Do It For Charity

"I've been on a tour of Avengers Tower!" Peter protested. "I didn't even see anyone get a handjob."

"Did you go to Floor 69?"

"No."

Tony tapped his nose knowingly.

"Alright," Peter said, as acceptingly as possible, "thank you for letting me know what kind of dreams people have on Viagra. But just for the sake of argument, what does this have to do with me?"

"Well, unlikely as it may seem, a bunch of beautiful women with such great personalities that they're willing to fight evil for free, who also tend to wear skimpier outfits than a children's television host in Brazil, do manage to find boyfriends. Boyfriends who may not be cool with their girlfriends getting paid for sex."

"Philistines," Peter said sarcastically.

By now, a bike messenger had arrived with the prototype for Peter's new wardrobe. A Smartcar had already delivered Tony's identical twin assistants (Tony had identical twin assistants, to Peter's non-surprise). They pulled Peter into a changing room, helping him out of the spa's kimono and into the suit. Peter would've resented the implication that he didn't know how to dress himself, were it not for the fact that he didn't actually know what one of the little bits of cloth included was (it turned out to be a bowtie).

Tony went on right outside the door. "Unless, that is, the boyfriends are allowed into the brothels as johns. All their fees are covered by SHIELD, obviously. Sort of like benefits for military spouses. So it's less being cheated on, more being a swinger."

"This started in the seventies, didn't it?"

"Correct!"

Peter was pretty sure Tony was welcoming him into the fold with some gigantic Punk'd sort of hazing, trying to make him look like the idiot that actually believed there were superheroes moonlighting as hookers. Well, Peter had seen this gifset on Tumblr. He was going to be just like Neil Patrick Harris. Just act way too cool to be pranked.

Just then, the assistants finished stuffing a pocket square into Peter's jacket and shoved him out of the changing room. Tony looked him over, thumb stroking his chin like he was trying to figure out modern art—the kind that was made out of dried macaroni.

"Hmm... Harris Tweed jacket from Napoli Su Misura, knit cashmere waistcoat, flannel trousers..." Tony tapped the corner of his lips a few times. "Bowtie by Le Nœud Papillon?" One of the assistants—the handsy one, Peter had come to think of her—nodded. "I should edit a fashion magazine. Devil Wears Prada made it look so much fun. I'd get to yell at Anne Hathaway." Tony flipped his sunglasses off his head, aiming them at Peter like a gun. "You, old sport, are adorkable."

"A dork... what?"

"Play to your strengths, kid. You're never going to be Lee Marvin, I'm never going to not be James Bond..."

Peter craned his neck for a mirror and found one. "Geez. I look like Harry Potter going to a wedding."

"Good. Bitches love Harry Potter." Tony clapped Peter on the shoulder. Through the suit, it felt a lot nicer than it did through Peter's "The Dark Side Has Cookies" T-shirts (they'd been on sale—four for five bucks). "Where was I before we sexed you up? Ah, yes. Now you, Parker, are not dating a superhero. But Mary Jane has hooked you up with her place on the 'Global Freebie List,' as I like to call it. You can have any whoreoine you want, at any time, in whatever way you want. Assuming Galactus isn't attacking or something. But why would you want to have sex then? Wait..." Tony's head tilted to the side like a dog hearing a dog whistle. "Yeah, I'm gonna try that next time Galactus attacks. Thanks for the tip!"

"How did you pronounce 'whoreoine' without getting punched?"

"Comes with the facial hair. Ready to go or would you like a snack first?"

"Oh, by all means, let's not keep the hookers slash superheroes waiting."

To Peter's surprise, they did drive to Avengers Tower. Peter fully expected it to be full of superheroes and mechanics ready to haze him over Tony's prank—he practiced saying "Oop, ya got me" in his head, very sardonically—maybe followed by a job offer now that they knew he was cool. Peter wondered if Mary Jane would be okay with him building webshooters into Rescue's armor. It was sort of her trademark now.

The guard on duty, and Peter resisted the urge to call him a eunuch and see what he'd say, waved Tony through on sight. They parked underground, besides five Mercedes that Tony said were in case of 'emergency'. Peter walked with him to the elevator. He was surprised by how quality his clothes were. They didn't bunch or stretch or seem to do much of anything besides hover off his skin. If nothing else, he would have to show off his new look to Aunt May. And Mary Jane would probably be delighted with how small his pores were after that cleanse. Pores were supposed to be small, right? Right.

