cat with a keyboard

Friendship itself isn’t a novel concept to him, obviously, but on account of his deficiency in skills of the interpersonal relationships kind… It comes as no surprise at all that what best constitutes as friendship in his current life only exists in the form of what he has with Wong—other Masters and fellow sorcerers of Kamar Taj he only ever interacts with on a rudimentary level, as the Master of the New York Sanctum, and as a trainer to students and novices seeking knowledge of the Mystic Arts, and little else. 

And before that, on a previous life—or what feels like it anyway—he hadn’t been the best with friends, either. There was Christine, but what they had was not quite friendship, or even what one would call lovers, but they were neither of them too bothered with a label there. And his coworkers at Metro General hardly count as friends; he knew then—and winces at the memory now—that most of them had despised his guts, be it borne of envy or general contempt at his then-brash-and-overconfident nature, which he didn’t and doesn’t blame them for. And before that, he had been a naive farm boy in a big bustling city, full of young desperate hope to escape the darkness that lurked back home, to make something of himself, too focused on running a race he is always left behind on than to form any meaningful relationships. 

So no, apparently he has no real basis of comparison when it comes to friendship, and Wong, bless him, isn’t nearly as sufficient data. But if he is to really compare them, there are a few things in his friendship with Tony that he doesn’t immediately find in Wong, and vice versa; knowledge of personal boundaries, for a start. Wong has always respected and understood his boundaries the same way Stephen does his. He has never pried into subjects Stephen has made clear he prefers not to discuss—unless absolutely necessary, and by that he means things like, Stephen did you steal a book from the library again or Stephen where the hell did my tuna sandwich go or Stephen that broken vase better not have anything to do with you or any number of little petty grievances he likes to blame Stephen for that day—and he does not push when Stephen says no. 

Tony, however, seemingly cannot mentally digest the word no, like being rejected is some foreign intricate concept requiring elaborate mental gymnastics and geometrical reasoning to make any semblance of sense. Which says a lot about him as a person, billionaire-from-birth, and supposed only child. Go figure. 

“Like I said, Tony, I will be busy,” he says to the man for the millionth time on the phone, hovering over his ear as he shifts through several pages of a book he is still planning to return to Wong’s library later. Which he will. Eventually. 

A dimensional anomaly has stranded a small, mostly harmless creature here, and they have contained it safely but have not tracked down the rift it came from, and not only that but he must first find its origin, and find out if there are things one may need to be wary of about it, but after pouring through several relevant books he had so far turned up with no such luck. The cloak floats over with what it probably assumes would be a helpful book, and Stephen skims through that quickly, mostly to appease it. The cloak likes to feel helpful. 

So yes, he’s made it clear that the last thing he should do is join an Avengers-and-associates-exclusive party Tony is holding in celebration of surviving their recent battle. 

“Aw, come on. The world isn’t gonna end if you take a single evening off.” 

“It in fact has every possibility to, actually.” 

“Oh, please. It’ll be fine. Get someone else to handle it for once.” 

“You know I can’t—”

“There’ll be free drinks! And someone is for sure going to get sloshed as all hell trying to drink Cap or, god forbid, Thor under the table—not me, I learned from last time—and you are going to want to be there to witness it. We’ll have so much fun, I promise. I’ll pick you up at three tomorrow.” 

“Tony, I told you I can’t—” 

But of course Tony has already hung up, because the man does not understand that not every instance they’ve succeeded in avoiding universal extinction for at least a couple more weeks is a call for celebration. He sighs, clicks his phone off and portals it god knows where—anywhere he wouldn’t get disturbed by it anymore. The cloak will know, it always seems to know where to find it when he asks. So he turns back to his research, squinting at the small, handwritten latin of an ancient grimoire, and tries not to think too much of the dreadful tomorrow. 

The thing is, Tony doesn’t so much cross his boundaries as he flattens them like a raging bulldozer demolishing everything within its general line of sight. It’s almost as though he isn’t even aware Stephen had refused; his attempts at saying no are like squirrels ground into dust beneath the strength of his juggernaut, and Stephen can only really do nothing more than watch. It certainly annoys him, greatly in fact, but it is just another in the line of things you get used to once you let someone like Tony Stark around in your life. 

Though for some reason he, in equal parts, finds it fascinating, to live with the kind of impulsivity that Tony does, to do things simply because he wants to, without regard to anything in the way or anything that it might entail, and sometimes it isn’t all that bad to get roped into doing something he had initially refused to do simply because Tony asked (read: forced) him to. 

And then even more interesting is when this is paired with his not insignificant paranoia—how does one choose to live in quite the way Tony does, oscillating constantly between afraid and uncaring? But then again he doesn’t have much say in the matter himself. It’s not like Tony had been the one to face death in the eye and strike a bargain with it, of all the ridiculous, unthinkable things. 

Of course, that impulsivity and inexplicable sense of adventure has its benefits to their friendship, even though it isn’t always the best trait to carry into the field. Tony has such an approach to life that is curiously intriguing to him—often Stephen would be roped into doing random activities with the man on an unsuspecting day, and sometimes it’s something ordinary like bar diving, but other times he rings Stephen out of nowhere and says things like, so there’s this museum in Iceland that’s whole thing is displaying preserved male genitalia—anyway you can portal anywhere in the world, right? or ever heard of competitive butter sculpting? No? Nevermind that, I’m coming over, you better have butter in that creepy kitchen of yours. His idea of fun is as confounding as it is, well, admittedly, fun. 

But then there are moments like this, where Stephen’s genuine, plain refusal goes flying right over Tony’s head, and he has to deal with having to free up time tomorrow, and also mentally prepare himself for a social outing, and also find someone to keep watch of the Sanctum for him, and also also choose a presentable outfit from his severely lacking wardrobe, maybe they wouldn’t mind him showing up with a black turtleneck again for the bazillionth time, wait is he expected to bring something to the party, and oh god he hasn’t replaced the wards, Wong is going to kill him, what if something terrible happens while he’s away, what if Mordo suddenly decides to go on a killing spree, what if this mystery creature of theirs goes on a rampage in the wild streets of New York, what is he going to do then. 

But of course, tomorrow comes anyway, and so he goes, because Tony asked (read: forced) him to. 

—

So admittedly the party isn’t so bad. Or at least it starts out fine. He drinks and chats and mingles and tries not to feel incredibly out of place. Tony occasionally shoots him a smirk from across the room when they aren’t in conversation with the rest, and he isn’t sure if it’s meant to be reassuring or what. The bar has a selection of basically every alcoholic beverage thinkable, but Stephen sticks with a simple glass of beer, which he sips at incrementally, just to have something to occupy his hands. Thankfully they’re in good shape today—or at least as good as they can get these days, anyway—so hopefully the shaking isn’t too noticeable. 

And then at some point things become quite a bit much, as they tend to after one spends a good chunk of their social battery, so he falls quiet and just sits there, watching everyone. At some point he decides to slip out onto the balcony to get some fresh air, standing against the railing, nursing his drink, watching the city, the darkening sky. 

He gets a few moments of solitary peace before the balcony door slides open. 

“There you are, I’ve been looking for you. Thought you left,” Tony says. Stephen nods at him, smiling faintly. “You’re not, though, right? Leaving, I mean. Not like it’s your first time ditching a party by jumping off a balcony. Which, Christ, you gotta stop doing that.” 

“I always have the cloak with me.”

“Well, when you jump off a balcony the average witness’ first thought usually isn’t, oh don’t worry he’s got a flying cape, he’ll be fine.” 

Stephen snorts. “Cloak.” The cloak, who has winded itself around his neck as a scarf, flutters as if in offense.  

“Yeah, whatever. Tomato to-mah-to.” 

Stephen only rolls his eyes at that. Then they fall silent, quietly drinking their respective beers, watching the scenery. 

“So. Listen. I’ve been—meaning to ask you something.” 

Stephen arches a brow, turning to him. “Okay.” 

“Right. So here, look. You and me, we had a rocky start, when we met, right?” 

“I’m not exactly to blame for that, I believe.” 

“Great, wonderful, you’re ten years old. Also, that is some major fucking historical revision there, but I’ll let it slide. What I was trying to say,” Tony leans forwards, licks his lips, shuffles on his feet, leans back again, all the while blinking rapidly. “What I’m trying to say,” he begins again, stops, then starts again, and Stephen wonders if the man had maybe hit his head at some point during their last mission because all signs were leading to a concussion of some kind. Brain damage is also possible. “Look, you and me, we may have started out on the wrong foot, in the beginning, but where we are now, right, how our relationship—as in, professionally, but also as like—like friends, you know, we’re not—we are better, right, like I mean—we’re good. We’re in a good spot. At the moment. As friends. Right?” 

Stephen frowns. Not only is Tony acting strange, and rambling erratically, he is not making any sense at all. Where the hell is Tony going with this, he wonders, but then again it is impossible to decipher the man’s line of thought most of the time. Has he had one too many beers? But that doesn’t make sense, Stephen is sure this is his first one.  “...Right,” he says obligingly. 

“Okay. Good. Because I mean, that’s great. And the thing is, right. I was wondering, you know. I mean, I’m not— I don’t want to make assumptions or anything in case this isn’t the case, you know, but when we met I sensed… You know that feeling, when a guy has certain preferences? Like, guys like us can sense it. You know. But again! I’m not trying to make assumptions or anything. But me, personally, I am— I go out with all sorts of people. Like, I’m not picky in that department.” 

Stephen only frowns very, very deeply. “What on Earth are you implying?” he asks. “Are you trying to hook me up with one of your exes as an attempt to escape them?” 

“No, no, god no.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Okay this isn’t really going well, is it? Look. My point is. I’m just, you know. I was wondering if you’d be interested in—”

The balcony door slides open and in pops Rhodey’s head. “Hey Tony, you gotta get in on this, they’re running a bet for—”

“Rhodes,” Tony says tightly, and he has never heard the man speak in such a tone at his presumably best friend of years and years, nevermind call his name like that. 

Rhodey quickly spots him standing beside Tony, and does a double take before going, “Oh shit, right, my bad,” and slips back inside. Whatever the hell that was about. 

“Right,” Tony turns back to him, nervously pulling at his collar. “Uh. So.” He clears his throat, a little too loudly. Stephen is beginning to get concerned for his state of mind, frowning intensely in puzzlement. “I was wondering if you would be amenable… if you would like to maybe, sometime, or—or any time you’d like, really, in the foreseeable future, if you would like to… to…” Stephen continues to watch him, trying very hard to understand the words coming out of the man’s mouth, and he sees the moment Tony changes his mind, eyes turning suddenly downcast. “I… Nevermind. Just—nevermind, forget I said anything.” He turns for the door, but Stephen catches his arm quickly. 

“Wait,” he says, and Tony stops reluctantly, not fighting against his hold but not looking at him either. Tony is chewing on his lip. “Where are you going?” 

“I— I gotta leave.” Stephen only frowns deeper. Tony Stark does not leave parties. This is a known fact. He either started them, left them to do otherwise inadvisable things, or saw them to the end, which means there is always a likely possibility one would find him passed out in the morning in somebody’s arms or draped across a piece of furniture, and one would be lucky if he is half dressed. “There’s some—boring board meeting I have to attend tomorrow, non-negotiable. Which means Pepper will flame my ass if I don’t at least show up, okay? Sorry.” 

“Bullshit.” 

“What?” 

“You’re not looking at me,” Stephen tells him, releasing his arm. “Which tells me you’re lying.” 

“Since when do you think you know shit about me? Just—I need to leave, alright.” 

“You were going to ask me something.” 

“And I said to drop it.” 

“It sounded important.”

“It’s—look, I’ll ask another time, okay? Just, you know, not now.” 

“You can ask now,” Stephen insists, “Is it about last week’s mission?” 

“No, it’s not about— It’s not.” 

“Then spit it out,” Stephen says, “What the hell are you trying to ask me?” 

Tony huffs a frustrated breath, then—“Out!”

“What?” 

“That—dammit, that’s what I was going to ask you.”

“Out of where?” 

“Fucking pigshitting godfucking cocknuzzling motherfucking god, will you just—fucking forget it, I’m leaving.” 

“Tony, wait, what do you mean by—” And then his brain comes online. “Ask me out,” Stephen realises. “You were going to ask me out?” There is a slight upward lilt at the end there which implied a question, but he didn’t mean for it to come out as one. 

Tony is just watching him, silent for a moment, eyes flitting about, analysing the lines of his face. Stephen just watches back. “Yes,” Tony mutters after a moment of this, then quickly looks away in—embarrassment, for god’s sake. The man’s embarrassed. “Look,” Tony says, and his voice has changed. “I know, alright, it’s ridiculous. Just—forget I said anything. It’s stupid.” He turns away. “I have to go.” 

“No,” Stephen says, and Tony stops in his tracks. 

“What.” 

“No, I can’t… just forget what you said.” 

“Goddammit, Strange, do you gotta make everything so goddamn difficult?” 

“No, I just meant…” Stephen falters here, and Tony turns back around to watch him. “I didn’t know you had that kind of… interest. In me. I didn’t realise that was a possibility for you. For either of us.” 

For a beat too long, long enough he grows uncomfortable under Tony’s eyes, a silence hangs between them. Then, with what sounds like some cocktail of realisation and a comically great deal of exasperation, “You didn’t…” Tony runs a hand down his face, huffing out a laugh. “God. Of course. Stephen, I’m more than a little interested, is the thing. Have been for some time now.” 

“In me,” Stephen thinks aloud. 

“Yeah.”

“I think I am, too,” Stephen blurts out. “In you, I mean.” 

“Oh,” Tony says, and if that doesn’t make him feel ridiculous. Of course. Of course. All these years of dancing around each other, and he had thought it was strictly playful flirting. He had thought there couldn’t possibly be a chance Tony would be at all interested in him in that way, that it was only by some playboy instinct that Tony considered hitting on him at all. But looking at Tony now—could it be possible he had been wrong? Could it be possible that the thing he had not allowed himself to think of, the thought he had never allowed himself to entertain, is a very real and likely possibility after all? 

In a flash something cold and frightening runs through his middle. Reality is beginning to rapidly set in—is this real? Did they just… do what he thinks they had? Is this happenning?—and it takes a while for him to realise he has not, in fact, answered Tony’s question yet. 

It’s just that—it’s been a while, is the thing. It’s been a while since he’s allowed someone in, in that particular sense. Not ever since Christine, and even that particular wound hasn’t sealed itself completely shut. And then there was finding Kamar Taj, and the Mystic Arts, and everything that came afterwards—he has come to terms with the fact that this kind of life does not allow space for romantic entanglements, or anything that requires any sense of commitment. 

Then again, if there is anyone who understands the kind of things this line of work demands, it would be someone who knows what it’s like, deep in their bones, the need to do good, to protect this fragile life of theirs, the fallibility of every human life, the need to shield their loved ones from the terrible dangers of the universe—someone like Tony. But there is the other thing, the unnameable, terrifying thing, that if they are to involve themselves in such a way it would only put them both at risk, and Stephen cannot afford that. The last thing he needs is his enemies finding a new target, a way to exploit the weakness that is his human heart. 

And even more dangerous is himself. It has been proven time and time again on numerous occassions that relationships are not exactly his forté. Exhibit A: Christine. One way or another, Tony will get hurt, whether directly or indirectly, because of him. Not that he thinks Tony is any better in that department, either—with how things ended with Pepper, bizzarely amicable as they are now, he gets the sense that he isn’t the only relationship fuck-up. But that doesn’t make things any better. 

All in all, this is a recipe for disaster. It wouldn’t end well at all. No, it is far better for him to avoid that kind of fuss, to avoid tangling himself in such a situation again. The temporary joy is never worth the pain of the aftermath.  

But then… But then Tony is drawing near, and nearer, and nearer still, and too late he realises he’s been frozen, almost paralysed on the spot as he spirals into deeper and deeper thought. The thing he thought dead in his chest begins to pound and ache, and in his panic he recoils a little, and Tony must’ve noticed this because his face does a minute shift, and he draws back some, and—no, wait, that was not what he wanted to happen, he didn’t mean— 

“Stephen,” Tony is saying in this low, tentative voice. Stephen swallows. “Is this…” Tony comes nearer again, and there is a thread of need in his voice, in his beautiful eyes—is he allowed to think that now? Is he allowed to acknowledge how unfairly beautiful this man is?—attention honed completely, solely on him, “Tell me if this is okay,” he says. The cold feeling runs down his spine again, the fear, the knowing of what he is about to let himself be led into… The door of possibilities they are about to push open would be more akin to Pandora’s box than anything. 

But there is something inexplicably earnest in Tony’s eyes, and when those eyes flick down to his lips, he thinks: fear is for people who have never executed a flawless free-hand extraction of a hardened bullet from inside a brain. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs, and their lips meet. 

It feels—indescribable. He wouldn’t know where to begin if asked. 

It’s like he’s back again, all those years ago, in that time The Ancient One thrust a hand upon his chest and slammed him backwards into the realm of things unseen, things unknown, things undiscovered, opening his eyes to the vastness of their reality. All the things he only knew of in the theoretical sense, only knew of intellectually, and so much more than that, he suddenly saw clearly, viscerally, tangibly—an infinite terrible and beautiful and bizarre and impossible things, insurmountable in its boundlessness, incomprehensible in its complexity. Kissing Tony Stark feels like discovering new secrets of the universe. 

“Oh my god,” Tony says when they part, “Stephen.” 

Stephen makes a sound, he isn’t even sure what, but he needs to put his lips on Tony’s again. Suddenly what he thought he knew in absolute certainty only moments ago was not completely true, and it is like his entire worldview is being shifted by a single kiss. 

