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Stephen looked at him like he’d just swallowed an airplane. “What did you just call me?” he spoke lowly, voice filled with a burning sort of disdain.
Tony blinked innocently at the wizard as he grabbed his third serving of coffee for the day. “You don’t like it?” he asked, smiling behind the rim of his cup as he took a sip, a soft noise of delight leaving him. He swayed his hips in a dramatic manner as he then walked up to Stephen, putting his free hand on the taller man’s shoulder. “Stephy~” he teased, standing up on his tippy-toes to place a peck on his boyfriend’s jawline. “It’s cute and it suits you”.
Stephen inhaled a deep breath before letting it out in a sigh. “You’re sleeping on the couch tonight” he declared and promptly turned on his heels to walk out of the room, almost knocking Tony off his feet as he did. The engineer fumbled to keep hold of his mug of coffee, exhaling a breath of relief when he managed not to spill.
“Of course, darling, but I rather you not—”.
The door was slammed before he could finish his sentence.
“—spill my coffee” he mumbled into the silence. Maybe the guy had just had a long day. Tony looked at the clock on the wall; ten past nine in the evening. He still had some time to kill before the need to sleep would be begging him to drag his ass into bed. Or rather, to the couch, since he apparently wasn’t welcome in the bedroom tonight. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done to make the wizard so upset. It couldn’t have been the nickname — at least not only that. Maybe he could ask him about it in the morning.
Having decided that on the spot, he nodded to himself and headed down to his lab with the cup of coffee still in hand to tinker with his latest experiment. He managed only about three hours of such work before falling asleep face-down on his desk.
A few days later, Tony was startled out of focus from his tinkering by the sound of a door slamming shut upstairs. Quick as a snake, he discarded the safety glasses on the desk and called on a handpiece of his armor. Walking up the stairs with the blaster ready, he held his breath. Who would be barging into his home at half-past one at night?
He got the answer to that question quicker than expected, as a soft noise reached his ears, and a scarred hand appeared behind the backrest of the couch. It gestured vaguely in the air and Tony released the breath he had been holding. And what was that supposed to mean? Please, bring me a coffee?
Never mind that, what in the world had the sorcerer been out doing for so long? Tony discarded the blaster and rushed up to the side of the couch. There in front of him, sprawled like a broken sack of potatoes, with his graying hair a complete mess and the navy blue fabric of his robes stained with something dark, was the wizard that so easily had stolen his heart. The heart that now skipped a beat inside his chest.
“Holy shit, Steph!” Tony exclaimed and went to kneel at Stephen’s head. One hand landed in that disheveled brown fluff, the other on a dust-stained cheek. “Where the hell have you been?!”.
One leafy green eye cracked open to look at him, a tired groan leaving the man. “Stop calling me that” Stephen mumbled softly, not even managing the usual sting that so often accompanied the demand of dropping the nicknames.
The Cloak nudged at Tony’s shoulder, and he was about to bat it away before he saw the small red pack it was cradling in its lapels; a telltale white cross on top of it. He sighed softly and grabbed the medical kit, folding it out on the floor in front of him. “Long as you keep coming home with your clothing stained with your own blood, I’ll call you whatever the fuck I want” Tony grumbled as he started to pull on the sorcerer’s belts.
Stephen chuckled softly and placed his hand on top of Tony’s, distracting the engineer from the action. “It’s not blood” he said calmly, and Tony blinked. He looked at the Cloak, then back to Stephen again.
“Then why did your flying pet give me this?!” he blurted, holding up the unfolded medical kit.
Stephen was silent for a while, clicking his tongue once before heaving a sigh. He spoke barely above a whisper, which made it difficult for Tony to hear him. He furrowed his eyebrows and leaned in a bit closer.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Stephen groaned while dragging a hand over his slightly reddening face, then threw both hands into the air in a frustrated gesture. “I stumbled on the way up the stairs and sprained my ankle. There, I said it; now are you going to take care of me or what?”.
Tony blinked again, looking at Stephen, who was avoiding eye contact, then to his feet, then to the Cloak, which made a shrugging motion, then back to Stephen. He didn’t know whether he should laugh or sigh in relief, and so what came out of him was a combination of both. He groaned a sigh and let his forehead fall to rest on the sorcerer’s chest. “You goddamn moron,” he said softly before picking his head back up again. He couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off his face if he tried to. “Of course. I’ll take care of you, dumpling”.
