Mystic

He and Stephen had a lot in common, Tony learns. Stephen shared a history of being selfish in his youth, had a thing for throwing money around, and also had a habit of pushing everyone who was close to him away all while spending most of his time talking about himself. He also learns that Stephen has another soul mate, Christine, who had left him some year and a half ago thanks to his attitude. Rhodey had looked downright horrified at this but Hope looked sympathetic to Christine. Probably because she was aware that dealing with people like Stephen or Tony isn’t easy. Dealing with anyone who refused to admit they had a problem all the while acting like they were perfect wasn’t easy. Rhodey just had a shocking level of patience, loyalty, and integrity. Christine, it seemed, simply knew when to give up on someone with no interest in improvement and Tony couldn’t blame her for that. His own experiences with Stephen told him he was slow to grow as a person and an ass to boot.

“Have you been to a doctor lately?” Stephen asks.

“Yeah, not long ago,” Tony lies at the same time Rhodey snorts and says, “no.” Tony shoots Rhodey an annoyed look at his betrayal but Rhodey doesn’t look sorry whatsoever.

Stephen’s eyebrows climb, “you have heart problems and a highly unusual set of circumstances around them and you don’t visit a doctor regularly?” he asks.

“I go sometimes,” Tony says in his own defense but Rhodey talks over him.

“No, he doesn’t because he’s got a death wish,” he says.

“Do not, Rhodey is just whining,” Tony says.

Rhodey looks offended, “I am not, Tony just doesn’t want to admit to not going to the doctors.”

“He never goes,” Hope confirms and Tony flips her off.

Stephen presses his fingers to his temples. “Tony you should be being monitored regularly. When is the last time you visited a doctor?” he asks.

He looks pretty disappointed when Tony has to think about that for a moment. “When he got the reactor removed,” Rhodey answers for him.

“Oh come on, I’ve seen people after that,” Tony says though he wasn’t actually sure he had. Actually he was fairly certain that he skipped out on most if not all of his follow up appointments post surgery too. Pepper would call someone if he died randomly, she was reliable like that and besides, he would notice if something went wrong. It was only his heart that’d be failing. “I’m pretty sure I’ve run into a medic or two post-mission,” he says in his own defense. It was probably the only one he had but Rhodey was still rolling his eyes at him.

“EMTs don’t count, Tony,” Stephen snaps.

“I don’t like doctors okay, they freak me out. What kind of freak wants to go digging around in human bodies? That’s fucking weird,” he says, fully intending to offend Stephen with that comment. He succeeds because Stephen puffs up, clearly ready to defend himself when Wong steps in.

“Stephen!” he says in a sharp tone, drawing Stephen’s attention immediately. “You were supposed to be back in Nepal two hours ago!” he tells him, head poking out of a circle of orange sparks.

Stephen gives him a sheepish smile, “I slept in.”

Wong looks irritated with this. “You see what I have to deal with? The least she could have done was leave me with someone punctual,” he mumbles, stepping back through his ring of sparks. Rhodey gives Tony a confused look and Tony tells him he’ll explain later in a low tone. Truth be told he wasn’t sure what he had to explain given that all he knew was some rando named the Ancient One used to be around and took a liking to Stephen. That was all Rhodey was going to get, he guessed.

“Alright, seems how Wong has got his panties in a bunch we should go. And when we get there I’m going to look you over, Tony, because the creepy doctor who likes to play around in human bodies thinks someone with major heart problems should get regular checkups,” he says, making a mocking face at Tony, who does it right back.

“I swear to god they’re three years old,” Rhodey mumbles.

“They’re made for each other,” Hope tells him, laughing.

“Soul mates,” Rhodey agrees, rolling his eyes. Hope steps through Stephen’s portal and Rhodey follows behind her.

*

“So,” Tony says, dodging Stephen to look out over the courtyard of the Sanctum. “How come everyone here speaks English? I mean we’re in Nepal, wouldn’t it make more sense to speak Nepali?” he asks. The students clearly preferred it with Wong but only spoke English to Stephen.

Stephen sighs, “I can’t speak Nepali worth a damn. My mother claims I used to be fluent as a child- my grandparents’ English wasn’t the best so they usually spoke their native language- but there’s no evidence for it now.”

Tony grins, “like how bad is bad, I kind of want to hear it,” he says. Not that he knew Nepali, but it was a useful distraction to avoid Stephen poking at him like some kind of science experiment.