Tony Stark is interested in him. Tony Stark has been interested in him for some time, which implied a timeline, which implied planning. It makes so much sense now—the nervousness, how he responded to Rhodey walking in on them, the incredibly vague tip-toe-y broach in asking Stephen about his sexuality. It makes him feel light, heady with the knowledge. Tony is kissing him like he means it, and—how could there have ever been a doubt? Of course. Of course.

He presses the line of his body close against Tony, who has a hand on his waist and the other pulling him nearer by the nape and—oh Jesus, those fingers are carding upwards into his hair, pulling slightly, making him shudder and moan, and is this the right time to point out he has particularly sensitive follicles? Doesn’t matter, Tony is licking into his mouth like he’s carving something out in there, walking him backwards until his back is braced against the railing, and he can’t think of anything else but the press of their bodies, the slick slide of their tongues, the shocking masculinity of their goatees rubbing against each other. They are about to trip off the goddamn balcony and he doesn’t even find it in him to care. 

“Wait,” Tony pulls back, sounding as breathless as he feels. He is keeping their hips apart, and Stephen knows it’s because he doesn’t want him to be aware of the evidence of his arousal, but Stephen just presses back, letting his tenting hardness press against Tony’s hip instead. Tony lets out a low groan, hips bucking against him. The thought that he has the same effect on Tony as Tony has on him is—god, he feels like his head is being steadily filled with helium, ready to float away. “Fuck, wait. I want to do this right. God, I wanted to do this right.” 

“You planned,” he rasps, “You had all this planned in your head.” 

“Yes, fuck,” Tony laughs, “I was gonna— I wanted to take you out, someplace nice, maybe, we were supposed to have dinner, this beautiful evening, I was going to charm the pants off you, I was imagining something—slower.” 

“You wanted to woo me.” 

“Well I mean, I wanted to ease you in.” 

“Forget about easing me in,” Stephen decides, “We’ve waited long enough.” 

“Fuck, you’re right, baby, come here,” Tony murmurs, kissing him again, and that word—baby—makes him feel all sorts of things in his chest, and perhaps a bit lower. “You think they’ll notice if we ditch?” 

“Since when does courtesy matter to you?” 

“Well we can’t walk out there with full fledged boners.”

“I can make portals.”  

“Oh,” Tony says, “Right. I forgot that. Excuse me, my brilliant brain did not think of that, on account of the fact all my blood seems to be down south. Will you fucking portal us out, please, because I am about ready to explode in my pants, here.” 

“What happened to taking things slow?” 

“Stephen, I swear to fuck, any slower and my balls are going to fall off.” 

Stephen laughs, and then obeys, because Tony asks (read: forces) him to. 

      EPILOGUE

 “Stark. Your phone,” Stephen rasps at him, nudging him awake with needless force, and then giving up to instead bury his head underneath the pillow. Tony rouses from his sleep at the insistent buzzing noise, blinking confusedly, and dear god, will it just stop. 

“Jesus Christ,” he groans, hand blindly searching for the source of the obnoxious sound vibrating the entire goddamn room. 

“Incoming call from Ms. Potts, sir,” FRIDAY chimes helpfully from above. Tony makes a vague noise of acknowledgement. 

What’s got her panties up in a twist this time? Tony considers burying his face underneath a pillow also, but then Stephen’s rumpled head pops out and he says, “I am going to portal your phone into the Sahara if you do not get it to stop making that goddamn noise.” 

“All right, Jesus. It’s a custom model, kindly do not.” 

Stephen plops his face back down, voice muffled when he says, “You can afford another.” 

Tony does not dignify that with a response, instead choosing to clamber over the pile of limbs beside him to get to his phone, which clatters to the floor when he reaches for it. He mutters a word that would impress a sailor and bends down for it, knocking his elbow on Stephen’s arm in the process, who doesn’t even budge or protest. Figures he’d be dead asleep again already—the man probably hadn't been sleeping for a while now. 

He accepts the call, because declining Pepper’s call is suicide. 

“Anthony Edward Stark.” 

“Oh no,” he says. Middle name means nothing good. “Good morning to you, too, Pep. And speaking of which, it is barely six in the fucking morning.” 

“Yes, and you should be up.” 

Tony rubs up and down his face. “There are worse sins than waking after dawn, you know. Homicide. Animal abuse. Milk before cereal.”

“Sloth is the root of all those,” Pepper responds without missing a beat. “You have a board meeting in an hour, which is ample time to nurse that hangover and go over the notes I sent you.” 

“What notes,” he rasps, “And I’m not hungover.” 

“Oh?” Pepper says across the line. “Is that so.”

“That so.” 

“Fine. Check your email. I need you to at least consider the points I made there. The last thing we need is you offending the shareholders.” 

“I’m never offensive. I’m plenty likable. I always know the right words to say.” 

A sigh crackles across the line. “Check it regardless. And you better not be late.” 

Tony shifts to a more comfortable position, sighing at the pleasant ache in his muscles, courtesy of last night’s vigorous activities. “Can’t you push the meeting, I don't know, to tomorrow at least?” 

“No!” Pepper says exasperatedly, “I’ve told you how important this is, Tony, I’ve told you that—”

Suddenly his phone is snatched off of his hand. 

“Good morning, Miss Potts,” Stephen says pleasantly, “I’ll be sure to send Tony off in time for his meeting. Rest assured he will not be late. Good day.” And then he clicks the phone off. 

“You asshole,” Tony says when Stephen hands him back his phone, who then promptly pulls the blankets back up around him, like the blanket-hogging monster he is. 

“So you weren’t lying about the meeting. Good to know. Wake me up when you need a portal,” the lump in the blankets says. 

“Asshole,” Tony says again, “Unbelievable.” But then he couldn’t quite contain his laugh, because now he is imagining what Pepper’s face might look like, after Stephen’s little stunt. Well, not the first time Pepper is accidentally privy to the people he takes to bed. Except, of course, Stephen isn’t just someone he’s taken to bed, because this sure as hell isn’t going to be a one time thing, and it sure as hell would entail a lot more than helping each other get off. 

A smile tugs up his lips as he skims through his phone notifications, ignoring Pepper’s and a million other emails in favour of scrolling through the litany of text messages, stopping to click into Rhodey’s. 

Hope I didn’t mess it up for you and the good doctor, the text says. 

Nah, he types. Actually it went very well.

Oh? Rhodey immediately replies, and Tony isn’t surprised he’s awake at this hour. Military habits, he thinks. How well?

Stephen suddenly turns to him, draping a heavy arm across his chest and pulling him down. “Mmmmgfffhhhh,” the blanket hogger says. Tony chuckles fondly, bending down to kiss his forehead. Stephen’s nose scrunches up adorably, and then his eyes are open. His hair is a torpedo, his eyes are puffy, and he looks deliciously gorgeous. 

Well as in, I need to go now, he shoots back at Rhodey.

You’re kidding, he manages to catch, but misses the several other messages popping up, setting his phone on the nightstand. He bends down to kiss Stephen’s cheekbone, the edge of his brow, the side of his nose, then down to his lips. Stephen reciprocates easily, sighing into the kiss, hand reaching up to cup the back of his neck. 

“Mm,” Tony hums, “We’ve got an hour to spare. You know, just to put it out there.” 

“Looking to put that time to good use?” Stephen rasps. God, how can a voice be that sexy? it’s criminal levels of hot. “How about those notes Pepper mentioned,” he suggests. 

“I was thinking of something else.” 

“Oh yeah? Like what?” 

“Like this,” Tony says, and kisses him again. They kiss languidly, and Tony is struck again with the same kind of surprise he was last night, when he found out how enjoyable kissing can be with Stephen Strange. Normally kissing is just an overly moist prelude to more exciting activities, but with Stephen, just the act of kissing is pleasurable in itself. 

He gently lays Stephen back on the bed, pressing his weight down purposefully just to hear that delightful catch in his breath. Slowly he trails kisses down Stephen’s neck, collarbones, chest, making a stop to catch a nipple into his mouth, earning a groan from above, and then further down still to hover over his prize; Stephen’s morning wood stands proud before him, and the sight makes Tony lick his lips.

He starts by kissing the head first, languidly stroking the long, gorgeous length of the shaft. He licks along the slit teasingly, fondling the balls, smirking slightly when Stephen’s hips buck up in desperation. 

“Tony,” Stephen says from above, already a hoarse, broken thing. 

“Shh, baby, let me take care of you,” he murmurs lovingly, finally pushing his mouth down and bobbing his head slowly. Stephen throws his head back and lets out a delicious groan, neck straining. Tony keeps his eyes on the man as he takes his time. 

He plays with Stephen’s balls some more before letting his fingers dip lower, down to his perineum. Stephen’s voice cracks on a moan, breathing raggedly. 

“Please,” Stephen groans, “Oh god, please.” 

Deliberately, Tony swallows him down to the hilt, nuzzling down until his nose is pressed flush to his trim pubic hair, letting him feel the clench and contraction of his throat, then drifts a finger lower to press into his hole, still a little loose from last night, crooking it just so. 

Stephen lets out a cry as his hips buck up involuntarily, rope after rope of cum pulled out of him that Tony swallows obediently. He sucks him a bit more, letting Stephen ride his orgasm to oversensitivity, until he shakes and shudders, and only pulls back when Stephen begs him to. 

Only once he’s finished does Tony become aware of his own pressing need. 

“Let me—” Stephen tries to sit up, but Tony only pushes him down. 

“On your side,” he orders, unsurprised by how gravely he sounds. Stephen obeys, turning onto his side. Tony settles behind him, and adjusts them so that he has his cock pressed between those strong thighs. Stephen’s hand wanders backwards to clutch at him, murmuring, “Come on, sweetheart, fuck my thighs.” 

Tony does not need any further prompting. He starts off slow, finding his way, and only begins thrusting in earnest when Stephen presses his thighs together tighter. He’s leaking just enough to slick the way, and dear god, the flex of those muscled thighs will be the death of him, he’s clutching at Stephen’s shoulder by the end of it, groaning endlessly as he spurts his load all over the mattress and Stephen’s thighs.

He lays there for a moment, enjoying the post-coital bliss. Stephen’s hand has reached up to start a slow, gentle scratch up and down his head. After a while he gets up, planting a kiss on Stephen’s temple as he goes, who hums contentedly. He smiles as Stephen stretches like a cat, curling, soaking up the warmth of the bed with an open yawn. 

He heads to the bathroom for an epic piss. When he returns, it is with a damp cloth, which he uses to wipe away the drying cum between Stephen’s legs. Stephen cranes his head back to kiss him in thanks. 

Once finished Tony settles back against the sheets, sighing. He turns to watch the New York skyline stretched across the floor to ceiling windows of his glass-and-steel behemoth of a modern minimalistic penthouse. He can see the little A perched atop the Tower from here, buried in a sea of skyscrapers. He has never noticed it before, but the Tower stands vaguely to the East—which means that as the sun rises and her rays unfurl to the slowly bluing sky, he can see the light catch at the very top of it, marking the beginning of a new day; the branches of possibilities spreading out before him. 

He’s got half an hour to spare, he thinks. Half an hour to enjoy this new, fragile, beautiful thing—and maybe even several years more of it. He smiles faintly, heart alight. 

“Hey FRIDAY,” he calls, “Book a reservation in The Algonquin tonight, will you?” 

“On it, sir.” 

“Thanks.” 

“So we’re actually getting that date now, are we,” comes the rumbling voice beside him. 

“We kind of did everything in reverse, but hey, I meant what I said last night.” 

“Which part? Because most of it was hardly decipherable.”

“Asshole. It was a good speech.” 

A snort. “I was convinced you were either drunk, concussed, or suffering some form of brain damage. Or a combination of those. It was less a speech and more like watching an active forest fire.” 

“Well at least I made a move. Which was more than what you were planning on doing.” 

Stephen makes a humming noise, which is technically a response but linguistically useless. He is obnoxious like that. 

“Anyway, what I was saying. I meant it when I said I wanted to do this right. Even though we sort of caved the first night, but you know. Sometimes you gotta take them to bed before taking them to dinner. Not that I think you don’t deserve to be wined and dined, because god knows I can treat you right that way, I just mean—look, it’s not my fault we practically climbed each other the moment we could, even though—okay, wait, what I meant to say is that I’d really love to—” 

Stephen rumbles out a low, pillow-muffled chuckle. “Like I said. Active forest fire.” 

“Asshole,” Tony says again, face flushing. But he laughs along anyway, because when you have  Stephen Strange looking gorgeous in the morning light and laughing a beautiful laugh like that, you can’t help but be filled to the brim with joy and disbelief at this wonderful miracle the universe has landed in your life. 

Funny, how hard hope is to kill. How after a lifetime of knocking at death’s door and avoiding the inevitable longer than anyone—than he himself—had ever expected, still there is a stubborn, fiery part of him clinging desperately to life, roaring helplessly to be heard, hoping against all hope that he might live for at least a couple years more, a couple months more, a couple days more, a couple hours more. The part of him that knew of life and all its darkness and all the beauty within. That knew of Alfred and Tim and Dick, and everyone else waiting at home, everyone who had shown him meaning when it was lost, who had shown him life when all he had known was death, when all of him had been defined by gravestones. 

It’s the anniversary of Dick’s parents’ deaths, he remembers with a sudden jolt of clarity. He had never missed the day, had always tried to be there for the boy who had been through what he had all those years ago. How could he have forgotten? He needs to get back. They are all waiting for him—he needs to get back. 

That and whatever remained of his lucidity is what finally managed to get him to muster up the strength to crush his beeping tracker—that would cut off the signal exactly where he would last be picked up, here in this hopeless barren wasteland, this endless sea of stormy white. Alfred would see, would draw his conclusions. Maybe the right ones. Maybe he would call the boys in, or maybe he would know better. He had cleared whatever trace of his notes and research on the case in the computer for a reason. 

But Dick—in his last threads of thought as the dark creeps in he imagines his beautiful boy—he knows, even without all hope, that Dick would never let him go. That he could always, the way they both knew they always had each other’s back, always trust his partner to be there for him. 

—

Awareness eludes him, plays coy with him. He has been swimming in and out of consciousness for what feels like an eternity, laying hot and feverish in the snow, grappling desperately at consciousness and fighting back against the tempting bliss of the dark. At some point he becomes aware of being lifted, of being moved. It takes everything in him to finally crack his eyes open, small slits that they are. When his brain sluggishly catches up he registers only three things; one, that he is still in the snow, still dying. Two, Dick—stubborn, wonderful Dick—had found him. Three, that the night is beautiful. 

His voice is a faint, raspy thing, but still he forces it out of his throat. 

“Dick…” 

“Bruce!” 

The darkness is creeping in again, and so is the panic, but there is more, there is Dick, he must not be here, he must not watch him die like this, not today of all days, and Bruce must not drag Dick down with him, Dick has to—“Leave… me…” 

But the dark, rapidly approaching, swallows him whole once again. 

—

There is heat and there is the fever and there is death calling his name in the horizon, and there is Dick. There has always been Dick. Since before he knew who he was, since before he knew what it all meant. There was death, and the dark, and then like a candle lighting up his life, there was Dick. 

But in the dark it is hard to tell who is carrying him, but he knows it isn’t Dick, because Dick is gentle, always too gentle with him, too good for him, but this is not that, these are arms carrying him where Dick isn’t, carrying him away. It kicks something in him back alive. He struggles against the hold, struggles against the confusion—there are voices, shouting over him, loud whirring getting louder by the minute—helicopter blades, he registers dimly—and then, no matter how hard he fights, there is suddenly nothing. 

—

It starts, at first, in increments. A lifetime of training has made him attuned to his body, its every response and how best to control them, how best to tame them, to turn them to his advantage. 

In his bloodstream there is the scorching heat of the virus, that he knows for sure. His heart is working to keep him alive, dying as it is. But where one moment he is a breath away from the end, in the next he finds air. Like a drowning man he struggles against the tide threatening to drown him under, struggles to gulp breath after breath. It’s a little like being in a twilight sleep—he is dimly aware of the things happening to his body, but under a layer of thick fog. Something is keeping him alive. His body—it’s finally fighting against this monstrous thing. Someone has given him a raft, someplace to anchor himself in this storm. 

There is a long moment where he buoys between strange bursts coursing through his veins and the crackling heat of the fever, and then like a crumbling dam it all comes crashing down on him. He forces his eyes open, moving before he can think—a face is floating over his, frantic, unsure, familiar—the virologist, he remembers—but there is movement behind her. He hardly registers any of her words, a jumble of russian and clumsy english, and instead focuses on assessing the situation. 

There are several men on the ground; Dragutsk’s men—they’re in Dragutsk’s stronghold, then—they must’ve taken him here in hopes of extracting the viral compound from his blood, to run experiments with it. Release it to those undeserving. To his beloved city. 

And just as quickly he spots Dick—sprawled on the ground—and before him, with an axe swinging down from over his head is Dragutsk himself, and suddenly Bruce is on his feet. He lurches his weight forward, sprinting, gaining momentum to leap up in a wide, practiced arc to swallow the man under his shadow. There is a sickening thrill in watching those eyes widen in panic, morphing quickly in frantic confusion, and, as the Batman descends on him, resignation. With a swift swing of Bruce’s leg, the man goes down, head giving a satisfying thud as it lands on the ground.

—

He doesn’t know, exactly, how they managed to escape afterwards. It had been a bit of a blur for him—whatever remained of the fever was—is—still running through him, but he had pushed through it in the urgency of the moment. How he had taken down the rest of the men coming their way, escaped the stronghold with the virologist in tow, carrying Dick’s unconscious body all the while, he could not tell you. 

They reached the chopper Dick and the virologist must have used to get here after trekking through the snow, toeing along the narrow ledge running along a mountain. He would fly the chopper himself had he needn’t watch over Dick’s body, because the last thing he needs is the virologist trying something funny like chucking his son’s body off a flying vehicle, so instead he lets her fly them back to her cabin, and they drag themselves out and into the little wooden hut. 

