one of my favourite artists released a new song and it gave me some feels 😔
Imagine an au where Tony asks Peter to join the Avengers when he’s 16, but not because of cw, just to strengthen the team, and Peter readily agrees because it’s Tony Stark, how could he not
Fast forward a few years and Peter’s in college at MIT, but visits the city very frequently, Tony and Steve are a superhero power couple, and Peter- pines.
And then Bucky resurfaces, but it’s not the drama of cw. It just,, happens.
Tony fights tooth and nail to make sure Bucky is released into their custody, because he knows it’s what Steve wants, and he’d do anything to see Steve happy.
So Bucky moves into the tower, and if Tony spends nights alone more often than not, it’s nothing he questions - he would go above and beyond the same way for Rhodey and Pepper.
But then rumours start to swirl, and Tony knows not to pay attention to them, having been in the limelight for so long.
Until the article surfaces.
Steve, strolling the streets of Brooklyn with Bucky. Pictured hand in hand, dragging Bucky into an alley, lips locked in a kiss that on paper radiates more passion than any kiss Steve had ever given him.
He can’t find it in himself to be furious.
When he thinks back, to the way Steve’s eyes follow Bucky around a room, the way affection comes so easy to him with Bucky in a way it doesn’t with Tony, the way he sparkles when Bucky makes a break through, starkly contrasted to the way he barely manages to pay attention to Tony’s science.
It was all right under his nose, he just hadn’t wanted to see it.
He has Pepper hit the paper with an injunction before they go to print, because of course he does, even though she makes it well known she’d be more than happy to expose Steve Rogers for the “lying, cheating bastard he is.”
Tony’s just tired. He doesn’t want the fights, the tears, the fall out, the guilt. He also doesn’t want the team to pick sides, probably because he couldn’t stand to see them pick Steve over him.
Not that he’d blame them.
So he packs up in the dead of the night, when he knows Steve is on Bucky’s floor- doesn’t need FRIDAY to confirm it for him. Rhodeys abroad on military business, will be gone for months, and Pepper’s busy with the company and a family of her own, and there’s no one in the city left for Tony to call his own.
He packs DUM-E and U in the most spacious car he owns with an overnight bag, leaves a note for Pepper to send the rest of the stuff to an address he’ll text her soon.
He gets on the road and just drives, up I-95, taking rights and lefts in a seemingly arbitrary pattern, thoughts running a million miles an hour in a different direction, letting FRIDAY watch the road for him.
It’s somewhere near three in the morning when he pulls up to a place he recognizes, heart stuck in his throat.
He can’t imagine Peter would want a fifty-two year old man on his doorstep with enough emotional baggae to fill a space double his apartment and then some.
But he’s a weak man, desperate for comfort and warmth where he can find it, so he slides out of the car, raising a sweaty fist to knock against a door that opens before he has to knock a second time.
“Took you long enough, I didn’t think you were ever going to come in.”
Tony winces. “You sure this is okay, kid?”
Peter wraps a hand around Tony’s wrist, pulling him inside. “It’s your apartment, Tony, you pay the rent.”
Tony stops just inside the door, wrist still hanging loosely in Peter’s grip. “That’s not what I meant.”
And Peter knows, because he always does. He spins around, taking both of Tony’s hands in his own. “I know. C’mon, it’s lonely with all the empty room. I could use the company.”
They works hard between the two of them to transform the third room into a functional lab space for the two of them. The official news is that Tony’s retired to an undisclosed location, Iron Man officially out of comission.
Pepper has his stuff delivered, along with reassurances that Steve will never know where he is. FRIDAY knows better than to pass along any of his messages, and Tony heals in silence.
Peter chatters a million miles an hour, telling Tony all about his classes, his professors, his extra curriculars, and Tony inserts well timed jokes and disbelieving ‘he’s still here?’s where they’re applicable, and it’s so-
Easy. In a way Tony can’t ever remember anything being.
They dance around each other for months, Peter knowing better than to push Tony’s broken heart too far, Tony too scared to unload five decades of emotional baggage and a thirty year age difference on a man in the prime of his life.
When Peter graduates, he starts his Masters at MIT, doesn’t even think of going elsewhere, of disrupting the quiet little life he and Tony have built for themselves.
If he never goes back to the city, May and Ned and MJ always making the trips to see him, Tony sensibly never questions it, and they go on living like two men in love.
Because even though they never say the words, it’s in everything they do. The way Tony will drop everything to help Peter with a concept when he’s struggling, the way he’ll bring lunch to Peter on campus on Peter’s busier days, comfortable because all the students have been sworn to secrecy. He never hesitates to don a suit and be Peter’s date to various formals and dances, always there with a bottle of water and the greasiest food he can have delivered when Peter wakes up with hangovers after too many frat parties.
It’s in the way Peter will make smoothies and leave them in the lab for Tony before heading to class for the day. The way he’ll drag Tony out for a walk in the woods when he spends too many days in the lab, the way he’ll gently coax him to bed when Tony’s been awake for too long, sliding in next to him easily enough when the older man asks.
The way, slowly but surely, their stuff migrates into each other’s rooms, falling asleep in differents beds depending on the night, but never apart.
The way Tony will press kisses into Peter’s hair, his forehead, his lips on the rare occasions he wakes up early enough to see Tony off.
It might take them years later to say the words, but they fall in love long before, the first night Tony shows up on Peter’s doorstep, and Peter lets him in, opening up his door, and his heart, without a second thought.
