Work Text:
Wong was woken up by a pounding on the Sanctum's front door. He really didn’t want to get up. He had just managed to fall asleep, plagued by dreams of Stephen’s death that he couldn’t remember.
Getting up out of bed also meant facing the reality that Stephen wasn’t there. Because Stephen was dead, had been one of those blipped, and Wong had no way of knowing if Stephen would ever come back.
Something in Wong tugged him towards the door, however. He felt like this was important, somehow. Wong found the strength to kick the sheets off around his ankles and stand up. He ignored the other side of the bed, cold and empty and matching the ache in his heart and the chill of the hollow sanctum.
Wong pulled on a robe as he made his way down the grand staircase – he vaguely noted that it smelled like Stephen, the shoulders too narrow and the arms too long – and opened the door.
Tony Stark stood there, bags under his eyes, face gaunt, his eyes hollow and stained with grief.
“Stark?” Wong asked hesitantly, his voice heavy with the exhaustion that just wouldn’t go away, accent thick and pronounced.
Stark just blinked, seeming to barely register Wong's presence. “Tony. I’m Tony.”
“Tony. Can I help you?”
Tony didn’t respond for a moment. Wong was about to prompt him again when he finally spoke. “I don’t… I don’t know. No one else.. Understands.”
Something in Wong understood, somehow. He could explain why he opened the door wider and ushered Tony in. Tony mumbled a thank you before he collapsed against Wong. “I don’t trust anyone else to understand. I just. You knew Stephen. And he–” Thick tears cut Tony off.
“He’s gone.” Saying it out loud made it feel real. Realer than it had in the weeks since the memorial. “He’s gone.” Something finally broke and Wong felt himself clawing Tony closer to him, tears dripping onto Tony’s shoulder. He had just shown up on Wong's doorstep, distressed and almost a shell of the man he used to be and here they were, crying on each other at four in the morning.
Wong didn’t know how long they stood there, crying together. Part of Wong expected Stephen to wander out of his room, fully dressed, and pull Wong into a hug, the same way he had that first night living together and every night after they had confessed.
“It hurts.” Tony finally said. Wong nodded, wiping his tears away with a sleeve of the robe -- Stephen's robe.
“It does. It really, really does.”
Suddenly, Tony seemed to remember himself and pushed himself away from Wong. “I’m sorry, I just- I have no right to mourn Stephen or be here, I barely knew him, but I just-”
“You knew him.”
Tony laughed wetly. “I did. God, I did. I knew him for an hour and it felt like I had known him a lifetime and I just, I can’t help it." Tony paused, throat working as he tried to express his thoughts. "He showed me the future, you know. Not all of them, but some. And when he came back, I just. I couldn’t help but love him.”
Wong sniffled, fighting back more tears. He didn’t cry often, his emotions staying locked up where even he couldn’t access them. He had felt so deeply his entire life, and it was like Stephen had managed to invade every aspect of Wong’s life until he had created the key to Wong’s heart and made himself at home.
“He does that. Under the arrogant asshole, he’s.. He’s something else. He’s brilliant and caring and he loves so deeply. You just..”
“You don’t see it until he lets you.” Tony finished.
“Yeah. That.”
Silence fell in the Sanctum. Wong realized that he was still clutching Tony, despite the space Tony had tried to put between them. Wong tried to pull away, but Tony ended up pulling him back, into a proper hug. Wong realized that the last time he had been this close to anyone was when Stephen had pulled him into a kiss and a quick “I love you” before he had stepped up to fight Thanos’ children and they had lost track of each other. Wong had to learn of Stephen’s death through the shockwave of magic that had blasted through the multiverse, a sign that the Sorcerer Supreme was dead.
“I miss him.” Tony’s voice was so quiet, barely a whisper. Wong almost missed the admission. “It’s all my fault he’s dead. He traded the time stone for my life and now he’s gone. It would have been better if Thanos had just killed me on Titan.”
Wong let out a breath. He didn’t know that. “I miss him too. And it’s not your fault. Stephen made his own decision, one that he thought was right. He wouldn’t have let you just die. That’s not like him.”
Tony didn’t respond. A few seconds later and his shoulders were shaking again. Wong just held him silently.
Stephen was gone, and it hurt. It hurt more than anything Wong had ever experienced, but it had happened and there wasn’t anything to do but get through it.
At some point, Wong had led Tony to his bed. They didn’t do anything, just laid there and held each other. Wong watched as Tony drifted off to sleep in his arms, tears drying on his cheeks. Wong tried to sleep as well, curled up with Tony. It was something almost poetic, Wong thought, of two grieving men, nearly strangers, trying to give each other some semblance of relief.
The next morning, Wong woke up to a warm body and soft snores and an ache in his chest. It wasn’t Stephen, and he knew that it would never be the same, but maybe, just maybe, it was the start of something new.