Bruce is just glad for the shelter despite the lack of welcoming warmth. He drapes Dick’s body against the nearby cot, arms tremblìng minutely in exertion. He wills them still, then turns to the virologist, who had been watching him in silence, and upon realising his noticing of it, turns to busy herself with starting a fire. He lets them stew in the quiet for a moment, wind whistling through gaps in the walls and windows and doors, dragging a chair to sit by Dick’s bedside. The virologist pokes at the fire crackling in its hearth, setting the rod aside to pry her gloves off and warm her hands. 

“I will head back out as soon as sunrise,” Bruce announces. 

“All right,” she replies, not looking at him. Bruce observes her some more, letting the heat seep into his bones as it spreads around the cabin. He gets up and asks where he can get a bowl of water and perhaps a small towel or cloth, and acquires it with her directions. He gets to work on dipping the cloth into the bowl, wringing it just enough to leave it damp, folding it neatly to drape over Dick’s heated forehead, soothing away the furrow there. 

“You need to destroy it,” he says to her after a while, “Your virus. They were going to use it to kill people—you know how deadly it is, the number could be above the hundred thousands. Maybe more.”

“Who do you work for?” she says instead, apropos of nothing.

“No one,” he answers. 

“Not even for the government?” 

“No.” 

“You work alone?” 

“No.” 

She processes this. She nods at Dick’s prone form on the cot. “And him?” 

“The same.” 

“What you do,” she says, “What you both do. It is to save people?” 

“Yes.” 

Silence befalls them again, the fire spitting and dancing as she watches it. 

“He took my vaccine and gave you his blood so you would survive, you know.” Bruce had deduced as much upon waking up and seeing the IV, but it was more than that. What Dick did wasn’t just giving him blood—he had circulated both their blood between them. For a moment they were one being, him and Dick, and what it felt like to him in the moment was indescribable. “He saved your life. And before that he saved mine.” 

“He does that.” 

“You saved him, too.” 

“Yes.” 

“It must be nice, to have someone who has your back, like that,” she says. “You must care a lot about each other.” 

Bruce swallows. “Yes,” he says. I would tear the world apart to save him, he thinks. And I know he would, too. I don’t deserve him for it. 

“When I was young,” she begins again, faltering. 

“You watched your parents brutally murdered in front of you. I know.” 

“Right. Of course,” she says. “But there was…. There was this… thing, this thing inside of you after something like that. You know of it. The both of you.”  

“Of what?” 

“Of loss,” she says, “the darkness. The emptiness of it. The anger.” 

He thinks of his mother’s hollow eyes as she drops to the ground, the way red spilled out of her head, seeping into the concrete below. He thinks of Jason’s small, beaten, bloody body in his arms. It’s funny—he hadn’t felt a thing after Jason’s death. He had expected to cry during the funeral, and when he looked into the mirror his eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot but they were dry. In his chest there was nothing. He hadn’t slept for days—couldn’t, no matter how much he tried. He felt like he was the one that had died, that had lost all of life and the drive and the joy and the sorrow and all the complicatedness that came with it. Like an empty shell, he had felt nothing at all. In the end all he had done was throw himself into the Mission. 

But then… all of a sudden came the anger. It had hit him at all sides with the force of an avalanche, the blood curdling rage, erupting in and all through him. He had been incandescent with it. He had worked his body to its limits just to exhaust it, to fulfill it, but that only stoke the fire all the more. It was all that he could feel, then, the boiling rage. That rage that had lived inside of him since that day in the alley, caged within his ribcage, with his parents’ corpses in his arms, had lived dormant and tamed inside of him. Jason’s death had cracked it open lke Pandora’s box; it had all come spilling out despite his disciplined training. Only Tim had been able to pull him out of it, and for that he was thankful. 

But if he admitted to all of that then it would reveal too much. It would be a risk—Batman could not afford risks, not when it came to their identities. But then again, the look in her eyes as she finally turns to him is unmistakable. She knows, in the way only people like them could know. And once she does, she wouldn’t be able to unknow it, unsee it. Other people wouldn’t have been able to tell, wouldn’t have known at all. But for them, people like them who know of it, that darkness is a tangible thing, a real thing, a thing that you know like the back of your hand. And once you see it, recognise in others, it is simply unmistakeable. There is no way around it. 

So he admits, “Yes,” because it is the truth. 

She sits in silence at that, for a moment, observing him. He chooses to pay it no mind, turning instead to Dick, swiping away a lock of dark hair from his feverish forehead tenderly, knowing her eyes are tracking the movement. 

“It’s why you do what you do,” she concludes. 

“Yes,” is all he says. 

“Don’t you want vengeance? Don’t you want to get back at them for it, to get back at the world for it?” 

Yes, he wants, longs to say. It would be so easy. The day he had seen Chill stepping into court for his parents’ deaths he had wanted to lunge at him. He had had vivid imaginations of watching the life drain out of his eyes, a death worse than his mother’s, where he was the one to pull the trigger and bury a bullet between his eyes instead—imaginations that had seeped into his dreams at night, dreams that woke him up, breathless and sweaty on his sheets. And for all that he stood for now, he had wanted to kill the Joker, too. It would’ve been so easy. He could embrace that darkness, that rage, give in to it and let it consume him whole. 

But what will their deaths solve? 

“Vengeance is never the answer,” he says instead. “To kill is to align yourself with the enemy.” 

“Even if they deserve it?” 

“Nobody deserves death.” 

“When I created the virus it wasn’t to kill innocents.” 

“But it will,” he stresses. “One way or another, it will. These people will take them and they will use it to kill. But even if they didn’t, even if your virus had done what you had intended for it to do and killed them instead, what good will it do?” 

“My parents didn’t deserve—” 

“It won’t bring them back,” he says, “Killing the people responsible for their deaths won’t do anything but paint blood in your hands.” 

She turns away, and Bruce pretends not to notice the tears. She was arguing for the sake of it—she knows as much as he does that this is the only right path forward. She was only prolonging the inevitable. 

So eventually she agrees. They track down the last of her stash—some in the cabin and the rest up in her lab—and quickly render them inactive. Then she burns the whole place down. There is nothing left of her life’s work, now. Nothing left of the virus except for what is left of what Dick’s body is fighting to kill. He could’ve taken a sample to the Cave, analyse the compound and concoct an antidote, do whatever his paranoia would drive him to do, but he hadn’t. This has to be gone with nowhere else to trace, and in nobody’s hands, good or bad. 

By the time they are finished, the sun has risen, so he bids his brief farewells and, after a shared meaningful look, sets off to bring both him and Dick home. 

—

When he returns it is with relief in Tim and Alfred’s faces, quickly turning grim when they turn to Dick in his arms. They carry Dick’s body down to the Cave, quickly hooking him up with the necessary fluids to help his body fight its way to recovery. Bruce himself had run himself ragged, and whatever remained still blitzes faintly through him as the adrenaline of the mission finally comes crashing down. But he survived this, and he had survived worse, will survive worse. 

It is in the middle of him explaining what had gone down to Alfred that Dick stirs awake. Tim calls them in, and Bruce, turning to watch Dick, finds himself at a loss for words. The gentle thing in his heart contracts, and for a moment he contemplates what to say, the million things he could never convey, the million words he couldn’t ever say. 

Instead he says, “Thanks,” and means it. 

The realisation had come slowly, and much, much later, when it had started to be bold enough to step out of the shadows where Stephen could see it more clearly, encouraged by his non-reaction. Where it used to be just a wisp of pale, translucent blue in the corner of his eye, he had since made out its humanoid figure, the shape of its familiar height and build, and then, when that didn’t alarm him enough, the shape of its familiar face; the round eyes and pointed nose and the crease formed between thick brows. 

That had been when it had first turned into Tony Stark, which the realisation of ought to have at least surprised him if not left him slightly perturbed, but it did not. The universe has always conspired against him, throwing all sorts of odds his way—he has learnt to act unfazed by the face of it all, to assess and react accordingly. It’s a necessary training for any sorcerer to be prepared for whatever threat they are subjected to, however cruel or personally tormenting it may be. 

Though no amount of training could ever erase the aching of grief in his chest, as familiar as the numbing pain of his hands. 

Though the two aren’t at all the same—there is and has always been a bracing aspect to pain; it is something he can always rely on to ground him. But grief is something else entirely. 

Stark doesn’t really interact with him, though he does like to hover curiously nearby—usually watching him carry day-to-day activities, the mundane kind and the less mundane kind. To the ordinary person, anyway. His definition of ‘ordinary’ has certainly changed over the years, but that’s what being a sorcerer—and, in general, a New York citizen—does to you. Stephen finds with some surprise that he doesn’t really mind the company, even uninvited as it is. He is even more surprised that Stark hadn’t already been consumed by boredom—that is, if this is the same Stark he knew, instead of someone or something that replicated him. Frighteningly accurately, too.

Despite the resemblance, there is, however, something undeniably different about him; gone are the deep brown pupils—in its place a pair of pearly grey eyes, the cataracted eyes of an old man. Beyond that, there isn’t the air that Tony Stark liked to carry with him when he was still alive, flesh and bone and living instead of this—this barely existing shadow, so pale in its blueness it is in the territory of translucence, glacial, icy water, moonstone, mist, forget-me-nots. The unreal quality in cyanotypes, the prussian blue of it. 

There isn’t avoiding the sense of wrongness, the whip and churn of righteous anger in his stomach. But it is not Stark’s fault, if it really is him, and anyway there isn’t much he can really do about it. So he keeps his distance, and tries not to look at him—it—in the eyes, if he can help it. 

—

Stark speaks for the first time several days later. 

Truth be told, he had assumed that perhaps the form he’s taken on made it impossible to speak, so this isn’t at all anything he had expected. The most they’ve done thus far is acknowledging each other’s presence with a courteous nod of the head, and even that had been a recent development. 

“Strange, is it?” Stark says, on his usual perch on the counter—a spot he takes whenever Stephen is in the kitchen—pale, colourless eyes watching him in a way that could only be described as lifeless. His steady, strong voice sounds precisely like it had when he was alive, startlingly enough. 

Stephen manages to bury any outward signs of surprise, silently stirring his tea for a moment before clinking his teaspoon at the rim of his delicate china, watching the thin ripples it causes on the liquid, then placing it inside the sink. “What is?” he says, as casually as if they are already deep in conversation. 

“No, I meant,” Stark shuffles a little—funny to discover that even in this form he still couldn’t help the fidgeting habits. “Your name. Strange, right? Doctor Strange.” 

“Oh,” Stephen says. “Yes.” And he couldn’t think of what else to say. “Just Stephen’s fine,” he decides. 

“Stephen,” Stark tests the name, the weight and heft of it on his non-existent tongue. “Am I dead?” he asks. 

The question, as it stands, does not take him by surprise. It needn’t take a genius—which, for the record, Stark pretty reputably is, or was, or whatever tense fits to address his current state of being—to arrive at such a conclusion. In fact, he had been somewhat expecting a question of that variety. 

“Yes,” Stephen answers simply. “I’m sorry.” 

There is a moment of life flashing in that face—a raw emotion so very human that Stephen knows far too well. Grief, however fleetingly it came and went, before Stark manages to wipe his face clean of it, smoothing back to its hollow, cerulean stare. Lifeless, he thinks. Dead. 

“The others?” 

A swallow, easily concealed. “They’re back,” he says, “It worked.” 

“So this is the one?” 

“Yes.” Stephen manages to swallow down another I’m sorry. “All thanks to you.” 

Stark huffs. It sounds different than the one he’s used to, the one he’s heard countless of times in those timelines, the one he’s learnt to be somewhat fond of; this is a replica of the real thing. It shouldn’t… wouldn’t have sounded so… empty. 

“Dunno ‘bout that, doc,” he says, “It was something of a team effort.” 

Stephen only gives that an acknowledging hum, tightens his lips, and ignores the clenching in his chest. He sips his tea in silence, and they don’t speak any further after that. 

—

The next time they speak again isn’t too long after. They’ve fallen back into the silent routine, after that first conversation, only ever briefly acknowledging each other, never letting eye contact linger for too long. Though that is mostly on Stephen’s part; looking into those vacant eyes for too long might break something in him. He cannot afford that, not when the world is still recovering and his long-neglected mystical duties need to be fulfilled. 

“Are you planning on sleeping anytime soon?” is what Stark says to him, tailing after him after Stephen had portaled back from Kamar Taj, wearily trudging up into the seal of Vishanti where he begins replacing the wards around the building. Stark never really leaves the Sanctum, he discovers, though couldn’t bother to find out why. 

“What?” he says, trying not to snap. The exhaustion of the week is eating at his bones and making him irritable—Wong’s faced the worst of it, and he doesn’t know how anyone could ever find it in them to stay around with someone like him. And here he thought he had long since changed and progressed from letting his ego and emotions get the best of him, but some days it feels as though all his progress has been erased. Damn it all. 

“You’ve been at it for a while. You haven’t eaten, slept. Showered. I’m the actual ghost here, but you’re the one acting like you’re dead.” 

“I was just… occupied.” 

“Occupied running yourself to the ground?” 

Stephen huffs. “I’ll hit the shower once I finish this.”

“And then?” 

This time he can’t quite hide his irritation. He rolls his eyes, grumbles a little. “Bed,” he says, “And then I’ll head to bed.” 

He doesn’t think he’s imagining the twist of amusement on Stark’s lips, the slight nod of approval.

—

When he wakes up sometime before dawn, it’s with sweat soaking the sheets underneath him and the sound of his own heartbeat jackhammering in his ears. With the aftermath of a nightmare comes a routine of sorts—the first step is to ground himself; meditative breathing, or taking in his surroundings, the damp sheets and the ticking clock on his nightstand and the dark. He would try to keep his eyes open regardless of the dark—it’s better than whatever waits beneath his eyelids when he closes them. 

And then it becomes a matter of whether he would get any more sleep, or if it’s worth a try at all. In the worst of nights he chooses instead to shove his way into the day, no matter the hour. He would trudge into the en suite, splash water in his face, savour the sting of it in his eyes, and ignore the bloodshot look in them when he looks himself in the mirror. In others, he’d stay in bed and stare aimlessly at the ceiling, afraid to close his eyes, and if he’s lucky he’ll drift back into sleep. 

He decides to do just that, not really hoping he’d get another blink of sleep, but too exhausted to haul himself up off the mattress. His heartbeat is still a wild thing, a hummingbird trapped in a cage, so he focuses instead on regulating his breathing, trying to keep the visions at bay. Sometimes it would fail, and he would start hyperventilating again, and the cycle goes on until he can suck a full breath without it feeling like nails pricking the inner walls of his lungs. 

After a while he notices a faint glow in the corner of his room. He does nothing to acknowledge his presence, or to shoo him away. 

“Does this happen frequently?” Stark says to him in the dark, after the lightheadedness settles in as it is wont to do after he comes down from a panic attack, not attempting to move any closer. 

“The nightmares?” Stephen asks, his voice far too hoarse for his liking. “Sometimes.” 

Stark doesn’t say anything for a moment. And then: “Is it… Is it those futures?” he says tentatively. “Your nightmares, I mean. Are they about those futures you saw with your magic rock, back in Titan?

Stephen swallows, running a trembling hand down his face. “Sometimes.” 

Stark lapses back into silence at that. After a moment of this Stephen notices the blue glow drawing ever closer, right beside his bed. 

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” 

Stephen frowns. “...What… is?” 

“This. The whole thing. Me being—dead, as well as… as Nat. And… all of it. The snap. You know you saved them, right? None of it would’ve worked without you.” 

“None of it would’ve happened if I had—”

“Hey, none of that,” Stark cuts him off. They watch each other for a moment, but Stephen breaks away quickly. Those damn, empty, lifeless eyes of his. This isn’t the Stark—the Tony he knew at all. Tony was always so full of life. It’s all so unfair. 

“Listen, Stephen,” the ghost says. “I don’t regret it, okay? I would’ve done the same thing a million times over if I had to. I chose to do it. And I can guarantee you Nat would’ve said the same. It isn’t your fault. So just…” He gestures vaguely about him, and there is the ache again—the gesture is so familiar, so close to the real thing. But not quite. “Just stop beating yourself up for it, okay? You did what you had to. We all did. Just— you’re not to blame for any of it.” 

Stephen just closes his eyes, pressing his head back against the pillows. He hums, a low thing, jaw clenching against the whirling storm of emotions inside. He senses how Stark wants to speak some more, but the man—thing—refrains. 

Stephen doesn’t manage to get any more sleep after that. 

—

Just like when Stark first appeared, Stephen similarly can’t tell for sure when exactly he had left. Or disappeared, more like, but he is honestly more inclined towards the former. Maybe he’s had enough of Stephen and had finally decided to leave the Sanctum; maybe something kept him tethered here until it had finally set him free. Maybe he was still out there, wandering about to make himself somebody else’s problem, or found it in him to visit the people who he should’ve gone to in the first place, the people who deserve him being by their side more than Stephen does, even if only a visage of what he once was. 

Maybe he just vanished. Maybe, as the expression goes, he’s finally passed on, to wherever that place is. Stephen doesn’t think himself a pious man, but he considers the thought of humans believing in some beautiful, eternal place for souls who have passed on from the material world a harmless thing. A beautiful thing, even. A hopeful thing. It was hard to cling onto such a thing as hope, these days. Still humanity prevails, ridiculously so, even in the face of everything that’s happened. Gratefulness was a ridiculous thing. 

Maybe Stark hadn’t been real after all, and the whole thing was in fact a manifestation of his guilt, or the product of a psychosis episode, which would not be too surprising at all, at this point.  

In any case, it didn’t matter, and Stephen pointedly tries not to think about the hows or whys or other myriad of questions, even if his attempts to do so prove to be futile. 

