Peter got Tony's voicemail again after calling him for the fourth time. He hadn't left a message any of the times. There was no point, Pete didn't want to tell Tony anything, he just wanted to hear his voice.
It was nearing midnight and Peter was laying on the bench by the field, breathing heavily from all the running. His legs were aching and Peter was basically resigned to just falling asleep on this bench because he didn't think he was going to be able to walk all the way back to the dorm. He didn't remember how long Coulson had stood, waiting for Pete to finish, but eventually he'd given up and left him to his own devices, for which Peter was glad.
They couldn't fucking win state without Steve and Bucky. They both played the same positions, so now Pete had no one who played that. He could probably move Vin and Brad to those positions, the two worked well together and Loki was more valuable to him as a goalie even though he'd played other positions before. Everything was just a mess, he'd have to make another diagram.
He heard the sound of shuffling footsteps coming towards him and Pete figured it was Coulson or Scott coming to finally make him go to bed. To his surprise though, he breathed in a lungful of tobacco smoke and Strange took a seat next to his feet, not saying anything for a while, just blowing smoke. Peter didn't have the energy to initiate a conversation.
"Barnes is never playing soccer again." Strange finally remarked and Peter scrunched his face up.
"I know." He retorted, sullen and standoffish.
"Sit up." Strange told him and Peter fixed him with a glare but did so anyway, leaning heavily onto his knees and cold sweat rolled down his neck. It was an uncomfortable sensation.
"Why'd you come out here?" Peter asked and checked his phone again, still no word from Tony.
"You want a cigarette?" Strange asked, handing his barely smoked one to Peter who took it wordlessly.
"Are you going to answer my questions?" Peter asked even as he took a drag.
Strange stood up, popping the collar of his coat and shoving his hands in the pockets as he turned to face Peter. "Did Tony ever tell you how he met me?" Strange asked.
Peter nodded his head. "He said he met you when he was looking for someone to perform surgery."
Strange scoffed at what Peter had said and pulled out a cigarette for himself. He lit it with a fancy lighter, the refillable kind and it looked sophisticated in his pale, slender hands. Everything about Strange was sophisticated. "Typical of him to lie."
Peter didn't really understand why Strange was talking to him like this. If this was the mans way of trying to comfort him after everything with Bucky, then it wasn't working very well. Pete decided to play along anyway. "I knew it was a lie."
"Oh?"
"There's a picture in Tony's office of him with Mr. Romanoff at a party. And one of your desk that looks like it was from the same party."
Strange didn't comment on the fact that Peter had been snooping around his desk, that was all water under the bridge at this point. "And you didn't think to point out the fact that he was lying to you?"
"It didn't seem important for me to know, and if he wanted to keep it a secret then I can respect his boundaries." Peter shrugged and flicked the cigarette. He hadn't smoked in a long while, but he wasn't going to turn down a free one.
"I met Tony when he graduated from high school. I was still in med-school at the time and Natasha-Ms. Romanov-was perhaps my closest, if not only, friend. Natasha was Tony's first actual girlfriend, don't worry, that didn't last very long." Strange paused to take another drag and Peter interrupted him.
"Should you be telling me all this? I mean, shouldn't I hear it from Tony first?" Peter felt a little weird that Strange was telling him things about Tony's past when Tony himself seemed like he didn't want to share those details.
"I'm talking about my life right now, and if I happen to mention Tony as well, then who gives a shit." Strange took a seat next to Peter against and crossed one leg over the other, looking out at the field instead of at Peter, who didn't interrupt again. "I was busy with school and Natasha was busy with her ailing father-the previous proprietor of this school. Tony slipped into our friend group, and stayed even after he and Natasha had broken up. We had other friends of course, but it seemed that at the end of the day it was always just Natahsa, Tony, and I left."
"I thought Tony went into the military right after college?" Peter remembered the story that Tony had told him so long ago while they'd still been working on the car, back when they barely knew each other.
"There was about a six month gap in between those two things, and it's not as if Tony voluntarily signed up for the army." Peter wanted to question what that meant, but Strange got a mean look on his face whenever Peter interrupted, so he kept his mouth closed. "Anyway, we got into the party scene pretty quickly after that. All of us young, all of us from wealthy families. Natasha's dad died around that time and she and I took it very hard, we started messing around with shit just to feel better, and Tony just tagged along because he could. It got pretty bad, Nat and I realized that we had to stop if we had any hope of graduating, but Tony didn't have a care in the world, and we couldn't get him to stop. I tried to distance myself from him, but realized that Nat was too invested in him and I would have to step in if I didn't want to lose her as well. So we got Natasha sober, and we thought that we'd gotten Tony sober.
