#like everything is fine something jsut feels off and i cant put my finger on it

[alterouslyinlove]

how to get validation without seeming annoying or making it obvious that you need validation to survive. puter do you hear me

[drkoestersmithrpg]

I CANT WAIT to share this one with you because it’s not done (happy ending!!) jsut a few more lines more but this is what I got - gotta go to bed.  Enjoy.

Peter’s “Damn Millennial Ethics” (Tony’s words) required him to check on his fellow Avengers (despite all Tony’s grousing and pleading – he left him in an adjacent bedroom and got as dressed as he could to find the others.)

He found Hawkeye and Black Widow asleep on the floor of the kitchen – tangled up in each other’s arms and fully clothed.  He wasn’t sure what to make of that but forged on.

From the huge bathroom where Sam and Cap had holed up there was silence, and when Peter finally got the nerve he tiptoed in and found both of them naked and asleep on the floor in a tangle of towels, the shower faucet still running.

Peter stepped into the shower and turned it off, then touched Sam’s bicep timidly until he woke up.

“Are you ok?” he whispered, giving Sam plenty of time to sit up shake his head and look around in a daze.

“I had the strangest dream,” he said, until he saw Steve Rogers laying on the floor next to him.

“What the hell happened?”

“I’m going to let you figure that one out for yourselves, just checking on…

“Wait wait wait….is that what the blood was supposed to do??” Sam was saying and Peter took that opportunity to head for the door.   As long as no one needed medical assistance it was up to the two men to figure out if they were ok or not.

“Where are Barnes and Nat?” Sam asked, his head in his hands.

“Asleep, fully clothed, in the kitchen.  Go figure. Any idea where Thor and Star-dude are?”

Sam’s head snapped up and his eyes went wide.

“Kid, neither one of us is old enough to know what that was all about.”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Peter said as he headed toward the door, but Sam stopped him.

“Wait…kid…you’re the only minor at this turns-out-it-was-THAT-kind-of-party-party, are you ok?”

Peter stood up straight and tried to keep the irritation out of his voice.  “First off I’ll have you know I’ll turn 22 this year,” Peter retorted, trying to look dignified despite the fact that he was naked except for Tony’s boxers.  “And second, after Thor left I was the strongest Avenger left in this building thank you very much.  I’m fine.”

He looked down at thimsel, barefoot and bare chested and clad onlyin Tony’s boxers.

“….and I’m also apparently dating Tony Stark,” Peter said, with pride (and surprise.)  “So, that’s a thing.”

“Oh no….oh no no kid, no. Don’t do it.  

“The age difference.  

“You’re much too mature for him.”

Peter left Sam alone with his naked friend with both a smirk and an eye-roll (how many times was he going to have to hear THAT joke for the rest of his life?) and found his way back to Tony.  

 --------

“This is very tragic,” Tony said, greeting him at the door to the bedroom, taking Peter by the hands and leading him toward the bed.  He was whispering and wearing an exaggerated pout.

“I’m listening,” is all Peter said as he watched the man with curiosity.  Something was different.

“It’s horrible, it’s devastating…” Tony was saying, bending his knees and leaning to one side to indicate how devastating it was.  Peter watched warily – he had seen Tony drunk, and he had seen Tony dying, but he had never seen Tony like this.

As Tony walked backward and led Peter, by both hands, towards the bed Peter realized what it was – he had seen many of Tony’s personas, many of his put-ons.  But this was the most Put-On-iest of the Put Ons. Flamboyant.  Fae.  The words “limpwristed fairy” were echoing in his head but all Peter could picture was a mask put on top of another mask on top of another mask.

Less than an hour before he had seen another side of Tony, one he had only previously caught in glimpses.

He was amazed at how much he missed it.

He was amazed at how fast it went away.

He wondered how often he would have to live without it.

But “I’m still listening,” was all he said.

“You see the heartbreaking fact is, you lost your V-card deep inside my ass on the floor of the media room and I don’t remember a thing.”

“I can’t help you there,” Peter said as they arrived at the bed.

