Starker - Superior Tony, Controlling Peter
A summer fling, Tony thinks, is just what he needs.
Sunlight streaks through the air, the air conditioning blasts cool gusts of wind onto flustered, heated, dripping skin.
Extremesis glints like gold in the summer light, his eyes like glass, and the people of New York are even less likely to meet his eye.
When he glides into his lab, his little ants scuttle into position, and Bucky salutes him in greeting, ever the soldier.
“Good morning, Sir.” Bucky nods, arm glinting, veins blue.
Is it morning? The heat is stifling. Summer tinges the sky with a late day hue. Tony slips off his sunglasses, smiles at his scared little recruits. “Morning, Bucky. How’d my little bees do last night?”
There are so many secrets still to human DNA. So many different configurations of Extremesis updates. His worker bees, his little ants, his little army of scientists that scuttle about his labs are- well, slaves is a term thrown around. Tony doesn’t like that. They’re his little helpers, his little bees.
They stand, trembling in line. Eyes smudged with dark rings from another all-nighter. He finds Peter, small, compact, beautiful, sun-kissed (how odd, Tony thinks; amused, has the boy been catching sunlight in his skin? Wandering outside? How quaint. How very Peter).
“Anderson success rate: 13%.” Bucky reads off the list. Anderson flinches. Tony tuts.
“Well now, that’s hardly promising. What was it last week?”
“15%.” Bucky says dryly.
Tony shakes his head. “That won’t do, will it?”
“Please, Mr-“
The guards come in, take Mr Anderson away for punishment.
The other recruits shake in the sunlight.
The other success rates vary but never impress him. How well Extremsis will mesh is a matter of science and guesswork, a pinch of luck, and-
“Parker success rate: 88%.”
The recruits seem to hiss in awe and jealousy and Peter bows his head.
Tony beams like the sun.
“88%.” He rejoices loudly, voice making them flinch. He claps, delighted. “My Peter, my prized Peter, 88%. See? It is possible. My precious Peter, he never lets me down.” Tony glides over to him, puts a large, dark hand on Peter’s slender neck. The boy swallows, Tony feels it, but he doesn’t flinch.
Tony smudges his thumb across that Adam’s apple. Wants to inhale the boy.
88%. Goddamn.
“Clever little angel,” Tony croons. “Pixie of the lab, Peter, weaving your magic again, hm?” He noses at the sharp jaw, Peter smells like suncream. Smells like dandelions.
“Riley success rate-“
“Bucky.” Tony growls, voice so cutting that Bucky pales, “I’m not finished praising Peter. Am I not allowed a moment to bask?”
Bucky takes a breath. “Of course, Sir. I’m sorry.”
“Good. Peter here is a fine example for the rest of you. Look at him.” Tony forces his fingers under Peter’s chin, makes him look up. The summer brown eyes are full of slyness. Danger. Insubordination. It makes Tony’s blood sing. He drags his fingers over those plush, wet lips. “Well done, Peter. You’ll be rewarded.”
A summer fling, Tony thinks, seeing Peter woven in the blankets of Tony’s immense bed.
He’ll keep Peter for the summer.
*
Summer passes.
The days cool, and so too should Tony’s affections, but they don’t. Peter flips the glass slide under the microscope, makes a note, and Tony watches.
It’s overcast outside. Grey clouds. Leaveless trees.
Peter works up here, in Tony’s private lab.
Summer is over. Fall is here.
“Come here, Peter.” Tony orders, trying to figure it all out.
Peter looks at him, huge brown eyes through lab goggles, and turns away. “I’m working.” A moment. Tacked on. Cheap. “Sir.”
Infuriating. Insufferable. “What’ll it take then, poppet? Come sit on my lap.”
Peter sniffs delicately, resumes working.
Anyone else would be dead. Anyone else would never take such liberties.
But it’s because of Peter that the next Extremesis update is ready to launch. Because of Peter that Tony’s own core is self-sustaining.
If Peter loathes him as a God, he shouldn’t keep bringing gifts to Tony’s altar.
“Peter.” Blue crackles around him. “Come here.”
Peter gives him a long side-look. “Summer is over, Mr Stark.” He says. “Will you be sending me downstairs?”
