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Tony raised his eyes from his martini glass of water to sweep a dallying stare across the charity gala he’d (begrudgingly) decided to attend at the last minute. The bleak, detached presence of the dance floor sat nearer to him than he was wholly comfortable with and he flicked his eyes between the elegantly-dressed and the ‘threw this on’ types who cluttered the middle with typical abandon as the music shifted between classical and modern, attempting to accommodate all tastes and achieving a garish beat-drop-beat-drop-drop sound. Tony was certain it wasn’t music at this point; just a compilation of irritating noise and sound effects.
He chanced a glance at his watch and groaned; he still had another forty-five minutes to kill before social protocol dictated he could leave and get back to the Tower. Great. Turning to the bartender, Tony pulled down the side of his sunglasses and gave him a shifting look, tapping the bar mat beside his glass.
“Want it topped off, Mister Stark?”
“Yeah, thanks. Hey. Put some fizz in there, will you?” Tony pushed the glass across and then slumped further onto the barstool. He watched the kid take it behind the bar and grab out a bottle of sparkling water from the fringe behind him, unscrewing the cap with a few leisurely twists to pour a generous splash into the half-full glass. As soon as Tony took it back, he was met with the chill of condensation wetting his palm and he let out a long, breathy sigh.
The barkeep started wiping down the counter, obviously working up his courage. Tony waited patiently, playing with the side of lemon he’d discarded previously, and only looked up when he heard the kid give a nervous, “Alone tonight, Mr. Stark?”
“My date-to-be wandered off three months back,” Tony replied with honest abandon, swirling his water – he’d told the short story of it so many times now he’d lost interest in even the most idle of mentions and had restricted himself to the formalities of it. “She looks much prettier on his arm, anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Stark,” said the barman – more a boy, really. Tony lifted his eyes, still hidden behind his glasses, and observed the whip of him in the blatant lighting; neat, a little puppy-fat around his face, but otherwise with the body of a healthy model. He was coloured like a house sparrow, and seemed to flit around like one, too; an unconscious turn-in of his toes happening each time he came to a stop. So, not a dancer, then.
He reminded Tony of an older Peter – who was at home, presumably asleep. Tony slid a hand through his hair and shook himself out of the depression he was falling into. He couldn’t do that—he’d promised the kid’s aunt he would be better, he’d drink his water and eat proper meals and take real holidays—not just extended social media breaks. He owed it to Peter to not be dragged down by this – by the stupid media, and the stupid charity gala, and Pepper, and the stupid—
“Huh. And what is Tony Stark doing over here all on his lonesome?” a familiar, but distanced voice purred from Tony’s right and he bodily turned to stare at the imposing figure of the neurosurgeon who’d slinked from the crowd of gorgeous ones Tony usually familiarised himself with. Except tonight – tonight he’d stayed away from them, knowing all too well the grasp of melancholy on his heart and how it had a mind to get him laid when he sunk too far into the depths of somewhere he shouldn’t—couldn’t go.
He had a son now; he couldn’t be bringing strange men and women home—especially considering it was Saturday tomorrow, and Peter and Tony spent Saturday mornings engrossed in stupid cartoons while eating sizable breakfasts of the best damn pancakes in New York City. A hookup the night before would absolutely ruin that precious time with his precious son.
Of course, bringing home Doctor Stephen Strange probably wouldn’t count in the ‘hookup’ bracket. They’d (probably) never get to the bedroom (it had happened once, twice before – maybe (Yes, it absolutely had))—they’d be too busy arguing ethics in the kitchen over the biggest damn coffee cups Tony had in the house. They’d still be biting remarks at each other well into the morning, as Tony ordered breakfast and Stephen automatically invited himself to watch SpongeBob and Pokémon. He’d probably enjoy it, too, and debate the social impact of them as Peter snoozed against Tony’s side or otherwise remained too absorbed in the bright pictures to listen to them bicker.
Dammit. The world has it out for me today. “I think the better question is why has Doctor Stephen Strange decided to join Doctor Tony Stark over here in his private loneliness party,” Tony replied, missing the beat by a few seconds, but causing the other man to chuckle warmly from deep in his rough throat, dipping his slim face downwards.
