#softhairbarnes

I NEVER GOT TO FINISH MY FAVORITE STORY OF THEIRS

HI BABY!

1) I have 6 pets.

2) I’m allergic to most fruit with skin (apples, pears, etc).

You aren’t sure when it happens between that drunken kiss and sort of not really flirting – oh! and let’s not forget those real-not-real dates because Tony Stark can’t go to any party on his own anymore. Tony needs a protector from all the things that were poison to him now, the things that Pepper knew how to better than anyone else.

But, you weren’t Pepper. You could only take so much, believe the lies and keep yourself from a distance for so long. You crumbled easily after so so long of fighting. 

You remember a couple of drinks and a mix of laughter and kisses – and that’s how you ruin a decades long friendship. 

 You’re out the door before he wakes up. You peel his arm from around your waist as softly as you can and run out the door – don’t contact him or Rhodey for weeks. Avoidance had always been Tony’s strategy but he couldn’t deal with it when it’s hitting him back. 

Maybe, that’s why he found himself neat your apartment in the middle of the 3rd week, a bouquet in his hand and an awkward smile on his face. 

He wasn’t used to dealing with confrontation, but he was tired of playing with what-ifs and missed chances. 

“Why have you been avoiding me?” he asks, looking around your barely held together apartment as you look at anything but him. “I didn’t mean it, Tony,” you hiccup and his heart stutters over what you could mean as he crosses a few steps to stand in front of you. Brown eyes look straight into yours imploring to what you could be meaning, what he didn’t want to hear from you.

“Mean what?”

“I didn’t mean to love you so much,” you admit it wit soft eyes and the expectation that he let you down easy and you’ll never see him again. 

Instead, he grins and pulls you in closer, “It’s all right. We can work through that.” 

Thank you!! 💕💕 And yes, you can!!

                        ✶ HERE’S YOUR KO-FI COMMISSION  ✶

Dating after the accident is hard for Stephen Strange. 

For someone who, all this life, has sat on-top of the ladder of life -- almost grossly so -- to find himself on a completely different ladder all together (this one is Avenger shaped), he’s awfully different now. He lacks the usual pomp and confidence, trading those in for tepidness and a gentler crack of wit. 

(He’d had to negotiate a price for the artifact you’d unknowingly thrift-ed from a market sale in the middle of Downtown -- citing his role as the Supreme Sorcerer,  Earth’s foremost protector against magical and mystical threats -- to which you’d served him a look and casually walked off.

“Okay, buddy.”)

He’s honestly surprised that, after that whole fiasco, you agree to go to dinner with him.

He’s terrified.