He hears the ice crack before he sees the fractures spiderwebbing across the surface. He sees Donna’s eyes when she realises what’s about to happen, knows that it’s reflected in his own, when the ice finally gives under her feet and she is plunged into deep, cold water. He knows somehow that she is screaming but does not hear it; not even a gurgle as the water fills her quickly and relentlessly, nose and throat and lungs until her body is one with it. He is fourteen with frozen feet and watching his little sister’s youth disappear into icy cold water because death only takes from those who deserve it the least. 

He is eighteen and sitting upright in his bed, clothes drenched in sweat and blankets kicked to a corner of the bed. He hasn’t been fourteen in some years but some days his body feels as small and frozen as it was that day on the lake. Donna died whole and unscarred and without a drop of blood but in his dreams his hands are stained red. There’s immortality in understanding that a dead body floats in him. 

—

He leaves home as soon as he steps into adulthood because too much of everything feels recurring and the faces around him are always ashen, frozen in mourning; cold the same way Donna’s body had been when death took her. The grief follows him along anyway. 

In medical school he learns the brain decides to live 10 minutes after the heart dies. Why that is, remains a fascinating riddle to him. 

Science is a field that explicitly sets aside emotions. He analyses dead brain matter under a microscope and tries not to consider it as anything but dead tissue, tries not to imagine some magical way to breathe life back into its individual cells. He analyses the sample as nothing but pure material, instead of matter and what once was spirit altogether. 

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

—

Victor had been angry when he died, because Stephen had left and never turned back. Not for him, or for their parents when they eventually arrived at their deathbeds. Death is not what bred bitterness into him; that’s all him. He is the one to welcome the loneliness and let it bleed into his bones. 

—

There is a hardened bullet buried in the patient’s brain and it is leaking toxic metal into the cerebral spinal fluid. Rapid-onset central nervous system shutdown. Nicodemus West had called the wrong time of death. 

Time is critical in any surgery, but more so on a dying patient. Some risks are usually worth taking when death is on the line. 

Alright, that’s an excuse—he knows he’s showing off. 

There is some twisted part of him that delights in the thought of a successful surgery, the thought of bringing a patient back to life with only his hands and some medical equipment. That part of him delights in the shame colouring Nic’s face. The same part, he finds, that delights in the idea that death is something he can control. 

Some days it’s harder to recognise that he isn’t a god. 

—

The crash happens on a rainy night, on a wet road, with his car sliding off a cliff overlooking a body of water—forgive him for not knowing the vague taxonomies of water—and he thinks of Donna as he plunges into its depths; he’s glad for her when he realises it’s almost too cold to feel any of the pain. 

—

Mortality is a privilege, he thinks, and one he has considered many times to exploit. He has lost everything; what’s surrendering life? Whatever god exists out there has forsaken him, left him as a boy on a snowy day on a frozen lake. 

He doesn’t know why he’s holding on, still. In years to come the question will still burn him; what is he even fighting for? 

—

He first hears word of Kamar Taj from a man named Jonathan Pangborn. Whatever miracle saved him from the life of a crippled could surely save his hands. Whatever is left of his savings is spent for a plane ticket to Nepal. He spends his first day wandering aimlessly under the heat of the blistering sun, the question burning in his head; what is he even fighting for? 

He learns about magic that same day, and his whole worldview gets turned upside down. 

—

He saves reality with a green rock and pure spite. He does not know how he had gotten himself into such a mess. Life has taken the strangest turn—one second he’s on Mount Everest trying to open a tear in the fabric of reality with an ancient ring, and the next he’s wielding a centuries old, supposedly powerful stone to save the universe from eternal darkness. 

Truth be told, he understands, at its core, why Kaecilius chose to do what he had done. If he is a lesser man, he would’ve resorted to such a thing as immortality, too. It’s not as terribly tempting, now that he’s had a taste of it. Death is what gives life meaning, The Ancient One had told him on the brink of her own, watching the might of Zeus strike through the night sky like a thousand fractures on ice—spreading in slow, inevitable seconds. He thinks he knows death intimately enough. 

“No, this is definitely textbook down to the T,” Vivian tells him when he speaks about some of this, one session. “You feel guilty.” 

“Who wouldn’t?” 

“That is survivor’s guilt, believe it or not.” 

Stephen just leans back in his seat and watches the view outside the window. It’s a lovely office, scarcely but stylishly decorated, and the view outside isn’t bad, either. Calming, which he supposes is expected from a therapist’s office.

“Tell me about how you’ve been sleeping.” 

“You mean about the nightmares?” 

The nightmares are to be expected, naturally. He wouldn’t be the only one, after having survived what they had. Most nights he spends in his astral form, usually reading or meditating—his body does well enough with the physical rest, but the problem is his mind. A handful of times Wong reprimands him to get some actual sleep, dragging his astral form back to his body by force. 

It’s not as though he’s actively avoiding sleep, either—sleep eludes him, most nights, and astral projecting is a convenient way to rest his body. Insomnia is an inescapable, chronic condition; he had medicated in the past, but discovered that, if anything, they amplified the night terrors. There is no easy way to go about this. 

The truth is, trouble sleeping isn’t new to him. He’s had trouble sleeping for longer than he can remember—the real problem is waking up. Waking in the morning is the most difficult thing of all. 

When he wakes up with a gasp, tasting iron on his tongue, visions of lifeless faces floating behind his eyes, the word that he thinks of is inevitable. He would sit at the side of his bed, elbows on his knees, hanging his head. He would watch as his hands shake, and he would not wait until they stopped trembling, because they never do. 

Inevitable. This is how things are meant to end. 

“It’s manageable.” 

“Manageable,” Vivian repeats, flipping to a new page on her notebook and doodling. She doesn’t take notes, Stephen discovers—she doodles aimlessly throughout the session, most times to avoid direct eye contact. He’s not sure what that says about him, if it says anything at all. 

Stephen turns to watch her for a moment, considering. “Aren’t you supposed to help me talk, or something? Isn’t that how these things go?” 

“You’ve been talking.” 

“Yes, and you’ve been sitting there mostly in silence, with the occasional monosyllable and, if I'm lucky, a full sentence or question.” 

“I get paid whether I sit here in silence or not, whether you talk to me or not. But silence is preferable to being bullshitted, if I had to pick how to spend an hour.” 

Stephen just keeps looking at her. There’s been this consistent coil of anger in him, this irritability he doesn’t quite know the source of. “Fuck you,” he says. 

Vivian finally looks up and meets his eyes. They watch each other for a moment, Stephen challengingly and her… mildly. It almost reminds him of Wong. “I think,” she says, “the real trouble isn’t sleeping. The real trouble is being awake.” 

“What would you know about that?” 

“I think every second you are awake is agony to you. I think every moment you spend conscious, you are reminded of what you’ve done. You are back in a reality you have destined the world to live in. You are consumed by guilt because you think what has happened is something you have done, like you have condemned these people to their fates. But you forget, underneath all that guilt, is your own grief. I think the real guilt is that you are grieving, even if you think you don’t deserve to be. And that,” Vivian turns back to her pad, “That’s textbook survivor’s guilt.” 

“Hm,” Stephen hums after a moment of surprise, lip twitching in a not-quite smile. He turns back to the window, a little impressed. “Not bad,” he says through the sudden dryness in his throat. 

Vivian is Wong’s idea—he had just pulled Stephen aside one day, and his face had been stern, but there was something else there. “You’re self-flagellating,” he had said. Stephen had been in the middle of layering new wards over the current ones placed over the Sanctum—unnecessary, but one can never be too cautious. He had realised he had been essentially running around and finding things to distract himself with. 

“What the hell do you mean?” 

“When was the last time you ate?” 

“I—” He frowned. Time slipped easily from him these days, and his memory wasn’t as reliable as it had been. 

“Stephen,” Wong had said to him in a particular voice, “If you wouldn’t talk to me, then talk to Vivian, at least.” 

“Who’s Vivian?” 

And that’s how he ended up here, in Vivian’s simple little office. He had seen her once or twice, on Kamar Taj grounds—had interacted with her, even, but only ever rudimentarily. He had also seen the way she fought; she is a skilled combatant, he can tell, using her own size to her advantage. Her moves are sharp and quick and calculated, gliding and dodging with ease. Her hits are fast and brutal, quicksilver smooth and carrying more strength than you’d expect—you’d never see it coming. The few sparring sessions he had seen her perform in, her opponent tended to underestimate her. It made sense; she’s small, she’s a woman, she’s black. But the moment she readies her fighting stance and makes her first move, you’re over. 

Apparently she's a practicing therapist, too, which came as a surprise to him. He had known, of course, that sorcerers have lives outside of their mystical duties—he himself still keeps ties with some of his older connections, helping them with the occasional input for their research and the like. It’s not like the Mystic Arts is all he has to live for.

“Tell me what to do about it,” Stephen says in the present.

“About what?” 

“The guilt. Tell me what to do about it.” 

Vivian looks at him again, and she has this look in her eyes sometimes where it’s almost as though she can see right through him, like she can read all the emotions showing—and not showing—on his face. 

Oh, you think you see through me, do you? Well, you don't. But I see through you!

“How are things with you and Peter?” 

“He drops by sometimes. We chat.” 

“How is he?” 

“Grieving,” Stephen answers honestly, “But he’s not saying he is.” 

Vivian nods. “And you’ve been there for him?” 

Stephen stays silent. Vivian watches him some more, then flicks her eyes back to her doodling, hand tracing idle circles along her notes. 

“You ask me what to do about the guilt,” she says, “What you mean to ask is, how can I compensate for it? What can I do to feel less guilty? How am I meant to fix this?” she continues to doodle as she speaks, and Stephen follows the movement of her hand. Aimless circles. “That boy’s been through what you’ve been through, Stephen. Be there for him. After this session,” she says, then rephrases, “I have an assignment for you.” 

“I get homework out of therapy now?” 

“Some patients do.” 

“I’m a special kind of patient, then. A special kind of fucked up.” 

“Your assignment,” she says, “if you choose to accept it, is to get Peter to talk to you. To tell him you’re there if he needs you, and to answer his questions, if he has any.” 

“He needs his space to grieve,” Stephen reasons. 

“Some people do, maybe,” she allows, “But I think, in this case, it would help him as much as it would help you to have someone in the same boat to help each other along. To patch each other’s holes to stop the sinking.” 

He thinks about that for a moment. He doesn’t know if he can—sometimes, he can’t bear just looking at the boy. At what he’s done to him. But he remains silent, and nods acquiescingly. 

—

When he finally talks to Peter, they do it haltingly, hesitatingly. Stephen tries his best to seem open, to offer a space to talk. Vivian is right, it’s the least he could do. 

“I… I do have a question, if that’s okay, sir?” Peter says. 

“Doctor,” Stephen corrects, “And yes, of course.” 

“Doctor, yeah, sorry,” he says. “I was just— I was just wondering, you know, I feel like… We kind of went through all that, right, and then suddenly we’re back right here like nothing happened. I feel like—” Peter swallows. “It’s not like I’m not grateful that we survived. I just— everyone expects me to act like everything’s back to normal. But it’s not. And you— I don’t even know half the things you’ve probably seen and been through, how do you…” He pauses for a moment, mouth half open, “How do you do it?” 

“How do I do it?” 

“Yes. How do you just move on, like that? How are you meant to… to carry on, even after it all?” 

“I don’t,” Stephen answers honestly, “I can’t. None of us can.” 

Peter doesn’t seem to have expected this answer. “You don’t?” 

“No,” he says, “Peter,” he lowers his voice. “These things… You can’t move on from them. They stick with you, for as long as you’ll live. You have to learn to carry them with you, to continue living on with and around it. You ask me how to carry on, and the truth is, I don’t know. I’m as lost as you are. But life goes on, and you have so many years ahead of you, so live them to the best of your ability.” 

Stephen lets out a small oomph, completely unprepared for the sudden tackle. After a while, he returns the hug, smoothing a hand down the boy’s back. Peter is so young. 

When Peter pulls back, there’s a subtle sheen to his eyes. “Okay,” he says shakily, “I’ll… I’ll try. Thank you, sir.” And then he catches himself. “Doctor, I meant doctor!” 

It was in the hospital bed some time later that Dimple found him again. 

“How are the boys?” Reigen immediately asked him when the nurse left the room. 

“Blondie—more like baldie, really—is next room over and snoring his head off. Seri-chan’s keeping an eye on him. Shigeo must’ve done a number on the boy. Speaking of, he and his brother are back home. Apparently the kid got himself into a car crash.” 

“What?” 

“Shigeo. Apparently he got hit by a car and it triggered the whole thing.” 

“What?” he shrieked again. 

“Oh, relax. The wound in his head was sealed off, don’t worry. Doesn’t even bleed anymore, you’d think it wasn’t even there to begin with if it weren’t for all the blood on his uniform. Must’ve been some psychic bullshit,” Dimple told him, which did not quite ease his worries, so he would have to call Mob in a bit. Maybe not for a while, though. Maybe not… so soon, after all that. He grimaced internally. That had been one hell of a roller coaster, back there. 

“Okay,” Reigen said, lying back against the cot’s unbelievably uncomfortable pillows. Hospitals, he was reminded, were the absolute worst. “And… non-physically?” 

Dimple grimaced aloud at that. “Yeah, he’s getting there. Was still kind of teary the whole way back to the Kageyamas, but he’ll be fine.” 

Reigen hummed in understanding. Mob’s a strong, kind boy. He probably wouldn’t get over it anytime soon—if ever—but he could trust Mob to pull himself back up, even after all of what happened. Reigen, though? Well… He supposed he needed to be strong, too. Shigeo needed his mentor to rely on. 

“Anyway,” Dimple cleared his throat. Reigen was sure he didn’t quite have one, but he’s talking about the same spirit that likes to conjure limbs for no purpose other than theatrical gestures and theatrical gestures alone. “I uh… came to apologise. About earlier. You know, the whole possession thing. It wasn’t cool that I just—took over your body like that, without asking. I mean, not that I was gonna use it for personal benefit or anything. Not that I can do much with it, anyway. But still.” 

Reigen let out a breath of laughter, waving it off. “Nothing to apologise for,” he said, “Extenuating circumstances and all that. If I were you I’d’ve done the same. Especially if it were Mob I found on the ground."

“Yeah, well, trust me, the kid’s a lot of things, but easy to possess isn’t one of those. You’d be damn near suicidal to even try.” He bobbed in the air a bit at this, considering him with eyes far graver than his tone. “Speaking of which,” he said. “You never told anyone.” 

There was an unmistakable skip in his heartbeat. The heart monitor picked it up. “About what?” 

Grave, grave eyes. “I saw your shoes.”

“Ah,” Reigen said, keeping his face carefully blank. He gave a small, dry laugh. “That… wasn’t…”

“You know you can talk about it, right? I mean, you know. I’m probably not your first choice for talking about any kind of personal shit like that, but… I’m a pretty good listener if I want to be, so you know.” 

“No, no, that’s—” Reigen waved his hand in a gesture of denial, “It’s not anything like that. That was just—That’s just so I could run better, is all.” 

Dimple’s lips thinned a little. “Right,” he said. Those eyes were still watching him. They were inscrutable. This was not a good area of conversation—he needed a diversion. And quick. 

“Still, though,” Reigen’s smirk was slow and, he admitted, must look goddamn obnoxious. “Misguided as it was, that was pretty considerate of you to say, for a self-proclaimed evil spirit.” 

Dimple huffed indignantly. “Well your little stunt back there definitely proved you’re the century’s best fucking psychic, too, so how about that, asshole?”

Reigen laughed at that. “Touché.” 

They looked at each other for a moment, there, a natural lull in conversation befalling them.

"You good?" Reigen asked him after a while of this, aiming for casual. "You look a little... faded, there."

"Asks the guy who ran straight into a psychic tornado," Dimple snorted. "You're one to talk. Is it the concussion?"

"'M not the one who just came back from the dead," he retorted with a shrug, "Well, sort of. You're still not quite... yanno." Alive, he wanted to say, but sluggishly swung his hand in a vague circle about the air instead. Dimple didn’t say anything to that for a while.

And then, "It would help if I had a body to possess. To conserve energy. And it keeps me anchored or whatever."

“Right,” Reigen said. “Well, seems it’s your lucky day. I’ve got a body right here.” Did Dimple’s ruddy cheeks get a little ruddier at that, had he imagined it? Surely that was the case. “Come on, then," he beckoned him in. "Get in here."

Clearly Dimple hadn't expected Reigen to offer himself so easily like that, and Reigen would have snorted if not for the fact that he wasn't quite sure himself. Why did he offer Dimple to possess him, then, just like that? That had been a blatant display of trust, hadn’t it, and he wasn’t quite sure where they stood with each other, really, but he could trust Dimple, could he? 

“...You sure?” Dimple asked him with some hesitance. It took only a moment of himself weighing the pros and cons before eventually shrugging it off and throwing all caution out the window. Oh, fuck it, he thought. Might as well. It’s the least he could do for Dimple after basically saving his ass back there.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. What’s the worst that could happen? “Just promise me you won’t run off with my body and… I don’t know, start a cult or something.” 

Dimple snorted again. “Oh, I’m past those days,” and then lower, “for the most part.” 

He didn’t get time to come up with a rejoinder for that when there’s suddenly that tingle again, the one he had felt when he woke up from the ground, a flood of green in his vision. Something settled in his head, making space to shove itself in. There was that light feeling again, like something that belonged inside finally slid into place. 

“God, that feels weird.” In honesty, it felt good. And that above all was weird, was it? 

He heard Dimple’s laugh in his head at that, his amusement twining with Reigen’s and feeding into each other. He didn’t say anything when he felt some of the pain from his wounds ease off and then disappear completely, and perhaps that was something to be terrified of, that that’s a thing Dimple can manipulate his body to do, but as it stood, Reigen wasn’t terrified. He learnt pretty early on that for all the way he acted, there wasn't much at all about Dimple one should be terrified of. 

