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“You’re going to have to see him at some point,” Wong pointed out, looking entirely exasperated, even as he slid his sling ring on. Stephen had asked Wong to handle the Avengers meeting this month. For the third month in a row. Stephen was pretty sure he was running low on favors, though, if Wong was actually bringing up Stephen’s avoidance.
Stephen detested the act of playing dumb, but right now felt like one of those moments where it was necessary. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said. There was really only one person Wong could be talking about. But Stephen just couldn’t handle seeing Loki flirt with Tony. Worse, he couldn’t handle watching Tony flirt back. “I’m not avoiding anyone.”
Wong just arched an eyebrow. “He knows you’re avoiding him, by the way.”
The words hurt more than Stephen thought they would—or should. Tony knew Stephen was avoiding him and wasn’t even trying to figure out why? Stephen had hoped he was more important to Tony than that. Their friendship spanned decades, at this point, and Tony was just letting him walk away?
His expression must have said something along those lines because Wong sighed. “If you don’t want to see him, it’d be rather rude to force you to see him,” Wong pointed out. “I know he’s texted you. It’s not his fault you’ve been ghosting him.”
That was a fair point. Maybe. The unfair part of Stephen wanted Tony to fight for their friendship, even if the rational part of him recognized that he was acting like a terrible friend right now himself.
“I’ll go to the meeting next month,” Stephen said, not sure if he meant it. Even if Wong said he wouldn’t, Stephen had other Masters who owed him favors. He’d just have to assess whether he’d shored up the defenses around his heart enough that seeing Tony fall in love with someone else again wouldn’t kill him. “Just… not this month.”
Wong just gave him a pitying look before leaving and Stephen turned back to his book.
The portal that opened five minutes later startled Stephen and he looked up from his book. “You’re back al—” He cut off at the sight of Tony, whose expression was sharp and mutinous.
The expression caused something in Stephen’s chest to twist. Tony had never looked at him like that before. But then, Stephen hadn’t purposefully avoided Tony for three months, cancelling their regular get togethers and avoiding any situation where he might see him.
“The meeting got postponed an hour,” Tony said. “Wong opened me a portal so I could talk to you.” Of course Wong had. The traitor. Tony’s lips twisted unhappily. “But luckily for you, that means you have a hard deadline for when you can get rid of me again.”
“I don’t know why you’d think I’d want to get rid of you,” Stephen said, though the words were rather weak given the three months of absolutely no contact that Stephen had enforced.
It was clearly the wrong thing to say because Tony’s jaw tightened and he turned around, walking a few steps away. When he answered, his back was still turned. “Do I at least get to know why you ended our friendship?”
Stephen flinched back a little. “I didn’t end our friendship!” he protested. He hadn’t. Really. He’d just… he’d needed to step back. Because watching Tony flirt with Loki, when after decades he hadn’t even looked at Stephen, had hurt and he’d just… needed to work through it.
Tony scoffed. “Right. Sure.”
Stephen searched for the right words to explain himself, but he didn’t know what to say. He could hardly explain, could he? Not with the truth at least. The silence stretched a moment too long and Stephen watched as Tony’s back tensed in what was either anger or pain, before he reached for his phone.
“Whatever,” Tony said, tone harsh. “If that’s the game we’re playing I’ll ask Wong to open another portal.”
The horrifying realization that if Tony sent that text, that Stephen would lose Tony completely had Stephen jerking from his seat. A few quick steps had him at Tony’s side and he caught Tony’s arm before he could send the text. “Please don’t,” he said. “I mean it. I wasn’t trying to end our friendship. I just… I needed to work through some things.”
Tony’s thumb hovered over the send button, but he sighed and turned off the screen. “What did I do?” The words were sharp and he still wouldn’t look at Stephen.
How did Stephen even answer that? It wasn’t like Tony wasn’t allowed to flirt with whoever he wanted. Even if it was Loki. Even if Stephen didn’t understand why it had never been him.
“I just…” Stephen took a deep breath. “I just…”
He could see Tony’s jaw clench, body stiffening, clearly frustrated.
“I love you,” Stephen said finally, the words he’d held for decades spilling out of him, now that the option was tell the truth or lose Tony entirely.
The words clearly surprised Tony, because he turned to look at him. “No you don’t,” he said.
Stephen felt his own frustration build. “Yes,” he said testily. “I do. I’m fairly certain of the two of us, I’d be the one who knows.”
Tony arched an eyebrow. “All right, fine,” he said. “You love me. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about that fact.”
The words made Stephen flinch. That was Tony’s response to Stephen admitting he loved Tony?
Tony must have realized how the words sounded because he grimaced himself. “I don’t,” he said. “You don’t want a relationship.” What? “And, yes, that doesn’t preclude you from loving me. And doesn’t mean I can’t love you. But what am I supposed to do with that when you don’t want a relationship? Am I not allowed to search out a relationship just because you don’t want one?”
