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“I hope you don’t mind Winston,” Dr. Allen Grant greeted, perched neatly in his white coat behind his in-house desk with an artificial tree set up beside him. “I’ve always wanted one.”
Tony stared at the small yellow bird near Allen’s shoulder. “. . . Why the hell is it wearing a hat?”
“It’s not.”
“It’s wearing a hat,” Tony insisted, tracing a bowl cut on his own forehead. Perching his free hand on the visitor’s chair, he glared at the yellow abomination. The yellow abomination cocked its head back at him. “It agrees,” he declared.
“It’s a gloster canary,” Allen explained.
“Allen, I say this sincerely and without love, there is something wrong with you.”
“They’re songbirds,” Allen said.
“I thought I had a ‘no pets’ rule,” Tony said, yanking the chair back noisily. The songbird ruffled its feathers.
“You do,” Allen agreed. “Nothing with fur or scales. Comprehensive.” He offered one of those pesky little smiles that said checkmate. It was at least part of the reason Tony hired him; Tony hated reverence.
Making a strong point, Tony nodded at the bird and said, “I’m charging him rent.”
“All right.” Allen slid back a desk drawer, produced a checkbook, and asked politely, “Name it.”
Wordlessly, Tony reached into his own pocket, scribbled the world’s fastest check, and let it fan down onto the desk. “This is all under the table. I’m buying your silence.” Glaring at the songbird, he added, “His, too. Utmost confidence.”
“Utmost confidence,” Allen said, only a touch wary, as he reached for the $1,000 check. “This seems extravagant,” he said, switching almost instinctively into a more dignified manner. “You already—”
“Uh-uh. You accept, that’s your silence.”
Begrudgingly, Allen slid the check, along with his own, into the drawer. Then he folded his hands in a neat, as you were manner, and Tony hooked a leg over the chair, waiting for Allen to break and demand he respect the furniture. Allen didn’t even blink.
“I’m angry. At . . . absolutely everyone,” Tony began, eyeing the clock on the wall, an engineer without a second to waste. “I’m pissed off at this miserable wasteland of a planet. I can’t stand my fiancé.” Allen diplomatically distracted himself, reaching for Winston, allowing the songbird to hop onto his closed fist. “I can’t. He’s driving me crazy. And I know it’s me. Isn’t that the kicker? When you know it’s your fault, and you can’t stop being at fault?”
Winston hopped neatly onto Allen’s shoulder. Tony glared at the bird so he could avoid addressing the man: “I don’t want to talk about it. All I ever do is talk about it. It’s too late to talk about it. Einstein spent forty years on a single project, and he never finished it. Can you imagine,” he said, shuddering, ready to spit nails about it, reaching into his pocket to pull out a watch, tuned into a decaying radioactive element. He checked the time, comparing it to the clock on the wall. The watch was more accurate to the ten-billionth-of-a-second, but the big picture was the same. Story of his life: precision wouldn’t be appreciated until humanity sped up.
“Answer me honestly, Allen,” Tony gave him a look that dared him to try, per their agreement, “what happens to us when we die? Do we still adhere to niceties only possible when our basic needs have been met? Do we actually need to be in working condition when we’re in the grave?” He waited for an answer. Allen merely looked at him. “That’s what I thought. Why we should fight the inevitable? The decline, the maintenance, the ever-increasing upkeep. I want to wring this élan vitale dry, Allen. I don’t see what isn’t admirable about that. Why do we coach people on how to live longer when a tragic accident is waiting just around the corner? Doesn’t heaven have a shortage on angels?” He smiled grimly.
Allen opened his mouth, then shut it, looking grim. Tony repeated simply, “That’s what I thought.” He flipped the watch one last time, then pocketed it. “I want off. I want out. I want a day of peace.” He looked out the window and snipped, “It is getting to the point when I don’t want to help people. I don’t want to do things for people. What do people do for each other? And what does it make me, that I have all this money, all this ambition, and I don’t want to help people? I don’t want to spend my life putting out fires. I want to breathe.”
“Have you considered retirement?”
