"And I need your analysis on the Lincoln speech by... Let's say tomorrow." Mr. Barton finished and Peter's eyes flicked over to the clock above his head. It was nearing the end of class and his stomach was boiling with apprehension. Peter had no idea what Stark had in store for him. If he didn't know any better, Peter would think it was detention, but the way that Mr. Stark had phrased the proposition: "help me work on something." It was intriguing.
"Hey Parker, tell me what I just said and the deadline is extended to Wednesday." Mr. Barton said and focused his gaze on Peter, raising his eyebrows.
"Oh, uh you said: 'Let's say tomorrow'?" Peter repeated, but he'd been zoned out, truly he wasn't sure if that had been the last thing Barton had said.
"Annnnnnnd, you got lucky. Alright, essay due on Wednesday. Bell's about to ring, you guys can go." Mr. Barton motioned to the door and the class got up in unison.
Quill and Drax clapped him on the back, both of them basically crushing Peter with the combined force of their arms. "Good work there Petey." Quill said. "We're gonna go smoke some cigs behind the school. Wanna come?" He offered.
Peter shook his head and ducked out of there grip. "Mr. Stark wanted to see me after school. Sorry guys, I'll see you at practice." He promised.
"Hey Pete, Coulson's got some pretty cool news for you at practice. Keep your chin up kid." Quill said and put his hand on Peter's shoulder, forcing him to stop walking and actually turn to look at Quill.
"Uh, y-yeah, will do, thanks cap." He said with a small half smile and then pulled out of Quill's grip. Does everybody thing I'm losing my fucking mind? He thought to himself, shaking his head sharply to try and clear it. He didn't think he'd been acting any differently, but apparently everyone in his life thought that he was.
Most kids were heading to their dorms or outside. Eighth and ninth graders still had on extra class, but other than that everyone was out of the day. Peter never really liked this time of day when he didn't have anything to do other than hang out with people or do homework. He had three hours until soccer practice, during which he would have to get dinner, but other than that there was nothing to do.
So Stark really had offered him a respite since undoubtedly Erik would have sought him out, and Peter didn't think after this morning he would be able to hold his tongue around the man. Peter didn't know why he let Erik boss him around last night, it was like a part of him had just shut down.
He tried not to think about it though as he ducked into Mr. Stark's room where the man was leaned over his high desk, scribbling notes on some papers.
"Hey, Mr. Stark?" Peter got his attention and stood a little awkwardly in the doorway, hands wringing around the strap of his book bag.
"Hey Pete, come in, set your stuff down. You cool with getting that stuff dirty?" He asked as Peter took a step in, dropping his gab on the ground by Stark's desk. He looked down at this dress slacks and neatly pressed white shirt.
"I, uh, should I change?" He asked, looking back up to Mr. Stark who was wearing a pair of black reading glasses and Peter had to stop himself from licking his lips as an unconscious reaction to seeing something attractive.
"Probably, why don't you go throw on some jeans and something you don't care about and meet me in the parking lot." Stark suggested and Peter screwed his eyebrows together.
"What exactly are we doing?" Peter asked, picking his bag up and putting it back over his should.
"Now that would ruin the surprise Peter." Stark claimed and gave him yet another innocent wink that Peter's mind played up.
"Uh, yeah, sounds good. See you in twenty minutes."
Received: Erik :) 3:16 pm.
yo petey, wanna swing by my room? drax is out doing smthn
Peter was in the middle of changing, pulling on an old pair of light washed jeans that had paint on them, and an Alexandria High Soccer shirt from his old high school. Peter knew what that text from Erik meant, it roughly translated to: "come by right now and we'll make out for three hours and then I'll try and pressure you into having sex, even though you say no every time." So Peter was glad that this time he had an actual excuse to the man.
Sent: Peter 3:18 pm.
mr stark wants to see me, cant, sorry
Received: Erik :) 3:19 pm.
Ok.
He rolled his eyes and shoved his phone into his back pocket, choosing to ignore Erik's passive aggressiveness and think instead about what he'd be doing with Stark. There was always a chance that it was going to be something totally not cool and super boring or something, but Peter had a suspicion that Stark would have something perfect. They didn't even really know each other and Peter was still sure it would be good.
