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Tony Stark wasn’t an alpha, but he’d worked hard to get the world to believe otherwise. As soon as he’d presented as an omega, he’d had suppressants shoved down his throat, scent blockers rubbed into his skin, and behavior coaches teaching him how to be the only heir Howard deemed acceptable: an alpha.
Sixteen-year-old Tony hadn’t fought his father on this. Omegas were so often abused ‘for their own good’ that the deception was an armor he was all too happy to wear. Even if it meant a constant fight against the instincts carved into his DNA: the need to please, to belong, to found a family. Even if it meant denying his body any relief through regular heats, which might result in permanent sterility.
By the time his parents died, Tony had managed to convince himself that he was an alpha out of choice rather than necessity. He didn’t want the vulnerability that came with his designation. He didn’t want to be an omega, and thanks to his father’s narrow-mindedness and his own genius leading him to develop uniquely powerful suppressants, he didn’t have to be one.
*
Tony wanted Peter. He wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t help it anymore than he could help the urge to please the kid. What he could do was ignore the equally powerful instinct to submit, and keep his body in check. It wasn’t easy - he came so close, so often, to open his mouth and say something he couldn’t take back - and it became increasingly harder as he got to know the kid better. It was very frustrating, really.
As though the decades of practice he’d had deceiving himself amounted to nothing when Peter entered the room.
As though he was sixteen again, a blooming omega overwhelmed by his biology.
The whole situation may have been slightly less pathetic if Peter had been an alpha. Which he could turn out to be - once he presented. In the meantime, Tony felt like an utter fool on a good day, and right now, in the heart of Doom’s lair with gunshots still ringing in his ears and a clear view of Peter’s scratched cheek and bleeding lip, he felt completely out of control.
“What I want,” he growled, not daring to move any closer to Peter in the limited space of this little bunker, “is for you to stay put when I tell you to.”
“The guy had a gun to your head, Mr. Stark!”
Once upon a time, Peter would have ducked his head and apologized. He’d obviously outgrown the habit.
Tony took a deep breath, calculated a few square roots, and double-checked the three locks on the heavy metal door. “I told you I’d handle it and I did, kid.”
“I’m the one with superhuman strength and healing, not you!”
“And the Bleeding Edge armor is what exactly, a glorified tuxedo?”
The room they’d barricaded themselves in was safe enough - the walls and the door were coated in Vibranium, according to Jarvis, which: what the fuck - but it was so small that Tony could almost count Peter’s individual eyelashes in the semi-darkness. He certainly saw the kid’s nostrils flare as Peter leaned just a little closer, too close.
“I just…” His shoulders sagged, but the fiery gleam in his eyes grew brighter still. “I worry about you.”
“And you think I don’t? It-” would kill me if you died. “makes me worry so much when you don’t listen. Because you can get hurt. And you keep getting hurt. I-” am hopelessly in love with you. “Wish I could protect you better.”
“That’s what I think every time I see you get hurt.”
Tony’s chest tightened for a reason that had nothing to do with fighting Doom’s most recent bots or running in circles like Theseus in the enemy’s labyrinthic mansion. The suppressants he took masked his scent, not Peter’s, and the kid may not have presented yet, but Tony could still smell anger and concern, this fierce urge to protect that was all Peter’s, an intoxicating blend that was made him restless and a little desperate, especially in such enclosed a space. Tony bit his tongue before he could ask Peter to rub that mouth-watering scent all over him and mouth at the mating gland that felt extra sensitive right now-
What the hell?
Tony had no idea what kind of expression he wore right now, but Peter’s eyes went very wide.
“Mr. Stark, are you okay?”
“Of course, I…”
Tony trailed off, panic tightening his chest. The warmth spreading through his limbs only made sense if he was in heat. He knew from years of taking his suppressants that he wasn’t due for a mandatory heat for several more weeks. His suppressants wouldn’t fail him. Not unless the one person he found irresistible wasn’t quite so neutral on his radar anymore…
Fuck.
It was subtle, at first, but undeniable all the same: Peter’s scent was shifting, blooming into a musky, decadent bouquet that made Tony’s head spin. Tony’s mouth watered even as his stomach dropped from what felt like several thousand feet. He felt both sick and aroused, and that was not a nice mix. However, the part of him that cared about such things was fading into the background as the omega he’d spent most of his life denying expanded inside him.
Alpha, he thought, watching Peter’s pupils darken further, and he knew he was right. There was hunger etched on Peter’s features, and Tony recognized the expression for having worked so hard to perfect it in the mirror, to fool the world if not himself. The realization that all of his efforts for over three decades meant nothing didn’t annoy him, now. The thought of opening the door behind him and leaving - now that the sound of fighting was gone - didn’t even cross his mind.
“Kid-”
Peter blinked. In the dim lighting, he stared at the hand he’d been about to place on Tony’s shoulder. Or chest, maybe.
“Mr. Stark,” Peter said, hesitant.
He darted out his tongue, licked his lips. He looked half-drunk already, which wasn’t something Tony had ever expected to witness, because alcohol - so far - had had no noticeable effect on the kid’s super metabolism. Half-drunk on the scent of an omega in heat, Tony’s hindbrain helpfully provided. His cock swelled at the implication that Peter reacted to him, wanted him - or at least, the omega closest to him, an omega in heat. He felt a fresh wave of shame as his body made it clear that it didn’t care if he was merely convenient, his cock hardening fully under Peter’s watchful, sharp gaze.
No, no, no-
The word meant nothing, his will amounted to naught, in the face of biology, and Tony felt wetness at his hole for the first time in sixteen months. He squeezed hard with a half-bitten moan, trying to keep the slick from dripping, but there was too much.
“Mr. Stark,” Peter said again, voice pitched lower, close to a growl.
It was all too much.
“Please.”
