Work Text:
There was a buzzing underneath his skin that kept a grin on Peter’s face. His heart and stomach felt full of the night’s camaraderie and the all-you-can-eat chicken wings, his lungs aching for air after laughing so much throughout dinner. Spending time with his friends did that, he supposed. Or maybe it was simply because of Tony.
Peter couldn’t lie, he wasn’t entirely sure when his platonic love for Tony turned into a crush. It could’ve been anywhere from when Tony picked him up in his dad’s hand-me-down Mazda to get some greasy fast-food when Peter got drunk for the first time, to when Peter started ordering larger portions at restaurants because he got used to Tony eating from his plate. Or perhaps it was somewhere between Peter helping Tony move out of the dorms in their sophomore year because Tony’s roommate Justin was an absolute dick, and the many times Tony bought cute little Legos and books because they reminded him of Peter.
“You’re throwing in the towel already?” Tony said teasingly as he followed behind Rhodey and Gwen. “The night doesn’t end ‘til the sun comes up, honey bear!”
Rhodey held the front door open to let them walk through, just barely withholding an eye roll in response to his best friend. “I’ve got a shift in the morning,” he explained dejectedly, muttering a quiet you’re welcome to Peter when he was thanked. “Unless you want to be my sugar daddy and pay for my tuition, Tones, then I’m all yours.”
“Might as well take advantage,” Gwen said with an amused smirk on her lips. She looped her arm around Peter’s as she continued, “We’ve already got Sugar Baby Number One right here.”
Peter felt his face burn hot even as he smacked Gwen’s shoulder, ignoring the fluttering feeling in his stomach just as much as he ignored the curious look in Tony’s eyes. Gwen snickered as Peter gritted through his teeth, “Don’t you have literally anywhere else to be, Gwendolyn?”
The other than embarrassing me in front of my crush was implied, clearly, by the way Gwen’s smirk widened.
“Unfortunately for you, Peter Benjamin, no, because Mary Jane socked our knob and is pulling a Harry Houdini.” A silence followed, with Peter palming his face, Tony throwing his head back in laughter, and Rhodey looking absolutely horrified. “Of the Osborn variety, not actual Houdini,” she clarified after, as if the reason for that particular sock-on-door euphemism needed any further clarification.
Tony snorted, “Right, sure, because we obviously needed to know that Little Red was riding woo—”
Slapping a hand over Tony’s mouth, Rhodey abruptly interrupted, “And I think that’s my cue to get the fuck out of here before we start pulling out our BDSM test scores again.”
“Just ‘cause I laughed about your 91% vanilla score once, Rhodes,” Tony complained, earning chuckles from Gwen and Peter and a middle finger from his best friend. “I’m sure it’s changed since you met Carol!” And there goes another finger.
Rhodey quickly said his good-byes, vowing to get Tony back for embarrassing him somehow, and then made a beeline to his car. Gwen wasn’t far behind, making an excuse about going to the campus library to get some last-minute studying in, leaving Peter alone with Tony.
“And then, there were two,” Tony sing-songed, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. He pulled out his phone to check the time briefly. “Hey, it’s barely past ten. D’you need to head back or you down for some dessert?”
Peter perked up at that. “My second stomach is very down.”
Tony chuckled, walking Peter to his car before deciding to swing by their usual late-night spot. The mom-and-pop ice cream shop in the middle of their college town was bustling with other students, and the two of them perused the flavors as if they were planning to get anything but their tried-and-trues.
“How can I help you boys?” the worker asked them.
“Can I get two scoops of the strawberry shortcake, please?” Tony answered. “And he’ll get a double with Rocky Road and pecan. Same tab, thanks.”
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to Peter, a simple thing as ordering ice cream, but the fact that Tony remembered what he liked automatically was… nice. Not even Gwen, someone Peter’s known since high school and considered his best friend, would’ve been so sure of his order without asking.
Peter’s wallet was barely in his hand by the time Tony was already tipping at the cashier. “Oh, you didn’t need to—”
“I wanted to,” Tony told him, smiling softly. He handed Peter his cup with a wooden spoon and a napkin, nudging them away from the counter.
The two of them hovered in the middle of the shop for a long moment, only seeing a crowd of people occupying stools or standing next to the people occupying the stools. And as much as Peter loved being around people, he didn’t favor the gaggle of noise that came with them. That, seemingly, was something Tony picked up on.
Tony stepped closer to Peter and offered, “We can chill in my car, if you promise not to be like Steve and drop your entire fuckin’ cup on the carpet.”
Peter stifled his laugh, scooping a bite of pecan ice cream into his mouth. “Cross my heart and hope to die, Mr. Stark.”
“Ew, shut up,” Tony chastised, playfully elbowing Peter in the side as they walked outside. He shoved the wooden spoon into his mouth as he searched for the keys to his car, unlocking it, and ducking inside.
While Peter couldn’t be sure when he caught feelings for Tony, he definitely felt the full force of it in his chest tonight. It was in the way Tony asked to try the ice cream flavors that Peter got, as if he hadn’t already tried them a million times before; the way Peter reached across the console to feed Tony anyway, just because he could. It was even in the way Tony serenaded Peter as they drove back to the apartments, screaming out the wrong lyrics to rock and roll songs that he didn’t know; the way Peter couldn’t help how much his cheeks hurt from smiling so much because no matter what happened, they’d always have this.
