Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Chapter 1. 

From A Keen Escalation…

It was quiet in the bedroom. Not awkward-quiet, no, actually kind of a comfortable silence, Tony thought. He was sitting on the sheets in his short bathrobe, legs bend, and focused on painting his toe nails.

‘’I wish you wouldn’t do that in the bed,’’ Sally frowned at him, sighing, as if she had said that a 1000 times. Tsk. 10, 20 times tops, so Sitwell could suck it. She sat down next to him on the bed, blowing some smoke from her cigarette.

‘’Right back at ya,’’ Tony countered. Although he really didn’t mind the smoke that much. Hell, he himself smoked occasionally. And smoke itself was intriguing to him, all mysterious and flowy. Maybe that’s why he liked to use it so much in his magic acts? But hey, Sally didn’t need to know all that and besides, if he wanted to be with a woman who nagged him, he would’ve married one ages ago. Their whole deal was no string attached.

Which, in hindsight, was maybe not such a great idea if your fuckbuddy was also your manager.

Sally just snorted at his comeback and sucked extra hard on her cigarette, just to blow the smoke more directly in his face. Rude.

‘’Just hire some better assistants. I’m tired of having my bedsheets covered in nail polish,’’ she said as she was scrolling through her phone. ‘’Here. A whole website with Alliance-approved assistants. I beg of you; just pick one.’’ She shoved her phone under his nose, as if he didn’t know about the website. Tony rolled his eyes. She was such a how-they-do-that.

‘’Sally, come on, I already told you this. I don’t trust assistants. We’ve been over this.’’ He put the nail polish on the side table, because apparently, they needed to have this discussion again. While doing so, he accidentally spilled a tiny little bit of nail polish on the bed, really, it was nothing, blended right in with another stain, so the death glare was very uncalled for.

Sally squinted her eyes, eyebrows almost touching from the deepness of her frown, actually: one seemed to be extremely low, was it always like that..?

Before he could really look at it, she sneezed and turned her face away quickly. Maybe she had some type of allergies or something? She was sneezing a lot lately.

‘’What I’m saying is,’’ she said, finally turning back towards him, eyebrows normal so he must’ve seen it wrong, ‘’is that your career is really taking off now that you rebranded as the gay magician. And as your manager, I can tell you that if you want to do bigger shows, you’re gonna need assistants.’’ She huffed indignantly before raising her hands in the air in defeat. ‘’But have it your way, fine. You should probably be more worried if you can hold this momentum anyway.’’ She flipped her hair over her shoulder, as if dismissing him.

‘’What do you mean? I’m booked solid every night, every show completely sold out.’’

‘’For now they are,’’ she scoffed. She threw the ‘Poof’ she was reading earlier on his lap. ‘’Hope you’re saving up.’’

Tony looked confused as he picked up the magazine and his eyes went wide as he read the article on the gossips-and-rumors page it was folded on. ‘’What the hell!’’, he said as he began citing the article, ‘’did you read this? ’Wonder has found his comeback in his new ‘I’m here, I’m queer and now I’m over here’-act, but not everyone is convinced of his transformation. You’ll find various blogs and vlogs online doubting his newfound orientation and multiple anonymous sources have claimed to have seen him with a woman as late as last week. And the observed encounters were allegedly not of the ‘just-friends’-type.’ Who writes this shit?’’. Tony threw the magazine on the bed. Come on! He did not need this!

‘’I can’t believe it either,’’ Sally said, her face deadpanned as she was looking at his perfectly manicured toe nails, ‘’you’re convincing as gay to me.’’

‘’Right?! I know!’’ He was outraged. Being a magician was 50% skills and 50% stage presence. You needed to capture and misdirect an audience. If this many people had doubts about him being gay, he wasn’t doing a good job. And that was unacceptable. He always did a good job. And lying was his best skill. So this couldn’t possibly be his fault.

‘’You!’’ He said, pointing at Sally, ‘’It’s your fault for kissing me last week!’’

‘’Oh please! That was backstage and just a kiss on the cheek.’’ Sally defended.  ‘’You’re just not convincing them.’’

Tony growled. ‘’Maybe I would be more convincing if I didn’t need to spend all my time on your high maintenance ass!’’

‘’Excuse you?! You’re the one following me around, babbling about some stupid magic musical all the time.’’

Tony gasped. ‘’The Magic show is a masterpiece! And I could make millions if you finally got around to orchestrating the production!’’

She actually rolled her eyes at him! How dare she! ‘’I’m telling you, you’re the only one who likes that movie, just focus on a new act.’’

That was the last straw. ‘’Maybe I should focus on getting a new manager!’’

--~--

‘’ ‘Ex-manager spills the tea, Wonder not really gay? Outrage in the gay community’. Boy, you really dug your own grave there, huh buddy?’’ The woman put the magazine down on her desk, folding her hands together while leaning a bit in her chair towards him. ‘’So what can I do for you?’’

This sucked. This sucked so much. Stupid Sally, he knew she wasn’t as nice as people had initially told him. Although he kind of admired the way she played him: he could always appreciate a good con. Like, she was ruining him the same way she had built him up. That was kind of clever. Maybe she wasn’t such a bad manager after all...oh well, it was too late for that. And the woman behind the desk in front of him came highly recommended, even if she was relatively new in the world of management. So he really hoped she could help him.

‘’Is there any way you can make this go away,’’ he sighed. ‘’ uhm,…’’ he gestured with his hand for her to repeat her name.

The woman smirked and extended her hand.

‘’…..Maeby…’’

Chapter Text

Chapter 2.

