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“Rhodey-bear!” Tony greets him, grinning broadly and slapping him on the shoulder. “It’s been too long since we’ve had some us-time. I’m glad you could make it.” He leads James into the kitchen, opens the fridge, and pulls out a beer to hand to him.
James takes the bottle, smiling back, if less broadly. “I wouldn’t miss it,” he promises. “I’m only sorry the brass have kept me so busy.” Some of the developments in Tony’s life lately seem… Well, Pepper had sounded genuinely worried.
“You know I can fix that,” Tony says, taking a beer for himself and leading them back out to the living room couches. He flops down easily. “I may not have the pull that I did back in the day, but the military still wants me for my body armor, among other things.”
“And you know I don’t want you boosting my career,” James counters. He sits on the couch opposite Tony and puts his feet up. “Not any more than being your friend does all by itself, anyway,” he says wryly. Tony makes a derisive noise but lets it go. “So,” James goes on, trailing his voice off leadingly for a moment. “What’s this I hear about you dating Strange? Aren’t I supposed to vet your partners?” James laughs a little, because that’s always been mostly a joke between them. It feels less like a joke this time.
Tony’s chuckle is more honest. “What can I say? He swept me off my feet. Almost literally: we turned that corner at one of the Superhuman Defense Fund galas.”
Damn. That’s longer than Pepper had thought. “And you really like the guy?”
Tony’s eyes light up and he sits up out of his sprawl, leaning forward instead. “He’s amazing, Rhodey. I mean, obviously he’s gorgeous, but he’s also brilliant. Magic is one thing, but you should hear him talk medicine. Plus, he looks at me like I hung the fucking moon. He’ll drop anything short of a life or death emergency just to talk to me. It’s like… I think he thinks I’m the most important person in the world. Not just to him, either, the most important person, period.”
James sits up, too, and chooses his words carefully. “He sounds a little intense.”
“Intense, or obsessed?” Tony asks, smirking.
Of course he sees right through James. “Pepper’s told me some things,” James admits. “Honestly? I was a little worried he wouldn’t want you to see me.”
Tony scoffs and takes a swig from his beer. “Look, I do actually get where that concern comes from, I’m not blind, but Stephen knows how important you are to me. Taking some time for the two of us to hang out tonight was his idea, believe it or not.”
“Seriously?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Tony says, making an X over his heart. “Except not really, Stephen would kill me. And with his power set, I’m not ruling that out as a literal impossibility.”
A laugh escapes James despite himself. “You know I’m in favor of anyone who gets you to take care of yourself,” he says, “it’s just… Pepper says sometimes he just pops out of a portal and sits there watching you. I did some checking, and it seems like he might have been poking around your confidential records. And weird shit has been happening to people who talk shit about you in public.”
Tony doesn’t look surprised by any of this. “What kind of weird shit?” He takes another sip of his beer.
“One guy swears after he made a comment about you and reckless driving, every stoplight he approached for a week went red,” James says. “A journalist who published an article speculating that you were still dealing in weapons under the table claims they couldn’t tell a lie for a month. The woman who wrote that so-called ‘exposé’ about your ongoing drug use had to be checked into the psych ward for three days because she started seeing monsters all over New York.” James could go on, but Tony’s smirking. “It’s true, isn’t it? All of that, it was Strange.”
“Is it such a bad thing that someone wants to come to my defense?” Tony asks. “None of them were hurt, right? None of those three, and none of the others, either.”
“Well, the wife of the guy who couldn’t lie left him,” James says. “But other than that… no.”
“There you go, then.” Tony takes another swig from his beer.
James hesitates. “Just because no one got hurt doesn’t mean that it’s okay. This is not normal behavior, Tony. If you’re not worried about what Strange is doing to these people, aren’t you a little worried that he’s keeping such close tabs on you that he knows about these things what seems to be the second they happen?”
Tony finishes his beer and sets it aside. “Look,” he says seriously. “I am absolutely aware that this isn’t normal behavior. Stephen isn’t normal. And neither am I. I’ve tried to do normal relationships. I tried really fucking hard with Pepper, Rhodey, you know I did. But you tell me: was I happy?”
“No,” James admits, sighing. Tony had put on a pretty good show with Pepper. James thinks that he even convinced himself he was happy, for a while. But it wasn’t real.
“Stephen makes me happy,” Tony says. After a moment he snorts and flops back against the couch again. “And like everything else that’s ever made me happy, if it blows up in my face I know you and Pep will be there to help pick me up after.”
Despite everything, James smiles and says only, “Always, Tones."
Because that’s the first time Tony has ever said “if it blows up” instead of “when it blows up.”