IronStrange Haven, formerly IronStrangeHQ

As he climbed the stairs, he greeted the apprentices and members who now recognized him and were no longer surprised to see him in the building.

He knew Stephen was home because they had exchanged text messages that afternoon. Tony had been away for two days and wasn't expected back until tomorrow, but negotiations with the UN had ended earlier than expected, so he decided to surprise his lover.

He knocked softly on the sorcerer's door, and to his surprise, it opened not onto the sorcerer but onto the Cloak of Levitation.

"Hi, there."

The cloak patted Tony on the shoulder and moved aside to let him in. 

"Stephen?"

No answer.

Tony stepped further into the dimly lit room and saw him.

The sorcerer was asleep with his arms folded under his head on an old manuscript on his desk, barely illuminated by the faint glow of a desk lamp.

Since Stephen didn't react to Tony's presence, Tony figured that his lover must be really tired. 

He wasn't surprised. They were both workaholics and stubborn to the core. They were unable to stop until they had achieved their goal. Even if it meant neglecting themselves. 

Stephen had been working relentlessly for weeks, strengthening not only the mystical defenses of the New York Sanctum but also those of Kamar-Taj itself. 

Since Thanos it had been known throughout the universe that Earth possessed two Infinity Stones that's why both Stephen and Tony had been doing everything they could to protect the planet from physical or magical attacks.

Lately, they hadn't been able to see each other often. When they did, it was usually just a few stolen minutes at one or another's place. 

Still, Tony felt bad for not realizing that his lover was working himself to death.

Seeing Stephen asleep, Tony naturally didn't have the heart to wake him up just to spend time together. But that didn't mean he couldn't help him a little.

Turning to the Cloak of Levitation, he softly asked, "Will you help me put him to bed?" 

The cloak floated across the room to Stephen. As Tony gently lifted him off the desk, the cloak slipped under the sorcerer's arms. Tony put one of Stephen's arms around his neck and supported his waist with his arm. 

Stephen was so exhausted that he barely reacted as Tony and the cloak carried him the short distance to the bed.

He let out a slight grunt when they laid him down, then continued to sleep.

Tony assumed the exhaustion was physical and magical, at least as much as he understood the latter.

He whispered to the cloak, "I'll take care of the rest. I know you're a mystical artifact, but would you mind watching the door tonight and not letting anyone in unless it's an emergency? Like, 'the world is in danger' emergency?" 

The Cloak patted him on the shoulder in agreement, then left Stephen's room and gently closed the door behind him.

Tony climbed onto the bed and began to undress the sorcerer. He started with the belts around his waist and the armbands wrapped around his forearms. Then he removed the heavy blue surcoat.

In order to remove the tunic, he had to sit Stephen up. He lifted him gently and held him under his arms.

"Tony...?"

Tony answered gently. "It's okay, love. I'm just helping you get comfortable."

Stephen hummed and let him do it without a word, docile like a puppet until Tony had completely undressed him, leaving him only in his briefs. 

"Come on. Now, get under the covers."

Tony rolled the sorcerer over slightly, adjusted the pillow under his head, and covered him with the comforter. He checked that the hand under the comforter was free of any pressure and saw that the other hand was near the sorcerer's face. Tony took it gently, kissed the palm, and placed it back delicately. 

He then headed for the door, but turned back one last time to look at his sleeping lover. Seeing the sorcerer alone in the middle of his big bed made Tony's throat tighten. He really didn't want to leave.

He whispered to himself, "Oh, screw it..."

He walked back, took off his clothes, and put them on the sorcerer's desk chair. Then, he walked around the bed.

He lifted the comforter before slipping underneath it, close to Stephen. 

He hesitated for a moment, then reached out and wrapped his arms around his lover's waist. He pulled Stephen close until his back was pressed against his chest.

Stephen stirred in his sleep, muttering something unintelligible before pressing himself closer to Tony. 

Wanting to be sure that Stephen was sleeping peacefully, Tony did not fall asleep immediately. Instead, he let his mind wander and recalled memories of their first meeting.

What is your job exactly, besides making balloon animals?

Protecting your reality, douchebag.

Neither of them had held back. 

Neither had given ground to the other. 

It had been a clash of egos. 

And now they were like this. 

Tony was holding in his arms the person he trusted most in the world, his sorcerer, whom he loved more than anything.

He pressed a kiss into Stephen's hair, breathing in the scent of incense and old grimoires that was uniquely his. Then he laid his head on the pillow, closed his eyes, and let sleep carry him away. 

