Rhodey shakes his head at Tony, “that is one pissed off kitsune,” he says.
Tony nods as the fox in the crate glares at them with more intelligence than an animal should have. “Yeah, Happy caught it and thought it was cool because it has five tails,” he says. How the hell Happy managed to catch a mythological creature that was rather known for being mischievous and hard to catch Tony had no idea. Either way he was now the proud, uh, acquaintance of a kitsune.
Rhodey frowns at him, “Happy caught a kitsune? How the hell did he manage that?” he asks.
“No idea but since you’re a vampire I figured if this thing tries to eat me you can do something about it,” he says, giving the kitsune a meaningful look. He swears the fox rolls its eyes. Vampires were generally quite feared though and were often treated as bloodthirsty monsters. Rhodey used to make jokes that he would have been kept as a slave thanks to his skin color only to escape that life and end up dealing with supernatural racism instead. Tony had no idea how old he was and he didn’t really want to know if Rhodey actually had insider knowledge on the slave trade back in the day because it kind of made him want to vomit. If he was alive during that time Tony hopes that he punched Columbus in the face. Or any other historical figure. The best he got was the time he asked Rhodey about a vampire’s take in the World Wars only to find out he slept for seventy years and fucking missed it. Worst vampire ever.
He was, however, useful in telling Tony about why people seemed to be so attracted to him, and why he was so attracted to the might life. Turned out that he’s an incubus from his mother’s side and she died before she got to explain what the hell that meant for Tony. Something told him his dad didn’t know about that little tidbit because he freaked out over race let alone species. God knows what would have happened if he found out he married a monster. Though Tony was of the firm belief that it was Maria that married the monster, biology be damned.
“Okay kitsune, I’m going to let you out of there now okay?” Tony says, putting his much charm into his words as possible. Usually people melted at his feet when he spoke like this but the kitsune just looks unimpressed. Well boo on it because Tony was good at using that voice to calm people down. Stupid immune kitsune. Tony decides to ignore that and he opens the door to release the poor thing. He was happy that shape shifting wasn’t something he could do because he really wouldn’t have wanted to be stuffed into a cage by some dumbass human that thought he looked cool. Happy was lovely of course, but like most humans he didn’t immediately come to the conclusion that this fox with five tails was actually a supernatural creature. Tony always resented that term, supernatural. What the hell make humans the regular natural? For all they knew they were the supernatural ones. Still, he releases the kitsune and stands back.
He half expects it to go flying out, changing back into its human form to yell at him and Rhodey but it doesn’t. Instead the kitsune walks out slowly, glancing around with that unimpressed look on its face. It takes Tony a moment to realize why it’s walking so slowly. Its two front legs were shaking heavily and now Tony knows how Happy caught it. “Well, now that you’re properly acquainted with us do you mind ahh,” Tony says, holding up his hand to protect his face against the light the kitsune has suddenly produced. Rhodey fairs worse than he does and outright hisses at the light. Vampires are weird.
“Now we are properly acquainted,” the kitsune, now a tall and annoyed looking Asian man, says. He’s glaring down at Tony and Rhodey is glaring at the kitsune with his fangs out looking ready to eat him.
“Rhodey put your fangs away, Jesus. And you, kitsune, what were you doing in my yard?” he asks.
“I think I should ask you why your driver chases foxes around in his spare time,” the Asian guy says. Tony notes absently that he’s attractive with his high cheekbones and almond shaped eyes, and he has nice facial hair. Always a plus. His hands were also shaking heavily in his human form.
“You have five tails and he’s human. Humans like weird shit,” Tony says. That was nothing new and honestly Rhodey and Tony had to marvel over the fact that Pepper and her girlfriend Natasha kept spiders of all things. They lovingly took care of them too because they’re freaks with tarantulas and two black widows. Once Natasha lost one of the widows and Tony found it in his shoe and he never went to their house again. Rhodey refused to ever step foot in their house again after Pepper whipped out a spider to show him without knowing he had an extreme fear of bugs, but especially spiders. There was a lot of screaming and hissing and that was how Pepper and Natasha found out vampires were a thing.
“‘Humans like weird shit’,” the kitsune repeats slowly. “Well now that I am done with being chased around by an idiot human I’m going to take my ow!” he says as he runs into some orange rune shit that appeared out of nowhere. “Or not,” he mumbles.
