Archive of Our Own

“He’s so fucking dreamy,” Puja sighs, making Peter shush her. “Stop booing me, I’m right.”

“Stop swearing, then,” Peter mutters, but he’s smiling because Puja is one of his favorite co-interns, and not just because her shampoo isn’t overpowering to his senses.

They are huddled together over the 3D printed model of the new arc power source that’s going to make every single Stark Industries car completely eco-sustainable. It’s an intricate, beautiful piece of machinery, and it’s too bad both of them are looking elsewhere at the moment.

Mr Stark is walking through the mess towards Ms Potts’ office, flanked by his right-hand man Happy Hogan and a couple of assistants. He’s wearing a perfectly fitted navy suit and his pace is brisk yet casual. He exudes power in an effortless, completely unselfconscious way.

He’s usually spotted around the building two to three times a week, and every time Peter sees him he comes closer and closer to a minor coronary, because Peter is not particularly original in that he belongs to the large cohort of people in the company who are helplessly in lust with Tony Stark.

“Look at him. Sunglasses indoors and I can’t even be mad. God, he’s hot. I wish I was an omega.”

“Puja!”

“Come on Peter, you’ve heard the stories. Don’t you wish he’d go all alpha at you?”

“Romanticizing the whole alpha-omega thing is unhealthy.”

“So? I know it’s a toxic fantasy, okay? That’s why it’s called a fantasy? Hello?” She thumps him on the arm without looking away from Mr Stark’s retreating figure. “Look at the cut of that suit. I bet it cost a million dollars.”

“There’s no way a suit can cost a million dollars.” In truth, Peter isn’t entirely sure how expensive a suit can get, but he knows with resigned certainty that if it really were that much, Mr Stark could well afford it.

“You’re such a hater.”

Stark finally rounds the far corner and disappears out of sight, and Puja turns to look at Peter head-on. Her face is lit electric blue by the power source from below, in addition to the standard office fluorescents above.

“Why don’t you fawn over him like the rest of us?” she asks him now. “You’re so uptight around him.”

“I don’t like getting drool on my notes,” Peter quips.

But Puja looks pensive. “Come to think of it, he’s kind of uptight around you. You’re kind of weird around each other.”

“We’ve never even interacted. We’ve barely even interacted, I mean. He’s not weird around me.” Peter drools plenty, he’s just a bit more private about it than his co-interns are.

“Except... he kind of is, though. No offense, Peter, but I feel like he doesn’t, um...” she makes an apologetic face. “Like, he doesn’t necessarily like you? Which I’m sure is totally a miscommunication thing because you’re fucking adorable!” she follows-up quickly, and a little too loudly. “I just, I don’t know. The way you guys met was kind of awkward, right? And it’s really weird that you’re never on his team for projects, now that I think about it.”

Peter looks down at the core and clears his throat. “Yeah, well. I’m sure it’ll happen soon. Let’s get back to this, yeah?”

But Puja remains deep in thought. “And he’s never taken you on the plane, has he?”

“No, but—“

“You’re the only intern he hasn’t worked with one-on-one. That’s so weird, I wonder—“

“Can we just get back to work?” he interrupts. He meant to sound exasperated because he’s not actually angry, just tired, but Puja’s eyes widen with regret.

“Peter, I’m sorry—“

“No no, it’s fine. It’s not a thing, or anything. Seriously, let’s just... I’d like to leave before midnight today?”

She smiles tentatively. “Okay. I’ll drop it. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. It’s seriously not a thing.”

It’s definitely a thing.

*

Whatever the opposite of favoritism is, that’s how Mr Stark treats him.

It all started the day they first met, when Peter walked into Mr Stark’s office a couple of minutes early, the first one of his intern cohort there for orientation.

It’s not that Mr Stark is rude, and he certainly isn’t unkind, but every intern at Stark Industries has a special story about him going out of his way to help them; a favor Mr Stark did for them, or a time when they were feeling down and Stark singled them out. Stark lets Ally report to him on quarterlies, and he asked Dane to present the nanotech drones with him at the last expo. Puja got to accompany him to the Oscorp merger meetings. Shawn is about to enroll into MIT thanks to the one-on-one mentoring Stark gave him... the list goes on.

All the interns rotate through the project roster and somehow Peter has been assigned every other high-ranking company member but Mr Stark. He hasn’t even been alone in a room with Stark in the six months he’s been at Stark Industries, and the man definitely hasn’t done him any particular favors.

Unless Mr Stark not telling HR that Peter is an omega counts as a favor.

Because he definitely knows. Peter has yet to meet an alpha who can’t immediately tell he’s omega as soon as they are within a few feet of each other, and Mr Stark is no exception. Stark is, of course, by far the most famous superhuman employee at Stark Industries, but he’s not the only one. There are a couple of other alphas in the company, and Gwen from biotech is an omega; everyone is out about their superhuman status with the exception of Peter.

Thankfully, none of the other supers (including Stark) has questioned why he’s keeping his identity a secret. Cases like his are incredibly rare, and male omegas are still fetishized and misunderstood at many turns by non-superhumans.

When he used to daydream about his current position back in high school, Peter had always imagined Mr Stark taking him under his wing (in addition to Mr Stark taking him in other ways) precisely because of their shared superhuman status. They have something relatively rare in common, after all, and surely that should bring them together, lock in a mentoring relationship that will ensure Peter’s future and his happiness... maybe even lead to more...

But that’s not what’s happened.

Mr Stark has never brought it up to Peter because he’s barely addressed Peter directly at all. It's just an unsaid thing.

With Peter’s luck, Mr Stark can smell his eager pheromones and finds being near him distasteful.

*

The following week, Peter and Puja train the PR staff on the arc power source so that the marketing campaign can be as effective as possible, and Mr Stark drops in on one of the meetings.

He does that often; dropping in. Peter immediately noticed that Stark is a very hands-on CEO when it comes to the actual tech, even though to hear Ms Potts tell it, he remains dangerously hands off in every other way.

“...good for the environment, and.” Puja cuts off, eyes darting to Mr Stark. “Um. Good morning, sir.”

“Morning, Puja. Please go on, I don’t mean to be disruptive.” Stark motions to her, smiling grandly. He doesn’t even glance at Peter, who is standing right next to her.

Peter’s stomach turned to jelly but he tries to appear collected. His part of the presentation is done, anyway; his voice can’t break in front of his boss if he doesn’t need to speak.

“Um. Right.” Puja turns back to the PR team. “Well, the key thing here is going to be making this easily accessible—Peter and I were thinking of emphasizing the low cost to maximize the amount of users this can help...” she goes on, getting back into the rhythm of the presentation quickly.

Mr Stark stays standing by the door until it’s over. Happy Hogan is next to him with a tablet, intermittently writing down whatever Stark mutters at him, but Stark’s gaze is focused on Puja’s slides, and he appears serene, interested, and respectful. He doesn’t look at Peter once—not even when Puja specifically brings up a conductivity concept Peter helped implement.

“Any questions?” Puja asks the team when she’s done.

“Yes, but hear our pitch first and then you guys can jump in,” Lev says, pulling out a thumb-drive.

“All right, I’ll leave you guys to it,” Mr Stark says, taking a step back. “My apologies for the interruption once again, ladies and gents. Good job, Puja.”

The PR staff, all of whom look ecstatic to be graced by his presence, are clearly far from upset about the intrusion, and a chorus of ‘No problem’s and ‘Thank you so much’s quickly crop up. Puja blushes furiously and grins, thanking Mr Stark as well.

Right before he’s out of sight, Mr Stark adds in an afterthought: “And good job to you too, Mr Parker.”

Peter opens his mouth to blurt ‘Thanks’ but Mr Hogan has already shut the door behind them.

Before today, he had honestly started to wonder whether Mr Stark even remembered his name.