**********

When he woke up, the first thing Stephen noticed was the unusual warmth against his back. Then he felt the arms around his waist. 

Tony. 

He blinked several times; his mind was foggy. His gaze fell first on his clothes and Tony's, which were carefully placed on the chair. Then he looked at his desk, where the Book of Vishanti lay open. Vaguely, he remembered falling asleep on it. Luckily, Wong hadn't seen him.

He turned gently in Tony's arms, looking at him fondly. His face was relaxed from sleep. His hair was slightly tousled. His mouth was slightly open, letting in small puffs of air. 

No doubt Tony had put him to bed. 

Stephen frowned, realizing that Tony wasn't supposed to come back until today. 

This meant that Tony must have wanted to surprise him. In the end, however, it was Tony who had been surprised to find a sleeping sorcerer.

Stephen felt bad about not being awake when Tony arrived. 

As if sensing his embarrassment, Tony tightened his arm around Stephen's waist and mumbled sleepily, "Good morning." He blinked several times and asked, "Or is it already afternoon?"

Stephen gently brushed his lover's hair back and said, "It's definitely morning. Good morning, Tony."

Like a cat, Tony rubbed against his hand.

The gesture was so trusting that Stephen felt a lump in his throat.

He said sheepishly, "Tony, I'm really sorry. You probably wanted to surprise me, and I...”

"You were exhausted," Tony finished.

He turned his head into the wizard's hand, kissed his palm, and continued, "Don't even think about apologizing. Not to me. I know what you're going through."

"But—"

“Shush.” Tony placed a finger on Stephen's lips. "No buts. For once, I got to take care of you. Besides, if I hadn't arrived unexpectedly, you'd probably be crippled with pain, considering the position you were in.”

Stephen kissed Tony's finger on his lipes and said tenderly, "Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

Tony replied playfully, "Yes, but it's the kind of thing I never tire of hearing."

Stephen brought his face closer to Tony's.

"I love you, Tony Stark."

He sealed Tony's lips with a tender, deep kiss. Tony responded with equal tenderness, resting his hand on Stephen's neck and burying his fingers in his hair.

However, their kiss was interrupted by a light knock on the bedroom door.

The Cloak of Levitation rushed over to the wall clock and pointed at it frantically.

Stephen sighed. "It seems duty calls."

Tony gently caressed his lover's cheek and was about to speak when his phone vibrated.

He got up, walked around the bed, and looked for it in his pants. Stephen didn't miss a moment of his lover moving around half-naked in his bedroom and he really regretted that they couldn't make more of this moment.

Tony picked up his phone and sighed, "Duty calls for me as well. Yet another meeting I absolutely have to be at."

The intimate atmosphere of their awakening gradually faded in the face of their responsibilities. 

Stephen had also gotten up and started to get dressed at the same time as Tony.

"I don't know about you, Tony, but I can't face the day without coffee and breakfast. How about you join me before you go off to do your duty?" Unless you don't have the—”

Tony's face lit up at the thought of spending more time with his lover. 

"I have time. I gladly accept the invitation.”

They finished getting dressed and left Stephen's room.

The Sanctum was still empty, so Stephen turned to Tony and held out his hand. Hand in hand, they walked to the kitchen, chatting about what they had been doing separately over the last few days.

Later, as Tony returned to the tower to prepare for his meeting, a thought made its way into his mind.

If not for their respective duties, it would seem like an ordinary morning for an ordinary couple. 

An ordinary married couple.

Tony was almost breathless when he realized that it didn't scare him at all.

His phone vibrated, pulling him out of his thoughts.

Stephen.

Dinner tonight?

Tony replied immediately.

At my place. Bring some wine.

The reply was also immediate.

Perfect. Have a good day. Love you.

Suddenly, the prospect of the boring negotiations ahead didn't seem so daunting to Tony. All he had to do was think about the end of the day.

When he would be home.

With Stephen.

_________

Still not beta'd

Still not my native language

Still hoping you'll enjoy this story 🥰

Still thanking you for bearing with me 😝

Notes:

This is part 1 of 3. The next two parts will be up for whumpuary days 23 and 25.

Stephen’s heart pounded in his chest. One moment he’d been in the New York Sanctum, taking some time to familiarize himself with it now that he was its ‘Master’, the next moment he found himself in a completely unfamiliar environment.