“Neat. So now that you’re apparently stuck here care to explain why?” Tony asks. “Also what’s you’re name?” That occurs to him as more of an after thought but he still asked so it counted.
The kitsune’s name is Stephen Strange and he refuses to talk until he has tea, and then he ended up being a tea snob and refused to drink anything that wasn’t some weirdly specific loose leaf that Tony sends Happy on the hunt for. In the meantime Rhodey did a lot of glaring, Tony did a quick search of kitsune in the supernatural version of the web, and Pepper called three times about some file Tony was avoiding. The good news was that he now had an assistant to handle all his affairs, not just the ones that involved humans. He did lots of cool things technologically for the supernatural community because he was horrified to find they were all a bunch of fucking Luddites. In their defense tech didn’t tend to work right around them but thanks to Tony’s experiments they now had all sorts of cool things like humans. And it turned out the market for that kind of thing was huge so now he had oodles of money he hadn’t even anticipated having and a lot of supernatural investors.
When Happy gets in with the tea Tony starts boiling water and Rhodey is looking longingly out into the night. Turns out that yes, vampires do turn into bats and against all odds they didn’t turn into vampire bats either. They’re just bats and they can eat bugs like a bat would not that Rhodey does given how much he hates bugs, but he does like flying around. In another life he was probably a pilot. When the water finishes Tony makes the kitsune his damn tea and tells him to get talking.
Instead of doing as he was instructed the kitsune, Stephen, blows on his tea a little and takes a small sip. His hands shake but Tony left plenty of room in the large cup to compensate. “Your tea tastes like shit. So with kitsune we tend to dislike the arrogant and, well, I got a little arrogant. Now I’m stuck with this,” he lifts his badly shaking hands, “for life. The only chance to maybe heal myself is going through a magical transformation. To do that I apparently have some kind of personal journey to go through with you. And then I’ll get the rest of my tails.”
Rhodey squints at him, “okay, what?” he asks and Tony is glad he isn’t the only confused one.
Stephen lets out a long, pained sigh. “Kitsune aren’t supposed to be arrogant, I got arrogant and then my magic must have backfired on me and I got into a car accident that ruined my hands as some kind of humbling event. To move beyond this I need to learn some kind of lesson by going through some kind of journey, one that apparently involves you because my magic won’t let me leave. This isn’t the first time I’ve tried,” he says slowly, like he thinks Rhodey and Tony were incompetent. Well he definitely didn’t get over the arrogance thing, Tony thinks to himself.
“Why do your hands matter though?” Rhodey asks, asking questions Tony didn’t even think to. He was going to ask what the hell Stephen meant by his trying to leave here more than the one time Tony witnessed.
Stephen suddenly looks sad and very tired, “I was a surgeon. A very good surgeon and it’s all ruined now,” he says softly, looking into his cooling tea.
“Boo hoo, what do you mean this isn’t the first time you’ve tried to leave?” Tony asks and Rhodey covers his hand with his mouth to hide his laugh. Obviously he didn’t like the kitsune because Tony usually got reprimanded for being insensitive when he did stuff like that.
He gets a withering glare from Stephen but he sighs, “sometimes when you go… wayward I guess your magic will compensate. Like it did with the car accident. Well that was almost a year ago and two days ago I got zapped here. Your moron driver only found me this morning and proceeded to chase me around for almost two hours. I tried leaving several times between now and then but my magic seems to have decided you’re important to me for some reason.” He looks like he’s admitting that grudgingly and Tony can’t say he blames the guy.
“Okay, fine. What’s this business with the tails?” Rhodey asks, going where Tony was about to with his line of questioning.
“Kitsune gain tails when they gain power. We’re all born with one, and then we usually move to five though sometimes people get stuck at three, and then generally you move to nine. Nine is the number you want because then you’re at full power and you get white or gold fur. As you know I currently have five tails,” Stephen tells them.
“Do you ever lose tails?” Tony asks.
Stephen rolls his eyes, “no you never lose tails, what the hell kind of supernatural creatures are you if you don’t know how a kitsune works?” he asks, giving them both annoyed looks.
Rhodey frowns, “aren’t kitsune localized to Asia?” he asks.
“Aren’t vampires localized to Romania?” Stephen counters and Rhodey takes the hint.
“Where do incubi come from?” Tony asks and Stephen balks.
