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There weren’t many days in which you’d started off the morning single and had then ended up engaged ready to be wed by the afternoon, but hey, Peter just went along with things when they happened sometimes. It had started off with a simple bet between colleagues.
“If you don’t get lunch later, then you have to get married today,” Jasper Nolan, his favourite intern of all time, had said casually, as they sat down to do their latest experiment.
“That’s ridiculous,” Peter replied, opening up the files he needed on his laptop, slightly distractedly. “Of course I’ll have lunch today.”
“Well, if you’re so sure, you should have no problem agreeing to my terms and conditions,” Jasper shot back.
Peter just said, “Yeah, yeah, sure.”
In all fairness, he hadn’t really been listening, and he’d fully been intending to have lunch that day. Just…time had passed by, and he was a busy guy. They’d managed to get their project almost entirely in the works, it just needed to be fully materialised into actuality. Then Peter had had a few meetings with various investors which needed to be done, and had at that point returned to R&D to do some more tinkering with their project.
The time, as a result, had escaped him.
“Peter,” Jasper rapped on the back of his chair, his bag on, ready to leave. “It’s time to clock out. Have you had any food yet?”
Peter cast his eyes over to Jasper, still slightly distracted by the luring screen of blueprints ready for him. “Hm?”
“Lunch, Peter,” Jasper reminded him. “It was hours ago.”
Lunch was not something that had occurred to him at any point throughout the day. Peter’s brain at work was like a whirlwind of productivity, and things like eating food often got swept away in a haze of genius.
“Oh, uh, not yet,” He shook his head.
Jasper raised his eyebrow. “Congratulations, then.”
Peter paused. “Congratulations?”
Jasper’s bag slid off his shoulder and he put his hands on his hips, focused. “You’re officially getting married in an hour’s time.”
Peter’s mouth dropped open in shock and his fingers slipped away from the keyboard. “Excuse me?”
“Please tell me you do remember our agreement from this morning,” Jasper drawled, slightly concerned.
Peter took a second, mentally scrolling back in his mind to earlier that morning when he had, in fact, promised to get married that day if he didn’t have lunch. He’d immediately dismissed the idea as nonsensical because lunch had been a priority at the time. He’d thought it would have been a chill day—if he’d been hanging in R&D all day, he definitely would have remembered lunch.
“Jasper, that’s ridiculous, I’m not getting married,” Peter shook his head. “How is that—no! Who would I even get married to?”
Jasper shrugged, and then said, “Maguire.”
Peter did a double-take. “He offered?”
Jasper’s face scrunched in distaste. “No, he doesn’t know yet, but I’m sure he’ll be delighted to find out, and he’s one of the last ones who is probably still in the office. Good news, by the way. We already have your dress picked out.”
Peter cast a glance down at his suit. “Is the Armani not good enough or something?”
“Definitely not,” Jasper eyed it.
“Also, who’s we? Everyone’s gone home, it’s practically dark outside.”
Not that Peter had noticed, but somehow the sun had gone down.
“The Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad, of course.” Jasper said as if that was obvious. “And I’m sure some of them were on their way home but they swore an oath to drop everything if this protocol was ever enacted, so they better fucking get here now I’ve informed them.”
Peter didn’t even know what he was supposed to say to that. To any of it, really.
So he just went along with it.
A bet was a bet. It seemed fair game. Not the weirdest thing he’d ever done.
“Alright then, let’s get this show on the road,” Peter looked at his watch. Hmm. They didn’t have a long time to get this sorted. “What do you need me to do?”
Jasper pondered for a second. “Will you get the cake when it arrives?”
Peter shook his head. “Cake—no, we can’t have cake. Maguire hates cake. I’ll figure out an alternative. Give me the dress, then I’ll get on it.”
Peter Parker-Stark had no qualms about wearing a dress, especially when it was as flowy as the one the interns had picked out for him. He had many questions—queries about where they'd gotten the budget to afford a genuinely decent dress, concerns about why there was an Emergency Wedding Squad, and finally—
“Hey, quick one for you, do you think a chocolate fountain or a waffle stand is fancier?”
“Chocolate fountain provided it has good quality strawberries,” was Tony’s immediate and unfaltering response as they passed each other in the corridor. Peter trusted Tony’s judgement on such things. He was, as some would say, a fancy bitch.
“Got it,” Peter nodded, and made a move to carry on swishing down the hallway of Stark Industries.