Tony hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until a hand closed on his bicep. Heat shot up all the way to his neck, and then sizzled down his spine, all the way to his loins. It would take a single thought for the nanites to cover the undersuit again, to protect him from the hazards of biology - to protect Peter - but he couldn’t make himself do it. Not when the balance between shame and lust had tipped with undeniable finality in favor of the latter.
The roar of an explosion barely startled Tony - the fight wasn’t over, apparently - and Peter didn’t even seem to register it at all. Presenting was overwhelming as a matter of course, and Peter had had heightened senses before. Any alpha in a ten-block radius could have found Tony by smell alone, and Peter was trapped in here with him. Tony’s slick was probably all that he could smell, the thought of knotting him all he could think about.
As Peter let go of Tony with a confused gasp and slammed his back into the wall at the other end of the bunker - barely twenty feet away - Tony realized that someone was afraid at the prospect of escalating this, and it wasn’t him. He’d never been able to feel the right thing, and that didn’t change just because his biology stabbed him in the back. From inside. Something like that.
“What’s happening?” Peter squeaked.
“I’m going into heat,” Tony said, voice a touch raspy, half-surprised he was still coherent to talk. It must be the fear in Peter’s voice, familiar enough, important enough, to cut through the haze of lust. He cleared his throat, as though there was still a chance this wasn’t going to end in a disaster. “And if you bet with your friends that you’d present as an alpha, now’s the time to collect that money and invest in your future, since you still won’t let me smooth the way for your studies.”
Peter ignored this poor attempt at deflection. “But you’re an alpha.”
“Ever heard of pretending?” Tony’s hands itched with the urge to tear at his clothes, his mouth watered at the prospect of tasting Peter’s cock, and his hole clenched on yet more slick as he pictured it stuffed with his alpha’s cock, his seed, his wonderfully thick knot-
His alpha?
Tony wasn’t sure which word he found most problematic. Or rather, which word he should find most problematic. He felt so empty inside, and he needed to be filled, to be used and stuffed and, claimed-
Tony pressed one fist to his mouth and bit hard enough to focus. Peter made a motion to come closer, but Tony held out his saliva-soaked hand.
“I’m not pretending right now. And as much as I’d like to comfort both of us by promising I can ignore this, that would be a lie, and you should be aware that I’m going to enter the begging stage of this uncomfortable situation very soon, at which point you have my blessing to either knock me out, incapacitate me in some other way, or…”
“Or?”
There it was again: the hint of a growl. Tony felt hot all over. Part of it was the fever inherent to the heat, of course, but it was also the way Peter pinned him in place with his eyes alone, the paradoxical glazed focus in his gaze. It made him feel small and helpless, and that should irk him, except it clearly didn’t, because the fantasy of Peter actually pinning him - against the floor, or the door - turned his inner thermostat up several degrees.
Peter’s hands had turned to fists at his sides. “Or?” he asked again.
That single syllable was layered in authority, a textbook alpha demand. Tony’s knees wobbled in response.
“Or-” His heart missed a beat. “Or you could fuck me.”
This was an engraved invitation, one that most alphas have taken without a second thought. An omega in heat was difficult to resist to an alpha - and Tony Stark wasn’t just any omega.
Pete wasn’t just any alpha, either.
“What?”
For an alpha who’d just presented, the kid displayed an amazing level of self-control. Tony knew Peter was hard. He didn’t have to see the bulge hidden away in the suit he’d designed himself to know. The musk of the kid’s arousal coated his tongue, more delicious than any delicacy he’d ever had the pleasure to taste. But Peter didn’t try to ravish him, didn’t move at all beyond balling his hands into fists.
Instead of comforting him, this restraint only made Tony desperate. At least, he still had enough of his wits about him to acknowledge the fact. He took a step forward - his self-control evidently left much to be desired - and winced as more slick dripped from his hole and dripped down the back of his thighs.
“I’m aware this isn’t in your top 10 ideal ways to get stuck with me, or anyone for that matter, but we’re not getting out of here anytime soon.” Just as he said the words, the roar of a distant explosion could be heard. Peter leaned forwards, nostrils flaring, jaw taut, and Tony powered through the surge of guilt-relief-despair. “Might as well, you know, enjoy yourself. I want you- want you to. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Feel good.” He was babbling. God, he hated babbling, hated what it meant, but the desire was a lot stronger than his pride. “I definitely want you to feel good,” he went on. “Unless of course the idea of fucking me holds no appeal, in which case I apologize in advance for being about to forget what consent is, and you should totally knock me out cold before I start asking for your dick - does that count as asking? I feel like it does.”
Several emotions flashed on Peter’s face, too fast for Tony to decipher. The fact that his vision was darkening at the edges even as his sense of smell sharpened probably didn’t help.
He wants you, a little voice at the back of his mind purred. Alpha wants to fuck you.
He tried to bite back a whimper, but he wasn’t sure he was entirely successful.
“What do you say, Pete?” His mouth felt dry, as though all the moistness in his body had relocated between his asscheeks, and it sure felt like that. It was getting kind of hard to focus on anything but his own need. “As much as I enjoy the sound of my own voice, I’d rather stop talking now, let you shine for a bit. Unless you want to hear me beg. I can beg.” He wanted to beg. “I can make this really good for you, Pete. I really want to.” That wasn’t just the omega talking, but no one needed to know how many nights he’d spent staring at the ceiling, aching for any form of intimacy with his mentee. “I may have spent most of my life pretending I didn’t fancy a cock up my ass, but I can assure you I’d love it if you popped my cherry.”
“Mr. Stark!”
‘Shocked’ was definitely not the mindset Tony was aiming for.
“I’m so wet for you,” he purred, too far gone to feel even a lick of shame at his blatant attempt to manipulate the situation in his favor. “You wouldn’t need to prep me at all, just tear my clothes and slide right in.” Peter groaned at that. Tony barely knew what he was saying anymore, but the scent of alpha lust was thickening in the air, so he must be on the right track. He’d better be, because the emptiness was getting painful, instead of merely uncomfortable. “You fucked an omega in heat before, sweetheart?” He trailed his hands down his own chest, and pinched his nipples through the thin fabric of the Kevlar undersuit. “I’ll want your cock for days, will do anything to get your knot.”