Before long, they reached Peter’s apartment. Without fail, Tony parked in a spot near Peter’s building and left the engine running. They both unbuckled but made no move to exit the vehicle, because that wasn’t what they wanted. It wasn’t what they did. Peter didn’t remember when it started, but it became a thing early in their friendship, when they sat in front of Tony’s car and just talked for hours. Ned asked him sometimes what people could even talk about for that long, and Peter’s answer was always the same: anything and nothing and everything in between.
They talked about pointless things, like Peter’s Lego collection or Tony’s boring engineering professors or their recent favorite movies playing at the theater. They talked about meaningful things, too, like Peter’s obligations to his aunt after his parents died or Tony’s expectations from his parents to follow in their footsteps or their fears and dreams that they told nobody else but each other.
Sometimes they didn’t even need to talk, just enjoying a companionable silence while they scrolled through their phones and listened to the music playing on the radio. Peter found himself leaning against the window in the passenger seat, grinning absent-mindedly as he watched Tony, and Tony would do the same thing, smiling right back at him once he noticed. More words were spoken in those silences than Peter could fathom, minute expressions on Tony’s face that made the butterflies in Peter’s stomach go wild, and sometimes…
Sometimes he wondered if he was reading too far into things. He knew he could fill the quiet with words, could ask Tony one simple thing, but often his fear would keep the what if locked in his throat. The thing was, Peter valued having Tony in his life as a close friend more than what if.
Peter’s eyes slid over the dashboard and caught on the digital clock, making him jump in his seat. “Oh, shit, it’s past three? Dude, you should go sleep. Don’t you have an eight o’clock lecture?”
Tony waved him off, slouching further into the seat. “Pete, c’mon, I haven’t gone to that eight A.M. class since, like, week two.”
“Isn’t attendance practically twenty percent of your grade?”
“Pepper texts me the clicker code every morning. I’m fine.”
Peter shook his head despite the growing smile on his face. “You sure are something else, Tony Stark.”
“And that’s why you love me, Peter Parker,” Tony responded, throwing a toothy grin in his direction.
Peter felt his heart stutter, because yes, one hundred percent, yes, and he moved to lightly shove Tony’s face away, if only to give himself a moment to recover. Tony laughed under his breath, which didn’t help the situation. “Seriously though,” he started, hoping his voice didn’t waver, “I should probably let you go. We’ve been hanging out for, what, eight hours now? I’m getting sick of your face.”
“You wound me,” Tony jested, unlocking the doors. “Alright, you win.” He stepped out, rounding the front of the car to meet Peter in a hug good-bye.
Tony was just tall enough to comfortably wrap his arms around Peter’s shoulders, pulling Peter in tightly. His arms slipped around Tony’s waist as he leaned into the hug, reveling in the warmth that radiated from Tony’s body and blanketed over them both. Slowly, Tony began to rock side-to-side, pressing his mouth to the crown of Peter’s head.
For a moment, Peter worried that the hectic beating of his heart would be ridiculously obvious to Tony with them being so close—at least, until he felt similar quickening thuds from Tony’s own chest.
Peter pulled back far enough to lift his head without breaking from the embrace, looking up to find an almost… familiar look in Tony’s eyes that he still didn’t have the name for, after all this time. It was the same look on Tony’s face that appeared when he listened to Peter talk at length about his science projects, or when Peter would change into Tony’s clothes because he got caught in the rain, or even a few minutes ago when they were just sitting in pure silence in Tony’s car.
In a voice barely louder than a whisper, Peter asked, “What’s that face?”
Tony blinked slowly, his eyes flickering up to meet Peter’s gaze. Notably, he didn’t pull away either. “What face?”
“That face that’s currently on your face,” Peter answered, suddenly feeling a bout of impulsiveness shoot through his veins. “Is that your ‘I want to kiss you’ face?”
A pink flush spread over Tony’s cheeks, and he started to stutter. “I—no—that’s just—um… I-I mean, what’s…” He audibly swallowed, uncharacteristically nervous, and then challenged, “Well, what’s your ‘I want to kiss you’ face?”
Peter pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, realizing just how close they were now, all but breathing each other’s air. He stared at Tony’s mouth before shifting his gaze up to Tony’s eyes, finding an answer there to a question he didn’t realize he’d been asking.
“Looks a little like this…”
He leaned up to capture Tony’s mouth with his in what was meant to be a quick peck, a brush of lips meant to test the waters, but then Tony pressed forward, deepening the kiss as he tilted Peter’s chin higher. The rush of endorphins that flooded his brain was just as easy to get addicted to as the taste of Tony on his tongue.
Tony’s lips were soft, that was Peter’s first thought directly after, dear lord, I want to kiss him forever.
When they eventually pulled apart, Peter was slow to open his eyes, focused on the tingling that lingered across his lips, the warmth that bloomed in his chest and spread to his extremities. Tony brushed the pad of his thumb across Peter’s cheek, and he finally blinked his eyes open, brown meeting brown.
Tony was smiling so wide, his eyes bright as he took his fill looking at Peter. “Hey, you.”
Peter pressed his mouth into a line, hoping and likely failing to suppress his own grin. “Hey, yourself.”
“So… Is this the best time to tell you that I really like your ‘I want to kiss you’ face?”
With an incredulous laugh, Peter gasped, “You little shi—”
Peter figured he wouldn’t get tired of Tony interrupting him with kisses any time soon.