Received: Erik 3:15 pm.
Wanna get some coffee after school today?
Peter stared down at the message on his phone, raising one eyebrow and puzzling over it. First of all, it was a Monday afternoon so they weren't allowed to leave campus, second of all, Erik had just asked him this. Erik the douche.
He pocketed his phone for just a minute and tossed his book bag unceremoniously onto his bed.
Tony had been an ass today. Well not really, Peter considered the fact that maybe he was being the ass. Tony had asked him to stay after class and Peter had refused, stating that he didn't have the time, which had apparently warranted a barrage of texts from the man asking him if he was okay, if he needed anything, etc, etc.. Peter didn't want to deal with it.
Scott had told him that Tony resolved the situation with Strange, for which Peter was grateful, but that just added another layer to his misery, that now Scott knew he was dating Tony. Things were getting confusing for him, fast. Peter was having a hard time keeping up with whether or not continuing his relationship with Tony was in both of their best interests.
Of course he wanted to be with Tony forever, but currently the most rational thing would seem to be calling it quits for a few months until Peter graduated and things were a little less weird.
Desperately though, Peter didn't want to do that. He really did want to keep seeing Tony, even if it was in secret. He was just so fucking confused at the moment that it was near impossible for him to think straight.
He pulled his phone back out of his pocket, intent on writing something to Tony, to try and clear up the air of misunderstanding surrounding them, but instead he found Erik's message still waiting for a reply, and he focused on that instead.
Sent: Erik 3:23 pm.
It's a Monday afternoon? But okay haha.
Pete couldn't really say what drove him to agree to hang out with Erik. He wanted to hear what the man had to say after all this time, but he also desperately didn't want to spend time with Erik, so he was at a stalemate. The words he sent, however, spoke for his turmoiled mind.
Catching up with Erik wouldn't be bad, especially if they were in a populated area surrounded by plenty of people so Erik couldn't attempt to hit him again. Peter wasn't really sure if he could take another one of Erik's muscled slaps.
Pete pulled open his chat log with Tony, the mans last few frantically kind texts sitting stagnant, waiting for him to respond. He was halfway through typing one word when there was a knock at the door, Pete tossed his phone to the side and called "come in."
Scott walked in, looking curiously at Peter with his phone precariously at the edge of the bed from where he'd softly thrown it, but shook his head, obviously not caring. "Hey, did you call, you know who?" Scott asked, wiggling his brows and then amending himself. "Wait, that sounds like Voldemort, we need a better code word Pete."
"No, I didn't call Tony, and seriously Scott, no ones going to make the connection. I just don't know what to say to him." Peter explained and Scott pulled out the rolling chair from Peter's desk, taking a seat and absent-mindedly swiveling himself back and forth.
"Why don't you just tell him how you feel?" Scott suggested innocently, shrugging his shoulders comically high.
"How do I feel Scott?" Pete questioned, running a hand through his hair and flopping back on the bed with an undignified pouting noise. Scott would be no help, he couldn't be any help. He still didn't understand the intricacies of his and Tony's relationship. About how the two functioned as a unit. About how, really, truly, utterly, Peter didn't know how he felt.
"You like him a lot." Scott suggested introspectively.
Pete could only manage a groan of annoyance.
"Oh, you like him a lot." Scott amended.
"Yes Scott! We've established that I like him. Moving on." Peter quipped, sounding harsh to his own ears but Scott just laughed at him.
"So just tell him that you're a moody idiot who needed a little space." Scott offered up, taking a seat on Pete's bed and handing him his phone.
Peter stared down at his phone, not really feeling like sending Tony a text now. "That's dumb. That sounds dumb."
Scott pulled the phone out of Peter's hands, "here I'll handle the diplomacy." Scott offered and Peter vainly tried to snatch his phone back, but gave up quickly, just accepting that Scott would say whatever and things would work out.
"Hey what's this?" Scott asked and before Peter could pull the phone away he was reading a new message aloud. "Yeah, I know, we can always sneak out haha. Wanna meet me at five?" Scott stopped reading the text and looked up at Peter. "Erik Pete? Really? You're going to go out with Erik, your piece of shit ex boyfriend, while your seemingly awesome current boyfriend has been moping around all day worried that you're not into him anymore?" Scott accused.
"No, no, it's not like that. Erik asked if I would go get coffee with him, I think he just wants to catch up." Peter took his phone back and stood up, preparing to go down to the track and run a few laps.
"In the wise words of Peter Parker: 'That's dumb. That sounds dumb.'" Scott mocked and Peter gave him a comical sneer.