The sudden sourness in Peter’s scent made it clear that somehow, this wasn’t the thing to say.
“Please, I need it.” Apparently, the begging was starting. Tony tried to pull himself together, but every inch of him ached with the need to be filled, to be claimed, and why was he still empty when an aroused alpha stood right here? Was his scent not appealing? Had the suppressants tainted it, somehow? He dropped to his knees. “Please, alpha.” No shame at all. “I need your cock.”
“Ohmygod.”
It wasn’t clear if the alpha’s - Peter, Peter - breathy exclamation was due to Tony’s inspired speech or the fact that Tony had started to crawl toward him like he hadn’t spent his whole life hating the concept of submission. Either way, it didn’t take long for Tony to crowd the alpha against the wall, hands roaming over his own tech - and hating it with a passion, because it was in the way.
“Mr. Stark- oh God, this is really happening- T-Tony, you don’t have to-”
“But I do, I really do.” Tony’s hands shook as he tapped the sequence over the Spider on Peter’s chest and the suit retreated, exposing a sinfully built chest and tapered waist, and lower, past a delicate trail of brown hair, a flimsy piece of fabric that could only be called a thong. “Fuck me, please.” A sob built in his throat. “It hurts.” Later, he would hate himself for tricking not only Peter’s big heart but his biology, but right now, he could only think about making the pain go away. Selfish, he thought. But the recrimination refused to take root, swamped away by lust. “Please, kid-”
The next thing Tony knew, he was flipped onto his back and pressed into the concrete by the delicious body of an alpha. It wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but the snarl that left the alpha’s mouth when Tony bared his throat caused sparks to explode behind his eyelids.
“I can be good, l- ngh.” He choked on his spit as what felt like a very large cock dragged against his belly. He could feel the heat of it even through two layers of fabric, and his ass clenched, more slick trickling from it as that wonderfully big cock brushed against his own. “I can be so good for you, alpha.” He arched off the ground with a whimper and clawed at those broad shoulders, half expecting to have his hands batted away and be told to behave, but instead, he got more friction, more of those low growls that made him shake with anticipation. “’m ready for you, Pete, just fuck me, pleasepleaseplease-”
He didn’t have the time to come up with a better argument before Peter’s mouth covered his own.
He expected the kiss to be rough, and it was, at first - too much teeth, and too much saliva as the alpha groaned into his mouth - but there was some measure of restraint to it, a gentleness to the way the alpha pressed his tongue into Tony’s mouth. In a brief moment of lucidity, Tony wondered if that was Peter’s first kiss, or if that was simply how Peter liked to kiss, and he sobbed into the achingly tender kiss even as the haze of the heat swallowed him whole.
“Are you… sure?” Peter spoke with his mouth against Tony’s, as though he was unable to pull away any more than this, as though he felt just as reticent as Tony. “I don’t- don’t want to take advantage.”
Tony grinded up into Peter’s hard belly with a wanton moan. Words were beyond him. “Please.” Most words, anyway. He whined as Peter pulled back, both hands flying to stop him. Had he done something wrong? The sound of distress that reached his ears didn’t sound like him at all, and yet, it couldn’t be anyone else. He grasped blindly for a hand, caught a wrist, and pulled, guiding the alpha’s hand to his crotch, soaked through with slick. “I will be better, I promise, please” he begged, drowning choked sounds of surprises. His hips bucked as the hand in his grip spasmed, and then pushed, digging into the sensitive space between cock and hole.
“You’re wet.”
Awe. Even in his altered state, Tony could tell. He ground his hips in thight little circles, delirious to try and fuck himself on those slim fingers through fabric.
“So wet for you.” A noise midway between a snarl and a whine got out through his clenched teeth as he tried to unzip his undersuit, and couldn’t hold the fucking zipper long enough to accomplish much in the way of undressing. “Please.” Everything shook around him, unless he was simply falling apart. He sure felt like it, the emptiness within him stretching claws of pain outward in every direction, burning him from the inside out. “Please.”
The sound of clothes being torn registered first, loud and clear like a crack of thunder. When warm hands covered his chest next, Tony realized he was now naked from the waist up.
“So beautiful.”
The tone matched the words. Tony preened, even as his eyes stung with unshed tears. He was pleasing to his alpha. Somehow, his scarred, aging body appealed to the beautiful alpha he’d chosen. Those deliciously warm hands migrated down his stomach, paused, and then grabbed at the suit bundled at his hips and yanked again, tearing through reinforced Kevlar with such ease Tony felt like he could come, untouched, if his alpha told him to.
“Please, I need…”
“I know.” Uncertainty, and yet confidence. It made no sense, but it blunted the ragged edges of the panic lurking beyond the lust. “I’m going to take care of you, Mister- Tony. You’ll be okay.”
“Yes,” Tony whimpered, and downright sobbed as his alpha caressed his hips, equally gentle on scars and unmarred skin.
“Can I?” his alpha asked, one hand wandering closer to Tony’s groin, but it didn’t sound like a question, not with the growl that followed immediately afterwards as Tony parted his legs as wide as he could, welcoming him where he needed him the most.
“Beautiful,” his alpha repeated, and if anything, he seemed to mean it even more than before.
A hand wrapped around Tony’s aching cock and gave it a tentative stroke. It was small, but Tony’s cock was small, too, even for an omega, and the warmth of this soft hand covered the entirety of his erection, squeezing oh so nicely before something a lot wetter than a thumb swiped over his slit.
Tony’s hips bucked as his alpha flattened his tongue and lapped at the leaking head of his dick.
“Please, p-please…” This was so close to what he wanted, what he needed. He tried to keep his hands to himself, to be good, but the side of his hand brushed soft curls, and he fisted one hand into his alpha’s hair, trying not to pull, and pulled anyway, unsure why he took such risks while he risked being denied for it.
