Work Text:
Leap of Faith
One.
Tony thinks about it for a moment—a fourteen-million-six-hundred-and-fourth part of a second—and decides not to like this answer. “Well, this is just plain wrong, you know? Because there are actual people involved in each of those scenarios, and in case you hadn’t left your sanctuary of late: they’re pretty unpredictable little bastards. They might still surprise you.”
Strange looks at him in a funny way then, soft and contemplative like Tony is a small, vaguely cute child. (At least he thinks that’s it, never having been called cute in his life.)
“So I am constantly reminded.”
Peter, who’s come to stand next to Tony some time during this exchange, winces violently and clears his throat. “So. Guess I’ll just go be—not here. By that pile of rubble over there. You two—talk, or whatever.”
Tony raises his eyebrows and watches the boy retreat, bouncing off slightly in the unsteady atmosphere. “Kids, huh?” he offers unhelpfully. It’s simply something to say. Silence, Tony finds, can be quite suffocating if taken in too large doses.
Strange cocks his head to the side. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Perhaps you should get yourself one. Train the little guy in mystic arts.”
“Is that what’s happening here? Besides, that wouldn’t be possible.”
Tony feels like putting a whole leg into his mouth. “Sorry. Touchy subject, this; I myself have serious reservations about, you know, the working state of—“
“You misunderstand me,” Strange takes pity, uncrossing his legs and standing up in one smooth motion. Tony isn’t sure if it’s the magic, the off-kilter magnetic field of the planet, or plain sass helping him do so. “Everything works just fine. It’s the looming apocalypse that makes me—apprehensive.”
Tony nods, strangely (ha!) relieved. “Oh, great. Good for you. Not the end of the universe part, obviously, but—“
“—and I am otherwise inclined, so to speak.”
This, at least, has the welcomed effect of stopping Tony in his babbling ways. “Did you just—come out to me?”
Strange smirks, and the expression looks particularly good on him, with the cheekbones and everything. “Prepositions are tricky,” he offers, seemingly non sequitur, “don’t you think? Now, do excuse me, Mr. Stark.”
Tony stares blindly at the ground before him. How exactly did his day progress from talking to Pepper about the kid-dream to—this, whatever this is? The universe, or the force driving it, is a wicked little psycho indeed.
(And isn’t that why they’re here in the first place?)
He hears a dull clung behind him, and turns to see Peter perched awkwardly on an upturned crate. The boy looks away, grimacing painfully.
“So… do you want me to take these Guardian guys for a walk or something, Mr. Stark? Give the two of you some space?”
Kid’s not making any sense at all. “Whatever for?”
Peter blanches, looking greener than Tony’s ever seen him—and that includes the recent spot of spaceship-born altitude sickness. “I mean, ‘s all cool, right? Like the counselors tell us at school. Nothing is strictly black or white, and many people identify as bi or pan or demi or whatever, so I guess you’re… fine, right, Mr. Stark?”
He gapes at the boy in stunned silence, trying to think of something vaguely smart and sarcastic to say, the way he would do to an adult, to his peer.
Like: you’re still decompressing, right?; or: am I in an alternate dimension-slash-universe now?; or: do we maybe need to get you a sanity pill?
Instead, he says: “…Yeah.”
Peter nods and scratches his head self-consciously. “Right. Be off then, shall I? Not here. Far, far away. We’ve still got some time, they think.”
--
“Did I scar him for life?” Strange asks, not looking away from fiery holographic patterns he’s drawing in the air. “I apologize. It was unintentional.”
“Which part? The flirting, or the fact that you were doing it in front of an impressionable young man who now thinks we should become some sort of a supernatural power couple?”
That actually makes Strange pause—not long enough to abandon his work, but quite enough for him to give Tony a somewhat sad, contemplative look. “Both, I suppose. I don’t normally allow my feelings to guide me. The logical approach works better, statistically speaking.”
(Tony wants to ask about said feelings, and where the fuck did they come from, and why they’re inspiring something in return.) “But that’s no fun, is it?”
“No, it is not. And neither is this.” Strange closes down the holograms, wraps a hand around the flickering after-light. Tony’s eyes follow the sorcerer’s movements, the rigidity of broken fingers, the apparent joint soreness. “I am sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Tony. I hope if hasn’t caused any lasting damage to our mutual trust.”
Tony gapes at him for a few heartbeats, trying to put his thoughts into the gentlest possible words. “I don’t think I trust you, Doctor. I’d call it—a leap of faith, at best.“
Strange nods, his eyes focused on something in the distance which Tony can’t see no matter how hard he tries. “I guess I couldn’t have asked for more. You don’t know me, I don’t know you, we’re fighting a man who’s been feeding you dark thoughts for a better part of a decade: and now, this. Isn’t that what you think?”
Tony doesn’t like it when people think they can see into his head and force their words into his mouth. “Well,” he drawls,” “I guess that depends.”
