IronStrange Haven, formerly IronStrangeHQ

1/2: AU: Tony and Stephen have been together since the beginning, it was the call telling him that Tony had gone missing in Afghanistan that caused him to crash.

Thank you!

To other folks, I apologize that this isn’t the rest of yesterday’s smutty ficlet, but by the time I got to writing, the smut muse was sleeping. LOL. Soon, I swear!

In the meantime, have some angst. 😂 

-

Stephen isn’t there when Tony is finally rescued. 

Okay, he can understand why Stephen wouldn’t be on a military base. He can even understand Stephen not being in Europe. But when Tony finally lands on US soil? When Happy picks him up? Why isn’t Stephen there then?

Tony manages to swallow his questions until after the press conference. He has to get that done. If Stephen has decided Tony wasn’t worth waiting for, if he didn’t even care to see for himself that Tony is alive… Tony will have to deal with that later.

But when later comes, it’s not what he expected at all.

“A car accident,” Tony says numbly. 

“Yes,” Pepper says carefully. “The same day you disappeared.” 

She doesn’t say it was because of Tony’s disappearance, but the timing is too much to be coincidental. Tony swallows a nauseous surge of guilt. “Is he—”

Pepper shakes her head. “He lived. But his hands were badly damaged. He’d never be able to operate again. Between that and losing you… He spiralled. The last time anyone saw him, he was raving about a mythical city capable of impossible feats of healing.”

“Stephen was,” Tony checks, because Stephen is the most logical man he knows.

But Pepper nods. 

Tony has a lot of work to do. He’s just burned Stark Industries’ business model to the ground. The Ten Rings are still out there. And someone in his company sold him out. 

“JARVIS, add another item to the to-do list,” Tony says aloud. “Track down Stephen.”

I had an idea that didn't quite fit the prompt and tried to dismiss it and come up with a new, better fitting fill, but the idea refused to comply with being shoved in a corner and INSISTED it be used. Where Tony calls Stephen Stephen and the world mixes him up for Steve Rogers. I really hope you still enjoy this, anon!

“So,” Stephen said as he pulled back from his hello kiss, an amused smirk on his face. “Dating Rogers, are you?”

What? “Well, given I was kissing you five seconds ago… I think it’s safe to say I’m not dating Rogers.” He paused. “Who, I should also mention, is currently a fugitive.”

Stephen’s eyes glittered with amusement. “I wish you all the luck in convincing the rest of the world of that.” 

What?

Stephen pulled out his phone and pressed play on a video he’d pulled up.

Tony recognized the moment on screen. A reporter had caught him on the street this afternoon as he’d been making a coffee run. “Rumor has it you’re off the market,” the reporter said, voice eager. “Feel like revealing who managed such a remarkable feat?”

He and Stephen had already agreed they had no problem going public—Stephen had, in fact, informed him he had a rather dramatic first outing planned that he wasn’t filling Tony in on—so Tony hadn’t bothered with his normal ploys of talking around the press and saying nothing. “Remarkable is one word for Stephen. I’m sure he’ll reveal himself in all his dramatic glory.”

“Oh,” the reporter said, sounding surprised. Tony’d been distracted, at the time—thinking about Stephen, actually, which he would never admit to, because saying the thought of Stephen distracted him sounded sappy—and he hadn’t really thought anything of it. “I can’t say any of us saw this coming.”

“No one ever sees Stephen coming,” Tony on the video said, his tone fond. How dare his tone betray him so. “I certainly didn’t.”

“Stephen,” the reporter repeated. “Is that what you call him? That’s rather sweet.”

The question had seemed rather odd at the time, but not the weirdest ever question given… well, Happy, Pepper, and Rhodey weren’t any of his friends’ names. 

“Stephen for now,” the Tony on the video said. “He doesn’t like any of my nicknames. Yet.” The Tony on the video stepped away. “Now. Not to cut this short, but… my coffee is calling.”

The reporter let him go, turning back to the camera and smiling. “Well,” she said. “There you have it. Steve Rogers has taken Tony Stark off the market! I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering how Captain America will return to the states, but Tony Stark has promised us dramatic glory. I have no doubt the two of them will deliver.”

The video ended and Tony groaned, tempted to find a wall to hit his head against. Why, why couldn’t Tony have used one of his nicknames for Stephen? Hell. Why hadn’t he just used Stephen’s full name? It would have been so easy to avoid this miscommunication. 

“This is never going to go away,” he said. Him and Rogers were too ‘dynamic’ a pairing and the ‘drama’ of their past meant the world would eat this up.

Sequel to one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven.

Guilt, Tony was reminded, was an unpleasant feeling. Stephen had been listless this morning and it had taken Tony a little bit to get him to eat and while he had left the bedroom for the kitchen, he’d been distant, clearly caught up in his head. 

Tony was second-guessing his every decision, right now. Why had he suggested Stephen come stay with him? Clearly Tony wasn’t fit to give him the help he needed if he’d been enough of an idiot to go along with the idea to go to the lab after Stephen had been experimented on, likely in one of Hydra’s own labs.