He wasn’t denied. Impossibly, a muffled growl of approval rewarded his forwardness, and even better, his alpha took all four inches of his throbbing dick into his mouth and started to suck.
“Yesyesyes…”
Slurping noises interspersed his own gasps of rapture. He was barely aware of moving his hips, but he knew he was, fucking the delicious mouth of his alpha to his alpha’s obvious delight, and he didn’t understand how he could possibly be so lucky. No one, no one, had ever sucked his cock with such enthusiasm, every single one-night-stand beta and omega he’d had disappointed at what they assumed to be Tony Stark’s alpha cock, but there was no disappointment in the way his alpha - Peter, a distant voice tried to remind him - bobbed his head with muffled hungry sounds.
Tony didn’t have the time, or enough wits about him, to convey a warning, and he exploded in that warm mouth with a shout.
And his alpha… His alpha swallowed his omegan seed, contentment shining in his eyes.
Tony sagged against the concrete. The pain wasn’t gone, but it was abating, for now.
His alpha propped his chin on Tony’s belly.
“You taste so good.” His eyes were dark, the irises completely gone. He darted out his tongue, licking at the come dripping down his chin, and looked as though he was a moment away from climaxing himself. “You always smell amazing, and I… God, I’ve never thought I could… I mean, I know this isn’t real…”
Tony whimpered at the praise, pleased yet confused. This was real. How could the alpha not see this? Tony would give him anything he wanted. He just ached to be what this wonderful alpha deserved. The fact that his secret designation was not so secret anymore didn’t worry him. He felt naked, in more than one way, but there was trust in him, filling every nook and cranny not already occupied with lust. How could he fear mockery or abuse from someone he trusted with his own life, someone he wanted to please so goddamn much, all the time?
Peter, he thought, even as the word alpha tumbled from his lips like a prayer. He gripped his knees and tried to fold himself in half, probably pulling a couple of muscles in his eagerness.
“Oh God,” his alpha moaned, and downright growled as Tony managed, somehow, to pull his knees to his chest and present his hole. “Tony.”
The pleasure Tony experienced as his alpha pressed his face to his most intimate place was glorious, and nothing like the contentment brought on by a mouth on his cock. It was just so different here. His hole went dismissed during sex, because very few alphas enjoyed it, and he pretended to be one. But the need to be filled never went away, and not even the fucking machine he’d created to better deal with his mandatory, very occasional heats ever sated that need.
“Yes, yes, alpha-”
He may or may not have banged his head against the ground as his alpha’s wet tongue pushed into his hole, because he saw stars that were definitely not there. There was soft hair tangled in his fingers, and he held on for dear life as his alpha tongue-fucked his hole with increasing speed and force until it was almost hard enough, almost deep enough, and another orgasm tore through his feverish body. The pain receded further, but Tony knew it wouldn’t go away until he got an alpha’s cock and knot.
So that was what left his mouth next. And what he kept repeating, probably interspersed with a frantic litany of please and alpha, until the ceiling gave way to the floor, and he found himself on his belly, leaking cock chafing against concrete as the strong body of his alpha draped over his, briefly, and a mouth found his nape, words he couldn’t understand muffled there in between kisses. Concern flickered at the edge of Tony’s subconscious, because the wetness mingling with his sweat didn’t all feel like saliva, but he couldn’t draw enough air to speak, only to moan, begging with the entirety of his body.
“I can stop.” His alpha’s voice, strangled. “If you don’t- If you’ve changed your mind, it’s all right, I will stop.”
“Please.” How could his alpha possibly think he didn’t want this? How could he hesitate, when Tony’s hole was so wet for him, when all his demeanor spoke of submission? He could be a good omega, he could. “Please.”
A sigh, a grunt, and then two thumbs pulled at his rim - were they shaking? - and the blunt head of a dick nudged at his hole, lewdly wet with saliva and slick, almost in, so close, so good. He wasn’t aware he was sobbing again (or still) until a hand pressed into the side of his neck and into his jaw, covering his mating gland, His breath stuttered at the grounding touch, and new words formed on his lips.
“Thank you.” He cried harder, but it wasn’t the pain.
There was no pain at all, as his alpha’s cock slammed into him in one glorious thrust. Tony canted his hips back and propped himself on his knees and elbows with eager little moans, and shuddered all over as the velvety balls of his alpha, heavy with seed, pressed into his slicked asscheeks.
“Tony.” His alpha’s voice, his alpha’s scent, full of so many things he knew he loved, but he couldn’t name just this instant. “I-”
Tony had no idea what came after that, and he didn’t care: he was getting fucked. His alpha was pounding into his aching hole, one hand still on his neck, digging around the gland until it hurt just right, his other hand bruising on his left hip, the squelching noises soothing parts of him he didn’t even know existed. He didn’t say harder, but his alpha knew, his alpha was so good to him, drilling at his omega’s prostate with so much force that Tony collapsed onto his front with a soundless scream, small cock straining as he spilled what felt like buckets of come on the concrete, coating his alpha’s cock with fresh slick in the process.
“To-ny.”
The name sounded familiar, but it wasn’t important. Nothing was except the constant stretching of his hole, and then, yes, at last, the heat of fertile seed sprayed deep inside him, and the all-encompassing relief of a knot locking his alpha’s cock inside him, plugging him. There would be bruises at his hip from how hard he was being held down, how thoroughly he was being possessed and owned, but he wanted it, wanted it all, especially the hand on his neck, a constant reminder that he was wanted.
“Alpha,” he moaned, sated, sleepy.
The hand on his neck was trembling, but the voice in his ear was firm.
“I’m here,” it said. “Always.”
*
Tony passed out after the third knot. His alpha’s cock had never softened enough to slip free, and his ass was so full his stomach felt swollen with it.
When he came to, he lay on a bed, and his alpha was rubbing a soft warm cloth into the scrapped skin of his knees. He was so beautiful, his alpha. Lithe and powerful, and yet delicate in a way that only made him all the more appealing. Tony was so lucky to have this young man as his alpha, to be his-
No, not alpha: Peter.
