Peter Parker's Plentiful Problems

Inside man

"How's your romance status with Harley going right now?" He asked, that same shit-eating grin spread across his features.

Jinkies.

There was a beat of silence, Peter's (exposed) face finally able to convey just how dead inside he felt at that question, rather than his mask up for interpretation.

"Alright! Well, this has been a fun stay Mr Stark, I love the gifts and am honestly having a smidge of a personal debate on wether or not I should keep these out of both sheer respect, prices, and fear that I—the notorious Messes Things Up guy—will break these wonderfully sweet devices in which I thank thee so humbly for, but I believe I have overstayed my welcome! Now, if you'll excuse me—"

"Nah nah, you're not getting out of here that easy, Parker" Tony shook his head with a grin, "he's my intern. I spend more time with him than I do with anyone besides my own kiddo, we're gonna have a fun little chat about it! Not making things weird, just.. seeing where the grounds are between you two! And well, how I'm going to protect you from—and I feel this is a prominent feature of his, not an insult—his.. colorful vocabulary involving his peers, along with boundaries needing set, should anything happen." Tony shrugged, taking a sip of his drink.

Peter's face went red, his mind running apeshit at Tony rucking Stark implying that him and the hot guy he just met were going to need boundaries.. should anything happen.

"Dude, you're cool, but I am not having the Talk with you, I'm sorry man" Peter began to back out of the room, not liking the implications of whatever the hell was happening.

He didn't even finish speaking before whatever liquid had been in Tony's mouth was spit out all over his suit and the floor, the look of surprise on his face almost rivaling the dread and horror Peter was currently feeling.

"No! No no no—hell no, I can agree we are not that close, shit kid" The man brushed the hair out of his face, blowing out a stressed gust of air, "I was—well you've seen him! I just want to be sure he's not serious about the—you know what? You're right. This was weird. Forget this ever happened, I'm just a tired old man who didn't think this far through. Nice chat. You can uh.. you can go".

"Gladly" Peter breathed out, blinking rapidly as he pulled the mask over his face.

The two of them took probably the most awkward walk back to the lab that Peter had ever experienced.

Even worse than the time where he accidentally exploded his caprisun all over his teacher's shirt in fifth grade, and while trying to grab the soaked and underpaid dude a napkin, he used his class shirt instead. The one they needed that day for class pictures. The one Peter had tried so hard to keep clean all week, only to ruin it beneath the gaze of the person he'd respected most at the time; the authority figure that gave our gold stars.

Yeah, so what if he cried. Everyone cries. It was a very emotional time for him.

Anyways, the silence had never felt more dead to Peter than that day. Forget his (new favorite) headphones, he could practically feel the self cursing thoughts from the man next to him. He sighed to himself.

Not really a better time than now..

"Let's just say.. if, I happened to.. you know.. not be totally repelled by Harley" he started, already hating himself for it, "what would that change?".

Tony looked at him in surprise, both of them under the full understanding that this was weird as hell.

"I would say you have terrible taste" Tony muttered, "and that you're probably way out of his league. You know, being a superhero and all. Also not a total creep" he added.