#(poor mark)

Mark is a busy man. He considers himself an important one, too, but he knows that’s a matter of opinion: his sister does not think that he qualifies as important. To be fair, though, his sister still doesn’t think that a podiatrist is a “real” doctor. 

Once, when they’d been flying to Tahiti for their mother’s fifty-sixth birthday (the woman likes to celebrate in style), there had been a minor medical emergency on board. When the flight attendant — an attractive blonde woman who Mark was sure had eyed him when he was boarding — frantically asked over the loud speaker if there was a doctor on board, Mark’s sister had stopped him from volunteering. 

“Are you going to count his toes?” She’d asked, and Mark had scoffed. He’d gotten a 485 on the MCAT, thank you very much. He liked to tell this story at dinner parties: this had likely been his only chance to perform an airborne tracheotomy. Upsetting that he’d missed it. 

What he wasn’t going to miss, though, was this dinner. He unbuttoned the top three buttons on his dress shirt, looked in the mirror, re-buttoned them. Tie or no tie? Mark thought he looked rather dashing without one, like a rugged James Bond who could give advice on foot arches. Dr. Bond. Dr. Mark Bond. 

His phone rang, and he reached blindly for it, tilting the screen to read the name rolling across the top of the screen. Incoming call from Y/N L/N… 

Perfect. 

“Hey, gorgeous.” He said, pitching his voice low. He sounded rumbly like this, didn’t he? Sexy. Mysterious. Someone who answered the phone with “gorgeous.”

Your muted sigh followed by someone else’s delighted laugh filtered through the phone and he frowned. Why weren’t you alone, getting ready?

“Hey, Mark. Listen, I’m sure you’re a perfectly nice guy, and I know it’s an asshole move to do this over the phone, but I need to reschedule dinner.”

“What?” Mark says. “Your mom said you were free. I made short-term Per Se reservations. Per Se. Do you know how much pull that takes? I have it because I’m a doctor, you know. Perks to it.”

He hears you sigh again. You do that a lot, huh? “As much as she likes to pretend, my mom doesn’t have exclusive access to my calendar. Sorry, man. Maybe sometime next week?”

“This isn’t a great look for you,” Mark frowns. “Your mom said you were dependable.”

“Maybe she’d like to get dinner with you and talk about that a little more, huh?” You quip, and then take a breath.

“Sorry. That was uncalled for. She’s just been setting me up on a ton of these, you know? And something ended came up tonight. If you’d like to reschedule, we can. No pressure; we may just not be compatible.”

“Fine. I’ll see.” Mark says. He hangs up. Your mom was a lot nicer than you were; maybe he should text her. Podiatry killed with old ladies.

˚⁎⁺˳ . ⊹

Tony grins, barely contained laughter tugging at the corners of his lips. “That’s Mark?”

“Don’t start.”

You make a mental note to ask your mom to please stop setting you up on these “dates.” She was convinced that your job was taking up too much of your time, and that she’d be “old and gray” before she got to see you walk down the aisle. When you’d told her that marriage wasn’t a huge priority for you at the minute, she’d laughed like you had told a particularly funny joke. 

Tony’s smile gentles. “Alright. Sure sounded like you were planning on staying, though.”

He’s imposing before you, towering over you with the height boost that the suit gives him. It’s a strange sort of detachment to not be able to see his eyes — only your reflection in the cool chrome of his faceplate. Tony usually takes deliberate care to maintain eye contact. 

It’s so strangely unnerving that you jokingly tap on the front of the faceplate. “Come out of the suit, yeah? Feel like I’m talking to a terminator.”

Hydraulics hiss and the suit folds open from the front, releasing Tony. “Better? I know I bear a striking resemblance to a young Armie Hammer, only with bigger biceps.”

“Can’t even tell you two apart.” You laugh. 

“So, you’re staying?” He asks, and you nod.

“Only if we get Thai from that place on 32nd. God, I really want larb.”

Tony pitches his voice to a mockery of Mark’s, unnaturally low. “Whatever you say, gorgeous.”

˚⁎⁺˳ . ⊹

Thirty minutes later, you and Tony are eating Thai out of takeout containers on the couch and watching The Empire Strikes Back while he complains loudly on the architectural instability of the Death Star. 

Tony gestures with his fork. “The load-bearing logic of this thing is a crime.”

He’s soft like this, rumpled, and your heart beats a little faster. When Pepper had first hired you as a consultant for Stark Industries, this was something she warned you about: people fall too fast and too hard for Tony Stark. 

At the time, you’d brushed it off. You’d gone to Harvard Business School, for God’s sake; you’d spent a lot of time around men who monopolized conversations without managing to say anything meaningful. You thought you’d known Tony Stark's type: rich, arrogant, too smart for his own good. 

And while Tony could be all of those things, the more time you spent around him, the more dimensions discovered. Sure, he was rich and he was arrogant, but he spread his wealth, he didn’t hoard it. You’d helped him set up dozens of funds that his Board of Directors complains are hemorrhaging Stark Industries money: children’s hospitals, LGBTQ organizations, domestic abuse shelters. 

Tony was more than the man you had gotten to know in the gossip magazines that your roommate loved to leave scattered around the apartment. 

He leans over, eyes soft and unprotected, and points at the screen. “Did you know Boba Fett’s design was based on Clint Eastwood’s man with no name spaghetti western character?”

“Clint Eastwood is really everywhere, huh?” You muse. “He’s hot.”

“Not that hot. Boba Fett gets eaten by a Sarlacc, you know. All those gross tentacles and teeth.” Tony says, suddenly defensive.

“That tentacle thing?” You joke. “Not a dealbreaker.”

Tony makes a face and you laugh, settling back into the couch and leaning against his side briefly before pulling away to a respectable distance. You swear that you can see disappointment flash across his face before he schools his expression back into its usual cocky grin.

“Maybe Mark would be into that.”

“Shut up.”

Quietly, as you watch the movie, you cancel the date that your mother had set up for next week, glancing over at Tony as you remove the appointment from your calendar. The light of the television paints his face in soft blues, and you sigh at the tug you feel in your chest.