Tony blinked, then stood up. “I don’t think you comprehend my aversion to the grave,” he said, and left.
. o .
One week later, by happenstance or temporal accident, Tony dropped another check on Allen’s desk. Winston was staring intently out the window at the rain. Allen looked at the check, then at Tony, and finally waved a hand eloquently, inviting him to have a seat.
“The most important man I ever knew was my father,” Tony started. “I’m not being nepotistic. Maybe a little nepotistic.” He reached into a pocket, produced a pack of gum, and slide a stick out for himself. He did not offer Allen one. “He was astronomical, and his life’s work is a corporation and a lot of money. Let that pile sit for a hundred years and it won’t be worth much.” He chewed on the gum for a while, thinking. “Isn’t that the kicker? Even money devalues. There are no constants in this world. All progress is overturned. Eventually.” Chewing, he sneered, “What’s the point in building roads they’ll overturn in a hundred years? I have to ask. You don’t have to answer.”
Allen did not answer. Good man.
Intertwining his fingers, Tony rested them on a knee and went on, “His shadow was worth more than most people will see in a life’s work. A life’s work. Aren’t we all equal?” Gesturing ineloquently at himself, he added, “I’m proud to be miserable; I’m just like my fellow man.”
The songbird quibbled at the window. Tony let it, chewing gum. When it quieted down, he said incongruously, “I don’t actually want to be miserable. I’m getting married, you know.” He stared at the bird near the window so he didn’t have to look at Allen’s expression, gauge his reaction. “I would like to be happy. I think that is all anyone wants to be.”
He disposed of the nicotine gum in its own wrapping. Allen did not once break his silence. Good man.
. o .
“What does that bird bring you?” Tony demanded.
Allen said, “Joy,” like it was that simple.
Anger and misery swelled up in Tony’s chest. “It’s a bird,” he said strongly.
“It’s my bird,” Allen corrected.
And maybe it really was that simple.
. o .
“I don’t think I am capable of unbridled joy,” Tony said one particularly sunny afternoon. “And I know this isn’t your area, Allen, you don’t have to tell me twice.” He paused, letting the sentiment dissipate in the silence, the weight of it evaporating so he could proceed. “I don’t think I am capable of being simply happy. It all has to be beautiful. If I notice the rug curling, my night is ruined. Who uses rugs? Who can stand the tired, tried-and-true, meaningless fuzz we call entertainment? Have I simply exhausted my life, Allen? Is that it? Is this why Einstein spent four decades on one failed project?”
Winston ruffled his feathers, then plucked at them. Tony said seriously, “I looked it up, you know. Gloster canaries. They live twelve years.”
Allen replied, “It’s a generous amount of time. For a small animal.”
Tony could not fight the unexpected snicker that shook him. He curled forward, doubled over, and laughed for nearly a minute. It was not quite hysteria. Perhaps it was a taste of that unbridled joy.
Desperate to regain his composure, Tony managed breathlessly, “Allen, that’s humanity.”
. o .
“I actually hurt myself,” Tony announced without much fanfare, entering the room and indicating the black eye prominently displayed on his face. After a beat, he explained, “Not like that,” and clarified the brief, thrilling, lost-face article of semi-weighted holographic softball. “Who knew half of Earth’s calculated gravity still hit like a motherfucker?” he concluded, tossing one leg over the other elegantly.
“Perhaps a quarter will be more agreeable,” Allen suggested.
“Ten percent,” Tony bargained automatically, folding his arms across his chest. “I won’t go a penny over nine.” Without fanfare, he added indelicately, “I’m tired of everything, Allen. Thoughts?”
Allen said carefully, “I assume traditional psychiatry is off the table.”
“Correct.” Tony fixed unyielding eyes on the doctor, adding grimly, “I don’t like talk therapy.”
“Bad experience?”
“I don’t like talk therapy,” Tony repeated.
Allen considered him. The songbird near the window chirruped.
“I miss when food tasted good,” Tony chimed in abruptly. “I haven’t eaten something I really enjoyed in a while.”
“Did something change?” Allen prompted.