Stephen pulled himself effortlessly into the barstool beside Tony and called the young barkeep over. “A cola. Throw a splash of rum in there, if you will.” From his pocket he took out a twenty and shoved it in the tips glass, before turning decisively to face Tony. He draped an arm on to the counter to lean his long body out in the tailor-fitted suit, the long tail of his dress-coat moving back and forth with the slight movement of the chair. Neither of them spoke for some time, until Stephen’s drink was placed neatly beside him on a bar mat and the doctor said kindly, with a lingering look at the kid, “Thank you.”
“Don’t do that,” Tony hissed when the kid stepped away. He collapsed his sunglasses, knowing too well he wasn’t about to get out of this conversation any time soon, and started fiddling with the solid rim of his glass.
“Do what?” Stephen asked, amusement flitting through his rich, purring voice.
Tony rubbed his thumb across an old burn-scar and didn’t look at the other man as he said, “I know how your brain works, Strange, and-”
“Oh, you do?” Stephen interrupted with the highlight of a laugh in his accent. “I’m glad someone does.”
Frowning at him, Tony continued, “And I can see how you were practically undressing that kid.”
The surprise in Stephen’s eyes green-lit Tony’s words as the truth, but the neurosurgeon just bit out another laugh and said, “I wouldn’t be so loud as to call a twenty-seven-year-old a kid, Stark.” He gestured in the direction of the bartender, who was serving a young lady wearing too much makeup. “He’s older than I am. I don’t see the harm.”
Tony snorted, flicking his eyes from the barman to Stephen. “How do you even know his age?”
“Please. It isn’t a difficult deduction,” said Stephen, raising the glass to his lips and taking a long gulp, the pale expanse of his throat bobbing. “He’s not shy, but definitely not sexually confident if his constant looks towards you are anything to go by (“Hey,” Tony interrupted), and you can see by the way he holds himself he’s trying to take up as little room as possible – the hallmarks of ordinary youth, Stark... His hands are also incredibly clean, even for someone dealing with a bar—he’s still got the mindset other people care about his appearance as much as he does. And do you see his spine? How it’s slightly – protruding at the hitch (“Technical wording, I assume,” Tony deadpanned), almost? He spends a lot of his time hunched over computers—and that’s still a young man’s game.” Taking another gulp of his drink, Stephen crossed his ankles on the footrest of the stool.
“Playing Sherlock, are we?” Tony asked, raising his glass. “And you got his age from all of that, did you?”
“Oh, God, no,” Stephen replied, humour infiltrating his words with a snigger. “I asked him earlier in the evening to see if he’d be worth my time.”
Tony slammed the glass on to the counter, spilling droplets over his fingers. “Huh. Well, look at you, doctor doom and gloom—picking your bedmates on their age now, are you? Looking to find someone with some more experience, hm? I know you like learning.” Tony opened one arm and gestured at him. “Honey. Look no further, huh?”
It was Stephen’s turn to snort, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He turned the conversation around and asked, “And why are you on your own, Stark? There’s not even a journalist here to give you grief.”
“They already did that earlier,” said Tony, pressing back his shoulders as he took a sweeping look of the other man. He turned his apparent interest to his glass instead. “On the steps – outside this ‘ere establishment.” He waved briefly in the direction of the doorway, but found his hand caught in soft, clinical fingers; never having done more than brush across skin, pick at brains. They were nothing like Tony’s own, which were worn by machinery and roughed up from burns and nicks and – from his latest thing – they’d help save New York and been a witness to the pressures of space.
Tony immediately put his attention to the way the nimble fingers were touching every single one of his raised scars, gently feeling over the landscape of his hand. “Stephen...” Tony warned, pulling away.
Stephen held on with one finger. “Tony.” His voice quietened, concern sitting in the blues of his eyes. “You aren’t well—you’re upset. You need help – you need my help.”
“Hah,” Tony waffled, worrying his lower lip. “And how are you figuring that out? Deducting again are we, Doctor Strange?” He let his voice drop an octave, flicking his eyes to the other man’s plush lips.
“Oh, no,” Stephen responded, shaking his head. “You’re just an easy read, Mister Stark.”