“How do you not know where incubi come from? Who raised you?” he asks, offended.
“A human and a succubus who died before she could give me the heads up that I’m a fucking monster baby that feeds off sexual energy. I super resent being labeled as a demon by humans though, that’s just rude.” He thought human children were little demons but he didn’t make up entire mythologies that condemned their screeching nature. Maybe he should, children were terrible and if he was honest adults weren’t much better. They whined in all kinds of other ways that children didn’t. Natasha said that ‘I want to talk to your manager’ was basically the adult equivalent of ‘I’m telling mom’ and Tony figured she’d know, she used to work in retail.
Stephen sighs, “well someone should teach you about your powers before you go killing people by sucking their sexual energy out of them,” he mumbles.
“Wait, you can do that? Rhodes, do you think I could turn Hammer on enough to kill him?” he asks, excited. Stephen looks downright horrified but Rhodey just laughs.
*
Stephen had no idea why the damn incubus was important but he does learn that he uses his powers liberally. Incubi were naturally drawing and people tended to flock to them but with Tony’s charm dialed to high all the time the man got more attention than he could possibly want. Finally Stephen gets annoyed with this and decides to teach him how to dial it back. “You, incubus, you need to stop making people trip over themselves to talk to you. It’s embarrassing for you and them,” he says swiftly.
Tony holds a wrench in his hand and is poised over a car looking delicious and that was half the problem. This was absurd, he needed to stop that. “The fuck are you talking about?” he asks.
“Your incubus charms are always going and I’m annoyed of it. Stop that,” he tells him. He’s aware that he sounds like a petulant ass but he’s irritated with this Tony constantly looking more attractive than a person has a right to and he’s even more annoyed with how humans reacted to him. Kitsune had a natural resistance but humans were practically beating each other with sticks to get close to Tony.
“No they aren’t. I learned how to control that a long time ago so I could get some damn peace,” he says. If this was what he considered peace Stephen wondered what he considered a disturbance.
“Well obviously you aren’t doing a good job because humans still throw themselves at you like ninnies.” It was sad to watch, really.
Tony just laughs, “you mean you want to throw yourself at me like a ninny,” he corrects. “Yeah, don’t think I don’t sense your attraction but don’t worry you’re hardly in the minority. If you think this is what it feels like to be around me with my ‘charms’ going though you might want to avoid the house on Fridays,” he says, grinning.
Stephen glares at him for a moment and walks off because he would not dignify that with a response. In the meantime he researches ways to go through magical kitsune journeys without annoying incubi.
*
Stephen was the cutest thing as a fox but he didn’t appreciate Tony telling him that. His tails flick in irritation and Tony wonders if he could get away with petting him when he turns back into his much less adorable human self. “If you were going to pet me I hope you know that I would have chewed your hand off,” Stephen says, hands on his hips looking properly annoyed.
Tony laughs, injecting a little incubus power into it and the sound is just that much prettier. Stephen blinks a few times and Tony starts laughing harder. “You keep your incubus charms to yourself, I know you were using them that time!” He squints accusingly at Tony, eyes narrowing considerably.
“Yeah I did but you were the one that fell for them,” he says. If people weren’t attracted to him, or, say men, his charms didn’t work at all. They didn’t work on Pepper or Natasha thanks to Pepper being immune to him and Natasha’s being a lesbian. Rhodey wasn’t really attracted to anyone and never fell for his charms. Stephen totally did though and it was hilarious to watch. He never pushed it of course, though he could, but he wanted to mess with Stephen not ruin the guy’s life and be a creep.
“Don’t you blame this on me, this isn’t my fault!” he hisses.
“Technically no, but if you weren’t attracted to me there would be no results,” Tony tells him.
Stephen rolls his eyes, “that’s not how it works, Stark. Incubi attract everyone, that’s why you’re species is labeled as dangerous.”
“No, we don’t. I’ll call Pepper here to prove it too and we’re labeled dangerous because people are assholes.” That was on both sides too. People were freaked out about the idea that an incubus or a succubus would toy with their sexual whims like that and some of Tony’s species liked to make that fear a reality. Tony may tease Stephen but he’d never do more than make his laugh sound more appealing, or his words sound smoother and more attractive. Those things did wonders on their own so going further than that was lost on Tony honestly, not that others of his species would agree. The benefit to all of this, he guessed, was that he was completely immune to the powers his species had. It might have been why everyone considered his mother extremely attractive when he only saw beautiful in a more… average way. He wished he looked more like her and less like his father.
