Kirk was shown to be immature and those around him enabled that by falling for his shit. Marcus was, as everyone here knows, the future Prime universe love interest of Kirk at some stage. So it stood to reason this was to be the roots of - or at the every least, a hint of - that romantic relationship.
He couldn't resist the immature nonsense in that moment (which as said, made sense in context - you can't stick a jumpsuit over a dress!) and instead of falling for his 'charms', Marcus pretty much told him to piss off and so begins the adventure of becoming a better person to prove his worth, just like a billion romantic comedies since the dawn of time.
What I saw was the first step of a larger story. Not a very well constructed one, and leading to no more than the usual average nonsense. But it made sense. It's a quick way to begin that relationship, to give Kirk an emotive reason to evolve into a better person and better captain - much like the matured Kirk we see in Beyond.