Peter.
Oh fuck.
FUCK.
His heat hurt. His chest hurt a lot more, but the need was back, dampening the guilt until it was barely there - a beacon in a storm, a hint of a self he recognized, of his humanity beyond biology.
“Pete…”
Fresh slick came out of his hole as he reached for his alpha. An apology was on his tongue, but that wasn’t what came out of his mouth as his eyes landed on his alpha’s cock.
It was soft.
“You’re not hard.” Nausea swirled in his belly. “I… Fuck.” His throat felt dry, but his eyes were wet. He balled his fists in the sheets, and turned his attention elsewhere, away from that warm gaze filled with pain. Had he put that here? Of course, he had. “You should…” stay “Leave.”
“Do you want me to leave?” Peter asked, and Tony hated that he couldn’t tell how the kid really felt, hated that there was so much of himself concerned by that need he’d never wanted.
“No,” he heard himself say, and felt a tear trail down his cheek. A soft hand found his own and squeezed, unlocking more tears. “I don’t.”
It was different, in a bed. Or maybe it was the fact that Peter didn’t hurry as much - didn’t listen to Tony’s pleas. He spent a long time lapping at the slicked skin like of his rim he’d never wanted anything as much as eating Tony Stark’s ass, fitting his lips to the ring of muscles and sucking, tongue darting out every now and then to swipe gently over the puffy entrance, gathering slick and come and pushing it all back in.
He spent a while preparing him even though Tony was still wet, adding one digit, then two, after what felt like a small eternity. His fingers were nowhere near as long as his cock, and yet they seemed to reach deeper within him. It hurt in a way that wasn’t quite physical.
Unless what hurt was the tenderness that followed, those careful touches to the bruises at his sides and the even more careful thrusts deep inside that made the act feel more like love than sex. By his second climax in the sheets he recognized as his own, Tony had enough of his mind back to understand why it hurt so much.
He bit his tongue hard enough to keep the words locked in, and kept focusing on that pain as Peter pulled away and rolled onto his side.
Every part of him that wasn’t bruised ached.
*
“You have to eat.”
Tony munched on the protein bar without much enthusiasm. He was ravenous, but he was equally thirsty, and he hadn’t started on the Gatorade Peter kept nudging in his direction.
The guilt had settled comfortably in his chest, now that the heat was over. So much guilt: for manipulating Peter into fucking him, for turning his presenting into a debauchery and making himself the focus of it. He didn’t know for sure that Peter was a virgin, but he suspected he was, which only made it all infinitely worse. Tony might hate alphas on principle, because most of them were arrogant asses, but Peter wasn’t like that, would never be like that.
“I’m fine,” he lied through his teeth. “You can go.”
He didn’t look at Peter as he said that. He couldn’t, or the self-hate gnawing at him would make him throw up, and he knew he had to eat. Starving himself wasn’t an appropriate response to throwing himself at the one person he couldn’t live without. He wouldn’t have died if Peter had looked the other way, or restrained him. Peter should have knocked him out cold. Or let him make a show of himself, trying to fist his hole even though the angle would have been wrong and the pain debilitating.
It would have been better, to suffer. Infinitely better than the relief he’d gotten from getting knotted.
So much better than the silence in the room, heavy with Peter’s regret.
The moment the door closed on his mentee, Tony ran to the bathroom, and threw up just in front of the toilet.
*
The next week was hell, or rather, a new level of it. His body may not be on fire anymore, but his heart was. Somehow. The metaphor seemed particularly appropriate during a panic attack.
By some miracle, Doom was in custody, and no one was the wiser as to the state of a certain room in the basement of his lair. Tony wasn’t sure how that was possible, because the whole team had been deployed for that mission, but he’d checked with Jarvis, and there were no headlines about Tony Stark’s shocking true designation.
Tony couldn’t care less about getting outed at fifty-one, thirty-fives years after he’d started living the lie. He didn’t give a damn about the public’s reaction - not anymore, not when the one person he cared about more than anything wasn’t around anymore.
Peter was avoiding him.
Sorry, got finals to prepare for with MJ.
I can’t, Ned is in town for two days and I promised we would spend some time together. Sorry.
I’m sorry, I’m still tired from patrol last night. Rain check?
The biochemistry department is recruiting student TAs, and I’m starting tonight, sorry.
Sorry.
More than a hundred times, Tony was tempted to pick up the phone and call Peter, tell him to stop apologizing. Or better yet, confront him in person, and accept whatever Peter threw at him. Anger. Contempt. Regrets. Any of it would be better than this silence treatment.
Not that Tony blamed him.
To forget whom he blamed exactly, he got drunk one night and drunk-dialed Pepper.
“Why did you ever bother with a relationship with me?”
His CEO and ex-girlfriend sighed. The Concerned Sigh, which Tony recognized despite the mist of alcohol clouding his mind.
“What happened during this mission, Tony?”
Tony’s grip on the bottle slackened, but he didn’t let go. For a second there as he considered his next words, he wondered if from now on, good scotch was going to taste like self-hatred, or just Laphroaig.
“I went into heat.”
By the time he reached the inevitable conclusion of his biggest failure yet, his throat felt raw, and he was holding the neck of his bottle so hard he was surprised it wasn’t cracking.
Of course, it wasn’t cracking, he realized later still, cradling his phone against his chest and staring at the wet label on the bottle, sticky with expensive scotch.
His only superpower was an uncanny ability to fuck things up and hurt the people he loved.
*
“Can I come in?”
Tony was kind of glad he’d abandoned the soldering portion of his work earlier, or he would be missing a couple fingers right now. “Pete! You’re here!” Wow, he sounded like an idiot, which wasn’t going to encourage his impromptu visitor, hesitant as he looked, to cross the threshold. “Sure, come on in!” he hurried to add, overly cheerful. “How’s Ned?” Surely this was a safe topic to start with?