“Sometimes uncomplicated is nice,” Tony replied immediately, on the beat of his fragile heart, pressing back the question threatening to push out through his lips. “Sometimes all we want is a 300-page paperback full of romantic stupidities, irrational decision making and the brief escape of pretending life really is as easy as meeting one person and falling in love with them after a drink.”
Stephen dropped his hold from Tony’s finger to touch his wrist, settling his thumb over the pulse point with knowledgeable ease. “I don’t know about that. I always fancied the ones with the pairings who you so want to work, but know they’re fundamentally unsuitable for one another – no matter how much one person tries so, so hard to make it work.”
“Huh. I read one of those just last week, I think,” Tony responded, leaning close to succumb to the temptation of Stephen’s gentle eyes. “In between everything else, of course – running a company, saving New York, raising a son...” Taking his hand from Stephen’s, Tony downed the last of his water and wiped his mouth across his sleeve. “What would you say to being called by my name, hm?”
Stephen slid his eyes to Tony’s lips. “I would say you’re an egotistical maniac who could only find pleasure in yourself.”
“That makes two of us, then.”
Stephen bubbled from his induced quiet with humdrum laughter. Tony joined in.
Moments later they settled together into a comfortable silence, the ebb and flow of the gala happening behind their backs – not aware of the two’s impractical attractions to one another, their complete and absolute dissociation with the rest of the world’s expectations. Instead of turning to the other people around as was normal after the apparent end of the conversation, they chose to sit in the familiar bonds of intelligence they shared and listen with one ear to the murmurs of discussion surrounding them but not impacting on either of their split consciousness, going between comfort and presentation.
“How much longer are you here for?” asked Stephen after a moment or so, wetting his lips.
Tony pushed back his sleeve and took a look at his watch. “Another hour would be generous. Half would be expected.” He gestured faintly at Stephen.
“I could leave whenever it pleases.” He picked up his glass, swirled it, took a sip.
“Well, if it pleases the court-”
“God. Don’t remind me of how much of an idiot you are on international television – it’s an unappealing trait of yours,” Stephen huffed, pursing his lips. He downed the last of his cola and rum, sliding the glass across for the bartender to take. Slipping a hand through his gelled hair, he cast Tony a fleeting glance, flit lithe fingers across his shoulder, and then left him, moving gracefully back into the crowd of hundreds.
Tony watched him go, able to pick out his long dress-coat through the bodies until he lost it somewhere in the back. He left the bar, then, with a subdued thank you to the disappointed barkeep who’d lingered close all evening, and mingled – stepped around people, women and men alike, who threw themselves towards him in great bursts of energy, touched him with gloved fingers and smothered him in the oily smells of too much perfume. It took all of his power not to forcibly push them away from him as he travelled at a snail’s pace towards the grandeur doorways, ever-surrounded but seemingly alone as he was hustled briefly through conversation after conversation.
Raising a hand to touch his life support, his arc reactor, Tony managed to slip out through a doorway to the side and on to the pitched balcony. Standing beneath it at the roadside, leaning against Tony’s 2-seater Audi R8, was Stephen Strange. His black attire and white skin off-set the deep red V10 model he’d taken out this evening, and goddammit if Tony wasn’t just a little in love with the combination of his slick car and the slinking body of the neurosurgeon against it.
Stephen raised a hand in greeting, taking a none-too-subtle sweep of the press-littered street, and then strode forwards to stand beneath the balustrade. “Ah, like an angel you are above me. Like the sun-”
“If you’re attempting Shakespeare, Strange, so help me God the next time you need ear medicine...”
Stephen shut his mouth, his eyebrows raised but lacking concern. He changed the subject. “Would you like some help over the railing?”
Tony raised his eyebrows back, but with added concern. “Stephen, dear, I’m nearly forty.”
Shrugging, Stephen replied, “You’re an eclectic billionaire.” His smile touched his eyes.
Tony’s heart beat a little faster at it, at the gentle but sharp cut of his lips, at the centred look in Stephen’s eyes as they stared at Tony – only Tony – unbothered by the clicking cameras and the creeping presence of journalists looking for a story to twist. “If Peter sees this,” Tony began, leaning, “he’ll think he can do it. Strange, are you suggesting I teach my boy bad habits?”
