Chapter 1
It had taken Martin six weeks to heal from his injury. The doctors kept telling him he could've healed quicker if he had stayed in bed like they had told him to, but Martin had been walking around after three days, claiming that he didn't feel anything. And after a week, he already went on another job for Icarus Removals. Douglas had yelled at him for it. But Martin hadn't cared. Besides, he needed the money.
The only one who could keep him in bed and make him stop whining that he was bored, was Tony. He had stayed a week and Douglas had been very grateful for that, since it meant Martin would effectively stay in his bedroom. But Tony had a life of his own. Not only Iron Man, but also Stark Industries. He had flown back - by airplane this time - on a Monday. Martin had stayed in his bed for the rest of the day, no doubt dreaming about his lover. But it was good that Douglas hadn't entered that day, because Martin... Well, he wasn't really ready to come out yet.
He had spent the entire day thinking about his relationship with the billionaire. Martin knew bloody well that Tony had a reputation with the women and he had never cared less, but still... What if he was just a fling? What if - no, with his sort of luck it would rather be 'when' - Tony grew tired of him? Would he leave Martin behind, like nothing had happened, without an explanation? The more he thought about it, the more Martin became convinced that he had seen Tony for the last time. He had come out of his room that evening and Douglas hadn't even said anything about the fact he was walking around. The First Officer just knew that it wasn't the time, that Martin needed a shoulder to cry on more than he needed a nurse. So that had been what happened. They had sat in the sofa, Martin crying and Douglas rubbing his back, hoping it would help. It didn't. But as the days passed, Martin felt better and better and slowly, very slowly, Martin learned to handle his feelings for the man.
When he received a text from Tony six weeks later, after having almost no contact at all, Martin had almost jumped through the ceiling with happiness. They had been texting, back and forth. Tony had explained about the meetings and the minor Iron Man threats and all of a sudden, Martin felt much more relieved. He hadn't grown tired of him, no, not at all. They had agreed that six weeks without the other was too long and that it was time for another date. They set a date, when Tony was in Great-Britain, and Tony had promised to take him out for dinner.
As the day came closer, Martin felt more and more nervous. He started to doubt Tony again, even though he received texts on a daily - sometimes even an hourly - rate. What did the inventor of Iron Man, that genius see in Martin? It had taken him seven goes to get his pilot license, why would he even look at him?
The night before his date with Tony, the pilot could not sleep. It wasn't because the students downstairs were partying or making a lot of noise, but because he had forgotten to tell Tony to meet him somewhere else but at his home. He didn't doubt the fact that the billionaire would be able to find his address - he had put it on some of the dating websites and on his official Icarus Removals website, something he now deeply regretted - with the help of JARVIS, but he had never realized that he didn't want Tony here. Not here, not in this attic. Douglas' home, fine, even Carolyn's house was better than his own now.
Around two am, after four hours of lying awake in his bed, turning around every ten minutes, but not being able to find a decent position to fall asleep in, he received a text from Tony. Getting on the plane now. See you tonight! X Tony
Martin realized now that the billionaire didn't mention if he was going to pick him up or not. So he send a text back. Where are we meeting? X M
What did he do if the answer - and it probably would be - 'I'm picking you up at your place'? Martin already started to panic. He would have to get the students out or in their rooms for a day so that he could pretend that the entire house was his and not just the attic. He knew very well that was never going to happen, since the students saw - and treated - him as a friendly ghost who survived the different generations of students. What was he going to do?
At that moment Tony's answer came. I'll pick you up at your place, if that's okay. X Tony
Of course it wasn't, was what Martin wanted to reply, but he knew that would hurt Tony's feelings. He needed to find a good excuse so that Tony would not come here. How? How was he going to do that? God works in mysterious ways, especially in Martin's case, because that morning, when he was really freaking out, a call came in on his personal phone.
'Hello, Martin Crieff.'
'Ah, Martin. I need you at the airport for a second. Come over, will you.' The call ended.
Carolyn didn't even need to say her name, on the contrary, she could just demand him to come over and then hang up. But this was the perfect excuse, he realized. He could just pick up Tony and spend the day together. Perfect. Provided Tony landed on Fitton of course.
Where are you landing, Tony? X M
Not even a minute later Martin got another text. He was grateful for the speed of Tony's replies.
Mr. Stark is unavailable, but he'll be landing in Fitton Airport in three hours, so if you really need him, you can call back then. JARVIS
Thank god there was something like Tony's AI. He gave him the answer. Martin smiled and would've kept smiling if he wasn't interrupted by a second call. He was really popular that morning.
'Mar-'
'Come outside, Martin, now, I'm waiting for you.'
'Yes, Carolyn. I'll be right there.' He sighed. 'Just give me a second, okay.'
