There was a reason, behind the fact that Starks men don’t show their weaknesses, there was a reason why Tony hated to show himself hurt. A reason why he didn’t let anyone see what he was feeling and what was wrong with him. People tended to say that he was too proud, but that wasn’t true. Or better, that was that came after, with the ages, with years, with the awareness that he was one of the best minds of his generation. Not the best, because he was proud, but not stupidly so, and he saw what Bruce could do, but one of the best.
But the deep reason was one of the completely different natures. Tony and Tony alone had the right to know it because telling it to everyone else meant that they would become part of his deepest secret. A secret which he knew was no longer so personal. He knew that people would walk away. He knew that he was human and fragile, the more human and fragile of the Avengers.
He was not a super soldier, let alone a god; he hadn’t been exposed to gamma rays and didn’t have the training of a KGB spy. Clint was human as well, but Clint was a secret agent, Clint had a certain kind of training. Everything Tony knew was from his own terror of being cornered by someone who hated him because he was rich, or because his weapons killed someone from their family. Apparently, he foreshadowed his own future well enough when he took those MMA classes.
And maybe, it was because he wasn’t special, he was just a human, someone who committed mistake after mistake, Tony couldn’t get over the idea that he wasn’t good in nothing else which wasn’t put his own life at risk to save the others. And he did that, over and over again, since fucking New York (actually since before, since the Ten Rings attacked Yinsen’s village, but it wasn’t like someone else could do something, at that period). So there he was, forty-eight and flirting with death one day and the other.
So, no, there was no news in the fact that someone had to focus on them the firepower of the man who already went too close to hitting Peter, in Tony’s opinion. And even if he looked like some B-series surf-movie villain, he had to admit that the man had enough fire potential to represent a real threat. As in, he was intelligent enough to use drones calibrated to shoot at whatever moved in front of them and created a certain kind of heath. Focusing on him, the drones had been everything but a difficult task, for Tony, though, now that he was surrounded but nothing but the things and the man who commanded them, he realized how stupid they all had been.
It took 0.4 seconds to the man to push a button which created a force field that enabled every kind of communication in and out the Iron Man suit and, now, Tony was at the man’s mercy. Probably this was exactly what in which the other man hoped from the first minute and the thing that frozen Tony’s blood was that he hadn’t even suspected that.
His own thoughts were back on Titan, from where he promised himself and Stephen he would stay away. But the situation was too similar, if not that whoever the masked man was, wasn’t the Mad Titan but a human and therefore, killable. Not that Tony wanted to, but, at least, if the opportunity came he could do something, or better, there was what he was hoping for. He closed his eyes, counted until three and then pushed back the facial place to see with his own eyes where he was considering that the HUB had gone black the moment he entered the force field.
The place didn’t seem familiar, but it wasn’t like he couldn’t ear the Hudson rushing close which made him wonder if the man didn’t work in some of the closed factories near the river and decided to kidnap a superhero as a clearance after having been fired. Or maybe the kid was just too obsessed with Criminal Minds and the profiler mentality started to stick to Tony too. Not that he cared about the show, but there was something in David Rossi that reminded to him of a sort of his and Stephen’s lovechild, despite the man being older than both of them, so he always enjoyed watching the show along with Peter.
Anyway, there was no time to analysing the man in front of him, so Tony simply looked at him. He didn’t even take his own mask off which, if you asked to the genius, was a good sign that he wasn’t going to kill him anytime soon. Maybe he could speak with him instead.
“I like the design of the drones,” He said because it wasn’t like there was something which came to his mind at that moment. The man didn’t seem to be interested in that and didn’t give any sign of having heard Tony. Maybe the force field blocked also sounds, Stark didn’t have an idea and wasn’t interested at all in knowing it.
He, honestly, had no idea of how he managed to get out of it alive. The last thing Tony remembered was the drones shooting at him and the pain of electric guns that were messing up with the suit. He had no idea of when, but he was sure as well that he passed out and that someone dragged him out from the Iron Man suit.
The only thing he could think about was that he was very stupid, for a genius, if someone managed to kidnap him twice in the span of ten years. He was a hero, or that was what the world made him (Tony knew he wasn’t; Tony knew that he was just trying to use his money to ask forgiveness for his numerous mistakes), and he had almost infinite resources, it was difficult for someone to think that abducted him was a good idea. But Stane made it once, and, apparently, the Drone Guy was being a copycat or something. Not that he cared. He knew he would have died and was still surprised that it didn’t happen, yet.
If his death was useful to save the people of New York, he would greet it gladly. As he did when he flew a nuke through a portal heading to open space; as he did when he followed a wizard in said open space, trying to stop a Mad Titan, as he did in the Soul World, when he killed said Mad Titan. Tony Stark didn’t fear the death, not any longer. There were more frightening things that could have to happen to the human kind than lose an egomaniac billionaire.
A thought, though, went to Peter and Harley. After the so-called Infinity War, Tony adopted the boy from Tennessee and his sister because their mother died in a car crash caused by a bus driver turned to Dust, and they had no-one else in the world. The Avengers joked about him being a single dad every now and then — when they weren’t joking about Stephen co-parenting Harley who seemed to have a gift for Mystical Arts, and Peter who was honestly everyone’s child —, but while Tony opened his eyes to face a dark room he couldn’t help but think about his children, including his protegee which was pretty much like a son for Stark (and the fact that Peter and Harley were actually close friends didn’t help at all).
He could feel every bone in his body hurting, and every muscle sore at the point that he could almost take a guess and say that whoever the Drone Guy was tied his arms and legs to wherever was keeping him. And the stinging sensation of memory from all the Extremis ordeal started to clear its way through Stark’s thoughts. He tried to move his hands, like if he was summoning his suit even if the new prototype he was testing didn’t work like that, and then a soft light hit his eyes letting him see his surroundings.
