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The night was crisp and cold and clear. It was a right bitch to get out there on the roof with an electric blanket and his vein catheter intact weak as he was but he hoped it meant avoiding a fight with Bruce. He knew it was stupid and to anyone else it wouldn’t seem worth it but it felt easier to think out here. It felt easier to breathe.
There was a beagle howling that familiar whine that drove him goddamn nuts in the distance and a bug zapper somewhere nearby. The sound of music and talking floating out of a house down the street. Crickets and cicadas were muted some as the season slid deep into fall. It was almost Halloween. Tony had always loved Halloween.
But his thoughts weren’t really invested in the future – the past was where he went tonight. Where he went most nights, anymore. It was just easier when it was all he had left.
Was it last week or five years ago that they sat under this same sky, staring up together, the band loud across the lawn? Bruce was tucked up against him, holding his hand, and
all he hears is the sound of Bruce’s breathing. It’s coming in soft puffs against his neck and it’s almost uncomfortably loud but Tony’s skin is flush with joy and desire and he loves it.
They snuck away from everyone else and now sit unnoticed against the fencing, past the lights over the dance floor and plunged into darkness but they can still see everything. The dancing, the talking, the eating, the celebration. At this point they’ve been to more weddings than they could count on all their hands together and it’s boring but they still go. Bruce slips away to smoke a joint – like he always does, but Tony finds him – like he always does. He isn’t mad, for once. Instead, he joins him and he’s so happy he joins him.
Tony is holding his hand and squeezing it tight and he asks a question he’s never asked before. It seems like it shouldn’t matter between them – but maybe it does and he just doesn’t know it.
“You want me to get you one?” he asks and Bruce giggles. Sometimes Tony gets pissed when Bruce giggles at his serious questions, but not tonight. He’s in a good mood tonight.
“One what?” Bruce asks and Tony laughs, squeezes his fingers again intentionally.
“A ring?”
He expects Bruce is going to laugh again but he doesn’t. Instead, he actually seems to be thinking about it, and his answer is serious when he finally replies.
“Don’t see that it matters,” he says, thumb rubbing over Tony’s. “I’ll love you forever regardless. Don’t need to spend money on a party for that.”
Tony chuckles this time but he turns his head into Bruce’s, kisses the top of it and nuzzles his nose against it. He has a point and Tony loves him for it
and even now, with the box digging into his bony hip and working up a bruise, he loved him for it. Bruce had always been wholly unconcerned with physicality and time and the things with which most people placed their strongest beliefs. That was part of what allowed him to be so brilliant, Tony was sure. Also made him a pain in the ass to be with sometimes but...
Maybe Tony had never really been permanent or physical or attached to any particular timeline anyway and Bruce was the only one who could see it.
God, that line of thinking could get dark quick and Tony tried to pull himself out of it. He was an astrophysicist after all, not a religious quack. And he was sure when he died in the next month or two there would be no alternate timeline or any of that Star Trek nonsense
at least not in any tangible way that matters to us!” Tony is angry and he lets it show though the tired ache in his bones and his brain is telling him to just sit down and shut up for once.
Bruce looks sucker punched by that comment and his mouth clinks shut. They were supposed to be arguing about Primer . Sometimes it’s difficult being with someone as smart as he is but who’s head is all wrapped up in theory. Tony hates theory. What’s the fucking point? Lost in a daydream all the goddamn time? Focus on the physical reality of things and actualize the impossible – don’t run and hide in some kind of mind fuck just because it’s comfortable there.
“It matters to me ,” Bruce says at last, utterly defeated. “You get to die – I’ll be stuck here without you.”
“I ‘get to die?’” Tony deadpans, incredulous to the point of not being able to process a comment like that.
“I would switch places with you in a heartbeat if I could,” Bruce says as he quickly grabs his little tin of ground weed and rolling papers off the table, turning his head away so Tony can’t see his eyes fill up with tears. “Already I want to die!”
He turns and leaves the room, leaves Tony with the implication of that statement heavy in his gut
and Tony wasn’t sure that particular weight ever really went away. Sometimes it felt like the heaviest thing about him.
Bruce smiled a lot these days but Tony didn’t think he felt any differently about it. Sometimes he would come in at night and curl up on the bed next to Tony and his ever growing horde of medical equipment and Tony knew he was crying. So he was pretty damned sure all the smiling was just for him, just to try to make it easier on him. He was pretty sure Bruce would still rather die.