“Bad enough that when I asked Wong for a book he was very confused because what I actually said was ‘that book is a bat pussy’,” he says. He probably would have continued talking but Tony bursts out laughing because that was better than he thought. Learning new languages was always an adventure, but that had to be one of the funniest mix-ups he’s heard. “Yeah, yeah, laugh it up but Wong was deeply confused until I repeated it in English. So I stick with that and most everyone here knows at least a little of the language so it works. Now stop trying to distract me and get over here.”

Tony squints at him, “do you even still have a medical license?” he asks, skeptical.

From the smug look on Stephen’s face Tony wasn’t going to like the answer. “I renewed it right before my hands got destroyed so yes, I have it for another two weeks. Now sit down,” he tells him.

Well there went his excuse of only dealing with a licensed doctor not that he wouldn’t try to wiggle out of that too. He briefly considers trying to make one of those portal thingies again but Stephen points out he didn’t have an ugly plank ring, obviously seeing the thought on Tony’s face, so instead he eyes Stephen’s. “Try it, Rocky,” Stephen says and Tony laughs.

“You probably wouldn’t want that, I’m pretty stubborn and I pretty much always get what I want,” he says honestly. People said he didn’t pay attention but that was only half true. He paid plenty of attention, but he only ever retained knowledge of things he cared about or things that were useful. It made him successful in life though he doubted that’d help him snag Stephen’s ugly ring.

“Coincidentally so do I. Now sit,” Stephen tells him.

Tony takes a step towards the window behind him. “I’d like to remind you the last time we came in contact you punched my soul into another dimension,” he points out.

Stephen rolls his eyes, which so was not a good sign. “I told you it wasn’t another dimension,” he says.

“Sure, that makes me feel better,” Tony says lightly, shaking his head at the pure stupidity of that comment. And people thought he was obtuse, Stephen took that to a whole new level.

“Well the fact that the last time we came in contact was actually when I carried you back here post being attacked by Mordo should make you feel better,” he says, that annoyingly smug look back on his face.

It didn’t make him feel better but he wasn’t wrong about saving Tony’s ass, and he’s been helpful with saving Rhodey and Hope. He also had a bad habit of hoarding useful information though. Tony sighs, “Look, I just really hate doctors, alright? Leave me be.”

Stephen sighs and leans against his version of a makeshift hospital bed. It didn’t look much more comfortable than anything Tony would find in a hospital. “Under normal circumstances I would Tony but you really do have unusual heart issues and it would be unethical to let you walk around without some kind of knowledge that your heart isn’t about to crap out on you,” he says.

Tony snorts, “your ethics are experimental,” he says. At least according to Wong, or Mordo though Tony had far more trust for one than the other.

“Experimental but informed. At least in medicine- you can’t really experiment on people before you read the warnings in medical school the way you can here with magic and then get yelled at for messing up the natural order of things because you turned back time on an apple. The point is I’m trying to look out for you,” he says.

That wasn’t actually something Tony doubted. In his weird, Stephen way this probably was him helping but Tony has never been fond of the medical establishment. Or most any establishment that wasn’t one he built himself. “I know, but I think I’d notice if there was something wrong with my heart. I noticed when I was being poisoned.”

“And presumably didn’t get medical assistance, which probably would have been beneficial. Look Tony I understand the bizarre dislike of doctors, I’ve been a doctor for a long time, but I’m not pressing my point because I have any desire to poke and prod at you and make you uncomfortable. I’m pressing because you likely won’t know something is wrong with your heart until you’re either dead or having a heart attack or worse. So please sit down or at least answer some questions,” Stephen says- almost pleads actually.

Tony takes the out Stephen offered him whether he intended it or not. “What questions?” he asks.

“Like anything unusual happening lately, anything that might indicate that your body is doing something it shouldn’t be,” he says. Vague at best, Tony thinks, but in his defense he had a whole body to work with. Bodies, like machines, were pretty complicated systems and it was hard to narrow things down.

He shrugs, “not really,” he says.

“So your sleep habits are normal, your appetite is fine, no lightheadedness, no tight feelings in your chest, numb limbs, abdominal pain, nothing?” Stephen asks, raising an eyebrow when Tony frowns at him. “I’m going to assume the surprised look on your face makes that a no. What did I list that applies to you- outside of your obvious mental instability,” he says.

“Excuse you I’m mentally stable I just get panicky sometimes, leave it be. And honestly most of those things but I’ve never slept normal- when I was a kid doctors said my brain moved too fast and I had too many ideas, which made it hard to fall asleep. That’s probably still true. That and probably PTSD. My chest feels tight all the time but it did with the reactor too- figured that was normal for it to do now-“ Stephen smacks his palm over his forehead and Tony flips him off before continuing. “My left arm has been kind of weird lately but I think that’s because Wanda threw like seven cars at me and three of them landed on my arm. In the suit- obviously. Or you know, I wouldn’t have an arm. And I think the abdominal pain was caused by Steve slamming his shield into my chest to break the reactor in the suit but I guess it as been awhile so maybe not.”

