Tony is staring at him intensely. Peter nods at him to say whatever he's going to say.

"But did it really have to be Osborn?" Yeah, this might just be the worst outcome .

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