*

Representatives from the DOD are rumored to be in the building a few days later and Peter and Dane reserve the workroom next to the main conference room try to see if Commander Rhodes was one of the people in. Rhodes is kind and friendly and always buys the interns a giant dinner if he spots them working late, and sure enough when 5 p.m. rolls around Peter gets to eat pad thai until he feels so full he’s nauseous. He may have exaggerated just how generous his generous intern salary is to Aunt May so that she’d let him help her with rent and household repairs, so he doesn't always get to eat this much in one sitting.

It’s as he’s leaving the room bleary-eyed and suddenly drained of energy that he sees Mr Stark walking towards him and Dane, with Happy Hogan in tow.

Peter tries to perk up but even Mr Stark’s presence isn’t enough to jolt him out of the carbohydrate stupor he’s fallen into, and he suspects his appearance is less attentive and veering more towards near-collapse.

“Dane, good to see you,” Mr Stark says briskly, and then his eyes land on Peter.

His lips press into a thin line with what Peter can only interpret as disapproval and he nods at Peter, but doesn’t say anything more. He keeps walking, leaving Peter standing there with his mouth ever so slightly open.

His scent hangs thick in the air in his wake, and Peter’s sluggish brain almost commands his body to stumble after it, so instinctive is the desire to soak up the promise that scent holds.

“Peter, you with us? You look like a zombie, dude,” Dane chuckles. “Wake up, we have a presentation to finish.”

“Sorry, sorry.”

He could have sworn Mr Stark held his breath when he passed him, all the better not to smell him.

*

There are tons of idiotic stereotypes about alpha and omega ‘traits’, but beyond the biology of it, beyond the nomenclature (‘superhumans’, as if there’s anything super about it) Peter’s experience has always been that they are just people with a few extra senses and different hormonal cycles.

Unfortunately, this does not preclude Peter’s hormones specifically from responding to Mr Stark’s presence in increasingly obvious ways.

His body seems to grow more attuned to Mr Stark’s, not less, as time goes by. As weeks pass Peter starts to notice that his body doesn’t just produce an embarrassing response when he’s near Mr Stark—he also feels worse when Mr Stark is far away. He’s exhausted because of his schedule, sure, and probably not eating enough, fine, but a few months into his internship he develops an ache in his belly that only Mr Stark’s presence seems to ease. Something’s going on.

This theory is upheld by the weird body aches he develops a few days after his and Puja’s presentation. He has them when he’s alone in his tiny apartment, and while on the bus on his way to work, and even when going through security in the Tower lobby.

Then, Mr Stark walks by his desk on his way to a meeting and every ache in Peter’s body suddenly dissipates but for one; skin going hot and cheeks flushing, an involuntary reaction. 

“Tony? You good?”

He looks up, and sees Mr Hogan frowning at Mr Stark, who stopped in his tracks and is bending over to pick up a tablet he dropped.

“Just clumsy in my old age.”

He’s only forty, Peter thinks as they walk away. It wouldn’t even be that wrong.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay? You look a bit feverish.”

“I’m fine, Happy. Just fine.”

They walk away, and Peter’s gut tugs with longing, a desire so powerful it’s inappropriate.

That night, he feels so hungry and out of control that he ends up binging on his week’s supply of ramen, meaning he’s not going to have any dinner for the rest of the week, meaning talking to May will have to wait until he doesn’t have to lie to her about how he’s doing. And as he curls up in his bed, still somehow starving, he starts to worry that he has no contingency in place if this gets worse.

*

It gets worse.

The fact that Mr Stark is clearly actively avoiding him makes Peter jittery, a clutz, and perhaps most criminally of all... miss him?

Which—they haven’t spent any time alone, Mr Stark has made sure of that, so it’s not like Peter knows him enough to miss him. It’s not like Peter and Stark have some super special bond beyond a shared anatomic commonality, and so Peter’s admiration (adoration) for the man doesn’t justify him missing his presence. It’s just pathetic, is what it is. The problem with idealizing Stark his whole life and then meeting him and being instantly, brutally attracted to his scent, is that even though Peter knows he’s idealizing the man objectively, he can’t stop himself from doing it.

It doesn't help that Mr Stark is an amazing, beloved public figure. Being in the room while the man comes up with all these brilliant ideas that are actually going to save the world, and then goes ahead and funds them out of his own pocket because he's working on dismantling the Stark family fortune... it doesn't make things easy. His being a funny, sarcastic, charismatic boss seems like overkill, really.

That said, Peter can’t help noting that Mr Stark amps up his avoidance game, one time actually walking out of a room he was going to enter as soon as his gaze met Peter’s. And Peter is sure that it’s because his increasing desperation and increasing responses are increasingly making Mr Stark want to vomit and so, trapped in a terrible and worsening cycle, round and round they go.

*

And then it all falls apart.

*

It’s only a little past 6 a.m, but Peter finds himself thinking that he already can’t wait for the day to be over. He woke up feeling utterly drained and exhausted yet was completely unable to go back to sleep, so decided to come into work early.

This proved to be a mistake.

He had too much coffee and now he has a headache, and he has two days to finish the project Ms Potts assigned him for the biochem department if he wants to get it to her within the early deadline. He also feels feverish and overheated, and it’s not comfortable. So. If something good could happen in the next few hours, that would be really—

“Oh. It’s you.”

Peter whips his head up to stare at the door of the break room.

“M-Mr Stark.”

He hates how his voice comes out all high-pitched and young. He coughs, even as he feels the alarming yet familiar clench of warm desire in his belly.

“I mean, hey. Hi. Good morning, sir.”

Mr Stark has his own imported coffee maker in his office, but he likes to mingle with his employees and often comes into the break room to get himself breakfast—he’s just never done it this early, or by himself. If Happy Hogan isn’t with him then it’s usually any of the other interns that isn’t Peter, or Greg the CIO; there’s definitely a gaggle of people eager to follow him around at all times.

At this hour, the whole room is empty but for Peter, who is sitting on top of the Ping-Pong table with his legs crossed Indian-style and his back against the net, notes spread out around him, laptop on his right thigh. He wishes he’d gotten rid of the ten energy bar wrappers scattered around him, now brightly giving him away to the owner of the company.

They are alone together.

A first.

Stark’s eyes definitely take note of the scene, but he looks back up at Peter without apparent judgment. He’s wearing the rose-colored glasses Peter likes so much with a dark grey suit, and a waft of his scent floods Peter’s lonely pleasure centers.

Mr Stark famously revealed his alpha identity to the press years ago, but even if he hadn’t, Peter would have known he was one instantly. He certainly knows it now; knows it with every inhale. Every hair on his body stands on end in response, and goosebumps erupt all over his skin. The knowledge tugs at his groin.

He wishes he could tone down his reaction, tamper the river of response so as not to make Mr Stark uncomfortable—but his body completely betrays him, as usual.

“So. Parker. How are you today?” Mr Stark asks, turning away from Peter as he does so. He pockets one of the (few) energy bars left in the snack basket while the coffee maker whirs to life. “Can I make you a coffee?”

Peter’s heart is rabbiting enough without the aid of even more caffeine.

“N-no thanks, sir.”

Mr Stark nods to himself, and deposits the cup in its place. “You didn’t answer my question,” he says after a beat.

Peter blinks. “I... yes I did? I said ‘no’?”

“Today, you are... ‘no’?”

Fuck. The first question.

“I-I’m sorry Mr Stark, of course that’s not—I’m good. Fine. I’m—well.”

The corner of Stark’s mouth tugs up and he nods, almost to himself. But then he says: “So you’re a handsome, young, gifted engineering intern who came in to work at 6am on a Friday because you’re... well?”

Peter bristles at that. Just a little. “That sounded judge-y,” he says, before remembering just who he’s talking to. He almost smacks a hand over his mouth like some sort of Disney damsel.

“No judgment, just... curiosity.” The coffee maker whirrs and starts pouring a hot trickle of espresso into Mr Stark’s cup. “We don’t usually ask our interns in this early, that’s all.”

“I volunteered.”