Stephen lets out a long, drawn out sigh. “Nothing is wrong except everything! Really, Tony?”

“What? This is all normal for me now, it’s been happening for at least a couple months. Figured you wanted new stuff,” he says in his own defense.

Stephen rubs his temples in clear annoyance. “You’re impossible. And your heart is not supposed to do that! Sit down!”

*

After several more hours of pestering, much to Tony’s annoyance, Stephen decides Tony should get a second opinion because he isn’t a cardiologist, which Tony does not take well. Rhodey looks amused at this but Stephen was plotting some way to get him to a fucking hospital without him knowing until it was too late. Like taking a dog to the vet.

“Whatever you’re thinking it’s never going to work. The fact that he let you check him out is a miracle on its own. Just leave him be because he won’t do anything he doesn’t want to, never has and pushing him only results in him resenting you for it. Take it from years of experience,” Rhodey says.

Well if he didn’t get his damn heart checked me might not live to resent Stephen for pushing him anyways. “He has several problems he needs to get examined. Those things include but aren’t limited to heart problems, potential healing problems with what I think started as cracked ribs, something is obviously wrong with his left arm or possibly his brain but I don’t have equipment here to scan him, and then some. What am I supposed to do, just let him die?” he asks. Because there were several conditions that would result in Tony’s imminent death if he had them and Stephen didn’t want to chance it.

Rhodey shakes his head, “it might sound nuts but I’m pretty sure Tony is so stubborn even Death won’t fuck with him. Seriously, he survived Afghanistan, Obadiah, the reactor poisoning him, two super soldiers nearly killing him and leaving him for dead in a frozen waste land, being injected with an experimental serum that could have made him overheat and blow up, and then some. Death just doesn’t stick to Tony,” he says.

Stephen frowns, “experimental serum?” he asks. Most of Tony’s life was public so Stephen had been able to track injuries well enough but he hadn’t heard about that. You’d think it would be common knowledge especially with all the efforts there has been to recreate the super soldier serum that Steve Rogers was injected with. So what happened to the news coverage there?

Rhodey waves him off, “he cured himself and Pepper, that’s not really anything to worry about,” he says.

Actually yes it was. “He has no medical training and I highly doubt he knows how to make vaccines, what makes you think this hasn’t had an affect on his health?” he asks.

“Probably the giant hole he used to have in his chest. You should look it up some time, it was a lot bigger in person,” he says. “If he managed to survive that, I doubt a slightly messed up vaccine would kill him.”

Yes Stephen already looked up Tony’s reactor but public knowledge with a medical slant was non-existent. People knew plenty about how Tony got injured, but there wasn’t much on the injuries themselves at least from a medical perspective. “What affects did that have on his health, aside from the eventual poisoning?” he asks. And he cured that too, Stephen remembers. Curious how Tony seemed to have a strange amount of medical knowledge for someone who never studied medicine. Even if he did read up on things he would never know enough to do the things he has, even Stephen didn’t know enough to make vaccines. His knowledge was how they worked, not how to make them.

“From what I understood aside from keeping it clean and all that it reduced his lung capacity. To seventy percent I think he said, not that he ever acted like his lungs were thirty percent crushed,” Rhodey says. Yes, Stephen knew that too given his hero history. “Why are you making that face? I don’t know what it means but it means something,” he says, leaning forward in curiosity. No, more like worry- likely for Tony’s health.

He shakes his head, “I’m just… curious as to how Tony got all this medical knowledge. He hardly studied medicine,” he points out.

Something obviously clicks with Rhodey because Stephen watches a light bulb go off in his head. “Oh, there was a doctor with him in Afghanistan. Uh… something Yinsen I think, I don’t really remember,” he says, frowning.

“Ho Yinsen,” Stephen says immediately, and he immediately knows what serum Rhodey was talking about too thanks to Yinsen’s involvement with one Maya Hansen. He shakes his head because Hansen was, at least to him and he was sure Christine would agree, little more than a mad scientist. An intelligent mad scientist no doubt, but that only served to make her dangerous instead of stupid. Quite like Tony in a way.

Rhodey nods, “yeah, Ho Yinsen. You know him?” he asks, obviously recognizing Stephen’s reaction.

