you crossed the line
pt 2
Peter glares at the short, cocky, irritating fucker who is currently manhandling his cassette tape and humming to himself as he indicates Peter take a seat at the bar. Asshole. Peter glares harder to no effect, and then thumps sulkily up to the bar with shoulders hunched in defeat. Goddamnit, he's Star-Lord, what the hell? He has a spaceship and he can't even take out some two bit so-called superhero who doesn't even have his suit on him?
"This is so freaking unfair," he mumbles, slumping down on one of the stools at the bar obediently. Iron Man, otherwise known as Tony Stark, otherwise known as a filthy fucking whore, sits down next to him, mix tape now nowhere in sight. He shoots Peter a shit-eating grin and waves for the bartender. Peter can not see why in the hell Gamora ran off to spend a dirty weekend with this arrogant - short! - asshole, who is not at all infuriatingly appealing.
"Hands on the bar, darlin'," Stark says, tapping a well-manicured finger on said bar, and Peter scowls and doesn't move a muscle. "All right. Let's try this again. Hands on the bar or your precious little cassette tape will meet a swift and grisly end, and you know really I'd rather not - I have zero desire to destroy tech, even as ancient and useless as that tape may be, well, as it is if we're being honest here and why not? - so why don't you just do what I tell you like a good little boy and we'll. All. Get. Along."
A beat passes.
"Asshole," Peter mutters, but shoves his hands onto the bar as ordered.
"There we go. Isn't it fun to cooperate instead of punching each other?" Stark says lightly and Peter curls his lip and shoots the older man a look.
"No," he says emphatically, and then: "You dirty old bastard," for good measure, and Stark affects a wounded expression, laying a hand over his heart and rounding that bruise-swollen mouth into an 'o'.
"Old? Jeez, easy on the ageist insults, kid. Your girlfriend - and I just want to say here, that scout's honor, I had no idea she was committed to anything or anyone other than a good time with yours truly - well, suffice it to say, she didn't seem to find my agedness an issue." Starks winks exaggeratedly, and a muscle in Peter's jaw twitches as he resists the urge to smack Stark one. Stark goes on before Peter can think of something cutting to shoot back at the older man.
"Bartender? Hey, hey you!" Stark waves at the tentacled creature, confident and self-assured as the creature sidles along toward them both. He makes an apologetic gesture at the incidental damage they'd done to the rundown bar. "My sincerest apologies about the mess. Hazard of being a handsome hero, you know."
The creature rumbles and seems to shrug, if something shaped like a nightmare can shrug. The damage they caused was practically restrained compared to what a dive like this would usually see. Stark grins as if he isn't bruised and bloodied; sunny and irrepressible and Peter hates that the expression is somehow weirdly endearing on the other man. Damnit, Stark's a dick; he has no right to look endearing. Unfair, Peter sulks as he scowls at his hands folded together on the bar, flicking sneaky glances at Stark, who is chattering away at the bartender, eyes manically bright in his battered face.
"So, am I still getting free drinks? Because I could really use a drink right now. And hell, one for my friend here as well. That ugly drink I've been sampling lately - watcha call it? Tr-something? Trilla-whatever? You know the one I mean." Stark flaps his hand, both flippant and commanding. "Greenish-yellow, weirdly delicious, made me keep trying to rub your head?"
The bartender rumbles in a way that makes Peter think Stark should shut the hell up before he gets a lot more tentacle than he wants, but then slithers off amiably enough, its tentacles snagging bottles from shelves with a slimy kinda gracefulness. The drink that is slid in front of Peter a moment later looks about as appealing as vomit mixed with shit and fermented for several weeks. For all he knows, that's exactly what it is. He's downed a lot of weird looking shit in the noble quest for drunkenness, but never anything that looked this gross.
Peter side-eyes Stark suspiciously, but the dark-haired man just takes a sip himself and hums a contented sound, smacking his lips with enjoyment. Stark sinks down, elbows on the bar, and sighs, tension melting off him, leaving him limp and disheveled, grinning lopsidedly at Peter and looking damned endearing again, and okay so maybe Peter can see why Gamora was interested in the prick. Or not. No. Not. Not at fucking all, the guy's an asshole.