“Yes you can,” Tony whispered, glancing behind him.  “You can slip your huge cock inside me and come in my ass one more time on my bed, and in the morning when I wake up I’ll be far too confused to remember which time was which…”

Tony kept talking, saying things Peter had to steadfastly ignore if he wanted to keep his temper. In the media room something profound, something almost religious had happened between Peter and this man and now this man seemed to be making a joke about it.  Nevertheless Peter was climbing back onto the bed with him, allowing his borrowed underwear to be removed, allowing his cock to be stroked all while….

Suddenly, Peter pushed Tony down to the bed with one hand and held him there by the shoulder.  Tony reacted in a positive way (with a lewd suggestion followed by a magic giggle.)

Peter said nothing, but waited.  Finally Tony asked….”What?”

“I saw the real Tony Star….”  Peter thought for a moment, then phrased the question differently, trying to use a gentler voice.  

“I thought I saw the real Anthony Edward - back there in the media room on the floor of broken vinyl,” Peter said tenderly, lowering his voice to a whisper, loosening his grip and using that hand to massage Tony’s chest.  “Do you know where I can find him?”

Tony laughed and started to speak – clearly ready to tell a joke, but then something else happened. The words seemed to dry up in his mouth, leaving him breathless.

Then his face broke and he hid underneath his hands.

“Shhhhhhhhh, no no,” Peter gentled (slightly alarmed at what he had done but refusing to show it.) “Tone….” he started, then tried again. He attempted to say the name ‘Anthony’ but it didn’t feel right.

“Baby, please. I’m not mad, I didn’t mean it like that,” he said softly, kissing the top of Tony’s head and what parts of the face he could access.   “I’m just lonely for him, that’s all.  I was just hoping he might make an appearance again, someday.”

Tony let out a shaky breath. Finally he moved his hands from his face and placed them on both sides of Peter’s face instead.

“Oh kid, ‘Anthony Edward’ was beaten out of me a long time ago.”

“Kid... you just don’t understand,” he was saying (and Peter listened carefully, even though he was also laying his body upon Tony’s body, kissing Tony’s face and nuzzling against his ear as the man spoke.)

“God, your world is so different than mine.  I didn’t grow up on a planet where there’s a different flag for every queer day-of-the-week and every sexual orientation including some new ones we discovered yesterday and your LGBCEFG alphabet soup…..”  His voice was getting resentful - angry, even,  and Peter pulled up a bit to look him in the face.  He opened his mouth to defend his generation when Tony said something else.

“Yes, I’m hiding.  I know I’m hiding.  But I saw him back there…..back there where the carpet was boiling and solidifying and crunching, like lava rock, and everything was dark and I couldn’t see which way was up….”

“Wait, saw who?” Peter asked, caressing the side of Tony’s face, trying to comfort (and trying not to feel guilt that this was the man he was asking for, but apparently the only way to see the REAL Tony Stark was to hear him talking through tears.)

“I saw him, and I knew nothing could be real because I knew he wasn’t real, that’s why I screamed and tried to hide from you.”

Peter only shook his head. “You’re not making sense.  Saw who baby….?”

“The monster,” Tony whispered, taking the hand that was caressing his face and squeezing it.  “My father.  Not the real one, the other….the one.  The one I was sure would come out if I ever revealed what I really was.    I haven’t even…”  his laugh was broken and pained.  “I haven’t dreamed about him in decades – after my REAL father died I he was strictly rhetorical.”

“What does that mean, ‘rhetorical?’

“The rhetorical question – ‘What will Howard Stark do when he finds out Anthony  Edward is ….like this?’  He was disgusted enough by all the edges of me, and tried to beat them out of me, what would he say if he saw the center?  

“So the center got hidden – hidden deep – even with the guys that – even with the guys that fucked me in the ass never got to see that.”

“Oh god, this isn’t work, is it !?”  Tony cried out again in such pain Peter suddenly pulled his body weight off Tony’s body, looking to see where he was hurt.  The older man was hiding behind his hands again.

“What….what?”

“You’re a Millennial,” Tony cried out (But he was peaking between his fingers at Peter again, the way he had done earlier.)  “You’ve got to be all honest about all your trauma and you expect everyone else around you to be that way too…..”