“As if you haven’t already,” Stephen responded with a bark of laughter unlike the others he’d given tonight, something that, until now, had been totally obscured by social decency. “Come on, Stark—I’ll catch you.”
Tony raised his eyes from Stephen and let out a sigh. “I’m an idiot,” he muttered to the sky, before pulling himself over the railing with some grace, standing on the small ledge on the other side. He lowered himself down, sat, took Stephen’s offered hands, and then pushed himself off the short distance to land against the other man – straight into his chest, legs slightly buckled, and then the arms were around him, patting away the stone’s dust on his suit. A few guests and reporters applauded, one whistled, and Tony knew then this would end up on one of those stupid programs on the television, like all the other clips of him doing stupid things had.
Only this one he would remember for the deep purr of a chuckle in his ear, the breathiness of all it entailed and the steady hands across his back, dipping downwards, flattening against him and pressing their bodies into one another. Stephen pulled back too soon and Tony followed him, snapping from his addiction when those fingers spidered across his shoulder.
“My car or yours?” asked Stephen.
Tony baulked. “I’m not getting in your beat-up sedan parked half a mile away,” he grumbled, flinching past a probing cameraman getting too close for comfort. He practically stuck himself to Stephen’s side, one hand thumbing his hip, and said lowly, “Besides, you looked pretty comfortable against my Audi.”
Stephen laughed again as they got to the sports-car and folded into the front seats, easily boxing themselves in and the media out. He downed the window as Tony started the engine, leaning out to beckon a young reporter across to him. “Write this down – Billionaire Tony Stark seen leaving charity gala with neurosurgeon Stephen Strange,” Stephen told her, picking up a pair of sunglasses from the pocket of the car.
“And there’s your headline,” Tony whistled, listening for the engine’s warmed hum. He leant across Stephen, hand on his thigh and said to her, “Don’t forget to add in brackets I’m 12 years his senior, or else there’s nothing for moms to get upset about on Facebook.”
“You’re awful,” Stephen chuckled, pushing him away. He held up the sunglasses. “Are these prescription?”
“I try, dear,” Tony replied, fetching out his own sunglasses from where he’d hung them on his pocket. He flicked them open, propped them over his eyes and said, “No. They’re Happy’s ‘don’t bother me’ sunglasses. Go ahead—he won’t mind.” He put the car into gear, gave the stunned journalist a wave and they took off into the lax traffic of the evening. “Do you think they’ll go for it?” Tony asked when they put a few miles between them and the gala.
“She was quite young,” said Stephen, pulling his shirt out from his dress-pants to clean the glasses. “She wrote it down, but I doubt it’ll see publication unless she had a camera and a microphone.” His voice took a dip, checking the glasses in the light of streetlamps as Tony slowed to a stop at a red light. “Do you ever get bored of tricking young women like that, Stark?”
“Of course not,” Tony guffawed, feeling his heart start to beat impossibly loud in his ears as he fidgeted his fingers across the steering wheel. “Besides...,” he began, doing his best to shield any sight of Stephen from the corner of his eyes as he put his foot down on yellow—just about green. “Eventually, it-it’ll be true.”
The thrums of laughter from Stephen slowed to a pensive stop, and he cleared his throat. Drifting silence arched sharply around them, before the doctor said in a clear voice, “Tony-”
Stop it. Stop being more mature than me, thought Tony, casting abandon to himself as he did a blind turn down another of New York’s streets. As the car filled with nervous, splitting energy, Tony said, “You can’t resist me for much longer, Strange. Please. I understand how your brain works.”
“... Tony,” Stephen said, voice low. “I know Pepper-”
“Pep looks good on Hap’s arm,” Tony interrupted, pressuring his car onwards – like he could get out of this conversation except that was bullshit because Stephen was right there beside him, was looking at him, conflict playing across his clean, youthful features. “We were never meant to be – I never could keep a woman. Strange – huh, bad word choice—But it is, isn’t it? Now I get it—I got it, you know, the last time we...”