"Just shut it Scott, everything will get figured out." Peter assured and began to change into his sweat pants, not minding that Scott was still sitting on the bed, since they had to change in the locker rooms all the time.
Scott stood up and put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "No Peter, everything won't get figured out unless you actively try to figure it out. You hold all the power right now Pete, over whether or not you hang out with Erik, over Tony's emotions, hell, over the whole soccer team. So just remember that-" Pete cut Scott off.
"That with great power comes great responsibility." Pete echoed the voice of his uncle Ben, the set of morals that he'd stood by, and adapted Peter to stand by.
"I was going to say 'don't fuck it up' but that's better, much more poetic. Alright Pete catch ya later." Scott said and swung out of the room, leaving Peter confused and hopeless.
"Looking sharp Petey, as usual." Erik commented. Peter really wasn't, he was still wearing his running clothes and there were sweat stains under his arms on the tee shirt.
"Uh, yeah sure. Anyway, what's your grand plan to get out of here?" Peter questioned. There was always someone manning the front gate, really to make sure that no one was getting in who wasn't supposed to, but also so that students didn't just randomly leave.
"Oh there's a spot past the soccer field where's the fence is wide enough to slip through." Erik noted and motioned for Peter to follow him. The section directly past the field was full of trees, so it made sense that no cameras or anything would be there.
"Wow, the things you learned while not hanging with the team." Peter commented.
Erik gave a shrug, a noncommital answer and Peter realized it was probably because he had brought up the team at all. It must be pretty awkward for Erik now that he wasn't on it, though that would never be subject to change.
"So where are we going?" Pete asked, slipping through a gap in the fence behind Erik and onto the sidewalk, facing a busy street.
"I was thinking that coffee shop down that road that we used to go to all the time." He suggested.
There was one that Peter remembered, it was a small shop and they had maybe gone there a handful of times not all the time. It wasn't like it was special to them in any way, but Peter didn't question it, just walked beside Erik in relative silence until they reached it.
He still hadn't texted Tony, and really needed to do that.
"Are you still seeing that guy?" Erik asked and it took Peter a moment to realize he was referring to whoever had given him the hickeys all that time ago. Tony.
"Yeah, we're still together." He saw no point in denying it, and Erik had asked anyway.
"Does he go to our school?" At this point they were nearing the coffee shop, Erik held open the door for Peter when they got there and Peter sighed.
"Uh, no. He doesn't." Erik seemed to drop it for a moment as they ordered their drinks and took a seat in the corner in the back of the shop. Peter didn't really want to answer a bunch of questions about Tony at the moment.
"Is he in Alexandria then?" Erik continued the line of questioning. He knew that Peter still had a few friends back there that he would talk about sometimes, not that Erik had ever cared to meet Michelle or Ned.
"Yeah. Back home." Peter lied smoothly.
Erik didn't respond for a moment, and then got up when their names were called for the drinks, leaving Peter alone for just a moment.
He pulled his phone out and typed a fast text to Tony.
Sent: Tony 5:32 pm.
Hey sorry things are weird recently. We'll talk soon.
He hoped that was reassuring enough, as he had to put his phone down after that, not wanting to seem rude to Erik, like he was ignoring him for his new boyfriend.
"I wanted to apologize." Erik said almost as soon as he sat back down, passing Peter his cup and clasping his hands on the table in front of him.
Peter just gave him an inquisitive look, not commenting just yet. Obviously, Peter knew what he wanted to apologize for, but Pete was going to let Erik do his own talking, to owe up to what he'd done.
"For how I reacted when I saw those hickeys on you. I mean, obviously, it was uncool of you to cheat on me. But mainly it was uncool of me to hit you." Erik said. Even though he'd said it in the most stupid way possible, he still sounded genuine, and Peter appreciated that.
"I'm not going to say it's okay." Peter said and took a deep breath. "But I'm willing to look past it if you still want to be friends or something." He finally said. And it was true, he would rather be friends with Erik than for things to just be super awkward between them.
"That's fine, I didn't expect you to forgive me or anything. We just used to be so close, and I at least wanted some of that back." He explained and Peter could understand that. He'd thought almost that same thing a few days ago when they'd passed each other in the hall.
If Erik was really willing to try and be better than Pete would be here for it. It would probably just make Erik even more of a douche if he tried to ignore him.
There was a buzzing from his pocket and Pete realized it must be a response from Tony, so he excused himself to the bathroom and walked over to it, shutting the door and locking it before he pulled his phone out.
Received: Tony 5:40 pm.
I have an emergency board meeting in Los Angeles, I'll be back around the seventeenth. Talk then.
And that text was far from reassuring. It was so cold and lifeless, it was businesslike. Peter didn't like it.