No one was in the parking lot and there were probably only twenty cars total so it didn't take Peter long to see Stark leaned against a seriously beat up classic car. It looked like it had once been expensive but had probably been sitting in a junk yard for twenty years. It was painted yellow but that was a dull ugly mustard color and chipping.
"What's this?" Peter asked as he came up on Stark who had taken his glasses off and changed into a pair of sneakers and a tee shirt that pulled tightly on his biceps.
"You telling me you don't recognize the car?" Stark asked incredulously and Peter took a step back, trying to survey it.
He didn't know a lot about cars, he understood perfectly how they worked, what they needed to run, but he wasn't really invested in memorizing classic cars. Quill loved old cars and was always pointing them out to the team. But this car... something about it was nostalgic like from Peter's childhood. He walked around it once, taking in everything. Steering wheel was on the other side, meant it was imported... "Holy shit." Peter mumbled. "Oh sorry, sir!" He amended himself but Stark just cracked a smile at him.
"You got it kid?" He asked.
"It's a Bond car! You Only Live Twice, it didn't have a roof in the movie though did it?" He asked, looking up and making eye contact with Stark. It was a seriously cool car, Peter loved James Bond movies when he was a kid, and this car was completely iconic.
"Naw, that was a special topless model, only made two of those. These, however, 351. And this bad boy is number 13, pretty cool right?" Stark asked and Peter could see a twinkle in his eye, showing Peter something new about Stark that he honestly hadn't expected. It made sense though, the grease under his nails the first day they met.
"So what does this have to do with me?" Peter asked, looking over the car again. It obviously wasn't running and was parked suspiciously close to a sleek black truck with a tow hitch on the back, Stark would've had to have towed it into the parking lot. The hood was popped, and bent so it probably didn't close, and some of the engine was on the ground.
"Alright, here's the deal. You obviously need something to do other than Mr. Romanda's homework, and I need help fixing the car. So what do you say, wanna help me rebuild her? I might even let you drive it if we finish." Stark said, banging the roof for theatrics.
Peter could only stare at him for a moment in wide-eyed astonishment. "You want my help? I mean, yeah I absolutely want to help!"
"Awesome kid! Let's get to work, I'll give you the run down."
And Stark talked for probably thirty minutes about what was wrong with the car, walking him around the frame and peeking inside the body. Under the hood it looked like most of the parts were missing and Stark explained that they were going to rebuild the engine part by part, from scratch. Stark explained in depth to Peter about how the emergency brakes in the car mounted from the dashboard and gripped the discs directly to stop the car, giving Peter only the most basic of explanations before telling him to get to work resecuring the connection between the lever and the line.
They jacked the car up together so Stark could slide under it on what looked to be an old skateboard and get started on something that he hadn't explained to Peter. Pete crawled into the cab of the car, sliding the front seat back as far as it would go and cramming himself in uncomfortably. His head was resting on the break pedal, his back on the floor, and his legs traipsing up the broken and crusty leather seat.
He had a flat flash light laying on the floor next to his head, showing him directly where he needed to be working. The path was easy to follow and Peter could tell that the break pads and line were similar to the ones in Scott's car. The cars were made within a few years of each other which meant that the machinery, though from different countries, would be relatively similar.
Peter grabbed a flat head screwdriver from the bin on the asphalt just outside the car and then ducked back in, undoing a few screws that brought a panel off and showed Peter exactly what he wanted to be looking at.
He could hear Stark underneath the car, clanking around, and then a piece attached to the break pedal that his head was resting on came lose and Peter smacked his head on the ground, a large section of the floor coming off, Stark's face peering in through the hole. "Heya Peter." He said, rubbing grime out of his eyes and blinking up at him.
Peter had to crane his neck around awkwardly to actually look through the hole. "Uh, hey Mr. Stark." He said with a small half smile, shifting over so that his head was resting on one of the few parts of the underside still attached.
"Doing okay kid?" He asked, his disembodied voice flowing up through the cab and making Peter's hands sweat even more than they already were in the hot car.