He wanted to text Tony again, but he realized it would just go to his AI again. The last thing he wanted was another text from a computer. He stood in his hallway, all packed, for a minute, contemplating what to do, when Carolyn knocked on his door.
'I know you're there, Martin. Come on! We don't have time!'
Martin really had no time, so he went outside.
'Finally. What took you so long?'
'I-'
'Never mind, I just realized I don't care.'
Martin sighed softly. He followed his boss to her car and got in. He noticed that Douglas and Arthur were already in there. 'Carolyn? Is this an extra flight? I can't, I really can't!'
'Calm down, Martin. It's just a short one, you'll be back by two in the afternoon.'
'Carolyn, I promised Tony-'
'You promised him that he could pick you up at your place at six. You'll be back at two, plenty of time left.'
'No, Carolyn, today was my day off and it's staying that way. Besides if it's such a short trip, why doesn't Douglas fly alone?'
'Because I don't want to. But never mind, I expected this and prepared a counterproposal. You can pretend to live at Carolyn's place and she and Arthur will stay at mine for tonight. You'll have the whole house to yourself.'
'I only want you to change the sheets if... You know... If you've done it,' Carolyn's face made perfectly clear how she thought about 'it'.
'More like when. The number of times you did it at my place... If you two were bunnies, there wouldn't be any space for us humans left.'
Martin blushed after Douglas' comment. Had it really been that bad? He would say something of it to Tony when they got back. The billionaire would probably just laugh it away, not realizing how ashamed Martin was, but that was okay. But the proposition was a quite good one.
'Okay,' he sighed. 'I'll fly the stupid flight.'
'Thank you Martin. Now text your boyfriend that your address has changed.'
'He's not my boyfriend, Douglas!'
In reply, the First Officer simply raised his eyebrow.
Oh who am I kidding, Martin thought. Of course he is.
He sent the change of address to Tony while Carolyn drove them to the airport.
'Are you really seeing Iron Man again?'
'His name is Tony Stark, Arthur. And... Yes.'
'Wow, brilliant!'
'Yes, Arthur, that is rather brilliant. Because do you know what that means? It means that once Martin lives with him in the US, we'll be invited over to the Stark Tower and meet all the other Avengers. Wouldn't that be brilliant?'
'It would! Oh, please can we come, skip?'
'Douglas!' Martin sissed.
'What?' The older man replied, acting innocently. 'You're going to move in with him one day or another.'
'But what if it doesn't work out? Now Arthur has his hopes up and he'll expect me to invite him one day.'
'Come on, Martin, the man flies around half the world just to see you. Are you sure it's not going to work out?'
'That's just his style, Douglas. He has enough money to do that. This will probably even be a cheap date for him since we're going to my favorite restaurant here.'
Martin's favorite restaurant was a small pizza place where they still used wood to light the oven. The taste was so much better than those Pizza Hut-pizza's, but his budget wasn't really prepared for that. So he went only once or twice a year, but if he went, it was a small feast.
'And who's paying?'
Martin blushed again. Of course Tony would pay, what did he even expect, but even though he knew Douglas knew, he didn't want to say it out loud, like it had been so hard to admit he didn't get paid. 'None of your business.'
'Stop bickering drivers, we've arrived.' Carolyn had parked the car and was now looking at them, rolling her eyes.
The entire crew of MJN got out of the car and started walking to the hangar where GERTI was waiting for them. They went inside and prepared everything for the flight of an hour.
*
'Carolyn, it's now one o'clock and the client has still not shown up. Even if he arrived in five minutes, we would still not make it back in time.'
'Shut up, Martin. Of course we'll be back at six, don't worry. We still have five hours. Besides, being on stand-by is the best thing that can happen to an airdot. Being paid to fly without the actual flying.'
'Carolyn...'
'Shut up. Do I have to spell it out for you? We will be back at six o'clock. You will be able to go on a date with your boyfriend and you will have fun. Now just trust me for a second, okay, Martin. Trust me.'
Martin looked surprised at the CEO. He hadn't expected this sudden outburst of... Of annoyance. Of course he knew most people were annoyed by his presence, but he had never counted Carolyn as one of them. He felt hurt, just nodded and left the cabin.
*
Tony was really looking forward to seeing Martin again. The past few weeks had been really hard and between Pepper complaining about going to meetings, going to said meetings and working in his workshop, he had never found any time to text or mail Martin. He had wanted for Martin to text him, but he knew that was never going to happen, since the pilot was always busy flying around the world himself and for one reason or another was quite looking after his money. Tony had more than once proposed to buy him a subscription so that they could call and text anytime, but the stubborn pilot had refused. After three times, he had given up, but he had secretly planned to contact Carolyn and let her give Martin the subscription claiming it was for work while he was actually paying for it. The only problem was that he didn't have Carolyn's phone number (except the MJN one, but he didn't want to risk Martin picking up.)