Mr Stark nods thoughtfully, and turns to look at Peter again, cup in hand. “Figured you’d have better things to do.”

Peter wishes he did. But the truth is that his body is thrumming with how much it doesn’t want to be doing anything else—just him and Mr Stark alone in a room, hormones pluming into the air, mixing, intoxicating.

“Not really,” he admits.

Stark smiles a little, and his cool veneer seems to drop, just for a moment, for a flicker of fondness to shine through. “I don’t either. That’s why I’m here, too.” Conspiratorial, like they are both in on the joke this time, and Peter finds himself relaxing, smiling back, elated.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he murmurs.

Mr Stark’s smile widens. “Deal.”

There’s a pause as they sort of grin at each other and Peter feels himself bloom in that energy, every pore releasing joy at being the source of Stark’s positive focus—

Abruptly Stark straightens. “Anyway. I didn’t mean to interrupt your morning.”

“Oh n-no, you didn’t—“

But Stark is walking back to the door the long way, around the table. He seems to be keeping a sort of radius of safe space around Peter, which is soul-crushing, but proves Peter’s theory correct once more.

“Have a good day, kid.”

“You too, sir,” Peter calls after him, but the glass door is already closing behind Stark.

He barely refrains from groaning aloud, instead dropping his head into his hands and huffing out a depressed sigh. He almost wishes Mr Stark weren’t an alpha, and couldn’t smell his hormones so acutely every single time. Maybe then he’d have a shot at not humiliating himself in his presence—hell, of remaining in his presence for longer than five minutes at a time.

“Pep? It’s me, yeah.”

Peter stills. Mr Stark must not have realized that Peter’s omega senses are particularly sharp, because he started talking into his phone when he was just a few feet from the break room. “Yeah, listen... send Parker to biochem for the day, okay? No, no he’s excellent, it’s just. No, just today—it’s just a personal quirk. I’m quirky, remember? No, his performance has been great. Yup, thanks. Okay. Thanks. I know you love him, but...” He walks out of Peter’s earshot, across the bullpen.

To his horror, Peter feels a sudden sting in his eyes, and before he knows it he’s crying, tears streaming down his cheeks. He has never been quick to tears, what is with him?

He can’t help it, though; to be so explicitly unwanted, so obviously rejected just seconds after they had an okay interaction...? All his fears confirmed by overhearing a single brutal phone call.

He sits there like that for several long minutes until he also has a headache, and then he makes himself stop. He pops two Tylenol and eats another energy bar; chocolate chip protein, this time.

And then he goes back to work, and resolves to do a perfect job.

*

Things improve slightly by mid-morning, as he’s surrounded by kind people at the biochemistry department, all of whom seem to think he’s some sort of super-genius just because he has a decent grasp of orgo engineering at nineteen-years old, which is flattering.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go straight to college? If it’s an issue of savings, kid, let me tell you that’s why there are scholarships, which you would get in a heartbeat.”

Dr Liu feels some kind of way about Peter taking this year off to intern for the company full-time, and she keeps insisting he go to MIT or Cal Tech, ‘at least’.

“Thanks, but I’m good. For now.” It was his dream to work here; all through high school he dreamt of this. Dreamt of a version of this, anyway—one where Mr Stark didn’t hate him.

“All right. You just let me know.” She makes a typing motion in the air. “The recommendation email I’m going to send to Tony is gonna blow your socks off.”

Peter huffs out a little laugh. “Thanks, Dr Liu.”

“Sarah, please.”

An inconvenient clench in his gut makes him press his lips together to contain a groan of pain. He feels slightly better emotionally, but he’s still physically unwell, and he’s afraid he’s going to pass out in the middle of a titration and stab himself in the eye with a pipette tip.

“Is it okay if I, um, I need to use the restroom? Be right back.” He stumbles away even as Sarah urges him to go, and his nostrils are briefly assuaged from the sharp chemical smells of the laboratory, which won’t last given his destination even though the bathrooms are kept in pristine condition. He has a vague plan that involves dry-heaving over a sink.

Peter elbows the door open and almost collides head-first into the person who was leaving.

His breath arrests in his throat.

Mr Stark blinks down at him, breathing harshly through his nose for a long moment, the smell of him at this distance hitting Peter like a sledgehammer, almost making him double over with goodness. Every ache and pain in his body is replaced by the heat that floods his groin, and he can feel his own needy scent suffuse the air around him. His vision sharpens to a painful degree; his nausea has vanished and in its stead is a potent hunger, an aching emptiness.

They are alone together. Again.

There is no way Mr Stark isn’t smelling what he’s doing to him.

“M-Mr Stark. I’m... so sorry,” Peter says, meaning so much more than the near-collision.

“That’s all right.” A warm hand briefly touches his shoulder, a point of perfect pressure, and then Mr Stark is stepping around him to exit the bathroom.

Peter’s dick twitches in his underwear at the superfluous contact, and he feels so good his vision swims for a second, hazy.

“...Peter.”

He twists around to find Mr Stark paused at the door.

He knows his first name, too?

“You all right?”

Fuck me fuck me fuck me. “Y-yeah. I’m good.”

Mr Stark pushes his rose glasses up his face. “I.” He swallows. “Listen, this is none of my business, but. I hope you don’t feel that you have to be here on your... in your time of...” He smirks down at the floor, self-deprecating, before looking back up. “Let me rephrase this. I want to put it out there that you should feel free to go home today if you’re not feeling yourself. Your wellbeing is my priority. Our priority—the priority of Stark Industries, I mean.”

Peter nods vaguely, not entirely sure what he’s agreeing with. Has Mr Stark figured out that he’s ill? Does he look that bad? The sting of rejection from this morning rears its ugly head; maybe Mr Stark just wishes he could fire Peter and be done with it, maybe that’s why he wants him as far away as possible.

“I have a lot of work to do.” That makes him sound inefficient. “I mean... I want to stay and do more work.” There. Better.

“Okay. That’s fine.” Mr Stark smiles distantly, and Peter melts in more ways than one. “You do whatever you want.”

I want to do whatever you want, Peter’s traitorous body sings.

“I’d like to stay.”

“Then stay. I’ll have someone check in on you in a bit, okay? Not me,” he clarifies, which Peter’s libido finds unnecessary. “Someone better.”

No such thing. “Okay.”

Alone, Peter trips over to the stall furthest from the door and knows he has one minute and won’t need those extra fifty seconds. He shoves a hand inside his pants and pulls himself out, so hard he hurts, and two strokes later he’s biting into the meat of his free palm and his sneakers are skittering across the tiles, coming from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

He’s ashamed of himself and all that, just not enough to only do it once. He comes again a few moments later, doubled over and furiously twitching his hips into his fist, dizzy with the smell that still lingers, thinking of the brief contact of Mr Stark’s hand on his shoulder. He feels like nothing will be enough. He feels like he’s got so much backed up energy and lust it will take ten orgasms to even make a dent in it.

He’s probably losing his mind.

*

He keeps seeing Mr Stark around the rest of the day—at the cafeteria when he goes to grab lunch for his team, and at the rec room when he gets afternoon coffees for the department. He feels physically better when he’s around him, but also keeps getting inconveniently hard at times when he shouldn’t.

He can’t stop thinking that Mr Stark will somehow know what he did in the bathroom, and what he was thinking about while he did it. Can an intern be fired for being a twisty little pervert? Probably. Probably he should be fired. God, it felt so necessary, though. He can’t wait to do it again—once he gets to his apartment. He can definitely wait until the end of the day after coming twice before lunchtime. He can... probably wait. He should be able to wait a few hours.

...Why does he feel like he won’t be able to wait?

“Hey, Peter, can I have you—whoa.”

Peter almost trips over himself in his haste to stumble away. The unsteady mix of brutally horny and stomach-twistingly nauseous has been getting worse throughout the day, but right now he is definitely leaning towards nauseous.

“H-hey Laura.”