Peter stayed in the bathroom for probably far to long trying to think of a response to Tony, something that would sound genuine.
Sent: Tony 5:45 pm.
Sounds boring, wish I could have gone with you.
It was a stretch, didn't even really sound like something he would say, but Peter figured it conveyed his point.
Received: Tony 5:46 pm.
That would have been a bad decision.
And there it was, the text that completely destroyed any hope Peter help onto that maybe their relationship was still simmering. It was like Tony was on alert, trying to make sure that nothing inappropriate happened.
Obviously Peter knew that would have been a terrible idea, they would have been found out for sure. But still, it was a fucking joke. The sentiment of the thing was the true meaning, not Tony taking it literal.
Peter shoved his phone back into his pocket and went out to the cafe again.
He wanted to go back to the dorms, lay down on his bed and sob, or run for the rest of the evening, or just take a fucking nap.
Worst of all, Tony would be gone all week. The remaining four days they would have a stupid substitute teacher who didn't care about the classes and who didn't care about Peter. Not that it seemed like Tony really cared about Peter right now.
There was another vibration in Pete's pocket, but he didn't check it.
"Hey, Scott's girlfriend broke up with him, he's really torn up. Hate to do this, but could we head back?" Peter lied, wanting a reason to leave. Scott didn't even have a girlfriend, but Erik wouldn't know that now that he wasn't on the team.
"Yeah of course!" Erik said and stood from his seat, pushing the chair in and motioning for Peter to lead them onward.
There wasn't practice tonight, they didn't have practice some Mondays and nobody had been feeling it since Peter had yelled at them all yesterday. Peter was glad for that, he didn't want to have to go deal with all of them at the moment.
They walked in contented silence for most of the way back, Peter taking in the sights of the bustling city around them. Neither of them were wearing their uniforms, so at least no one would call a truancy officer on them.
"Hey Pete uh, can I ask you a question?" Erik asked.
That was the worst possible way to phrase a question, but Peter allowed it anyway. "Yeah sure, go ahead." He said, but dreaded what was about to come out of Erik's mouth. It was going to be something dumb, or something that pried into his personal life.
"I was just wondering, since you know, your boyfriend lives in Alexandria and all. Would you, and you can say no of course, just, would you want to go to homecoming with me?" And that was the number one thing that Peter had least expected from Erik.
The local public high school let kids from Cantu and girls from the Catholic school across town to go to their prom and homecoming, but Peter hadn't actually considered going. Most of the guys were going to go, rumor had it they were even going to finally meet Quill's rumored girlfriend.
"Um I don't know Erik. Let me think about it?" Peter asked as they slipped back onto school grounds, walking across the soccer field towards the dorms.
"That's totally cool! Just let me know soon so I can buy the tickets- or not, no biggie." He said with a grin.
"Sounds good." Peter agreed and then Erik jogged off to the main school building for something while Peter continued up into the dorms, his mind made up to just go take a nap for the next four days till Tony got back. He just wanted to talk and find out if they were outstadingly terrible at communicating over text, or if maybe they really were just falling apart.
The main room was pretty dead for a Monday night, but they had a project due in Barton's class tomorrow that most kids had procrastinated over the weekend, so he figured everyone was working on homework. Peter had it done.
Scott was sitting on the couch, watching Scrubs reruns and Peter took a seat on the couch next to him, maybe he could just fall asleep there.
"Hey Petey." Scott said, but seemed more interested in the tv show.
Pete made a nondistinct noise and pulled his phone out of his pocket, deleting the notification of Tony's text before he even read it and opening Erik's chat.
Sent: Erik 6:12 pm.
Homecoming sounds great.
There, he did it. He agreed to go to a dance with Erik.
It wasn't that bad. He couldn't even go with Tony in the first place, so if he'd wanted to go he'd need a date and Erik was as good of one as any. Erik knew that he had a boyfriend and seemed to respect that, so they were just going with friend.
"Oh hey, Thor has this lesbian friend from the Catholic school and she wants a date to homecoming so Thor told her that he knew this single gay guy and maybe they could go as like a friends thing, and anyway that was you. So do you want to go to prom with this lesbian chick?" Scott rambled off.
"I understood every word you said separately, but together that made no sense." Peter joked, raising his eyebrows. Scott had a habit of losing the point in the middle of his ramblings and then rushing to find it at the end. "And I already have a date for homecoming anyway."
That got Scott's attention and he sat up straighter. "Dude you can't bring Tony to homecoming." Scott said, as if Peter was that dumb.
"No, Erik asked if I wanted to go with him, as like a friend thing." Peter explained.