Idiot. Tony was an idiot.

They’d gotten through the day, but it was clear Stephen felt so… lost. But Stephen had asked for one thing—had spoken for the first time—and so there was nothing Tony wouldn’t do to give Stephen what he’d asked for. But what the hell was the ‘Cloak of Levitation’?

“JARVIS, I need you to scour everything online, looking for any sort of reference to the Cloak of Levitation,” he said. “Or anything even close to that. Follow even the smallest threads. Let’s give it everything we’ve got.”

“Of course, sir,” JARVIS said. “I shall be thorough.”

Tony gave a small smile to the camera, but turned to his own work. JARVIS could follow any hints on the Cloak of Levitation, Tony was going to find hints of Stephen, from the moment he’d left New York to when he’d been grabbed by Hydra.

Thankfully, his job was far easier than JARVIS’. The ticket in Stephen’s name from the JFK airport to the Tribhuvan International Airport. There was no indication of any other public transport, but there was no real way to track that within the transport and unfortunately Kathmandu only had 467 CCTV cameras, which meant that he couldn’t actually follow Stephen’s tracks, though he did manage to determine that wherever Stephen had ended up it was in the Boudha area, as Stephen had visited a small market in the area several times, caught on one of the few CCTV cameras there.

The scanning metrics he’d set up caught his attention, alerting him to more extensive camera footage of Stephen.

In New York.

He checked the footage and timing, baffled when he realized that there were quite a few times when Stephen appeared in New York and Kathmandu within six hours of each other. Which was, quite frankly, impossible.

But, unlike Kathmandu, with its 467 cameras, New York had over 31 thousand.

Tony might not know where Stephen had been in Kathmandu, but he did know where Stephen had been in New York, a victorian brownstone townhouse in Greenwich Village.

Now… Tony just needed to figure out what to do with that information. Instinct meant he wanted to go straight there, but was that rash? Was that what was best for Stephen?

“I vote we rebel,” Tony said, once he’d finally acknowledged he was, in fact, awake and he had to deal with that, but just because he was awake, didn’t mean he had to be productive. He deserved it. Tony was always productive. Not always productive on the things other people thought he should be productive on, but productive, nonetheless. He deserved to be unproductive now and then.

Stephen hummed from where he was in bed next to Tony, seemingly feeling just as lazy as Tony himself. Which was rare. Stephen was normally out of bed the moment the alarm went off, though he often did it with a grumble about the early morning habits being a doctor had left him with. Stephen was not a morning person by choice, but by necessity. “I do love a good rebellion,” Stephen agreed. “What are we rebelling against?”

Tony considered their options. “Wednesdays,” he decided. “We’re rebelling against Wednesdays.”

That earned him a small laugh. “Wednesdays are terrible,” Stephen agreed. “What is it we’re doing on our Wednesday Rebellion?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Tony said, delighted at Stephen joining in with his rebellion plan. “We’ll do nothing but cuddle.”

Stephen’s laugh was warm. He shifted closer; his arm settled over Tony’s waist, pulling him close. “Tony, I love you to the ends of the earth. Absolutely not. You’ll last an hour at most doing nothing before you lose your mind.”

Well… Stephen wasn’t wrong.

Tony curled into Stephen’s side, sighing in pleasure. “Fair,” Tony agreed. “So, for the next hour we’ll do nothing but cuddle. Then we’ll have a large, sumptuous breakfast.”

“Oh?” Stephen asked. “And is this sumptuous breakfast appearing out of thin air.”

A good point. “We will attempt to make a large, sumptuous breakfast. Should we succeed we will bask in our success. Should we fail we will tell no one of our failure and order in something large and sumptuous.”

“A backup plan. Excellent,” Stephen agreed. “What’s after breakfast?”

An excellent question, but it felt unnecessary to plot their rebellion too closely. “No plan survives first contact with the enemy,” Tony said. “We’ll see what offenses Wednesday launches at us post-breakfast and plan from there.”

“A solid plan,” Stephen said, tugging Tony in for a kiss. “Shall we commence with our Rebellion Cuddles?”

Tony: Religiously.

Stephen:…So, that’s a “no”, then?

More sleep experiment?

Sequel to one and two.

“You know,” Tony said. “I need to just leave some pajamas here.” Stephen could see Tony examining the wardrobe, as though trying to guess if there was enough space for Tony to leave things there. The wardrobe looked small, but like everything in the sanctum, it was more than it appeared. “It’ll make my life much easier.”

Stephen arched an eyebrow. “Do you not like my portals?”

Tony just hummed. “And a toothbrush,” he said, not really answering Stephen’s question. “I should leave a toothbrush.”

“I’m sure I can find space for that,” Stephen said. He paused, because there was a sense of… permanency to the suggestion. He and Tony weren’t… that. But sometimes they also sort of… were. “I know I roped you into this whole thing, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to make this a permanent thing.”

“If I keep the nightmares away, then obviously I’ll be here,” Tony said. “At least until you figure out why me,” he added. “At which point we can reevaluate, if a reevaluation is needed.”

