harderbetterfasterstarker

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

not starker, but why the hell not. i recently finished this endhawks fic, and endhawks is a ship that i feel like hits a lot of the same buttons for me as starker does, so if you’re interested, check out the first two chapters below, and the rest is on ao3 here. 

Local Teen schemes to shame father, accidentally gets him a boyfriend instead.

Enji watched carefully now, took in the way that Hawks and Shouto were tucked into a corner of the room. Enji couldn’t see his face clearly, just the edge of his profile, but it was enough to see that the sharp grin that had fallen from his face while he listened to Shouto was replaced now by a soft smile. Whatever he said brought a similar expression to Shouto’s face. Without understanding why, Enji looked away, struck with a sudden pang of emotion, too much all at once, and at first it registered as anger—always anger—but he wasn’t that kind of man anymore, so after a long moment clenching his hands, the tight hot knot of anger loosened, fell into separate threads of—sadness (I’ve never seen Shouto smile like that before, never), jealousy (why Hawks? what did he do to make you smile? why are you sharing this moment?), pride (because I’m glad it’s Hawks, you are both such good heroes, such good men), and, right there at the center of the knot, anger (at himself, always at himself, for not deserving these moments).

It had been a long meeting, at the end of a long week, but, after all they’d been through, there was something comforting about even the mildly overwhelming roar of so many heroes’ discordant chatter. Ostensibly, the purpose of these meetings was to facilitate information sharing, but Enji knew that they were as much about the reassurance of each other’s presence as anything else. They’d lost enough that it was still a relief to hear Fatgum’s loud laughter, Mirko’s booming voice as she retold the story of some villain capture. One voice he kept waiting to hear and didn’t—and Enji found himself turning to scan the room, until his eyes found bright red wings, and he could let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It wasn’t that he didn’t know that Hawks was fine, but there was something about seeing those wings flutter and shift, the slope of his jaw as his mouth edged into a grin as he said something to make Shouto laugh—

Shouto?

Enji watched carefully now, took in the way that Hawks and Shouto were tucked into a corner of the room. Not out of sight, obviously, but far enough away that their conversation obviously read as private. After the laughter ended, Shouto said something else to Hawks, his face falling back into that tight little frown that he seemed to wear most of the time. Hawks listened for a while—actually listened, which was a shock in and of itself, that he wasn’t interrupting to bug and nag like he constantly did to Enji, which much mean this was something serious—and then was reaching out to rest a hand on Shouto’s shoulder. Enji couldn’t see his face clearly, just the edge of his profile, but it was enough to see that the sharp grin that had fallen from his face while he listened to Shouto was replaced now by a soft smile. Whatever he said brought a similar expression to Shouto’s face. Without understanding why, Enji looked away, struck with a sudden pang of emotion, too much all at once, and at first it registered as anger—always anger—but he wasn’t that kind of man anymore, so after a long moment clenching his hands, the tight hot knot of anger loosened, fell into separate threads of—sadness (I’ve never seen Shoto smile like that before, never), jealousy (why Hawks? what did he do to make you smile? why are you sharing this moment?), pride (because I’m glad it’s Hawks, you are both such good heroes, such good men), and, right there at the center of the knot, anger (at himself, always at himself, for not deserving these moments).  

“Endeavor-san?” Enji turned around to see the Midoriya kid looking up at him with those huge green eyes, holding one of those notebooks of his, and turned his attention to answering the kid’s question.

*

“Shouto.”

They were on their way out of the agency, Bakugo and Midoriya arguing over something just a few yards ahead, so Endeavor kept his voice low. The only indication that Shouto had heard him was a slight tension to his shoulders and a muttered ‘what’ so low that Enji almost didn’t hear it.

“What were you talking to Hawks about today? After the hero meeting?”

If anything, Shouto got tenser, his shoulders creeping higher.

“Nothing.”

“Is it something about hero work? Because Hawks is undoubtedly a good hero, but I could help with any questions you have.”

“Drop it, it’s nothing.” Shouto’s voice had edged out of his normal monotone and into a dangerous level of flatness, one that Enji was beginning to learn to heed, so he stayed silent and let Shouto catch up with Midoriya and Bakugo and slot in-between them to play peacemaker.

*

A week later, Hawks climbed through his office window while he was doing paperwork.

“Hawks.” He was trying for stern, but since everything at Jaku, Enji had had a hard time being stern with Hawks.

“Hey big guy! I know, I know—doors, not windows, but, c’mon, you’ve ridden in your elevator. Long wait, crowded, bo-ring. Why ride when you can fly?” Hawks was crossing the room to lean on an edge of his desk, while he let one of his feathers shut the window behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, decided to drop in, check in, you know—the usual.” At that moment, Enji heard the distinct sound of a stomach growling, and turned to glare at Hawks.

“Really?”

“I mean maybe I forgot to eat lunch, but you know how busy heroing is! That’s not why I dropped by—or at least, not the only reason. I like you for more than your wallet, Endeavor-san.” Hawks was laughing, but his feathers were ruffling in a distinctly nervous way and he was running a hand through his hair. Enji sighed, and shoved his paperwork to the side.

“I’m too busy to go out anywhere—behind on paperwork after that minor gang bust earlier this week. We’ll go to the cafeteria.”

Hawks kept up his inane chatter as they walked through the halls down to the agency cafeteria on the second floor of his building, through the line for food, and all the way to the table, where Enji noticed that, as soon as they sat down, Hawks’ left wing slumped slightly, at an awkward angle.

“Hawks,” he said, interrupting the younger hero mid-sentence halfway through some kind of story about one of Mirko’s sidekicks’ birthday. “How did you get here?”

“Well, you see, when a mama bird loves a daddy bird—”

“You flew, didn’t you?” The sudden tightness in Hawks’ jaw and the bob his throat as he swallowed gave him away. “Hawks—you’re not supposed to be straining your wings or the new muscle in your back like that.”

“Number one, I didn’t know you cared!” Hawks was laughing cheekily, but avoided making eye contact.

