The Name on Your Lips - Starker

Tony & Peter

“What did you call me?”

Tony’s stomach dropped as he realized what name he had inadvertently called him. A wide array of profanity rang out through his head while he attempted to come up with a viable excuse for his actions.

Back in his playboy days, he made it a point to never say a partner’s name in bed specifically to prevent this type of awkwardness. Though, if he did slip up and say someone else’s name, oh well. His partner would sometimes ignore it. If they did care and stormed out of the penthouse upset, he still had a list of phone numbers in his back pocket he could ring up that could take their place in 30 minutes or less. It never mattered that he had ruffled some feathers as he had no intention of seeing them again after that night.

This was a very different situation. He wasn’t looking to be rid of this one any time soon.

His subconscious had tried to warn him of this inevitability back in the lab with the first time he let the name slip, but Tony believed himself to be more resilient than he actually was.

He could feel his heart tear at its seams as he watched his companion’s eyes brimming with tears daring to fall.

“Di—did you just call me Peter?” he asked, his voice wavering.

“Fuck—I’m—,” Tony choked out. He scrambled to come up with something, anything to make this better. He felt as if his uncanny ability to bullshit his way out of a number of tense situations throughout his life should have better prepared him for this, but he could find no words. 

“You—you remember me?” Peter asked with wide, hopeful eyes staring at his mentor, a lump forming in his throat.

That had not been the reaction he was expecting. “What? What are you talking about?” Tony breathed out in confusion, his mind racing to interpret the boy’s meaning. He half expected a slap in the face by this point.

“I heard it—I heard you. You called me Peter,” he repeated, his voice cracking. “Please, Mr. Stark—please, please tell me you remember me.”

Tony couldn’t understand why he was phrasing it the way he was. He presumed Benjamin was trying to call him out for not remembering who he was, but his selection of words made it seem as if he wanted him to call him Peter. Unless…

As the puzzle pieces clicked into place, he felt delirious, like he was stumbling through a fever dream. There was no way he was confirming what Tony’s heart had been telling him the moment his eyes fell on Benjamin; that this was his Peter through and through.

“You’re Peter?” Tony asked eagerly, longing for an affirmation. “You’re my Peter?” If he was wrong, he would for sure be deemed a mad man now.

Peter nodded enthusiastically, the tears finally rolling down his rosy cheeks. He wanted to bottle up the fluttering feeling hearing Tony’s use of the word “my” so casually.

For the first time since his resurrection, Tony felt as if he could take a full breath of air without being plagued by a constriction of his lungs.

This was his Peter. Which, if this was his Peter, that meant that this was his world. He hadn’t come back wrong. His own tears of relief were threatening to fall.

While an endless number of questions were piling up in his mind, he was compelled to do something that he had been restraining himself from doing since they met in the lab the month before; he hugged him.

Peter never hesitated for a moment, his fingertips clutching at Tony’s back with desperation as soon as the older man’s arms wrapped around him. His face was buried in the crook of his neck, uncaring that his tears were dampening Tony’s suit.