#I can alr tell your such a sweet person and I’ve known of your existence for about 5 minutes <3

[geeerage]

STOP TYSM?,? i’m Kicking my feet

I did a flip

[cagestark]

A Hole in the Head//3

Chapter One | Chapter Two | Chapter Three | Chapter  Four | Chapter Five | Chapter Six | Chapter Seven | Chapter Eight

Read here on AO3.

-

Peter stares at his reflection, assessing the image. The sweater he wears is dove gray, hemp-fiber and wide knit, giving a glimpse of his lean figure beneath—he likes the way it feels when he moves his arms and the knit brushes over his nipples (which are still tender from the loving abuse Tony delivered to them yesterday). A darling navy tumbled-fabric jacket and chinos complete the outfit, giving him a sense of elegance while remaining casual. 

Usually he likes every item he wears to be on-brand, but Peter doesn’t own any Armani sunglasses. He needs the sunglasses, though. Today, he wants the extra security they give. He wants some control, wants his guard to not know where his gaze rests. So on slip the Salvatore Ferragamo sunglasses with the rose-gold frames, like armor. 

After Peter’s embarrassing display yesterday, he’d spent the remainder of his afternoon and evening in his bedroom. He’d dropped after the sex, but only a little, lying shaky in a steaming tub while Tony fed him strawberries and licked the juice from his raw lips. 

“Send him away, sir,” Peter had begged. “I don’t want a guard. I just want you.” 

Tony smiles in a way that’s sad and soft and that Peter hates. “You didn’t feel that way when you were asking him to join us.” 

“Do y’ think I’m a slut?” Peter asks. He doesn’t cry—but it’s a near fucking thing. Everything, inside him and out feels scratched raw. “Why am I still like this after what Beck did? What’s wrong with me?”

“Pete. Hey, kid, look at me. Look at me. Good boy. Don’t talk about yourself that way. Do you know what I’d do if anyone said that bullshit about you? I’d kill them, sweet thing. I’d gut them. I’d grind them into dust. Nobody talks about my boy like that, and that goes for you, too. You fearless fucking thing. God, you know it drives me crazy watching you lose your mind, no matter who it’s over. And I don’t think there’s a person in the world who could fault you for wanting Barnes. He’s art, isn’t he?”

Peter sits up, startled. Water splashes over the side of the tub and soaks Tony’s pants (the only thing he wears, tugged on hastily after their fucking) but he gives no notice. Pieces to a puzzle he didn’t know existed suddenly snap into place. “You like him too.”

“I like him as much as I can like anybody who isn’t you. I’d say it’s more lust than anything—some admiration too. I’ve seen him dismember a body in ten minutes flat, you know that? I don’t think he knows the meaning of the phrase weak stomach. He’s got my respect is what I mean.” 

“More of your respect than Beck had?” 

Tony sighs and lets one hand slip into the bathwater to take Peter’s pruning hand. “Short answer? Way more than Beck had. But Pete, it doesn’t matter anymore. Beck is deader than dead. Do we need to go and visit the hole I dumped him in to make sure? It’s been a while since we’ve visited. Maybe it would help you put it to rest.” 

“And what about you?” Peter asks. He reaches out with the damp fingers of his free hand and runs a wet thumb beneath Tony’s eyes where the skin is thin and bruised looking from nights spent in insomnia and in poor sleep. “Are you resting?” 

“I’m getting there,” Tony promises. “Barnes helps. We’re going to keep him, Pete. You’ve got to make peace with it.” 

They’d spooned and spent the night in their room. Peter had stirred only briefly to Tony pressing a kiss to his forehead and giving him his love before leaving for the day. Plans are being drawn up for a Stark Industries tower in Manhattan, and Tony is up to his eyes with contractors and city planners and architects, spending more time away from the mansion in general. Though he doesn’t say anything, the knowledge is unspoken that Barnes is outside the door, that he will be Peter’s shadow from now on. 

Peter is ready, though.