It looked like some sort of jungle or rainforest. The moss reminded him of images he’d seen of temperate rainforests, but the massive leaves on the plants around him looked like something from a jungle. Stephen closed his eyes, and took a deep steadying breath. He knew, without having to check, that he didn’t have his sling ring on him. Foolishly, he’d set it down on a table in the library before wandering through the shelves. He slipped his hand into his pocket and checked anyway.

Nothing. Just as he’d expected, but it still made him grimace. Stephen turned his head and looked at the Cloak of Levitation’s lapel.

“Do you have any idea what just happened?” he asked it. He was still getting the hang of communicating with it. When it came to movement, their connection worked seamlessly. The Cloak simply understood Stephen’s intentions when it came to moving in three dimensional space. And Stephen… it was as though a whole new area of his brain had been activated. He had always been good at mental visualization, but now he related to the space around him in an entirely different way. He imagined it was a bit like how a bird might process their spatial awareness, and it came from his connection to the Cloak.

As marvelous as that was, it didn’t help them communicate about anything other than coordinating their movements.

The Cloak tilted its lapel as though in thought, and then made a wobbly sort of ‘so-so’ motion.

“You have some idea, but it’s vague?” Stephen guessed.

The Cloak bobbed its lapel up and down in a makeshift nod.

Stephen sighed. He wasn’t exactly interested in playing twenty questions with the Cloak when it didn’t even have much information to impart. He wasn’t entirely clueless himself; he had felt the strange surge in mystical energy just before they’d suddenly been here. That almost certainly had something to do with them being translocated.

The problem was that he had no idea where they’d ended up, or how to get back. He could just be in some obscure rainforest somewhere on Earth, but… Stephen closed his eyes and concentrated on the dimensional energy around him. He had yet to visit any of the other dimensions that Kamar-Taj was aware of, but in the last week and a half he’d learned about many of them as Wong had explained Kamar-Taj’s extra-dimensional trading partners to him.

His heart felt like it dropped into his stomach at what he sensed. The energy around him wasn’t the familiar eldritch energy of Earth’s dimension. He could still access energy from Earth’s dimension to do magic if he needed to, but accessing the energy of a dimension other than the one he was currently in was a more difficult technique – one he had barely any familiarity with.

If he was more experienced he would almost certainly be able to tell what dimension he was in from its energy, but that was currently beyond his abilities due to sheer lack of exposure.

A thud from behind him had Stephen whirling around. It was a man dressed in an expensive suit – at least as nice as the ones Stephen used to wear to speaking engagements. He had apparently stumbled on arrival, and jerked upright at Stephen’s movement.

It was Tony Stark. Iron Man. Stephen stood frozen, stunned for a moment.

Stark touched one wrist with his other hand, and suddenly he was pointing what looked like a gauntlet from his Iron Man suit at Stephen.

“What the hell did you do?” Stark demanded. “Who are you?”

Stephen took an instinctive step back and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“I didn’t do anything, as far as I’m aware. I suddenly ended up here, just like you.” Stephen considered. “Though I have been here for a couple minutes already. Not long enough to figure out how this happened,” he added.

Stark eyed him skeptically.

“As for who I am, my name is Doctor Stephen Strange.”

“Doctor?” Stark scoffed. “That getup of yours doesn’t exactly scream ‘doctor’ to me.” The hand aiming at Stephen hadn’t lowered at all.

“I no longer practice,” Stephen defended stiffly. “I was a neurosurgeon.”

Stark’s eyes widened with something that looked like recognition, and his gaze shifted to Stephen’s hands. After a moment, he slowly lowered his gauntlet.

“The neurosurgeon that drove his car off a cliff.” Stark stated bluntly.

Stephen nodded stiffly. Not exactly what he wanted to be known for, but if it meant that Stark stopped holding him at… what, repulsor-point? He’d take it.

After a moment, Stark touched his wrist again, and the gauntlet somehow folded away back into something that looked a lot like a watch. Stephen was momentarily transfixed; he would have thought it was magic if he hadn’t learned so much about the real thing.

“So how does-” Stark cut off with a yell as he was jerked backwards off his feet. Stephen couldn’t see what had caused it.

“Stark!” he yelled, and just as he stepped forward to try to see what had happened, his own feet were pulled out from under him.

“What the ACTUAL fuck?” Stark yelled, and… Oh.

Stephen didn’t recognize the specific type of creature that had hold of him, but it didn’t look like anything that existed on earth. It had a blotchy green body that superficially resembled a tiger’s in shape, but no apparent head or mouth. Instead it had several long appendages that resembled eyeless snakes, if snakes were poisonous frogs.