"Try it - you'll love it, trust me. Or are you chicken?" Stark asks, grin growing.
"Bawk bawk?" he queries, and Peter scowls and snatches up the glass.
"Shuddup. Dick." Peter takes a sip of the booger-colored shit and ohjesusgod that tastes so gooood. He gulps back another mouthful, mmm-ing emphatically. "Oh man, that's tasty."
"I know, right?" Stark looks earnestly pleased and preens a little, as if he cares what Peter thinks, as if they're friends and not mortal enemies only having a drink because Stark has forced Peter into it. It's kind of sad, actually, the way Stark is trying to hide the increasingly obvious thirst for adoration so badly beneath his arrogance. The dude just wants to be worshipped and praised, and Peter thinks he's like a weird-ass cross between a cat and a dog, or hey - maybe one of those yappy-ass little dogs, all frenzied and jumpy 'n shit.
"The...best..."Peter drains back the glass, thinking idly with the small corner of his brain that houses things like common sense, that maybe whatever's in the drink isn't that good for him if it's having this effect. But the rest of his brain overrules with the insistent more!
"Mmph," he says and wipes the back of his mouth with his hand. "Yeah okay, that was good." A moment drifts by in which Stark looks like the smuggest asshole this side of the galaxy, and Peter feels a warm sense of euphoria sweeping through him. He holds tightly onto his grudge at Stark as whatever was in the drink threatens to melt his righteous anger away to nothing.
"But I still hate you." He glares, and Stark smiles and pats him patronizingly on the arm, and Peter pulls away indignantly.
"Barman, another drink for my sulky friend here," the older man declares too-loud, and Peter almost groans. He wants that drink, and getting it for free is one better than buying it himself, only this is the dude who slept with his sort-of girlfriend, and is currently holding his mix tape hostage.
"This isn't fair. What the fuck do you want, man?"
"To not have punching. Obviously. Punching and I...we don't get along," Stark confides. Peter levels a look on Stark, who squirms uncomfortably after a moment.
"All right, all right. Look, I didn't mean to sleep with your girlfriend. If I'd known then I wouldn't have - well, actually...um...never mind. But the point is that I didn't know! I was on an ill-advised bender, she came onto me, and then we kind of lost track of time with the drinking and the substances and the se- erm, the you know, and Pepper got angry at me because apparently three days had gone by without me returning her calls but I had no freaking idea it had been that long and I was still kinda -" Stark whistled and made the universal symbol for off his fucking nut, and then gulped at his drink before going on "- and then Galaxia -"
"Gamora! Gamora, man, Jesus, you don't even know her name?" Peter glares in disbelief, and then decides he wants more of that delicious fucking drink, so he drinks it and then waves the empty glass at a shame-faced looking Stark like a shaking finger of disapproval. Stark's eyes dance with mischief despite his apparent remorse, and Peter doubts the guy feels genuine goddamn remorse more'n once a year.
"Shit, yeah, Gamora! That was it. Weird name, huh? Anyway, we came here, and then...she left me here. And I've been here ever since, drinking my way through the bar, because I think she opened a tab or something. Or maybe I did and I don't remember and I'm gonna be stuck with a huge fucking bill. Or maybe the bartender has a crush on me, 'cause hey, I've seen the looks the...thing's...been givin' me."
"It doesn't hardly have a face, Stark. And drinking yourself under the bar's more accurate from the looks of it," Peter grumbles judgingly under his breath, somehow both offended and relieved that Stark didn't even know Gamora's name, and Stark barks a laugh.
"Wow, that was so frighteningly Pepper."
"Pepper's the...girlfriend you cheated on with my girlfriend?" Peter asks out of curiosity, only a little snippy and asking himself why in the hell he is having some mostly-civil conversation, except why not? He's feeling more and more happy the more he drinks, and he is actually really good with that happening. Angry is overrated. Feeling good is awesome. Fucking awesome. Stark shakes his head.
"Oh shit no, I'd never cheat on Pepper; I do have some sense of self-preservation. Open relationship. Pepper's my one true love, so to speak, but we both...dally with other people now and then." Stark shrugs. "Took me a while to get used to it, but between her job and mine we spend so much time apart that it works better this way. Or so Pepper tells me, and I try never to argue with Pepper. Self-preservation."