And then there was the feeling; the one he felt the first few initial seconds after possession. Was that another thing Dimple was capable of manipulating his body into feeling? He didn’t get to contemplate that any further, because with the lack of pain and the crashing exhaustion, his limbs began to relax as he slipped into painless, blissful sleep. 

They never really talked about it again after that. 

Though it did change a couple things. Most of their banter didn’t carry as much strain anymore, for one thing. For another, there was the possession thing. Dimple would possess him from time to time, whenever convenient, often when a case or emergency requires it. The first few times had just been for necessary purposes, like when Mob or Serizawa aren’t around to pull his ass out of danger. Though at some point Reigen had caught him staring a little too intently while he was chowing down a MobDonald burger, one afternoon, and there was this kind of curiosity in his eyes, so he had beckoned the spirit over and offered a bite, except that would only be possible if Dimple possessed him. 

There was some resistance—how do you even stuff all that in your mouth without gagging, all that grease is gonna give you a heart disease—but then the curiosity won over and he had, literally and figuratively, eaten his own words. So modern fast food doesn’t taste so bad, go figure. 

Gradually Dimple would start possessing him for mundane, less life-threatening reasons, too. Possession was a casual thing, after that. Dimple always asked for consent beforehand, but then at some point Reigen had made some offhanded remark about Dimple having full permission to do it without asking because he does it often anyway—unless he plans on starting a cult again, which had made Dimple huff and puff indignantly—so he had just stopped asking altogether, after that, for the most part. 

And every single time, without fail, there was that feeling. Every. Single. Time. 

Dimple brings it up one night, while they were lazing about—or, well, Reigen’s lazing about on his bed while Dimple floats up there with his legs kicked back against an invisible surface and hands behind his head—in Reigen’s apartment. That’s another new development; sometimes, after a day of spiritual work, Dimple would follow him home, or come along with him—and occasionally Serizawa—for drinks in some hole-in-the-wall, or to dinner in his usual ramen place, instead of following Mob back home. Today is one of those days, and he would never admit this, but he appreciates Dimple’s company. Silence has never really done him good, and his shoebox of an apartment is claustrophobic on top of that, so having another presence around is nice. 

They were making desultory talk about whatever came to mind—recent exorcism cases, Mob’s upcoming graduation, Serizawa’s progress with the company, Tome’s obvious crush on that one girl that kept making her bug-inserted chocolate. 

At some point Dimple says, “So there’s something I need to tell you.” 

It’s quite out of the blue, so Reigen looks at him curiously with an arched brow, stretching languidly against his sheets, hand stopping mid-spiral in the air. “Okay,” he says carefully. Dimple has this frown on his face, like he’s practiced saying this a couple times but is struggling to find the words now. 

“You know how we, uh…” Dimple rubs the back of his non-existent head, silent for a moment. “When I possess you,” he begins again, “do you feel anything… unusual?” 

“Unusual, how? I haven’t got much data for comparison, mind.” 

“I meant—you know, like a click,” he snaps his fingers, “Like a buncha lights you didn’t know were off suddenly all flicked on, or whatever.” 

“That…” Reigen sits up. “Huh. Is that s’posed to be unusual, or something?” 

“Yeah,” Dimple says, “Sort of. Can I—?” 

“Go for it.” 

A flash of green, a jolt of cold and hot, and then that sudden, shuddering thrill. 

“That,” Dimple breathes out, using his voice. “That right there—that’s what I’m talking about. Did you—did you feel that too? That’s not—that’s not just me, right?”

I… Yes, Reigen says to him mentally, I thought… I thought that’s just how it is. 

“Well,” Dimple lays back on his pillows. “Listen. That’s the thing. I mean, I’ve been around for a hell of a long time, and I’ve possessed a few more than the average spirit has, trust me. And that—that’s never happened before.” 

Wait, seriously? Reigen thinks. With anyone?

“Yeah, basically.”

Not even that… What was his name? The security guard. 

“Yoshioka?” Dimple frowns with his face, “No, no. Never.” 

But you sure as hell possess him a lot. 

“Well. Me and him have got a whole other deal going on. Purely transactional.”

He feels Dimple slip out of his body with another flash of green, and he brushes off the sense of wrongness that immediately sets in at that. Is that another thing that doesn’t happen to Dimple’s other vessels? To Yoshioka? 

Unfortunately for him, he doesn’t quite find out, because keeping his thoughts in a direct line of order has never been his strong suit, so his mind latches onto something else Dimple had said. 

“Transactional?” Reigen arches a brow. “What’s he get out of it?” 

Dimple, now in his original form, floating a good head above Reigen, smirks salaciously. His voice is a low timbre when he says, “Wouldn’t you like to know.” 

He doesn’t know, exactly, what pushes him to say it. But before Reigen can stop himself he is suddenly saying, “And if I do?” 

He realises a split second afterwards what he had just said, panicking momentarily at the widening of Dimple’s eyes—or, well, his equivalent of it, at least; he’s still not clear on spirit physiology despite years of experience—but then Dimple’s expression turns into something… interested. Intrigued. 

So maybe…? 

“If I do…” Reigen repeats, pushing on, “Would you show me?” 

Dimple opens his (equivalent of a) mouth to say something, but then he seems to be at a loss for words. 

“You’re surprised,” Reigen realises. 

Dimple sputters. “Well, it’s not like you’ve been returning any of my advances.” 

“...Huh?” 

“Wait,” Dimple says, “You seriously didn’t…?” 

“Wait wait,” Reigen is saying, “What do you mean advances?” 

“Reigen,” Dimple says, “I cannot emphasise how obvious my advances have been. And it’s been going on for some time now. Tome-chan pulled me aside the other day and told me to stop traumatising the team. You’re telling me you didn’t fucking reali— You’re telling me they’ve been going over your fucking head? All this time? What the hell.” 

“So wait,” Reigen says, “So when—on the trip, on the way to the hot spring, that one time, when you offered to give me a test of courage, you were—that was…?” 

“Me making a pass at you, yeah,” Dimple says, in disbelief. “You only caught onto that now?” 

“Well how was I supposed to know?” He responds defensively. “You’ve been pretty much dragging me since day one. You make it some personal mission to piss me right the fuck off every chance you can get. I thought you hated my guts, until, you know, recently.”

“To be fair I do that to everyone.” 

“So what, being an asshole is just your cover?” 

“Pretty much.” 

Reigen laughs at that, long and loud and hysterical, sliding a hand over his eyes, down his face. “Christ, you’re unbelievable.” 

“Says you.” 

He smiles, shakes his head ruefully. “Says me.” 

Dimple is smiling, though. Reigen smiles back. Dimple clears his throat. 

“The answer would’ve been yes, by the way.” 

“Hm?” And then it hits Reigen what he meant. “Oh.” 

“But there’s—something else.” 

Reigen gives him a questioning look. 

“Listen, uh,” Dimple looks unsure here. Unusual look on him, Reigen thinks. “So when I said the score between me and Yoshioka is that we keep it purely transactional, I meant that. But we sort of—broke it off, a while back. Just mutually agreed to call it off, ‘cos we needed other things, and all that. But you and me—I mean, if we’re really doing this, I…” More of that uncharacteristic hesitance. “I’d like it if it weren’t just that, between you and me. If you get what I mean. I’d really like it if… if maybe it could mean something else entirely.” 

Reigen’s breath catches. Dimple is… Is Dimple asking for what Reigen thinks he’s asking? 

“I mean, I—I get it if not, you know, we can keep it casual and all that but—” 

“Yes.” 

Dimple is struck to silence for a moment. “Yes to keeping it casual?” 

“No, I meant—yes to it being a little more than that,” Reigen says, “If you’re amenable.” 

Dimple floats closer, and there’s something strangely beautiful happening to those lips, something Reigen has fought hard for some time not to acknowledge its beauty. Dimple is smiling. “More than,” Dimple murmurs, and Reigen is smiling back. 

He is drawing closer now, closer than he usually would allow himself to be. Closer still. 

“Hey,” Reigen says lowly, “Can I ask you something?” 

“Yeah.”

“When was the last time someone kissed you? Not when you’re in somebody else’s body, I mean. I meant… When was the last time someone kissed you?” 

Dimple’s lips parted. “Been some time,” he answers, “Why?” 

They are closer now than they were before, hovering mere inches over each other.

“I’d like to be your first in a while.” 

Dimple nods eagerly. “Okay.”

And then they are kissing. It is by all means not an amazing kiss, or an expert one, and it lacks any of the finesse that someone more experienced would have, but it’s a good kiss. It’s an exploring kiss. They take their time feeling each other out, and it is this gradual build, this slow ascend up a staircase, and suddenly he feels Dimple pulling his face closer and—

A shiver goes down his spine. There are electric pinpricks spreading all across his skin like a physical thing crawling along him. It is leaving him breathless the longer they keep this up. It’s a familiar feeling. 

He realises with a jolt that it’s that feeling. The same one he feels every single time Dimple slips into his mind, every single time his presence entwines with Reigen’s. 

Reigen pulls back for breath, shocked to find himself panting, to feel his heart thudding wildly. “Did you know about this?” he asks, because he knows Dimple knows what he’s talking about. Knows Dimple feels this thing, this unimaginably wonderful thing, too. 

“Heavily suspected, once or twice,” Dimple replies gruffly, before he’s latching his lips onto Reigen’s again. It is an addicting thing, kissing and being kissed by him.  

Reigen pulls back again. “Do you—Do you know if this means anything?” 

Dimple seems to be equally affected, eyes searching Reigen’s. “Yes. No. I don’t know. Can we kiss again?” Reigen immediately nods, and they do just that. 

“Hey,” Stephen says, reaching out for Tony’s hand across the wrinkled sheets. Tony’s eyes were wide and assessing, cataloguing him from head to toe at the limited angle their positions allowed—there is the exhaustion, though, clear as day. “I’m alright, Tony. I’m right here.” 

“I know,” Tony says. “I just… I know.” Tony shuffles nearer. He feels strong arms gathering him onto a broad chest, and Stephen reciprocates easily, winding an arm over Tony’s back to pull him closer, folding himself into the man. “It’s just… I realise sometimes how easily I could… How often it is that… How any day I could suddenly…” 

Stephen unceremoniously reaches for Tony’s hands, tangling their fingers. “I know,” he says, “I know.” 

They lay there, feeling the rise and fall of each other’s chests, the slowly evening heartbeats. They have this sort of ritual, every time a battle ends—an unspoken, mutual agreement to just be in each other’s spaces, basking in the assurance that they are alive and well despite all the odds.

Tony’s softly tracing a bruise over his collarbone, pulling back to eye the new few cuts already scabbing over. Whatever injuries that were serious had been quickly dealt with in the Medbay—they are lucky the worst of it had just been the gash on Stephen’s shoulder, wrapped tightly with crisp white bandages. Tony eyes it carefully.  

“I need something,” Tony tells him, and immediately Stephen understands what he means.

“Tell me,” is Stephen’s response. “Tell me what you need.” 

“I need…” Tony swallows, face moving closer. “I need you. I need to feel you,” he says, and there is, indeed, a shaky tread of need in his tone—Stephen is already nodding, already parting his lips to welcome the kiss that follows. 

This is who they are, at the end of the day. Stripped from the robes and the armour, who they are has always been just this. Tony and Stephen, two people who find each other and live with the fear of losing the other, every day. Tony’s body is warm, still—he remembers how it feels this morning, and that feels like a long time ago, but his warmth is always something Stephen can rely on. They slide wonderfully against each other like this, tessellating perfectly—no words are ever needed to communicate what their bodies need. This is a language they speak without the need of them. 

The familiar hunger builds in his stomach. Tony is deepening their kiss, desperately mapping his mouth with his tongue, pulling them flush together. Their breaths are ragged, the only sound between them. Stephen lets out a muffled moan when Tony wraps a hand around his cock, already half-hard, thickening by the minute. He pumps once, twice, before lining up his own member against Stephen’s. The weight of it, the way he can feel Tony against him, leaves him shuddering head to toe. 

Tony reaches for the lube in their bedside drawer, frantic. Stephen can only cant his hips desperately as he waits until Tony gets his hand finally—finally—wrapped around them both, slick this time. They move as one, and he fucks into the chasm of Tony’s palm and whispers his name like a prayer. Tony is watching him, and there are a million things he isn’t saying in those deep, brown, beautiful eyes but Stephen knows it all the same. 

They cum like that, spilling over each other’s chests with a mutual groan, sealing each other’s lips together. 

Basking in the afterglow, Stephen turns and meets Tony’s eyes. He reaches a shaking hand to cup his jaw, smiles when Tony softly circles his wrist, thumb rubbing gently over the scars. “I’m right here,” he whispers hoarsely. 

When the police came, the shaking hadn’t stopped. It persisted all through his ride back to the Manor—his father’s house—and persisted still throughout the entire night. He hadn’t slept a wink. In fact, he hadn’t slept at all, the first three or so days after their deaths, until Alfred must have slipped an ambien into his drink. 

They told him, some time later, that his parents had died an instant, mostly painless death, like some sort of reassurance. The bullets were perfectly aimed, they said; there couldn’t have been a way to save them if they tried.

He hadn’t ever told anyone about the third bullet, the one that had been shot right before the gunner had fled the alley. It had missed, digging into the pavement two inches from his feet. 

He also hadn’t known what to do with his clothes. They had been soaked through with blood—Alfred would wash it all away. In the end he had shoved them into the back of a drawer in his closet and never opened it again. It was some years later that Alfred finally found it, digging it out of where it had hid for years. 

“Master Bruce,” was all he could say as he held it, and Bruce just stood frozen, watching him.

“Please don’t throw it away,” he told him. It was the only thing he could bring himself to say. Those were his parents’ blood; in some twisted way, it was the only real thing left of them, aside from their bedroom in the Manor, left mostly untouched after that night, and the scattered pearls in the alley, lost in the winding sewers underneath the city. He couldn’t throw it away. 

“Master Bruce,” Alfred said again, but this time in a different voice. There was an inscrutable look in his eyes as he watched Bruce, hands clutching the blood stained clothes. Those hands, they did not shake; they never did, even in the worst of situations. Always steady, like Alfred’s presence had always been. 

“I—” he tried, but could get nothing more through the sudden spasm in his throat. He realised too late that there was a trembling in his fingers, crawling up his arms, and soon it took over him completely. For a moment he was back in that alley, kneeling in front of his parents’ motionless bodies, reliving that moment all over again. 

He choked when Alfred moved forward, hesitating, before suddenly he was being held. Alfred held him, as he shook and shook and shook. They lowered to the floor, and all he could do was hold on, clutching at the man’s sleeves. A hand stroked up and down his back, and Alfred was instructing him to breathe, was trying to ground him, was speaking with his steady voice and holding him in his steady arms. Bruce listened with half an ear, folded over. 

These are the memories that drift in his feverish mind that moment, the cool tiles underneath him a grounding anchor to reality. It takes a while for his sluggish brain to remember he’s in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, back against the tub. He’s not so sure how he got here, just that he feels too weak to move anywhere else. He drifts there for a moment, not really knowing how long—he’s been experiencing intermittent waves of hot and cold all afternoon, but they seem to wash over him continuously now; chills going up and down his spine, all through his aching muscles. There are spikes penetrating his brain, pain pulsing in his temples. He tries in vain to will together some strength to stand, at the very least, but finds that he cannot. 

After a while he realises someone else is in the bathroom with him, a palm pressing against his forehead. 

“Jesus, baby,” says a familiar voice, “You’re burning up.” Both palms are cradling his cheeks now, and he makes a soft noise at that. “Wong told me to come over.” 

It takes a while to find his voice, to push it through the surprising dryness. “Traitor,” he mutters, “I told him I’m… fine,” he manages. 

A snort. “Sure you are.” 

“He needs to tend to his duties.” 

“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. To babysit your sick ass.” 

Stephen scowls at that, but he doesn’t exactly have full faculties of his facial muscles at the moment, so for all he knows it might just be a slight twitch of his face. The hand is feeling along his cheeks, which must be more than a little warm. 

“Let’s get you up and into bed, baby.” 

“Can’t,” Stephen says. Another chill goes through him, and he shudders at it. 

“I know,” says the voice understandingly, “Me and Red are gonna help you up, ‘kay? Come on.”

His arm is slung over broad shoulders, and that, along with the cloak supporting his weight, manages to lift him off the floor, before he is being led out the doorway. 

“You should’ve told me,” the voice—Tony, he remembers now—says, “I would’ve come.” 

“I don’t need any help,” he protests. 

“Sure. You’re doing just fine back there, sitting miserably on the bathroom floor.” 

“I was,” he counters, somehow managing to open his eyes to slits, peering up at the man through his bangs. “Doing fine,” he clarifies. The look on Tony’s face betrays his tone; there’s an obvious crease of worry digging between those brows, and this time Stephen does manage a successful scowl. Tony just searches his eyes, and the soft sincerity there makes Stephen look away. 

Slowly they make their way to the bed, and Stephen has no choice but to let Tony tuck him in. The cloak bundles him up, a little too tightly. It doesn’t budge despite his noise of protest. 

“Wong told me you’re a flight risk, but considering your state I doubt you’d even be able to walk on your own. But just in case,” Tony says, “Cloak here is putting you in blanket jail. Isn’t that right, Red?” 

The cloak tightens around him in response. 

“You’re suffocating me.” 

“That’s just your clogged nose.” 

“This is murder.” 

“Oh, stop it, you big baby. Just rest, alright?” Tony drags a nearby chair beside the bed. “I’ll just be right here.” 

Stephen huffs as a last attempt at saving his dignity, digging further into the bed despite himself. The combination of fatigue and—he is loathe to admit—the comforting weight of the cloak lulls him into an obliterating, all-consuming, full sleep.