“Peter.” Laura is a very pleasant HR rep who Peter has spoken to a couple of times during coffee breaks, but the way she is looking at him now is new. “Are you... is it your time?”

Peter’s blood chills.

And then it hits him.

“Oh God.”

Laura is one of a handful of alphas in the company. She made it clear that she wouldn’t give him away when they met, and hasn’t brought up Peter’s omega status since.

“Are you okay, kiddo?”

Oh God he’s in heat. That’s not supposed to happen until his mid twenties unless his body thinks its found his mate, what the hell?

“I.”

This is a disaster.

“You feeling okay?”

Her tone is a few steps away from motherly, and at first Peter can’t quite figure out why... until he actually refocuses his gaze and looks at her, heart pounding with the tragically belated realization.

“Can I do anything for you?”

Laura is an attractive thirty-something who Peter is pretty sure has a boyfriend abroad, but she’s looking at him with a mix of concern and... well...

“N-no thanks.”

He starts to stumble away, and her gaze follows him but she doesn’t.

*

He runs back to the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror: panicky eyes, flushed cheeks, disheveled hair and an unnamed hunger about him that food has clearly not been able to fill.

Oh God, Mr Stark was definitely referencing ‘his time’ before. He probably felt all of Peter’s needy desire and spared a thought to pity him.

That shoulder touch...

He’s hard again.

Peter groans and stumbles to the furthest stall again after checking that every other one is empty—he’s always had a robust recovery time but of course this insane need is heat-driven, and it’s only going to get worse as the hours go by.

He fucks his fist over the toilet seat, standing there with his pants unbuckled halfway down his thighs and biting down on his fist, hips jerking with his free hand braced against the wall so that he doesn’t fall over.

He knows people go into heat early if they have partners, something to do with the hormonal composition of a brain in love, but this is—this isn’t—

He comes picturing Mr Stark bursting into the bathroom, now, right now, and slamming him up against the door to punish him for doing this at work, but it barely provides any relief.

*

He should leave, of course, but his last meeting of the day is a conference led by Mr Stark that he promised Puja he’d cover for her. Plus, he was already offered the chance to bail and rejected it, and he would feel dumb going back on his promise to stay and work.

Five minutes into the meeting, he realizes he should have left.

Mr Stark’s scent seems even stronger than usual; has him sweating just moments after smelling it, and Mr Stark is leading the meeting so his charisma and command are on full display. The heat loves that, and so Peter loves it, and he’s hard again despite his earlier proclivities in the bathroom, and has to sit all the way forward in his chair and try to hyperventilate quietly.

“Of course I expect the market to take some time to adjust, but I’m not an economist, that’s what I pay Georgina for.” Mr Stark was walking around the room, and now stops behind Peter’s chair. Peter picked the seat all the way in the back, at the far end of the table that’s away from everyone, so he feels horribly singled out. His thundering heart abruptly stops beating and squeezes tightly in his chest instead. He feels full and empty and tired and so, so awake.

“...everyone’s contributions...” Mr Stark is talking but the heat doesn’t care about what he has to say. The smell is making Peter so dizzy he feels like the room is spinning. He squeezes his thighs together and his dick lets out a small trickle of warm precome and he knows Mr Stark is going to know—Mr Stark is probably disgusted right now. He is probably fully aware of the effect he is having.

“...and for example Peter, here, did an incredible job.”

Peter almost makes a noise aloud. The unexpected praise knocks him sideways, and now every single person in the room is looking at him directly.

“He led the Lambda Project with Puja and was instrumental in executing it.”

He feels weak, wet. If the table wasn’t in the way his massive tent would have scandalized everyone here.

“A fantastic contribution to our product line, especially from an intern.”

Mr Stark’s hand moves from the back of the chair to pat Peter’s shoulder, and Peter’s leg spasms. He can feel the sweat at his temples intensify; the mess in his pants is about to become a real problem and all he can do is sit and tremble under Mr Stark’s perfect fingers.

“And now, for further detail; if I could have everyone turn their attention to the screen...”

They all do; like puppets, instantly swiveling chairs around and turning their backs on Peter to watch the display. The lights of the room dim and the audiovisual presentation begins, loudly capturing everyone’s attention.

Peter rests his elbows on the table and focuses on not coming, because that would be crazy, and he shouldn’t, and he can’t. But Mr Stark’s hand is still on his shoulder and it burns, makes him burn all over.

“Which, when taking into account the Christmas Party budget, should really put things into perspective,” Mr Stark calls, voice raised to be heard over the female narration being blasted by the speakers. There’s a chorus of chuckles and everyone’s rapt attention is still on the screen, while Peter sweats and pants shallowly and has no idea what this meeting is about, and he’s almost, almost—

Mr Stark’s thumb grazes the back of his neck and Peter’s hips twitch, helplessly humping thin air. His chair squeaks, once, but no one seems to notice. No one turns to check on him, they are all looking the other way, and the presentation is loud as hell.

Mr Stark repeats the gesture and Peter bites into his hand to stop himself for making a noise. He’s leaking like a faucet someone forgot to shut off all the way; getting wet like a girl, dripping. The heat rises, boiling over to an uncomfortable level, throbbing with his pulse. His hips keep nudging forward in minute movements, an ancient instinct that makes them pump.

Mr Stark’s thumb slides around his nape towards Peter’s jaw, index finger circling his neck until he has a grip on it. Gripping the back of Peter’s neck in his hand.

Peter’s vision blurs and something... happens to him, then.

Every bit of tension leaves his body—he loses the strength in his muscles, loses the shape of his bones, and his mouth drops open as the control he had been fumbling with slips from his grasp, and shatters.

He unloads into his boxers with a silent scream, the grip of Mr Stark’s fingers on his neck a sort of centering, perfect thing. His face is on fire with heat and his spine is wracked with spasms of pleasure and relief, a hot pull that tugs and tugs at his gut in steady, perfect pulses. The chair rocks minutely forwards and backwards, but it’s a Stark Industries chair and it doesn’t squeak again after the first time, smooth glide of wheels on linoleum and rolling with the uncontrollable twitch of Peter’s hips as he has the best orgasm of his entire life.

It goes on for so much longer than his regular orgasms do, or even than the ones earlier today did, and he shudders and shudders and bites his fist to prevent a scream of pleasure from breaking free from his chest. He gasps silently instead, feeling the come trickling warmly down his thigh, toes curling inside his sneakers, fucking the thin air.

Mr Stark’s hand leaves his neck and Peter slumps forward as though it was the only thing keeping him up—which it was.

Still, no one turns around, and no one notices, but he wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it if they had.

*

By the time people leave the room and Peter’s aftershocks have subsided he is almost dozing, head lolling on the conference table.

Mr Stark shuts the door to the room and then instructs the environmental control AI to blacken the glass, which it does, instantly making every window to the outside world an opaque off-white color and leaving them alone.

He rushes to Peter’s side the second the windows are out.

“Are you okay?” he asks Peter sharply. “Peter.”

Peter knows, objectively, that he should be horrified or ashamed, but he feels so relieved and so awash with endorphins that he can’t quite summon those feelings yet.

“M’sorry,” he mumbles, because that’s what he should say. “M’so sorry Mr Stark.” He smoked pot once, with Ned, and he feels high like he did then; floaty and nonsensical.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Mm...” he wants to be cradled in Stark’s arms and held until he falls blissfully asleep. “M’sorry,” he slurs again.

“God. Fuck.”

Blearily, he opens his eyes again. He closed them? The lights are still dimmed because Stark dismissed everyone without turning them back up, as soon as the presentation was over, and threatened them with unpaid overtime if they told anyone about the poor, overworked, sleepy intern who dozed off during a meeting.

“Peter, I need you to understand that I’m the one who is sorry right now. I am the one who should be apologizing. Okay? I need you to tell me you understand.”

“I...” The neck touching. That’s what he means. “I understand, but I... liked it.” Obviously. Oh no, is he regaining the ability to feel shame already...?

