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Tony Stark is bored out of his mind at the gala.
It’s nothing too terribly important, just one of the monthly events that Stark Industries likes to hold for promotional purposes, and he briefly considers the probability of the board murdering him if he creates a distraction. Something quick involving explosions, preferably accompanied by general screeching noises. It’s not his fault the elite don’t have a sense of humor.
The conclusion is that while the board wouldn’t resort to drastic measures like murder, it’ll still be months of paperwork and messy publicity, which Tony hasn’t had nearly enough coffee to think about dealing with. (Well, that was unsatisfying.)
The hanging lights, placed just so around the room to create a soft ambience, gleam off the current speaker’s bald patch in a particularly unattractive way. Tony rolls his eyes—he’s perfected the art of doing so without twitching a single muscle in the rest of his face—and prepares to tune out most of what the man is saying. Probability dictates that there have to be at least some decently intelligent guests here, but this one is clearly not one of them.
There’s a small sound of derision to his right, and Tony turns his head in the general direction. He’s desperate for any sort of distraction at this point.
The source of the noise happens to be a tall, well-dressed man who is now looking significantly more than a little derisive as the speaker rattles off a series of bogus statistics accompanied by twitchy hand gestures. Tony decides that he likes the man. Also, hello, cheekbones. He’s not blind.
It’s at that moment that the stranger turns around slightly, catching his gaze. He raises a pointed eyebrow, and although Tony’s happy to note that his face is almost completely symmetrical in all the best ways, it still catches him off guard. When was the last time someone had managed to do that? He gives the man a patented Tony Stark smirk to hide it, the ever so slightly lecherous one that’s dripping with polite sarcasm and guaranteed to drive off wealthy socialites.
The man doesn’t flinch. Interesting. He instead offers up a crooked, enigmatic half-smile that’s almost as bad as the smirk, and Tony is grudgingly impressed.
The list of boring speeches goes on, and he almost forgets about the mysterious stranger, until he looks at the stand and realizes that that man is the one currently speaking. It’s not boring. This stranger, he realizes, as he continues speaking about the impact of technological innovation in neurosurgery, is the almost exact opposite of boring.
Tony feels the first stirrings of curiosity, insistent and burning. It’s been a long time since a person has caught his eye like this.
He doesn’t get a chance to meet the man properly at first. The gala must go on, of course, and Tony is the host. He goes through the motions of greeting guests; offering alcohol and food, making small talk, and generally giving the impression that he actually enjoys this, when all he want to do is to go back to the blueprints in his workshop.
After extricating himself from a conversation with a particularly insistent older woman who wanted to introduce him to a granddaughter, Tony snags a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and finally sidles up to the mystery speaker from before. He’s leaning against a wall, near the edge of the room and facing the other way. “Your speech earlier was lovely. Very clever, very passionate. You’ve definitely done your research.”
To his credit, the speaker doesn’t jump, just turns around and considers Tony for a long moment. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.” His eyes flicker over him. “I must say, I didn’t come here tonight expecting to catch the attention of a—” He stumbles a bit, evidently not sure how exactly to describe Tony. He makes a broad gesture at the other man instead, prompting a grin from him. It’s a common enough reaction.
“Multi-billionaire. Philanthropist. Genius.” Tony winks at the man. “Playboy with a reputation. Go on, I've heard them all.”
“And as has the rest of the world, Mr. Stark,” he says coolly. “You have indeed got a reputation. A different starlet on your arm every week.”
“I live to please.” Tony tells him with the slightest self-deprecating grin. He doesn't say that the tabloids have mostly got it wrong, that half of those girls are just daughters of sponsors or the friend of a contact. He'll let the man figure it out himself, if he ever does. “Why, one of them turn your head?”
“The starlets weren't what I’d had my eye on, actually.” And oh , isn’t that interesting. Not how Tony had imagined the evening going, but he’s not complaining.
“Speaking of eyes, can I get a name to go with yours?” It’s an awful pickup line, but one of the things he’s learned is that it’s easier to pass off the awful ones as a joke. (He’s just gauging interest, Tony tells himself. Who wouldn’t want a fascinating man like this, if he’s offering?)
“Stephen Strange. A pleasure to meet you.”
Tony makes an appraising noise, and remembers the man is a neurosurgeon. “Well, Doctor Strange. How are you liking the gala so far?”
“Dull. No offense to present company, of course.” Strange lets his eyes linger just a bit longer than necessary. “I’m personally not very fond of social events. I do my best work alone.”
“Would you be amenable to having a partner, Doctor?” Tony very deliberately takes off his suit jacket under that gaze, and watches Strange’s smoothly unreadable features twitch. Suddenly, the two of them seem very close together under the lights of the dance floor.
“Mr. Stark, you flatter me. Surely you have more important things to do.”
“Have, yes. Want to, not particularly. And please, no more of that Mr. Stark nonsense.” Tony pauses for a moment. He’s almost desperate to have read this right, and he doesn’t even know the man. “Let me take you home tonight,” he says.
Strange—Stephen’s—eyebrows twitch up. “Why?” he asks. And at the very least, he doesn’t seem averse to the idea.
“Because you’re beautiful, and you’re brilliant.” Tony tells him, dropping the flirtatious facade for a moment. “I happen to enjoy taking beautiful, brilliant strangers to bed.”
He doesn’t respond, and for a moment Tony is prepared for a rejection, a scoff, but then the man’s eyes darken as he leans in, tantalizingly near. Tony shifts closer against the wall, and one of Stephen’s arms go up to brace itself dangerously close to his head. It’s intimate, obviously so. They’re sharing breaths with the light and shadow of the room slowly travelling across Stephen’s face.
“Fifteen minutes,” breathes Strange, barely above a whisper. He’s close, so close. “I have a car outside.” And he walks away, a deliberate saunter to his hips.