As usual, the kid didn’t disappoint - and went straight for the jugular.
“We should talk about what happened.”
Tony abandoned all pretense of smiling and sank on the nearest stool.
“I’m sorry,” they said at the same time.
Peter blinked in confusion, and Tony was pretty sure his face mirrored the expression.
“Can I ask what you’re apologizing for?” Tony asked, tone carefully neutral.
“For doing something you didn’t really want. I- I may be new to this, but I understand that in the heat of the moment…” A muscle in Peter’s jaw jumped, and red crept up his cheeks. “What I mean to say is, things are different when you’re… out of it. And I shouldn’t have assumed-”
“I’m stopping you right here.” Tony lifted a hand, and infused as much assertiveness in his tone as he could manage. “I asked for it. For you.” There was no point dancing around the bush. “I asked for everything we did.”
“You had no choice.”
“I had,” Tony argued, and got to his feet. He couldn’t do this siting down. Not when he wanted so much to go to Peter and embrace him. Standing up was an acceptable compromise. “Even when I started begging you to fuck me, I could still think.”
Peter’s cheeks darkened further, but his gaze remained firmly on Tony. “And later?”
What Tony wanted to say was: I’ve wanted you for years, and I’ve been in heat at most nine days out of eight-hundred-and-twenty days.
But he couldn’t say that. The reasons against confessing before the mission hadn’t changed now that they’d traded heavily in bodily fluids. If anything, it was even more important now that Tony kept his mouth shut, continued pretending that every molecule in his body didn’t ache for the young man so close, yet so far.
Suddenly, he felt bone-tired. And nauseous. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.
“Pete-”
Peter started walking towards him. So attuned to him, even now. How much of it was his heightened senses, and how much the alpha in him reacting to vulnerability?
How much of it was Peter, with his heart of gold?
Tony would bet all his fortune on the last one.
“You were… You didn’t have to help me, but you did,” he blurted out, desperate to wipe away the guilt lingering in Peter’s expression. “I’m… so grateful, k- Pete.”
Had it been any other alpha in that bunker with him, Tony Stark wouldn’t have meant all the please and more - might have begged to be restrained, instead of claimed. Loving Peter, he should have found the strength to do so all the more, but that part of him he’d buried for so long, the omega he’d denied, had burned through all of his reservations in a desperate attempt to get what they both wanted.
“I’m so grateful,” he said again, “but I’m also very, very sorry, and I know there’s nothing I could-”
“Stop.”
An alpha’s tone, final. The kind Tony hated more than anything. He hadn’t had one directed at him often. He’d conditioned himself to despite it whenever he had, but right now? He only felt acceptance, and relief. He wanted to listen. For Peter to decide. And that- that made it a lot easier to yield to those treacherous instincts he’d thought buried forever.
“Tony, look at me.”
Still the tone of an alpha, but the concern was Peter’s.
Was there even a difference? Should Tony even try to make one?
Peter tilted Tony’s chin up. His hand shook, like that day, and there was pain in his gaze. Tony would have flinched if not for the affection layering it like a balm on sunburn. “You can’t apologize for asking for help, even if-”
Even if what?
“Pete-”
“If I can’t apologize, you can’t either.”
Tony opened his mouth.
Closed it as Peter brushed his lower lip with his thumb, once, twice, digging in just a little, right in the middle.
“Can you accept that, Mist- Tony?”
The kid was still struggling to use his name, even after all those years. Tony focused on that, instead of how the pressure of that thumb, coupled to the warm fondness in that gaze - and the determination sharpening it - made him feel.
The touch didn’t linger nearly long enough.
Tony swallowed thickly, and told himself not to lick at his lips like a pathetic fool. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”
“I am.”
The acceptance layered with hope in Peter’s eyes became a tangible warmth under Tony’s skin, a tidal wave rushing through the self-destructive thoughts that kept him awake at night, knocking down walls he’d thought impregnable.
“I’d like to come visit again. I- I have time. Now.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
Tony didn’t mind at all the awkward justification toward the end. The silence had been killing him, and this olive branch he was being offered amounted to a miracle. He knew what he deserved: hate, contempt, regret. But he also knew that Peter was too impossibly good to experience hate or contempt. Regret? Maybe it lurked beneath the forgiveness. But Tony wouldn’t push it. That would be not only a dumb move, but the height of hypocrisy. He needed Peter in his life, and he was selfish enough to grab that olive branch with both hands.
“So.” He gestured around the workstation, thinking fast. “Did you want to work a bit on your suit, or would you rather...”
Peter smiled. As brief as it was, as hesitant as it seemed, it soothed all the sharp edges of Tony’s concern. “I was going to suggest a couple modifications on the waldoes.”
They worked late into the night, and when Tony hit his bed a little before sunrise, it was to his first resting sleep, nightmare free, in eighteen days.
*
“Oh, fuck.”
“Congratulations, Sir.”
Tony had half a mind - okay, maybe two-thirds of a mind - to wipe his AI’s core clean and revamp it into a glorified toaster, but it wasn’t Jarvis’s fault that the readings on his computer made no sense. Panic surged through him as he tried to unsee the data, struggling to find another explanation, but the undeniable truth remained there, black on white.
The guilt he’d been carrying for weeks turned to terror.
“I can’t…” He trailed off, unable to finish the thought, even in his own mind. He’d never expected this, but hadn’t he always wanted what he could never have?
Fuck!
He collapsed into the closest chair and covered his mouth with one hand, afraid he was about to scream, and wouldn’t be able to stop once he started. Why now? He knew why, of course. But the timing couldn’t have been worse. Peter was spending time with him. Their talks often petered into awkward pauses, the kid’s smiles still hinted at sadness, and the shy look in his eyes was one Tony hadn’t seen in years, but they were making progress.
Tony… had no idea what to do about this fucking complication.
Literally.
“Tony?”