“That doesn’t nullify the fact that it was wrong.” Mr Stark is standing across the table with his hands on its surface like they are having a spirited academic argument. “I was wrong to touch you like that. During a meeting.”

The memory of it alone has Peter shuddering, his dick twitching. “Hm. It felt... so good though.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Matters to me.” He feels like he could sleep for twenty hours straight. The relief is beating in his very core. “Feel so good.” If he had the ability to purr, he would. He totally would right now.

“I didn’t ask for your consent.”

“But you had it.” Has it, to the point where not asking for that hand back on his neck is actually becoming a burdensome task. “It felt so good, Mr Stark. I’m... in heat.”

“Trust me, I can tell,” Stark says immediately, hotly. “All day, I knew you were building up to this.”

“Yeah.” He wants to be in a bed so badly right now. In bed, continuing this conversation with Mr Stark, or... not continuing this conversation with Mr Stark. “Yeah, it hurt so bad.”

“I could tell,” Mr Stark says again. “That’s why... but I should have still asked.”

“Mm. I should have gone home. Or...” not come in his pants during a meeting. “Controlled myself.”

“S’not your fault. The heat.” Mr Stark stares at him for a beat. “I worry about your ability to consent.”

At that, the languid calm evaporates. In its place, Peter feels the stirrings of an emotion that he’s never directed at Mr Stark before: annoyance.

“I didn’t think you were one of those alphas who believes omegas are at the mercy of our hormones,” he mumbles.

Stark straightens. “I’m. I’m not, sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest—I know heats have no cognitive consequences. I know you are still the master of your own decisions.”

“Okay. Then you get that I am perfectly capable of consenting, heat or no.”

“I... of course. Of course. Shit, I didn’t mean to invalidate your judgment.” A deep breath, and it’s weird, that suddenly he’s not the fabled Mr Stark, he’s just a guy on the same level as Peter, needing to be reminded about why some of his points of view are outdated. “But let’s not pretend this is overly simple either, Peter. You’re twenty years old—“

“Nineteen.”

“Fuck. You’re nineteen years old, and I’m forty, and your boss, by several orders of magnitude.”

Okay, Peter is not an idiot, and he didn’t get the coveted internship spot for no reason. He gets it. Even as he’s screaming internally about this being the longest conversation with Mr Stark he’s ever had (and it being about the fact that he’s at work while in heat), he gets why this is several shades of fucked up.

“I’m still a consenting adult.”

Stark sighs. “I know.”

They look at each other across the table. Peter rolls his lower lip into his mouth. “I...” He feels the need to say it again. “Despite all of that, I’m... I really am so sorry, Mr Stark. I know that was incredibly unprofessional, and I promise I didn’t know, when I came in to work today--"

“Oh, no, don’t... there’s no need to apologize.” Peter opens his mouth to insist but Mr Stark lifts his hand, like a STOP sign. “Please,” he rasps. “Please don’t.”

So Peter doesn’t anymore.

“You should go home. Get some rest.”

He has no idea how he’s going to get home, in his current state.

“I’ll call you a car,” Mr Stark adds, like he just read his mind.

“Oh n-no, that’s—“

“Don’t fight me on this, Peter. I’m calling you a car.”

Peter glances down at the front of his pants and that kills any further argument. “...Okay.”

And that’s where they leave it, it turns out. Mr Stark walks out of the room after a few minutes and Peter goes straight to the elevator and then straight to his tiny little Manhattan apartment, and doesn’t interact with another being, human or superhuman, for the rest of the night.

*

The next morning, Peter goes to work at 5:30am.

He felt such physical relief after the conference room... for about four more hours. Then he woke from sleep, feverish and achy, and couldn’t relax again. All he could think about was Mr Stark’s hand on the back of his neck, and Mr Stark’s smile, and his arms, and his eyes, and the way he respectfully backed off, and Mr Stark, Mr Stark, Mr Stark—

“Peter?”

“...Oh.”

It’s hilariously similar to what happened the day before.

They are the only two ones in the break room again. Peter is sitting on the ping pong table, again. It’s got a weirdly Groundhog-Day feel to it.

“Why did you come in?” Stark demands, exasperation in every syllable.

“I... couldn’t sleep.” A bunch of walls came down between them yesterday, but he’s not about to go into detail about how his dick has been hard since three in the morning, and jerking off hasn’t helped. And all he could think to do was come to the place where he saw Mr Stark last. He just wants to be near him.

“You’re in heat. You should take the week off.”

Going through this alone in his tiny apartment is not an appealing idea.

“I can’t.”

“I’m your boss, and I’m saying you can. And should.”

“I... physically.” Fuck, this is embarrassing. “Physically, can’t.”

Mr Stark blinks, and seems to understand. Finally. “Oh.” He steps towards Peter, which Peter’s body flushes greedily for. His dick his pressing against his fly already. “Don’t you have...? Isn’t there a partner, or... there’s these apps, these days, you know...”

“No. I don’t want that.”

They haven’t looked away from each other since Mr Stark walked in.

“What... do you want?”

The answer is there, right there between them. Peter’s body is telegraphing it, screaming it, lighting up for it. He hadn’t dared to hope he’d get this lucky, but now he has, and he wants it. Needs it.

Stark takes another step forward.

“It takes... several matings, usually. To get through one’s heat.”

Peter clenches at the mere thought.

“Yeah. Yeah, I... that’s what I’ve read about. All the literature says the average heat lasts about seventy-two hours.”

“...This is your first.” It’s not a question.

“Mhm.”

Stark is almost on him. Because Peter is sitting on the table, Stark towers over him more than he would if they were standing.

“Did it help? Yesterday?”

“Yes.” He’s so hard. His blood is pumping like a pulse down there, he can barely think. “Yes.”

“So if I...” Stark swallows. “To be clear, you’d like me to... touch you again?”

“Yes.” Peter quickly slides to the edge, sneakers skidding until his legs dangle off the side. He stares up at Mr Stark, pulse thumping. “Yes, please, I—“

A hand curls around his neck and Peter’s voice cuts off with a gasp, even though Stark isn’t squeezing and he can still breathe just fine.

Peter opens his legs to fit Mr Stark between them, gaping up at him still, lost in his eyes, and Mr Stark steps to him but doesn’t do anything more. His hand is merely resting in place.

Unable to hold out any longer, Peter reaches for his own fly and blindly takes himself out of his underwear. He whimpers just at the feel of his own hand around his hard length, swallowing just to feel his Adam’s apple flirt with the palm of Stark’s hand.

“Go on,” Stark says, his other hand still by his side.

Peter starts to jerk himself, staring up at those black eyes and panting open-mouthed. He’s already sweating, feeling like he’s choking without being choked, just from the light pressure of Mr Stark’s skin and the infinitely heavier pressure of his gaze.

He’s leaking precome and even though he hasn’t looked down yet he can hear the rub of skin on skin get wetter, become a squelch, a humiliating, almost cartoonishly slick sound, but at this stage even embarrassment feels like just another type of warmth, another good feeling...

“This what you wanted?” Mr Stark asks, low.

Peter nods immediately, chin touching Mr Stark’s hand when he does. “Y-yeah,” he chokes. “Y-yeah.”

Another sticky dribble coats his fingers, but he can’t look down because he can’t look away.

“I’m—“ he pants, feeling it build, breathing in Mr Stark’s scent at a dizzying concentration. “I’m g-gonna.” Mr Stark’s fingers spasm infinitesimally, still without applying actual force. Peter feels the need to word it differently. “C-can I...?”

Mr Stark doesn’t answer right away. He just holds Peter in his deadly, entrapping stare for a long moment while Peter’s toes curl inside his sneakers, and his abs contract, arm pumping, jaw hanging open...

Finally, he nods, and Peter comes with a cry that is wrenched from his chest.