“Fine,” Stephen says and Tony calls Pepper up to prove his point, fully aware that nothing was going to happen to her. Stephen, on the other hand, looked nervous. Tony also kept in mind that Stephen would be affected even if Tony wasn’t targeting him specifically. Although people had some deep seeded worries about his species and sexual assault or rape the truth was that his species tended to be on the receiving end of those things more often than being the perpetrators. People liked to use their powers against them and claim they couldn’t help it when they certainly could. Tony knew because he’s had more than enough people make advances towards him that were nothing short of disturbing and they reacted just fine when either Happy, Rhodey, or Pepper sent them packing. It was half of why he tended to only use his powers on supernatural creatures that A- knew what was happening or B- like Stephen had a natural resistance. Both of those things combined made Stephen amusing to mess with because all he got was sexually frustrated, not creepy.
Pepper shows up looking annoyed to be the guinea pig but Stephen’s got this smug look on his face like he’s about to be proven right and Tony was not going to let that happen. So he turns things on high and smiles at Pepper in a sultry way that usually resulted in people flinging themselves at him. “Hey Pepper,” he says and his voice is soft, silky, and inviting.
“Stop that shit, you look like a demented toad,” she tells him and he bursts out laughing, bursting the bubble of power he created.
“See, told you,” he says to Stephen, who was staring at him with glazed eyes and his mouth open. “I’m the one that looks like a demented toad?” Tony asks, raising an eyebrow at Pepper. She sighs and tells him to go get that file she’s been harassing him for for like the last month.
*
Stephen looks up incubi powers because Pepper actually wasn’t affected and he sure as hell was. He didn’t like to admit it either but Tony had looked… delectable. His hair had all sorts of natural highlights through the deep brown, and his eyes were golden almost, and his skin was positively luminescent. And his voice. Stephen disliked being affected by him like that but he also knew now that Tony’s toying with him was just that. If he really wanted to use his powers on Stephen, well, he was hardly an incubus with a low power level. Something he should have realized right away with his natural charisma.
Nothing he finds suggests that incubus powers didn’t work on those they were either close to or those that weren’t attracted to, which was peculiar. Even his research on succubae came up empty not that he expected anything less, their powers were all but identical. There was just a lot more human attention to beautiful women for some reason. Clearly they didn’t pay less attention to beautiful men if human’s reactions to Tony were any indication. Still, it was odd that everything that was written about the species was effectively wrong. Stephen didn’t doubt that Pepper was the only one immune to Tony’s powers and now he wanted to know why there was misinformation floating around.
He could do nothing about it but he finally decides that no, he was going to ask questions because this was just bizarre to him. When he finally stops getting transferred around various magical departments who don’t want to answer his questions he finally gets told that the misinformation is apparently necessary in order for people to discriminate against incubi and succubae essentially.
“It is absolutely not necessary to be spreading misinformation around about this species when people regard them as a threat!” Stephen says, floored with this response.
“The species is rightfully considered a threat,” the person on the other end calmly explains. They had a name but Stephen didn’t bother to listen to it.
“Certainly, as is literally any other species in existence. Humans, for example, are easily the most violent species in existence with all the genocides they’ve committed against their own species. Kitsune can control lightening, I could strike a man dead on the street right now if I felt like it but no one is acting as if humans will murder you on sight if they dislike you even though that is a very real possibility and I’ve never hear anything about kitsune being dangerous,” he says calmly, laying out the evidence as necessary. This was absolutely ridiculous and he’s seen the way people reacted to Tony; he was in more danger from the public than the public was from him. Even when he did use his powers it was only barely and only enough to fluster his target for his own amusement. Humans did similar things, flirting with each other to fluster their target. Some even did so with a purpose, intending to get something out of their target for their troubles. That was hardly any different than what Tony did; he was just better at it.
“Incubi and succubae are more dangerous than either of those species. People have a right to be concerned,” the person tells him.