Stephen sighed at being called yet another new nickname, but closed his eyes as Tony went on with unlacing his boots to care for his oh-so-mortally wounded boyfriend.
An entire week would pass before they saw each other again. Stephen had been out on an unusually long mission in some distant dimension to do lord knows what, and Tony had been dragging his feet through each day, eventually throwing himself into work to distract himself from the loneliness. He’d lost track of time, turned night into day, and lived almost solely on coffee and the occasional doughnut. He’d been so focused on his work that he hadn’t even noticed when he fell asleep.
Stephen, however, did notice the quiet of their temporarily shared home as he stepped through the door. Waving the Cloak away from his shoulders, he dragged his hands through his hair as a substitute comb. “Tony? I’m home” he called out, expecting the engineer to come running like a lost puppy finding its way back to its mother. He hummed to himself when that didn’t happen.
Starting to wander around the place he’d started to become so familiar with, he soon ended up in Tony’s lab. He couldn’t stop the lovestruck sigh that left him as he stepped down the small flight of stairs. The man had fallen asleep while working — again. Stephen had lost count on how many times he’d found Tony like that, despite the fact that they had been dating for a mere two months. It had to have been at least twelve.
“Tony, honey” he spoke softly as he walked up to the chair. The engineer stirred, glasses falling off the tip of his nose. The Cloak easily caught them before they hit the floor, and Stephen carefully laid a trembling hand on Tony’s shoulder.
The gesture kicked the sleeping man to life, and he blinked blearily a few times. Once he’d gotten a grasp of his surroundings, he spun around in his seat and threw his arms around the wizard’s waist, barking gleefully as he did; “Steph, you’re home!”. Stephen grimaced at the nickname he hadn’t heard in so long, but embraced his boyfriend in return nonetheless.
“It’s good to see you too, Tony”.
“You don’t like my nicknames” Tony said suddenly one day when they were watching a rerun of their favorite show on Netflix. They were both sprawled across the couch, legs entangled and crumbs of chips and popcorn littering their clothing. Stephen, in the middle of chewing the biggest chip he could find in the bag, turned his attention to the man sitting across from him. He swallowed what was still left in his mouth, only slightly disappointed that he couldn’t take his time with chewing.
“What?” he asked, confused as to why the engineer had chosen now of all times to bring up this particular topic. He had just started to get comfortable — and a little drowsy.
Tony sat up straighter, untangling one of his legs, to the sorcerer’s great disappointment. “Why don’t you like my nicknames?” he demanded to know, a deep crease between his eyebrows.
Now it was Stephen’s turn to sit up, pushing himself up with his hands and scowling back at the engineer. “I never said that I don’t like them” he said slowly, carefully pronouncing every syllable.
“You didn’t have to” Tony bit back a tad too aggressively. He brushed a few of the crumbs from his chest with his hand, flicking one of them away with his finger. He intently aimed at Stephen’s face and pouted when it only hit him on his neck. He turned his gaze away and crossed his arms over his chest. He’d been thinking about it non-stop since he had woken up that morning, remembering the subtle twitch of eyebrows or downward pull of that stupidly pretty mouth whenever he had tried to be sweet. “It’s obvious” he grumbled, untangling the other leg to put both of his feet down on the floor.
Stephen sat up fully and reached for the remote to pause the current episode. He turned his full attention to Tony, but didn’t get the same attention back. “What are you talking about?” he asked aloud, hoping that the man was at least listening, even if he wasn’t looking at him.
Tony turned his head to meet Stephen’s mossy green eyes with his own. He knew that he was most likely being childish, but he couldn’t help it. He always had a hard time keeping his emotions in check when they were plaguing him. He had to find an outlet for them, or they would eat him alive. “You make all of these faces when I call you things” he said, remembering Stephen’s reaction the first time he’d called him “Stephy”.
Barely a heartbeat passed before Stephen opened his mouth without thinking. “No, I don’t” he blurted out, then pressed his lips together tightly, realizing his mistake.
Tony grit his teeth. He couldn’t sit still anymore, pushing himself off the couch to stand up and stomp his foot on the ground. The mat dampened the sound, which only amped his frustrations up further. Whenever he was angry, he wanted to world to know about it. His anger should be heard and acknowledged. Particularly by that stupidly handsome wizard he so foolishly had fallen for. “Stop lying to me!” he yelled, voice turning an octave higher than his usual tone.
