justlookingoutforthelittleguy:
🕸️—Wow, that sounded really bad. Actually, it looked bad, too. Peter accepted the barren mug with the sloping weight of patent concern on his brows. Stark was always just a little more acerbic than he expected, and he wondered how he could still be surprised by the sound of candid disinterest in everything and everyone that surrounded him, as it permeated his voice. Was it a construct? Like, a defense? As a teenager, he used the tactic plenty of times, himself; the duplicity of living with secrets and insecurities and things that no one could help out with, anyway. Was it something like that? Or was that disillusioned dispassion the price of being so incredibly talented, so unfathomably intelligent, so freaking wealthy? Peter rolled a shoulder, idly, dismissing the conundrum - it wasn’t the kind of question he had the right to ask, and postulating on Mr. Stark’s behavior was sort of rude, wasn’t it?
And so he cradled the mug in both hands, letting his sensitive fingertips memorize its surface in a natural, subconscious process as he channeled nervous energy into sensory data.
He had been pining for refreshments of some kind, if he were to be honest with himself. He’d skipped breakfast in favor of being spirited away to the Compound at the first invitation in awhile. He had some suggestions about his Spider-Man suit, and he’d hoped to watch Tony work on it while he was there, if time existed in enough quantity to allow for it. The suit was carefully and affectionately folded inside his backpack, but he hadn’t quite mustered the courage to ask Tony for anything - not even the drink he’d been ungracefully offered.
But now… upon witnessing Stark’s exhausted and aggravated state, he had to wonder if there really was anything in the fridge. Who went grocery shopping for the Avengers, anyway? He couldn’t picture Stark in a store, at all. In fact, he couldn’t imagine any of them buying milk or beets; who cooked in the compound? Did they have hired staff? The structure was relatively quiet for the time he’d been there. Interesting, but also somehow foreboding.
❝I, uh, green tea is fine. ..I-I’m basically good with anything. Water, even. Listen, though, Mister Stark… are you really okay? I gotta say, you look…
❝You don’t have to go to any trouble on my account, though, Mister Stark. I’m good. Really. If uh, if there’s um… anything I can do to help… or yanno, help out with, I mean, I wouldn’t mind. I-I’d like to, actually. If there is. I’d be happy to help.❞
The elation that he felt each time he stepped inside the Avenger’s Compound was profound, but it subsided just slightly as he stumbled over his care for the weary and vexed hero. When he had first stepped inside the structure, he felt like a kid in a candy shop, or whatever the idiom was. Now, however, he was surveying the place as though he could train in on something that needed to be done, that he could resolve by himself, as though it might spare Stark a little of his apparent fatigue.
A single palm spread firmly against the marble counter top, while its brother worked tirelessly against the side of the ageing Avenger’s temple, in a futile attempt at either crushing the nerves, or shoving the throbbing out the other end - he wasn’t a fan of over-the-counter types of medications, and there was only so much homeopathic dirt-water he could imbibe before the age old method of fighting whiskey with vodka came to mind.
“Paler than most people here, I get that - the Vision’s got a tan that puts my complexion to shame, but that’s no reason to, you know, actually say it to my face. “
The concern was set aside and placed in a sarcastic tomb to which he hoped no one would have the guts to venture into, as a pitcher filled with what was more than likely tea of the green variety was sub-sequentially gathered and utilized to fill yet another mug.
Crossing the distance and bestowing the gift of health, a flick of four fingers towards himself was the signal to relinquish the empty one, a long with a silently raised brow - a silent request never to speak of the mishap, lest his pride bring him to a fit.
“No, no, kid, you’ve got it all wrong.
The little guy, remember?
That’s your shtick, me? I’m not little, in fact, I’m here, to help /you/.
Whether or not I’ve got gin playing the harmonica on my forehead,
is none of your concern.
You’ve been fidgeting there for like, fifteen minutes now - is it homework?
The bag - Peter - because I know you don’t usually bring a change of clothes,
you got something for me?”
His voice was just a hint softer, as though he was trying to make a great effort to sound hospitable, despite being who he was - it was always difficult to talk to .. well, just about anyone, but especially the heroic and quietly righteous.. . granted, it was.. one of the reasons he had chosen the brat... but it certainly didn’t make it any less aggravating.
Taking a sip of some intensely volatile-looking herbal supplement, he cringed, visibly, an oath by which no young ears should be subjected to sworn underbreath.
“I’ve got lemon and sugar if that stuff is as disgusting as what I’m drinking.”
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