Nerd Tony x Popular Peter, High school AU
Tony can’t stop staring at him.
Across the classroom, near the window where Peter Parker is bathed in afternoon sunlight and shimmering like an enchanted thing of beauty. With his perfect coffee curls and his hazel eyes and his effortless grace, Tony feels lust coil hot and tight in the pit of his gut.
Peter, who’s scribbling away at his paper, looks up as though he can sense eyes on him, and looks across the classroom.
Tony snaps his eyes back down to his desk guiltily; hot shame rising up to his cheeks, before sneaking another look to see Peter still looking over at him; perfect pink lips lifted into a smile.
Tony tries to smile back, but he thinks it comes out as a distorted grimace and he hates himself.
Is it not enough that Peter is the most obscenely beautiful thing he’s ever seen in his life? But does he have to be so nice? The popular clique, the ones that roam the halls of high school exuding confidence and superiority. The ones who never have to worry about anything, the ones that everyone else lower down in the food chain simultaneously hates and envies- why does Peter have to be the only one who is nice?
Tony, a surly outcast who doesn’t care for interacting with his peers, eats alone most of the time. Sometimes he camps out in the biology rooms at lunch with a boy from the year above named Bruce, but most of the time he likes to be by himself. A lone wolf. He feels above all the high school drama- transcended because he knows that this is just a temporary state. What happens here and now doesn’t matter. Tony won’t ever fit in here. This is not his arena. His arena will be just after college, then he’ll start living his life and he’ll be popular and rich and as confident as he likes without having to worry about getting shoved into lockers by jocks who think that just because they can catch a ball they’re better than him.
But Peter Parker makes him…
Makes his blood run hot. Makes him want to engage in the stupid, so so stupid little scenarios. Makes him want to text until his fingers ache, makes him consider cramming love letters into the boy’s locker or maybe even hoping against hope to end up getting partnered with him in something again like they were in English a while ago.
But Tony isn’t special.
Everyone thinks Peter is beautiful. The boy may be small in stature but he has the face of an angel, and he lives on the rich side of town, he has perfect skin, and he’s on the cheerleading squad and he hosts supposedly phenomenal parties at his mansion whenever his parents are away. Peter extends invitations to everyone but Tony never ever goes. Most of the student body lusts after him, but Tony-
Tony thinks he can see a little more. He and Peter share practically all the same classes, and even though Peter seems on the surface like another pretty boy living on the highest rungs of society, though he seems like just another cheerleader, just another person who comes to school in a shiny red camaro in expensive clothes- he’s also…
He’s also in every AP class, and he has a grade point average that almost rivals Tony’s. He’s never missed a day of school and he never skips out on lessons and he gives all his teachers handwritten thank you notes at the end of each year.
And instead of ignoring Tony, or sneering at him, or shoving him into a locker, Peter every so often, gives him that gorgeous, heart stopping smile.
But then the end of class comes, and he can only watch as Peter and the rest of the other beautiful people stand up and leave. Tony lingers, waiting until the room is practically empty before packing up his things and going to find Bruce.
Homecoming is an ever-present shadow that lurks on the cusp of the horizon.
Tony tries to stay above rumours, really he does, but even he can’t help hearing, as he collects his physics books, as a number of students whisper about how Peter Parker rejected William’s request.
“He said he was going to ask someone,” a girl whispers, and Tony cocks his head, straining to hear:
“Really? Ask who?”
“Maybe he has a boyfriend who doesn’t go here. He’s probably dating an older guy.”
“That’s so unfair. Maybe it was just an excuse not to go with William. Maybe he’s waiting for someone else to ask?”
“Do you think I should?”
“I would pay to see that!”
Tony tries to ignore it, but instead he obsesses over it. He’s not going to Homecoming because it’s all superfluous and he doesn’t need to put himself through it. His mom had looked sad when he told her, but she’d ultimately understood and Tony had tried to reassure her. This doesn’t matter. None of it matters, and even though he has reoccurring dreams about walking into the hall with Peter on his arm, even though he thinks about wearing his dad’s old tux with staples in the sleeves, even though the thought of slow dancing with the only boy in school that manages to hold his attention seems to torment him every waking moment of the day- none of it matters.
He’s in the middle of eating a tuna sandwich and trying very hard not to get fish stuck in his braces when the entire cafeteria falls into a hush.
It’s unnerving, and he looks up curiously, expecting to see…honestly, he’s not sure, but he doesn’t expect to see Peter Parker standing at his table; heart stoppingly gorgeous in a silky red bomber jacket embroidered with green flowers, and a low cut v-neck black top and light wash jeans. He’s not expecting to see Peter looking at him, pink on his cheeks and glitter in his eyes. “Tony?” Peter asks quietly, but it seems exceedingly loud in the amazed quiet of the canteen.