“No, people have a right to know the correct information. If you want people to take precautions than you should be giving them the correct information. Besides, I know an incubus and he gets far more unwanted attention than he does attempting to force people into unwanted situations. Is that not what you’re worried about? Incubi and succubae forcing themselves on people? Well what about when people force themselves on incubi and succubae? What happens then?” he asks. Tony seemed resigned to the unwanted attention but he thought people needed to be responsible for their own urges. Honestly he was in the same room as Tony when he used his powers on Pepper and even he had the good sense to keep his hands to himself. Sure, Tony could have forced himself on him but so could anyone. Half of this worry was unfounded in his opinion; he’s seen the statistics. Tony was more likely to be assaulted than to assault someone.
“People can’t help themselves around that species,” the person says and Stephen makes a disgusted noise.
“You are despicable,” he spits and he hangs up before he can resolve the issue because he’s too angry to deal with this. To his surprise he finds Tony standing in the doorway watching him, “what?” he asks finally.
“What were you doing?” Tony asks, frowning.
“Trying to correct some misinformation only to discover willful ignorance and blatant discrimination. Did you know that various magical law enforcement branches intentionally spread misinformation about your species because they dislike that you make them horny? Get over it,” he snaps, throwing his hands up. “And that person on the phone all but blamed your species for assaults against you! Disgusting!”
Tony shrugs, “well yeah I did know that given that my research on half the stuff I can do was wrong but whatever. It doesn’t really affect me much,” he says and Stephen could not believe his ears.
“What do you mean it doesn’t affect you much? People assault you on a near regular basis and if everyone thinks like that particular person I talked to they’d blame you for it! I am more than affected by your natural charm and I keep my hands to myself!” Because he had common sense. And he took responsibility for his attraction to Tony and didn’t make it Tony’s fault. Sure, he might mess with Stephen for his own amusement but everyone did that, Tony just had powers that made it easier for him to do that. It was annoying more than anything.
“Well I mean I get it, I use my powers on you all the time,” he points out.
Stephen rolls his eyes, “to amuse yourself. If I went out and found someone who found me attractive I could do the same thing to them, it just wouldn’t be as instantaneous. Explain to me the difference other than the time frame in which I could manipulate someone,” he says, waving a hand at Tony.
Tony considers this for a moment and shrugs, “actually if a person found you particularly attractive you could do what I do just as fast. I… you kind of have me there. But most people can’t force people to feel more attraction like I can,” he points out.
Stephen shakes his head, “as someone who is on the other end you don’t force me to feel more attraction. What you do is draw my attention to things I already find attractive about you. I’ve read things about you online, everyone notices different things about you. When you use your powers you just… focus my attentions I suppose. Which, might I add, I can do too. Just not nearly as well.” Why was Tony arguing with him about this? He should agree!
“But you can’t force people to enjoy those things even when they don’t want to. Why are we arguing about this?” Tony asks, following Stephen’s line of thought.
“Because it’s important. Now can you force people to enjoy themselves even when they don’t want to? Have you ever done that?” he asks.
Tony recoils in disgust, “no, of course not! I’m not like that, Jesus!”
“Well all that information on incubi being able to seduce whomever was false, what’s to say this isn’t?” he asks. “Test it, right now, use me,” he tells him, steeling himself for Tony to use his power.
“No! Jesus, I am not doing that! It’s not right,” Tony says, shivering in obvious disgust.
“In a normal situation of course it isn’t but I’ve given you permission so lets get this over with,” he says.
“Permission to do what Stephen, did you even think this through?” Tony asks, nose still wrinkled.
No he hadn’t but he’s always been a little impulsive. He also wasn’t about to back down now, not when he felt like he was right and Tony had the ability to test it. “Convince me to kiss you. There, we have a limit now so go and do your incubus thing and I’ll tell you if you actually managed to force me into something I didn’t want,” he says. Tony still looks downright horrified and Stephen supposes he can’t blame him. “Tony, this is a scientific testing of your powers. I know what’s going to happen and I gave you permission to test it, worst comes to worst I get a kiss. That’s hardly heinous.” Even without Tony’s powers he wouldn’t mind a kiss, Tony was attractive. But Stephen had a sneaking suspicion he was right and that Tony wouldn’t be able to force him just like he couldn’t make everyone feel attracted to him.
“No,” Tony whispers, “worst come to worst I realize I really am a monster. I don’t really want to confirm that, thanks.”
