Chapter Text
After their initial meeting, Tony kept his promise to Lydia and didn’t attempt to research her species. He would randomly fire guesses at her whenever they were together, but they were always baseless and quickly the goal became how hard he could make her laugh with his suggestions. Tony was in the middle of arguing with the event planner for the upcoming Stark Expo when his phone started buzzing. The event planner stopped his rant about security measures when Tony held up a hand and lifted the phone to his ear.
“Lydia! How’s the smartest, sexiest, woman on Earth doing today?”
The event planner scoffed and crossed his arms as Tony listened to her reply.
“No, I'm not busy! This tool won’t respect my judgment so I’m gonna jet, see you at your place?”
The event planner gave an indignant shriek and Tony paused again to listen to her response.
“How dare you? I am not difficult to deal with, I happen to be very charming and funny!”
The event planner looked shocked for a moment and then snatched the phone out of Tony’s hand. Tony was so shocked by the audacity that he floundered and spluttered for a moment.
“This man is driving me insane! He halted a very important discussion in order to answer your call. Apparently he respects you more than me so perhaps you can convince him that the Expo cannot possibly be open to the public! The insurance company is refusing to provide coverage for half the exhibits because our security team says that they can’t guarantee safety in a venue this large. Mr Stark refuses to downsize, he refuses to hire outside security, and he refuses to restrict the guest list, I’m at my wits end here! Talk some sense into him, please!”
Whatever Lydia said in response clearly relaxed the event planner considerably and he handed the phone back to Tony. Tony stared at it like it was about to bite him.
“Don’t look so smug,” he grumbled as he snatched the phone back. He held the phone up to his ear tentatively but soon started smiling when Lydia started laying out her plan. When she finished and he hung up, Tony leveled a smug grin at the event planner, whose name he still didn’t remember, “gotta go spark plug! I gotta date with a genius!”.
Tony broke every traffic law zooming to her house but he arrived in record time and without a scratch so he considered it a win. He burst through the front door and made his way through the house to the back patio. Lydia was in a zero gravity lounge chair, sunning herself in a tiny, strapless, yellow, floral, bikini. Jordan was standing in only black swim trunks by the grill, flipping some of the largest steaks Tony had ever seen. And there was someone new bouncing on the diving board at the far end of the pool. Tony bounced over to where Lydia was reclined and plopped down in the chair next to her.
“Hey dragon!” Lydia chuckled but she didn’t even open her eyes behind her giant sunglasses.
“O god no thanks! Dragons have terrible skin!”
Tony nodded, cataloging the information, but pressing onward, “so is the awkwardly bouncing cutie over there the famous “Mischief” you’re always talking about?”
As if on cue, the mystery guy tripped on his most recent bounce and flopped gracelessly into the pool. Tony let out a startled laugh and watched as the clumsy cutie swam towards them.
“Holy shit! You’re Tony Stark! Lydia never shuts up about you. And I mean, why would she? Look at you, it’s like a million degrees out and you’re wearing a suit and you look fucking hot. But like in the attractive way y'know, not in the sweaty way! Sorry, I don’t mean to objectify you, I know you’re one of the greatest minds of all time. Oh wait, am I not supposed to know that? I’m sorry, Lydia didn’t share your secret, it’s just like part of my job to keep track of secrets y'know and with you being so socially and financially powerful, we have a file on you. But don’t worry I won’t tell anyone, it’s also my job to keep secret, which is kinda stupid, like I’m Fae, seems crazy for me to have this job, but hey, I haven’t fucked up yet, so…oh dear lord I’m doing the rambling again!”
“Tony, meet Stiles, Stiles, as you have so loquaciously identified, this is Tony,” Lydia finally piped up, “I predict you two will get along swimmingly, no pun intended.”
Tony grinned brightly up at Stiles and immediately gave him an excited wave.
“It's so great to meet you, Lydia says you may have a solution for my security problem?”
“Yes! So I’m not sure if she told you but I’m the Director of WAND, if you’d like to come on as a consultant, I could authorize protection for you and your intellectual property that would more than satisfy your insurance requirements.”
Tony frowned a little, he trusted Lydia implicitly but getting himself involved in yet another secret agency was not a decision to be taken lightly.
“What would you expect from me?”
Stiles looked eager, “Well we deal mainly with the occult and supernatural, some of the materials our R&D department uses are massively toxic. We hire hardly any human employees due to the obvious implications. We were hoping that you would come on as a human consultant to help out when we’re in a bind. You’re not the only person we’re talking to so you wouldn’t be called in constantly, just on the occasions that we could use your specific base of knowledge. And of course we’re happy to provide you with information and materials if you ever want to experiment, we just ask that you share your findings with us and we get a say in whether or not you put any products on the market.”