Stephen made a disgruntled noise as his jaw loosened and his mouth fell open slightly. “I’m not lying, Tony,” he said. He carefully thought over what he said next this time, knowing that any wrong word could push the engineer over the edge. “I didn’t use to like being called things. Sure, I don’t love it, but—”.
Tony didn’t let him finish. He didn’t want to hear another word coming out of that man’s oh-so-perfect mouth. Getting the confirmation that Stephen didn’t love nicknames was enough. He’d just stop using them if they were so bad. The thought made his gut wrench and he turned on his heel. “Whatever! I’m going for a walk”.
Stephen did a double-take, not expecting that response and fumbling for words. “Wait, Tony, I—”.
But Tony was out the door before Stephen could even manage to get up from the couch.
Walk. He’d said walk. Tony never walked, which led Stephen to believe that what he had really meant was “I’m taking one of my suits for a spin”. Which meant that it was futile for him to attempt to follow him. Even with the Cloak of Levitation, Tony’s high-tech armored suits were about five times faster than him.
So, Stephen resigned himself to dropping back down on the couch, pressing the heels of his palms against his eyebrows, and groaning loudly in frustration. He’d wait until he was back. Tony would come back — he always did. Either when he got hungry or when he got bored. Lucky for him, that engineer had way too many brilliant ideas tumbling around in his genius brain to stay away from his lab for more than a few hours.
In the days that followed, both of them were busy with their own things. Stephen was bouncing back and forth between dimensions to keep a variety of different threats at bay, and Tony was traveling across the world for a grand event to hold a speech about one of his latest prototypes. Not until the evening on the day before Tony would be heading back home again did they both have a moment to settle down and breathe.
Stephen, expecting Tony to be waiting for him at their now officially shared home, walked through every room while calling Tony’s name. Paranoia was starting to prick at his nerves, picking up his heart rate. He eventually stopped in the small kitchen area to rub his forehead, and he exhaled deeply to try to relieve some of the tension in his body. When the Cloak started to nudge at his shoulder to get his attention, he jerked his head up, about to yell at it, but stopped himself when he noticed a note taped to the fridge. He quickly walked up to snatch it and inspected it.
“Pittsburgh for a few days, back on Monday” was written with curvy, bold letters. A handwriting Stephen had started to grow quite fond of seeing. He absently traced the pad of his thumb over the text, subconsciously remembering that he would never be able to write that beautifully again.
“Wait, Monday?” he spoke up, turning his attention to the calendar on the wall. “That’s tomorrow”. He patted the small piece of decorative steel on the Cloak and peered down at it with a suggestive look. “You think he’d mind seeing us a day early?”. The Cloak flitted excitedly behind him and started to nudge him toward the exit. Stephen chuckled, but gladly agreed and headed toward the door, discarding the note in the trash on his way out.
About two hours later, he knocked on the door to room 79 on the second floor of a far too expensive hotel for his own taste. It didn’t take long before a mechanical click sounded, and the door opened. “Ah, Stephen” the well-dressed engineer greeted, patting his costume down. “I was just about to head down for supper. How ‘bout you change out of those robes and meet me downstairs in five, hmm?”.
It took a minute for the sorcerer to process, and when he finally did, the only words he could find were “Uh, yeah, of course”. He saw Tony nod contently before pushing past Stephen to supposedly take up a table down in the restaurant. No more words were exchanged. No cheerful greetings or warm hugs. Stephen didn’t realize that his hands were trembling. He didn’t notice that the Cloak was tugging impatiently at his shoulders.
What he did notice was the fact that Tony had called him by his name. His full name, and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, it stung.
Their dinner had consisted of Tony rambling about all the questions he had received during his trip, the interviews he had gone through, and annoying reporters being in his way. Afterwards, Tony had collapsed into the hotel bed after a few too many glasses of very expensive wine. Stephen had absently told him not to drink so much and that he would definitely be hungover the next day, and then he had untied his tie and thrown his suit jacket over the backrest of an armchair.
The one good thing about that particular room was the balcony. It wasn’t big, but it was a balcony, and Stephen had taken many minutes now to lean over the railing and stare aimlessly out across the streets of Pittsburgh. The Cloak had eventually started to stir and coaxed Stephen back inside. Not to the bed, which it had wanted to, but to the armchair, where he eventually passed out after a few minutes of watching the peacefully sleeping engineer.