"Yeah. Yeah I'm doing great." He said, truthfully. Everything was making sense, it was like working on a math equation but in three dimensions, and it wasn't a dumb fucking three dimensional graph. "Hey Mr. Stark?" He asked.
"What's up?" The response came promptly and then a curse as Mr. Stark must have banged his head on something.
"How'd you get this car? I mean even in this condition with like 300 of them made..." He trailed off. The school paid their teachers well and a lot of them were well off, but Mr. Stark just seemed to be in a bracket above all of them.
"It was a gift actually. Guess someone knew I liked cars." He answered and Peter pulled on a wire, getting a bunch of dust in his eyes. "Damn," he mumbled and slid out of the car.
"Bottle of water by the back wheel, pour it in you eyes it'll help. You can wears goggles if you want but I think they make me look dumb." The response was muffled since they didn't have a direct window to speak through anymore and Peter went ahead, pouring almost all of the water directly onto him. The sky looked a little darker outside and Peter wondered how long he'd been out there.
He pulled his phone off of the front seat and saw the it was 5:45. "Oh man, Mr. Stark I am so sorry I'm gonna be late for practice."
Stark slid out from under the car, his face had a streak of grease on the chin. "Sorry for keeping you Pete! You gonna come down tomorrow?" He asked.
"I'll come as long as you'll have me!" Peter rushed out, hoping that it didn't sound desperate or weird or anything. Stark just gave him a smile and Peter jogged to the main building, not able to get rid of the grin on his face.
"Alright, we're gonna have a little vote guys! I think our teams needs a vice-captain, you know, to help Quill out if he needs it. Sound alright?" Coulson asked, it was rhetorical but there was a chorus of indifferent noises from the group. "As this is a true democracy I'll announce your candidates and then you'll vote. Alright, number one is Peter, and candidate number two is also Peter. So let's vote, all in favor of Peter?" The team looked around at each other a little weirdly and Peter furrowed his brows. Was this the news that Quill had mentioned to him?
"Wow, a unanimous vote for Pete as vice, okay get out on the field. Pete, talk plays with Quill for this weekend at some point this week. Break." He called and the team got into position, jogging out.
Scott elbowed him on the way, going a long way to his position to run by Peter for a moment. "Dude, why do you think coach did that? Kinda weird, never had a vice before."
Peter shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know... I uh, Coulson's been kind of weird to me this year." He answered and shook his head, shaking away all the weirdness of the day.
"Well, stroke of luck for you then man." Scott said and ran off.
The practice that day went well, their practices always went well. And it was over before Peter even realized that he was leaving to go to the showers. He decided to go with the team this time, not wanting to split off from everyone else just yet.
Almost all of the shower stalls were full except for one and Peter slid into it, just washing himself off quickly. Quill was in the next one over and turned to face Peter. "Yo Petey, can you meet with me after school tomorrow?" Quill asked.
"Hey, uh, not after school. What about after practice?" Peter suggested, remembering that until the car was finished Peter was going to try and not take any days off from it.
"Yeah that works. What are you doing after school?" Quill asked as Peter turned the shower off and wrapped the towel around his waist.
"Mr. Stark needs me to come by after school." He answered smoothly. Peter could tell him the exact reason but it felt like a secret to him right now, and Peter wanted to keep it like that. It wouldn't be a very well kept secret because they were doing it in the middle of the parking lot, but for right now, Peter wanted to have that.
"Two days in a row Pete? That's sucks." Erik said, getting out of the shower himself with a towel wrapped loosely around his waist. Peter's eyes traveled up from Erik's navel to his collar bones a little too slow for them to be in the locker room. Erik gave him a lopsided grin.
"Yeah, few more days too." He said, pursing his lips to the side and trying to look upset in the least bit. "Wanna get dressed and go work on homework?" He asked and Erik nodded, the two pulling on their street clothes quickly and then heading up back to the main building.
The air was a little crisper this late in the evening, but still nice enough for a walk.
"So do you really wanna work on homework Petey?" Erik asked, slinging an easy arm around Peter's shoulders and pulling him in close to his side.
"I guess I could do my homework in the morning. I mean we did get an extension in Barton's class." He said and leaned up to give Erik a peck on the cheek.