But Bruce had always been like that, always willing to fall on whatever sword Tony threw his way. There were so many things now that Tony would change, if he could. Now that he realized there was nothing to fight, that it was inevitable, that he was going to die, he found it easier to understand why none of it had ever mattered to Bruce – not money or fame or nice things, their credit line or their equity. It was easier to understand why Bruce had always been so wrapped up in his own head.
It just – it just didn’t fucking matter
if you smoke in here!”
Bruce’s grin is faltering and embarrassed but he doesn’t snuff out his joint.
“This shouldn’t come as a surprise,” he says, brandishing the joint in front of his face as Tony pouts.
“We got all this nice new furniture and immediately you want it to smell like your dank-ass hot-boxed apartment?” Tony folds his arms across his chest and he swears he can see a blush crawling it’s way up Bruce’s neck but he takes another hit in protest.
“It’s actually comforting to me – the smell.”
Tony throws his hands up in frustration. He doesn’t really care that Bruce smokes as heavily as he does and it certainly doesn’t come as a surprise after two years of dating, he just thought when they moved in together maybe Bruce could respect his shit too. Like the beautiful, soft ivory sofa he bought and the thick shag carpet on the gleaming hardwood floors.
But a week of living together makes it clear – Bruce is far more locked away in his own head than Tony could have ever imagined. None of this matters to him. Nothing nice he tries to do makes a difference.
“Far be it for me to want anything nice I guess.” Tony says it with a bite and he watches the way Bruce considers the joint a moment before he licks his thumb and forefinger and snuffs it out between them.
Bruce doesn’t say anything else about it. But he goes outside to smoke now, no matter how cold it is, and although Tony gloats
he realized now that for Bruce, their place wasn’t even a home.
Tony hadn’t been downstairs in weeks but he’d bet the whole farm that everything was kept just how he liked it. But even if it wasn’t – Tony wouldn’t blame Bruce. He wouldn’t care at all if Bruce smoked in the living room or ate on the couch or spilled wine on his carpet. It’s not exactly like Tony thought he was wrong for caring – not back then, not when he was healthy – it was just that now it seemed like it mattered so little. Now it seemed like he’d give anything to sit on the couch watching sci-fi with Bruce and a blunt and a bowl of chocolate ice cream.
Christ. The sudden, overwhelming desire hit him so hard he shuddered. Tony wanted to do that so badly . He would go back in time and do it every night if he could. Just that. Tucked up against Bruce with his feet curled under himself on the couch. Taking hits and laughing at the TV. Licking the taste of chocolate from Bruce’s mouth. God. Fuck.
The frustration was so real that he wanted to cry but he has nothing left. He hasn’t been able to cry for weeks but he hasn’t been able to get a boner in even longer. Everything was cold and numb or overwhelmingly nauseating and he would give his left nut to be able to feel something other than the immeasurable amount of pain in everything, everywhere – in his muscles, in his joints, in his bones.
He remembered, sometimes, in that deep haze between waking and sleep, how good it felt to be touched, how Bruce had touched him...
Tony heard Bruce’s footsteps on the floorboards behind him but he didn’t drag his eyes away from the sky. He hoped Bruce wouldn’t be mad. He should understand. Tony caught him this way often in the middle of the night,
smoke curls drifting lazily upward, Bruce's back bent over his knees, tucked in tight against his chest. Sometimes Tony leaves him alone, thinks that’s what he wants. But the way Bruce jolts when Tony approaches tells him tonight isn’t one of those nights.
Tony climbs through the window and out onto the roof. It’s not his favorite thing to do – they have a deck downstairs for a reason. He’s sure some nosey asshole is going to call the cops sooner or later but right now, he’s not thinking about that.
He sees Bruce is trembling as he sits down beside him, so close their arms are pressed against one another. Bruce’s skin is cold and clammy and Tony doesn’t know how long he’s been out here. The only reason Tony woke up at all was due to the chill in the room. Bruce never wakes him up, even if he needs to. Tony doesn’t like it, but he has gotten used to it.
“Hey,” he says, putting his hand in Bruce’s line of sight. “Give me a hit.”
Tony doesn’t smoke a lot so it always gets Bruce’s attention when he asks. He hands him the joint wordlessly though and Tony breathes in for a long few seconds, then exhales with a painful cough.