The day after wasn’t much different. Tony had ranted about himself and the horrendous headache he was experiencing. Only when they were approaching the car that would take them from the hotel to the airport did Stephen speak up, holding his hands up and claiming he didn’t do well with cars. “I’ll meet you back home” he had said, donning the Cloak of Levitation and taking to the sky.
Being therefore forced to spend the flight alone, Tony had fidgeted with whatever he had been able to get his hands on. Flipping through channels on the small television screen built into the seat in front of him, pressing the buttons on the radio without paying any mind to the channels he flipped through, and even flicking the light switch a little too many times. Having had enough of the silence, he’d taken to sweet-talking one of the flight attendants, successfully getting himself a free drink and a new number in his phonebook.
At long last, the door to his home was within reach. Hours had passed, and he was drunk, tired, and honestly missed that bastard of a magician. As he stepped inside the familiar warmth, he quickly discarded his bags and marched directly into the bedroom. To his immense joy, the wizard was laying on the bed, dressed in nothing but a t-shirt and a pair of blue sweatpants. He stopped the motion he had been making with his hands and sat up when he realized that he wasn’t alone in the room anymore.
Stephen was about to make a comment about taking too long when Tony opened his mouth. “I realize that I owe you an apology” he blurted out while smoothing his clothes down. He was still wearing the suit he had been wearing on the previous day. Stephen blinked, not following where the engineer was coming from. What was he apologizing for, exactly?
Tony cleared his throat. “I’ve been an ass to you”.
Stephen hummed softly, realizing that Tony had been drinking again. He scooted over and patted the spot beside him on the bed, gesturing for the other man to sit down. He noticed that the engineer was reluctant, but eventually did as he was asked. The stiff and tense man melted into his side when he laid an arm around him and kissed him on his temple. “You’re stressed, Tony”.
The engineer was about to complain, but clamped his mouth shut and just allowed himself to sit there, relishing in the warmth. They sat like that for a long while, until eventually, Tony sighed. “I really am sorry” he mumbled.
“Oh, don’t worry about me,” Stephen responded softly, putting a finger under Tony’s chin to make him look at him. “You’ve had a stressful week”. He did truly believe that with the way Tony was leaning against him. Bags had started to form under his eyes, his beard was untrimmed, and it looked like his hair hadn’t seen a brush for weeks. “God, Tony, you’re a mess”.
“Thanks, cupcake, you don’t look too bad either” Tony responded absently, seemingly too inebriated to actually process Stephen’s words. He squinted briefly and leaned in a little closer. “Your eyes are so beautiful up close”. Alright, now Stephen was sure that Tony was stressed out of his mind. He needed a shower, a long nap, and a healthy meal that didn’t consist of just doughnuts or hamburgers.
“Alright, come on, you need a—” he started, but before he could finish the sentence, Tony’s lips were on his, breaking off his speech. A shiver trailed down his spine and he made a silent noise of delight. How long had it been since they kissed like this? They’d barely had any time for each other in weeks. Each of them had been busy with their own hectic schedules, and when they weren’t busy, they were either sleeping or watching Netflix, because they were too exhausted to do anything else.
Stephen’s eyes fell close, and he wrapped his arms around the engineer, returning the kiss. Soon enough, they were making out feverishly, and their hands were roaming each other’s still-clothed bodies.
“Oh boy…” the magician breathed as his head fell back on the pillow. Tony purred as he snuggled up on top of his bare chest. Their clothes lay discarded on the floor, temporarily forgotten. They could pick those up later on.
“You certainly have a way of apologizing to someone, Tones” Stephen said with a chuckle, wrapping one arm around Tony and putting the other under his own head. He absently trailed small circles over Tony’s skin with his fingers. They were almost completely still for once, the usual trembles having subsided greatly. Similarly, the engineer was trailing a variety of different patterns with his fingertips over Stephen’s chest and stomach.
“Was that your lousy attempt at a nickname?” he muttered as he traced a faded scar with the pad of his thumb. Stephen’s mouth fell open, about to deny it, only to close again, and he grew silent. “Tones”. He hadn’t even realized that he’d said it. He chuckled softly and turned his head to place a kiss amongst Tony’s messy brown locks.
“Yup” he admitted, popping his lips at the last syllable. The response he got was priceless; the engineer started to snigger against his chest. That calloused hand moved to wrap around his waist, pulling them closer together.
“You’re horrible, Steph” Tony grumbled, but sighed lovingly and tangled their legs together. Then he stilled, and for the first time in the three months they had now been dating, the wizard smiled at hearing that god-awful nickname again.