"I'm sorry about Mr. Stark, I know I should have let you do your work last night." Erik apologized, actually apologized, and Peter had to gather his thoughts for a moment.
"Don't worry about it Er." Peter said and wanted to drop the subject.
TC would probably be in the main room until lights out so they went to Peter's room and in barely any time of all they were both out of their shirts and on Peter's bed. It was a single but they fit on it just find, moving against each other softly.
Peter was content to just kiss Erik for hours and Erik seemed fine to do that right now. He was shy when it came to this kind of stuff with Erik and he wanted to move slowly. They'd barely even given each other hand jobs and Peter was perfectly fine with that.
Erik's stubble brushed across Peter's chin and Erik cupped both sides of Peter's face, pulling him deeper into the kiss. Peter was on top, straddling Erik's hips in his addidas sweat pants, knees on either sides of Erik's crotch and Peter could tell that he was hard. Peter was half hard but not really feeling like he had to act on it at the moment.
Peter licked up into Erik's mouth, one hand clutching at his short dreads and the other on his bicep. Erik moved a hand down to Peter's hip and he let it rest there, not caring about it for the moment.
"You feeling good baby?" Erik asked and Peter mumbled a 'yes' up into his mouth.
Both of Erik's hands moved down to grope Peter's ass and Peter gave a small moan into his mouth. Erik thrust his hips up and pulled Peter's down, grinding against him.
Peter pulled back a little and tried to get Erik to take the hint that he didn't really want to do that at the moment. He had to be precisely in the mood for it, and not worried that his roommate and boyfriend's brother was going to walk in at any point.
"What's wrong?" Erik asked and roughly pulled Peter's hips back down. His cock was harder in his pants from the stimulation but nothing else.
"I don't want to right now." Peter said trying to put finality in his tone but not wanting to get in an argument.
"Fuck, you always do this Petey, I'm just trying to have a good time and you want to ruin it." Erik complained and rolled his hips up, trying to pull his head back from Erik's grip and break the kiss.
Peter shoved his hands against Erik's abs and the man contracted, breaking the kiss. "I said no!" He practically shouted, standing up off of the bed and pulling his shirt on hastily as Erik stood up too. Peter slung a jacket over his shoulders and wrenched the door open.
"What the fuck Peter! Can we at least talk about this?" Erik yelled, and Peter turned in the doorway to face him.
"There's nothing to talk about Erik! I said no, end of discussion." And then Peter slammed the door in Erik's face with probably more force than he needed to.
Erik didn't attempt to leave the room for which Peter was glad, he needed some time to just not see Erik, maybe a lot of time.
He had to walk through the main room to get out the exit he wanted and he tried to stalk quickly through the room full of eyes that were all on him.
"Peter! What did he do?" TC called after him trying to slow his roll.
"Pete we'll kill a man if we gotta!" Quill yelled.
Steve grabbed his shoulder because Peter obviously wasn't going to stop to talk to them. He needed some fresh air, he needed to go fucking work on Stark's car and just breathe. "Peter stop," Steve commanded and Peter stopped walking.
"I just want to go outside." Peter said and tried to keep his voice even, he didn't cry often but he was majorly upset and did not want to break down in front of his entire soccer team.
"That's fine Petey, just tell us what happened." Steve coaxed and Peter sighed, running a hand through his hair and thinning his lips.
"I'm just going to go outside." He said and pulled out of Steve's grip, walking outside, and this time nobody stopped him.
The air was even colder outside and he was glad he'd brought the jacket, the sun was just starting to go down but he assumed that Mr. Stark left the tools by the car, if he didn't he'd be out of luck.
When Peter rounded the corner to the car some tears started to fall and he sniffled angrily at them, rubbing his eyes quickly to try and get rid of them as they came out. There was a soft light emanating from underneath the car and Peter figured that Stark had left the flashlight on.
He rubbed a couple more tears out of his eyes and stopped at the car, getting down on his hands and knees to try and get the flashlight, but he was met with Mr. Stark, almost completely underneath the car and still working away at something.
"Mr. Stark?" He asked quietly and the man swore, hitting his head against the underbelly of the car.