Stark shoots Peter a lazy smile, and Peter has the feeling that Stark is just as happy with the idea of an open relationship as this Pepper lady. There's a short silence, both of them quietly working their way to the bottoms of their glasses, and that feeling of gentle euphoria swells deeper and deeper in Peter, suffusing him with warmth and goodwill. He finishes his third drink and starts on his fourth, perfectly content to sit in Stark's company. It's nice.
"You - you know you're maybe not a complete asshole," he says magnanimously too many drinks in, when the bruising Stark has made has ceased to hurt, and Stark smirks at him and claps him on the back, swaying unsteadily in his own seat.
"I was just thinking the same thing about you. Not a complete asshole - my exact thought. It's like we're on the same wavelength or something." He waggles his brows at Peter, and Peter blinks as his vision doubles and for a moment there're two Starks sitting in front of him, giving him what look suspiciously like come hither eyes and what the fuck, man? But he's not actually complaining. Those are quite some come hither eyes, all melty and brown and deep, and the way Stark's nibbling at his lip is...yeah actually really way too appealing.
Peter swallows hard, feeling heat flare up and confusion along with it. Because yeah he's not opposed to having three-way with another dude and a chick, and he can appreciate the looks of another guy...but he normally doesn't wanna just bite the soft patch beneath another man's jaw like he kinda really wants to do to Stark right now.
His mind veers into the gutter; the delicious, confusing gutter. He can envision it all - pushing Stark's head up and mouthing over the stubbled jaw and down, maybe actually making Stark shut the fuck up for a moment, except for a stifled little whimper. Working his way down that neck in wet, openmouthed kisses and licks, and then fisting his hand in Stark's hair and jerking his mouth in to meet Peter's, kissing at his lips rough and biting until Stark's gasping, and those dark eyes go full black as his pupils blow wide with need.
Shit, what the fuck is in this drink? Peter stares into it bewildered for a moment, brain reeling and falling down and giving up. And then he doesn't even care, because Stark grins at him, and Peter grins back and downs his drink, waving for another automatically.
"Gamora's, um, not actually my girlfriend right now," Peter admits, on his seventh drink, slurring like hell and not giving a damn. "We're on a...well, a break. She wanted it, not me - the break I mean - and I - I guess I'm not...not..." He doesn't bother finishing. He doesn't have to. Stark's look at his pathetic, drunken admission - sadmission - is sympathetic, and he reaches out and claps Peter on the shoulder. His hand is surprisingly strong, for a short, skinny guy, and warm and nice, squeezing and kneading before falling away just a touch too slowly, so his fingertips drag like want and heat and good. Peter sways on the bar stool and then slumps forward on his elbows on the bar, waving for another drink as Stark commiserates.
"Wow. That fucking sucks." Stark says in a heartfelt tone. And then he smirks briefly - a curl of his lip that Peter sees outta the corner of his eye. "I can't say I'm not kinda hugely pissed off that you tried to beat the shit outta me over someone who's not even your girlfriend, but, y'know I can sympathize. Matters of the heart are pretty damn complicated." He taps the glowing circle beneath his shirt that lies directly over the center of his chest, and his nail makes a clicking, clinking sound. Suddenly transfixed, Peter reaches out slowly - squinting a little because hey his vision isn't so good right now - and tries to touch his fingertips to the pretty glowy light.
"What the fuck is -" that man, he starts to say, curious and friendly, when Stark smacks Peter's hand down hard and without any kind of gracefulness, recoiling from him hard like Peter just spat in his face or something, nearly falling off the barstool in the process.
"Shit!" Peter grabs Stark by his arm and his shirt, and they both wobble for a second, nearly falling the fuck off before Peter steadies them. He grabs the bar for balance; jeez it feels like the bar is swaying under him, like a ship on a sea.
"No touching," Stark says half-sharp, half-apologetic. "No touching the arc reactor. Tha's my - my life right there. That's my damn heart, pretty much, and strange men in bars don't get to feel it up. Sorry."