“If you strain the muscle, you could do permanent damage. It’s a hero’s job to take care of themselves, Hawks.” He listened to Hawks’ half-hearted apologies and promises, making a mental note to keep a closer eye on the man, and noticed Shouto’s eyes on them from across the cafeteria.

*

“Was it about starting your own agency?”

“Was what—my conversation with Hawks? I told you to drop it.”

They were walking towards the UA dorms together—Shouto insisted that the students didn’t need to be walked to the door like children, but, thankfully, Eraserhead agreed with Enji that no matter how much the kids had proved themselves in battle, unnecessary risks remained unnecessary.

“Because while I hope you know that I would be happy for you to take over the agency some day, it’s fine if you want to start your own. Admirable, even. I could tell you about the early days of the agency. When I inherited it from your grandfather, it wasn’t—it was essentially starting anew. I could—”

“It wasn’t about starting my own agency.” Shouto had quickened his pace, and they were at the door to the dorms now.

“Well, then, was it—”

Shouto had shut the door in his face.

*

Enji knew he should drop it. He’d heard enough from his therapist about respecting boundaries, especially the fragile ones his children were trying to draw as they struggled their way towards healthy relationships with their father. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Shouto’s face, that soft little smile—the trust in it, the comfort in it—and the twist of jealousy in his gut when he thought about that smile directed at him. He just wanted to show Shouto that if he would just let Enji in, he could be worth that smile too.

They were washing up after family dinner on a Thursday, the only two left in the estate. Fuyumi and Natsuo had already left to go back to the home they shared with Rei, and Enji would drive Shouto back to the UA dorms soon. Even silently washing dishes, Shouto’s mouth was drawn into a tiny little frown, and Enji couldn’t help but picture that smile.

“Was it about—”

“Seriously? It wasn’t even hero stuff, it was about guy stuff, okay?” Shouto dropped the plate he’d been holding, and Enji winced as he watched it chip against the counter.

“Guy stuff? Shouto, I’m a—”

“Not about being a guy. About being… into guys.”

There was a long, hesitant pause between them. Enji’s mind was flickering between stunned silence and deafening moments of too many thoughts, too much input.

“Because, you know, Hawks and Mirko are the only out heroes in the top ten.”

One thought floated to the top of Enji’s brain, and he couldn’t begin to (refused to) guess at why it was the first thought that came out.

“Hawks is gay?”

“I—Are you kidding?” One of the parts of Enji’s brain that was still working noted a lick of flame flickering across Shouto’s cheek. “I come out to you and that’s the first thing you have to say? You’re not surprised I’m gay?”

This—this he knew the answer to, though his mouth was still moving faster than his brain, and his therapist had warned him about speaking without thinking about thinking through the consequences first, but the last thing he’d said was Hawks is gay and the realization was still ringing in his brain when this should be about Shouto.

“Shouto. When you were six you informed me you were going to marry All Might.”

“And you told me to shut up with that disgusting nonsense!”

“Of course I did—you weren’t going to marry All Might!”

“Oh my—so you’re seriously trying to tell me you weren’t homophobic, that this was just about your stupid hatred of All Might?”

“Of course I’m not homophobic, I—” Enji could feel the temperature rising on both sides of the sink, could see more flames licking across Shouto’s face, uncontrolled, and he stopped himself. Took a long, deep breath the way that he’d practiced, let his mind clear into nothingness and then let himself feel each emotion, let each unnecessary thought drift away until he could find the words he wanted to say, the ones he meant to say.

“Shouto. I’m sorry that I ever made you feel like you had to hide this part of yourself from me. Who you love will not stop me from being proud of you. I understand why you didn’t want to tell me or talk to me about this, and I’m glad Hawks is someone you feel comfortable speaking about this with.”

Shouto looked frozen, eyes wide open, as Enji slowly turned to continue doing the dishes. Silence reigned until they were sitting in the car on the way back to UA, when Shouto finally muttered, eyes fixed firmly out the window—

“Thanks, Dad.”

*

The next day at the weekly hero meeting, Enji couldn’t help but notice Hawks more than usual. He’d never bothered learning any personal information about his fellow heroes—irrelevant—and he told himself that it remained irrelevant. It shouldn’t change the way that he saw Hawks at all.

He watched Hawks stretch his wings behind himself, laughing at something Mirko said.

Nothing should change.

He watched Hawks take a seat next to his intern, the one from Shouto’s class, leaning over to mutter something to the stoic teen that made a hint of a smile break out on his face.

Nothing should change.

From across the room, Shouto’s eyes on him caught his attention. Shouto looked away before they made eye contact and turned to Bakugo, saying something that started more of Bakugo’s infernal yelling.

Nothing had changed.

*

It wasn’t even a week later that Hawks was at his office door again.

“I used the elevator this time. Aren’t you proud of me, number one?” He looked pleased with himself, and a little more put together than the last time Enji had seen him. His wings looked good—fuller than before, no drooping. He could never say that out loud, though, because even Enji had the emotional wherewithal to realize that Hawks hated to be pitied, for anyone to act like Hawks should be anything other than his absolute best, so his brain just skipped ahead to—

“Why are you here?”

At that, something in Hawks’ bright grin faltered, and something somewhere in Enji’s gut fell painfully in response.  He’d been trying to be—not nicer, per se, but… better. Not for everyone, but at least for the people who mattered. For his family. For Shouto’s friends. Inexplicably, for Hawks. He’s told himself that he owes Hawks, is all. Hawks’ injuries were his fault (Hawks’ beautiful red wings, another casualty burned up in Endeavor’s flames).

“For lunch. You… invited me?”

Hawks’s tone fell just short of his usual carefree air, and Enji blinked, momentarily stunned by the realization that Hawks actually wasn’t just doing his usual teasing. “I didn’t.”

“I did,” another voice echoed from the hallway outside his office, and Enji’s attention shifted to see Shouto, his friends hovering behind him awkwardly, mismatched eyes meeting Enji’s gaze with a challenging stare. “Is that a problem?”

And—oh. “Of course it’s not a problem,” Enji replied, keeping his eyes on Shouto’s, ignoring the urge to examine the nervous fluttering of Hawks’ wings he could see in his peripheral vision. “I’ll just—uh, see you all later.”