It was near instant to connect with the Cloak to get himself into the air, and though it took him an extra few seconds, Stephen was still able to quickly conjure an eldritch whip and lash out with it at the tentacle like appendages holding on to his ankles.

He got one of them to release almost immediately. The Cloak enabled him to fly higher and higher, and the creature’s remaining grip on him quickly weakened enough that he was able to pull away.

Stephen changed course, heading straight for Stark, who had his gauntlet back out, and had injured the creature that still had a hold of him. It had two appendages around his legs, and had dragged him closer to itself and was grabbing hold of his arms with two more appendages.

Stephen swooped in, remaining in the air, and caught the two new appendages with his eldritch whips, and hauled back, pulling them away from Stark. Despite Stark’s obvious shock at Stephen suddenly flying and wielding glowing energy whips, he wasted no time at all in turning his gauntlet on the tentacles currently pinning his legs together.

The noise of the creature that had initially attacked Stephen crashing through the under-layer of the rain-forest caught his attention – it was headed straight for Stark. “Dammit,” he muttered, sinking down to the ground and gathering both whips in one hand. “Go!” He flung the Cloak off his shoulders, and it intercepted the beast just before it got to Stark.

Now on the ground, Stephen moved back away from Stark as he yanked on his eldritch whips, pulling the creature further off of him, and Stark took careful aim at the base of the cluster of tentacles where they had been yanked away from each other by Stephen’s efforts, exposing what Stark probably hoped was a vulnerable spot.

Stark fired his repulsor, and the creature slumped to the ground, seemingly stunned. For a moment, Stephen breathed a sigh of relief, before realizing that it was too quiet. The Cloak suddenly appeared, darting back towards them, swiveling around as though looking for something. Oh no. The creature must have slipped away from it somehow.

Stark’s eye twitched as he regarded the Cloak. “So, just a former neurosurgeon, huh, Gandalf?”

Stephen stiffened, even as he tried to keep an eye out for the missing beast. “I don’t believe I said anything about only being a former Neurosurgeon. You questioned my calling myself a doctor. I also happen to be a sorcerer, these days.”

Stark squinted at him like he was trying to figure out if he should take that seriously or not.

Suddenly, Stephen was being jerked backwards, and this time not by his feet. The thing had one tentacle around his chest, and another around his neck, he thrashed instinctively.

“Shit!” Stark exclaimed, eyes wide as he leapt after him. The Cloak shot after him even more quickly.

Stephen’s thrashing was accomplishing nothing, and he stopped so he could concentrate better, trying to get his eldritch whips re-summoned. The combined challenge of trying to summon eldritch magic outside of Earth’s dimension while being dragged backwards by the neck was making it take even more time, and he couldn’t afford that right now.

Changing tactics, Stephen hooked an arm around the tentacle grabbing his neck, and twisted. The creature flailed, jerking him closer, and extended two more tentacles towards him and grabbed him around the head, covering his face. Everything jerked again, and Stephen realized that it was a result of Stark hitting the creature with a blast from his repulsor. It had at least freed his head again.

The appendages around his head had left behind some sort of slime, and Stephen spat, trying to get rid of some that had managed to get in his mouth while also trying to pull away from the tentacles that still had hold of him. Suddenly they loosened and he was finally able to yank himself away.

The Cloak was once again wrapped around the creature, restraining it’s many snake like… whatever they were. Stephen took a moment to concentrate, conjuring the eldritch whips once more, and used them to restrain the creature’s tentacles, while Stark, seeming to understand immediately, repeated the shot he’d made on the first creature.

They both slumped in relief when it had the same effect.

“We-” Stephen started to say, and stopped short. They did need to get out of there, but more pressingly, his mouth was going numb and tingly. Oh no. His passing thought to compare them to poisonous frogs had been more apt than he had realized.

“Poison!” He looked at Stark. “We’ve got to find away to wash this slime off of us!” It might be absorbed much faster through the tissues of his mouth and lips, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be absorbed at all by the rest of their skin.

Stephen realized a second later that he was wavering where he stood. Stark was right next to him suddenly, steadying him, when just a second before he’d been more than a dozen feet away. That didn’t make any sense. How had he moved so fast?

Stephen felt himself jerk to a stop, he’d almost fallen over. Stark had caught him. He blinked blearily up at him, as Stark lowered him to the ground.