Freelance A Knockout Escort

This coffee was god damn awful. Tony hoped the quality of the coffee didn’t represent the quality of Maeby’s work. He was back at her office, she had needed some time to go through his history and make herself acquainted to the business world of magic. Apparently he was her first client in that field, which also didn’t bode well, but he didn’t have many options right now. Sally seemingly had told every other manager in the magic world how he was a very difficult man to work with and never paid on time. Which maybe had a teensy tiny hint of truth behind it, but it was still a very low blow. His lawyer had even said so. But with his gigs shrinking he did not have the money to both sue Sally for slander and hire a new manager, so he had decided to let his lawyer go for now.

Suddenly the door opened and Maeby came rushing in. ‘’Sorry I’m late, traffic was awful.’’

‘’It’s alright,’’ Tony said. He had learned his lesson to keep his manager on his good side, so he wasn’t about to scorn her.

‘’Glad Kitty let you in,’’ she said, walking around her desk to sit down, when she noticed his barely-sipped coffee, ‘’I see she tried to poison you, huh?’’ She laughed. Apparently her secretary trying to poison him was hilarious. ‘’I can’t take mine without some extra milk.’’ She opened the bottom drawer and put a bottle of Baileys on the desk. ‘’Would you like some cream in your coffee?’’ she said with a wink.

Drinking in the middle of the day did not seem professional, but screw that. He needed a drink right now. ‘’I’m liking you more already,’’ he muttered as he reached for the bottle.  

‘’So,’’ she said, after their drinks were ready and putting the bottle away, ‘’I reviewed all your stuff and I think I have a solution for your problem. First, we need to do some damage control. I took the liberty to call ‘Poof’ and their top writer, Gary, has agreed to sit down with you to tell your side of the story. Obviously, we need to go through the story you’re going to tell, make Sitwell seem unreliable, maybe paint her as a rejected wannabe-lover who couldn’t accept that you were gay. Make her homophobic for all I care. Drama is always good for visibility. But we’ll hash out those details later. Because secondly, I think we have to re-establish you as a true gay magician. And I now that you aren’t,-‘’

‘’Client confidentiality!’’ Tony hissed between his teeth, looking back to make sure the door was closed. He would not go through this again. He even had let her sign an agreement about that before hiring her.

‘’I know, I know, you can trust me,’’ Maybe said, waving his comment away as If it wouldn’t even cross her mind. But seeing the ease at which she just described a plan about taking no prisoners, he didn’t know if he could really trust her. She did seem like the kind of person you definitely wanted on your side and not against you.

‘’But this part is really important,’’ she continued, leaning back towards him, ‘’you can talk and deflect all you want, but there were already a good amount of people not believing you before Sally put her 2 cents in. I can teach you how to lie confidently, but the best way to convince people is by showing them proof that they’re wrong. So, long story short, we need to get you a boyfriend.’’

There was a small silence before Tony laughed, because surely, she must be kidding. But one look at her face told him that she was dead serious.

‘’Really?’’ Tony seethed, frowning and raising his voice in anger. ‘’That’s your big plan? To just be gay? I’m sorry, but I was born this way. It took me a long time to accept myself for the straight man that I am. I need to stay out of the closet or it will ruin me! And being in a relationship with a gay guy, who will obviously figure my preference  out, will just drive Sally’s credibility up.’’

Feeling his anger rise, Tony closed his eyes and took a few breaths to calm himself before opening his eyes to look at Maeby again.

…And she was rolling her eyes at him! This girl had some nerve!

‘’Settle down Gaga, you can leave your panties on,’’ she said as she leaned back in her chair. ‘’I’m not saying to be actually gay, I’m saying be in a fake relationship. Kind of like a reversed beard. We’ll just hire somebody and make them sign a NDA,’’ she explained to him, talking deliberately slow and slightly louder as if he was a child. Which was an absolute outrage, he was 42 and a half, thank you very much!

‘’I’m not dating a prostitute!’’ Tony bristled. Screw playing nice, he was still Tony freaking Wonder and he had some class!

‘’Geez, you ARE difficult to work with. Just hear me out, alright? I found this organization where you can hire someone for the specific purpose of convincing people you are in a relationship. It used to be a stripper agency, but they specialize in this kind of stuff now. Apparently there’s a market for this. Anyway, they don’t offer sexual stuff, unless you count an occasional kiss on the cheek or holding hands to proof affection in public as such. So, think of it more as hiring an actor to play a part in your trick.’’

‘’Illusion.’’ Tony corrected.

‘’Whatever. I’m going to be honest with you, I really think this is your best shot to come back from the controversy. And you don’t have to marry this guy, just pretend-date for a couple of months until this blows over and then you can go back to your life as normal.’’

Tony considered it all as Maeby poured herself another drink. It really did seem like this was the best solution. And he didn’t have much choice anyway.

‘’Ok, deal.’’ Tony said begrudgingly. Maeby smirked. ‘’What’s the name of the company anyway?’’

Maeby’s smile faded a bit. ‘’Uhm, it’s HC,’’ she quickly said.

‘’HC? That’s a weird name. Does it stand for anything?’’

Maeby shifted a little bit in her seat, avoiding his gaze before she started to speak again. ‘’I told you they used to be a stripper agency right? So they kept their old name, but just use the initials now to suit their new direction. ‘’

Tony raised his brow. ‘’So, what was the old name?’’ he slowly asked. Maeby’s hesitance was unnerving him.

She pulled a flyer from out of her briefcase and quickly shoved it under his nose, while quickly mumbling under her breath:

‘’Hot Cops’’.