Peter stood there, and Tony hadn’t heard him come in at all. “Jarvis told me you wanted to talk to me, is there-”
“Jarvis,” Tony gritted through clenched teeth, and that urge to scream and build a toaster was back in full force. “I will end you-”
Peter dropped his backpack, and took a step forward. “Tony, what’s going on?”
Tony almost tumbled off his chair in his haste to stand.
“Nothing.”
Peter scowled at him. “As creepy as this reminder is going to sound, I can hear your heartbeat, and it’s a lot faster than ‘nothing’ can possibly justify.”
Despite the obvious annoyance in Peter’s tone, there was hurt in his eyes, and Tony had put it there, Tony had hurt him, again.
The omega within him begged him to apologize, or maybe get on the floor. His knees wobbled in agreement, so he gripped the edge of his desk, and said: “Could you leave for two minutes, top? I need to talk to Jarvis. I’ve just realized how long he’d dreamed of being cozier with the oven, and I should really get to work on it, but I don’t wish to be rude, either, so start the chronometer, two minutes, that’s all, just-”
“Are you pregnant?”
So much for hoping that Peter wasn’t too attuned to his inner alpha just yet. Tony had too much pride to run, despite the signals coming from his lizard brain. Unless it was the comically high-pitched voice in which Peter asked the question, which brought about zero comic relief. Tony let out an undignified sound of his own, a small keen that he’d probably made a lot during that heat he’d tried hard to forget. The taste of blood flooded his tongue as he bit his inner cheek.
“Is that a question? ’Cause it didn’t sound like a question, and anyway I’m kind of short on answers, so-”
“You smell-”
“It’s been a while since I showered, so if you don’t mind, I’ll go do just that, five minutes top, just sit tight-”
“Tony, you smell like me.”
The assurance backing that statement froze Tony into place, long enough for Peter to reduce the distance between them to a teasing inch of air, just like that day in Doom’s lair.
“Is it- ours?”
A strangled noise ripped free from Tony’s throat.
“How many people do you think I guilt trip into helping me into a heat, exactly, considering that you’re one of three people who know I’m an omega?”
Anger flashed in Peter’s eyes - yes, thought Tony, you’re an idiot. The sudden grip on his bicep startled a gasp from him. He wasn’t quite sure what to feel as the kid stared at him like his mentor was a puzzle whose pieces refused to fit.
“You didn’t guilt trip me into anything. I- I wanted it, wanted…” The anger receded from the kid’s gaze, the heat in it shifting, a warm current down Tony’s spine. “I wanted you.”
“Of course, you wanted me!” Tony spluttered. “I was an omega in heat! I’d have been enticing to Doom if-”
“Are you even listening to what I’m saying?” Peter’s fingers were digging into his bicep hard enough to bruise, now. “I want you. I wanted you before you went into heat, and I still want you now, even if- Damn it, Tony, if you think for one moment that I fuck- took care of you because it was convenient for me, you’re not using your brain at all.”
“You want me,” Tony said, feeling dumb in a very distinct way. His throat clicked, and he felt the kid’s eyes dip, follow the motion. The ache building in his bicep felt amazing. “How?”
For some unfathomable reason, Tony saw guilt mirrored in Peter’s eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Not the answer Tony was looking for, and not one he liked at all. “I told you I don’t want your apologies! I begged you to fuck me, and you did precisely that, so if someone should-”
“That was the heat talking, you told me! And I- And I had sex with you anyway, and that wasn’t okay, it wasn’t right for me to- to… take pleasure in the act when you didn’t really want it, or- or me, and that’s why I should- why are you laughing?”
The disbelief in Peter’s voice just made it worse, and Tony’s chuckles devolved into roaring laugher, those tears of distress he’d been fighting falling at last as tears of mirth.
“Congratulations, Sir,” Jarvis said again, and this time Tony didn’t fantasize about punishing his sassy AI.
“Tony?”
Tony shivered as the grip on his bicep turned to a caress. He could smell the kid’s confusion, and while it was nowhere near as sweet as his scent just a little earlier, it had none of the sourness inherent to hurt.
“Oh, Pete, I’m just… This is…” He sobered pretty fast as Peter dropped his hand and stepped back. “I’m not laughing at you, I swear. Fuck I…” He shook his head, amazed - and not in a good way - at his own stupidity. “I’ve wanted you for years.” He smiled, tentative, at the shift in the kid’s scent. “When my heat hit, I felt torn over you being there and willing. I thought for sure you didn’t really want to, want me. I guess I just couldn’t believe you could-”
“What, love you?”
Tony’s jaw dropped. “I’m sorry, what?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I would have helped you through your heat even if I just felt friendship for you, but friendship isn’t how I’ve felt about you for a very long time, Tony.” He cocked his head to the side, thoughtful, endearingly so. “I don’t think I will ever stop admiring you, despite all of your faults, or rather, because of them. I love you as you are, I love every part of you,” he said, louder, as though dreading an interruption, which was a legitimate concern with Tony in the room. “And that’s why I felt so bad about it, why I, you know, avoided you. I thought for sure you regretted-”
“I thought you regretted it, and despised me for it,” Tony countered, breathless, dizzy with hope.
“Nothing you could do could ever make me despise you, Tony.”
No hesitation at all.
“That’s a dangerous thing to say to me, kid.”
Peter’s lips twitched. “Let me rephrase: nothing you could do could ever make me stop loving you.”
Had the room just started spinning, or was Tony only taking notice now?
“Do you always draw the big guns, or is this a special occasion?” He felt warm, so warm, and it had nothing to do with him being an omega. He reached for Peter’s wrist, needing the contact, and got it. “By the way, rolling your eyes so often, not good for the intra-ocular-”
“You’re pregnant,” Peter cut in, and pulled free, only to link their fingers together and press their hands to Tony’s belly. “I- We made this. Well, him, or her. This is amazing.” He worried at his bottom lip. “I know you don’t like visiting the feeling department so well, but could you please not laugh-”
“I don’t want to laugh at all,” Tony reassured him. It was the complete truth. “However, I really, really want to kiss you right now, because as it happens, you’re not the only one here with feelings. I think it’s contagious, we should probably check with medical-”
“You’re an idiot,” Peter said, but the next moment he was kissing him, and Tony didn’t feel like protesting much at all.