"Damn, Peter?" He called and slid out from under the car. "What are you doing here?" He asked and in the near darkness he obviously couldn't tell that Peter was upset at the moment or that his eyes were ringed with red.
"Uh, I couldn't sleep, thought I'd come do some work." He admitted. He would have to actually do some homework in the morning though if he was going to work on the car, couldn't oversleep again.
"You alright kid, sound kinda weird." Stark said and grabbed the flashlight, shining it up at Peter's face but quickly setting it back down. "Oh man Peter, are you okay?" Stark asked and stood up off the skateboard, taking a step towards Peter to took a corresponding step back.
"I just, It's Erik, but I don't really want to talk about it." Peter tried to get the subject dropped.
"That's fine, no better medicine than occupying your mind." Stark said and flashed his grin before sitting back down on the skateboard and sliding under the car. And that was exactly what Peter needed, someone to not baby him for just one fucking minute.
They worked in silence for a while, Peter trying to finish everything up with the emergency break line, eventually he would have to get underneath the car where Stark was too, but for now he could still work in the cab.
"Hey Mr. Stark?" Peter called out softly, wanting to get another thing to occupy his mind. The work at the moment was kind of meaningless and wasn't taking much brain power to figure out, so Peter's mind was just replaying what had happened.
"What's up Peter?" He called back, since it was dark Peter could just see the glow of the flashlight from the missing panel by his head, if he looked over Mr. Stark's face was cast in a deep shadow.
"Can we talk?" He asked and turned over, reaching through the hole to grab Stark's soldering iron and fixing a bit of wiring.
"Yeah. What do you want to talk about?" Mr. Stark asked, very sweetly. Peter shivered a little with the cold in the car since it was basically pitch black outside. "There's a huge flannel jacket on the ground right outside if you need it." He added and Peter's hand groped blindly outside the car before he found it. Peter awkwardly pulled it on in the car, there was a hole where the elbow should be and it smelled like alcohol, but it was very warm.
"What did you do before teaching? Ya know, what's your life been like?" Peter asked, trying to pass it off as small talk even though he was genuinely interested in Stark's life, he didn't want to let the man on though.
"It's kind of boring Peter." He said and Pete had to chuckle at that, he highly doubted any man that led a life that would get him a car like this as a gift would be boring.
"Sir, all due respect, but you dress like a millionaire, you went to MIT, you received this car as a gift? Sounds like you life was pretty interesting." He encouraged.
Mr. Stark sighed from underneath the car and Peter heard a wrench slipping on a nut. "I uh, I went into the army straight out of highschool-" Peter cut him off immediately.
"Wait, I thought you went to MIT?" He questioned, wasn't like he couldn't have done both, but the army had a minimum service requirement and if he'd graduated MIT... Stark didn't really seem that old.
"Yeah, about that, I graduated from MIT at seventeen. So I guess right out of college I joined the military. It was a little below my skill level but my parents died and I wanted to do something easy but with a purpose, damn I don't even know why I'm telling you this." He paused for a moment and Peter was worried that he wasn't going to continue speaking, finally though, Stark continued. "I was a combat engineer for maybe three years until the military realized what they were dealing with, don't mean to sound full of myself but a lot of those guys learned their trade in the military, I came prepared. They found some of my weapon schematics one day and asked if I could actually build them. Some of them were crazy, totally didn't work, I, heh," Stark let out a breathy laugh before continuing. "Once drew up plans for a completely armored suit that could shoot, and, get this, fly, totally crazy. But I made a lot of tech and such for them until... Until something happened."
"You don't have to continue." Peter reassured him, but he desperately wanted Mr. Stark to. It was interesting, nothing that he expected, but at the same time it made sense.
"No, It's almost over, I'll finish. There was a field incident and I left, just took off and I think they took pity on me so they let me go. I was making a lot of money when I left, kept me up for a few years until Natasha, uh sorry, Headmistress Romanov showed up at my door and told me to get off my ass, offered me a job and now here I am." He finished up. "What about you Peter, heard that you only came to Cantu last year, what's your story?"
Peter spit out some dust that got in his mouth. "My story is super boring compared to that."