He nods, “he’s a brilliant surgeon, of course I know him. We’ve met, several times actually, how did he met Tony?” he asks. “Never mind, he did quite a lot of work in war torn areas, it seems reasonable that the terrorists that picked Tony up also had him in captivity. The timing is impeccable though; especially considering Yinsen is quite likely the only doctor even capable of keeping a person alive after an injury like Tony’s. It helped that he has an engineering background.” Impeccable didn’t cover how good Tony’s luck would have to be to get Yinsen of all people in that cave.

Unbelievable how everything perfectly aligned in his life to either make it or break it in seemingly equal parts. Stephen has never met a person whose luck was that good and that bad simultaneously. In one instant Tony had the most qualified doctor in the world to tend to his injuries, in the next he runs a test on a rock with a science buddy and early ends the world. The whiplash had to hurt.

Rhodey’s eyebrows lift, “more qualified than you?” he asks, a slight edge to his voice that Stephen doesn’t quite know what to make of so he ignores it in favor of focusing on Rhodey’s question.

There would have been a time when Stephen scoffed at the idea of anyone, Yinsen included, being a better doctor than him but since then he’s learned a little humility. “I’m sure I could have kept Tony alive, probably for an extended period of time. But I never would have attempted that contraption in his chest, and I’m certain it wouldn’t have been functional if I did. We both would have died in those caves long before anyone got the opportunity to torture Tony into making weapons and a grand escape in a suit made of scraps.” He was a competent doctor yes, certainly one of the best at least in his field if he wasn’t the best, but his specialty was not the heart and it most certainly wasn’t engineering despite having done a semester in an engineering program. His parents wanted him to pursue the career and he had the grades for it, but he hated it and so he switched into medical school as soon as he could.

“Wow, you aren’t as much of an arrogant prick as you used to be,” Rhodey says with a weird amount of dislike in his tone. It takes a moment for him to realized the reason it wasn’t there before was because Rhodey was discussing Tony, not him. Rhodey obviously had a deep love for Tony but it clearly didn’t extend to him not that he expected it to. But he didn’t expect outright rudeness either.

He raises an eyebrow, “okay?” he says, unsure how to react to this. It wasn’t as if Rhodey was wrong, but it seemed odd to hold his particularly dominant traits against him when Tony shared every single one of them.

“I’ve seen videos of you doing a talk or two, you think highly of yourself,” Rhodey says in a tone that suggests this is a bad thing but all Stephen can manage is a laugh.

“No more arrogant than Tony is about his own skills. If you want to dislike me, by all means, but don’t pick such a stupid reason. You nave no problem with arrogance or self-importance, if you did you never would have survived Tony. Say what you mean,” he says, briefly surprised by his insight into the situation. Usually it took him longer than that to catch on. But Rhodey clearly disliked something about him, something that may or may not be related to arrogance, but it wasn’t that in itself. Like he pointed out, if it was arrogance he had an issue with he never would have made it this far in a friendship with Tony Stark in his pre hero days. His arrogance may be all but gone now, but it certainly wasn’t when he was in his early twenties.

Rhodey seems almost as surprised as Stephen is on his quick insight but it passes quickly. “I mean you have a habit of thinking your way is the best way, and that isn’t going to fly with Tony.”

“Because I want him to actually get medical assistance?” Stephen asks, frowning. Was that what this was about? Because it seemed odd to be pissed off with making sure his soul mate wasn’t about to drop dead of some unknown medical condition. Actually that seemed like something Rhodey should be invested in, not against.

His guess was wrong because Rhodey rolls his eyes, “no dumbass, giving him magical explanations for the shit in his life. Prophet, really? Is that the best you could manage? And this indulging his alien fear? Stop that, its irrational and he knows it so stop freaking him out,” he says.

Now that throws him for a loop. But as usual he doesn’t react the way Rhodey expects because his laugh, a deep laugh from his gut, clearly confuses Rhodey.

“First of all I didn’t come up with the prophet theory Wong did, I simply said it felt like there was something already in his mind when Wanda tampered with it so at least get your facts straight. And two- his alien fear isn’t illogical; they’ve been back several times since New York. It stands to reason they’ll be back again. And even if that wasn’t true I fail to see how your method of ignoring the problem is helping- the man was so afraid a simple vision sent him off the fucking deep end and he nearly ended the world. He needed someone to listen and clearly that person wasn’t you or the rest of the Avengers, you all called him crazy and then yelled at him for acting it. You know Tony better than I ever will I’m sure, but don’t lecture me on how I choose to deal with him when your methods have proven disastrous,” he snaps, shocked at the level of anger in his words.

But he meant them all and he wasn’t about to take them back.