“You ever kiss anyone hanging down like that?” Tony asked with a grin, staring up at the spiderling who was dangling down from an alleyway’s fire escape, playfully hovering a few meters above his mentor.
Having heard that Spider-Man was in the area on patrol, Iron Man thought he would surprise the mentee he had been missing since the previous week's lab session.
The unexpected question caused Peter to fumble, his grip sliding him down closer to the other man as if that had been his cheeky response.
The young superhero was grateful to be wearing the mask, desperate to hide his burning cheeks. When Tony raised a brow, he wanted the ground to suddenly open up and swallow him whole.
“Uh-I…” Spider-Man sputtered, off to an amazing start. “Yes?”
“Is that a question?” Stark challenged, casually leaning against the filthy brick, grateful to be wearing his armor.
“No?” Peter responded, causing the other man to huff a laugh. “I- I mean I have, but it's kind of awkward to be honest…b-because of the height. Like if you don't get the height perfect on the first drop, you end up having to go back up and down and up and down until you get it–you know–right.”
Tony feigned indignation, holding his palms out in defense. “I was just talking about kissing, kid. What other extra moves you've–”
“What?!” The pitch of Peter's voice shot up several octaves. “That's-no, that's not what I–”
“I'm just fucking with you. Don't get your panties in a twist, Spider-Man,” the billionaire said, pushing away from the wall to move under his companion.
Peeved at Stark’s teasing, he decided to reciprocate, hoping to throw him off-kilter. “But wait, Mr. Stark, I'm not wearing any–oh, sorry. You were just making a joke.”
Tony's smirk immediately dropped for a brief moment before his lips bounced back by recurling. After a beat, Tony broke the silence saying, “So you say it's the height discrepancy that's the issue?”
Peter opened his mouth to respond, but froze as soon as he noticed that Tony was abruptly inching nearer, now hovering using the thrusters in his boots.
As he moved to close the distance between them, Tony clarified, his voice so quiet that Peter barely heard it over his own racing heartbeat, “Because I have some ideas of ways we could fix that…”