Stephen stared at Tony. “I’ve been in love with you for decades,” he said. “I’ve wanted a relationship with you for just as long. What are you talking about?”
Tony blinked, clearly confused. At least now he wasn’t angry, but Stephen wasn’t sure if this was actually progress. “In college,” Tony said. “You told me you didn’t want a relationship. You said that a relationship would distract you from your goals.”
It was Stephen’s turn to blink in confusion. “What?”
“That James guy. Jones? Jeremy? I don’t know, it was a J name. He asked you out and you told him no. I asked you why, because he was very attractive and decently intelligent—” did Tony really have to bring up attraction to another man right now? “—enough so that he could be your type. You said you didn’t want a relationship. That people let relationships distract them and you had too much you were going to do with your life to let that happen to you.”
That did sound like something Stephen would say, and now that Tony had mentioned it, Stephen did remember that. It had been Geoffrey—not even a J name, but close enough in this case. Stephen’d already wanted Tony, by then, but Tony had been dating Clarissa and Stephen couldn’t admit to Tony that he loved him and Tony had been nudging Stephen into dating and Stephen hadn’t been able to deal with that.
So he’d sworn off relationships entirely to avoid it happening the next time someone asked him out and Stephen turned them down.
And it had worked, because Tony had never again pushed Stephen to date. Not once in the last almost three decades. Even long after Stephen had forgotten his apparently ill-thought-out declaration, Tony had remembered.
Stephen had never made that connection before.
Was that… No. It couldn’t be. But what if it was? Was that why Tony had never looked Stephen’s way? If he’d thought Stephen didn’t want a relationship? Or would it not have mattered? Would Tony have never looked his way regardless?
And how in the world was Stephen supposed to ask a question like that?
“I was already in love with you back then,” Stephen admitted. “And I didn’t want a relationship if it wasn’t you, but I could hardly tell you that. I still don’t,” he admitted. “Want a relationship with anyone not you, that is.” And the truth was that Stephen had tried to fall out of love with Tony—loving him was brilliant and beautiful and painful—he had made himself look at other people, but it hadn’t worked and Stephen had just… resigned himself to loving someone who would never see him that way. He had to look away. “I’ve tried to be happy for you. I have. When you were talking about maybe proposing to Pepper I did everything I could to be supportive.” Even if he’d been painfully and guiltily relieved when the proposal had never come. “But watching you flirt with Loki.” It had just been too much. Someone magical and snarky and clever, just like Stephen was, but was for some reason better. “I just… I thought I was used to the ache of knowing I could never have you, but this time… I needed to shore up my defenses and I couldn’t do that if I was constantly seeing you and Loki or hearing about the two of you.”
He tentatively looked back at Tony, needing to see how Tony was reacting to the confession.
Tony’s gaze was scrutinizing and even with decades of experience, Stephen was having a hard time reading it.
“Please,” Stephen said quietly. “I don’t want to lose your friendship.” The thought that he might have was agonizing. “I didn’t mean for it to go this way. I didn’t want you to feel like I didn’t care about you.”
“Because cancelling all of our regular get togethers, ignoring my texts, and even begging Wong to take your spot in meetings was supposed to not hurt?” Tony asked. “What was I supposed to think about that?”
Stephen had no good answers for that. “Tony—” Stephen stopped, not sure how to fix this. “Can you forgive me?” he asked finally, a little afraid of what the answer might be. Three months was a long time to let something like this fester and he knew it. Worse, he hadn’t even tried to fix it himself, Tony had been the one who’d forced the encounter. Tony clearly knew Stephen would have kept avoiding him even longer.
The thought that he might have lost Tony completely…
As much as it ached to watch Tony flirt and date and fall in love, it would hurt so much worse to lose what he did share with Tony. Tony was his best friend and had been for a long time. He couldn’t lose that.
Tony ran a hand over his face, then sighed. “Yes,” he said finally. “I’m pissed at you. I thought I’d lost my best friend and I didn’t even know why. But I don’t want to lose you, even if I’m pissed about it all, so, yes, I forgive you.”
The relief Stephen felt was real, even if he silently promised himself he’d do what he needed to to deserve the forgiveness. Tony forgave too easily and Stephen wouldn’t take that for granted.
“I won’t do it again,” Stephen promised. “Even if you decide to date Loki—” he’d been guiltily relieved every time Wong had returned from a meeting to inform him that while Loki and Tony still flirted outrageously, they hadn’t formalized anything, “—or anyone, really, I’ll be nothing other than supportive.”
Tony sighed heavily, turning away from Stephen to move to the table that Stephen had been reading at. He fell into the chair across from Stephen’s book.