The place looked old, but not abandoned as he could have thought. It wasn’t some sort of creepy tortures basement which wasn’t as comforting as it was supposed to be. If the person who took him was confident enough to keep him in what looked to be as a bedroom, it meant that he was sure nobody would have found Tony anytime soon.
He tried to move, and what surprised him was that he was able to do it without any constriction. His head started to spin and everything around him became uncertain to his sight.
A moment later, footsteps reached his ears and Tony had a difficult time to try to get on his feet, trying to hide from whoever was coming. Just to find himself chest to chest against someone who was wearing maroon robes. Tony’s eyes wandered on the chest pressed against his own. It belonged to someone who was higher than he was (not that Tony was going to admit it anytime soon) and toned even if not as much as Cap’s. And ok, maybe he spent enough time staring at the Sorcerer Supreme to recognize him from his bare arms, but, again, it wasn’t like to say it out loud. And nowhere close to the Supreme Asshole.
Whose arm was on Tony’s back a moment later, to still him on his feet and avoid to the genius to fall. They had been flirtatious since the first moment they met, and Stephen giving up the Time Stone for Tony’s life wasn’t something on which Stark could sleep on easily. And yes, maybe, at some point, the two of them happened to share Tony’s bed for a night, or a couple of nights, but they worked better as friends with benefits. None of them was in any place for a relationship; Tony having just broken up with Pepper and Stephen feeling a burden for everyone, including his best friend who repeated to him over and over again that she was more than happy to help him. Though, it didn’t mean that the engineer totally didn’t have a crush for the Doctor, not at all.
And most importantly, his knees didn’t melt when the Sorcerer looked at him with that soft smile plastered all over his face, lighting up his eyes with every shade of colour of the ocean.
Oh fuck, he was so in love with the Sorcerer! So, so in love. Like a stupid teenager. Maybe that was the reason why he didn’t care about co-parenting if the other “dad” was Strange.
“Hey,” Stephen said, letting his arm fall once he’d been sure Tony wasn’t going to fall on him. “I think you’ll feel better if you seat if you don’t want to lay down.”
And yes, Tony totally blamed it on the painkillers on which he was probably under, but the most intelligent thing he could say was: “I’d really like to get laid, right now, Doc.” And he winked at the other man.
Which caused to Stephen to turn on a shade worryingly close to the one of his robes and turn his eyes on everything which wasn’t the other man’s face. As in, the ceiling seemed to offer the more interesting show ever. “I needed you to be awake to check for any concussion,” Stephen said, after some moments of silence between the two of them. His trembling hand moved in front of Tony while he opened a little portal from which he took a small flashlight. Tony nodded, looking at the doctor moving expertly around him until he had the other man seated on the bed. “Ok, now keep your head still and follow the light with your eyes.”
Tony had been through that very same procedure a lot of times, but the doctor’s eyes and lips had never been so distracting as Stephen’s - or maybe he really had a concussion while he was ready to bet on both options.
Stephen nodded a moment later. “As I guessed,” He said, and Tony had a hard time not to panicking because it was clear that Strange was in doctor mode. “ Ok, you’ll stay where I can watch you for the next 24 hours, and if you feel worse, even in the slightest, you’re going to tell me, ok?”
Which wasn’t the thing Tony wanted to. He could endure so much worse than without needing a babysitter, even if the said babysitter was Stephen. Anyway, he knew that the doctor wouldn’t have let him walk away without Stark listening to his recommendation. “Ok.”
He was sure he would have grown easily bored with checking on him every ten minutes and was pretty positive that the Sorcerer had a lot of more important things to do as well, though every now and then Stephen appeared through the door threshold asking how he was doing.
Tony wished to be able to say something sassy as his usual to the other man, but his thoughts were foggy and, despite feeling bored as fuck, he knew that the man cared about him. It was a warming sensation, something he hadn’t been used to in the past years.
“Why are you doing this?” He asked Stephen, after the twelfth time the doctor checked on him, this time with some food and a bottle of water.
Stephen smiled, his shaking hand carefully placing the sandwich on the bedside table. Without even Tony telling him, the man seemed to know that he didn’t like when people handled him things. “I am a doctor. I swore an oath, I can’t let you die. Not now that you are my patient.”
Tony smiled, it was a stupid smile, he knew it, a smile which let too much of his emotions to fly in his eyes, but he didn’t care, not at that moment. He could always blame it on his concussion. “I meant why you stuck with me.”
Stephen seated on the bed and looked terrific embarrassed. “I thought you knew that, by now,” He answered. “I don’t do casual sex, Tony.”
Tony knew he was blushing, like a stupid child, again. “I did it, but I feel the same, for you,” They both laughed, at that. “So, does this means that you’ll spoil me every time I get hurt?”
Stephen chuckled, and Tony took his good time admiring how beautiful the man was when he smiled for real. “While I’d rather prefer you not get hurt, yes,” He said, and while he was still smiling, it was clear that he was dead serious. “I would fill each corner of this house with enchanted water lilies, magic butterflies and make sure you have unlimited stock of freshly picked strawberries and pamper you while you recover.”
“Stephen Vincent Strange,” Tony said, unable to mask his own hearted smile. “That’s a fucking sappy sentence.”
Stephen shook his head, standing from the bed. “Yeah, Anthony Edward Stark, it is. And that’s all your fault.”
And while he walked outside the room to do whatever stupid magic things he had to do, a couple of shining butterflies left his fingertips, flying around Tony’s head. All the engineer could do was smile and following with his glance the magic butterflies, feeling warmer than he ever did in his entire life.