"Whoa." Peter leans back and holds his hands up - I'm not a threat, his posture says, or at least he hopes it does. "Whoa, sorry, man. I didn't mean to...to whatever," he explains with a hint of a slur, vision quadrupling for a minute and whoa thass a lotta Starks. Then there's just one again and smirk is gone and it's taken the smolder with it, and Stark looks old and hard and unexpectedly dangerous and - and - wounded? But definitely dangerous; dark eyes cold, and stress lines suddenly evident carved into his somewhat-bruised face.
Stark's hand settles over the light, hiding it beneath the press of his palm, a protective, uncertain gesture. He blinks and stares at Peter in the bleary way drunks have, as if he can't quite figure out what's going on. And then rubs at his chest with the heel of his hand, and clears his throat, smirking lopsided as he speaks fast. "No problem. It's fine. I just don't like people touching the, um, merchandise. Fingerprints are a bitch to polish off."
The older man is trying for wry and light but he looks like he's lost his equilibrium, his previous snarky, hyper tone sliding away, and Peter feels unaccountably bad for him. A weird sense of protectiveness toward Stark stirs at the sound of the naked vulnerability in the man's voice. He blames the drink. He also doesn't make a big deal about Stark's loss of bravado - just nodding easily and mumbling something inane about it being 'fair enough' before turning back to the bar and cupping his hands around his half-full glass.
He slides the cup back and forward over the bar between his hands for a minute or two, shooting sideways glances at Stark - drinking steadily, tension easing out of his shoulders - before daring to speak up.
"So that's the...reactor?" Peter doesn't know much about Stark and Iron Man really, only smatterings of gossip - he tends to avoid Earth. So long and thanks for all the memories that hurt too much for him to want to go back. Or something like that, anyway. His grandfather is dead, and there's nothing left him on that little planet but two graves. He's never been to visit 'em. Doesn't plan on it either. Damn. He stops playing with his drink and drinks it, welcoming the honey-glowing-happiness that comes with it. Stark is staring at him funny, and he grins in return, over-bright 'n cheery.
"...Yeah," Stark says at last, thoughtful, eyes unfocused. "It's the arc reactor. My baby. It kept me alive after some assholes kidnapped me, and shot me full of my own weapons - not in that order. Technically I don't actually need it to keep me from getting a heart full of shrapnel anymore - they opened me up and got all the nasties out, about eight months ago - but...I'm attached." Stark summons a grin and shrugs, but it all sounds pretty fucking horrible, actually.
"Well hey, it makes a pretty stylish fashion statement, so..." Peter says stupidly, and curses himself for it. Fashion statement? He sounds like a dick. But Stark chuckles, casually dipping a finger in his drink and sucking it clean and god the gesture makes liquid heat go straight to Peter's groin. Peter goes with the feeling.
Why not. Fuck it.
He waves for another drink when he realizes his current one has somehow magically disappeared. "So if it's not keepin' you alive then...can I touch it?" Stark hesitates; cocks his head to the side and eyes Peter up and down, tongue flicking out to slide back and forth over a split at the side of his lower lip that makes the whole lip a little puffy. Peter resists the urge to bat his eyelashes, no matter how stupidly appropriate it seems.
"You break it you bought it, Han Solo," Stark says, fast, as though he's afraid he'll take the words back before he's even finished speaking, and doesn't want to. Peter grins at the reference as Stark shifts so that his torso is turned full toward the younger man, his fingertips tap-tap-tapping at the side of his glass with nervous energy. He doesn't lift his shirt; Peter's glad and disappointed all at once. He can make the reactor out well enough through the shirt though, on close examination.
Stark flinches when he actually touches it with two fingers, running them a quarter of the way around the just-barely-raised rim. It's not cold, like Peter would've have thought it'd be, being metal, and it's smooth and frictionless under the cotton of Stark's shirt. He pauses at that quarter circle point as Stark makes a short intake of breath, and then pulls his hand back just a fraction, fingertips hovering.
"It doesn't hurt, does it?" Peter slurs and blurs the words a little through his alcohol-thickened tongue, and nearly blushes. Stark shakes his head.