Thick ropes of hot come splatter all over Mr Stark’s suit, and Peter can’t seem to look away from Mr Stark’s eyes even as his own widen and he makes a series of embarrassing sounds that echo in the empty room. He wrings out a load that goes on for longer than normal, as long as yesterday, and his face feels red as a beet but he can’t stop himself from jerking his dick and getting it all out, hips churning, painting Mr Stark’s maybe-million-dollar suit in a stream of white.

Stark watches him do it, breathing hard through his nose, with his hand still wrapped around Peter’s throat.

“Oh my God,” Peter breathes hollowly—hollow is how he feels, like he’s emptied out. His ass clenches around nothing, aching. He’s still dribbling come, but it’s leaking onto the floor, less forceful now. “Oh my God.”

“Fuck.”

The hand around his throat falls away, and their staring game finally breaks when Peter immediately falls backwards onto the table, back thumping loudly, as if Mr Stark’s hand had been the only thing keeping his spine straight.

He stares up at the ceiling, panting. “Oh my God.”

“You should really be home today.”

I can’t be away from you, Peter thinks immediately. “No.”

Mr Stark sighs. “...Very well. Come find me if you need me again.”

Peter can’t gather the strength to sit back up and argue, or follow-up that comment in any way, or even check on the state of Mr Stark’s come-stained clothing before Mr Stark has walked out.

After a few quiet, cold minutes have passed, Peter sets about to cleaning up after himself.

His own clothes, miraculously, made the journey intact.

*

Amazingly, he gets work done and his convenient assignment to Ms Potts’ team means he doesn’t interact with any other superhumans all day. He wonders if Mr Stark wiped the security footage. He also wonders if Mr Stark instructed the handful of alphas at the company to give him a wide berth—if there’s some sort of alpha groupchat and an ‘off limits’ text was sent out this morning.

...Probably not.

"Are you high?"

Peter looks up guiltily at Puja, who is staring at him in delighted wonder. He wasn't even spacing out...! Well--he was, but he was typing a bunch of equations into C++ while doing so, so she can't have known.

"No!" he hisses at her, offended. Miss Potts is sitting just a couple of desks away from them. "Why would you ask me that?"

"This is the happiest, most relaxed I've seen you ever." She looks him up and down, and Peter spent twenty minutes in the bathroom around 6:30am making sure nothing incriminating could be said about his appearance. "You were humming. I think it was The Doors?"

Peter blushes and scoffs. "So I'm a good mood for once."

She grins. "I'm not complaining or anything! I'm glad for you!" She punches his shoulder. "But yeah, for once!"

He doesn’t start to feel really uncomfortable again until a few hours later, around lunchtime. He goes to the cafeteria and sees Mr Stark there, surrounded by underlings and Mr Hogan, being all 'attractive man of the people, just your everyday billionaire genius philanthropic boss hanging out in the employee cafeteria', and his hunger comes back full force.

He fumbles out an excuse to Dane and figures he’ll have to jerk off in the bathroom again, even though it won’t feel as good as it did earlier, but he just has to make it until end of day.

One of the stalls is occupied, so Peter walks to the furthest one in the corner and waits out the person while standing with his back against the wall, palm pressing against his erection through his pants as he waits.

He hears the person get up and leave and immediately undoes his fly, scrambling to get a hand on himself, but then the bathroom door opens and shuts again.

And he knows, because it’s his smell. He knows.

“...Peter?” before yesterday, he’d never heard Mr Stark sound uncertain.

“Here,” Peter says, and instead of slowing down or, well, stopping his motions, his hand is speeding up, dick hardening even more if possible.

He’d locked the stall, so unless he stops and takes two steps to unlock it he won’t get what he wants.

“You need it again already, hm?”

He pumps his hips forward, fucking his fist desperately, a whimper caught in his mouth.

“Do you need me for it?”

“Yes,” Immediate. “Yes. Please. Please, yes.” He can see Mr Stark’s elegant shoes, and the bottoms of a pair of suit pants that are a different color than the one Peter saturated with come this morning.

God, that had felt—

“Please, will you fuck me?” he blurts, speeding up his strokes as the notion takes hold of him. Of course. That’s what he needs—what the heat needs. “Please?” He shouldn’t sound so desperate. “W-will you please fuck me, I need—“

“No. Not now, not here.”

Peter whimpers.

“But I—“

“I’m not going to fuck you in my company bathroom during a lunch break, Peter.”

“But I need you,” he bites out. “It has to be you. I want it to be—“

“Open the door.”

Immediately, Peter lets go of his dick and stumbles forward, pants around his ankles, unlocking the door and revealing himself as he is right now to Mr Stark: feverish, red-faced and held upright only by the grace of God and his grip on the door handle.

Stark grabs him before he falls and heaves them both inside the stall, somehow shutting and locking the door behind them before he maneuvers Peter to sit onto his lap as he himself sits on the closed toilet lid.

Peter, who just went from almost falling to the floor to sitting back-to-front on the man of his fantasies, lets out a pitiful whimper and a dribble of precome that trickles warmly down his shaft and balls.

“Here.” Mr Stark takes Peter’s right hand and wraps it around his dick again, then lets him go so Peter can touch himself. “This will help.”

Peter’s head falls back to rest on Mr Stark’s shoulder and he pumps his fist, one, two, three, faster.

“That’s it,” Mr Stark grunts, as Peter picks up speed in earnest. “That’s it, come on.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut, letting the reverberations of Stark’s voice caress his back. Mr Stark’s hands settle on his waist, but again, are simply resting there. Not holding, not directing, not manouvering, not squeezing.

“That’s it, Peter, good job.”

Peter’s body spasms, precome leaking steadily now, the slick sounds of his self-pleasure echoing in the otherwise empty bathroom. His stomach is cramping with how good it feels. He wonders if Mr Stark locked the main door. He must’ve. But he didn’t say, so Peter can’t be sure. Just like the with the security footage from this morning.

“Good. You’re close, hm? That’s good.”

Peter wishes Mr Stark would press his hands onto him. His sneakers squid against the tiled floor as he shifts, restless, but Mr Stark’s hands simply follow his movement and don’t dig in.

If someone walked in they’d think two people were fucking in the last stall.

“That’s it, good job. So close, that’s it...”

He arches his back for a moment and shifts his legs again, squeak of his sneakered soles, but when his pelvis resettles he feels—

Mr Stark is hard. The large, unmistakable outline of his dick is pressing insistent against Peter’s ass.

Peter’s eyes fly open and he turns to look at Mr Stark’s face, but Mr Stark was already looking down at him.

The moment their gazes meet Peter opens his mouth to ask for permission to come, but a moan comes out instead and he’s gone.

He’s half cognizant of not being able to scream or cry out the way he did earlier today, so he grabs Mr Stark’s hand from his right side and puts it over his mouth, stifling his cries into it and bucking in Mr Stark’s arms, spurting as if he never came this morning.

Mr Stark’s free arm ends up encircling his waist as Peter writhes against him, coming his soul out of his dick for the second time today, and third time in twenty-four-hours, and as good as it feels to stroke himself he does make sure to rub his ass against the hard pole of Mr Stark’s dick at his back, feeling it get even harder.

“There, that’s it...”

“Oh God.” He figures out a gyration that slides the outline of Stark’s dick between his cheeks while sliding his own dick into his fist to milk the last come out of it. “Oh my God...”

But as satiation starts to creep in, a new hunger won’t let it settle. The new hunger is not for Peter’s own pleasure at all. Mr Stark isn’t fucking into him yet, but he’s hard enough that he must want to, and if Peter could... just...

“Stop.”

Peter freezes.

“Come find me if you need me later.”

Abruptly, Stark stands up, thus propping Peter up with him, and the motion, just for a second, feels like it pushes them closer—but Mr Stark exits the stall and then the bathroom immediately after, and Peter has a moment of distant alarm for him before remembering that the executive elevator is literally the next door over.

Cleanup number two is easier than the first, simply by virtue of being a venue where soap and paper towels are so readily available.

