Raising Hybrid Puppies [a Starker coffee shop AU]

Chapter 21

Author's Note: I'm terribly sorry for the wait. I had a very severe bout of depression and then, on top of everything, my laptop died on me, so I was unable to update. I'll do my best to update this a lot more regularly from now on. 

I have to take on more work to afford the replacement so I won't be able to respond to comments in a timely fashion, but I'm so thrilled by the reaction this is receiving! THANK YOU! I hope this super-long chapter makes up for the wait a bit. 

*

Tony's mouth is dry and his chest feels hollow. His mind is bursting with conflicting impulses, from taking Peter and hiding on a tropical island to alerting Remy and McKenna on his own accord.

He goes with neither.

"Replay it from the start, JARVIS," he says, voice rough. "We gotta know what we're dealing with."

The AI obeys immediately.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome to Last Week Tonight!" John Oliver says on screen. "Thank you so much for joining us – so much has happened this week, from Monsanto announcing it's been saved from declaring bankruptcy by an unknown buyer, to Congress passing the bill that would reverse Title II and destroy Net Neutrality as we know it."

The audience boos. Tony can't fault them for that.

"Our main story tonight would have been another meticulously researched piece that lays out the complexities of a specific issue over the span of twenty minutes for all of you who don't have a staff of three researchers to dig into such riveting issues yourselves."

Scattered laughter. Peter fidgets next to Tony.

"Now, attentive members of our audience may have noticed my use of conditional in that statement – that's because we've had to change our main story after receiving a photograph this morning that made us all go, 'Oh fuck!' Well, everyone else went 'Oh fuck!', I went 'Bloody hell, that's brilliant!' No, not because it was this photo of teacup pigs at the Niagara Falls," Oliver quips to a resounding "Awww", "but because it concerns none other than America's favorite billionaire, who some have come to call my personal 'nemesis', Tony Stark."

What starts as confused laughter turns into chuckling as the picture is revealed. It doesn't look bad, objectively speaking. If it weren't for the context, Tony doubts even McKenna would bat an eye.

There's no chance in hell, however, that a bloodhound like John Oliver would just shrug this off as yet another sex scandal in Tony's long history of provocative liaisons.

"I know what you're probably thinking," the host continues. "Something along the lines of, 'That's Tony Stark preparing to give yet another young, beautiful man a handjob, so what? Johnny-O, we hate to break it to you but such pictures haven't been scandalous since the era of Stark's orgies in the early 2000s. Why'd HBO spend any money on that picture? Have you and your staff been sniffing the good stuff, because this really isn't the Emmy-Award-winning satire we've grown accustomed to from this show.' And you might have a point. Did we discuss whether or not to buy this photo? Yes. But why did we do it, if not for our inherent dislike of hypocritical CEOs whose mere existence reminds us of our own mediocre lives and lack of #waistcoatbody?"

Oliver pauses as some viewers chuckle.

"Well, look closer."

They zoom in on the picture, magnifying Peter's face, arousal written in every line of it. Tony feels the kid twitch and wants more than anything to reach out, to comfort him, but he's paralyzed in fear of what's to come.

"If you're thinking, 'Golly, this man looks awfully young' – that's because he is," Oliver says, going from jovial to serious like flicking a switch. "This 'man' has only recently turned seventeen. This is also not actually a photo but a still from a video clip that we decided not to publish in any form since even HBO draws the line at child pornography."