“Christ,” Bruce mutters as he takes back the joint, rubbing Tony’s back a little as the painful sensation subsides.
“You okay?” Tony asks at last and Bruce huffs out smoke.
“Are you?”
Tony glares but it’s affectionate and he lays his head on Bruce’s shoulder.
“Just dreams,” Bruce says softly and Tony doesn’t correct him.
Bruce doesn’t dream. Bruce has nightmares.
“You want me to get you one?” Tony says after a while and Bruce sighs, perplexed, but he doesn’t stop staring upward.
“Huh?”
“A star,” he says, feeling a little fantastical for once and Bruce chuckles. “I’d pluck one right down for you, you know. If you asked. I’d figure out a way to make it work.”
“Hmm,” Bruce murmurs as he takes one last hit and snuffs it against the shingles.
Bruce never really responds when he’s being romantic and Tony knows it’s not as much because he doesn’t want to believe him as that he can’t. If he responds the spell will be broken. If he stays quiet he can live in the fantasy.
“Anything you want, baby,” Tony whispers and he really will give him anything but
not the ability to smoke in bed after waking up drenched in sweat and terrified. Sometimes Tony really fucking hated himself.
Bruce climbed through the window to meet him with his tin in tow and he settled in next to him.
“My spot,” he said softly as he popped open the tin and Tony would have liked to shrug but he was cold and tired and – and frail.
“Makes me think of you,” Tony admitted, curling the blanket around him a little more tightly and watching as Bruce took out a lighter and a joint and sparked it to life.
Bruce chuckled as he did it. “I’m here, you know.”
Tony decided not to pursue the argument inherent in any way he chose to reply. Bruce didn't have to quit his job for him. They had money, sure – though Tony was bleeding it dry with every fucking day he woke up in the morning. He would have been fine if Bruce had wanted to stay at the university but... fuck. The one time they tried to talk about it Bruce ended up crying so hard he made himself sick and they never talked about it again.
“I finished the dictation,” Tony said instead, actually a little proud of himself for pushing through it and getting it done. “Sorry if it’s a mess, though. You could probably pay someone to sort it out.”
“I want to do it,” Bruce interjected.
“But you know – just make sure to get a line on the cover about it being ‘Tony Stark’s final work’ or whatever and I’m sure it’ll end up on some list and you’ll have royalties for a while.”
“Christ,” Bruce muttered. “I don’t care about that.”
“I do,” Tony said softly and he listened to the way Bruce swallowed and he knew Bruce didn’t want to argue, either. Not tonight. “It’s a good book, though. I think. I’m – proud of it.”
“It will be fun, you know, to go through,” Bruce murmured and Tony ached for the lie that was.
It wasn’t going to be fucking fun . Every goddamn second of transcription was going to hurt. And Tony left little love notes along the way, confessions of all his hopes and dreams for their future and memories of their past and how much he loved him, all in his voice, and it was going to fucking suck. It was going to suck whether Tony had done that or not but he hoped, overall, Bruce would appreciate the recordings for what they were it was just – there was no world in which transcribing that was ever going to be fun .
Tony let it go though and they sat in silence for a while and it was nice. It was familiar. Tony was glad Bruce wasn’t mad at him. He would have understood but – he didn’t want to fight. He didn’t know how much more he had in him.
“Are you ready to go in?” Bruce asked as he finished the joint.
Tony was shivering but he really didn’t want to go back. Not yet. He hated that stuffy little room and all its medical equipment, a fucking shrine to his dying. He hated that the bed they used to share felt like a goddamn grave now. He hated that when he died he would be dead and Bruce would be left with all of... that . How was he supposed to deal with that alone? It wasn’t fucking fair. None of this was fair. In the quiet moments alone in bed sometimes he wished Bruce didn’t care so much so he could just leave. That wasn’t fair either – though it would have made Tony feel a whole lot better.
“Would you hold me?”
Bruce compiled without a second thought, moving to settle in around Tony, bundling the blanket around him more effectively as his strong legs planted themselves on either side of his body and his firm arms pulled him gently back against his chest.
Tony lay his head back against him, tucked it up beneath his chin. Bruce’s worn cardigan that always screamed professor at Tony was soft against his cheek and it smelled like weed and Old Spice and warmth and it comforted him. It smelled like Bruce.