Tony regarded him humorlessly. “Yes, Allen,” he said. “I got old. Became a carbon copy of my old man.” Sighing, he uncrossed his arms and grumbled, “Even got a fucking kid. And a job. I don’t know when I stopped wanting it. All of it. I don’t even want to stay in bed, I just don’t want to go out and pretend. Is that what everyone’s doing? Am I just out of touch? Buck up, get over it?”
“I don’t think so,” Allen said.
Tony looked at him, then his stupid little songbird. “Why would you want one?” he demanded.
“They’re very charming animals.”
“I didn’t think any idiot would bring a bird onto the premises,” Tony insisted. “‘No pets’ was comprehensive.”
“He’s more like a roommate,” Allen dismissed.
“You walk a fine line for a man with a lot to lose.”
“Being fired by you would still be a good mark on my resume,” Allen said, with utter unrepentance.
Tony said, “Damn you,” but he was smiling.
. o .
“People don’t want to listen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said.” Tony looked at Allen levelly. “People don’t want to listen. They want to get up and go, move on with their lives. And unless you give them a show,” he made a complicated movement that involved a few snaps and a flourishing clap, before magicking another stick of gum out of his sleeve, “well, why should they waste their time on you?”
“It is possible to have authentic, give-and-take relationships, Tony,” Allen said.
“No, Allen—it’s not. Because we are not wired for it. We,” he unwrapped the gum, “are wired to be selfish.”
Allen watched him, measuring him. “Does this have to do with your—”
“Thank you. You know, I was afraid I was going to have to come up with another metaphor. Yes.” Sighing, Tony said, “He listens. And listens. And to what end? What is he getting out of this?”
“Possibly a husband,” Allen offered.
Tony pointed another stick of gum at him like a weapon. “You. Thin ice.” He chucked the gum onto the desk. Winston chirped loudly at it. “Shut up. I’m talking.” Reaching up to rub his forehead, Tony said, “I don’t get it. What’s the point? What is the goddamn point, Winston?” He removed his hand and saw the bird preening its feathers, utterly unconcerned. “That’s it. That’s the point. None of it matters. Nihilism.”
“I really think it’s more—”
Tony made an eloquent throat-slicing gesture. Allen quieted.
“Unless you believe it matters,” Tony said with real disgust. “But that’s for shams and showmen. Stop believing—the show is over.” He leaned forward, reclaimed the gum, and pocketed it. “The most altruistic actions have a veneer of selfishness,” Tony proclaimed. “Is there anything good left? Really, truly, incorruptibly good?”
“Yes,” Allen said.
Tony looked at him and the damn bird. He sighed. “If you say the bird, I will fucking walk.”
“The bird is really, truly, incorruptibly good,” Allen said.
Tony said, “Take my damn money,” and dropped the check on the desk before walking out.
. o .
“I just want to be alive for something,” Tony emphasized. “For something, really, truly, deeply.”
“And is the great Tony Stark not enough?”
Tony frowned. “Don’t get sappy on me now, Allen.”
“I’m serious.” Tony ignored the declaration, staring at the ceiling, lounging lengthwise on the chair. “Is simply being Tony Stark not enough reason to be alive?”
Tony picked at a nail with his teeth. “You see yourself in a mirror,” Allen went on. “Static. But you are dynamic. Constantly evolving. And what you will be in five years is beyond our collective imagination. You could have the breakthrough of a lifetime in three days’ time, and you and I are at present ignorant.”
Releasing the nail, Tony switched to unfolding a stick of gum.
“You are as much a part of the play as you are an observer,” Allen went on, undeterred. “And you have no idea what will happen in the next act. It’s a little bit exhilarating, isn’t it?” He reached into a drawer and produced a bag of bird seed. “I mean, I never expected to actually have a bird, but here I am.”
“It’s a dumb bird,” Tony said unapologetically.
“Well,” Allen said, offering a puffed-up Winston his hand full of seed, “at least it’s nice to look at.”
. o .
“I don’t want a damn bird.”
“You don’t have to get one.”