*

Mr Stark’s workspace is a classic sumptuous corner office with not one, not two, but three large couches and a desk so big that it laps around overcompensatory and right back to hinting at being proportional.

When Peter knocks on the door at the end of the work day, the windows are already darkened to an opaque shade.

Peter hasn’t been inside of it since day one of orientation, when he arrived a couple of minutes early and Stark’s secretary told him to go ahead and wait in there with him. He remembers walking in awed, excited, eager to please, and finding Stark together with Happy Hogan, Rex Levinston the CIO, and Marianne Brown the CFO, all standing around by the couches except for Stark who’d been sprawled on one of them. Mr Stark isn’t that tall, but even sitting down, his presence had been remarkable.

Mr Stark is sitting behind his desk tonight, though.

The first thing he says is: “This is not the venue I’d have chosen.”

Peter’s mouth lifts up in a wry smile. “I’ve seen a superhuman porn that started with the boss saying exactly that.”

Stark snorts, but his gaze darkens as soon as Peter flicks the lock on the door behind himself.

“You deserve... a bed, to begin with.”

Peter shrugs.

“A nice hotel room, perhaps. A penthouse suite.” Mr Stark’s eyes narrow slightly. “A person you are close with, who deserves this of you.”

Feeling brutally honest, Peter shrugs again. “Don’t have anyone I’m close with like that, who knows about me.” No one who’s a candidate for this, anyway. His best friends are long-distance. His co-interns are lovely, but don’t know this about him. And he hasn’t met anyone yet who makes him feel the way Mr Stark does, heat or no heat.

“I see.” Stark swallows. “And you need one more?”

“For today,” Peter replies, voice slightly shaky.

“For today.” Stark lets out a controlled breath. His suit is midnight blue, so that he almost blends with the night sky behind him—but the New York lights prevent that effect, and instead enhance his body. “...Very well.”

Peter watches him, eagerly, awaiting instruction or suggestion. But Mr Stark stays at his desk, and makes no motion to get up.

“Come here.”

Peter stumbles to him, rock hard already, has been for an hour, anticipating this moment and the way it will make him feel.

“Take your pants off.”

Peter hesitates for a millisecond—not because he doesn’t want to, but because he fears looking undesirable. But then he looks at Mr Stark’s face—and down his torso, to where the reciprocal tent in his pants is obvious.

Boldly, he takes his shirt off first. Then his shoes, toeing off his socks, and then his pants and underwear with them.

He stands there naked, panting, shaky, tremulous, and doesn’t doubt being desired for a second.

“Sit.”

Mr Stark is pointing at his lap.

Peter knees onto it and straddles him, face to face this time, and rubs his dick on Mr Stark’s warm lower abs, dress shirt and buttons in the way but it doesn’t matter, feels too good to matter.

“Good, that’s good.”

Mr Stark’s hands rest on his hips this time, lower than they did earlier in the bathroom, but still not directing him. Still just resting.

Peter has a mission.

He slides an arm around Mr Stark’s neck and breathes hotly into his collar, grabs his tie with his other hand, riding him in a way that ensures his ass presses back into the insistent erection under him.

Stark’s hands remain infuriatingly still on Peter’s skin, and Peter his leaking on him, sweating on him, panting on him—he knows he’s going to be coming on him too, knows it to the soles of his feet, but he’s getting those hands to move before he does.

“Is... this good?” he whispers.

“Yes,” Mr Stark says immediately. “Yes, Peter. So good.”

His dick is so hard—he must want to fuck Peter. He must. If Peter could just get him to see how good it’ll feel...

“Am I...?” he tries, voice weak. He tries again. “Am I... being good?” It comes out softer than he’d hoped—more of a question, less assured and sexy, but Mr Stark’s chest rises and falls tellingly.

“Yes, Peter. So good.”

Peter kisses his neck under his jaw gratefully. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. So good.”

When Mr Stark doesn’t object, he kisses the area again but with tongue, sucking on it. His reward is a brief clench, like a spasm, of fingertips against his flesh.

He splays his thighs wider, trapping his dick between his and Mr Stark’s stomachs to increase the pressure against it, making sure to still grind against Mr Stark’s erection every time. Still, no objection or order to stop this time, so he keeps at it, licking Mr Stark’s neck, tugging his tie, and humping him shamelessly.

After going at it for a few minutes he feels his second reward; Mr Stark’s hands slide down, ever so slightly, almost accidentally, to his ass.

Peter moans, low. “Y-yeah...” And Stark’s grip tightens minutely, involuntarily, when Peter starts to pay sloppy attention to his earlobe, making him moan again. "Mmm..."

“Fuck.”

“Please,” Peter breathes, directly into his ear, stabbing his tongue into it.

“Fuck.” The fingertips tighten again, and this time Stark does use his hands to add force to Peter’s downward thrust against his dick. “Goddamn, Peter—“

The only problem with his plan, Peter realizes right then, is that it feels so good to make Mr Stark feel good that he’s not going to be able to stop himself from coming, and he knows it’s too late as his dick pulses warningly, and suddenly he’s there.

“I’m gonn-ah—“

He comes and it almost takes him by surprise, hips pistoning into Mr Stark, riding him mercilessly, soaking him, absolutely soaking through his clothes as he seizes and shakes.

He feels Stark’s hands on his ass encouraging his movements, which have him ride his hips and grind on his dick, one strong palm gripping each cheek and God it feels good. He makes sure to put his full weight behind those moves, and amidst the delirious pleasure he’s experiencing does register that Mr Stark’s hips are shifting under him, minute movements as he chases the pressure on his erection, something he can’t seem to help.

He succeeded in his mission after all.

Peter slides his hands down Stark’s torso to his belt, and when he hears no protest he undoes it, and unbuttons him and opens the zipper, and, trembling and still coming a little, he takes his dick out.

“Fuck.”

Stark is panting, his chest huffing.

“You want it?” he grunts, watching Peter.

“Yeah.”

“Now?”

“Yeah. Please. Please, I need it.”

Mr Stark is huge, rock-hard and insistent in Peter’s hand, and Peter tremulously lifts up and seats himself on that dick, gasping. It’s bigger than any toy Peter has ever used, but it fits, like a key that unlocks that last ache inside of him, a filling satisfaction that has him keening.

He wasn’t expecting Stark to growl and lift them both up immediately, before he's even all the way in--he grabs under Peter's thighs and drops him onto the desk, back slamming on the wooden surface and ass hanging right off the edge so that Mr Stark can thrust in at the perfect angle. All the way in.

"Oh my God--"

“That’s it, fuck—“

Peter’s so turned on he actually goes silent, watching Mr Stark who is basically still fully clothed with his shirt plastered on, pants and underwear hanging around his hips so that his undone belt buckle clicks and clacks against the edge of the desk with his thrusting.

Mr Stark is staring down at his naked body, towering over him, his rhythm slow and measured but unrelenting. Clack. Clack. Clack. “Does that feel good? Hm?”

Peter nods with his jaw hanging open, face on fire, speechless.

“This what you wanted?”

More nodding, and he manages an: “Uh-huh,” of agreement.

“Yeah? You... wanted... this?” he punctuates the word with a thrust, and Peter is rock-hard again already. “This. Here?” Thrust, thrust, and Peter’s head lolls.

“Mh-hm.”

“Say it.”

Peter whimpers.

“Come on, say it.”

“I... wanted...” Mr Stark is speeding up, and between the clack of his belt and the thumping of the desk Peter spares a thought for the mostly empty, but not entirely empty, mess hall outside. Presumably the office is thoroughly soundproof, but he can’t be sure unless he asks. And he doesn’t ask. “I. Wanted. This.” Every word he gets out rewards him with a thrust. “So. Bad.”

“Knew it,” Stark grunts, savage and almost cruel, but somehow not. His tie tickles Peter’s chest and abs, tracing nonsense onto it as it hangs low. “I knew you wanted it, just like I knew you’d feel this good.”