He made the mistake of looking at the doctor, of seeing the distracted, cold conflict in his intelligent eyes. God, those eyes. Tony immediately slowed the car down and turned another corner, skirting the edge of the Tower and pulling to a stop near the underground car-park. Ripping off his sunglasses, Tony said, “I ruined this, didn’t I?” He dropped his head back, bit his lip.
“There’s no ‘this’, Stark,” said Stephen, having left the sunglasses off in the end. He shifted them into the car door, settled his clasped hands in his lap. “I have surgery tomorrow at two.”
“Oh,” Tony replied, putting the car back into gear. He started to reverse, ready to take Stephen to wherever he needed to be – he’d never been to the other man’s apartment, but he thought it might be near Bleecker Street—maybe. He couldn’t be completely sure.
A hand, steady and controlled with not a single finger shivering, covered his on the gearstick. “What are you doing?” Stephen asked, quiet confusion pressing into his tilted accent.
Tony raised an eyebrow. “Taking you home?” he replied, and then choked out a laugh. “No offence, Strange, but I’m getting mixed signals here and-”
Before he could finish his sentence, Stephen had undone his seatbelt and leant his long body across the middle console – one of those beautiful hands coming to rest on the back of Tony’s neck – and pressed his lips against Tony’s in a silencing act, taking all of the older man’s breath—just as he’d long since taken his heart.
(This isn’t love, Tony thought, kissing back; the lines of their lips melding. We’re not in love. We’ve never been in love. This can’t be-)
Stephen’s other hand fumbled over Tony’s leg, attempting to keep himself elevated as they parted briefly, and then Tony pushed back against him in a bruising, smothering kiss, taking his arms from his steering wheel to wrap around his upper body—feeling the soft muscles in his back as he let one hand move down to touch the jutting of his hip, breathing harshly into the kiss, a silted moan—
“Stephen,” Tony breathed as they parted a second time and the neurosurgeon inhaled sharply, drawing in trembling breath after trembling breath. He slid back into the passenger seat, licking his lips.
“God. You’re intoxicating,” Stephen whispered with all the fascination he’d shown the medical manuals Tony had in his living room for ‘extracurricular’ reading when he got bored. “How do you do it?” Stephen asked, opening those bright eyes, and Tony just about fell in love—except he couldn’t; not with this man. Not with this one.
(I’m not allowed to fall in love with you.)
“Do what?” Tony asked, touching his lips, feeling the glaze of wetness with a tendril of something hot in his belly. He set a hand back on the wheel, just as much to steady himself as to drive the car into its parking space beneath the Tower.
Stephen had a hand over his heart, breathing heavily; he leant his head back, exposed his soft neck. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, drunk on the taste smeared over his lips. “How do you speak with your eyes?” he whispered into the blackness before the lights beneath the Tower flicked to life, bathing the car in artificial yellows. “How do you make me believe everything is going to be OK in the morning?”
+
Tony bid the babysitter – a SHIELD Agent – a goodnight and slipped him an extra fifty. He nodded in return, not even passing Stephen’s sharp form at Tony’s side a glance as he left with a simple, “Have a nice night, Sir.”
The elevator closed behind the agent, leaving them alone. Tony swung around to face the Stephen, saw the disposed-of jitteriness replaced by cool confidence—and just like that they were kissing again, their lips against one another’s and—their noses hit awkwardly and they pulled back with a gasp, shared a breathy chuckle, still collected in each other’s arms. Stephen’s hand fumbled over Tony’s shoulder, got a hold on his neck again, didn’t let go.
“You seem awfully keen to keep a hold of me, Stephen,” Tony breathed between feathering kisses on the other man’s neck, listening to and feeling the hitch of his breath as Stephen’s lips pressed damply against his forehead—more like partners than lovers, and yet—
And yet.
(I’m not allowed to fall in love with you.)
+
Tony woke up with a gasp, the pressure behind his eyes catching as he sat up like a bolt, the duvet pooling in his lap as he was immediately introduced to the silence of his bedroom—and then a soft sleep-murmur broke the still of it and, though he was still adjusting to the patchiness of the ending night and coming day – having forgotten to pull the blackout curtains, oops – he turned himself to look down at the slumbering body beside him. Tony raised a hand to trace the jut of their hips, down over the soft fat of their belly, and a moment later Stephen Strange opened his blurry eyes. He turned from his side on to his back, and something obviously gave Tony’s anxious state away.