The elevator did stop on Floor 69, opening up into a small lobby that was empty except for a squat man in an unremarkable but well-made business suit. Peter recognized him from a few press conferences he'd felt obliged to watch because Jackpot was getting honored or, at least, standing in the background looking proud of herself. Agent Phil Coulson of SHIELD. Peter was surprised to find him going along with this.

"Mr. Parker, step this way please," he said, giving Tony a look that said stay right there.

Peter obligingly walked over to a booth in a corner, something that looked like an airport security machine. Coulson directed him to place his hands on two cold and slightly damp surfaces. They felt electric. "I trust Mr. Stark has informed you what this place is."

"Oh, yeah, yeah." Peter nodded at Tony, then lowered his voice conspiratorially. "Just so you know, I know this is a prank."

"Mmm?" Coulson said through a mighty good poker face.

"The whole... I mean... the sex workers thing. You're hazing me or whatever. It's fine, I'll go along with it. I'll act all surprised. But just, let's be clear. I don't really think a bunch of powerful, successful, independent women are going to take up hooking for charity."

"Why not?" Coulson asked, with only slight curiosity in his voice.

"Well... it's ridiculous!"

"Ah. Good reason." Coulson picked up a tablet from a nearby table and looked it over. "Biometric scan is complete. You are free of any sexually transmitted diseases. Birth control will be provided inside, although all the ladies have taken their own contraceptive measures. A quick note about the rules, Mr. Parker: you wouldn't be here if you couldn't be trusted to be discreet and use common sense. But for the record, no recording devices of any kind. Do not divulge anything that happens inside the Ball. If you want to tell your 'dawgs' that you got lucky, that's fine, it's not a state secret. But keep it vague. And, obviously, any belligerent behavior will not be tolerated. If you act in a way that uneases others, you'll be given a warning. At that point, I suggest you go home, cool down for a while, try again some other night. If you don't, and the misbehavior continues, you will not receive a second warning. SHIELD will eject you from the premises and take measures to ensure you don't bring any repercussions against this facility."

"Uh-huh, I got it." Peter winked at him. "I can't wait to have sex with all these super-hookers." He gave a thumbs up to Tony and lowered his voice again. "There's gonna be a bunch of male strippers in there, aren't there? That's the gag? I go inside, thinking I'm going to put a twenty dollar bill in Jean Grey's thong, and it's going to be—wait, no, cross-dressers? Is it gonna be cross-dressers? Just wink if it's cross-dressers."

"That would be a strip club," Coulson corrected gently. "This is a brothel. But some of the ladies are good dancers. I suggest asking if you're that curious." A small machine, like a card shoe from Vegas, beeped on the table and ejected a laminated plastic card. Coulson picked it up and handed it to Peter. It looked for all the world like a credit card, though the two black sides lacked any security details or other pictures. It was just a solid weight. "This is your card. It will give you entry into the Ball, as well as pay for any transactions. The money is provided by SHIELD for this very purpose; don't try to use it to buy McDonald's. It works by swiping three times over the blue light on the bracelet the ladies wear. This signals that you've arranged a transaction and have agreed on terms. The girls will be happy to walk you through it. Don't lose this card, don't loan it to a friend, try to forget about it when you're not using it."

Peter nodded seriously—Coulson didn't seem like the type of guy you responded to unseriously. Coulson looked him over one last time, as if weighing whether anything he'd just said had lodged in Peter's brain, then stepped aside. "Enjoy your time here."

The double doors opposite the elevator—the only exit from the room except for a clearly marked restroom—opened. The next room was much larger; glossed with midnight-black paneling instead of the institutional white plaster of the lobby. Ebony floor tiles, brass furnishings, tinted glass. And it was so dimly lit that Peter stumbled going inside. The smell was that of the sea again—it must've been Tony's personal preference—but it was undercut by the pungent incense of cigarette smoke, the occasional sweet whiff of hashish.

There were three main parts to the oblong room, as far as Peter could see. On his left was a dining area of twenty or so blackwood tables, two plush black leather chairs to a table. Each table held a candle inside an intricate glass setting, which spilled out just enough light to illuminate the diners to each other. From Peter's perspective, it turned the many twosomes into pairs of silhouettes, glossing and melding together with the flickering light. And lining the wall was one continuous couch, like a snake winding around the room, though it seemed reserved for the many stages of stupefied collapse the clientele had found themselves in.