“The reservation is for five,” Shouto said, turning around and heading towards the elevator. “Might as well come too, old man.”

Shouto said nothing further on the subject as the motley group made their way out of the agency and through streets teeming with the midday lunch rush. Shouto said nothing further on any subject, actually, keeping his usual silence. Between Midoriya, frantically quizzing Hawks on his latest villain takedown while scribbling notes in that damn notebook of his, and Hawks, answering good-naturedly and dealing with any civilian interest in the group, the walk passed with as little awkwardness as could be expected. Enji had never thought he’d be grateful for Midoriya’s incessant chatter, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. And, when he was honest with himself, the kid wasn’t that bad; even before Shigaraki, Enji had found himself almost fond of him, if only because he was such a good friend to Shouto. He looked between the babbling boy and Shouto, spying Shouto huffing a short laugh at something Midoriya was saying. Maybe they—should he tell Shouto that he would approve? Of Midoriya? No, Shouto wouldn’t care for his approval, right? Unless… Shouto had, actually, in the end, been nervous about telling Enji about his sexuality, had thought that Enji had disapproved. But would saying he would approve of Midoriya imply that there were choices that Enji would disapprove of? And while that wasn’t necessarily wrong—Enji’s eyes lingered on Bakugo, who was currently yelling at a passerby who’d had the misfortune of being saved from stepping into traffic by the angry teen—for Shouto, Enji would put those feelings aside.

They’d made it the restaurant and were sitting down, and Enji still didn’t know what, if anything, to say to Shouto. Enji never knew what to say to Shouto. He’d spent his whole life working from the scripts of his father, and his grandfather before him, only to realize that they were—that he was a failure, as a hero, and as a father, and to start all over at square one, half his life spent walking down the wrong path. He kept trying to be better, but even still, he knew that more than half the time he said or did the wrong thing—voice too loud, tone too harsh, Shouto’s shoulders flinching imperceptibly or his stare going just that bit more icy. And now there were more landmines for him to desperately try to avoid.

Caught in his own thoughts, he didn’t notice the attention of several sets of eyes on him until he felt one of Hawks’ feathers nudging at his back.

“Sorry, Shouto-kun, didn’t quite catch that,” Hawks said breezily, and Enji glanced over at the grinning hero and wished that he was the kind of person who knew how to express his gratitude in some kind of simple, subtle way. But he didn’t have Hawks’ feathers—all his fire could do was burn.

“I asked if you knew of any gay bars.” Shouto’s stare shifted to Enji, though his tone didn’t change at all. “I decided I’d like to go to one.”

Blessedly, everything was silent for a long moment, while Enji tried to force his brain to think of—if not the right response, any alright response. He instinctively knew that this was a test, of sorts, a public challenge from Shouto, and one he couldn’t afford to mess up—not just in front of Shouto, but in front of Midoriya, bright red and eyes wider than Enji had ever seen them, Bakugo, snorting and rolling his eyes, and in front of Hawks—Hawks who was looking up at him with real surprise in his golden eyes and a light flush across his cheeks, Hawks who had been his biggest fan, Hawks who had looked up to him as a hero since he was a kid, Hawks who was gay.

But time was running out, the moment was stretching too long, and so Enji just sighed and said, “No drinking until you’re 20.”

Bakugo let out a short bark of laughter, though Enji breathed easier when Shouto scowled, as if the laughter was at his expense and not at Enji’s. He cast a half-glance over at Hawks to find that even though the flush on his face had deepened, he was looking back at Enji with a smile, big and bright like he’d done that first time they’d had lunch in Fukuoka. Fuck, Enji needed to thank Hawks. He couldn’t say anything in front of Shouto, it would embarrass him, and it wasn’t like Enji was any good at putting together the right words, anyway, but—

Because Enji was staring right at Hawks, he noticed the sudden tension in the younger man’s body and the shiver that rippled through his wings a half-second before he registered the vibrations of the ground beneath them and the beginning sounds of screams, so he was only a step behind the winged hero on their way out the door, listening to the interns tripping over themselves to follow them.

Now wasn’t the time, but later—he’d thank Hawks later.

*

Later didn’t come the next time Enji saw Hawks, or the time after that, or even the time after that. Enji was used to Hawks dropping by his office once every couple of weeks, if that, seeing him at top hero meetings, maybe an occasional phone call on a tip or lead one of them had. But somehow, Shouto had figured out that Hawks was working on a long-term case and staying nearby, and so the awkward lunches had become a weekly event, and then twice weekly. Not that Enji had an issue with Hawks’ more frequent presence, but all the moments that he used to get with Hawks bled into their lunches, he didn’t dare say anything to Hawks with Shouto around—he still got the sense that Shouto was assessing him somehow—and he didn’t know how to get a moment with Hawks alone. He could say something, but the words never quite came right to his brain, he always felt half-tripped up, and so he just… left, ignoring the feeling of Hawks’ eyes on him.

And then there were the times Enji was glad Hawks wasn’t around.

The agency was oddly quiet, for once, and Enji walked down to the cafeteria to see a group of his sidekicks huddled around a table with their heads bent low, the interns too, mumbling and passing something back and forth. Shouto glanced up when he heard Enji come in, and Enji saw a shadow of something like amusement pass across Shouto’s face, but before he could really identify what it was, his expression was back to its usual placidity.

“Why don’t we get the opinion of the number one hero himself?” Shouto said, just loudly enough for his voice to carry across the room to Enji’s ears. He started heading for the table, curiosity bleeding into his irritation at his staff for whatever distraction they were entertaining, growing stronger as Burnin herself looked up from whatever was on the table, her normally grinning face horrified and as red as Enji’s flames.

“What is this,” Enji said, staring down at whatever Burnin was trying to half-cover with her body.

“We were just looking at Hawks’ latest advertising campaign. What do you think, old man?” Shouto’s voice had that challenging tone again, as he pulled what turned out to be a magazine from Burnin’s desperate grip and handed it to Enji.