Stephen Strange kisses exactly like his profession would suggest; methodically, deliberately, experimenting with pressure and angle and ways to make Tony’s head white out. (He’s a damn good kisser.)
Tony grabs him by the lapels of his stupid, well-tailored jacket and pulls him in closer. God, it’s been a while.
They undress in pieces, pulling off shirts and belts and sliding hands under cotton. He watches Stephen’s careful kisses grow wilder, sloppier. Tony slides down so that he's between the man's legs, and Stephen grins at him like a challenge. It’s a flash of white teeth along shadowed skin and dark eyes, and oh, it is so on.
Stephen makes a breathy noise, thighs trembling under his hands. It dissolves into a litany of curses as he falls apart, a rapid, obscene chant that leaves no room for coherent thought. Tony swears he's never heard anything more beautiful.
It ends with them sprawled on the bed, facing each other. Stephen offers to clean them up with the corner of his mouth quirking up in the enigmatic smile that Tony had first noticed. Tony kisses him with his hands cradling the other man’s jaw as he swipes a clean cloth over the both of them, and tells him, half-jokingly, “No one else I’ve taken home has been such a gentleman with me.”
It’s the closest thing to real interest that he'll allow himself to express all night, and Stephen smiles lazily back at him, limbs loose on the bed. Really smiles, not just with the slight twitch of his mouth reserved for when something amuses him. There’s a brief silence, then he reaches for Tony’s unlocked tablet on the nightstand and his long, clever fingers tap out a sequence on the keyboard.
“Call me sometime,” he says. “I’ll hang around your gala next month.”
And maybe this has all been for nothing, but Tony wants to imagine anyway. He closes his eyes and lets the quiet darkness and sound of breathing lull him to sleep.
Stephen takes Tony out to dinner the next time they meet. He wears silver cufflinks with the same suit he had worn to the gala even as he confides to Tony that he hates formalwear. They split the check and pretend it’s simply a business meeting, but then Tony invites him back to the penthouse for a drink and all pretense of that is gone.
Strange leaves in the early hours of the morning, his suit only slightly less pristine than it had been the previous night. There is a red scarf, distinctive against his pale skin, wrapped around his throat to hide the bruises there. Tony is only half-conscious when he goes, and he’s never sure if he dreamt the soft kiss that Stephen gives him just before rising.
This odd little arrangement continues despite the improbability of it—Stephen meets Tony at a charity event, then fucks him against the penthouse door later, or Tony drives them to the outskirts in one of his expensive sports cars and proceeds to thoroughly debauch Stephen in the backseat.
On one memorable occasion, they go out to a bar anonymously, Tony’s face half-covered by a giant pair of bug-eyed sunglasses that Stephen spends the entire time laughing at. In retaliation, Tony teases him under the table, hands wandering and face perfectly straight. They make a game of it, and it ends with Stephen against the wall of the alley outside.
He never goes public with it, always makes sure to avoid paparazzi hangouts and conventional times of the day. There's a tiny, selfish part of him that wants to keep Stephen close, away from the tabloids that would ruin whatever easy relationship they have here. Mostly, it's just fucking—Tony is under no false illusions about that. But it’s real, and natural, and he thinks maybe he could learn to be happy like this.
The text arrives in the middle of a Saturday, and it’s short and to the point. Can I see you at your penthouse in an hour?
Tony puzzles for a moment, because their appointments are usually reserved for the evening, but shuts down his afternoon schedule anyway. He asks JARVIS to order takeout from a respectable Italian place in downtown Manhattan, and deliberately leaves the office before his secretary tries to question him about the sudden change in plans. It’s a Saturday. The world isn’t going to end because Stark Industries is CEO-less for a few hours.
He should’ve known there was a reason behind such an unusual request. He thinks that he already did, to some extent, because of course his brain was sharp enough to have made the connection, but Tony Stark has always been an optimist, and maybe a self-saboteur as well.
Stephen comes in precisely fifty-two minutes later with one corner of his mouth curling up, his face unreadable as always. He refuses to stay for food politely, but does offer the coffees that he had brought—an espresso with cream for Tony, a medium latte for himself.
They sit out on the balcony with a table between them, and Stephen tells him, “I don’t think we should do this anymore.” He opens his mouth to list reasons, calmly, in a coldly objective way that might be from his job at the hospital ER. Tony holds up a hand to cut him off before he can go any further.
“No, it’s okay,” he says. “I get it.” Really, he does. They don’t make sense, the two of them, and it’s infinitely better to end it now, like this, than crash and burn with one of them hating the other. Stephen nods. They finish their coffee in silence.
Once it’s over, Stephen kisses Tony on the cheek, and Tony walks him to the door like a gentleman should, because he can at least do that for Strange.
He gives himself thirty seconds to watch the retreating figure that is walking out of his life without a backwards glance. Half a minute to process it, then he escapes to his workshop and orders JARVIS to turn the music up to the point where it’s nearly painful.
He doesn’t drink, or cry, because doing that would mean he cared, and he didn’t, not really. He thinks he could have loved Stephen, if things had worked out differently, but things were what they were. (And what they were was over.)
Soon afterwards, Afghanistan happens. Iron Man happens, followed by Pepper, who he does not deserve in the slightest. Tony throws himself into work, into shaping himself and his legacy into something that a woman like Pepper does deserve, and it’s easy to forget all about his brief affair.
Ten years later and a galaxy away, on a rust-red planet that has long since died, Tony Stark watches Stephen Strange disintegrate into dust.
“Tony,” he’d said, his eyes flickering with a sort of sadness Tony couldn’t identify in time. “There was no other way.” And although he is already suffocating with the weight of what has happened, of what will happen, Tony can’t help but grieve for the man he might have loved in another lifetime.