—

He grapples back into consciousness with some struggle. He must have dreamt of something, and it comes back to him in hazy sense-memories: gentle fingers, the heat of steam rising from a bowl of broth, the waft of scent; a blend of something warm and salty and herbaceous. Absently he registers several sensations; the damp, lukewarm cloth over his forehead, the blankets over him, the soreness of his throat. The cloth lifts, is dipped into what he assumes is a bowl of water. He hears it drip as it’s being wrung, feels when it returns, gently draped over his forehead. 

Something here feels familiar. He puzzles over this, trying to put his finger on it.

“Ma?” he croaks out. 

“What was that, baby?” mumbles a voice that doesn’t sound like Ma, but it can’t be anyone else. Stephen doesn’t remember anyone else having ever spoken to him quite so softly. 

“Ma,” he rasps again, and there are blessedly cool, callused fingers sweeping across his cheeks now, up along his cheekbones, higher still to brush away his bangs. Stephen is sure of it now. That hand couldn’t belong to anyone else; it is so gentle. 

The tears come completely unbidden. He tries to open his eyes, but is too weak, they are sealed shut, too heavy to lift open. There's a gentle shushing noise above him, whispering little reassuring words. 

“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Shh, I’m right here.” 

“‘M sorry,” he murmurs, “‘M so sorry.”

That hand smooths over his heated face, his tear-streaked cheeks, soothing away the tears. "Nothing to be sorry for,” the gentle voice says. 

“No,” he murmurs, because that isn’t true, he has everything to be sorry for. So many words he meant to say, so many apologies he owes. He’s a burden, he’s a failure, he’s failed her, he’s failed everyone, he could’ve saved her, it was his fault, and he’s sorry, he’s so so sorry, is all he can feel. He doesn’t know if he says part of that aloud, or if he says anything at all. He’s not quite aware of what’s leaving his mouth.

“Fuck, you gorgeous thing—” 

Tony makes quick work of yanking Stephen’s shirt up over his arms, and they are more or less half naked now, or at least getting there, but it’s proving exponentially harder to focus the longer Tony keeps his mouth on Stephen’s—and that in addition to Tony’s better dexterity than his, Stephen is left a little less clothed than him. He had wondered for some time what kind of kisser Tony would be, and wasn’t quite surprised to find out that he is in fact a great one at that, given his reputation, but he didn’t quite calculate to what extent that went. 

Tony kisses ferociously. He kisses Stephen with this violent sort of hunger, completely taking charge of his mouth and sending all thoughts out of his head except for the delicious feel of that tongue slip-sliding over his. The word he’s looking for is intense. It’s intense, being kissed by Tony Stark—and that is another thing, the way they are kissing each other but it feels like Tony is kissing him, in the sense that the action has a direct object, that it is very much a transitive verb, that Stephen is receiving the act, that Tony is kissing him and he is being kissed by Tony—and Stephen is sure he can get off on it alone. 

Insofar as they’re concerned, this is the farthest they’ve ever really gone, in the past two weeks, besides the hormone-fueled make out sessions and a bit of the occasional groping. The most they’ve done during this… whatever the right word is to call what they are to each other—prior to this moment—has just been some desperate fumbling, mostly clothed besides their dicks sticking out while they literally ate each other’s faces off, humping each other like labradors in heat, like it was high school all over again. Though he wouldn’t know about that—he hadn’t ever felt quite this way with anyone in the scant sexual encounters he’s had as a young Nebraskan boy stumbling into pubescence, though he couldn’t speak for Tony. They hadn’t really shared much in the way of their sexual experience and history with each other, on account of the fact that they’d been too busy climbing down each others’ throats any chance they got. No matter, Stephen often thought, they’d work their way around it soon enough. 

And then there’s now. 

The going full naked, that is a first. He doesn’t exactly know how they get from point A to point B, but one second they’re stumbling through the doorway of Tony’s bedroom, ripping each other’s clothes off, mouths holding onto each other like lifelines, and the next, he’s being pushed back against the pillows of Tony’s obscenely large bed. Damn billionaires, with their ridiculously soft pillows and beds big enough to fit the entirety of Texas. 

He can feel the hard jut of Tony’s erection through those trousers—and holy mother of Christ, who the hell are his tailors, and he better have paid them generously because dear lord did those trousers do favours for the man’s ass—pressing against his hip. He can feel his own hardness straining against his jeans. Tony is wedging a hand between them, draping that glorious body of his over Stephen’s and pressing him down, fumbling with Stephen’s zipper. 

Stephen isn’t quite as successful in his own attempts in getting Tony naked, he’s realising now as Tony starts pushing a hand down Stephen’s crotch, rubbing over his briefs and pulling a restrained groan out of him—but manages to pull Tony’s shirt off with clumsy, trembling hands. 

“Get these clothes off you,” Tony says hoarsely, tugging his jeans and underwear down around his thighs—Stephen kicks them off impatiently. 

Too late he remembers the scar that lives underneath; a distinct, crescent scar that dug itself into the flesh of his hip, spanning from the jut of his pelvis and curving down, just skimming past the edge of his underwear’s hem. It is an ugly, gnarly thing, easily hidden by his usual robes, but there is virtually no way to subtly conceal it now, even in the room’s dim lighting. He has the front row seat in watching Tony’s reaction as he notices it, his smile dying at the sight of it. The man just stares, and Stephen can’t bear to see the look in his eyes. He has to shut his own momentarily at the slamdunk of utter shame that floods him, lips thinning. 

“It’s fine,” he says after a while, as if Tony asked, fumbling to pull the blankets over to cover himself with trembling hands. 

“Hey, no,” Tony says, “Let me. It’s okay.” 

Tony eases those hands away and slowly pulls the blanket off, then takes a moment to admire his thighs. Slowly, almost as though telegraphing his intent, he lowers his head down and plants a wet kiss over the raised skin that sends a shiver all up and down his body. Then all of a sudden there is a tongue dragging itself over it and— 

“No,” Stephen gasps, scrambling away. He turns his head to the side in shame, not wanting to look at Tony’s face. He is gripping the sheets, he realises. It’s just that—the warmth of that tongue felt not dissimilar to when his skin had been sliced, that time, and for a vertiginous moment he had been back in the Dark Dimension, standing before Dormammu’s fiery head as he rained torture upon Stephen over and over again. His breathing is not quite right. 

“Hey,” Tony says, in a tone that sounds like he’s talking to a skittish horse. “Hey, easy there, gorgeous.” 

“I—” Stephen is saying, and he hears it but he can’t quite feel the words leaving through his numb lips, “I’m sorry.” 

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Tony murmurs earnestly, and he is watching Stephen now. Cautious. He doesn’t put a hand on him, instead hovering over Stephen with grave eyes. “This still okay?” 

“I—” Stephen swallows. “Just—” 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Tony says, “It’s okay. We don’t need to keep going, if you don’t want to.” 

The thing is, he does. He does want to. His traitorous cock had somehow survived through that whole… whatever that was that had happened, standing at half mast. One glance at Tony’s own groin tells him Tony’s own cock hasn’t gotten any less excited, either. 

Tentatively, Tony reaches a hand to skim lightly over his cheekbones, eyes watching him closely for every reaction. “Do you want to stay?” 

Stephen swallows past the tightness of his throat. He wills the quick thud thud thud of his heart to calm, keeping his breaths even. “Yes,” he says. 

“We don’t have to do anything,” Tony assures. 

“No, I—I want to. Keep going, I mean.” 

A slight quirk of his lips, and then Tony says, “Okay. We’ll go slow.” He dives down to press a kiss at the edge of Stephen’s lips, so Stephen turns and meets it. A callused hand feels up and down his arm, another gently placed over his nape to pull him closer. Experimentally, Stephen presses forward, kissing harder, and his response is equivalent; Tony presses back and returns the kiss in equal measure. Interesting. 

They’re beginning a slow grind now, and Stephen quietly asks, “Your pants,” to which Tony nods and pulls them off, so they’re both naked. He works a hand between them both, lines their cocks together and begins a steady stroke. The kissing starts again, heated but just teasing along the edges of it, carrying substantially less intensity than when they first started. He can hear the rasp of Tony’s breathing, and knows that his own is ragged. They’re being so quiet. Stephen nearly breaks the silence with a particularly loud gasp, but he buries it instead into the crook of Tony’s neck, driving his hips up desperately. 

“Close,” Stephen murmurs, a thread of sound. 

“Me too,” Tony whispers tightly. The eye contact alone is such an erotic thing, the way Tony keeps his eyes on Stephen the whole way through like nothing else is worth his attention. At first Stephen thought it must be because he wants to make sure they don’t get a repeat of earlier, but now he’s not so sure. There is something else in those brown eyes, as they watch him, something he can’t quite put his finger on. 

His orgasm, when it comes, is slow and lasts for eternities. It completely unstrings him, the way it milks him dry, every pulse of cum drawing out of him until his balls are empty. He can only gasp and writhe and shiver through it. Tony husks a quiet “Fuck,” above him before he jerks once, twice, and tumbles over the edge, groaning low in his throat. “Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he says, droopy eyes meeting his before those lips are back again, kissing breathlessly. 

Tony wipes them down with the blanket, and slowly folds Stephen into him, and they lay there in post-coital bliss together. He must fall asleep, then, because he remembers nothing more that night. 

—

Stephen wakes at dawn. He drifts there in not-quite-slumber, memories of last night slowly trickling back into his brain. He doesn’t know how long he lays there until the body beside him stirs, and suddenly sleepy eyes are blinking awake, blearily turning to him. Those eyes are watching again, like they had just last night.

Being watched by Tony Stark is not something to be taken for granted. The man has the attention span of a guppy; you would think he isn’t absorbing the amount of minute details he does, at the rate he does, what with the way his eyes would flit all around the room, never staying on one thing for too long. But to have all of that focus honed solely on you? It isn’t something Stephen should be taking for granted at all. 

After a while he gets up to retrieve something in his bag shoved in the other side of the room, taking his time rummaging around. He returns to the side of the bed, feeling Tony’s eyes on him as he sets two bottles of pills on the bedside table. He sits on the rumpled sheets.

“The zoloft is a garden variety antidepressant,” he explains when he can find his voice again. “The klonopin is—it’s for regulating… controlling certain… responses. Short-circuits the neural pathways that re-insert your brain in… trauma response,” he continues steadily, keeping his voice level and intent. Tony is just looking at him. Stephen doesn’t quite know where to put his eyes. “I have good days and bad days. Some days it’s easier to control these responses than others. But I—” he swallows, “But I... I know I should’ve told you earlier. I understand if this changes things. I understand if…” and he trails off. 

Tony is still just looking at him. 

After a while, Tony gets up, and leaves Stephen sitting there. He wants to say, wait, I know what this looks like, I know you think you’re dating a crazy person, but I promise I’m not that fucked in the head, but that would be a lie. He wants to say, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I would’ve if I had the chance, the right opportunity to, but that would be a lie, too. 

This must be the last push for Tony. This must be the last of the line of things to convince him why dating Stephen Strange is the mother of all bad ideas, why he should probably stay away from him for the rest of his life, or at least keep a good five mile radius from him at all times. The silence behind him is Tony silently putting his clothes back on, zipping up his pants, saying, Hey so maybe the next time you want to get in somebody’s pants, you should tell them they’re sleeping with some headcase who might have a goddamn meltdown over your boner first. 

But then not a moment later Tony has returned, and he brought something with him. He must have been rummaging through his own bag earlier, while Stephen let himself spiral through all the worst assumptions. 

He set a bottle of klonopin pills, half empty, right beside his own on the nightstand. He slowly comes to a crouch between Stephen’s knees and watches him watch the bottles of pills. 

“Oh,” is what eventually comes out of his mouth, which is probably a very inadequate response, but he really could not come up with anything quite more eloquent at the moment. Tony gives him a sort of fond, rueful smile, but it’s far from a happy one. It looks almost sad. A hand settles on one of his knees now and rubs the bare skin there with a gentle thumb. 

“Does this change anything?” Tony asks, barely above a whisper. 

“What?” 

“About what you think of me. Does this change anything?” 

“No,” Stephen says firmly, “No, of course not.” 

“Good,” Tony nods decidedly, and his voice matches Stephen’s now. “Because it changes nothing about how I think about you, either. It changes nothing about how I feel about you. It changes nothing about us. Do you hear me?” 

Stephen swallows again, nodding slowly. “...Yes,” he manages through a suddenly tight throat. 

Tony is still watching him, just quietly observing, then takes one of his trembling hands in the two of his and holds it to his bare chest, where the arc reactor had been. He could see the small, angry lines of his hands against the small, angry lines on Tony's chest, see the history written there, see that this is a part of them, a kind of pain that is only theirs. 

“We all carry our scars, Stephen,” Tony says, and his tone of voice is this low, soothing timbre that Stephen used to think is patronising, like Tony is pitying him, which angered him greatly, but he has come to learn that it is anything but that. It is in fact some cocktail of a couple other things; some peculiar kind of sorrow, for one thing, some kind of deep empathy you reserve to those you care for the most. A sort of understanding, for another. And, lurking somewhere in the corners is a gentle, amused exasperation. Like this is something Tony is fondly exasperated about him, come to expect from him. It is possible the name of this tone of voice is love. 

“It’s what makes us who we are,” Tony continues, and Stephen lays his palm flat against the plane of Tony’s broad chest, lets himself caress the scarred skin. “This?” Tony nods his head at the pills, “This changes nothing about us. For better or for worse, it is a part of us, and not one we can change. This is not something you can magically fix. This is not something that needs fixing,” Tony raises Stephen’s trembling hand, the one he is holding, and kisses his open palm, holds it there as he murmurs, “There is nothing wrong about you—about this—as much as there is nothing wrong about me.” 

“Well,” Stephen murmurs back, “There is something a little wrong about me.” 

Tony laughs quietly behind his hand, and there is that fondness again. The sound of love. It is possibly the loveliest sound he’s ever heard in the world, Tony’s laugh. It is nothing that should exist in this universe, the sheer beauty of it. 

“Then that makes the two of us,” Tony smirks. 

Truth be told, when he first got into therapy, he thought it would be some magical all-cure for everything that is wrong with him. Like his therapist somehow had an arsenal of ways to fix him right up, like finding Kamar Taj and learning the Mystic Arts was like. Well, sort of, anyway. 

He had this mental image of him being rolled into surgery, his therapist carving out his skull and considering his brain, the inner workings of it, digging her expert hands inside to scoop out all the grim and dark and awful things that make him so fucked in the head. All the long, inky black, stringy substances of it, pulled out of him with a pair of forceps and expertly cut out with a scalpel. And then when it all has been surgically removed from his body like a cancer he would wake up in a hospital bed feeling more normal, more human than he had ever been, surrounded by all the people he loves, massive grins on their faces as they say, “You’re fine now, you’re okay, you’re all cured, we love you,” and that would be the fairy tale happy ever after ending.

But as it turns out, reality is not so simple, even in a world where magic exists. As it turns out, his therapist is as much a human as everyone else, as much a human as he. Her degree in psychology does not give her the godly abilities to suddenly disappear all his problems or bend reality to his convenience. She just has the means to help him out, cheering him on by the bleachers. Or coach him, really, as he fucks up the game that is his life. 

And Tony was right when he said the thing about there being no magical way to fix him. There is no cure to the things that make you who you are. There is no cure for being, despite everything, human, who falls and who breaks and who fucks up just like everyone else. 

“It was from Dormammu,” Stephen suddenly says. He thought maybe saying the name aloud again would do something, twist him down paths of darkness like it had last night even though Tony does not deserve a second episode of My Amazing Meltdown, but as it stands, he feels nothing. Nothing, as in the feeling of being devoid of all feelings. He feels numb, is all he can feel. “The scar, I mean.” 

“Dormammu,” Tony repeats, “Now that is a bad guy name. A real Dark Lord of Evil Ancient Darkness kind of name.” 

He snorts at that, and pauses here, and wonders if he is really going through with this. Not even Wong knows the whole of it, just the parts he gleaned from the way Stephen behaved or responded to certain things. And Vivian, bless her, she had only known the broad outlines of what happened from the few scattered sessions where he was even willing to talk about it. 

And now there’s Tony. Something about Tony makes it so easy to talk to him. Tony can easily bust through his carefully built walls like a raging bulldozer, trample all over the lines he draws on the ground that nobody passes. He can strip Stephen down to his bones, all his raw, vulnerable humanness on display, like nobody had done before. 

He has never thought he needed to let his guard down like this, never thought he’d find anyone he can trust to put all his defenses down and be completely, wholly, utterly himself with, whoever the Stephen Strange that lives inside of him is, underneath it all. Probably some mangled, twisted man. A lost cause. Some gruesome, gnarly nightmare of a being beyond human recognition, like one of those lovecraftian horrors he often fights that would spill out of interdimensional breaches. 

But Tony doesn’t seem to mind that one bit. 

So he tells the story of Dormammu, how he had been summoned by Kaecillius and his zealots and the kind of trouble that put them all through. He tells Tony about the first time he picked up the Eye, about the first time a man’s death was on his hands—not the first life lost because of him, but Donna is a story for another time—and what he doesn’t tell is how he had avoided walking through that hall where the body had been the first few weeks afterwards, or how he had had to wash off the bloodstains Master Drumm had left on the foyer. He tells Tony about taking on the mantle of the Master of the New York Sanctum, about the The Ancient One and her passing. He tells him about facing death in the eyes and striking a bargain with it. There are details he leaves out, about how his body had been broken and mangled and hurt and burnt and cut and tortured beyond repair, and then stitched painfully back together in one blinking second only to repeat the sequence over again in an agonizing loop. Instead he tells Tony about defeating death and saving the world from eternal darkness—you better be goddamn thankful for that, universe—and then about returning, and about Mordo. 