Jarvis put on that song from True Lies, when Arnold basically dismissed his mission to tango, and Tony, never one to heed this one advice, rolled his eyes. He smiled, though. How could he not, with Peter’s lips lingering at the corner of his mouth, the heat of his body so close, the promise of his affection filling Tony with awe?
“Do you feel nauseous at all?” Peter asked, pulling back just enough to frown at Tony in concern. “I should start reading on the subject. Today. I’m going to pick books- unless you have some you could recommend. Wait, I don’t want to assume. Are we- do you want to keep the baby? It’s your choice, obviously.”
“I want your baby very much, Peter Parker.”
The sun was a lot less bright than Peter’s face at this moment. “O-Oh. Good. I mean, I’m glad. You’ll be an amazing dad, of course, and I can’t wait for-” His hand spasmed against Tony’s still flat belly, and his ears turned pink. “Er, I should probably start reading now. Oh, are you hungry? If not, you should probably rest. Not that I’m telling you what to do, of course, you’re free to-”
As adorable as the fretting was, Tony felt a little too turned on right now to truly appreciate it.
“Unless you’d rather have Chinese from that place on 56th avenue, sweetheart, I’d like you to eat me.”
Lust dilated Peter’s pupils at the same moment Tony felt slick wet the back of his thighs. He was wearing sweatpants, and some of it trailed down his legs and pooled at his feet.
Peter looked like he wanted to lick it all - including what was on the floor. “Tony,” he said, and Tony knew the awe for what it was, because he felt exactly the same now, mind clear and heart singing in unison: lust, but also the thrill of being able to love.
And that was what Peter did. He feasted on Tony’s ass on the workbench until Tony’s belly was covered in his own come, and then he fingered him tenderly, his free hand alternating between Tony’s cock and belly. He seemed quite taken with every part of Tony’s body, and the uncertainty Tony had felt at first, mind sharp this time as he watched Peter lick into his hole, disappeared when his lover mouthed at the head of his dick with a groan of rapture, three fingers pumping into Tony’s hole with tantalizing wet noises.
“God, you’re so hot, Tony, I- I felt so guilty about enjoying this when I…” Another lick, and a lust-filled groan.
Tony tangled his fingers in those soft curls, holding on, heels digging into the bench as more slick coated those nimble fingers stretching him. “Only- Only good feelings from now on,” he gasped, and brought Peter up for a kiss, the taste of his own arousal exploding on his tongue. “Do you still want to-”
They didn’t make it to the bedroom, but the penthouse was empty until the moment he emerged from the lift in Peter’s arms. His lover carried him to the nearest couch and lay him down with reverence, undressing in a hurry before covering him with his body.
“Yes,” Peter groaned as Tony guided the head of his lover’s cock to his hole and felt it slide in smoothly, stretching him so good. “Yes.”
That sensation, right there - the all-consuming pleasure of being filled - was the most perfect thing in the word, Tony decided.
Unless that was when Peter started fucking him with his tongue and cock both, thrusts languid and loving at both ends, the loving rhythm threatening to make Tony’s heart explode. It didn’t seem so bad, to die from joy.
“I love you so much, Tony.”
Tears streamed down Peter’s face, shiny tails emerging from the stars doting the hypnotic landscape of his gaze. Tony wiped them with his mouth and fingers. He shook so hard, but he felt good, right where he belonged.
“Love you too,” he rasped, and then moaned, as that thick cock dragged against his prostate. “So much.”
Peter made an obvious effort not to put too much weight on Tony, overly concerned about his belly already, so Tony pulled him down with one hand on the kid’s nape, needing that weight in a way he could control, but chose not to.
Peter resisted. In a flash, Tony remembered how easily the kid had torn his reinforced Kevlar undersuit in the bunker - how easily he’d flipped Tony around, how hard he’d taken him, how much harder he could have fucked him, and really hurt him, if this had been Peter’s rut rather Tony’s heat. Somehow, the idea only fueled Tony lust, and he must have said something to that effect, because Peter had slowed down and pulled back enough to give him that look.
“No way,” he said, the shock clear in his voice. He was still moving his hips, at least, still hard and hot inside Tony. “You can- ngh, build me toys… if you want… but you’re in the same room when that happens.”
“But-”
“Not the first time.” Peter’s teeth flashed in the dim light. “I need to know- need to make sure you’re safe.” He fucked deep into Tony, slow and easy, and claimed Tony’s pouting mouth. “Would fucking one of the older suits with some modifications be acceptable? That’d be you, in a way. I really…” Another kiss, deeper, oh so loving. “I really don’t want to hurt you.”
Tony nipped at Peter’s bottom lip, hips snapping up to match his lover’s rhythm. He could feel the pleasure building, and he framed Peter’s face with both hands as he struggled for air, tremors shaking his whole frame. “I- I really don’t mind a bit of pain with my-”
“I figured that part, but neither one of us wants me to maim you, Tony.”
The mood was shifting, and not in a good way. Tony decided that this was a good moment to shut up and resume kissing Peter.
And three weeks later, when they made love in their bed after a long day featuring Tony’s introduction to morning sickness, and Peter bit down on his lover’s mating gland, carving the unique imprint of his teeth in the sensitive skin and claiming him for life, Tony didn’t care about being an omega, or an alpha, or a beta. He sank his teeth into Peter’s own gland, marking him as his in return, and euphoria whitened out his vision as Peter spilled inside him with a shout, one hand on the mark he’d just made on Tony’s throat, and the other half on his belly, half on the housing unit. And when Tony fell asleep, that hand remained there, a bridge between the two lives he’d sworn to cherish for as long of forever as they had.