“Hold on,” Tony paused. “Why are you wearing a wedding dress?”
Peter looked down at the dress and then back up, innocently. “Oh, uh, I’m getting married later?”
“You’re what?!” Tony spluttered. “To who?”
The words were laced with hurt.
“Maguire,” Peter replied nonchalantly.
Tony took a second, then a deep breath. He looked very much like he wanted to smoke a thousand cigarettes, or dump his head in a bowl full of ice water.
“I’m calling your therapist,” Tony said after a long moment. It was immediately followed up with: “Fuck, I’m calling my therapist.”
Peter shook his head. “Don’t call your therapist. She’s terrible.”
“This is not happening,” Tony said firmly. “You are not allowed to get married. You’ve only just become an adult!"
Peter shrugged. “What are you going to do about it? Get your best lawyer on the matter? Oh, wait. You can’t. Because he’s my fiancé.”
“May’s going to castrate me,” Tony muttered as he ran a hand through his hair.
“It was a bet, what am I supposed to do?” Peter asked. "Say no?”
Tony looked horrified. “Yes! Obviously! Some bets go too far! Boundaries, Peter, you have to set them!”
Peter rolled his eyes. “Oh, so when you had Clint legally get his name changed, that wasn’t too far, but it is for me to get married to Maguire?”
“Yes!” Tony exclaimed, and then paused. “No, sorry, hold on. Maguire is a sensible man, how the fuck has he agreed to this?”
“Well,” Peter swallowed. “Technically I’m not sure he knows our wedding is in t-minus half an hour, so…”
Tony seemed to look past the morally-dubious elements of the marriage. He was bothered by something else. “Wait. The wedding is in half an hour?”
“Yes?”
“And you…what…just weren’t going to even invite me?”
Peter shrugged, glancing at his watch again. “You have the Avengers strategy meeting with Fury then. Priorities, y’know.”
Tony looked genuinely hurt. “Who was going to walk you down the aisle?”
Peter shrugged again. “Hadn’t crossed my mind, honestly.”
“Well, great news for you, I’m coming to the wedding.” Tony announced. “To object to it.”
“Dad, really,” Peter complained. “That is not in the spirit of weddings at all.”
“Tough luck.”
Peter sighed. “I haven’t even gotten the chocolate fountain yet.”
“If I have anything to say about it, there will be no need for any chocolate fountain,” Tony said under his breath.
“Arguably some would say there’s always a need for one,” Peter hummed. They started walking along the corridor. Tony asked FRIDAY where the wedding was being held—which was apparently in the same space as they’d done the intern fair.
“You know,” Peter suggested as they waited in the elevator. “There is a fairly good chance that Maguire will also object to getting married to me.”
“I’m not letting this be down to pure chance, Peter.” Tony shook his head. He looked white in the face with stress. “If you go home married tonight, I will be skinned alive. Skinned. Alive. Do you think I want that?”
“Probably not,” Peter guessed.
Tony nodded. “Who’s the officiant going to be? Maybe we can talk some sense into them.”
“Not a clue. Again, I really didn’t do much of the wedding planning.” Peter bit his lip. “This wedding is Jasper’s baby really.”
Tony glanced at him. “Wouldn’t it have been much easier for Jasper to just get married to you? Then it would have removed the possibility of your groom refusing to marry you.”
“For both our sakes, I think it’s best that we don’t suggest that as an option,” Peter muttered back.
FRIDAY opened the doors to the lift and it revealed the venue.
In fairness, the Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad had done a lovely job of making the place wedding-suitable. It almost took Peter’s breath away. There were vines hanging, white chairs arranged stunningly, plenty of flowers (whoever had been in charge of the flowers knew just how pernickety Peter was about flower arrangements, though, because they’d chosen well) and the floor was covered in paper, that, when you looked at closely, appeared to be pages from a legal textbook. Gotta be repping the love of Maguire’s life—aka the law.
Standing in place where the officiant should be was—
“Steve?” Tony spluttered, stepping toward Captain America, who seemed to apparently be doubling for today as the officiant of Peter’s wedding. “Really?”
Steve was standing there, all dressed up in a suit, waiting. It raised many questions-was Captain America somehow part of the Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad?
“Why is it not even one bit surprising that he's ordained?” Peter muttered whilst Tony was having his little freak out.
“Are you aware we have an Avengers meeting when this little shenanigan here is supposed to be occurring?” Tony asked.
