Beethoven

"Stephen gets hit on by a villain during a fight and Tony gets way too mad about it."

Stephen couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances at Tony from the corner of his eye as the after-battle review went on. Tony had been strangely quiet and stiff since the fight. Stephen had been fairly certain that Tony hadn’t been injured, but the strangeness of Tony’s behavior meant had Stephen suspicious.

The meeting ended and Stephen had to nearly run to catch up with Tony, who’d gotten out of his seat and out of the room with startling speed. “Tony,” Stephen called, surprised when Tony didn’t stop. Even when Tony was hiding injuries, he didn’t tend to ignore Stephen. Stephen caught up, touching Tony’s elbow to indicate a desire to talk.

Tony stiffened at his touch. Was the injury to his arm?

“Tony,” Stephen repeated, grateful when Tony did actually stop walking, turning toward Stephen, even if his gaze seemed focused closer to Stephen’s ear than Stephen’s face. “Did you get checked by the compound doctors?”

Genuine confusion crossed Tony’s face and his gaze flickered—briefly—to meet Stephen’s eyes before focusing back on Stephen’s ear. What was possibly going on with Tony? Tony met everything head on. It was thrilling, honestly. Stephen quite enjoyed the sensation of meeting Tony head on. He never was able to look away from Tony when it happened.

“I didn’t get hurt?” Tony sounded genuinely confused about why Stephen was asking.

⚙️◇•☆2026.05.29☆•◇⚙️

Happy Birthday to Tony Stark！！！

https://www.tumblr.com/ironstrangeprompts/797441046208512000/prompt-1647-stephen-loses-his-memory-everything?source=share

“—worried us,” the man was saying. Stephen stared at him, feeling lost. “You’ve been out for three days.”

He recognized the man—or thought he did—from a few fragmented memories. But even then, the man was a fuzzy element compared to the memory’s clear focus: Tony Stark.

Stephen scoured the memory. “Wong,” he said finally, carefully, interrupting the spiel about Stephen’s condition. “That’s your name, right?”

The man—Wong—stopped mid-sentence. “Yes,” he said, sharp concern in his eyes. “Do you not remember me?”

Stephen wasn’t sure how to answer that. “I don’t think I remember most things,” he said finally. His memories were splinters, and he tried to catalogue them. The more he looked through his memories, the more uneasy he felt. Nothing of his childhood. In his twenties, he had strange flash memories of tabloids, news articles, media events, gossip—all of Tony Stark—with a blurry memory of what was happening when seeing or hearing them. But there was no context. He remembered people gossiping about Tony Stark’s sex life while he seemed to be performing surgery, annoyed at the gossip. He remembered driving while the radio blared about Tony Stark being found in Afghanistan, brief surprise that the man was still alive. Dozens of memories just like those were in the mix.

But then… he could remember he and Wong presenting Tony Stark with a literal magic show—and what? how had he gone from presumed surgeon to magician?—about an upcoming alien invasion, deep concern in his chest at the incoming threat. At which point he remembered fighting aliens, but only the parts where Tony Stark was around.

“You don’t remember most things,” Wong said slowly. “What do you remember?”

Stephen pursed his lips. “Tony Stark.” The answer made Wong frown. It was a shame he and Tony had only talked rarely about Wong. Stephen felt impressions of his own fondness—he was quite certain he considered Wong a friend—and Tony seemed to think well of Wong, from the few things he’d said. “Everything around him is blurry. I know you and I were together when I met Tony; we told him about Thanos.” That name, at least, he remembered clearly. But mostly because he and Tony had talked about Thanos a number of times, during and after. 

He hadn’t seen Tony extensively since the whole thing with aliens. Maybe a dozen times since, with a few texts interspersed, and nothing important had happened in any of those meetings. Stephen’s own feelings during the conversations were very distinct. Extreme fondness. In fact, Stephen suspected fondness maybe wasn’t the extent of it.

Except Stephen didn’t want to put any names to this feeling when he had no other context and couldn’t figure out if these feelings he felt in those memories with Tony were Tony specific or not.

“Tony Stark,” Wong repeated. “Well. This is a problem.”

Imagine finding out you have 90 minutes to tie up a love story that's developed over thousands of years. You create something beautifully in character and completely on point for the plot. You pay homage to the original writer's legacy in a fitting and poetic way and create an ending that not only shows the depth of two people's love for each other but the wider love they have for the thing that brought them together in the first place.

And then you go online to find the loudest outcry is that everyone hates it and "THEY DIDN'T EVEN KISS!"

Yeah they both died with the rest of the universe but they chose that because they already had everything they wanted. Dinners, car rides, friends, books, plants, adventures, a life, together.

They’d already been life partners, they just didn’t know it yet, and a kiss, or lack thereof, doesn’t change that. Crowley and Aziraphale don’t need to prove their love with a kiss, especially not to each other.

And on the topic of their deaths, I’ve seen people calling it bury your gays???? If you need proof that media literacy is dead, there it is cuz ya’ll don’t know what bury your gays means. Asa and Anthony aren’t just some lookalikes, they’re reincarnations of Azira and Crowley. That’s why they’re instantly attracted to each other.

My issue is not the intimacy. Personally, I think a hug or forehead kiss would be more significant to the state of their relationship. Either would better represent their final moment.

My personal issue is EVERYTHING else.

They were not reincarnated, because God stated simply that they would not exist. These are two different people with the same name and face. Even if they were reincarnated, it diminishes their entire development through out the series.

This story was rushed. I understand that they initially had more story, but it was their choice to keep and edit it together. I would’ve preferred no finale at all.

Now let’s talk plot hole — because the only thing salvaged from the book of life was Aziraphale’s bookshop. Crowley and Aziraphale should’ve died then and there. Jesus was completely unnecessary to the story. Satan and Hell were also irrelevant. Crowley did not need to lose the Bentley to push this plot along — they already had multiple plot arches to drag them together.

This episode was fan service and poor cinematography hidden under the spectacle of CGI. Everything lead no where because the writers wanted a demon Aziraphale, cottage core ending, God appearance, and apology dance all in one. It has no depth.

They gutted the motivation of Aziraphale and Crowley like fish and replaced subtext with double screening.

season two: "they lost gabriel"

season three: "they lost jesus"