After a moment Stephen followed him, settling back in his chair. He carefully marked his spot in his book before he shut it and set it aside as he waited for Tony to respond to Stephen’s declaration of support. As the silence expanded, though, Stephen wondered if Tony expected something more from him.
“Look,” Tony said, before Stephen could work out what more he was supposed to say. “I’m going to try this ‘healthy communication’ thing. Which, after three decades of friendship, you should know I’m very bad at.”
“We do okay,” Stephen offered softly. Normally they did, after all. The behavior of the last three months had been an aberration, not their standard behavior.
Tony huffed a laugh, leaning back in his chair so he could stare at the ceiling—Stephen got the sense he was trying to avoid looking at Stephen—and shaking his head. “Stephen, I have spent the last two and a half decades under the impression that you found the idea of romantic relations downright abhorrent. When you stopped talking to me, I thought…” Tony paused. “I worried you’d decided I was a distraction, now that you were a sorcerer and had new goals, new aspirations, new responsibilities.” He sighed softly. “I didn’t want to think that was true, because I thought… I thought our friendship was important enough to not be discarded. But… But I was afraid.”
Stephen froze. “No. Never. You’re good for me. Our friendship is good for me. You’ve supported me every step of the way. Med school. Residency. My whole medical career. The switch to becoming a sorcerer. You’ve made me better. And I never… I never meant it that way, the whole bit about relationships being a distraction. I just… couldn’t handle you trying to set me up with anyone else.” Anyone that wasn’t Tony himself.
“Well I know that now,” Tony said. “But this was something fundamental and I totally missed it.”
“I didn’t exactly want to broadcast that I was in love with you,” Stephen pointed out. “The fact that I’ve never been able to make myself want anyone else means I wasn’t ever looking for a relationship.” Just mourning the impossibility of one.
Tony just shrugged in a way that indicated he wasn’t going to argue about it, even if he disagreed with Stephen’s point. “I’m just saying. Clearly I’m not as in tune with you as I thought I was. Because I genuinely just… didn’t know. And I’m very good at detecting people’s attraction to me.”
Stephen hesitated, but after his earlier bout of honesty, it wasn’t like he could embarrass himself any more. “You are attractive,” Stephen said. “I’m not denying that.” Quite the opposite, Stephen was wildly attracted to Tony. “But it’s not exactly at the top of the list for reasons I love you.” Which was saying quite a bit. “It’s just a nice perk. You’re not nearly as good at detecting… genuine affection as you are at detecting attraction.”
That was enough to make Tony look at him again, gaze once again scrutinizing, before he went back to looking at the ceiling to avoid Stephen’s gaze. “Anyway. Trying to communicate healthily for a minute here.”
There were so many things that could mean that Stephen found himself on edge. “All right,” he said.
“You’re my best friend, Stephen,” Tony started. “And I can’t go through the last three months again. I won’t.”
“It won’t happen again,” Stephen promised. Stephen should have found another way to handle the jealousy and the pain, and he would going forward, but even beyond that, Stephen hadn’t exactly liked not seeing or talking to Tony. He’d missed Tony terribly.
Tony hummed and nodded. “I am sorry I hurt you.”
Stephen looked away, trying to figure out the right way to respond to that. “You’re right,” he said. “You deserve to find a relationship that makes you happy. I’d never want to deny you something that would make you happy.” He’d just wanted to be the person who was making Tony happy.
That earned him a half nod half shrug. “I should have tried to understand your relationship aversion better,” Tony said. “I just… I didn’t want to press.”
In some ways it was a relief that Tony had just so fully believed Stephen’s aversion to relationships, it was almost a balm to his pain that Tony had never seemed to even think about looking at Stephen that way. True, Tony might not have looked his way anyway, but Stephen could pretend. Stephen didn’t think that was something he could say out loud, though. “I think, if I really had been relationship averse, I would have appreciated the restraint,” Stephen said instead.
“I admit,” Tony said, his words coming slowly. “I was almost glad.”
The words made Stephen pause. “What do you mean?”
“It meant that I wasn’t going to lose you to someone else,” Tony said. He wrinkled his nose. “Which… okay, maybe that’s not fair. That I wanted to stay the relationship you prioritized, while I was out… philandering.”
“You never threw me aside,” Stephen said. It was something he’d always been so grateful for. It had helped ease the pain of never being chosen romantically when he had still stayed one of the most important people in Tony’s life. Sexual and romantic partners had come and gone, but Stephen had stayed. “And you understood me,” Stephen said. “Understood my drive and my goals and how important those were to me and the fact that it didn’t make you any less important.”
He supposed, with that in mind, it made sense that Tony had so readily believed that Stephen had called relationships a distraction. Because Stephen’s goals had always been extremely important to him. Not to the degree Tony had thought, but there had been an element of it.