“But I want to be happy,” Tony said explosively, flinging both hands into the air, nearly kicking the door shut behind him. With a short sigh, he crossed his arms instead, standing behind his chair. “I am happy,” he said sullenly.
“You sound overjoyed.”
“Be quiet, Allen.”
“Buy it, Stark.”
Furiously, Tony stripped off his jacket and flung it on the desk, more in anger than agreement. “That’s worth something.”
Allen simply leaned back in his own chair, then assisted Winston down from his perch so he could hop onto Tony’s jacket.
“He shits on my coat, I’m gonna be pissed,” Tony warned, dropping into the chair peevishly, cold without his jacket. He waited for a quip, but Allen knew better, simply arching his eyebrows expectantly. Scowling, Tony said, “We both like blue. It’s disgusting. We can argue about concrete versus tigerwood—preservation does not mean keeping it alive, ask the fucking dinosaurs—but we can’t argue about color schemes. We agree.” He rubbed his eyes, attempting to rid the weariness manually. “I think he was put on this Earth to spite me. I really do believe that.”
Winston shit on his coat. Tony wasn’t even mad, he was just disappointed.
“I really hate birds,” he declared, hanging the jacket over one arm delicately. “Pecking—paperweights.”
. o .
“Hello, Dr. Grant,” Steve Rogers said, with the put-upon patience only an overall pleased but at times exasperated fiancé could put upon, as Tony steered him into the room, both hands on his back. “How are you today?”
“The bird. The fucking bird,” Tony whispered. Steve turned to give him a very pointed look, then looked at the bird.
After a blatant pause, Steve said, “Nice bird.”
“Get out,” Tony growled, already dragging him out of the room.
“Nice to see you, Captain,” Allen said, barely heard over, Nice bird? ‘Nice’? What’s wrong with you?
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” Tony apologized, shutting the door firmly behind himself upon reappearance. “Really, he hated the alpacas. Hated them. They ate his wallet.” He smiled at the memory. “Real leather, too.” Shaking his head, he added, “He hates animals. Or animals hate him. I forget which. That’s a lie. Compulsive liar.” He gestured at himself in a showy, faux-apologetic manner, both hands open and indicating his own chest in self-flagellation, before dropping into the chair and pointing at Winston warningly. “You are a very bad bird.”
“Where on Earth did you find alpacas?” Allen asked.
“Peru. Virtually any petting zoo in America. Traveling salesman. Is that a thing? Traveling barnyard?” He paused, realizing he was on the edge of his seat in proper showman’s form, before carrying on: “Why are we still going to petting zoos when we can bring it right to the family home? Ice cream truck style. Live action entertainment. Weren’t you the one who said we were part of the show?”
“For a man on the brink of despair, you are awfully lively,” Allen acknowledged, voice deeper with sympathy.
“Thank you,” Tony said, his own voice flat but serious. “That’s what I keep telling people. ‘Don’t I look like a man on the brink of despair?’” He gestured at himself, prim and proper as always, and smiled toothily. “The most dangerous substances on Earth are invisible. Energy works on a level we can’t see. Yet we are most dazzled by visible iridescence. That’s what catches our eye. The harmless, normal . . . God, I don’t even know where I’m going with this. I’m tired, Allen. Make me less tired.”
“You should tell your fiancé. Maybe hug him.”
Tony looked at Allen, then at the stupid little canary sleeping on its perch. “Doctor’s orders?”
Smiling ruefully, Allen said, “Sure.”
. o .
“How much do I owe you?” Tony asked wearily.
Allen shrugged, looking exactly like a man who had received a mysterious summons in the middle of the night and responded promptly. There was no Winston. “You don’t owe me anything.”
Tony dug a shaking hand in his pocket for his checkbook, cursed when he realized he didn’t have a pen, and stole one off Allen’s desk. He scribbled a mere $0.10 in the tagline before tossing it on the desk. Allen didn’t say a word, tucking it into the drawer.
Tony leaned back in his chair and engaged in a brief but intense staring contest. Then he blinked, reached back in his pocket, and muttered, “Let me at least cover the gas.”
“You don’t—”
Peevishly, Tony scratched out $500, dropped it on the table, and stood up. “For your time,” he dismissed.