Stephen examined him, trying to figure out how to respond and what Tony was really thinking. He’d always been rather proud of his ability to read Tony, but at the moment he found himself uncertain. “If it’s needed?” Stephen asked.

“Well, not to sound overly confident, but I’m pretty sure you want me here.” Tony grinned. “And I’ll be honest and say I certainly want to be here. I did genuinely wonder if you were finally seducing me the first time you told me you were pulling me into your sleep experiment.”

Well, Stephen supposed it was good to know that if—when—he decided to go forward with seducing Tony, that Tony would be receptive to it. As tempted as he was to do it now—since Tony was giving a clear go ahead—it did not feel satisfactorily romantic. “Noted,” Stephen told him.

“But,” Tony said. “While I do want to be here, I do think we should start the actual experimental part of figuring out why I help you sleep without nightmares. If it’s something that can be applied without me here, I want you to make sure you’re not dependent on me to have a good night’s sleep.”

https://www.tumblr.com/infiniteeight8/790459289070338048/stephen-finds-the-mystic-arts-earlier-than-in?source=share

I started pondering this one and my brain started following some interesting, non-standard threads! Hopefully you find them as interesting as I do. 😀

Here’s an AO3 link for anyone who prefers that: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70672431

We’ve skipped forward in time just a little bit.

-

“I don’t have time to build a foundation!” Stephen snaps at Mordo. “I don’t care about the quality of my magical education, I care about Tony. Every day I spend learning is another day he spends suffering, maybe dying.”

Mordo opens his mouth to reply, but the Ancient One gets there first: “Doctor Strange,” she says, her expression oddly pensive, “perhaps we can make a bargain.”

Stephen narrows his eyes at her. “What kind of bargain?”

“Master Mordo is correct that the magic you are demanding is too advanced for you.” She raises a hand to still his protest. “However. I can certainly perform it. For a price.”

A price. 

Is there any price Stephen wouldn’t pay to have Tony back?

“What price?” Stephen asks.

The Ancient One smiles faintly. “You will dedicate your life to the practice of the Mystic Arts.” 

Stephen stares. Somehow, he doesn’t think that will be compatible with a career in surgery. He swallows hard. “Will I be able to see Tony?” he asks quietly. Not because it will change his mind. He just wants to know how much he’s giving up.

“Of course,” The Ancient One says. “I am not so cruel, Doctor Strange.”

Small comfort that she’s asking him to give up only one of the two great loves in Stephen’s life—Tony and surgery—rather than both.

“If Tony is dead–” Stephen is sure he isn’t, but in a bargain like this, he has to cover all his bases “–then the bargain is void.”

“Agreed.”

Stephen lets out a slow breath. 

Says goodbye.

This question made me think of this post. So thank you for the reminder, because that made me laugh. Tony's and Stephen's hike is very much closer to the hobbit hike than the ranger hike.

“You know—” Stephen said, both of them carefully watching their feet as they crossed the icier section of the trail, ”—the first woman to reach the top of the Matterhorn climbed it in a flannel skirt.”

Tony glanced at Stephen, lip twitching in amusement. “Did she?” he asked, mostly as a prompt for Stephen to continue. He would never stop loving Stephen’s need to spout relevant trivia facts to whatever they were doing. Given they were doing their own hike of the Matterhorn—not to the top, thank you very much, Tony preferred being able to breathe—this fact was entirely relevant.

“Lucy Walker,” Stephen said. “July 21, 1871. She was one of the first female mountaineers. Matterhorn was hardly her only accomplishment, but it is the one she’s best known for. Though, I personally prefer her ascent of the Balmhorn, but it is what it is.” Stephen’s lip twitched in amusement. “However, I thought you might appreciate this story in particular, because one of her motivations for climbing the Matterhorn when she did is because her rival Meta Brevoort was planning on doing the climb in the next few days. Lucy wanted to beat her.”

The words made Tony laugh and he almost tripped over a rock, needing Stephen to catch his arm to keep him from taking an unfortunate tumble off the path and down the mountain. “Lucy Walker, a woman after my own heart.” Tony shook his head, laughing again. “What a lady. Poor Meta Brevoort.”

“She managed the climb a few days later,” Stephen said. “For what it’s worth.”

Which was genuinely amazing, especially in 1871 where they’d be bucking all sorts of gender norms. “Well, both of them are going to remain far cooler than us, because there is no way I’m hiking to the top of this mountain.”

“I’d be rather worried if you tried,” Stephen said. “Your lung capacity still isn’t what it should be.”

Tony wasn’t sure whether to smile or roll his eyes. He could manage just fine, thank you very much. At the same time, he loved the way Stephen cared, that he considered Tony’s health, even in situations where most people brushed it off.

He shifted a little to catch Stephen’s hand within his. “So I don’t fall,” he told Stephen when Stephen looked at him. “Very rocky terrain right here.”

Next part please?

Sorry for making folks wait for the rest of the smut! Hopefully the length makes up for it. LOL.

Previous parts: Part 1 – Part 2  – Part 3

Behind the cut for the usual reasons.