Every hair in place, he moves to the door and opens it. Barnes is there in the hallway. He has the room beside theirs to sleep in (and isn’t that fodder for Peter to consider when he’s jerking off in bed, thinking about thin walls and naked assassins tangled in the sheets), but from what Tony told him, Barnes doesn’t often sleep. The years he spent in Russia being trained in God-knows-what have changed him. It’s no wonder that most of the people in Tony’s employ speak of him like he’s a phantom. 

Without acknowledging the other man’s existence, Peter goes downstairs and makes himself breakfast: organic overnight oats and avocado toast. Barnes takes up residence in a stool at the island countertop, eyes on his phone. He looks like a bored receptionist. 

Maybe Peter should make things a little more interesting for him.

“I’m going to the mall,” Peter says off the top of his head. Because the best plans are the ones no one can see coming, including Peter himself. Barnes doesn’t flinch at the sudden words. His head turns slowly, eyes half-lidded as he stares at Peter blankly. Did they not have malls in Russia? Peter thinks with scathing glee. “This is me being nice and warning you.” 

“Why?” 

“Because you asked me to?” 

“Why are you going to the mall?” 

“To hang out? To windowshop? To shop shop? I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”

“If you don’t have an objective, why do you want to go?” 

Had he really spent so little time around normal humans that he’s forgotten the inherent illogic of them? 

Something stirs in Peter’s gut, a strange mix of softness and exasperation. Like always, when he’s presented with two choices, Peter finds himself tempted by the worser one. He can’t help but put his hand to the flames; he loves being burned. “I just—oh my god. Look, I need to spend time outside of the mansion or I’ll lose my mind. I’m trying to leave in a safe way. Unless you’d like me to wait for when you’re taking a shit for me to climb out the window?” 

Barnes shrugs one shoulder and goes back to scrolling through his phone. 

Brown eyes narrow. If there’s one thing Peter does not like, it’s being ignored. It makes him see red, like blood is dripping down into his eyes. If you’re ignored, then you’re ignorable. There is nothing ignorable about Peter B. Parker. 

“Shouldn’t you get a car for me or something?” Peter snaps. “Call me a cab?” 

“I’m your guard, not your servant,” Barnes says, his voice rough from disuse. 

Bust. Peter thinks for a long moment, chewing on his toast. At last, a smile spreads across his face. To his benefit, Barnes responds with a look of appropriate trepidation and scepticism. “That’s fine,” Peter says brightly, pushing away his empty plate. “I’ll get us a ride.” 

-

Tony’s garage is fourteen-hundred square feet and houses six cars and two motorcycles. (His garage beneath ground houses much less legal and savory things, but Peter can’t open that with a press of the automated door opener) Barnes doesn’t look equipped to withstand the sunlight dressed in a black leather jacket that probably conceals far too many weapons and black fitted pants that appear too tight to conceal anything. Though judging by the organic bulge there, he’s certainly packing heat in a way that Peter would appreciate—

Peter opens the third garage door and Barnes squints into the darkness making out the shape of the Aston Martin One-77. It’s a beautiful car, almost supernatural with the allure it holds over most people, luring them in like fish to a pretty tackle. Barnes steps inside without being ushered by Peter. One hand reaches out to hover over the glossy surface as though he doesn’t dare touch it. 

“You like?” Peter asks smugly. 

“We’re not taking this,” Barnes says at length. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You don’t know the meaning of the word inconspicuous, do you, kid? You’re supposed to be laying low until Toomes is taken care of.” 

“Come on. It’s New York City. Conspicuous is the new inconspicuous.” 

Barnes doesn’t look impressed. “No.” 

Peter prepares to argue but just manages to stop himself, gritting his teeth. Pick your battles, Pete, he tells himself. It’s no use dying on this hill. Not when he’s sure that he’ll find a much more satisfying hill to die on later in the day. He takes a deep breath in, holds it to the point of pain, and then lets it all out silently. “Fine,” he says at last. “We’ll take the Cadillac. Happy?” 

“Thrilled,” says Barnes with all the joy of a pallbearer. 