But he felt confident that one day, somewhere in the future, he would be able to contact Martin. And yes, he had been right. That day had come and before he had even realized it, they had arranged to meet three weeks later. He would go to England and take Martin out for dinner. He hadn't forgotten his plan of getting the pilot to take on a bit of extra weight. Tony didn't want to fly to Iron Man suit again, at least not to England, so he had arranged his private jet. He had also talked to Pepper and forbidden her to plan any meetings that weekend. She could forget that he was going to any of them.
The three weeks flew by, filled with work, work and more work. Pepper seemed to have pushed all those meetings he'd miss while he'd be in England in the weeks before, making sure his schedule was filled with extra work. The day of his departure had finally arrived. He had texted Martin that he'd boarded the plane and that he was on his way. He shut down his mobile, knowing it would only make him check for messages from Martin all the time and fell asleep. He'd get there.
*
He had kind of expected Martin to wait for his at the airport when he landed, to run into his arms, but no such luck. Of course there were some fans who wanted an autograph, but the man he wanted to see most was missing.
He turned on his phone, hoping that Martin had texted him. And yes, he was lucky. A friend of mine lend me his house. I'll send you the address later. X M
He was surprised. He felt like Martin didn't want him to come and see his house. He had explained that he rented something (maybe a flat?) but he had been vague about it. He found his way to his hotel and installed himself there, waiting for it becoming six o'clock, so that he could pick up Martin.
The hours went by so very slowly. Tony just wanted to go to the address Martin sent and cuddle with him before they had to go to the restaurant. But he couldn’t and he knew that. Martin would freak out. Sort of. He’d make a huge problem out of it and it really wasn’t.
At five, he went out, hoping Martin would be there when he arrived. Little did he know that Martin was still stuck at the airport.
*
‘I’ve had enough, Carolyn, I’m going. You said I’d be back at 2 pm, not that I’d still have to leave at 5.’ Martin stormed out of the small cabin and left the airplane.
‘Come on, Martin, I didn’t know! Please stay five more minutes, it’ll be close enough to dusk by then that we can clean GERTI and store her away without the client getting suspicious. Martin?’
The pilot had refused to look back, let alone turn around.
Carolyn sighed. ‘And it’s not like I can take it off his payment, because he doesn’t receive one.’
‘It’ll be okay, Carolyn,’ Douglas put his hand on her shoulder. ‘He’ll be back at MJN as soon as his boyfriend has left us again.’
‘But what if he doesn’t, Douglas? We’ve been talking about it for weeks now. What if Tony invites our one and only captain to come live with him in America? No doubt he’ll come over to us and ask if it’s okay, but who am I to stop him?’ She sighs again. ‘We can forget it, Douglas, there’s no way we’re going to survive a member of our crew, especially not Martin.’
‘Carolyn, we’ll be fine. Even if Martin does leave us, I am prepared to take a lot less, so you’ll only have to find someone who works cheap.’
‘Thanks, Douglas.’ There was a short silence. ‘But what if-?’
‘Shut up now, Carolyn. Stop thinking about the worst that can happen. Martin’s not sure enough about his relationship with Tony to move in with him and he’d feel guilty for leaving us. Trust me, everything will work out the way we want it to.
*
It was five pm! In an hour, Tony would be at Carolyn’s house, which he didn’t have any keys of and no way was he going back into the plane. He took out his phone and called Arthur, hoping to convince him to come and bring him the keys. And yes, he was lucky for once. Arthur had picked up – and more importantly, he had been alone – to come and bring Martin the keys. Now all he could do was hope that Tony hadn’t decided to come early.
He arrived at Carolyn’s house at 5.35, which left him plenty of time to organize himself and the room they’d be staying. Arthur was already there, waiting impatiently inside.
‘Hello, Skip. It’s funny, you left before me and yet I’m here first,’ the squire smiled.
‘Yes, Arthur, I know. I drove here in the van and I had to stop to tank. Twice. Because the first time, it didn’t work.’ He sighed. It was good that he had left an hour in advance, he’d never have made it if he had left just now.
Arthur handed him the keys. ‘So here you go, Skip. Mum wants you to give them back to her Thursday morning. Or was it Tuesday? Anyway, that day that Tony leaves.’
‘Thank you,’ Martin nodded. ‘Now go, Tony can be here any minute.’
Arthur left rather quickly after that, not having anything to do at his own house. He had packed everything he needed and Skip didn’t need – or want – him there.