“Well that’s an asshole thing to do,” Tony tells him, when Stephen finishes the part where Mordo parted ways from them. He has been mostly quiet, listening to Stephen talk his way through everything in a halting, hesitant pace. “That’s not fair at all.” 

“I do understand where he’s coming from,” Stephen admits. “Mordo has… certain ideas about how things should be. About how the universe should be for it to work, and the means he has to take for it to be that way. Not unlike Kaecillius.” 

Tony just hums vaguely, either in understanding or acknowledgement or something else, he’s not quite sure. 

Stephen had maybe expected Tony would be the vocal kind of listener, who would pitch a comment or question or two while he talks, and had been entirely prepared for it even, but the man can in fact be completely silent like this, and Stephen knows behind those infinitely, infuriatingly keen eyes, he was quietly observing, too. And then there is the other thing lurking in the back of those eyes, the gentle thing he sometimes could not bear to look directly at, because it always makes his chest constrict a little. 

“But anyway. The hip. It’s… the worst of the scars left with me, after… the loop. The worst visible one, at least.” 

Tony hums again. “How’d you get it?” he murmurs. 

Stephen tries to remember that one. That is one of the array of new things he had to adjust to after the loop; remembering things. Before he had been able to rely on his photographic memory to store away important little details, but these days he hardly even remembers how he had started his day, how he even woke up that morning, or what he had done the first few hours afterwards, or even what he had done the previous days and weeks prior. Sometimes it would happen that he is doing something—the kind of thing you could do on autopilot like reading or cleaning or, in his case, practicing spellwork—and he would be completely absorbed in his work for a while before he would snap awake as if he had been asleep, and he would wonder where he is and what he is doing and how he even got there to begin with. There are entire chunks of the day that he would forget, entire chunks of his life he struggles to remember.

“I…” Stephen settles back a little awkwardly, considering his words. “I have… sense memories. I don’t remember how I got this scar, and I don’t really remember how I got most of my scars anyway—” except for his hands, which has always been a reminder of his past, who he was, who he would still be if he hadn’t been so goddamned stupid and reckless and selfish and— “but… Dormammu is creative in his ways to kill a man. To incinerate them quickly or to drag it out; flame, glass, strangulation, impalement, you name it. He never used the same methods in the same order, twice,” he explains.

Tony has fallen silent again, just looking at him with those watchful eyes. It’s funny, how long he had avoided looking directly in those eyes, when they had first met. He thought it was because they were infuriating eyes that belong to an even more infuriating man, but he knows the truth of it now; he had been afraid. He had known, in some capacity, that Tony attracted him, and the realisation of that had confused and scared him. He had never fallen for a man before, never felt so strongly about them, didn’t know that was even a possibility for him. But here he is, looking into the deep, magnificent eyes of the man that goes against everything he stands and believes in and is somehow so much like him in so many ways. Sometimes he swears he can see all the way to the back of those beautiful brown eyes. 

“Heterochemia,” Tony says after a while of this, just them staring into each other’s eyes. 

“What?” 

“Did you know your eyes do this thing where it shifts colours in different lighting?” 

“Well. Sort of. I mean, yes, I know. What does that have to do with…” 

“You’re beautiful, you know that?” Tony tells him, and Stephen’s breath catches a little. He was not expecting that. They are closer now. “And I just can’t imagine—I just can’t imagine why anything in the universe would want to destroy such a beautiful thing.” 

“You’re being objectifying. I’m more than just my looks,” he says, but the prickle of heat across his cheekbones is betraying him. Tony chuckles a little; that low, fond sound. Suddenly his jaw is being cradled by both of Tony’s hands, so gentle it makes the thing he had thought dead in his chest begin to ache and pound, and they are definitely, impossibly, much, much closer now. 

He thinks maybe Tony would say something more. Something brainlessly sweet and romantic or some other sappy thing he always seemed to be in endless supply of, but instead Tony just kisses him. 

If Dormammu had been like tasting death, this—Tony’s lips on his—this is like tasting life. There is life, living there in the corner of that mouth, and Stephen deepens their kiss to chase after it, to dig into it and find more. 

“Thank you,” Tony murmurs into his mouth when they part—or not quite part, with their lips still brushing each other, “for trusting me. For telling me this. But maybe next time, do it a little more clothed, because goddamn if you know how to distract a man. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Wizard?” He frowns. “Something the matter?” 

“I’m fine,” is Strange’s immediate, tight reply. “I just— I might’ve taken a hit. It’s not a big deal.” 

“Jesus,” Tony mutters, making his way over. He hadn’t noticed with how dark it is here, and the cloak having concealed practically Strange’s entire torso, but Strange seems to slump at an angle, favouring one side. All of a sudden his refusal to do anything but sit there completely immobile seems a lot less like apathy, and a lot more like something else. He crouches beside the sorcerer to get a better look. “Let me see,” he asks. Reluctantly, the cloak pulls back, and Tony gently places a hand against his side. It comes off warm and wet. “Jesus,” he mutters again, sharper. 

“It’s fine,” Strange snaps. Tony presses against it again, getting the smallest of flinches, feeling something else underneath; a rhythmic tremor in the muscle, subtle but unmistakable. 

“You’re going into shock,” Tony realises. Stephen’s eyes shut tightly, breath audibly ragged, now that Tony’s close enough to hear it. 

“I’m—fine.” 

“No you’re not, for fuck’s sake. And you call yourself a doctor.” Tony tries to take a closer look at the wound with the dim light from the arc reactor. Not good. “Okay, I’m gonna need to move you. It’s going to help, but it’s also going to hurt, so tell me if it gets too much, okay?” 

“Okay,” Strange rasps, actually complying. 

Slowly, Tony shifts him to lay down. Strange seems to be trying very hard not to make any noise—he’s pretty sure the average person would be screaming and writhing in pain by now. He makes sure to position Strange in a way that slightly elevates his legs, while ensuring his injured side isn’t too aggravated. Strange’s hands are clenching painfully. 

“Little help here, Red,” he says once settled, hastily grabbing the edge of the cloak. It bundles itself up as he presses against the dark gash, hard. Strange bites his lip to stifle a groan, and something about that makes Tony’s insides clench. The man hardly ever shows any outward signs of pain—to see him actually hurt like this makes Tony want to fly back out there and rip out the heads of those purple-blooded creatures. He allows himself a brief mental image of himself tearing through its flesh, down to the bones and ligaments as it screeches and writhes in pain underneath him. 

“Okay, there. We’re going to try and stop the bleeding—hey, no, stay with me now. Strange, you can’t fall asleep. You need to stay conscious, okay? At least until the others find us. Strange, hey, come on.” 

Strange nods his head incrementally, just a jerk of the chin. “Fuck,” he pants. 

“Yeah,” Tony says, breathless all of a sudden. He’s pleased to note that the tremor in Stephen’s body is slowly subsiding. “They’re going to find us, okay? Wong is out there, and I’m pretty sure he’d tear through hell and back just to get to you.” 

“He’s… I don’t know if they saw where—we were cut off,” Strange says, “Tony, I don’t know if…”

“Hey, no, come on. Stay with me. They’re going to find us, okay? They will.” He tries to calculate how much time Strange has left: rate of blood loss against time since they’ve been trapped. The rest have about a half hour window here to find them—surely they’ll make it in time? 

“Tony.” 

“Yes?” 

“Tony?”

“I’m here, right here. You gotta stay conscious, Gandalf, come on.” 

“I’m… trying.” 

“I know. Look, you’re coming to the party this Friday, right, remember? My birthday. Everyone’s coming. You could do your magic tricks. Balloon animals, and shit.” 

“I can’t actually make those. Balloon animals.”

“Sure you can.” 

“No,” he says, smiling weakly. Tony smiles back. “Listen,” Strange is saying, and his voice is frayed. Tony shuffles closer, pressing against the wound. Strange lets out a small wince at it. “Listen,” he says again, “I might not make it out, Tony.” 

“You can’t say that.” 

“I can. I’m not afraid of death, Tony, I’ve—always known the risks, going in,” he says, “I estimate twenty minutes.”

“I was going for half an hour.” 

“Well, one of us is a little less optimistic and a little more pragmatic.” 

Despite it all, Tony snorts. “Always gotta be an asshole,” he says, shaking his head, “even half an hour to death’s door.” 

Strange tries a laugh, but ends up wincing in pain. “Twenty minutes,” he repeats, “I… lost quite a lot of blood.” 

“You should’ve fucking said something.” 

“Yeah. I… might not have realised how bad… until it was too late,” Strange replies, and there’s a sleepy slur in his voice that jolts Tony. 

“Hey, hey, come on, no, you gotta stay awake. Let’s just—let’s talk about shit, okay? I oughta say something stupid soon, you are gonna want to be awake to hear it.” 

“You’re not.” 

“What?” 

“You’re not stupid. You’re one of the most brilliant men I know.”  

“Jesus, you really are dying, huh?” 

Strange laughs again, and at first Tony thought it was a choke or some sort of convulsive cough or something far more concerning. But his laugh, strained with pain as it is, sounded… warm. 

“Yeah, no, I’m brilliant and I know it. Genius, playboy, billionaire, philanthropist, remember? Part of the package.” 

“Yes,” Strange slurs. 

“Hey, stay awake. You wanna know a story? I can talk about that one birthday party where I got completely obliterated because I ran a bet with this guy, told him I can drink him under the table, right? Now at this point I’ve built up quite the tolerance, that’s kind of what getting yourself sloshed every other night does to you, so I was pretty confident. But here’s the thing about trying to drink a literal viking under the table, you fucking can’t. Pretty sure this guy can hold his liquor better than even Thor.” He laughs. “I woke up in the morning under a table with various articles of clothing around me. It’s not as bad as some of the other guys in the party, all of us were just draped against various furniture in various states of undress—pretty sure one guy was literally half naked and fell asleep hugging a houseplant—but I still had to be in a board meeting that morning, so I showed up late looking predictably like something the cat dragged in, and then immediately tried to bury, sporting the hangover of the goddamn century.”

Strange attempts what could’ve been a soft snort of sorts, but instead only manages a short gust of breath. “Idiot.” 

“I thought we’ve established that I am in fact a genius.” 

“Those two things can coexist. You are brilliant, but you can also be so…” Strange trails off.

“Hey, no, stay with me now. Stephen. Come on.” 

“Yes. ‘M awake. I… What’s happening?” 

“I was telling you a story about that time I tried to drink a viking under the table.” 

“Mm. Viking. Interesting.” 

“Yep. Now you tell me a story about a wild birthday party. You ever got one of those?” 

“Not really.” 

“Come on, never partied so hard you woke up on the floor in just your underwear?” 

“Not on my birthday, no.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“I never celebrated my birthdays,” Strange admits. “Never did since I was little. Eugene thought they were frivolous.” 

Tony just watches him. Is he just imagining it, or is Strange getting paler and paler by the minute? His face is stretched white across his cheekbones. Fuck, they’ve got to find them soon. Any time now. “Who’s Eugene?” 

“Eugene is… nobody. Forget it,” he says, “Tell me… another story.” 

“Right, okay,” Tony says, racking his brain. “Another story. Uh. Well.” 

“I… don’t think I can… stay conscious for long…” 

“No, hey, come on, don’t sleep on me now. Come on, Stephen.” 

“I… can’t. I can’t.”

“Yes you can.” 

“Tony,” Strange is saying, “Tony, I… I need to tell you. Before it’s too late, I need…” 

“Tell me what? Come on, what is it?” 

“I’ve always thought… Always thought you…” 

“That I what? Always thought I had a nice ass? Come on, I know you check me out from time to time. Admit it, you’ve got the hots for me, wizard.” 

“No,” he says, voice fading a little. “No, it’s… more than that. I’ve always thought you were… were…” 

“Stephen,” Tony says, desperate. 

“I’ve always thought you were beautiful…” 

His eyelids finally flutter close, and his head can’t stay upright anymore, lolling to the side and rolling over his shoulder. 

“Stephen? Fuck! Stephen, don’t do this, don’t fucking do this to me, fuck—” He grabs ahold of Strange’s shoulders and shakes them, who cares if it hurts, and he realises he is shouting in panic but also in rage and frustration, because why now? He thought they had all the time in the world, why now? “No! Stephen, come on! No, no no no! Fuck you! You didn’t just fucking—” 

He tries desperately to feel for a pulse, where is it, why can’t he find it, and he presses close to feel his breath, but there is nothing but stillness. There is a distant roar, some hoarse animal cry, and he realises it is his own scream, wrenched out of his throat, crashing against the walls around them, crumbling the rocks and shaking the foundations of the cave, only then he realises there is light, blessed bright light as the ceiling suddenly tears off above them, familiar faces hovering near and nearer. They’ve been found, but it’s too late, it’s no use— 

He is slicing through the sky at breakneck speed not a second later, using whatever reserves of power is left of the suit, Stephen’s body clutched tight against his chest and the cloak a flurry of red around them both. 

—

Stephen had been patched up in the Medbay after the battle, and he hadn’t been lying about the blood loss, and the wound was a horrible thing that tore through his flesh and would surely scar, but he came out alive and that is all that really matters. He also attended the mission debrief they had about two days later, Wong at his side, even though he’s pretty sure Stephen shouldn’t even be out of bed and not resting. 

And the debrief went like always, Steve droning on about incredibly boring, do-gooding shit he only keeps half an ear on and both sorcerers chiming in on how best to deal with future interdimensional breaches, then the occasional input from other members. Tony said his part and tried not to stare, he really did, but then suddenly his eyes strayed to the side against his will, and they had met Stephen’s, and he realised Stephen had been watching him, too, and it was that look. He couldn't unknow that look. They were the same watchful eyes as the ones that looked straight at him in that cave, the same ones that he looked at as Stephen spoke those gently rasped words. 

I’ve always thought you were beautiful. 

And somebody must’ve called Stephen’s name, then, because the man turned his head away and never looked back. 

So that was that. Whatever had happened, whatever things Stephen meant to say to him, they were left in that cave with the rocks and the dark. They never brought it up again, and suddenly everything went back to the way they were before, and really, what had he even been expecting? What had he thought would happen, afterwards? 

But then Friday comes, and it’s his birthday, and every year he wonders how it is that he’s still alive after a lifetime of constantly working against that. Well, he’s not the only one actively knocking at death’s door, apparently. 

He’s embarrassed to admit he spends the first few hours of the evening watching the front door, waiting for a familiar dark head with streaks of grey. Will he even come? Tony had invited him, but the sorcerers aren’t really the type to hang around with them much. Stephen hardly ever shows up at team gatherings, even if he had been invited. But still, there is a part of Tony that holds out hope that he’ll show up. 

And he does. 

Bringing balloon animals with him. 

It is cradled in a pile in his arms, little dogs and cats and horses and snakes, squeaking as they slide against each other. Tony can’t help it, he laughs, hard and long, because god if that isn’t such a ridiculous sight, and Stephen is balancing them all precariously with a pleased look on his face, he must have involved some magic or something, and Wong’s face, oh god Wong’s face, he’s looking at Stephen like he’s resigned to this fate of being publicly embarrassed every time he brings Stephen out to literally anywhere, and Tony just can’t stop laughing, he is in tears by the end of it.

The balloon animals are shared evenly to everyone in the party, and finally Stephen presents Tony with a little red dog. “Happy birthday,” he says. Tony grins as he accepts it, and Stephen grins back. 

Then the evening goes on, and Tony plays his part as the host, laughing and talking and sipping occasionally at his drink. At some point he loses sight of Stephen, excuses himself and extracts from his group, and finds the man standing out in the balcony. 

“There you are,” he says as he slides the balcony door shut. “Thought you left. Was quite the entrance you made there. Thought you said balloon animals aren’t your specialty.” 

“I may have learnt a spell or two.” 

“Yeah, you must know a heckton of weird spells. Hey, I’ve got some magic tricks up my own sleeve. Ever opened a bra one-handed? Enough practice from sneaking in the back of movie theaters.” 

Stephen snorts. 

“So anyway,” Tony says, leaning on the railing with him. He considers the man. Lowers his voice. “You remember it all, then?” 

Stephen turns to look at him, then, and those eyes. Tony can’t help but be a little mystified by them, sometimes. They’d catch against the light, and the colours would shift, and nothing in the world is quite like them. He searches them, and Stephen’s face is open, and there is something in that look, something he wants to believe, and he’s sure he’s got the same look all over his own face. 

“In the cave,” Tony says, then stops. He could say a million things here. He could say, what did you mean? Or even, I can’t look at you the same way after that, I couldn’t unsee the look in your eyes, couldn’t forget them. Or maybe, did you mean it? You called me beautiful. I don’t know why. You called me beautiful, even though you are the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid my eyes on. But instead he says, “You said you’ve always known the risks, going in. What did you mean?” 

“What did I…” Stephen frowns, appearing to have a hard time remembering. And then, “Oh,” he says. “Well, I just meant that…” He tilts his head a little in thought, seems to be considering his words. “When I learned the Mystic Arts, I did it with the expectation of… fixing myself. But I was faced with a choice, which was that I either get my life back, or I fight to defend our reality, and become a sorcerer of Kamar Taj. And I knew choosing the latter would be putting myself in the line of defense against reality’s worst enemies. That’s what I meant. It’s not so different from you putting on the suit.” 

“Yeah, well.” And he doesn’t really know what else to say. “Maybe. I mean, it’ll get us all eventually, anyway.” 

“Death, you mean?” 

“Yeah. Pretty dark conversation we’re having here, about death and all. Considering it’s my birthday party. We should go back to balloon animals.” 

Stephen chuckles a little, and it is this rumbling, soft sound that makes something seize in Tony’s chest a little. He is reminded of the cave again, Stephen’s weak attempts at a laugh, remembers how it sounded… warm. It sounds warm. 

“Death is…” Stephen says, and now those eyes look far away. “...not unfamiliar to me.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“Well, it gets boring after the first or second time.” 