Strange arches an eyebrow, a shade of a smile upon his lips. “On?”
“On whether I’m going to like the one scenario, or not.”
--
“I hate it. It’s a stupid-ass plan.”
“But it will work. It does work.”
“Not for me.”
Stephen (when did he become Stephen, again?) huffs impatiently, shaky hands ruining his hairdo. There are darker spots on his face where the needles have rested, but he’s pale, terribly pale, and Tony wonders how much, exactly, is the other man keeping from him. “I believe you’re the only person capable of pulling it off. You have my utmost confidence, Mr. Stark.”
Oh, so they're back to the last names thing now? “Is that why you’re planning to abandon me?”
He doesn’t know why he says it. Opening himself up to people is a new thing, a result of countless hours of therapy post-Accords, but never before has he tried it with someone who’s essentially a stranger, a partner in the dark deeds of anti-apocalyptic movement. So what if he’s as self-confident and arrogant as Tony himself, well-read, sarcastic, a master of the mystic arts, and has a set of cheekbones sharp enough to classify as a deadly weapon? These certainly aren’t the qualities to inspire such levels of confidence.
Nor such an awful disappointment upon learning about the finer details of the plan.
He’s been through this before, obviously—not an experience he wishes to repeat in any capacity. Not even for Stephen Strange. Perhaps especially not for him.
He expects to be presented with some elaborately stated reasoning, a hundred-seventy-four reasons behind Stephen’s decision; he can almost see himself being pushed and prodded to fit whichever shape or form the sorcerer’s got imprinted in his mind.
It never comes.
“I don’t want to.
“I will be back,” Stephen Strange tells him, quietly but solemnly—and in this one, glorious moment Tony believes him implicitly.
Perhaps there is an off-chance of this crazy plan working out exactly the way they hope it would.
--
Everybody’s ever so grateful, afterwards. Rogers looks almost ready to cry (or worse—hug Tony), clutching his dour-faced mate’s shoulder with what looks like positively bruising force. Some people are into these kinds of stuff, and who are WE to judge? T’Challa comes over, offers Tony a quick, kingly handshake. Bruce is more hands-on-full-body-embrace, as is Peter. (This is the only hug Tony doesn’t shy away from; welcomes it, even, with more sentiment and relief than he cares to admit.) Natasha seems genuinely moved, wiping at her eyes: a fast, minute gesture. Bruce inches towards her with a miraculously clean handkerchief, and Tony wonders whether this ship has long sailed away, or only just made harbor.
This immediately makes him feel like an old hag of an aunt at a family reunion, and plays no small part in his decision to escape this festival of feelings. He closes the door with a soft click, leans against the wall and sighs—and then he raises his head and meets Stephen Strange’s eyes.
It’s the first time he’s properly seen him since, so he immediately starts scanning for changes in the sorcerer’s appearance: fatigue lines around his eyes and mouth, creased brow, ashen complexion. All there to see and interpret freely.
Tony doesn’t even try to imagine what his own face must look like.
“Are you going to get physical, too?” he asks dryly, folding his arms across a still aching chest. Stephen’s mouth quirks upwards ever so slightly.
“Not a big fan of hugs, no. Would you like me to make an exception?”
--
“I should probably ask about Miss Potts at some point?”
“My going on that spaceship after you was the proverbial last straw. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
“So this,” Stephen makes a round gesture encompassing both of them, the guest room T’Challa put Tony in, a first-aid-kit, bloodied antiseptics and Tony’s torn shirt thrown carelessly to the floor, “is, actually, my fault?”
“Or entirely mine. Depends on whom you ask.”
“I wish it wouldn’t be yours. What you did—you have every right to hate me for it. I’m a doctor, I can recognize severe PTSD easily enough. I should have known better.”
Tony tsks and bumps Stephen’s knee with his own. “’S fine. Nothing a few decades of therapy wouldn’t cure.”
“You would require a very dedicated therapist for it to work, though.”
Tony smirks, hoping the low-light and a week’s worth of stubble hides it well enough. “Can you recommend someone?”
“A devoted one? Sure. Afraid he’s not very good at helping people help themselves, though.”
“Everything can be improved with time.” Tony gives himself a moment to think about this whole situation: it’s absolutely bizarre, when you try to put it in quantifiable terms. Why should he even begin to consider it? Two egos like theirs—the villains wanting to tear this space dot of a world apart—Tony’s own complicated past—it’s enough to make him questions his sanity, and Stephen’s.
And yet—stranger things have happened, right?
The thought makes him snort with laughter, which obviously is cause enough for Stephen to question the humor of their current situation, and Tony tries to explain—but it’s easier, he thinks, as his eyes fall on Stephen’s pouting mouth, to stop dwelling on technical difficulties, and finally start acting.
Now?, his slightly frazzled sense of morality asks from the sidelines.
Stephen drops another blob of cotton onto the floor, and meets Tony’s eyes.
Now.
/end