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The best thing about Avengers galas was that Tony didn't have to go to them as ‘Tony Stark’. Iron Man got eager questions about battles instead of subtle angling for funding. Iron Man got admiration instead of digs at his personal history. He couldn’t drink with the faceplate down, but he didn’t need to drink to get through these things with the armor on.
All of which made it enormously frustrating when the neurosurgeon he was currently chatting with—Doctor Strange, a hard name to forget—visibly deflated when he learned ‘Tony Stark’ wouldn’t be making an appearance. If Iron Man started having to field funding requests, Tony was going to scream. “I’ve never seen someone so disappointed to meet the hero instead of the money man,” he said.
Strange shot him a withering look. “You know damn well that Stark is a lot more than the money man, and your eagerness to frame him that way does you no favors.”
Shit, had he slipped? What did Strange know? “Stark funds the Avengers,” Tony said. “What else would you call him?”
“More of a hero than any of you,” Strange says, waving a hand to indicate the other Avengers. “Sure, he funds the Avengers. He also funds the new superhuman rehabilitation wing at the prison. And the foundation that helps neighborhoods rebuild after battles. He wrote software that responds to supervillain attack alerts and quarantines the user’s devices to prevent data loss and he gave it away for free.” Strange glanced over the heroes attending the gala and snorted. “Any one of the Avengers falls, they’ll be replaced by a new recruit in a week,” he said. “There’s no replacing Tony Stark.”
Tony could only stare as Strange turned and walked away.
No one had ever called Tony Stark a hero before.