“Tony?” Stephen muttered, wetting the small lines of his kiss-chapped lips. “What’s wrong? Are you OK? Are you in pain? Should I fetch some medicine?” Stephen asked, ever the doctor, as he sat up. He drew the covers close to him, naked from the waist up.
“I’m fine,” Tony breathed, sitting back on his elbows, taking in deep, meditating breaths. “I’m – sorry. Jus-just a nightmare – I get them, sin-since everything else – oh, lordy.” He opened one palm to the man, then pressed it against his own forehead. “I’m fine, Stephen. I’m sorry I woke you.”
Stephen’s tense body visibly relaxed in the off-light of the morning, tidying the bedcovers as he lay back down. He flattened his face into the pillow, opening one arm to curl over Tony’s lap. “A few more minutes, then,” he said through a yawn. “Until we have to go back to our normal lives.”
“Can’t this be our normal life?” Tony asked with unfeigned hope, ever the talker in the mornings as he allowed himself to be pulled into Stephen’s arms, reaching for his phone on the bedside table at second thought. Stephen’s hand closed over his, unpicking his fingers from the device and dropping it onto the bed. “Stephen,” Tony breathed, a whine in his voice, as he turned in the other’s arms to face him—and their lips met for a lazy kiss, a morning kiss, soft but palpable, grounding them in their shared existence, living for the moment and the moment alone. “Stephen, please,” Tony said against his lips, pleading for him to speak as he moved his head into the crook of his neck, placed fast kisses and quick bites over the blessed skin. “I-I’m sorry...”
(I think I’ve already fallen in love with you, thought Tony, smearing tears into Stephen’s skin.)
Stephen let Tony believe for a moment, let him pretend for a minute, but ultimately the doctor pulled away, sat back on his haunches and shrugged out of the covers. He ghosted a last kiss to Tony’s lips and then began to dress in borrowed clothes. “Breakfast?” Tony whispered, hopeful, his stomach in knots. When the doctor didn’t respond, he used the ultimate weapon at his disposal. “Peter hasn’t seen you for a while. You can’t disappoint him.”
Stephen paused in pulling on some of Tony’s sweats, a tee-shirt swiped from his drawer, too. “Peter... hasn’t seen me since the last time we did this, Tony.”
“He’d love to see you more.” So would I. “Stephen-”
“I have to be in surgery at two,” said Stephen, kind and soft and imploring—not done, urging Tony not to say a word before he got his complicated thoughts in order. “Do you need me to cook?”
“What? Of course not,” Tony replied as he shrugged out of bed, quick to grab up the work-clothes he’d worn most of yesterday before JARVIS had reminded him of the approaching gala and he’d had to hurry to get ready. “We have pancakes on Saturday from a place down the street – JARVIS, go ahead and order the normal for me and Pete—I gotta go wake him—uh, JARVIS, tell Stephen the menu, would you?” Pulling his fingers through his hair, managing to make it at least somewhat presentable, Tony left to wake his son without another look in Stephen’s direction. He didn’t need to be told where everything was; he knew the Tower just as well as anyone.
+
“Mr. Strange!” Peter shouted, barrelling into the kitchen as only a kid could do and still look as cute as he did. Tony’s lips pulled into a slight smirk.
“Doctor Strange,” Stephen corrected out of eyeshot. Tony quickened his pace when he heard a telltale oomph, coming around the corner and into the open-plan kitchen to see Peter had practically leapt into the neurosurgeon’s arms. He nuzzled into the loose fabric of the borrowed tee-shirt around his shoulders, fingers picking over the red blemishes around his neck without a care for how they’d got there.
“You smell like machines!” Peter laughed, wrapping his arms around Stephen’s neck for a hug. “You smell like dad!”