Peter digs his heels into Mr Stark’s lower back, trying to prevent him from drawing back too far. He’s going to black out when he comes this time, he can feel it—

Mr Stark’s hand goes to his neck, and Peter chokes on his own breath, going still.

Their eyes lock.

“...You like that, don’t you,” Stark murmurs, and he didn't stop. Didn't even slow down.

Peter nods.

“I noticed.”

Peter pants shallowly and waits, hopes...

The hand gently, ever so gently, squeezes. Just pressure, not cutting off Peter's air supply in any way, but still rendering him wordless, a deer in headlights.

"You're going to have to ask me," Stark says. His breathing is quick, too, the snap of his hips getting sharper, faster, too. "So go ahead. Ask me."

"I." Speaking makes the feel of Stark's hard so much more noticeable. "Can I come. Please," Peter whispers. It's going to happen whether he gets permission or not, his dick is drooling all over his own stomach and his body is primed for it, hurtling towards satisfaction again already... "Please? I'm gonna--"

"You wanna come?"

Peter nods, still lost in those eyes. "Please, can I...?"

He's almost in pain from holding off, clinging to control, desperate.

"Please," he gasps, feeling the wave coming regardless, but needing the approval. "Please, please, please--I'm gonna--"

The hand not around his throat wraps around his dick and Peter claps his own palm over his mouth to muffle a shout, eyes widening, pleading with Mr Stark's implacable gaze for clemency. His free arm tugs at Stark's tie, frantic, body writhing under him...

Until finally, Stark nods.

Peter's other hand comes up to cover his mouth as he comes with a scream, dick shooting all over his chest, up to his neck where Mr Stark's hand is. His muscles spasm in long, gut-clenching pulls, a deep throbbing satisfaction, and he moans long and loud into his hands, sobbing and crying real tears from how good it feels. He doesn't look away, doesn't close his eyes, and Stark's gaze drills into him, hungrily taking him in as he unravels under him.

"Fuck, you feel so good."

He loses time that he'd describe as whiting out, not blacking out like he'd anticipated, during those moments where all he feels is pleasure, in every cell in his body is just pulsating pleasure, everywhere...

"You did so good, Peter... so good..."

Eventually, Peter's orgasm starts to simmer down and he drops his hands from his mouth, resting his arms at either side of him on the desk. He keeps watching Mr Stark and, even in his languid state, registers that Mr Stark isn't fully focused on him anymore. His next thrust is so erratic and powerful that it dislodges Peter's legs from around his waist, and they fall open, feet dangling off the edge of the desk but not touching the floor.

“Feel so good Peter... I knew you would—“ he fucks in again, his words only now actually registering with Peter. As in he'd thought about...? “Knew it—"

Mr Stark lets go of Peter's neck and stops jerking his spent dick to grab him by the hips, really grabbing this time, all the better to thrust deeper. He's still staring at Peter's face but his eyes are distant, focused inward, focused on his own release, and Peter almost comes again or still, just at that notion. He'd be willing to lie here like a ragdoll and take those thrusts for hours if that's what it took.

"Fuck, fuck, I knew it, unh—“

Stark snaps his hips and comes with a guttural noise of satisfaction that Peter feels vibrate through him, too. He can feel it inside, pressure and warmth and wet heat, and it's perfect, and why did they wait for months to do this?

Once his own aftershocks have died down, Mr Stark pulls out and falls back onto his chair with a thump, breathing hard.

"Jesus fuck."

Peter can't fathom moving, including sitting up, so he's shocked to feel Mr Stark roll his chair to the side and gather Peter's legs in one arm, then tug him until he slides down the table and his butt lands in Mr Stark's lap, with Stark's other arm across his back, in a sitting version of a bridal carry.

It's shocking, to suddenly be gathered in his arms.

"H-hi."

They are both still panting. Stark smiles down at him; their faces close.

"Was... was that what you wanted?" he asks, polite and without the grit of his demanding questions from earlier, during.

"...Yes."

Peter wants one more thing, though.

He reaches up and kisses Mr Stark's cheek--or, really, the junction of his cheek and jaw, because Peter has a low angle.

Stark looks down at him with a touch of surprise, and Peter hesitates--but he's so sure he heard--Mr Stark had been thinking about him, too--

Mr Stark reaches down and kisses him on the lips, and Peter makes a soft noise of relief and kisses back, messy and quickly deepening. He laps at Mr Stark's tongue, opens up his jaw for him, the way he just opened himself up, and lets himself be held.

The consequences can come later.

*

That first day, Peter had walked into the intimidating office with its intimidating occupants and waved awkwardly at the CEO, CIO, CFO and the highest ranked administrative assistant in the company.

And then it had hit him. The scent.

Peter had known Stark was an alpha--had seen it used as both an adjective and an adverb attached to that name for as long as he could remember, in the press, on the internet, everywhere. He had known to expect his own body to react to this fact in some way--perhaps similarly to the way he felt around Antonio, Mr Delmar's son; an alpha in medical school who visited his father's store often. Peter always felt a little extra pull when he was around him; nothing that clouded his senses, but an added appeal, an attractive quality that non-supers didn't hold for him.

What actually happened in Tony Stark's office felt like a kick in the gut, and so much more intense than how he felt around Antonio. Mr Stark's scent was more powerful, for one, and seemed to light up a switch inside of Peter that he hadn't even known existed. All he knew, in those first few seconds, was that the switch lived at the base of his spine and was connected to the circuit of his entire nervous system, sparking every ending alive in a way that felt like it was new. He felt rewired.

The room's occupants had all stopped talking when they noticed him, polite confusion on every face but one. Stark's features were slack with--shock? Surprise?

And despite his life-altering sensory experience, Peter managed the Herculean task of making himself speak.

"H-hi. I'm Peter Parker?"

The other three looked to Mr Stark as though expecting him to take the lead in this greeting, but Stark just sat there silently and stared at him. An awkward pause followed, and Peter's hand started to drop.

"I'm one of the new interns?"

Still, Stark said nothing. Peter hoped it wasn't because he could smell his reaction to his presence.

"I know I'm a bit early. Nancy said I should just... come in."

"That's totally fine, Peter. It's nice to meet you," Doctor Brown, the CFO, was the one to finally break the silence.

Stark was breathing in through his nose, and looked at Peter for another long moment before Hogan finally kicked him in the shin, and he startled.

Then he suddenly sprang to his feet.

"Hey. Hi, kid. I'm Tony Stark. You probably knew that."

"Hi. I-I'm--"

"Parker. Got it. Welcome to Stark Industries." He took a step towards Peter and seemed about to shake his hand, but there was a knock on the door behind Peter, and a couple of the other interns trickled in.

"Welcome, everyone," Hogan said, and then two more people walked in, and Peter stepped away so that Stark could shake their hands; Dane and Puja and all the people that in the moment seemed strangers but who would become his coworkers for the next year. They ended up forming a semi-circle, and by the time everyone had walked in, Stark had shaken everyone's hand but Peter's.

It was noticeable.

Mr Stark gave a little welcome speech, and then had each of them introduce themselves to the rest of the group, and after that the intern class was supposed to go to the big conference room for their first orientation session. Peter, of course, went with them, and so he missed what happened after he left, as it was out of shot of even his enhanced hearing.

"Dude, what the fuck." Happy rounded on Tony with an expression that managed to combine exasperation and disbelief. "I have never seen you like that. What the fuck just happened to you?"

Tony sat back down on one of his couches and buried his hands in his hair. "I..."

"It's the local kid, right? Parker, from Queens? The one whose application you were all ga-ga over?"

"I..."

"Is he a super?"

He thought about saying no, but it would probably be worse to lie. "Yes."

"Tony. I am only going to ask you this once." Happy pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Did you fall in weird pheromone love at first sight with that nineteen-year-old?"

And Tony thought about saying no.

But it would probably be worse to lie.

- The End -

(Of Part 1)