Oh. That wasn’t something Stephen considered and he has to push his annoyance at Tony’s reluctance aside to deal with this. “Tony,” he says, “I really don’t think this is possible. The mind is a powerful thing; trust me I spent years studying the body I know what it can do. Your powers have already proven to be something other than what you’ve been told, you know something is off here I know you do. I can see why you would be hesitant to test things given what would happen if I were wrong but what if I’m right? That has a lot of implications too, especially in how any kind of sexual assault or rape is handled when it’s your species that’s been victimized. People can’t claim you had it coming, that’s huge.” He hadn’t even known that this was something that happened until twenty minutes ago and he was determined to solve it.
He had no idea why other than the obvious ‘it’s the right thing to do’ argument but there was more to it than that. He’s never liked misinformation and he’s seen how people react to Tony’s presence, how he reacted to Tony’s presence. He had blamed Tony too, he realizes with some horror, when it was him all along. That only strengthens his resolve because people shouldn’t be allowed to think like he had, they should deal with their attraction like everyone else had to even if it was an incubus on the other end. Stephen learned to.
“You just realized something, what was it?” Tony asks, looking somewhat curious even if he was still a little pale and shaken from Stephen’s request.
“I realized that when I got here I assumed you were manipulating me with your powers when you weren’t. I never would have thought that if I didn’t know you were an incubus,” he says. “I’m sorry.”
Tony looks surprised, “sorry?” he asks.
“Yes, sorry for acting like you were doing something to me instead of just accepting that I think you’re attractive like most of the rest of the planet does. It isn’t you’re fault that you’re pretty,” he says.
Tony starts laughing for some reason. “Sorry, I just thought of that one scene in Mean Girls where Gretchen is like ‘I can’t help being pretty and popular’ and then she trust falls into the crowd and they all move out of her way and she squishes Karen,” he says, snickering.
“What the hell is Mean Girls?” Stephen asks and Tony gives him the most offended look. That’s how he ends up finding out that Tony’s movie taste ranged from absurd action movies that were mostly dirt and violence to weird teen dramas about some white girl from Africa. Stephen wondered what country she was from but they never specify so he guesses she’s from an entirely continent then. When he points this out to Tony he tells Stephen to shut up in the same tone Regina George uses and he has to admit that was kind of funny.
*
Tony was really starting to wonder what Stephen’s weird magical kitsune journey was because all he did was yell at people about misinformation about Tony’s species. It was kind of amusing to watch now that they had tested things a little. Tony was more than hesitant but Stephen had written him a fucking essay, literally, with his method written out and all. Tony really couldn’t refute the scientific method given that he used it all the time so he reluctantly agrees to help Stephen test things out.
When it turned out that Stephen was right Tony had felt relieved in a way he hadn’t even known he’d needed. He didn’t even realize how much resentment and fear he held in himself thanks to his powers but Stephen had assured him that Tony’s powers didn’t override his own feelings, not permanently anyways. They had ended up coming up with a compromise to Stephen’s initial kiss proposal because Tony hadn’t felt comfortable with that and instead he had to convince Stephen to come to him. Stephen reasoned that enough mythology suggested that his species could alter wills by mere presence that this method of testing should yield the same results as his last suggestion. And his last suggestion had involved him convincing Stephen to kiss him anyways, so they only changed the goal really. It still make Tony more comfortable and he was even more comfortable when it didn’t seem to work even though he could tell Stephen wanted to go to him.
He described it as a tog-of-war in his head between his own reasoning and Tony’s imposed will, but his own thoughts were still there. He also informed Tony that if he ever chose to use his incubus powers in bed it would make for some excellent sex for his partner, not that Tony really wanted to know. He never used his powers during sex; he only ever used them to flirt. Mostly because he wanted people to be clear headed and uninfluenced by him and practice has taught him that making his voice sound more appealing didn’t exactly turn people’s brains to goo. They still had basic reasoning capabilities even if they fawned over him. Plus he didn’t need his powers to create the same reactions half the time and only realized that after Stephen pointed it out. Stephen had a knack for pointing a lot of things out.