"Those pictures that you saw were from some charity function that we'd been invited to, it was the last time we'd all be together for a very long time. It was also the night that Tony got arrested for public intoxication and possession. I don't know why we all still have a photo. It may be the only ones that we have of each other, and though I had reservations about Tony for most of out friendship, he was still a major part of my life as a young adult. Anyway, Tony got arrested, Natasha posted bail and he got off because he had a good lawyer. Nat filed him a criminal record waiver and basically forced him to join the military. It was either that or lock him in rehab and Nat figured he would detest her less for the first. She was right, he didn't talk to her for about a year but eventually he got over it and realized what an utter prick he'd been.
"I remember that day well. Natasha and I had been sharing an apartment for the past few months and she had resolutely gotten him signed up, driven him everywhere he needed to go, and then cried for hours. She was so upset that she was throwing up and shaking, and then Tony didn't even try to contact her for a year. At that time, I was glad that he was gone."
Peter didn't know what to think, just kept his shoulders hunched and his elbows on his knees as he studied the ground and took the occasional puff of his cigarette. He didn't really understand what the point of this story was-to make him think Tony was an entitled asshole? If so, it wasn't really working.
"Then he had his accident. Natasha was the first person that was called about that, his emergency contact, and she'd left the school immediately. She called me on the way and begged me to meet her at the hospital, I obliged, if only for my friendship with her and not out of love for Tony. He was in a bad way when Natasha got there, and I was across the country at the time, so it took me a while to get there. By then, Tony was pretty sure he'd figured out how to save himself, but I think Natasha got him to agree to go into surgery with me. We fixed him up and then Natasha helped get him back on his feet without the military, I went back to my job and Natasha took a very brief leave of absence from the school. She knew it was going to happen again, I knew it was going to happen again, and it did. He crashed, hard. Nat had to get him into rehab, but he refused to take anti-depressants or stop self-medicating with alcohol, so she got him to as good as he was going to be, and then had to leave him alone when she returned to work.
"I think it was Banner that finally checked in one him and realized that he just absolutely wasn't going to do anything unless he was forced to. That was this summer, so Natasha hired him on to fill a vacancy here, and that brings us to today."
"But I thought he'd been getting things set up for his company in those years? He can't have really been doing nothing." Peter was confused, Strange's story and Tony's story were just so completely different that he had a hard time believing either one at the moment. If Tony really had been lying, than it had been flawless, but Strange was even better if this was somehow all an elaborate lie.
"He planned out that company when he was still in college. I remember him talking about it, doodling logos for it, and then he was too fucked up or too depressed to actually do anything about it."
Peter thought for a while, just pondering on what Strange had said, and Strange didn't try to speak again as Peter looked like he was thinking very intently. Pete finished the cigarette and put it out under his shoe. He rubbed harshly at his eyes and then cleared his throat.
"Why did you tell me this?"
"I think Tony's been depressed more often than he's been well in his life. Just keep that in mind." Strange said and then flicked out his own cigarette and stood up, looking like he was going to leave.
"He drinks a lot." Pete brought up, remembering that bottles in his house that stretched all the way to the bedroom.
"That's a million times better than what we were doing, but that's my point exactly. You're in a relationship with him now, and it may just seem like nothing's going on, but Tony's good at making the world think that he's okay."
As Strange walked away, Pete was left with an odd feeling in his stomach. Had he been too self-centered during their relationship? He'd only barely mentioned it when he noticed how much Tony had been drinking. But at the same time, Pete still felt weird asking him about stuff like that, their age gap and maturity gap made it hard for him to tackle deep subjects with Tony, no matter how much he cared about the man.
He looked down at his phone and saw a new text from tony.
received: Tony 12:52
sorry i missed your calls, am just snoozing. call me again!
Peter wondered if maybe he shouldn't call Tony. This whole relationship had been Peter's issues, Peter fucking up, Peter being sad, so he debated on whether or not he should lay anything else on Tony.
He was also slightly resentful of Strange for telling him all of this stuff. Now Peter had all this information, but he couldn't treat Tony any differently because of it or else Tony would find out that he knew. There wasn't anything Peter could do about it right now though, maybe he would talk to Tony about getting on anti-depressants over the summer when Peter could spend more time with him and watch him.
Right now though, he was young, and wanted to hear Tony's voice so he could make his terrible day all better.
"How's Bucky's leg healing up?" Tony asked as Peter lounged in his bean bag chair and perched a cup of ramen noodles in between his knees, occasionally sending weird slurping noises over the phone as he ate. It was just about five in the evening for both of them, Peter had just let his team off after a grueling practice.
"Oh it's alright. As well as can be expected I suppose. He can't bear weight on it for quite a while, but at least he's going to be able to walk without a limp or anything-hopefully." Peter explained and then took another long slurp of noodles.