Steve looked shiftily away from them. “I didn’t want to have to speak to Fury.”
“Oh, wow!” Tony threw his hands up in the air, appalled. “Great, you were all going to have my son’s wedding without me. Steve, were you seriously going to marry Peter off just to get out of going to the meeting?”
“Yes,” Steve seemed ashamed of his response as he answered.
Tony put his fingers over his eyes and let out a controlled breath. “Was it purely for the reason of being able to avoid speaking to Fury?”
Steve just nodded. Tony made a noise that sounded like he was a slowly dying animal.
“Can you blame him, though?” Peter asked, scrunching his face together. It was Fury, after all.
“Yes!” Tony exclaimed again. “Of course I can blame him. How am I being the only sensible one here?”
Jasper walked in then, with who Peter presumed were the other members of the Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad. They all had suits on, and the pocket squares all seemed to be embroidered with the letters EWPS—of course. Right. They had matching pocket squares for the Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad. Seriously. Peter had so many questions.
“You.” Tony pointed at Jasper, who looked down. “You are so close to being fired it’s crazy.”
“Don’t worry, Jas, if he fired you, I’d just hire you right back,” Peter stage-whispered. “It’s all empty threats with Tony, really.”
Tony had too many fond feelings toward his employees to fire any of them. There had been recent suggestions from some of the board members that they had too many staff and it would be a good idea to let some of them go, and Peter swore that Tony had started growling at the very mention of it.
But it didn’t seem to reassure Jasper too much. He’d looked upset since he’d walked into the room. Almost as if his plan wasn’t going to fruition.
“You okay, Jasper? Where’s the groom?” Peter asked. The wedding was due to start in five minutes, and he hadn’t seen Maguire at all.
Jasper tried to speak, and choked. He put a hand over his mouth and closed his eyes.
“He fled,” One of the Emergency Wedding Protocol Squad stepped forward to take Jasper’s place. “But he left this note for you, Peter.”
Peter took the note, and read it.
Sorry I can’t make it to the ceremony. I have decided to take an impromptu holiday, entirely irrelevant to the fact that I fled the building momentarily after an intern told me I was supposed to be getting married in the next half an hour. Because I know how much paperwork that would cause me, and also because I don’t want to face Tony’s wrath, I’ve come to the difficult decision that I can’t marry you, Peter. I’ll be back at SI when the thought of wedding bells doesn't give me a panic attack. Thanks for knowing I wouldn’t want a cake though. It’s the thought that counts.
Your favourite lawyer,
Maguire
Tony was reading the note over Peter’s shoulder. He seemed delighted. “Now he has a healthy level of respect for me.”
Peter sighed. “I guess the wedding is off, guys.”
Multiple members of the EWPS sobbed at that announcement. Peter did feel bad, but not bad enough to suggest another wedding. Maguire was the only one worth marrying, and he was in the dust. Peter had been left at the altar, like a fool.
“You guys have a place to be,” Peter glanced at Tony and Steve, who’d made no moves to exit the room despite the announcement of the wedding being cancelled. The EWPS seemed to be at a loss as to what to do now their entire reason of existing had been essentially shattered as if having been hit with a hammer.
Tony patted Steve on the back and started steering him toward the lift to get him to go to their meeting.
“Wait,” Steve gripped onto Peter’s shoulder before he was out of reach. “Please. Don’t make me do this. I can stay. Help pack up. Anything.”
“This coming from the man who jumped on a literal grenade,” Tony rolled his eyes. “Fury is not that bad.”
Peter looked in Steve’s pleading eyes and felt bad. “Hey, y’know what? I’ll come to the meeting too, join you guys.”
Tony raised his eyebrows dubiously, as if questioning why the fuck Peter would want to subject himself to that.
“It’s your funeral,” Steve mumbled.
“Oh no,” Peter shook his head. “It’s my wedding day, actually. And Nick Fury is about to meet someone he’s never come across before.”
“Who’s that?”
“The Devil of Stark Industries.”
That meeting was the start of a beautiful and extremely dysfunctional working relationship between Peter Parker-Stark and Nicholas Joseph Fury. After the meeting—if you could even call it that—everyone in it was sworn to secrecy about the events that had occurred, so Peter couldn’t comment on what went down, but it had certainly been something. Peter’s only concern was wondering who was in charge of taking the rubber ducks through the decontamination chamber. Probably Coulson.
Yeah, definitely Coulson.