“I like that about you,” Tony said. “I always have. Passion like yours is rare. You want something and nothing will stop you from getting it.”
Stephen smiled a little at that, though that didn’t stop him from correcting Tony. “Not entirely true,” he said. He’d wanted Tony, after all. Some things you couldn’t get just by wanting them.
Tony glanced at Stephen, then tilted his head in acknowledgement. “It wasn’t just that I didn’t want to be de-prioritized,” Tony said. “I mean, that’s the biggest part, but not the entirety of it.” He licked his lips. “If you didn’t choose anyone, it meant that the fact that you didn’t choose me didn’t mean I wasn’t good enough for you.”
The words took a second to make sense, and even then Stephen wasn’t entirely sure he could trust his interpretation.
“You mean…”
Tony shifted, hand coming up to rest on the table as he started tapping in a familiar nervous gesture. Tony did his best to avoid those sort of gestures, but he’d always trusted Stephen enough to let those weaknesses show. “I mean, if you had been pursuing romantic relations, I’d probably feel pretty similarly to how you felt when I was flirting with Loki.”
Stephen’s heart pounded in his chest. “Oh.”
“Oh,” Tony repeated, unimpressed. “That’s what you’re giving me?”
That was hardly fair. “When I told you that I loved you, you first told me that I didn’t, and then when I repeated the declaration, you literally told me that you ‘don’t know what you’re supposed to do about that fact’. I don’t think you should be throwing stones.”
Tony paused. “Okay. Fair.”
Stephen hesitated. “To clarify,” because if he was misunderstanding this and acted on it, that would be agonizing, “you’re saying that you… like me?”
“Like you,” Tony agreed. “Love you. Kind of want to be the most important person in your life in a way that is probably not entirely healthy. And have maybe looked for you in everyone I’ve dated for years. Jenny the renowned cardiologist. Pepper and her obsessive work ethic and biting wit. And I admit, the magic and snark that Loki provided might have appealed to me because I saw them in you first.”
The words made Stephen go warm. Had Tony really? That was gratifying in a way it probably shouldn’t be.
“Don’t get me wrong, I did like them as people,” Tony said, as though wanting to make sure Stephen knew he wasn’t entirely callous—which Stephen hadn’t thought. “I wasn’t like you, I hated being alone. So instead of avoiding relationships entirely I was… picky about my partners.” Tony’s lip twitched up in a sad smile. “It probably wasn’t fair. But… well, I did try to treat them right.”
“I know you cared about them,” Stephen said. “I saw it.” Was intensely jealous of it. “I do have a proposal for how you can avoid the problem entirely, however.”
Tony snorted. “Do you now?”
“I do,” Stephen said. “Given I’m not averse to relationships as long as the relationship is you and you’ve been looking for pieces of me in all of the relationships you’ve pursued, we can both get exactly what we want if we just… choose each other.”
“An interesting proposal,” Tony said. His eyes glinted with a smile. “I don’t know if I should reward you for ignoring me for three months.”
Stephen shrugged. “How about reward me for loving you for over two and a half decades while never expecting anything from you?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” Tony stood from his chair, coming around the table to perch on the armrest of Stephen’s. “I’ve wanted to do this for years.”
The kiss he gave Stephen had Stephen surging forward. He stood, managing to keep the kiss going as he shifted them closer, the result ending with Tony pinned between Stephen and a bookshelf. He was breathing heavily when he pulled back. If a part of Stephen had worried that kissing Tony could never live up to the ideal of wanting to kiss Tony, the fears were quickly put to rest. “I’ve wanted you to do that for years,” he said. “And I’d rather like you to do it again.”
Tony did just that.
A heavy clearing of someone’s throat pulled Stephen back an unknowable time later.
It took effort to pull away from Tony for long enough to find the source: an unimpressed Wong standing on the other side of the portal. “Took you long enough. Stark, the meeting is starting. I gave you your hour.” He arched an eyebrow. “Which I see you made good use of.”
“Can I play hooky?” Tony asked. “Today feels like a good day to play hooky.”
“No,” Wong said. “In fact…” He stepped through the portal. “Now that Stephen’s not avoiding you he’s going to the meeting. Though I suggest you sit far away from each other so you don’t distract each other the whole time.”
Stephen thought there was no hope for that. He was going to be hopelessly distracted by Tony no matter how far away he was.
“Fine,” Tony muttered. “I’ll go to this stupid meeting.” He caught Stephen’s hand as he moved toward the portal and Stephen followed more than willingly. Sure, he might want to kiss Tony some more, but after wanting Tony for over twenty years, another hour of waiting for his chance was nothing, not when—this time—he knew that he’d get Tony at the end of it all.