“You’re driving,” Peter says, plucking the keys off of their designated hook. He tosses them and Barnes catches them easily, the bastard. He’s so unflappable. Peter has no idea what it will take to get a reaction from him, but he can hardly wait to find out. 

After adjusting all the mirrors and seats (Peter takes note of how far back the man has to adjust the seat to accommodate legs that are inches longer than Tony’s) Barnes sits stoic behind the wheel, unmoving. 

“Any day now.” 

“Put your seatbelt on.” 

“Are you kidding me? I’m not twelve.” 

“Put. On. Your. Seatbelt.” 

“Make. Me,” Peter mocks. It’s worth it when Barnes reaches out faster than Peter can blink, wrapping a gloved hand so tightly around the seatbelt strap that hangs beside Peter’s neck that the leather of his glove creaks. The scent of leather and oil in Peter’s nose nearly makes his eyes roll back before Barnes pulls his arm back towards the console, jabbing the seatbelt into place. 

“Safety first,” Barnes snarks. 

Turns out, it’s a good fucking idea: safety. 

While he drives them from the secluded suburban house into the city, he breaks every traffic law known to man. Maybe he’s doing it to frighten a reaction from Peter, but if so, he’s going about it in all the wrong ways. Peter is a total adrenaline junkie. The swoop in his stomach he feels at every descent over a hill, the way his body is pressed to one side or another when Barnes makes a turn at double the recommended speed—all it does is take his breath away, make his head spin. 

When they begin to enter the city, Barnes is forced to adhere to more conventional traffic laws, but Peter is already looking forward to the drive home. He glances at the older man’s profile, not bothering with subtlety. Sunlight lights up the edge of him, emphasizing the perfect slope of his nose and the defined jaw. 

“What?” Barnes asks. 

“What, what?” 

“You’re staring at me.” 

“You’re hot. Sue me.” 

Barnes lets a sarcastic breath come out his nose. Peter takes the lack of response as a chance to turn fully in his seat, the belt straining across his chest. “What?” Peter asks. “Has no one ever told you that before?” 

“Told me what?” 

“How hot you are.” 

“Is this a real question?” Barnes wonders, face expressionless, voice unwavering. 

“Very real. When’s the last time someone told you that you were hot?” 

“About thirty seconds ago.” 

“God, you’re no fun,” Peter says. “You’re like Steve Rogers Junior or something. Turn up here onto the one-way. I want to go to Brookfield Place.” 

No matter the time of day, everything is always busy in Manhattan. The mall is no exception, and Barnes has to go up three different floors before he finds a satisfactory spot in the parking garage. Going into the mall with the other man is a downright surreal feeling. Peter can’t help but wonder what they look like together: Barnes’s hulking, gothic mass and Peter’s petite, borderline-preppy figure. But if Peter thought that he would get the chance to interact with Barnes here, he was mistaken. The man cuts away from Peter and disappears among the sea of bodies, probably to do something like maintain a superior vantage point. Despite being amongst so many people, Peter feels the keen sting of loneliness. 

He hates when Tony spends so much time working. 

Determined to make the best of his time, he stops by Davidoff’s and buys the cigars Tony likes. There’s a lighter too that catches his eye: S.T. Dupont, brushed palladium. Peter doesn’t know much about lighters except that he loves the way they look in Tony’s hands, the way he opens them with sure, practiced fingers. 

Feeling a little cheerier (spending money has that effect on him, maybe a side effect from so many years of poverty in Queens, but Peter’s no therapist) he crosses over to the new Louis Vuitton store. Tony doesn’t step foot here—it’s ultra-gauche to him, and Peter finds a giddy little thrill in being surrounded by clothes he knows Tony would make a sour face at. He picks a few items that are the least offensive and steps into a private luxury fitting area. 

When he steps out of the fitting room to test his stride in the tight denim pants, Barnes is sitting in one of the chairs with his ankle resting on his knee. He looks out of place among the luxury and colors. 

“What are you doing here?” Peter wonders. 

“I can’t keep eyes on you when you’re in a fitting room,” Barnes says around a scowl. “Stick to the open areas.” 

“What’s the use of going to the mall if I can’t try on clothes?” 