It took all of Enji’s hard-won control to keep the flames on his face from flaring out dangerously as he looked at the image in front of him, but he did note that several of his sidekicks winced at the sudden temperature increase he couldn’t help. Because Hawks’ face was staring up at him from the page, looking over his shoulder from between red wings spread proudly, his usual playful expression suddenly intense, body posed in such a way that he looked half a second from taking off, perched on a boulder in nothing but a pair of too-tight swim trunks. After he’d torn his eyes away from picture-Hawks’ piercing stare, his attention caught on the line of Hawks’ back—a long, lithe line, rippling with the muscle Enji knew Hawks had worked painstakingly to build back up so he could fly again, and—absolutely covered in burn scars, skin mottled and warped, jarring differences where the grafts had been, and Enji couldn’t stop himself from bringing his thumb up across the page to trace the skin. The text, advertising—cologne? who knew?—read “fly free”.

Someone coughed, and Enji realized he’d been looking at the picture for too long. He fought the urge to flare up in embarrassment again, and instead cleared his throat. They’d asked for his opinion?

“Being a hero means being a public figure, which means getting asked to do endorsements and advertising like this frequently. How to handle it depends on the type of image you have and want to project as a hero—endorsements that seem genuine and are well-received from heroes like Fat Gum or Mt. Lady would seem awkward or insincere from a hero like Eraserhead or Nighteye.”

Midoriya had reached into his backpack to get his notebook, but Shouto shot an impatient glare at the magazine in Enji’s hand.

“That’s why I don’t do these kind of things often—not because I disapprove of them categorically, but because they don’t fit with my image. The hardest thing to balance with endorsements and advertisements is how to appear in them while still maintaining enough an appearance of strength that people feel they can count on you as a hero in times of crisis. Hawks is the current hero who achieves that balance best.”

Enji noticed, with some small satisfaction, several jaws dropping around the table. He didn’t often praise others, but what he was saying was true—he’d known it from the first time he’d patrolled with Hawks, that the younger man could pull off a public image that simultaneously led people to both genuinely like him as a person and genuinely trust in him as a hero. It wasn’t until after Jaku that he’d realized just how much of a well-orchestrated facade it had all been, but it just made Enji admire the man more—that Hawks knew what it meant to struggle for the success.

“And the best heroes can make these opportunities work for them. Hawks’ injuries after his—after the—” Enji stumbled slightly, thinking of Touya’s face twisted in maniacal glee, “after last year are public knowledge, to a degree. By taking an opportunity like this, he ends the quiet speculation about them while still showing them from a position of strength. And the product tagline might as well be a hero slogan here—not only emphasizing the strength in flying, but the freedom of showing the scars.”

Midoriya was writing so quickly Enji thought he could hear the pencil ripping through paper, and Shouto was looking up at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face. None of them knew he was essentially paraphrasing a conversation he’d had with his PR agent long ago, on whether to attempt reconstructive surgery to reduce the appearance of the scar on his face after the battle with the High End, but the point had been the same both times. He’s glad Hawks got the chance to make this point, to show his strength for the whole of Japan to see, because—Enji glanced back down at the magazine in his hand, the glossy sheen of the paper over the gnarled lines of the scars, and realized his thumb was running over the proud angle of Hawks’ back again.

He tossed the magazine back onto the table, where it landed with a smack that seemed too loud for the suddenly quiet room.

“Now get back to work, all of you.”

*

The next week, Shouto came to Enji’s office of his own volition for the first time since he’d started at the agency. Enji dropped his paperwork immediately.

“Shouto.”

“… Endeavor,” Shouto returned, and Enji tried not to let the missing ‘Dad’ bother him. It was enough that Shouto was here—speaking to him, learning from him, tolerating him. He didn’t deserve to ask for more. So he just nodded, waited while Shouto realized that Enji wasn’t going to say anything about the form of address.

“What you said about Hawks’ ad campaign…” Something twisted in Shouto’s expression, and Enji startled to realize that he looked almost… sad, or guilty, just for a moment. “It’s not something we’ve talked about a lot in school yet. I know some of the other students at their internships and work studies have gone along to things like that, and I wanted to…” Shouto trailed off, just the hint of a blush on his cheeks, embarrassed at having to ask, and Enji understood.

“Of course. I don’t often do those, but I could find another hero for you to shadow to—”

“No,” Shouto interrupted, all traces of his blush gone. “I mean—I’d like to see how you handle it.”

And Enji hadn’t done any kind of advertising campaign in at least ten years, but—Shouto cared about how he would handle it, as a hero. Shouto wanted to learn from him, and not anyone else.

“I’ll talk to my secretary and try to get something set up.”

In lieu of a response, Shouto just nodded and turned to head for the door. After hesitating for a moment longer, watching his son’s back with a mix of hope and pride and guilt, Enji finally reached for the paperwork he’d set down when Shouto first walked in.

“Thanks,” Shouto suddenly said, stopping on the threshold and looking back over his shoulder at Enji. In the moment before the door shut between them, Enji thought he could see a hint of that same guilt he’d seen before, when he’d mentioned what Enji had said about Hawks. But then the door closed, the expression was gone, and Enji was left to chalk it up to underlying guilt about Touya—something Enji was painfully familiar with—and let it go.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

endless

oops my hand slipped and i wrote a very sad drabble that’s just tony missing peter, reflecting on it during the Blip, set pre-as if even now. read it on ao3 here, and if you haven’t, read as if even now (if only to get to their happy ending, i wrote an absurdly fluffy epilogue drabble for them damnit). preemptive tw that this fic reflects on a time where tony was suicidal, and thoughts and attempts are referenced. 

The kid had gotten under his skin, into every breath he took, inside his lungs and running through his veins and pumping through his heart, in ways he hadn’t realized until he’d clutched his body as it crumbled to dust. All he’d known was that he’d felt empty in ways he hadn’t since before he’d become Iron Man, back to Earth and spending his days and nights looking for ways to fill the aching chasm that was always threatening to swallow him whole.

Tony has always been, if anything, at least self-aware when it comes to his many and myriad faults. And the truth is that he is a greedy man, never satisfied with what he has, always reaching for the next thing and the next and the next, always wanting what he can’t have, even when (especially when) it’s not good for him. And he knows that this is the truth, even though Pep always just pats him on the shoulder and gives him one of her softer smiles and says that he deserves to be a little greedy, after all he’s done, after all he’s been through. He hasn’t quite figured out how to argue with that one, even though he knows in his gut that he should. At least he hasn’t figured out how to argue without revealing cards he’d rather keep hidden, even from (especially from) Pep.