Tony swallows a hard lump of tuna and stares in amazement. He almost wants to clean the dust smudges off his glasses to make sure he’s seeing things clearly. “Uh…hi?” He manages, croaking a little and instantly glowing scarlet as Peter smiles beside him. Peter’s voice is smooth as velvet; Tony’s still cracks here and there on certain words.
“I was wondering if you were going to Homecoming?”
What-how-Tony’s brain isn’t working right. He feels like a complete mess in the face of Peter’s elegance. “I…I wasn’t planning on it?” He forces out and Peter nods like this is what he expected, a few perfect curls tumbling into his forehead.
“I was thinking, um, maybe if you decided to go we could…” he shrugs, a small, hopeful smile on his face as he tips his head, “we could go together? If you want.”
The words don’t compute. Nothing really makes sense. He sets down his sandwich and tries not to melt under the thousand eyes looking over at them. He glances at Peter suspiciously; his heart pounding. “Is this…” he whispers, barely audible to his own ears, “is this a joke?” Fuck Peter, if it is. He’s just like all the others-
“What?” Peter asks, eyebrows furrowing together in adorable confusion. “What? No, Tony, I…I’m not joking.”
He sounds so sincere, but surely he can’t be. “We’ve never even talked,” Tony points out, “why would you want to..?”
Peter’s cheeks go even pinker and he ducks his head. “I mean- no, you’re right really, but I just- remember when we were paired up last semester in English? I just- I don’t know, you’re really…I thought we had fun.”
Peter remembers that? Tony had thought that the connection between them was entirely one-sided. He’d thought that Peter was just nice to him the way he was nice to everyone. But did he- did he feel how Tony felt about it? All flushed and excited because Peter Parker was sitting next to him and laughing at his jokes and- that was more than just politeness? He swallows hard, and nods jerkily. “No! No, yeah,” he stutters out, “that was fun.”
Peter smiles again; serene and breathtaking. “I get Homecoming might not be your scene, so maybe we could do something else? Um- you like sci-fi movies, right?”
Tony does love sci-fi movies, and his heart skips a beat over the fact that Peter remembers him saying that. Is this even possible? Could he see a sci-fi movie with Peter Parker? And yet…he should rise above it, really he should, but there’s something about the boy before him that- that makes him want to buy a carnation and hold Peter’s hand and smile with shiny metal on his teeth as his mom takes a photo on their old, beaten up camera. “Homecoming,” Tony whispers definitively, “homecoming would be- that would be nice.”
“Cool,” Peter whispers back; a smile in his voice, as he nods at Tony, and shoots him a little wave, before heading back to the table with the rest of them.
The cafeteria breaks back out into noise.
A little part of Tony continues not to believe it. Why wouldn’t he? He’s too smart to actually believe whole-heartedly that Peter Parker would want him. Why would he? Tony’s skin is still bumpy from puberty, and his braces make his lips all chapped and his glasses are too big for his face and he dresses like he just doesn’t give a crap (because he’s saving all his effort for when he’s older, for when he’s made it and if he pretends like he doesn’t care about having nice clothes, his mom won’t feel so guilty over not being able to afford them and he never, ever wants her to feel guilty).
He holds onto the hope, but carries the skepticism, and it only really goes away when Peter Parker steps into his house and gives Tony’s mother a box of chocolates and trips over the threshold because he’s so nervous.
The skepticism disappears completely when Peter wraps his arms around Tony’s neck under the cheesy disco ball to some pop song from the 80s and Tony’s hands shake as they settle on Peter’s waist and he’s certain he’s sweating like a pig, and Peter whispers into his ear, almost hidden by the music:
“I’m so glad you said yes,”
Tony holds him tighter; trembling and petrified and excited because he knows this is going to change everything. People are giving them looks, emotions range from surprise to utter confusion. “Why me?” He manages to choke out into Peter’s hair, and the boy pulls back to look up at him. Because it’s obvious to anyone in the world why Tony would like Peter, but why does Peter- why would he want some surly, easily annoyed nerd?
“You make me happy,” Peter says simply, one of his hands stroking through Tony’s short hair. “And I think there’s more to you than what everyone else sees.”
His heart clenches and flips with excitement. “I feel- I feel the same about- about you-“ he gushes and Peter laughs, burying his face into Tony’s sweaty neck.
When he gets home, his mom eagerly demands to know every single detail and instead of hiding in his room with his computer, he sits down and drinks the hot chocolate she makes in front of the fire, and tells her everything.
He almost doesn’t sleep that night because for the first time in a long time, he’s excited to go to school and see what might happen.