"What I would give to be there, seeing you eating those disgusting noodled right now." Tony lamented, causing Peter to laugh around his food.
"I could send you a really cute picture." Peter joked right back through his mouthful of food. "Hey I know you can't make it down for the game tomorrow, but make sure to have your phone on hand around nine, because I will absolutely need to debrief you, no matter how good or bad the outcome."
"Hey! Good outcome, positive thoughts Petey. You've gotten the team this far missing some of your best players, and if you don't take state tomorrow, then the other team was fucking cheating." Tony said.
He had gotten the team really far. They'd all been really disheartened about losing Steve and Bucky (not that anyone really cared that Thanos was off the team, and the whole situation had just added to Scott and Paul's conspiracy theory, which had been really fun) but Pete had moved some people around, including putting himself in Bucky's old spot, so everything had worked out for the best.
They'd ended up losing one game in the qualifying matches, but that was directly after Bucky and Steve had left, so it was to be expected that they needed some time to bounce back. He and Quill were talking plays almost all the time, and Steve still showed up to every game, Bucky would have if he wasn't still in physical therapy and hospice care. Coulson met with him twenty minutes before every practice and they planned things out and Peter just had a really good feeling about tomorrow nights game. It was going to go well.
Even if they didn't end up winning, this was the closest the team had ever gotten to it, and Peter was really proud of that fact. Everyone was invigorated to take the title after doing unexpectedly well without Buck and Steve.
"Yeah, it's gonna be good. Then just two more weeks and I can start my Stark Summer Internship," he said, a bit of sarcasm dripping from his voice. Yes it was a legitimate internship, but Peter figured he would be spending a hell of a lot of one-on-one time with Tony. And hopefully he could get Pepper to actually like him, because not a lot of people disliked him and it was getting on his nerves.
"Oh yes, your very prestigious internship. I believe we'll be spending a lot of time together working very hard."
"Oh no Mr. Stark, it seems as though an experiment has gone wrong and all of my clothes have disappeared, whatever will we do?" Peter asked in a fake sensual voice that was only heightened by the following noodle slurp.
"It's a very technical procedure to get your clothes back, involving lube and and this ten inch scientific dildo." Tony said, mimicking a stereotypical nerdy voice which made Peter snort. "God, I can't wait to see you again kiddo, just two more weeks."
"And you can watch me eat all the ramen you want." Peter said, a grin overtaking his face.
He and Tony had been talking a lot more recently. Peter tried to call him basically every night, sometimes they just had short conversations, other days, like today, they would talk for up to an hour, sometimes more. Peter never really wanted to hang up the phone, he kind of wanted to pull a Pam and Jim from The Office and just be on the phone with Tony all day. But they both had busy schedules so they found time for each other when they could. Peter figured that his newfound resolution to call Tony often probably stemmed from the conversation with Strange that had been slowly eating away at him.
It was understandable, really, why Tony would have lied in the first place. They barely knew each other, were still just a teacher and a student, so Tony probably hadn't felt right to dish everything on Peter. But as their relationship evolved, Tony basically knew everything about Peter, and Pete suddenly felt like he knew very little about Tony. He wouldn't let it affect their relationship, he just really wished that Tony would tell him for himself.
"I look forward to it. I have a dinner meeting I have to get to, but I'll be waiting for your call tomorrow. I love you Pete." Tony said and Peter smiled sadly to himself, but was hopeful for tomorrow.
"Yeah, talk to you tomorrow. Love you too Tony."
It was raining, of course, but it seemed as if it always rained during their big games.
Peter was feeling invigorated. May had sent him a text this morning, wishing him well, and Tony had sent him a picture of him and Pepper giving him a thumbs up, which was rather cute.
They were ahead one point in the first half, but the second had just started and Peter didn't want to let his guard down. He felt a little weird being in a different position than usual, but at least they had the home field advantage. Loki was doing amazing at guarding the goal, and Scott and Drax were keeping all the action basically in the middle, and if they could just keep it there for the next-Peter looked towards the clock-35 minutes then they would be good.
The other team was amazing of course, this was the last game so it was the best versus the best, and Peter hadn't found one moment of the game where he wasn't being flagged by someone. He figured it was mostly because of the new position though, he was no longer just running around at the edge of the field, he was directly in the thick of things, and only hoped that he would be able to keep up with players who'd been playing this position their whole lives.
They hadn't played this team very often in the past, but they were well known for often taking home the state title, Peter was fairly sure they'd won it last year. He could see why, all of the players were good and had fancy footwork. But Cantu was good too.
Peter was kind of worried that the opposing team had been going a little easy on them at the beginning of the match, not really taking them seriously. Everything felt like it was moving faster now, he even lost sight of the ball a few times, but was trying to remain quick-witted about all of this. He desperately wanted to call Tony with good news, that and impress everyone in the stands.