. o .
“Where’s the bird?”
Allen looked up from his tablet. “I thought you—”
Holding up a hand, Tony said seriously, “Allen.”
“I left him at home.”
Staring at him, Tony said, “Why?”
“. . . Was under the impression you didn’t like him, if I’m perfectly honest.”
“Be imperfectly honest,” Tony snapped, already turning. “You don’t leave the damn bird at home, Allen, for God’s sake.”
. o .
“I don’t believe in the power of positive thinking.”
Allen fed Winston. Tony kept talking.
“I believe in meaningful action. Chess is not a game of thought. It’s a game of lunge and parry. It’s give-and-take. It’s these things, moving, shaking, that matter. No thought ever spontaneously became a thing.” He reached for his pocket and realized he was out of gum. With a sigh, he continued, “You might say, doesn’t good thought inspire good action? No. Premeditation delays action. You have to go out there and make the prototypes, a thousand times, if you’re ever going to get a working machine. It is not enough to believe in the endgame, you have to make it.”
“You are a man of action,” Allen acknowledged.
Tony didn’t dismiss him out of hand. He simply stared out the window, perching his chin on hand, contemplating the universe. “If I stop acting, do I become a man of thought?”
“You can create blueprints,” Allen suggested. “Isn’t that what Einstein did?” Tony did not move his head, but he side-eyed Allen at the implication. “Maybe the feverish pace comes to a much-deserved close.”
. o .
“Steve?” Tony whispered.
Steve groaned, “Tony, it’s too early—”
“Yes, but—” Tony pouted, then acknowledged, “All right, maybe it is.”
He had scarcely turned around when Steve asked, “What is it?”
“No, it’s too early,” Tony protested.
“Tony.”
Tony turned to face him, mustering up his courage. “I’m lonely,” Tony said, again on a pout.
Steve squinted at him, like he was expecting a punchline. (In all fairness—it would not have been the first time.) But Tony just said sullenly, “Happy?”
“No,” Steve grumbled back. He sat upright, letting the blankets pool around his hips. He looked like David. He would always look too pretty to be real, but there was real warmth in his grip as he slung an arm around Tony’s waist and hugged him, forehead resting just below the arc reactor. Tony sighed and hugged him back, because it was mandatory.
And it was nice.
Steve wasn’t a talker. Didn’t ask all the nuisance questions, why are you lonely, why are you longing, why are you anything but radiantly happy, Iron Man? Didn’t even try to psychoanalyze Tony, get into his head and pick out the labels, the dreaded labels, narcissist, egotist, altruist, nihilist, pessimist, realist. Steve just said, What? You’re hurting? and acted in a genuine, affecting manner to fix it. It was admirably straightforward.
“Hug therapy,” Tony muttered, pleased with himself for defining it. “All the new rage,” he added, eliciting a warning grumble. “Shutting up now.”
. o .
“He’s a very lovable idiot,” Tony told Allen. “You just have to get past the surprise, that’s all. And by ‘surprise,’ I mean ‘occasional affronts to human decency.’ He rips bags of chips in half. It’s really quite horrifying to witness.”
Allen said, “You two seem very happy together.”
“No. God, no,” Tony scoffed, shaking his head. “Couldn’t be anything farther from happy together. I think he’s more miserable than I am,” he reflected, which was an odd sentiment to say out loud. “You know. Lost his entire family. When he was young, and impressionable. And I think he never got over inflation,” he added, the affectionate note coming back. “Great barterer. I mean, really, phenomenal barterer.”
“Is that why you can’t talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“You know. Someone else has it worse than you, so your problems don’t matter.”
Tony said, “Allen, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Well. At least you can acknowledge that much.”
Frowning, Tony said, “What does that mean?”
Winston chirped. Tony said, “Be quiet, Winston.”
“I just meant, you seem to bottle up a lot of hurt,” Allen said. “And it seems like you know it.”
“If I wanted a shrink, I’d pay for one.”
“Well.” Allen sprinkled some food into his palm for Winston. “You could always pay me not to be one.”