“Do I even want to know?” 

“Nope. You’re right, let’s go back to the balloon animals.”  

Tony’s the one to laugh this time, and Stephen watches him. There is a crinkle at the edges of those eyes, a wry tilt of his lip, and Tony is struck with the sudden need to kiss it, because all he can think of is how beautiful Stephen looks, like this. How beautiful this man is. 

I’ve always thought you were beautiful. 

“Fuck it,” he murmurs, and dives forward. He kisses Stephen hard and inelegantly, and Stephen makes this soft noise in the back of his throat that sends a jolt of something down his spine, and lower still. Stephen is kissing back. Tony twines his fingers into the hair at the back of his head, tilting it just so, and Stephen seems to like that, seems to kiss him deeper—

“Hey, when can we slice the cake? Come on, Tones, everyone’s— Jesus,” Rhodey says as the balcony door slides open. 

“Fucking hell, Rhodey,” Tony whips his head to him. 

“Woah, sorry. I mean, about time, anyway, right?” Rhodey smirks, hands up in surrender. He winks. “Go get ‘em, tiger.” And then he disappears behind the door, sliding it firmly shut. They both stare at it, silent. 

“Well.” 

“Are you sure—” 

“Ritsu,” Shigeo interrupts him, not unkindly, and Ritsu clicks his jaw shut. “I said I know a place. I said you could trust me. I’ve been here several times now, to—wind down, mostly. I know where I’m going.” That explains the empty patches on the ground. The random craters. Signs of destruction. Like the wind somehow managed to knock down sections of the forest, sweeping trees off the ground and pulling them out from the roots in its sheer wrath. “And besides,” Shigeo shrugs, “If we get lost, I have you. You always figure out the way back home.” 

And then Shigeo’s moving again, searching for something past the branches and leaves and trailing after it. Ritsu only gets a moment to be stunned—a warm curl of nostalgia in his chest—at the words before his feet pick up after him, catching up to his older brother. 

His profile is cast in the pale light reflecting off of a nearby stream. Ritsu is struck, not for the first time, by the knowledge of how much his brother has grown. He stands a few feet taller than he used to, the soft curve of his jaw cut into a sharp edge. His features are sharper, too, the last clinging baby fat on his cheeks carved into something frighteningly mature. 

“Remember when we were children,” Shigeo says conversationally, and that’s another new thing; Shigeo being conversational, “and we got lost in the forest that one time?” 

Ritsu can recall the memory vividly. “Yeah.” 

“And you got us back home.” 

Ritsu hums. “I did.” 

“You followed the moss, because—” 

“They always grow on the north side, where the sun won’t hit them directly.” 

Shigeo passes him a sidelong look, lips half-quirked up. Ritsu returns it with a small, crooked smile of his own. He stops to help heft Ritsu’s weight up a fallen tree trunk with a firm hand, joining him back down to the ground and steadying him. The Body Improvement Club has definitely done its job well. 

“I’m not worried about getting lost, is what I’m saying,” Shigeo tells him. 

“Well, we have our phones now,” Ritsu shrugs, “Doesn’t Reigen have a tracker on yours?” 

Shigeo doesn’t say anything to that, but Ritsu thinks he isn’t imagining the amusement in his face. His growth shines in moments like this, subtle as they are. 

I want to take my emotions more seriously, he remembers Shigeo confessing, and it hadn’t been a fruitless endeavour. 

Before long, Shigeo stops in front of a structure—an abandoned greenhouse, Ritsu guesses, with wide clouded glass walls and questionable integrity. 

“Is this the place?” Ritsu says, taking in his surroundings. Shigeo nods at him, and there’s a hint of delight in his eyes. Ritsu hasn’t seen that look in a while, rare as it is, but he hasn’t seen Shigeo in a while after he’s gone to college, anyway. 

His older brother’s slowly growing into himself, showing more parts of him and his emotions than Ritsu ever thinks he has, and he wishes they aren’t so far apart these days so he can see how it all develops. He wishes the universe would stop putting this distance between them. Not when they’ve only just begun to rekindle. Not when they’ve only just let all that was repressed flood out and run their course, when they’ve only just gone through the rockiest parts of their diverging roads and wind back down into a singular path. Not when Ritsu has only just started picking up and putting together whatever they had left of what they were before. 

It always feels like time is never on their side. It’s a fragile thing, this thing they have between them. Shigeo is and always has been his brother, and Ritsu knows that’s what ties them tightly together despite it all, but he also knows they—their shared camaraderie, their bond, the brotherly affection shared in the quiet moments, hesitant and delicate but genuine all the same—have changed, over time. Perhaps it’s selfish to think things could stay the same. Perhaps it’s selfish to wish growing up didn’t mean changing. 

Shigeo tries the door, lop-sided on its hinges and scraping unpleasantly against the ground as he drags it open just enough for them to slip inside one after the other. The moon has risen this time around, and it brightens the clear sky and streams moonlight down through the aging glass, streaked with dust and debris and unkempt foliage.

He thinks, as Shigeo squints up at the low glass ceiling, that they can make this work. That things haven’t changed much, after all. That, even if they had, then perhaps that’s okay, too. 

“Through there,” Shigeo suddenly points upwards, and Ritsu’s eyes follow the direction. There’s a skylight. 

“Nii-san,” Ritsu frowns. “You want to get on top of this thing?” 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re serious?” 

“Yes, Ritsu.” 

“What if we—it might collapse, and—we might—”

“Do you trust me?” 

Ritsu blinks at him. 

“I don’t trust this whole place not to come down,” Ritsu says instead. 

“It won’t,” Shigeo tells him, “You said you wanted to go stargazing. We’re going stargazing.” 

“Up there?” 

“Yes.” 

“But the whole place might colla—” 

“Ritsu,” Shigeo levels him a gaze. It isn’t serious, really, but there’s a weight to it that stops Ritsu in his tracks. “You trust me, right?” 

Despite better judgement, Ritsu doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” With my life, he wants to say, knowing that hasn’t always been the case. Not with this much certainty, at least. 

Shigeo nods resolutely. “Then we’re going up there.” 

Shigeo looks around, spotting a small, plastic stepping stool. He drags it over and plants a foot on it, shaking unsteadily as he climbs his way up. Ritsu isn’t sure what to do at first, but jumps into action as the thing tips precariously to the side, Shigeo wobbling above, and lands on his knees just in time to hold it still. 

“Jesus, Nii-san,” he mutters. His jeans are ruined. He’s going to have a hard time scrubbing away the dirt. 

Shigeo ignores him, instead using the newly acquired height to give the skylight a good few shoves. The old coppery latch finally gives way and the skylight swings open with a pop, hinges squealing, thumping onto the other side and sending dust and leaves and bits of dry soil raining down.  

Shigeo gets on his tip toes, reaching up with strong arms on either side of the roof—again, Body Improvement Club has definitely done its damn wonders—and lifting his weight up to climb up and out. Ritsu hears him huff out a breath or two before a hand stretches down in offering. When Ritsu doesn’t take it, Shigeo’s head pops into view with a questioning look. 

“This is crazy, Nii-san,” Ritsu says. Shigeo just stares at him expectantly. 

With a sigh, he eventually steps up the stepping stool, muttering prayers under his breath as he wobbles, and grabs at his brother’s hand who lifts him up with some struggle. 

Once they settle down, and so has his anxiety, Ritsu has to admit—it’s a breathtaking sight. The sky is clear, the moon is bright, and they’re far out enough that the city’s light pollution doesn’t reach them to drown out the few specks of glittering stars. Ritsu admires the view with open awe. 

“So,” Shigeo says after a moment of this, their elbows meeting in a light nudge, and Ritsu looks at him with a raised brow. “Worth it?” 

Incredulous. 

“You’re unbelievable, Nii-san,” Ritsu says, but he’s smiling, and so is Shigeo, and now they’re laughing and Ritsu thinks, yes, this is how things always are. This is how things always will be between them, despite it all. 

When he mustered the courage to ask about it to his therapist, one session, she had just said it had to do with your body feeling vulnerable. He supposed that made sense, how your body would be more open to threats when lying prone or supine and unsuspecting. It was unfair, that everyone else could sleep however way they wanted, and people like him had to shield themselves with thick blankets and a bank of pillows, but it made sense. 

He had let himself spend every night of that first few weeks—or as many nights as their lives allowed, as the way the lives they led only ever allowed so much—in bed with Tony, had let himself bask in the joy of being in somebody’s arms, whom he loved and loved him back. It was still a foreign notion to him, the idea that he could have this, but once he knew that this was his, that this was something that was meant for him—it was all too easy to hold on. It was all he ever wanted, all he could do to swear to not ever let go. It was, of course, quite a lapse in judgement on his part. He had thought he’d gotten over that kind of naiveté, after Christine, but he had been wrong. He had been very wrong.

That was the thing about letting yourself be happy; life, and reality, had always punished him for wanting that. For having it, now. What sort of right, what kind of audacity—who the hell did he think he was to even think he deserved that? In hindsight, he really should’ve seen it coming. 

So yes, when the nightmare came, it was because Stephen had been careless. It had been a while since something like that happened, too—it was like his mind had been building up to this moment, had been lying in wait like a predator for the perfect opportunity to strike him down when he was at his most vulnerable. It sank his claws in him, vicious and unrelenting, in vengeance for him ever daring to be happy, and the visions he was subjected to was worse than the last. Worse than his usual, even. 

He woke up with Tony’s head hovering over his own, frantic. When it blurred into focus he realised it was wrought with worry—and something like fear. There were hands pinning him down, and he struggled against them, and Tony’s muttering a litany of words that made no sense to him; things like, “Hey, hey hey hey baby wake up,” and “Stephen, Stephen, honey, I’m right here, it’s me, it’s me, come on, baby.” Then he registers there’s some horrible sound. This loud, raw, roaring thing in his ears, something harsh and hoarse, and he realised too late that he was screaming. He was screaming loudly, the sound was coming from him, wrenched from deep in his chest, and his throat was aching with it. 

He knew by now what was surely to come after this, and no, no no no, this couldn’t be happening. He couldn’t let Tony see this. He needed to get away, and fast. Tony still had him pinned on the mattress, so Stephen shoved him off. Tony landed maybe off the bed, and perhaps it was too brutal a shove, but Stephen could hardly think straight—he needed to get his pills. They were in the bathroom, he needed to get to the bathroom. 

He stumbled, half-tripped over somebody’s trousers on the way to his bathroom, threw himself in and yanked open the mirror cabinet to take his bottle of pills. His hands, his damned damned hands—they were trembling so bad, it was hard to get any sort of grip, and soon the trembling caught up with the rest of his body, and he barely managed to pop open the bottle before it slipped from his fingers and stumbled onto the sink. It rolled, fell, the pills scattering all over the floor, all because of his damned, useless fucking hands, and he shook and shook and didn’t know what to do. Didn’t know what he could do. 

He could ride it out. It had been a while since he’d had to do it, but he could. He knew he could. But this was—it had been so long since it had been this bad, bad enough that his legs were giving out, and he found himself on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, shaking beyond belief. 

He realised too late that there was a hand on his shoulder, and it was grounding but it was unwelcome, so he shoved it away. It relented, but it came back to force a pill between his lips. His ears were gaining function again so he heard Tony saying, “Swallow, baby, swallow,” and Stephen didn’t think he could, but Tony managed to push the pill between his chattering teeth and nudge a glass of water for him to drink—wherever that had come from—and he obeyed because it was all he could do. 

He knew he was thrashing, knew he was being uncooperative. “Get away,” he muttered, “Get away get away get away.” 

“Not happening, baby,” Tony was saying, “You gotta breathe, okay? Come on. Breathe with me. I’m gonna hold you, okay?” and he didn’t know, didn’t know if that was okay, but eventually he was nodding mindlessly, and Tony was pulling him into his strong arms. Anchored him there. He was laying Stephen’s head on his shoulder, and he was guiding him to breathe, but Stephen was shaking so badly, and his lungs burned because the air wouldn’t enter. He felt like he would die, like this. How was he meant to survive this? He was going to die. Was he going to die? 

“Shh, shh, breathe with me, baby. Come on, breathe. In—and out, in—out, come on.” 

Stephen tried to follow the grounding sound of Tony’s voice, his soothing stream of instructions, the heartbeat he feels beating steadily against his own frantic, hammering one. When the meds finally took effect, that helped. He didn’t know how long he sat there, cradled in Tony’s arms, shaking and shaking, and it may have been hours until the trembling began to ease. It may also have been mere minutes. Soon enough, his limbs began to weigh down, getting heavier, and his body came back to itself. The trembling of his hands eased into its normal tremor, and the rest of his body slumped in exhaustion. It wasn’t the bad kind of exhaustion, either, almost felt golden in its relief, and that must be the work of the meds. Better than any kind of magic, Stephen would know. 

Slowly he became aware of his surroundings. They were on the cold bathroom floor, leaning against the equally cold tiles of the wall. Tony’s hand was rubbing soothingly down his back, and the shoulder under his cheek was wet with, he realised in horrification, tears. Tony was making shushing noises at him, and that was—the word was mortification, swallowing him whole. The realisation of what had just happened was mortifying. The humiliation was exquisite. 

“I’m—” and there came out a horrifying sob, “—sorry, I’m sorry, I—” 

“Shh, no such thing. Don’t you dare apologise. Come on, baby, just breathe.” 

The next sob that came was small and weak. That was somehow worse. He clenched his eyes shut, swallowing the shame, then opened them and managed to look up at Tony’s face, and then felt the colour drain from his face at the dark bruise on his cheekbone. 

“You’re—”

“It was my fault,” Tony whispers, “my fault, baby. Not yours. I didn’t realise what was happening and I shouldn’t have held you down like that. It wasn’t your fault. Don’t worry about it, okay? Everything’s alright.” 

Stephen shook his head, sniffling. “‘M sorry,” and he sounded small, even to his ears. “‘M so—sorry.” 

“Shh, shh.” Tony’s hand was stroking his hair now, and Stephen buried his face in the crook of Tony’s neck, trying to quieten his sobs. The shame of it all was still eating at him, but it was a background noise now to Tony’s quiet words of reassurance. 

At some point Tony moved them back into bed. He didn’t know how or when that happened—that tended to happen, after something like this. Or, well, it tended to happen without anything setting it off, even. He’d just lose chunks of time. Sometimes entire chunks of the day. 

He was still more than a little shaky, a little rubbed raw. The remnants of it were still whizzing through his bones. He’ll have to sleep it off. Tony had the right idea. Suddenly he finds himself folded under the covers, and Tony was wrapped behind him. Tony was pulling him close, his chest flush against Stephen’s back. 

For a moment, Stephen lay there, not knowing what to say. He closed his eyes, let the shame of everything crash through him, the white-hot knife of humiliation. He let himself feel every inch of that knife slowly enter him, let it twist inside. 

When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, because he feared any louder and his voice might crack. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” 

He felt a whisper of a kiss brushed against the back of his head. “It wasn’t too difficult to figure out.” 

“You didn’t ask me what they were for. The pills.” 

“You seriously don’t think I know what the benzos are for?” 

Stephen let that sink in for a moment. He thought about the way Tony handled the situation, earlier, the soft, calm way he spoke, like they were just having a conversation. Like it was a completely normal thing. The way he knew what he was doing, the right way to do it, like he knew what needed to be done. Stephen turned around to face Tony, the beautiful face he ruined, choking momentarily at the guilt. Tony stroked his cheek gently. 

You seriously don’t think I know what the benzos are for? 

He thought about it. He supposed that made sense. Not a hard get, at all, indeed. 

“You didn’t tell me either,” Stephen eventually pointed out.

“Yeah, well.” Tony shrugged, and didn’t elaborate further. Stephen understood. 

After a while, Stephen asked a hesitant, “Was it Afghanistan?” 

Tony breathed out a quiet, “Yeah. There’s that. And then some.” He shrugged again, that careless, casual motion that he did when he tried to downplay things. “It’s funny, actually. It wasn’t even the whole kidnapping or having a hole in my chest that hit me hard. I guess watching someone die does that to you.” 

Stephen hummed in understanding. Tony had told him a little about Afghanistan, back before they'd even gotten together, when they were still easing into uneasy camraderie—it wasn’t the whole of it, Stephen’s sure, but Tony’s mentioned the broad outlines, at least. His family name written across a missile, waking up with a magnet in his chest, Ho Yinsen’s death. Funny, how someone’s death was not something that happened to them, but was something that affected everyone else in their lives. 

Death is what gives life meaning, The Ancient One had told him, and at the time Stephen had just thought, bullshit. Death was an unreasonable, unjust thing. It was a selfish thing. The Ancient One had thought he wanted to control death because of his arrogance, his need for control, but in truth, it was his fear. It was the fear of a young boy who had watched his little sister’s last breath bubble up the surface of a lake, heard the earth-shattering crack of ice, who stood frozen and unable to do a thing. It was the same fear that made him swear the hippocratic oath, made him hesitate before taking risky surgeries, made him fear the sight of blood on his hands. Death is what gives life meaning, she told him, and Stephen had thought, absolute fucking bullshit.

“Survivor’s guilt,” Stephen provided. 

“You don’t get to backseat therapy me when you’re equally as fucked up about that shit, you hypocrite.” 

Stephen laughed. He laughed far too loud, for far too long, and Tony looked halfway amused and mostly concerned. Damn Tony, this brilliant, ridiculous man, and his verbal restraint equivalent to that of a howling labrador. He shuffled closer to press onto Tony’s side, and Tony’s strong arms automatically wrapped around him. Tony shifted for a moment to make sure Stephen’s head was safely propped up—and oh, what had he done to deserve this man? Did he, even?—then again to move them into a more comfortable position. 

“Go back to sleep, mkay?” Tony kisses his forehead gently, strokes his back. “I’m right here. I’ll be just right here.”