No. Tony feels like a caged up lion. Wants to growl, wants to roar, he can’t figure out if Peter is an antelope or a Panther, curled up in the leafless trees, waiting to pounce.
He can’t leave Peter Parker in Fall. Not when his eyes match the amber leaves, not when he moves his hips with Tony’s, not when Bucky reads:
“90%.”
*
It snows.
Extremesis is being used by a record number of people.
Bucky tosses Peter onto the floor at Tony’s feet.
The boy looks up at Tony, split lip, snowflakes on his lashes, shackles on his wrists.
“He was trying to leave the tower, Sir.” Bucky says.
Tony sighs, running his fingers through Peter's hair. “He has permission, Barnes. Did he not show you his pass?” He turns to Peter then, lifts his eyebrows, “Did you show Mr Barnes your pass, sweetheart?”
Peter grunts, wheezes, like he’s been punched. Tony frowns. “Tried to. But…” he shows Tony his shackled wrists.
Tony slices them them with his fingers. Peter gets to his feet.
“With Peter, Barnes, give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Tony can recognise a cliff edge. As he sits on the edge of the bed and watches Peter dab at his lip and tuck himself into a winter coat, Tony knows he is standing at the cliff edge.
It’s winter. Peter wears ugly scarves and drinks hot chocolate and tucks his cold feet into Tony’s knees.
If Tony doesn’t leave him now-
“Here.” Peter hums, passing a well-wrapped box over. It’s tied with a silver bow.
Tony stares at it, uncomprehendingly for a moment.
His storeroom is full of presents for Peter.
He opens this one.
They’re cufflinks. Designed like little double-helixes. There are blips in the DNA-
“Is that Extremesis?” He marvels, plucking one out and holding it up to the light.
“A molecular representation.” Peter confirms. “I know cufflinks aren’t that unique, but what do you get the man who has everything?”
He does have everything. With Peter here, still decorated with the remnants of New York snow, he will have a Christmas with everything. A winter with everything.
He’ll back away from the cliff edge in Spring.
*
Peter cleans dust off the TV in Spring.
He’s wearing hideous flannel and no shoes, Tony’s underwear, love bites on his neck.
He’s no worker bee. Tony can admit that. Peter is something else. Hisin a different sense. In a sense that doesn’t mean possession. Property. Peter is his- like he is Peter’s.
Is Peter a Panther? Does Tony control him? Does Peter love him? Fear him? Plan to kill him?
Peter meets his eyes. Tony remembers the boy he used to touch in line down at the lab.
88% Peter.
Such pride. In seeing one of his possessions do so well. What is that now? Four seasons later? It’s love.
Tony wants him. Would do anything for him. He’s tumbled off the cliff. He wonders if Peter knows-
“I want you to use Extremesis for good.” Peter says, smiling. “I want you to be Iron Man. Not Superior. I want you to be a hero.”
“Baby, I’m a god.”
“I don’t want a god.”
It stings. Tony snarls. He’s a lion-
“I want you to save people. I want you to be a hero, come back here and take me. I want the people of the world to love you. Not fear you. I want you to stop hurting them and start saving them.”
Tony laughs, but he’s afraid. Trembling. “You're in the wrong business, sweetheart-“
“You’ll enjoy it. You love being worshipped, let it be for goodness.”
“I already have worship-“
“Tony.” Peter smiles, summer, fall, winter, spring, “I wasn’t asking.”
A lion master.
Tony goes to kiss him, but Peter turns away.
“For every life you save, the more of me is yours.” Peter promises.
Tony’s hungry.
Peter’s love is a gift. A reward. Tony risks his life to feel the rush of Peter’s affections on him once he returns. Peter is intoxicating, a drug, a rush- this must be what it’s like for those who had become addicted to the diluted Exteremesis.
Tony would do anything to get more of him.
And there are always people to be saved, and Peter always rewards him.
He becomes a hero, on an invisible leash, and Tony doesn’t notice when Bucky says:
“Sir, may I have the weekend off?”
And Peter says, “Of course, Bucky. See you Monday.”
When the lab turns its attentions to research and development, away from nano-tech and control, when the weapons division closes down, Tony lets it wash over him.
He has another summer, another fall, another winter and another spring with Peter.
For that, he would do anything.