Sighing, Tony grumbled, “Godforsaken world,” and fished out his checkbook. “They actually pay him to attend ball games. Not to play, just to show up,” he began, and spent a goodly amount of time recapping Steve Rogers’ sincere indignation about being offered a single nicety for once in his godforsaken life.
. o .
“I do love him.
“On my worst days, the longest hours, those why the fuck am I even here? instants, I see him eating cut oats and I feel lucky.
“I feel lucky to have found a guy like him. To have found anyone like him.
“I liked Pepper, I really did. But we . . . hurt each other. I think more than we helped each other. But I don’t think I can break him. Is that a horrible idea? That I don’t think I can break him, so he feels safe to love?
“There’s something probably very deeply and fundamentally wrong with me. There was a time when I wouldn’t have committed my life to another person if it meant keeping my fortune, my legacy, my last name. I couldn’t have afforded it. I was. . . I am—
“I don’t even know. Is there a word for just wanting to live a long, happy life?
“He’s the opposite. He’d die for a small, vulnerable animal, if it came to that. It scares the shit out of me—knowing how low his bar is. He doesn’t try to come home if it means someone else dies. His long, happy life is the seconds we spend together and nothing less, nothing more.
“. . . I gotta say it, I don’t know what he sees in me. I mean, I do, I have a nascent idea, but I don’t see it through his eyes. I can look at myself in the mirror and pick myself apart, and he would say he likes how I sit across from him at the table so we can look at each other. Who notices those things?
“I hurt people. Good people, innocent people who want to be loved and love something in return. I don’t know how to do that. I’m reclusive, I’m volatile, I am every red flag that makes someone unmarketable. I am an unclimbable hill; there is no one who can learn the lay of the land. I am volcanic.
“What are the odds, pitting now against infinity, that I find someone like Steve Rogers? Guy’s invincible, absolutely made of stone. That’s what he is, he’s made of marble. Drives people crazy. There’s nothing you’re missing, nothing you’re not seeing—and people don’t know what to do with that. With an honesty that never transluces.
“I love him. I love that he’s weird. One of a kind. And I love that he loves me.
“He makes me feel weird. But safe. Like maybe I’m not actually the wrong species. Maybe I’m just weird. And it’s okay that we don’t understand it.
“He isn’t half of me, and I’m not half of him. He’s just the only person I want on my worst days. And he makes the best days better.
“I could spend the rest of my life watching him try generic breakfast cereals and feel like the luckiest fuck on this godforsaken world.”
. o .
Allen let him hold Winston.
It was a little frightening. Birds were little more than brittle bones and feathers. Perfect machines for flight—terrible for close encounters.
Tony actually held his breath until those little taloned feet gripped his wrist comfortably. Then he exhaled in relief and said, “There, see. I cannot imagine an easier thing to do. And you thought this was hard.” He winced as Winston warbled noisily. “Be quiet, Winston, no one asked you.”
. o .
“I don’t pretend to truly know you, Tony,” Allen said unexpectedly one day. “But I do believe you are a good man.”
Tony blinked, then said, “Allen, that was almost heartfelt.”
Allen smiled, then opened his drawer and picked up a small pile of uncashed checks, which he set on the desk. “I was never one for under-the-table work,” he admitted. “But I do enjoy our talks.”
“Talks is a generous word,” Tony said, around the unexpected lump in his throat. “Good man, Allen.” Standing, he nodded at the canary. “Winston.”
. o .
Steve and Tony got married.
At times, Tony thought it wouldn’t actually happen—that he was unmarriageable, that Steve was too good (or too evil, his horrified and admiring inner demon offered, recalling all those times he saw Steve putting on his socks before his pants), that some horrible extraneous circumstance would crash like a meteor into their lives and disrupt them.
But no such catastrophe materialized. Oh, sure, Clint Barton got impolitely drunk, Thor managed to squeeze three to five years out of Tony’s life via Extreme Norwegian Bear Hugging, and Natasha refused to bear witness to the actual ceremony, arriving after-the-fact to share a congratulatory smoke with Steve and Tony because the amount of intoxicated Clint Barton any of them could sanely handle had been exceeded—but it was still perfect.