He wanted to say he would miss this – but he wouldn’t. He'd be dead. So it wasn’t that he would miss it – it was that he had deserved more.
They both had deserved more.
“I know you said you didn't want me to get you one, but if I did... would you accept it?”
Bruce laughed and it jarred Tony’s fragile body in the best way. It hurt – a lot – but Bruce didn’t laugh much any more – even if he did smile. Tony had missed the sound of his laugh, though. He’d always loved the sound of his laugh.
“Sometimes I feel like you already gave me everything,” Bruce whispered in his ear.
It was so damned earnest that Tony felt his face twist in some gross imitation of crying even though he couldn't produce the physical tears. Instead, he gasped in a painful breath and exhaled a horrible, wailing moan as Bruce held him, one large warm hand coming up to cradle his face as he shook with emotion he couldn’t express.
It took a long time for him to settle down and he hated the way his body betrayed him at every turn. But Bruce was patient and soft, just like he was, just like he had always been, and he didn’t say anything, he just held him, just like he asked.
And finally, finally, when he felt he could speak again, utterly exhausted he said, “I regret that you’ll have nothing to remember me by.”
“Tony,” Bruce said softly, an argument on his lips that he’d made a thousand times before.
With weak arms Tony fought through the folds of fabric, digging in his pocket for the pointy little box. Bruce tilted his head curiously and loosened the blanket in an attempt to help him when finally Tony succeeded, lifting it out from under the blanket, exposing his hands to the cold night air as he opened it. It was just a plain gold band, nothing fancy, but it shone bright in the reflected light of the room behind them and Tony chewed at his chapped bottom lip as he stared at it.
“You don’t have to sign any papers or anything,” Tony said and he hated the way his voice trembled, so thin and reedy anymore. “I just wanted you to remember how much you meant to me. Even if, you know, this wasn’t it – I would have spent the rest of my life with you.”
He heard Bruce sniffle and felt wet tears on the back of his neck as Bruce put his warm hands over Tony’s thin, cold ones, thumbing the box.
“I want you to know that,” Tony repeated as his shaky fingers reached for the band. “I would have –”
“I know,” Bruce cut him off, his voice a deep well of sorrow, his arms squeezing Tony's lanky frame tighter. “I know.”
Tony set the box on his blanketed knees and grasped Bruce’s hand in his, bringing it to his lips a moment and kissing it gently before holding it against his cheek.
“You don’t have to wear it, I just...” Tony’s tongue felt too thick in his throat and he swallowed around it, mouth so dry it stuck all over. “I regret that I never made that promise to you.”
“You did, though,” Bruce replied faithfully, nuzzling his ear with his nose as he said it. “I never doubted that. Never.”
Encouraged by that reply, Tony brought his hand back down and struggled to slip the ring on his finger. But he finally managed to get it on and he slid his bony fingers between Bruce’s loosely.
“I made a lot of mistakes,” Tony said after a moment and Bruce kissed the back of his ear.
“Got a lot of stuff right, too,” Bruce comforted him, wrapping his other arm fully across his chest and holding him near.
“As long as you say so,” Tony murmured, reaching up to place his hand over Bruce’s though he could only rest it there, exhaustion seeping into his bones.
He closed his eyes and took pleasure in the feeling of Bruce breathing – so solid beneath him, in the feeling of his warmth cradled all around him, in the tenderness of his touch, in having him there – holding him again. Everything else faded away but the sound of his heartbeat and
Tony stands there, staring across the bar at this man who looks so woefully out of place. He is with some friends but is sitting at the edge of the group. Sometimes he throws them an amused little smirk and nods his head like he knows what's going on even though he clearly isn’t paying attention. For whatever reason, Tony finds this adorable.
He’s watching this and chuckling to himself when finally, finally this man notices him staring. And he straight up blushes at the attention, turning his eyes back to the bar... though he risks a quick glance back up at Tony just to see if he’s still looking.
Jesus, Tony thinks. This man is too fucking cute.
Tony vacates his seat and slips into the one next to him and he’s even more cute up close – flustered and crimson.
“Hey,” he says with his patented Tony Stark smile and the other guy can barely look at him but he clearly doesn’t want to look away.
“Hey,” he replies, his voice soft and warm in one word and Tony’s smile grows.
“You look like you could use some entertainment,” Tony offers and the other man laughs and wow – that’s a nice laugh.