And then Martin was left alone in a house he didn’t know, waiting for his lover to arrive. At 5 to 6, he walked to the door, thinking that if Tony arrived, he’d already sit at the door and he’d be able to open the door really quickly. It had been so long since they had seen each other. Since the accident with the piano, in fact. He didn’t like to mention it, but it had brought him and Tony together for a couple of days.
He was absentmindedly walking up and down the hall when he noticed a note on the floor.
Martin,
You weren’t here at 5.15, so I went to your own house to see if you’re there.
See you soon!
xx Tony
Martin’s heart dropped. Tony was at his place! The students would let him in, of course, obviously recognizing him, because everybody knew who Tony Stark was – except Carolyn. Maybe they would even show him his room. Martin blushed, already ashamed of hiding it from the billionaire. But he knew how Tony was going to react: he’d want the pilot to come and live with him in America – or even worse, buy him a flat.
He left Carolyn’s house in a hurry, not even bothering to lock the door, and ran to his van to drive home.
*
He might have left the hotel a bit too early, Tony admitted to himself. Martin had not even arrived at the address he had given the billionaire. But it was not his fault he wanted to be on time! He had missed Martin for 8 whole weeks. He had no idea how he had survived those weeks. He hung around the house foor five more minutes, until it was 5.15. By then, he was very impatient and all he wanted to do was curl into Martin's arms and smell him. He had this particular smell around him and he had missed it so much! He had almost forgotten what it was like.
He wrote a little note to the pilot to let him know where he was and went to Martin's house. At least the address JARVIS had originally given him. When he arrived, he looked at it approvingly. It was a rather big house and it looked clean and lived in, without looking old or ready to collapse. He rang the bell and took a few steps back, waiting for Martin to open the door.
The billionaire was surprised when he heard other voices coming from behind the door. Those weren't Martin's. He frowned slightly. When the door was opened, he already opened his arms to pull Martin into them, but the girl in front of him wasn't the pilot. In fact, it was rather the wrong gender.
'Who are you?' he asked accusingly.
'I'm Emma,' she answered. 'And you're Tony Stark, aren't you?'
'Guilty,' he smiled. 'Can I see Martin Crieff please?' He figured that Martin was sharing a house with someone so that the rent was cheaper. Now that he looked at the girl a bit better, she was awfullly young to already share a house with someone, she looked like she was still studying.
'He's not here at the moment, but I can bring you to his room.'
'Thank you.' His room. Did he only have a room in this house? Were there even more people? He followed Emma and went inside. It looked nice, with a room with number 'one' on the first floor and a small kitchen. Emma went up the stairs to the first floor -at least that was what Tony thought. Arriving at the first floor, he saw more rooms with numbers on them, but Emma didn't go to either of them. She continued to go upstairs and only stopped when she arrived in the attic. There was only one room there, but it was quite cold, like there wasn't any heating. 'So this is where he lives?'
Emma nodded. 'Now, if you don't mind, I have to go again, I was studying.' She left him in front of the door.
'Yes, thank you.' He turned around ad wanted to punch the door. 'Why didn't you tell me, Martin?' he whispered.
*
Martin arrived at his house five minutes after he left Carolyn's. Tony would already be there, even if he went by foot. Plus, he didn't even doubt that JARVIS had a gps function. He ran to the door and unlocked it. He started to run up the stairs, but stopped when he heard someone call his name.
'Martin, there's someone wiating for you in the attic.'
'Thanks Emma,' he muttered. He didn't want to think what Tony would have done to his room by now. He had probably already installed JARVIS and fixed the heating or something. He sighed. Or he was going to get dumped. Tony couldn't really be seen with a pilot who can't even afford his own house.
When he finally reached the top floor, he found the billionaire sitting in front of the door. 'Tony?'
'Martin!' Tony got up and hugged the pilot. 'I'm so glad you're here.'
'What are you doing here? We were supposed to meet at the other place.'
'I wanted to see you. Why didn't you tell me you shared a house with a lot of students?'
'Because... Because... What do you think, Tony? I'm ashamed of it, okay. How would you be if you lived somewhere like this place? O nevermind, you'll never understand anyway.' He turned around and started to run away.
Tony grabbed his arm. 'Then help me. Help me understand how you feel, why you didn't tell me. Please?'
'I don't kow where to start.'
'Then starts with the beginning, darling. I'll listen very closely.'
And so he does. He starts at the failing of the tests, his father's death all the way to not being payed by Carolyn and living here. Once he was done, he braced himself for the break-up that would come inevitabely. But no, Tony just hugged him and smiled.
'Thank you, Martin. Now, are you ready for our date? We're alreaddy late.' He grabbed the captain's hand and squeezed it gently.
'Yes.' Martin smiled back and took the genius downstairs, to his van, to leave for the pizzaplace.