Tony paused, hand hovering over his arc reactor as he watched a deep blush come over Stephen’s face—but Peter hardly seemed to consider it as anything important as he launched into explanations of everything Stephen had missed—because he’d missed ‘so much!’. As Stephen listened intently, he nodded and bounced the kid—who was really much too big to be carried now at ten and half (closer to eleven, he always liked to maintain). But being carried made him happy, calm, made him feel comforted to be wrapped up in safety.
He considers Stephen safe. The sight pressed into Tony, seeing the cool facade slip off Stephen’s face to be one of sudden and unparalleled interest in everything Peter.
Walking closer, making his presence known, Tony stepped up to them and gently drew a hand up to cradle Peter’s head—and, despite being so invested in talking, Peter snapped around to look at his dad and his eyes got wider if that was at all possible. “Dad! Is Stephen staying? Is he watching cartoons with us this morning? Is he having pancakes?”
“I think so, bud—well, he’s at least having pancakes. Right? You’re having pancakes?” Tony hummed, raising an eyebrow at him.
“Of course I’m having pancakes,” Stephen huffed, still bouncing the kid in his arms like you would a six or seven-year-old, but obviously enjoying every moment of holding a small human. “I wouldn’t pass up free pancakes with you, Peter.” He removed one hand to bop Peter on the nose with a long, slim finger.
Peter laughed, grinned. He turned in Stephen’s arms, the doctor quickly correcting his hold, to wrap his arms around Tony’s neck and place a hand warmly against the arc reactor. Patting it, he said a near inaudible, “Thank you,” and then asked Stephen to put him down so he could run off into the living area. “JARVIS! JARVIS! Turn on the TV, please!”
With Peter out of earshot, the TV blasting to life, and the pancakes on their way, Tony turned to make coffee but found Stephen had taken care of it. “Huh. Keep that up and I might not let you leave for that surgery,” Tony warned, clinking a spoon against his mug with a shake of the head. “Anyway, doc, time for some cartoons with the boy.”
As Tony turned to leave to the living room, Stephen’s hand folded over his shoulder and pulled him back; the hidden strength of his wrists and hands curling through Tony with warmth and safety. He could get used to those hands on him, guiding him, moving across him carefully and precisely and with well-known ease. Tony swept around to face him, blinking. “What?”
“Why did Peter say thank you?”
“He’s a polite kid,” Tony replied, shrugging, flicking his eyes down and away. He took a gulp of coffee, humming at the pleasant taste.
“No, no. He said it differently; that wasn’t just a child saying thank you, Tony. He meant it,” Stephen said, tilting his head closer, staring more intently at the older man. He strained his small mouth into a gentle frown, hinting at concern.
Tony inhaled and nodded. He thumbed his pocket, looking for his sunglasses, but found he’d misplaced them—probably left them in the bedroom, on his jacket. Dammit. Slowly, raising a hand to place over arc reactor beneath his tee-shirt, Tony said, “He’s thanking this.” He patted it carefully. “We... had to have the conversation about it, what it was and why it’s – why it’s where it is... Why... Why Dad has to be extra careful.” Tony watched Stephen’s eyes soften, his face slacken a little. He dropped his stare to where Tony’s hand had flattened over the device in his chest.
“He’s thanking it for keeping you alive,” said Stephen, quietly, with a split-second glance to where the back of the couch was in eyeshot, along with Peter’s head of curls. A beat of silence passed between them. Slowly, without even the slightest tremble, Stephen reached his hand up to push Tony’s away from the arc reactor, and then pressed his palm flat against it; the warmth spreading through the fabric of Tony’s tee-shirt. Not nearly as inaudible as Peter’s words, Stephen leant close and said, “Thank you.” Stephen pressed forwards and connected their lips for a chaste kiss – a kiss unlike the pressured, hungry ones from last night, a kiss unlike the biting impatience with which they’d sought each other through the blind need of stimuli—this kiss, this kiss was—
(Love.)
Tony pulled back, the wet disconnect of their lips breaking him from his reverie as both of Stephen’s hands moved to press squarely over his arc – his life support, his heart – and settled there with all his gentle warmth, careful and meditative.
Swallowing around the lump in his throat, Tony whispered into the air between them, “You know, Stephen, you just keep giving me these gosh darn mixed signals...”
In reply, Stephen pressed their lips together again.
(I'm so in love with you.)