"Soccer goldenboy and math whiz? Gotta have something behind that." Stark prompted. Peter wondered briefly why Stark would take an interest in his life, but it was probably just because Peter had asked him for his life story.
"Well my parents always had me in gifted programs. You know, private tutoring, private freaking pre-school, the whole nine. Then uh, my parents died too when I was ten. Moved in with my Aunt Ben and Uncle May. They tried you know, but they weren't as well off as my parents, then Ben died and I was enrolled in a public highschool, still on the soccer team, but nothing really going to me with mental stimulation. Got near a perfect score on my ACT and SAT and Mrs. Romanov sent me a letter offering a scholarship. That's it." Peter said. He'd been worried when he first got the letter, and he didn't want to leave aunt May alone to live by herself, but she'd prompted him to go.
"Hey that wasn't boring at all. Sounds like you've had a tough life too Pete." Stark said and then they fell into an easy silence, Peter able to think about Stark instead of Erik for a long while.
"Okay so I'm thinking we'll take this weekend off, well knowing you and I we'll say that and then see each other out here at five tomorrow. But anyway, I'll work on the engine, that's my thing and it's gotta be perfect, no offense but I've rebuilt a few engines, think you can handle fixing everything on the back. There's some body work and the lights need to be replaced." Stark explained quickly and Peter nodded along.
He was wearing full soccer gear since he had a game in, he checked his phone, twenty minutes. "Alright, uh, sounds good sir. Are you gonna come watch the game?" He asked hopefully.
Mr. Stark looked back at the car and the wrench in his hand for a moment, there was a lot more that needed to be done and this was kind of a shitty place to leave things, but the man set down his wrench and nodded. "Yeah, I'm gonna go get cleaned up, see you on the field kid. You better score a goal."
"Always do sir." He said, a bit more cocky than necessary, since he actually didn't usually score goals. He would score one tonight though, he would score it and he wouldn't care that his team cheered for him, he would only care that Mr. Stark was proud of him.
He jogged to the pitch, Scott catching up with him along the way. He and Quill had a pretty good game plan for tonight and Peter was hopeful they would win. They were playing against another private school, but they were never much of a challenge.
Erik didn't regard him, but they hadn't spoken much over the past few days. Erik had apologized and Peter said he needed time to think. In the back of his head, he knew that he was going to go back to Erik, but he wanted to feel like he had some control, at least for a little bit.
"Dude you got a smudge on your cheek." Scott said and licked his thumb before cleaning it off Peter's face. "Is that oil?" He questioned.
Peter shrugged innocently. "Oh, I don't know." He said. It was still a secret what he was doing with Stark, but it wouldn't be soon. It was almost the weekend again, the boys would be leaving campus to go to a party and Peter wouldn't go with him, he would stay behind to work on the car. He'd been working on it with almost all of his free time recently. If he wasn't training or doing homework he was working on the car, had even got the entire brake line fixed.
"Alright, we went over the plays last night, everyone ready? Heads in the game?" Quill asked and the team gave a nod. Peter, at the least, was prepared for a game.
Coulson trilled his whistle and they broke, taking their positions on the field. Peter recognized some of the players, knew some of their weaknesses, but he wouldn't get cocky, he would play a good game, because he knew Mr. Stark was watching.
The game started and Peter was whipped into it immediately, hitting the ground running and not faltering. He was across the field in an instant, working from the sides. There was a tall skinny guy right on him, easily six foot five and Peter was having a hard time seeing around him.
The ground was wet but Peter had just been running on it that morning so he was used to the terrain. Bucky had the ball and was going to pass it to TC, who seemed like the most obvious choice, but Peter had other thoughts.
"Buck!" He yelled. With the beanpole on him, the rest of the opposing team didn't even think to tag on him. Bucky got the message very quickly and performed and excellent pass to Peter who ducked around the tall guy with ease.
The ball was coming at him fast, the opposing team barely able to see what was happening, the goalie still looking at TC and Bucky, and then Peter was hitting it as hard as he could into the net.
He'd scored a goal within the first five minutes of a game, and he didn't even have time to be proud for his own sake, because he saw Mr. Stark standing in the stands with a smile on his face.