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Tony had originally signed up for Snapchat purely for marketing purposes; a tactic to advertise Stark Industries to younger consumers in a familiar, personal manner.
He made a point to post daily once Snapchat made his account verified. It was initially simple, captionless photos of new commercial projects or suit upgrades. When he discovered that he could post videos, they became the centerpiece of his stories. When he found the filters and stickers, he made a point of utilizing them on every post.
Tony decided that he liked Snapchat.
--
When Peter saw Tony on the Discover section of Snapchat, he nearly pissed himself laughing. The quality of his posts were almost primitive. How could a man with such an eye for design think it was acceptable to use such an absurd amount of snap stickers? Why would he give a picture with a paragraph of text a three second time limit?
When Peter arrived to the compound on Tuesday, he was quick to disturb Tony’s otherwise peaceful morning.
“Where’s your phone?” Peter asked before the door even closed behind him.
Tony furrowed his brow, setting his mostly drained coffee cup into the bowl of the sink. “Good morning to you too, I guess?”
“Add me on Snapchat,” Peter demanded, practically sniffing for the device as if he were a bloodhound.
Tony tilted his head. “It’s on the mantle. Can’t you just look me up?”
“Nope.” Peter grabbed Tony’s phone and shoved it into his hand. “Since you have a public account, you have to add me directly. My username is p-parker01. I’m gonna teach you how to use Snap, old man.”
Tony scoffed, as if offended. He made no move to add Peter. “I know how to use it! It’s a simple app with, like, three buttons. What kind of moron do you take me for?”
Peter gestured to the phone in Tony’s hand. “Add me! ” He repeated. “No, you don’t know how to use it. There’s a difference between grasping the basic functions of an app and actually assimilating into its culture. I feel responsible for you; your story honestly made me sad.”
“I’m gonna ignore your little comment,” Tony decided. “Culture? How can an app have culture?”
Peter groaned. Old people were so out of touch.
--
As Tony was soon taught, there were unwritten rules to Snapchat.
Rule one was to not spam your story. “The longer the story, the more likely it is that people will stop watching halfway through,” Peter had explained before deleting most of what Tony had posted that day.
The second lesson was in aesthetics. “Young people like minimalism. Hit a post with a filter and a timestamp- it’s easier for our last two collective brain cells to process.”
Peter’s list went on and on. He learned that text should be used sparingly and that certain stickers were ‘gross, ugly, and unusable’ (namely the ones that Tony had taken a liking to). Tony pretended to not give Peter’s tips any thought, but he quietly made sure to remember them for later use.
Tony appreciated the effort, but when Peter started to explain why Kim K was a pioneer in the presence of the beauty industry on social media, Tony very kindly told him to stop talking.
--
Two weeks into Peter’s unofficial lessons, and Tony had flawlessly adapted to Millennial/Gen Z Snapchat culture.
The views on his story had almost doubled from their already ridiculously high numbers. His account began to dominate the Discover page. The amount of watchers that screenshotted his posts indicated that he was doing pretty well with this whole ‘snapping’ thing.
When Peter convinced him to use some weird phrase (meme?) on his story, the video went viral. BuzzFeed had written an article about it: “Tony Stark Just Dropped a Miss Vanjie Reference on Snapchat, and We’re Living For It”. Needless to say, Peter nearly had a damn stroke.
Tony screenshotted the article and sent it to Peter.
—
iMessage
Today, 1:07 PM
Tony: I forgot to ask, who is Miss Vanjie?
Peter: A skinny legend. A gay icon. The true winner of season 10
Tony: ?
Tony: Whatever, I don’t get the reference. Can you come by tonight?
Peter: But it’s Thursday
Tony: ...And? Is there anything particularly significant about Thursday that I should know about?
Peter: Dw about it. I have plans, can we do tomorrow instead?
Tony: Sure
Peter: Also now that you have snap, just message me there instead of imessage. Easier that way bc there is like no cell service around my apartment
Tony: Will do
-
Tony didn’t have anything to message him until around 7 PM that night. Walking into his kitchen revealed that Peter left his jacket slung across the back of a chair. He refused the urge to text Peter ‘How do you message people on Snapchat?’ as he opened the app, determined to figure it out himself.
He tried holding down Peter’s name. Doing so brought up a menu that, sure enough, showed a ‘chat’ option. He was about to tap it when his eye caught a small thumbnail- a thumbnail previewing Peter’s story. Curiosity overpowered Tony’s subconscious thought of, ‘Do I really want to know what the significance of Thursday is?’
There was no way Tony could have anticipated what he saw.
There, kneeled in front of a TV with a Mike’s Hard in hand, was Peter. His friend (MJ?) was beside him, squatting with her hands in a sort of prayer-like mannerism. Empty cups, glass bottles, and disposable shot glasses were left on the table. On the TV was the title screen for Rupaul’s Drag Race.
The image caption was clearly drunk-typed:
“its the GAY SUPER BOWL bithc! le ts GO you fucking twinks TEAM AQUARIA till the day i DIE BITCH!! REPPIN NEW YORK HENNY”
Tony couldn’t fucking breathe, and he didn’t know if that was due to the laughter or the disbelief. He tapped the screen, skipping to the next post.