Tony nodded thoughtfully, he hoarded information like a dragon hoarded gold, but one thing was bothering him, “you mentioned you were Fae. What kind, are you able to lie?”
Stiles' face turned green, “I’m a Spark and technically yes I can lie, but it hurts a lot and I get sick.”
Tony’s eyebrows shot into his hairline, “Will you show me?” he asked, wondering how far the man would go to get him on board.
Lydia spoke up, “No way! You are not barfing on my pool deck! Shame on you Tony, how would you feel if I wandered into your house and demanded that Rhodey start barfing on your floor?”
Tony paused, considering, “ok fair, how about you send a contract to my lawyers and they’ll look it over before I sign anything.”
“Totally cool! I can’t wait to work together! But right now, I’m ravenously hungry, I’m gonna go steal some of that steak before Jordan cooks it too long!”
“Grab me some sides! You know what I like!” Lydia called after his retreating form.
“You’re all immortal, aren’t you?”
Lydia took a sip of her iced tea, “What makes you say that?”
Tony gave her a bemused look, “You’re all way too young to hold the high-ranking positions that you hold.”
Lydia nodded, “Statistically, Supernatural children take on way more responsibility at a young age than human children. It can’t be helped, for all our superior physicality, we have a much higher mortality rate, our children are far more likely to become orphans.” Her tone turned mournful at the end.
“Is that why you won’t have kids even though everyone and their mother can tell that you desperately want them?”
Lydia looked at him, her eyes a little wet, and gave him a teary smile, “I’m really that obvious?”
“You’d be an incredible mom, Lydia.”
She huffed out a breath and looked away again, “No, I wouldn’t, just by bringing them into this world I’d be cursing them forever”
Tony watched her expression grow mournful, clearly relieving some form of traumatic memory.
“Have you ever watched anyone die?” She finally spoke again.
Tony froze, caught off guard by the question, “No”
“I have a million lifetimes worth of death in my head, and that’s fine, it really is, it’s part of who I am, but it’s a heavy burden, how can I subject a child to that?”
Tony frowned, he didn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t even have the necessary information to give his honest opinion.
“You said a lot of kids are orphaned, could you take them in? Maybe find someone who’s like you and help them?”
Lydia shook her head, quicker this time, “No, I’m the last of my kind.”
Tony sucked in a sharp breath, now he understood why she didn’t want anyone knowing what she was, if the rest of her kind were extinct, it was likely not of natural causes. She very probably lived in constant fear.
“I had someone once, that did that for me, found me and took care of me, you never realize how much you miss the feeling of someone’s touch until they’re gone.”
Tony placed his rough, calloused, hand over her soft, smooth, one. She flipped it over and laced their fingers together, squeezing tightly.
“Yes, Jordan is immortal, and by nature of our soulbond, I share in his immortality. I made him wait until I turned 25 to bond, drove him absolutely insane but we met when I was sixteen so if he had his way he would be an eternal cradle robber and I would be stuck as a literal child forever and nobody wants that. And I’m sure you already know that Fae are immortal, or at the very least have extremely long lifespans. Immortality is the main reason we haven’t adopted yet. Jordan’s people are never really children and the Fae are incredibly insular. There are very few other immortal species and I don’t think I could bear to watch a mortal child grow old and die.”
Tony nodded gratefully at her candor but was deeply uncomfortable with how emotional the conversation had gotten. He was relieved when Stiles and Jordan came over, arms full of food-laden paper plates. Tony was not surprised when Jordan stopped to stare at the placement of Lydia’s hand. Lydia noticed as well and rolled her eyes, squeezing Tony’s hand harder, as if to make a point.
She used to other hand to reach for her food, “cmon I’m hungry!”
That spurred Jordan into action and, as he always did, he handed her both of their plates before lifting her up so he could sit down in her chair with her perched on top of him. Tony was sometimes disgusted by how in love they seemed to constantly be. But he didn’t have long to ponder that as Stiles waved a plate of food in front of his face and Tony quickly retracted his hand from Lydia’s so he could grab it and dig into the heavenly mashed potatoes before him. He stopped and stared as he watched Stiles take an excessively bloody steak into his bare hands and tear it apart with what appeared to be extremely sharp teeth.
“Dude, what the fuck?”
Stiles grinned a very bloody grin at him, “Jordan’s doing it too!”
Jordan scoffed, “Jordan is using utensils because I’m not an animal.” He said as he took a large bite of an equally rare steak.
“You’re both animals,” Lydia said, her plate adorned with an array of salads. “This is why I never eat meat around them, they can’t help but be gross about it.”
Tony was tempted to agree with her but his perfectly-cooked, medium-rare, steak beckoned to him so he shrugged and took a bite, resolved to simply not watch as Stiles moved on to his second bloody steak.