Because he’d nearly died, had thought he was going to die, and was ready to die. Another of those things he hasn’t quite worked up the courage to tell Pep yet. Her favored narrative, for him and for the press, is that he held on, fought for life, fought to stay with them for her, for Morgan. Morgan—Christ. So how is he supposed to tell Pep that he’d been lying there, fighting for consciousness through the pain clawing its way across his entire right side, and in what he’d been certain were his dying moments he’d looked at the kid, really looked at him, remembered the way his hair had smelled of cheap shampoo and sweat and dirt when he’d hugged him tight, here, real, undeniably alive, and thought, Oh. Oh.

And that had been enough.

Tony scrubbed his hands across his face, harsh and hard, as if he could erase the memory of that moment, before he’d felt whatever oddball magic Strange had begun working. What he needed to erase were the memories of the five years before that—or, hell, maybe back further. As if Tony would ever—could ever—try to excise Peter from his mind. He wasn’t even sure that he could, now. The kid had gotten under his skin, into every breath he took, inside his lungs and running through his veins and pumping through his heart, in ways he hadn’t realized until he’d clutched his body as it crumbled to dust. All he’d known was that he’d felt empty in ways he hadn’t since before he’d become Iron Man, back to Earth and spending his days and nights looking for ways to fill the aching chasm that was always threatening to swallow him whole.

After Pep had gotten pregnant with Morgan, he’d once, in a drunken spat of extreme bitterness, accused her of convincing him to retire and have a kid as a replacement for Peter. She’d been so mad at him for that one that she’d just left the house and called Rhodey, told them to call her when Tony was sober again. He regretted what he said, but he noticed that she didn’t deny it.

At least, in her eyes, he’d stopped trying to kill himself by the time Morgan was born, so she could reasonably assume that maybe her plan had worked. Shamefully, not even the idea of leaving his baby girl alone in the world without a father was enough to keep him away from that particular ledge—in fact, what he hadn’t admitted to Pepper was that it made him want to run away more, because if Peter was superhuman and brilliant and good, the best of them, and Tony hadn’t been able to protect him, what could Tony hope to do for this little girl? No, it was Nat who got the credit for ending his run of attempts. Most of his attempts had been thwarted by past Tony, who had dreamed up what felt like a thousand and one protocols and alerts for just this scenario, but the last one it had been Nat to walk into his workshop at just the right (wrong) moment, in what if it had been anyone other than the Black Widow he’d have called a coincidence.

“You’ve gotta talk to someone, Tony,” she’d said once they were settled on the couch in the corner of the lab he slept on most nights.

“You don’t think I do? I’ve seen every shrink this side of the Mississippi and several on the other, I’ve gone to those stupid fucking support groups, and it’s—none of it works, Nat.” He’d been drunk—he was always at least slightly drunk, then—and it made him more open. “It’s all wrong.”

Whenever his therapists asked him to talk about what happened on Titan, he clammed up, spoke in the vaguest of terms. He told himself he was protecting Peter’s identity (even in apparent death) but he knew that wasn’t right. He’d considered that he was trying to avoid admitting just how culpable he really was, for dragging a teenager into this fight, for dragging the best mind of a new generation, the sweetest boy he’d ever known, brash and a bit impulsive but with a heart of fucking gold, and let him die on a godforsaken desert planet with a bunch of aliens, Strange, and a man who thought Footloose was a great movie—because he’d had plenty of experience avoiding admitting truths to himself, and this wasn’t his first therapy rodeo—but deep down he knew that wasn’t right either.

“Have you gone to the right ones?” Natasha had asked softly, looking at him carefully, and he had the unsettling feeling she, as always, saw more than he wanted her to see.

“I’ve been to the general ones, the ones for everyone who lost people in the Blip, to family loss, to the ones for first responders and others who felt helpless, I’ve even been to the groups for parents who lost kids.”

He had—at Pep’s insistence, he’d gone. And it was—better, than the others. The scope of his grief felt… more accepted, there. Less out of touch with the experiences of others. But it still wasn’t—enough. When they talked about the future they’d been robbed of with their children, it was a future they got to watch, moments in their lives that were gone—graduations, weddings, grandchildren. And Tony felt that, all of it, deeply—that he should’ve been there to see Pete graduate, valedictorian, go to college wherever he wanted (MIT, it would’ve been MIT), invent something that floored Tony with his brilliance—but that wasn’t quite it. More than all of that, he missed the time he should’ve spent with the kid and didn’t, missed the idea of years of weekends in the lab spilling out ahead of them, hearing him laugh and seeing him smile. He wished he’d just hugged the kid that time in the car, instead of making everything some joke.

“He was just… you know what he said to me, when I first met him and asked him why he was doing what he did? A broke fourteen year old kid, suddenly has superpowers and instead of being captain of the football team and stealing enough to set them up for life, he’s chasing down muggers in a onesie? He said, when you can do what I do, and you don’t do anything, and then bad things happen, they happen because of you. I mean, Christ, Nat. He was the best of us and I—I lost him, and I—and it feels like I can’t breathe.” He realized that his hand had gone, unbidden, to the shell of where the arc reactor had been, clutching at it desperately. Ripping his heart out would’ve maybe been less painful. Natasha had given him another penetrating look and then, whip sharp and faster than certainly his inebriated brain could keep up with, she’d grabbed him by the chin and turned him to look her in the eye.

“I actually like you, Tony, which is why I will say this. You loved Peter, you really truly did. And when you love someone, and they die, it fucking hurts and it never goes away. I like Pepper, I do, but the house in the country and hanging up the suit and the baby? Those won’t make it stop hurting. That pain lives inside you now, because so did Peter. So the only question is whether you can choose to live with it. Like I said, I like you, so I hope the answer is yes, and I think that’s the answer the kid would want for you. But if the answer is no, you call me. I’ll make it quick, and painless, and tidy, and Pep and the baby would never ever know what it really was.”