“I’m not seeing the use of being here at all,” says Barnes, tucking one leg up to rest his ankle on his knee. Peter grits his teeth. It isn’t fucking fair that the guy is so attractive and repulsive all at the same time, that he has a body Peter wants to worship but an attitude that makes him want to take the elevator up to the top floor of the mall and jump off. Splat. 

Peter ducks into the fitting room without a word and tugs on his clothes in a cold fury. I’ll show him, he thinks, tucking his shirt into pants. Anyone who tries to fit a collar around Peter’s neck finds that he’s not afraid to pull on the leash, even if it’s a bad idea, even if it chokes himself. Barnes will see.

When he comes out dressed, Barnes lifts both eyebrows. 

“I’m going to go and get a shirt to match those pants.” 

“No,” Barnes says, slowly, like Peter is a child. “We’re leaving.”

“One more shirt, and I’ll go without a fuss.”

Barnes weighs his options, gray eyes flickering from side to side while he thinks. At last, he says, “Be quick, kid. Or else.” 

As soon as Peter is free of the fitting room, he turns towards the doors of the store and begins to walk briskly. Once he’s free of the store itself, he lets himself jog to the escalator. He goes up to the top floor to throw Barnes off in case he’s already looking, ducking into the stairwell and then sprinting down them to the ground floor, narrowly avoiding bumping into a man counting his change at the vending machine. 

The feeling inside him is like euphoria. It’s the way he felt in the car with Barnes behind the wheel taking turns at ninety miles per hour. He imagines that he can already hear the pounding of boots behind him, but when he turns around, there is no one there. Barnes is probably just realizing that Peter made a run for it, and when he catches the younger man (when, Peter notes distantly, even in his mind he knows now that he will never be able to escape the man, he is always the rabbit running just out of reach of the dog’s jaws) the punishment—well Peter can hardly imagine what he’s in for. 

Peter comes out of the mall and into the sunlight. He turns away from the parking garage and begins to stroll down the street, hoping to god no civilians passing by take note of his half-hard cock. Heart pounding, Peter glances back over his shoulder, looking for a figure dressed in black and towering over the others, but there is no sign of the assassin—

Until a hand grips his wrist and pulls him into an alleyway. 

The breath goes from Peter’s lungs and for a moment he feels true fear. He goes for his strap but the figure knocks him off balance, urging him further into the darkness and away from any prying eyes who might glance down the alley. A body presses him into the brick wall of the building, skewing his sunglasses. 

The hand that rests palm flat on the bricks beside Peter’s face is gloved in black leather.  

“You think this is fucking funny?” Barnes whispers hotly into Peter’s ear. 

“Maybe not funny, but I’m having a good ti—ow, fuck, watch it!” Barnes grabs the sunglasses and crushes them in his hand, glass littering the ground. “You asshole! Those were four hundred dollars!” 

The pressure against his back increases until he struggles to take in a breath. Gasping for air, Peter grabs at the wrist beside his face, struggling to make known his urgency. All at once, Barnes turns him around so they face each other, the back of Peter’s head thudding against the brick wall. He grits his teeth against the pain and goes to knee the taller man in the balls. But it’s a move Barnes has been expecting, kicking Peter’s legs apart and planting himself between his thighs. 

The position is more than intimate. There’s no way Barnes can’t feel Peter’s erection, pinning his pelvis to the wall the way he is. Their chests brush with every breath, and one of those strong, leather clad forearms presses against Peter’s throat, a threat that has his blood singing. 

“Do you want to die?” Barnes asks him through his teeth. “Because this is how it happens. By not listening to me. By running from me. Tony told me you were smart, but all I see is a little boy playing grown-up games. It’ll break your daddy’s heart when Toomes gets his hands on you, and who do you think he’s going to blame? His brainless little baby? Or me?”

It’s a good thing Barnes’s arm cuts off Peter’s ability to speak, because at least that way he can blame it on anything but the shame he feels, the embarrassment that ties his tongue. He struggles and writhes more out of instinct than real hope of escape, and during one undulation, his stomach brushes against a distinct hardness. 

