Prompt: You’ve heard of “got drunk in Vegas and woke up married” but now I want “got drunk in a shady part of an old town and woke up with strange, matching soul-binding tattoos and now we can’t be physically apart for longer than a day"
Tony opens his eyes and the first thing he feels is muscles he didn't even know he had ached. He refuses to open his eyes because he knows the light will be a bitch and possibly melt his eyeballs. But the sunlight burns on his eyelids and he growls sullenly, raising his hand and muttering under his breath for Friday to close the windows that God knows why he thought to leave open last night.
But nothing happens and Tony frowns still with his eyes closed. He murmurs one more order and his tongue feels disgustingly bitter and heavy in his mouth.
The sunlight is still there, Friday is conspicuous by her absence.
Tony opens his eyes against his will and gasps in fear when the first thing he sees is a mop of curls on his right bicep. Specifically, a mop of curls attached to a head he knows perfectly well.
He stiffens. He slowly tries to pull his arm out from under Peter's head but the kid stirs and snuggles into Tony's chest. On Tony's bare chest.
Fuck. What the hell happened last night?
Tony tries not to panic. It doesn't have to be bad. He tries to organize his ideas. They are in Italy, Matera to be more exact. Tony brought the kid on a two-week trip to Europe to erase the bad memories he has of idiot Beck while Tony was dead.
Peter said he wanted to visit one of the oldest cities in Italy, so Tony took him to see the prehistoric caves in the Basilica region where the first humans are believed to have lived. They ended their expedition in an old bar drinking lemon liquor and grappa.
Then everything becomes too blurry.
Tony manages to detach himself from the kid's heavy, hot body. Damn, this is so wrong. Why is he half-naked hugging the one person he shouldn't touch? He gets out of bed as Peter begins to growl at being disturbed from his sleep. So Tony, trying to get rid of the evidence, stands up trying to put distance between them, only to find that he's not half naked, he's totally naked.
"Holy fuck!" He exclaims, making Peter gasp and wake up, jumping out of bed and sitting against the headboard.
"Oh, my God!" Peter exclaims, eyes wide and focused directly on Tony's crotch.
The man lets out a squeal and covers himself with both hands, especially when his stomach does something funny and his blood threatens to go to a particular area of his body at the sight of the kid as naked as himself.
Peter breathes heavily, and his eyes inevitably go from Tony to his own body. He screams scandalized and closes his legs hugging his knees. Tony turns to give him some privacy and Peter squeals again at the sight of his bare butt.
"Why are we naked?!" Peter asks, his voice high-pitched.
"Oh my God, this isn't happening," Tony whispers to himself. He hurries to grab the sheet that lies discarded on the floor and covers his waist with it.
"Mr. Stark?" Peter says with a shaking voice. "Oh my God, oh my God."
Tony takes a chance and slowly turns his head to see Peter out of the corner of his eye. Mercifully and for the sake of his sanity, the kid has a pillow covering his crotch now. The man turns completely to find Peter looking at his outstretched hand, palm up, where a huge black and gold letter A shines shamelessly.
"What's that?" Tony says with an unrecognizable voice. "Peter, what is that?"
The kid is pale, as white as a ghost covered in a sack of flour. His eyes are so wide they threaten to fall out of their sockets and his jaw is almost touching the floor.
Out of pure instinct, or perhaps because a terrible feeling fills his chest, Tony extends his own hand. There, arrogant and haughty, a letter P of furious gold and black shines in his entire palm.
"I'll never drink again in my life," Tony declares, not believing he has a- what the fuck is this? Is it a drawing? Is it indelible ink? Does it erased with soap and water? Is it a fucking tattoo?
"Why is it shining?" Peter says very loudly and trying to erase the letter with his fingers. "Mr. Stark? Why is this glowing?"
Tony takes a deep breath. He needs to think coherently. He needs to find answers because otherwise Peter is going to freak out which will make Tony freak out too and it will spiral into madness.
"What's the last thing you remember?" He asks, adjusting the blanket around his waist and ignoring the letter P in his palm that is now also glowing like a fucking Christmas tree.
Peter nods, as if he's convincing himself that he needs to collect his thoughts and not panic. "We went to this bar, we drank and we talked about- about- oh God-"
Tony's eyes widen and his heart beats even faster than it has since he woke up. "What? What did you just remember?"
"This- this woman talking about- about spells and about- oh God, oh God, Mr. Stark."
Peter puts his hands to his face while Tony tries with all his might to remember what the kid is talking about. Then with the force of a hurricane, blurred and incoherent memories appear.
A woman with a funny hat approaching their table and asking them for a drink. He doesn't exactly remember if it was him or Peter who let her sit with them. But he remembers the woman smiling knowingly as she watched Tony and Peter interact and laugh like schoolchildren.