For once in life, he’d been speechless, left to stare at the spot on the couch she’d vacated as he considered her words, considered that Natasha had had a life, in Russia, before the Red Room had stolen it from her. Considered whether he’d want Pep to think he’d just… had a heart attack. Gotten old, put too much stress on himself. Considered the kid, wondered if there really was a place you went when you died, what he’d say to Peter.

He’d called Natasha once after that, at 3 in the morning a few months after Morgan was born, when he hadn’t been getting enough sleep and when the silence around the house had felt oppressive.

“Tony,” she’d said, quiet and gentle, the kind of tone she took when she was lulling the Hulk back to peace. “Is this the call we talked about?”

“No,” he’d gasped, scrabbling around the kitchen for the picture of Peter and him together, their fake internship picture. “No, I just… Thanks. Thank you.”

“You already had your heart-to-heart, Stark. Don’t think this is a regular thing,” she’d said, sounding more like herself. He’d snorted, clinging to the sense of normalcy.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it. Won’t put you on the list for talking about our feelings.”

“Atta boy. And Stark… you’re welcome.”

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

life update

so i’ve obviously been silent on here for a while and i don’t usually post period personal shit bUT i finally quit my very very toxic job!! hoo-fucking-ray. so catch me in two weeks working on my mental health glow up and finally getting the serotonin to resume creative projects like all my half-finished fanfic. 

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

like your blog but no offense how are you on Tumblr in ur late 20s?

Good question anon! Here’s my secret: the old folks home lets us out for an hour of water aerobics every day and while the other residents are huffing and puffing like a bunch of suckers I’m off to the side of the pool with everything I need for posting quality content to Tumblr Dot Com.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

My friends think it's weird to like Starker and IronDad. Do you think that's weird?

Hi there, my friend!

As someone who truly lives by the words “ship and let ship”, I can start by assuring you that there’s nothing weird or wrong with enjoying multiple dynamics between your favorite characters. You know why? Simply because it makes you happy. Therefore, it doesn’t have to make sense and it certainly doesn’t need to be rationalized and/or justified just so other people can make sense out of it.

That being said, you probably know this but you’re not alone. I know for a fact that many Starkers also enjoy Irondad stuff and I’m sure all of them - as well as multishippers or someone who started as an Irondad fan and slowly migrated to the nsfw side of things, like myself - have once been in your shoes, asking themselves if their shipping choices made sense. But you know, I came to realize that we all expect and get different things out of fanfiction, and different dynamics are a great way to satisfy those multiple, sometimes even concurrent needs.

For example, whenever I read Irondad (which tbh is not that often) I’m mostly searching for whump!Peter and all those warm, comforting feels that come with the hurt/comfort trope. And while I love it when Peter develops a special, platonic connection with a mentor-figure Tony, I’m personally not interested in fics that completely erase May from Peter’s life so that can happen. These are my personal preferences and I read Irondad fics with this goal in mind, whereas Starker fulfills my need to see the angst of them falling in love despite all the reasons why they shouldn’t, facing all the implications and complications that come with such a big realization, and eventually coming together and enjoying each other on a romantic and sexual level.

I can see why someone would question my choices because theoretically these are “conflicting dynamics” or whatever, but from where I’m standing it’s the exact opposite: I love these characters so much that I want to see them affecting each other’s lives in every possible way, hopefully finding happiness and solace and love in each other’s arms, no matter what form it might take. To be clear, I fully understand and support those who prefer either one dynamic or the other! Different things work for different people and it’s not always easy to compartmentalize feels. So seeing them in an exclusively romantic way or in an exclusively father/son or mentor/mentee relationship are all valid and legit shipping experiences! That’s the beauty of fanfiction.

TL;DR: you’re entitled to read and enjoy whatever you want, and you don’t need to justify yourself. But if you ever want to, just think about how these different dynamics come together in a wholesome and satisfying way to fulfill your different reading needs and expectations. Always choose yourself and whatever makes you happy :)

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

i know people are crazy for the whole age-difference thing between peter and tony but

soft. i want soft age difference.

tony constantly forgetting to pack his glasses and peter reading the menu for him.

peter being naive and inexperienced and tony making sure he doesn't get taken advantage of.

tony not being able to keep up with peters pace during sex and peter just slowing down because "i'd rather have slow sex with you than fast sex with anyone else"

peter getting stressed over college finals and tony supporting him through nights of studying and buying him an endless supply of energy drinks.

just a soft couple supporting each other wherever they need it.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

avengers endgame is just a nod to the college group project experience where everyone kinda fucks around and one person (tony stark) has to do all the actual work to get it done

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

Do you have a master list I really enjoy your work and I’d love to read through some more 😍

So this made me remember the time I told @cagestark I was making one and I....Didn't. And also every other person who's asked because I have the attention span of a gnat.

So.

Here is the link to my master list.

Its complied on a Google Docs, because I like things orderly and easy-access. You do not need a Google account to view it. I've also been very lazy, and all of my Rom Howney, other ship and multi-chapters are linked through my AO3, not their Tumblr posts.

I'll do my best to remember to update it. I will also be adding a hyperlink to my theme for it.

If you see any works I've missed, please feel free to let me know.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

It’s so absolutely heartbreaking because of how true it is.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

Soft cuddly starker

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

my hand slipped

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

2. For the first time in a decade, Tony has a sex tape leak. This one was filmed without his knowledge. As awful as it is having a non-consensual sex tape of oneself go viral, Tony never really cared whether the internet saw the full monty before—until now. This time he definitely cares. Because this time, the guy in the video with Tony—well, he looks undeniably like Tony’s 18-yo mentee. How do people react? What does the media do with the story? And most importantly, how does Peter react?

ahhh this was such a good prompt and it instantly caught my attention and inspired me!! sorry it’s a little longer than I initially planned for just random prompt fills but I had a lot of feelings~

tags: starker, mature, angst with a happy ending

The image quality is a little blurry, not quite in focus, but the bodies are clear enough, Tony’s fucking face clear enough as he stares at the man above him, runs his hands over toned skin and down to grip at the man’s ass, pull him to sink down onto him. The audio quality is great, though, picks up the man’s breathy sigh and the groan that gets punched out of Tony as he bottoms out, the slap of skin on skin as the man starts riding him, thin, lithe body twisting and grinding, the sound of Tony murmuring “that’s it, kid, yeah, just like that”, the little sigh the man makes when Tony reaches up to run a hand through chestnut curls and tug, and—

The video pauses, Tony pulling the man’s head back, exposing his undeniably younger face, toned body arching over Tony’s more solid one, the moment frozen in time as Pepper’s picture appears over the holoscreen image.