"I assume you punched him in the face as your response?" Scott goaded, turning the volume down on the television, as apparently this took extreme precedent.
"Uh, no. I said yes. He knows I have a boyfriend so I don't think it's that big of a deal." He shrugged and slouched back down further into the couch, intent on getting comfortable. Apparently though, Scott wasn't going to let that happen and kept talking away.
"Yes it is a big deal! Why are you going with him? You hate him!" Scott accused, seeming to be actually really upset. "See going with this lesbian girl would have been perfect because it wouldn't have made Tony worry at all! Now you're going with Erik? I mean Peter you are 1:1 for cheating on your boyfriends and I think we all know how that ended up last time." Scott said, and rationally Peter knew that Scott hadn't meant what he said, but it still made Peter was to throw up.
"What the fuck Scott! You know how big of an asshole Erik was being at that time. And I'm not going to cheat on Tony. How could you think that?" Peter tried to keep his voice down since they weren't the only ones in the room, but he still couldn't stop himself from getting a little heated.
"Exactly, Erik's an asshole." Scott focused in on one of the things Peter said, giving him an 'i told you so' look.
Peter got up and walked away. He wasn't going to get in a shouting match with his best friend.
Thankfully T'Challa wasn't in their room, so when he got there and immediately broke into tears, no one was there to see it.
Peter felt another vibration from his phone and he pulled it out. It was another text from Tony.
Received: Tony 5:48 pm.
But I like making bad decisions with you :)
Received: Tony 6:30 pm.
Wanna call me tonight? We can just talk on the phone for a while?
More tears welled up in Peter's eyes and he lay on his bed, pulling the blankets up around him, he didn't even take his shoes off.
Of fucking course Tony wasn't mad at him, or wanting to take a break. Peter was the one being rash, making stupid decisions.
Now he was going to prom with Erik, and like Scott had said, Peter had a 100% track for cheating on his boyfriends.
He pulled his phone back up, confident that TC would at least be a few more minutes, and then pulled up Tony's contact. There was a picture of their car for the photo, that made Peter smile, and then cry some more.
Pressing the call button, Peter held the phone up to his ear and listened to the dull ringing sound. He didn't know if maybe Tony was in a meeting and couldn't talk, maybe now was a bad time, maybe he was interrupting something important. Maybe this was stupid- Peter was cut out of his thoughts by the sound of Tony's voice.
"Hey baby." It said in a quiet tone, not a whisper, just soothing.
"Hi." Peter said, just as softly. He was worried he would sob more if he started talking.
"Are you okay?" Tony could immediately tell something was wrong, which made Peter smile again, and then cry harder because of how stupid he'd been, thinking that Tony was through with him.
"No." He responded, vague and unhelpful, but that's the mood Peter was in.
"What's wrong? How can I make it better?" And there was the famous thoughtfulness of Tony Stark, making Peter feel better.
"Tell me you still like me." Peter said, it sounded whinier than he'd intended, more petulant and child like, but Peter was still a child for now.
The line was a little quiet for a moment, he could hear Tony take a deep breath. "Oh Petey, I care about you so much. I'm sorry that I made you think I wasn't interested any more. Is that what this is all about?"
Peter ignored his question, he didn't want to talk about everything on the phone, he wanted to talk in person. "I talked to Erik today." He said, whispering now, not wanting to tell Tony. Something about it felt dirty, shameful, bad.
"Are you okay?" Tony's voice sounded different asking that, more worried, protective.
"Yeah. I'm fine. I just wanted to tell you." Peter answered, sounding childlike once again. "I miss you." Peter added.
"I miss you too." Tony said and then was silent for another moment. "Hey, do you want to come to New York for a couple days of spring break with me? Then I'll fly you back to Alexandria so you can see May." He offered.
Peter's heart swelled and he let a grin cover his face. "Of course I want to! I have to meet this new assistant of yours and make sure she's not too pretty." Peter joked, feeling more like himself now.
"Oh I met her earlier this afternoon and let me tell you..." Tony trailed off for a moment, building suspense. "She has got nothing on you." He said and Peter could hear the smile in his voice.
The door knob moved a bit and Peter realized that their time on the phone was coming to a close.
"I have to go, my roommate is back." Peter said.
"Okay, we have a lot to talk about when I get back Pete. Things have been weird these past few days. Remember you can call me after five most days I'm gone." Tony rambled off.
"We do have a lot to talk about. Bye Tony, sleep tight." Peter bid and then Tony said goodnight to him and he hung up. TC had ignored Peter talking on the phone and took a seat at his desk.
So not everything was okay, but some things were starting to look better.