"Not to the touch. Nah, go for it," Stark says offhand and shrugging, but there's a breathiness to his voice that Peter doesn't miss. In the headiness of drunken euphoria he isn't sure but maybe he knows what it means. He slides his fingers in, to the center, ignoring that he's been touching too slow and too long and too damn gentle.
He flattens his hand over Tony Stark's chest; palm blotting out most of the light, and fingers pressing onto cotton-covered skin, the heat radiating off the older man. There's an intimacy to the touch that Peter immediately recognizes as fucking addictive. He can feel Stark's heart beating under his hand; the thrumming pulses coming through the metal, and thumping against his palm; it's fast in contrast to the man's shallow, dragging breaths. When he slides his gaze up to meet Stark's, the other man's eyes are fucking swamped with pupil, and his swollen lips are parted.
"You still got your heart then, huh?" Peter asks, stupid and dazed.
"Yeah," Stark answers just as dumb and breathless, and then blinks away his daze and grins, eyes sparking and dark. "Yeah. Still got that." And Peter's hand is still on Stark's chest, he realizes - palm on the reactor and fingertips pressing firm against flesh that feels lumpy and scarred to idly searching fingers. He pulls his hand back then and hides his blush in his glass - the bartender having kindly refilled it for him. His fingers tingle and he rubs them on his pants leg to try to dispel the feeling, while Stark smiles knowingly, the fucking jerk.
At some point they end up slumped in a corner of the station's corridor, having been cut off from the sweet, sweet liquor - although they'd conspired through a complex array of hand gestures and facial expressions to have Peter swipe a bottle of booze while Stark neatly distracted the bartender. Their silent communication had been fucking boss. Peter isn't afraid to admit they seem to make a good team; Stark is more than easy to read when he wants to be.
So now they are on the floor and Stark is clutching the cassette player, their heads knocked together as they listen to the music through the headphones Peter holds up for them both. The music sounds tinny and wrong like this, and the volume is shit, but Stark is warm and grinning and has his leg all hooked over Peter's, so Peter doesn't complain. Because he wants Stark there, right there, only maybe a bit more on his lap, now he thinks about it... Yeah. On? Sinking down and up and down and...
God, man, what the hell is wrong with him? Sure, love of the, ah, mano e mano type - or any type, really - isn't exactly uncommon in this big, crazy galaxy, but neither is it something Peter ever really associated with himself. Not when there are women available, at least. But Stark is...Stark is...
"Hot Chocolate?" Stark asks rhetorically and scathingly as the track starts, and Peter can't tell if he's really scathing or just good-naturedly teasing, as the other man lifts his head and shifts back a little to meet Peter's eyes, his eyebrow arching. The corner of Stark's mouth twitches in a smile, and he shifts the leg slung over Peter's thigh as he moves closer again, pressing their temples together. It doesn't make it any easier to hear the music, but it does make Stark's five o'clock shadow rasp on Peter's as they both settle, and damned if it doesn't make tingle-tickles slide straight down his spine.
Yeah, this is happening isn't it?
He thinks he should probably just accept it.
Stark goes on with the criticism: "Really? Don't you have any modern music out in space? Damn, I really wish I had my suit now - I'd fucking school you in music, Solo."
"Hey! My mom had good taste," Peter defends half-seriously with a shrug and a fond little smile that he can't hide, because yeah, his mom. Maybe Stark was only ragging him, or maybe he hears the past tense and realizes, or maybe he just doesn't want to be a dick, because he shuts up - for fucking once - and swigs at the bottle of liquor Peter had snagged. And then he passes it to Peter, their fingers deliberately bumping and sliding together. Peter drinks long as Stark all but climbs into his lap - pressing against Peter's side hard and crooking his knee so that his lower leg snugs up to Peter's - and weirdly it doesn't feel weird.
There's honey-sweet booze exploding on his tongue and euphoria and lust fueling each other in his belly and suffusing his whole self, and everything feels right in the world, as Stark closes his hand over Peter's to guide the bottle to his lips and take another drink.
It's Stark who kisses him, finally, when the purloined bottle is nearly empty and they're sprawled on the limply, singing along to Hooked on a Feeling.