Tony picks up even though he doesn’t want to, wincing in anticipation.

“At least tell me he’s legal, Tony.”

She sounds more angry than he’d expected, though if she thinks she has to ask whether the man was legal Tony supposes it’s a reasonable anger.

“Christ, Pep, no—I mean—fuck, of course he’s legal.”

He hears her exhale of relief.

“You couldn’t have given PR even the slightest heads up? I know it’s been awhile, but you used to have a protocol for this, Tony.”

Tony winces—at the reprimand, at the reminder of a past when he’d had so many escapades that he’d tell some poor sap in the marketing department when he’d let someone film or take pictures of him in bed so they could be prepared for damage control, at the reminder that that protocol had fallen by the wayside long ago, when he’d first gotten together with Pepper (he hoped the poor marketing sap still had a job, just a better one), and, even worse, at the reminder that despite that, here he was back again, in his fifties with a sex tape leak.

“I didn’t know.” His voice is barely a croak, but he knows that Pepper hears him, even if she follows it up by repeating him incredulously.

“You didn’t know? You—Tony Stark—didn’t realize you were being filmed? What the hell happened, Tony? You used to be careful about this.”

“I know, Pepper, I—” he trails off, instinctively turning for where the bar used to be and then clenching his fist when he’s reminded of the fact he hasn’t had a drink in years. He takes a deep breath, hopes it’ll steady him, tries not to be disappointed when it doesn’t. “How bad did I fuck up, Pep?”

He hears her sigh, hears the shift in her from Pepper Potts, CEO of Stark Industries, to Pepper Potts, his ex-wife, one of his best friends, in spite of it all.

“With the company? It won’t be too bad. We’re past the days when the stock rose and fell on your latest news story, and you’ve got a long track record of being able to perform no matter how much of a shitshow your personal life is. With the media? Not great—you know how they love a breakdown story, and you didn’t do yourself any favors with how young he looks. But it’ll pass as soon as the next scandal comes along, probably sometime in the next forty-eight hours.”

Tony waits for the tightness in his chest to release somewhat, but it doesn’t.

Pepper hesitates and he thinks she’s going to hang up, but then she says, “With… him?” And Tony freezes, because he knows who she means, and it’s not the man in the video, and he hadn’t thought she’d know, hadn’t thought anyone knew, that was kind of the whole point of the man in the video, but he supposes that it’s not subtle to anyone who really knows him, not after this leak at least. “I… I don’t know, Tony. I really don’t know.”

The tightness in his chest is now a death grip, and he chokes out a “Thanks, Pep,” before he hangs up the call with a swipe of his hand and collapses back against his worktable. He finds his way over to a back corner, where his old car collection still sits, desperate to get his hands in the guts of his ’32 Ford Flathead Roadster, something old and finicky that he can get lost in for days, until all of this blows over and he can work on getting his life set back to rights. He’s only barely gotten his hands on the engine when he hears the sound of the doors to the lab opening and closing behind someone. He drops the wrench, which lands on a piece of the engine with an accusing clang, because the list of people with automatic access to his lab is short and—at this particular moment—terrifying.

He turns around with his heart already halfway in his throat, because those footsteps are familiar, and he’s greeted by the sight of the one person he’d been most hoping not to see right now. Peter Parker is standing in his lab, at 2 in the morning, peeling off the Spider-Man suit because of course the kid webbed over here, and—fuck, with dark circles and eyes red at the corners as if he’s been crying, and he looks nearly as bad as Tony must look. Tony tries to speak—he does, he really does—tries to say something comforting, or mentor-like, or even just honest, but it catches in his throat and twists and boils and all that comes out is a fucking joke.

“Come to deliver my mentor of the year award?”

Peter makes a strangled noise, and Tony flinches at just how abysmally he’s managed to handle this.

“Fuck, kid, I’m sorry—” he starts, but Peter makes a high-pitched noise that’s somewhere between a laugh and a sob and Tony suddenly wishes he had the wrench back in his hand, because hitting himself with it as hard as he could would have been less painful than hearing Peter make that sound.

“You—y’ called him kid.”

Guilt rips through Tony so fiercely that he actually staggers back to lean against the car, quietly cursing. “Fuck, Peter, I’m sorry, he—I promise, he wasn’t a kid, he was young but he was an adult, he was a consenting adult who was free to do what he wanted, I—”

“And I’m not?” Peter’s cut him off, voice suddenly raised, and in it Tony can hear anger and pain and he it looks like Peter’s fighting back tears, and Tony wants desperately to know what to do, but all he says is “what?”, dumbly confused.

“He—so he’s young but he can be an adult and make his own choices but I’m just a kid, —‘m always just some kid,” Peter says, but Tony finally notices that Peter’s slurring his words slightly, and when he’s done talking he tries to take an angry step towards Tony but ends up swaying, needs to reach out and grab onto a workstation.

“Peter, are you… drunk?” Tony doesn’t bother to conceal the horror in his voice, not because Peter’s drinking—because sure he’s not 21, but no one waits until they’re 21 to start drinking, and Peter deserves as much normalcy as he can possibly get—but because this is Tony’s fault, he’s not drinking for fun with his friends, but Tony’s somehow driven Peter to get drunk, to drown himself in alcohol, and fuck he’s making all of the mistakes he’d never wanted to.

“So what if I am?” Peter says, “ ’s not like you care.”

“Christ, Pete, of course I—I always care, but—shit, how much did you even drink to get drunk, with your metabolism?”