There were way more people watching them today because it was the state match, and Peter felt the pressure.
He lost sight of the ball again and pivoted on his foot to try and find it. The other teams central player had made a long shot towards another player near the goal. Sam intercepted it at the last second, sliding along the wet turf but sticking the landing and sending the ball flying to Brad.
The other team intercepted the ball again though and took a risky shot towards the goal. Loki hadn't been worried about the ball since it was so far away, and the other team scored just as Loki noticed and tried to dive for it.
They were 1-1.
Peter took a deep breath and jogged back to the line for the kick-off.
TC clapped him on the back, his face wet from the drizzle and sweat. "We got this Peter. You and me." He assured as they resumed their positions and were soon thrown right back into the mess of it.
Immediately they were able to get the ball onto their side and away from the opposing team. However, since it was so soon after the kick-off, a lot of the opposing team was also on their side, crowding up the area and making it hard to make a pass.
Sam came in quick from the right side and slammed the ball away from the other team, also sliding to the ground at the same time but bouncing back up easily as the ref eyed him.
TC and Quill eyed the ball at the same time, and in a moment of spectacular sportmanship, he saw TC offer Quill a small nod, and then Quill was taking off after the ball. He ran faster than most people would expect, so the opposing team was slow to react as Quill made a shot towards the goal.
Their goalie was on guard, but Quill last second changed the trajectory of the ball, making the goalie dive to the wrong side.
There was a chorus of shouts and whoops from the rest of the team and the audience as the goal was scored and Peter cracked a huge smile. Ten minutes left, they could easily defend the goal for another ten minutes.
And they did. All too soon the last soccer game of Peter's high school career was over and he was being tackled in hugs and cheers from his team members. Quill was also shown just as much love for making the game-winning shot, along with TC who'd scored the first goal of the game. The other team gave them amicable high-five's and 'good games' but they were obviously disappointed.
Peter was riding high on the rush of the win and couldn't wipe the smile off of his face. Scott slung an arm around his shoulders. "Well Petey boy, we did it. We're celebrities at this podunk school." He said and Peter rolled his eyes but also couldn't stop grinning.
They were announced as the state champs and Ms. Romanov congratulated them. Peter made an awkward eye-contact with her as she shook his hand and then pulled him into a small squeeze of a hug. He couldn't get the thought out of his head that soon enough she would know about him and Tony, and that made him visibly uncomfortable.
He was still drunk on victory as he collapsed into his bed in full soccer kit, getting the sheets incredibly wet and only stopping to toe off his mud-covered shoes, not that the rest of him was entirely clear of mud.
He called Tony immediately, who picked up on the second ring. Before Tony could get one word in Peter was already gushing about the victory. He heard the sound of a champagne cork being popped and Tony cheering for him. This was shaping up to be one of the best days of his life.
Peter was fast asleep later, having finally changed into his pajamas and basically passing out on his bed.
He wasn't roused from a knock at the door, but TC was and Peter could only kind of hear his roommate's footsteps padding through the room and pulling the door open. "Ms. Romanov?"
Peter turned in his sleep and then blinked his eyes open at the sudden light flooding in from the hallway, he rubbed at his eyes. "Good evening Mr. Romanda. Peter, if you would join me for a moment." She called and something in her voice made Peter jump right up. TC looked a little confused but didn't question it, and Peter pulled the door closed behind him and Ms. Romanov.
"What is it?" Peter asked, still trying to see in the sudden brightness.
"Why don't we go outside Peter? It's stopped raining and is rather nice out." She offered and so Peter followed kind of awkwardly behind her. She looked kind of hastily put together, her hair was just in a ponytail which was unusual for her as she usually had it done up very nicely. And to top it off she was only wearing jeans and a tee-shirt from her alma mater, highlighting how young she was and making Peter feel weird because he'd never seen her dressed so casually.
When they got outside she stopped and took a seat on one of the steps that led up into the dormitories, patting the spot next to her for Peter to sit down as well.
"What's going on?" He questioned, a sudden lump forming in his throat at the thought that maybe she'd found out about him and Tony.
"I received a call just a few minutes ago from a hospital in your hometown." She took a moment to wet her lips and Peter already felt his mouth dropping open. Subconsciously he knew what was going to come next, but he couldn't fathom to even think it. "It seems that your Aunt May has suffered a heart attack." She finally said and Peter froze for a moment, then took in a very long shaky breath, stuttering on the way out.
"Is-is she?" He couldn't finished his sentence.
"I'm so sorry Peter, she's passed away." She said and in a moment of weakness Peter reached out for Ms. Romanov and she wrapped her arms around him as well, holding him close against her as he began to sob.