"...Lips as sweet as candy..." Peter warbles off-key, grinning and loose-boned, while Stark slumps half against his chest. It's comfortable and it's good, and he's forgotten all about his broken heart under the warm weight of Stark's body.
"Oh, oh I like this one. Classic," Stark says of a track, slurring and smirking, lifting his eyes to Peter's and they're a bare inch apart and yeah Stark's flirting for fucking sure. "All right. Verdict? You got okay taste in music, Ace. Little outdated, but not bad, considering the source. I have a few suggestions though. Additions. Subtractions. Maybe if you're a good boy, Santa'll bring you an mp3 player - you know what that is, Solo? It's like a cassette tape, only a million times better in every way." Stark's smirk grows wickeder: "Are you a good boy, Quill?"
There are surface differences to how a woman flirts than how a man does, but it's not different enough that Peter doesn't recognize it. Anyway, Stark's not very subtle. At all. Peter licks his suddenly dry lips as Stark's hand settles on Peter's upper thigh, a few tiny shifts somehow pressing his body way more snugly to Peter's.
Oh Christ. The man is like an eel, all sinuous muscle-under-skin and flexible as hell. And then Stark's fingers play delicately over Peter's leg, edging up toward his crotch, and Peter bites his lip hard, failing to resist the urge to thrust his hips up a fraction.
"Wha...?" Peter forgets the next lines and Stark looks delighted, and damn Peter's dick is so hard it's not funny. He doesn't know what the fuck is going on or why he's so hot for this cocky, won't-shut-up asshole. But. But. But then Stark's fingers dig rough into his jaw as Stark tugs Peter's face downward, lifting his own face up and pressing his mouth messy and fierce to Peter's.
Electric.
It's like an electric shock; a hot, damp, rough shock, as Stark's carefully trimmed beard scrapes against Peter's stubble, and his lips crush to Peter's, his tongue a hot, fleeting swipe that feels like some kind of filthy heaven. And then he pulls back, sitting up and half disentangling from Peter, grinning and staring at him like he's waiting for a score.
"I's a nine," Peter slurs obligingly, lips feeling all tingly as he scrubs a hand roughly - clumsily - though his own hair. Stark fucking kissed him. The older man tries to grin, but there's an insecure edge to it that he can't hide.
"Only a nine?" he asks, coy as any girl, and Peter huffs a laugh, suddenly wanting to -
"Go again then," he says to Stark without thinking, and then his hand is sliding behind Stark's head, shaping to the curve of skull, fingers buried in short dark hair. And Peter's kissing Stark this time - he's in charge, fuck yeah, he's killing this. Who's the boss? Fucking Star-Lord is, that's who.
Peter starts off easy; kissing: level one. Just warm, soft lips at first - parting and pressing and catching, teasing with hints and licks of tongue that send heat and want raging through him, and hopefully Stark too. Stark - greedy, bossy fucker, Peter thinks dizzily with drunken fondness - keeps trying for more. When Peter opens his mouth properly to the kiss at last, Stark makes an urgent, needy growl and grabs at the shoulders of Peter's jacket like a limpet.
He licks into Stark's mouth, owning the damn kiss. One hand curls possessive at the nape of Stark's neck, and the other slides around him, dragging him up onto Peter's lap, knees slotting either side of Peter's thighs. Right where Peter wants him. Stark whimpers into his mouth at the effortless shift - fucking whimpers, and grinds down, and oh holy fucking shit that is good.
They're dry fucking in the corridor of a shitty-ass alien space station like - well, not like kids, but like dirty, drunken adults with no self-respect, and Peter doesn't even care. Fuck self-respect. He just wants...
Wants...
Stark's mouth is hot and slick and headydizzywantmore, and Peter all but fucks it with his tongue, and Stark just moans and grinds down so goddamn greedy for him, and Peter totally understands now why Gamora fell into bed with the cocky fucker. He really doesn't blame her anymore.
Tony fucking Stark is kind of irresistible.
Especially when he's rocking on Peter's lap, sucking on the tip of his tongue while one hand rubs Peter's raging erection through his pants. Oh holyfuckingjesus.
Yeah. This is totally fucking happening.
A/N: Please review! There'll be one more chapter to come - mostly pwp I imagine ;)