It was a video. Peter was clearly upset. The clip opened with him throwing back a shot of what looked like golden tequila before slamming the tiny plastic cup onto the table. He zoomed into his face, a bit too close for comfort.
“Okay, bitch,” drunk-video-Peter started, words slurring together. “Y’wanna talk about some bullshit? An absolute-” he stopped to zoom out and pour another shot- “fucking travesty?”
Do tell, Tony thought to himself as Peter pounded the second shot in the video.
The kid took a second to cringe at the bitter taste of tequila before continuing. “My boss doesn’t know ‘bout Drag Race!” He half-yelled, as if the mere idea was unthinkable.
Okay. That was not what Tony was expecting.
“It’s like, Thursday, righ’?” Peter paused to gesture wildly to the camera. “He asked me to work on Thurs’ay. Gays do not work on Thursday- it’s, like, the holy day!”
Tony skipped to the next video. Peter was screaming.
“I will not miss Drag Race , you fu- fucking hetero ninny!” Peter dramatically slammed his palm onto the counter with each syllable.
Yikes, Tony thought, skipping before Peter’s screaming could continue. I'll never try to cut into his Drag Race time again. Moving on.
The last post was an image. Peter and MJ lay in bed, both red-faced. MJ was verging on passed out while Peter gave the camera a huge grin. There was a simple filter over it that read ‘Peter’s Thursday Night’.
His heart swelled with a fatherly brand of affection. Tony screenshotted the post, mainly because his kid just looked so damn adorable .
--
“Pete?”
Peter didn’t turn to look at her. “Hmm?”
“Phone. S’ringing,” MJ slurred.
The sudden racing of his heart made him shoot into a sitting position. His mind lagged as he frantically searched for his phone. The tequila he drank earlier nearly made a reappearance all over the floor when he read the caller I.D.
Tony Stark is Calling
--
Tony could hardly wait for Peter to pick up. He had already rang him once, but the boy didn’t answer. Tony didn’t know if it was due to drunkenness or sheer avoidance.
“Hello?” Peter finally squeaked over the phone, voice unnaturally high.
“Hey there, Pete!” Tony greeted. “What are you doing right now?”
Tony didn’t miss the stuttering of Peter’s breath. “I’m just hang-ing at MJ’s. We were just wat-ching a show.” Every word was exaggerated, as if he were trying to remember to enunciate the consonants.
“Nice. Hey, remind me- what purifying agent do you use in your web fluid?”
“Uhh-“ Peter stopped, removing his mouth from the receiver and shushing MJ- “Hydra’ed silica gel. That’s the stuff.”
Tony already knew that; he could recite the contents of the web fluid by memory. This was just too fun. “Ah, gotcha. I have another question.”
Peter exhaled. “Uh, what’s up?”
“How many milligrams of toluene do I add? What does it do to improve the integrity of the webs? Oh, and what’s the molecular formula?”
“What the fuck?” Peter muttered, no doubt to either himself or his friend.
“What was that?”
Peter ignored the question. “Ten mil’grams per cartridge. It’s a solvent. It, uh, makes th’webs disappear- I mean, dissolve.” The pitch of his voice was reaching prepubescent boy territory.
“And the molecular formula?” Tony could practically hear the gears grinding in Peter’s head through the tinny speaker.
“Okay. Okay. It’s, uh... C6, H5, C3- wait, no, CH3-“ Peter began to stumble over his words.
“You know what?” Tony cut him off. “I’ll just Google it.”
“Uh, okay?”
“Goodnight, Peter.” Then, as an afterthought- “Have fun watching the gay Super Bowl!”
—
Peter stared at his phone screen. Before he could ask himself, ‘How does Tony know about the Gay Super Bowl?’ , his last remaining shred of sobriety offered an explanation.
Fuck. Did I forget to block him from my story?
With shaking hands, Peter slid up on his most recent post to view the ‘seen’ list.
>Seen By: 8
Demon (Fl*sh Th*mpson)
Tony Stark
Kendra Finefrock
Ned “McFuckHands” Leeds
Dominic Manuel
Evgenios Heracleides
Andrea Bloch
MJ ✨
Nick Henderson
>Screenshotted By: 2
Tony Stark
MJ ✨
Peter dropped his phone onto the duvet, blindly grabbing for MJ’s arm and squeezing.
MJ lazily batted at his hand. “Wha’?”
“I forgot to block Tony from my story.” His grip tightened as he turned to her, panic in his eyes. “Fuck.”
MJ didn’t maintain the same level of worry- in fact, she just laughed and slumped deeper into the bed.
“M’so fucking dead, dude,” he moaned as his screen lit up with a ‘New Chat From: Tony Stark’.
--
Tony: By the way, You’re grounded. Slow down on the tequila. You're, like, six years old.
Tony: You can be “team Aquaria until the day you die, bitch” alone in your room with no technology for a week.
Tony: Sleep well buddy
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