Just in front of Peter there was a dance floor sunken into the ground, LED lights shooting out from the recessed floor to illuminate the glossy sweat, the relentlessly mobile legs, the swaying hemlines and leather shoes. But the further up you went, the more the light dimmed—most of the dancer's heads were in shadow; all Peter caught of them were flashes of grinning teeth and bright eyes.

To his right, the room narrowed—becoming a bar on one side, more bottles on the wall than there were books in Peter and Gwen's combined library, with what looked like a serving wench out of a Viking movie behind the bar (she couldn't be from Asgard, could she?). On the other side, Peter recognized an element lifted from a nightclub MJ had dragged him to: an aquarium that ran the length of the wall, transparent so that people could look through it and into the restrooms that stairs on either end of the 'throat' led down into. The portion of the bathroom that Peter saw was just the sinks where a restroom attendant patiently waited.

Past the restrooms and the bar was another set of tables. There, the music was loudest—Mary Jane's obsessive viewing of A Star Is Born let him identify it as 'The Man That Got Away'—being sung by a lounge singer tucked away in a little stage at the far wall. The floodlights on it made the one part of the club that wasn't dipped in shadows. There was faint stage lighting coming from the tops of the walls, which Peter guessed would increase in case of emergency, but most of the real illumination beaconed out from that stage. He supposed that the dining area on the left was for people who didn't want to have to talk over the music, while the right was for people who just wanted to enjoy the show. Not that many were at the moment. Even the singer, lovely and obviously talented as she was, faltered now and again like a bad audition on American Idol. Peter couldn't blame her.

Right below the stage, Wolverine had a woman on her hands and knees. A redhead. Peter actually recognized her, though it took him a moment to recognize her without the utilitarian leather uniform. It was Jean Grey. Jean Grey, in a black corset, panties, and a fucking cape. The latter two brushed out of the way, the panties pulled down Jean's joined thighs, the cape flung up so it covered her shoulder and half her face. One trembling arm was braced on the floor support, while the other was flung up to Jean's face, where she bit down on it to gag herself—block up her cries and moans and screams.

Behind her, Logan was mostly dressed, in the only clothes he seemed to own; the flannel and leather jacket and jeans that Peter could recognize from a couple hundred TMZ posts and viral videos and the rare press conference. But he'd dropped trou, belt undone and zipper down, to expose some of the bristly body hair that covered his incredibly muscular frame. It was glossy with wetness, Peter could only assume from Jean. She was bouncing under him, but not by choice—he was impaling her with wild force, like a hammer trying to nail her to the floor. Each thrust burying half Jean's face in her own cape, making her slide along the floor. She pushed back with psychic force, trying to orient herself, hold still, but it was weak and inconstant, the power of it doing more to cause turbulence than to stabilize herself. Around them was a small maelstrom of cigarettes, matches, bits of paper, even condom wrappers—sucked into the maw of Jean's telekinetic exertion.

The singer couldn't take her eyes off the spectacle; though most of the patrons ignored it like it was someone playing guitar at a subway station. The barmaid was even polishing a glass,. But a small crowd had gathered, like gamblers placing bets around a fight, and a cheer went up each time Jean's control slipped and she let out one of the shrill screams Logan was obviously producing inside her.

Peter felt his cock jump against the tight enclosure of his new trousers, his breath quicken and beads of perspiration form on his extensively cleansed forehead. Instantly, he felt ashamed of himself. Getting off on some woman being humiliated in public—it was practically rape.

Only when Logan stopped to take a pull from the vodka bottle he held in one hand, Jean sprang into action, desperately bringing her hips up to try to cajole him back into motion. With his other hand, Logan splayed his fingers on her upturned face and held her down. "Wait your turn, darlin'. You gotta admit, the liquor's been a lot kinder to me tonight than you've been."

"You beast—damned bastard—finish me off!"

Logan reached under Jean with his free hand to roughly knead one of her plump breasts, smearing her sweat across its voluptuous contour. Jean moaned expectantly and that did it; Logan pulled hard on her flame-red hair, waking her up for how he suddenly briskly moved inside her. His hips slapping against her hindquarters, Jean's entire body shaking with turbulence, her teeth biting down on her forearm hard enough to draw blood. Logan laughed, short and cruel, and tossed the bottle away to land on its side and drool alcohol onto the tile floor. With both hands he grabbed at Jean's arms, pulling them back so Jean was facedown on the ground with her ass in the air and trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey, vulnerable to how he drove himself mercilessly into her.