Peter shrugs. “Dunno. Stopped counting. Doesn’t last long, anyway, but I just needed to—just needed to be drunk to come here and say—and say—” Peter slumps forward, as if all of the anger has been drained out of him.

Tony takes a tentative step forward, afraid that Peter’s drinking is actually catching up, suddenly terrified of what could be happening.

“Say what, Peter?” Tony asks gently, taking another step forward, but then Peter looks up and there are tears on his face.

“I don’t—I don’t know, I just—I don’t know if I can do this anymore, Mr. Stark.”

Tony’s stomach drops, to the floor, through the floor, through the center of the goddamn earth, because he has apparently messed this one up badly, terribly badly, and Tony would trade every dollar he has to make this up to Peter, but that’s not how this works, and he wishes he could say the right thing, but he’s Tony Stark, and so even though as he takes a step towards Peter he realizes his own hands are shaking, all that he can say is, “Peter? Pete?”

Peter doesn’t seem to notice or care about his slow approach, just wipes at his eyes with the back of his hands and keeps talking.

“It’s stupid, but I just… I saw it and I told myself not to watch it, but then of course I did, because I’m stupid, and then I got jealous, and that felt even stupider so I started trying to get drunk, and it didn’t really work and all it did was make me realize that I—I mean, the way things were was fine, I could tell myself at first that you had Pepper, and then after that that you didn’t like men like that, or that you would never look at someone as young as me like that, but then there was that guy and—I just—I guess it’s just that’s that it’s me, that’s what I realized, that it’s not my age or my gender, it’s just me that you’ll never see that way, and it’s one thing to be half in love with someone and spend all your time with them when you know you can’t ever have them, and it’s another thing to—to—it just feels like rejection? Even though it’s not?”

Peter pauses to draw in a shaky breath, suppressing a sob, and Tony is aware that he’s trembling now. “Peter, Pete—what are you saying, Pete?” he whispers, mind stuck somewhere between overdrive and frozen, like a part that’s gotten jammed, trying desperately to whir through his thoughts but somehow just—stuck.

“I don’t—you’re right, Mr. Stark, I’m drunk, I’m not—I probably won’t quit in the morning or anything, I couldn’t—but I just—this was dumb, I should just—”

And Peter’s turning away, and heading for the lab doors, and Tony’s desperately trying to send the signals from his brain to his limbs to go after him, to take just one fucking step forward, but it’s not working, and all he can do is yell after him.

“Pete, wait, please!”

But Peter’s not stopping, just says, “It’s okay Mr. Stark, it was a mistake to come here, I’m really sorry, maybe we can just—pretend this didn’t happen, okay?”

And he’s almost at the door and Tony’s finally started to move, but not nearly fast enough, so he says, “FRIDAY, lock the doors!” And he knows his voice sounds a little throaty, a little desperate, but it works, because he hears the smooth click of the lab door sealing shut, sees Peter reach it and push uselessly before turning back around.

“C’mon Mr. Stark, seriously, I don’t wanna—just, please?”

“Pete—you were… jealous?”

And maybe it’s not the best place to start, but it’s the thing that Tony’s brain is stuck on, because it feels so laughable—that Peter could ever be jealous of someone who was only ever meant to be a cheap imitation of Peter. Peter just turns away, trying to hide his face again.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t wanna—I already said I was, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Tony’s close enough to touch him now, rocks forward as if he might and then thinks better of it, his brain trying to catch up. “Pete, I—I just—god, we were both supposed to be smarter than this. I mean—you honestly think it was a coincidence he looked like that?”

At this, Peter starts to turn around, eyes wide with a mix of confusion and hope, but Tony just keeps going.

“You don’t think every time I called him kid it was because I was picturing you? Shit, I’m sorry, but—you don’t know how hard it was not to give in and call him Peter.”

“Mr. Stark, what are you—are you saying—”

“Stop me if I’m—if you don’t want—” Tony murmurs, closing the distance between them to lean close and press his lips against Peter’s, so gently, tentative, a question. There’s a long moment, and just when Tony’s starting to pull away, resigned to his error, Peter answers, leans forward and wraps a hand around the back of Tony’s neck, pulls him close and opens his mouth in a shuddering gasp, kisses Tony back like he wants to drown in it, and Tony meets him with everything he’s got, finally wraps a hand in those perfect curls, drinks in the soft gasps from Peter until he’s weak in the knees and has to pull away to draw in great gulps of air.

“Mr. Stark?” Peter whispers against his neck, where he’s pressed himself tight to Tony, wrapped in a hug like he’s as afraid of this moment dissipating as Tony is.

“Come to bed, Pete,” Tony says into the top of Peter’s head, feels him nod. And as FRIDAY unlocks the lab and they walk, intertwined, constantly touching, towards Tony’s bedroom, Tony’s mind is for once quiet, content in the knowledge that in a few minutes he can tuck Peter into bed beside him, for now just hold him while they sleep, and in the morning—everything will be better.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

I don’t usually do this but I’ve been in my head a lot lately and I want to distract myself productively so send me some starker prompts?? I’m up for writing anything tbh

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

(Requested by @starkeristheendgame)

✨First Date✨

“Mr. Stark why are we at the beach? I thought you said we were coming to Miami on SI business?”

It had been a week since Peter’s pretty little lips had confessed to Tony, and he wasn’t about to let another day pass that they don’t go on an official date.

He didn’t think renting the entire beach for a day and flying out there on his private jet was overdoing it.

Maybe he just wants to ruin the Kid for anyone else. Make sure no first date is as good.

“I wanted it to be a surprise, Kid. I know you’ve never been to the beach before so I figured we could have a nice sunny date.”

Peter blushed at the word date. It was still hard for him to wrap his head around the whole thing.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“Anything for you. Anything.”

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

The one thing that he did that he didn’t second-guess was picking you. I don’t think Tony would have done what he did if he didn’t know you were gonna be here after he was gone.

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

WHY WASN’T THIS IN THE MOVIE

[harderbetterfasterstarker]

me, tonight, pounding on the proverbial gates of ao3: give me the FLUFF. THE FLUFFIEST OF THE FLUFF. cotton candy floofy clouds fluff, i want to suffocate myself in fluff.