“You don’t look like entertainment,” he returns and Tony looks pointedly over at his friends who don’t even notice Tony has joined them because they're not paying attention to him at all.
“Wait until you hear about my day job.”
“Let me guess,” he says with a smirk. “Magician.”
“Almost,” Tony smirks back. “Astrophysicist.”
He can practically see the other man start salivating and it hits him in the gut.
“Bullshit.” The word falls easy from his mouth but he looks like he wants to be wrong.
“Nah,” Tony replies, holding out a hand. “Tony Stark. Maybe you’ve heard of me? I just published –”
“ Second Earth ,” Bruce says over him as he shakes his hand and now it’s Tony’s turn to start salivating – though what he really does is sit there gobsmacked with a limp wrist. “I’m a professor of Nuclear Physics at U of M.”
Tony starts laughing that horrible, awful, nervous bubble of laughter he can never stop himself from laughing when he’s completely blindsided. What are the odds of finding another attractive, ostensibly gay man in a random bar downtown who also happens to be a physicist? It’s like something from a movie. It’s like something meant to be.
“Hey you – you wanna go out back and get stoned and talk about some high level shit?”
Tony hasn’t smoked since college but he grins and agrees and follows Bruce out back and they share a joint and talk about the stars and string theory and particle physics and by the end Tony’s staring at him, stoned and hard and mesmerized by his eyes.
“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Tony warns him and he watches Bruce’s face light up completely and it gives him a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach as he leans forward
and Bruce caught him before he nodded off, turning him a little so that he could look at him as Tony blinked blearily up at him.
“I should take you in,” Bruce said softly, more of a command than a suggestion, and Tony didn’t have the strength to argue, but if he’d had his druthers, he’d stay out there all night rather than go back to his comfortable coffin.
“You okay?” Bruce asked, his fingers brushing across Tony’s cheek and Tony smiled.
“Great,” Tony replied and watched the way Bruce’s eyes darted across his face as if checking for lies. But he must have found none because Bruce smiled back – small and faltering but, still.
“I’m going to kiss you now,” Bruce whispered and Tony sighed a laugh as his heart raced.
It felt like years since Bruce had kissed him and Tony knew it wasn’t intentional but man, he’d missed it. He’d missed kissing Bruce. Bruce was careful as he kissed him, taking it slow until Tony’s mouth parted and he licked into it lazily. Fuck – it felt like Bruce was kissing him from a million miles away but it was the best Tony had felt in months. If he could have he would have lifted his arms and wrapped them around Bruce’s neck and let him carry him to bed but...
There was a future and a past and he was stuck here in the present where he could do nothing but lay on the brink, pulled in two directions with a fault line that tore at the edge.
Bruce’s mouth moved from Tony’s over to his cheek and then his ear so that Tony’s mouth was left hanging open needily, panting little breaths into the cold night air.
“Love you,” he mumbled, squeezing him tightly but not enough to bruise his delicate skin. “Let’s go in.”
Tony let his head lay limply against Bruce’s chest as he asked, “stay with me?”
Bruce didn’t reply but he helped him back to the window and steadied him as he stepped down. Tony made it to the bed, barely, but Bruce was there to help him again – tucking him up into it and making him comfortable before settling in next to him.
“Gimme your hand,” Tony managed, his fingers wiggling a little across his chest.
And Bruce complied, laying the hand with the ring on it across Tony’s chest, right over his heart, and Tony covered it with his own, thumbing the ring and the back of his hand slowly.
“Wish I could get you everything you deserve,” he breathed and Bruce lifted himself up on his elbow to peck him on the lips.
“I didn’t even deserve you,” he said, eyes bright with tears, the barest hint of a smile on his face. “Believe me – you gave me everything.”
And for the first time in months he wants to be right there as Bruce kisses him again, warm and solid, pressing him back into the bed. It feels like the first time and sparks alight in his stomach and he feels like he’s glowing. Like he’s big and beautiful and whole. As whole as he ever was. As whole as he ever is. Because Bruce still wants him. Even in this tragic timeline, Bruce is still here, by his side, caring for him and kissing him tenderly.
And as Bruce kisses him he realizes that it’s way too late but he realized in a way he never realizes before that he never had to bring Bruce the stars because Bruce is the stars. He always is, was, has been. Beautiful, luminous. His star. All the stars in his sky.