Tony loved every bit of it. They broke nine thousand dollars of plates alone. Steve was very unhappy about it—the plates, that was, not the wedding itself.
Frankly, aside from the endearingly human moments when he told Tony he looked “real swell” and danced with him, he was his usual gruff, at times elusive, borderline cantankerous self, insisting that it wasn’t “his special day” no matter how many times Tony said it. Tony loved him very much. There was something surprisingly Zen about marrying “Captain America.”
“You would’ve liked it,” Tony told Allen later, allowing Allen to look through the pictures on his phone while holding Winston. There was something nice about the bird. Like a paperweight. It was good to hold. Not own. Simply hold. “Not to salt a new wound. Small, ride-or-die only. You understand.”
“It’s all right,” Allen assured. “Might have breached patient-doctor confidentiality, anyway.”
Tony gave him a sincerely unimpressed look. “Right. That sacred line. Which we’ve never crossed.” He gingerly held out his arm, allowing Winston to hop from his wrist to the desk. “You are an odd one, Allen. Sincerely odd. Something is wrong with you. You work with me.”
“I consider it an honor,” Allen admitted.
Grimacing, Tony said, “Sincerely odd, Allen.” Standing, he reclaimed his phone and added lightly, “Stay that way. I would hate to replace you. It’s messy. Non-disclosures.” Shuddering, he said on the way out, “We’ll be in touch.”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less.”
. o .
And they were.
Occasionally for the, well, more exuberant crisis. Broken bones, bout of inexplicable illness, occasional GSW, the works. “I thought retirement was supposed to be easier,” Tony grumbled, as Allen wrapped his foot in immobilizing plaster. “This is stupid.”
“Well,” Allen offered charitably, “your definition of retirement is fairly exuberant.”
“I am on call, I’m barely active,” Tony complained.
“Yeah, that checks out,” Steve said helpfully and entirely sarcastically, standing nearby with his arms folded across his chest.
Tony pointed an accusing finger at him. “I was perfectly willing to walk it off.”
Steve gave Tony a very typically unimpressed look. “Just wrap it up tight, doc,” he advised, without breaking eye contact.
Tony rolled his eyes, then turned back to Allen. “Don’t forget the backdoor we talked about.”
“Tony,” Steve warned.
Tony sighed. “I miss when you weren’t my shrink,” he told Allen. “Now I’m gonna have to deal with this,” he gestured meaningfully at Steve, “for the next three to six hours.”
“Weeks,” Steve corrected firmly.
Tony groaned. “See?”
“You know where to find me,” Allen assured.
Winston warbled from his perch. Tony said, “Uh-huh, you and the damn bird.”
. o .
“What the hell is this?”
Steve actually looked momentarily abashed, face flushed around the ears. “What’s it look like?” he grumbled, in standard double the hell down fashion.
Warily perched on his crutches, Tony reached for the ugliest stuffed bird he had ever seen, perched on their bed. It had a beak the same size as its plump, coconut-colored body. It took him a few seconds of staring at the abomination to realize what it was: “Kiwi.”
“What?”
Tony turned carefully—curse you, crutches—and chucked the flightless friend at him. Steve caught it reflexively. “Kiwi,” he repeated. “Flightless bird from New Zealand,” he clarified, making a grabby hand when Steve just held the bird. Steve had perfect aim, but he still insisted on carrying it over, allowing Tony to take it from his hand. “Dumb schmuck,” he said affectionately, taking advantage of the proximity to grab Steve’s shirt and pull him in for a quick kiss. “You know I hate birds.”
Still red-faced around the edges but less unsure, Steve said dryly, “Gee. How’d I miss that.”
“Utmost lack of observational skills,” Tony commiserated, shaking his head in mock chagrin. “Why a kiwi?”
Steve shrugged in a rarely self-conscious moment. “. . . Looked like a teddy.”
Tony pressed a doting kiss on his cheek. “Well,” he said, heart warm and satisfied with his weird, wonderful new life. “You’re not wrong.”