Peter freezes, eyes wide. Barnes’s eyes expand fractionally before narrowing even more, his jaw working as he grits his teeth. Arching more, Peter makes contact again. Barnes pulls him away from the wall for just an instant before jerking him back in admonishment. The rough bricks catch his hair and make his head ache, but it’s secondary. It’s all secondary. 

Because Barnes is hard. 

Peter begins to laugh. Even when the forearm pressed against his throat presses forward maliciously until no more noise can slip past his lips, Peter can’t stop shaking. Head spinning, Barnes gives him space to breathe before he can slip into unconsciousness and Peter gasps for air only to give it up again in laughter. 

Winning is so fucking sweet.

“I finally got a reaction out of you,” Peter rasps, eyes wet from the hilarity of it all. He bends at the waist, gagging, working to catch his breath. The whole time, Barnes watches with an expression that Peter can’t deduce, head tilted as if Peter is some microbe beneath a microscope that needs further studying. 

“Oh, right,” Barnes says at last, mouth curling upwards cruelly. He takes a step back to lean against the opposite brick wall, lounging there in a way that looks far too comfortable. Doubt sprouts in Peter’s mind and sours the joy of his victory. Whatever is brewing behind Barnes’s empty, smug eyes isn’t something Peter’s going to like. “I forgot. About your self-esteem issues.” 

That sucks the last bit of laughter from Peter’s lungs. “Excuse me?” 

Barnes crosses his arms. At length, he says, “Yeah. You know. How you correlate your own self-worth with the number of people who are sexually attracted to you. How if nobody has a hard-on looking at you, then you feel like shit. Because you are shit. That what you needed, kid? Needed to feel like more than just a poor orphan from Queens who sucks a powerful man’s dick to get affection and protection?” 

Peter’s blood boils. He feels himself shaking, fists clenched tight at his sides. For a moment, he thinks about drawing his concealed carry and pointing the barrel right at Barnes’s pretty fucking face just to see the smug expression drain from it. “You’re just talking out your ass right now because you have a hard-on for me. Must suck being human like the rest of us!” 

They’re both hitting new lows, finding cracks in the armor of the other person, because Barnes’s face twists into fury and he pushes away from the wall until they are nearly chest to chest again (and the size difference, Jesus, Peter has to look up at the guy, and that doesn’t even speak to how broad the other man is, bulky where Peter is lithe and willowy). Through his teeth, Barnes wonders: “What do you want from me? Jesus, if I knew you’d be such a fucking brat, I never would have taken this goddamn job!”

Peter pokes a finger into that broad, hard chest. “Right now? I want you to admit that you want to fuck me!” 

Barnes grabs him by the shoulder and shoves him back into the wall, pulling Peter upwards so that when he presses their bodies together, their cocks meet. Both of them are still hard. “Fine,” he snarls, breath wafting over Peter’s face. “I want to snap you in half from fucking you so hard. I jerked off last night wondering which I’d like more, to cum in your ass or all over that smart fucking mouth. Listening to you and your daddy fucking made me harder than I’ve been in my entire life. Is that what you want? Is this what you want?”

“Yes,” Peter chokes, eyes rolling. His hips thrust even though there is no space, even though the man is front of him is as yielding as the brick wall behind him, the pressure on his cock making stars burst in the back of his brain. “Yes, I want it all, I want it all.” 

Barnes drops him. The loss of contact has Peter’s head rushing. The man leans forward until their faces are inches apart, close enough to kiss if they so wanted, and for a moment Peter’s eyes even flutter only to be dropped back into reality when Barnes speaks: “But it’s never going to happen. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. This is my job. The last guy who fucked you on the job got himself killed, and I’m not looking to follow in his footsteps.” 

Peter is left gaping as Barnes steps back to put space between them again. It had all seemed so close, but now it had slipped through his fingers like sand in a clenched fist, like water down a drain. His mouth opens but no words come out. No words. 

“Get over it, Peter,” Barnes says solemnly. “And quit trying to get the both of us killed.”