Peter could see Jean fighting to keep silent, clenching and swallowing her moans, but the thick member he forced her to take inside was just too much. She came before the bottle had even emptied out, screaming loud enough to silence the lounge singer for good, then sinking her forehead against the cool tile. Logan released her arms and she slumped off his cock, puddling peacefully on the floor. He wouldn't give her the rest. Flipping her over brusquely, he pulled her up a foot by the hair, aimed his fading erection at her face, and with his free hand forced the last bullet of cum from it. Jean moaned weakly as a several flecks of his seed marked her face, his territory. Then Logan, not unkindly, lowered her back to the ground and put his dick in his jeans.

"Remember this next time someone says I don't satisfy my women," he growled, "or that I won't fuck one of 'em in front of everybody."

"Yes, yes," came a voice behind Peter, and he barely got out of the way in time to avoid Emma Frost, parting him and Tony and the rest of the crowd to get to her girlfriend.

Like most red-blooded males, Peter had seen her both in the GQ photoshoots where she wore next to nothing, and on red carpet events where she was covered head to toe in stylish business attire. What she lounged in here was less than either—white elbow gloves, white heels, white panties with most of their fabric dedicated to an upward projection over her belly, a white choker that similarly projected downward to her chest, and white pasties (Peter guessed you would call them) that altogether made an X of Emma's cleavage and belly. And to think she worked at a school.

"We're all very impressed with what the big bad caveman does after he's clubbed his cavewoman over the head," Emma continued, with a fond but mocking smile toward the somewhat comatose Jean. "And it only took you half an hour. Imagine that. But then, I suppose I find Jean more irritating than you do. When I want to shut her up, I only need five minutes."

"Does it count if you need more buzzers than an apartment building?"

"Does it count if you need a mutant healing factor to avoid being labeled a minuteman?" Shifting seamlessly to diamond, Emma bent down—Peter couldn't believe she wasn't aware of the how her thong rode up when it faced him—and picked up Jean in her suddenly strong arms. "Thank you for the contribution to my little ginger's good looks. I think I'll enjoy washing it off."

"Gives 'er flavor," Logan grinned.

Peter was spellbound watching this—almost more so than he'd been by the sex. That really was Wolverine, and the White Queen, talking about... about whoring. It wasn't a joke. None of this was a joke. It was all fucking real. These women really were hookers. Powerful, successful, strong-willed, independent women—with superpowers—hooking. He felt lightheaded. And he hadn't even considered that he had some kind of... expense account here. Oh. Now he had considered it. He was actually expected to... with them... and him?... coitus?

Tony took him by the shoulders and sat him down at one of the lounge's tables, much the same way Emma was carrying Jean off. Logan, for his part, retrieved the bottle of vodka, wiped off the mouth with his shirt, and gave it a swig.

"First sex show?" Tony asked. "I always forget what it's like for first-timers. Doesn't shock me anymore. There aren't even any twins."

The centerpiece of the table they'd sat at held an odd-looking set of glass tubes, vials, and hoses, something like a coffee machine from IKEA. Tony detached a brightly-colored pipe from it and held down a button on it, drawing an oddly tinted smoke through its translucent throat. An opiate, Peter realized. When Tony took a lungful of it, Peter almost expected him to start babbling like a cartoon or faint like... another cartoon, but all he did was smoothly exhale. Whatever it was, Peter doubted it was something truly hard. More like marijuana, he reckoned—hoped.

"These are sex workers." Peter was suddenly very mindful of his phrasing. "This is a sex worker... place. A sex workplace."

"Yes, Peter. It's a sex workplace."

Peter had so many questions—but in the end, only one could make its way out of the traffic jam. "Why me?"

Tony blew smoke like a little kid blowing bubbles. "Your friends. Mary Jane and Gwen. They talk about you. At least MJ does. This great guy who helps her out all the time, listens to her problems, gives her a shoulder to cry on, laughs at her jokes—this great guy who just can't catch a break." He patted Peter on the shoulder. "You take good care of them, Pete. Let them take care of you. Enjoy yourself. Have fun. Relax, for a change."