In return for the drink and kindness I will give you a gift, she said. She took their hands, she recited some words in Italian that sounded a lot like true love and soulmates.
Tony feels dizzy when he remembers the feeling of peace that came over him after that. The pure, unknown happiness that clung to his bones and coursed through his blood.
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Peter murmurs, shifting gently on the bed and wincing in pain.
Tony doesn't want to ask, but he doesn't need to either judging by the kid's exploratory movements moving his hips and looking for... evidence.
"Do we–" Tony asks weakly, because he needs to know.
Peter closes his eyes and lets out a desperate moan. "I think so," he whispers.
Tony feels like he's going to die. He fucked Peter Parker. Tony fucked the man of his dreams whom he swore never to touch so as not to harm and he doesn't even remember it.
"Are you sure?" He tries a glimmer of hope that quickly dies when Peter nods, face buried in his hands.
Tony closes his eyes and sits on the far corner of the bed when he feels like his knees are going to give way. What did he do? He fought tooth and nail against his feelings for Peter for years only to ruin everything in a single drunken night. And he can't even remember it.
"Do you think you could- do you think I could get dressed for a moment?" Peter asks timidly, his voice filled with tears.
Tony gasps at the sound of pain in Peter's tone. Tony went and ruined everything, again. It wasn't enough for him to die and abandon the kid, now he also screwed up the kid's life. He nods and grabs the sheet tightly, he looks around the room for the first time looking for his clothes and sees them lying in a corner. This isn't even his hotel room, it's not even their hotel.
Tony takes his clothes and goes into the bathroom. Possibly Peter should be the one to use the bathroom first but they both can't even look at each other right now. He allows himself to inspect his body in the small mirror above the sink and is greeted by angry hickeys and bites.
Fuck, the kitten has claws, doesn't he?
Tony completely ignores the stain of dried cum on his stomach and washes himself at lightning speed. When he finishes he doesn't find any towel so he chooses to put on his clothes even though he is wet. His brain is full of questions, guilt, regret, shame, while his heart seems as big and aching as ever when Peter is involved in the equation.
The point is that Tony has loved him since the kid was fifteen, since Tony took him to Germany to fight Captain America. Tony watched Peter grow into a man while his heart ached for him, as he entered deeper and deeper into a wrong and immoral love. Because Tony met him at fifteen, lost him at seventeen, got him back and saw him go to MIT and graduate, and now the kid is twenty while Tony is fucking fifty.
Peter doesn't love him, he once had a crush on him like so many other teenagers dazzled by Iron Man, but it was just that. Peter isn't as fucking in love with Tony as Tony is with him.
And Tony was trying to forget about him. Rhodey told him that taking Peter to Europe as if they were going on a romantic trip was not the best idea to get him out of his heart. But... Peter seemed so excited when Tony mentioned his childhood town and his mother's family home that Tony just said "hey, do you want to go with me?" and Peter never looked happier.
Once he finishes dressing he searches his pockets for his cell phone, and finds it as well as a small gold card that looks suspiciously like the handwriting in his palm.
His entire body freezes as he reads the words written in gold ink with delicate calligraphy.
An eternal union of souls.
You love him and he loves you.
Seal your love and live happily for the rest of eternity.
Congratulations on the new marriage!
Tony leans against the bathroom wall and tries to control his breathing. His hands are shaking. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
He turns the damn little card.
The first two to three months it will be impossible to be more than ten meters apart.
Infidelity is physically impossible.
The spell and soul bond is unbreakable.
Enjoy Mr. and Mrs. Stark :)
Tony blinks at the happy face. He rereads everything again in disbelief and decides that– then it will be time to resolve that 'you love him and he loves you' thing. But now he needs to show this to the kid and apologize in ten different fucking languages, then go find the old lady and demand that she fix this, or in the worst case they will have to go to Strange.
Tony almost stumbles out of the bathroom, only to find Peter dressed and sitting on the end of the bed with an identical card held in his hands.
"I really like the sound of Mrs. Stark," Peter answers sheepishly, blushing cheeks and shy smile.
Tony feels like his whole world is collapsing, only to put itself back together in a millisecond.
"Do you- do you love me, Mr. Stark?" Peter says, biting his lip and looking at Tony with those big doe eyes.
All the air in Tony's chest escapes as if he's been kicked. "Yeah, yeah," he says breathlessly. "Do you- do you-"
"Yeah," Peter says also breathlessly. "I'm really- really in love with you."
Tony could fly away at any moment and he doesn't even have his thrusters on. He takes a couple steps closer to Peter. His entire body vibrated with excitement.
"But-" Peter says standing up, making Tony stop on his heels. "What will happen to Miss Potts and the wedding?"
And Tony thinks oh, that's true. Tony is getting married in a week. Oh, fuck.
Dedicated to @madeforstarker ❤️ Happy Valentine's Day, baby.