Apparently people had basic reasoning skills elsewhere too and Stephen was thorough in his testing. He even had Tony wake him up in the middle of the night once to see if being groggy altered his perception. It had but not in the way either of them intended. As it turned out Stephen was very fond of sleep and when he was interrupted he had absolutely no attraction to Tony so he promptly told him to fuck off. Tony had laughed so hard at his response that Stephen ended up waking up anyways and his response to Tony was still nothing because he wasn’t happy about being permanently woken up. As hesitant as Tony was at first his confidence in Stephen grew when he didn’t seem to fall for Tony’s charms so he started actually putting more effort into it, seeing exactly how high his power levels were but he was unable to convince Stephen to do what he wanted in totality. Stephen had reported that he really wanted to do what Tony wanted him to but he was able to override it. He also suggested that if someone really didn’t want to do what Tony wanted they would probably feel far less conflicted than he did.
He was comfortable with Tony, Stephen reasoned, and if he wasn’t he suspected the results would be considerably different. By the time they were done testing Tony had to admit that Stephen was right in saying the information was important for people to have. Tony thought of himself as a dangerous sex demon too until he knew that he wasn’t, not really. If anyone that belonged to his species attacked someone they couldn’t make their victim enjoy it and they were still just as disgusting, but they weren’t inherently dangerous. It went a long way in making Tony feel better about himself and he hadn’t even realized he felt bad about his species to begin with.
It isn’t until Stephen is on the phone yelling at someone else about incubi that Tony notices his hands weren’t shaking anymore.
*
Stephen doesn’t even notice that his hands weren’t shaking anymore until Tony points it out after yet another frustrating conversation with various magical creature departments. “What’s that mean?” he asks, looking at Stephen’s hands. They only held a slight tremor now and he was amazed he didn’t notice when, well, his presence here was based solely around his shaking hands but somewhere in there he ended up forgetting about that because of Tony. He had wanted to help him, to help others like him and he realizes what happened.
“I told you that kitsune weren’t supposed to be arrogant, yes? That when we were our magic naturally backfires on us?” Tony nods and he continues, “well when we lose something like I did it’s an act that’s meant to humble us but it doesn’t give back what we lost. To do that we need to give back to someone, to set our own egos aside to do something to help someone else. It’s not easy for a kitsune gone awry; I told you I was lost for a year before I found you. I guess by helping you I must have gotten my hands back,” he says in wonder. When had that even happened? When Tony woke him up in the dead of night in some bizarre reenactment of all those incubus myths? He hoped so because he was very annoyed with Tony that night and he felt like that was sufficient help to convince Tony he wasn’t some kind of sex beast.
“Huh. If kitsune don’t like arrogance why choose me? I mean I’m pretty arrogant myself,” Tony points out and Stephen smiles. He knew that because he saw a lot of himself in Tony.
“No you aren’t, not like I was. You use arrogance as a façade to pretend like you don’t have a lot of issues with yourself, I was just arrogant because I felt like it,” he says. Tony nods and accepts his and, because his attention span is small, he tells Stephen they’re going to dinner to celebrate.
They’re sitting at a table eating sushi that Stephen drowns in soy sauce when Tony’s eyes light up. “I know when your hands stopped shaking,” he says suddenly.
Stephen raises an eyebrow, “do you now?” he asks, amused.
He nods, “yeah. They stopped shaking when you apologized to me for falling into the same traps that most people do when they meet incubi of succubae. I still appreciate that by the way, apologizing for acting like your attraction to me was somehow my fault.”
He shrugs, “it was what was right,” he says simply and he marvels at that. Two years ago he would have scoffed at doing something because it was right and now he knew that there was value in doing what needed to be done. He still couldn’t wait to test his magic, hoping that it still wasn’t backfiring on him like it had when his hands had been crushed.
*
Tony had to admit that Stephen at full power was hilarious and also fun to be around. When he first got here he moped a lot until he got himself a cause and now he did some weird magical thing but moving his hand in a circle to reach into other rooms to steal people’s drinks. Tony was simultaneously annoyed and impressed when Stephen managed to steal his coffee in the lab pretty much every day.
He was also impressed that Stephen managed to cause so much fuss about incubi and succubae that he accidentally started an actual movement within the species to stop the spread of blatant misinformation based on fear alone. Tony, in a somewhat ironic twist of events, mostly stayed out of it but if people asked him questions he answered honestly. That seemed to do enough anyways so he figures he’s doing something right.
Stephen comes to find him in the afternoon one day and Tony looks up and smiles. “Hey, you look happy with yourself,” he notes and Stephen just grins.
“Yeah, I just figured out some pretty complicated magic. Kitsune stuff. So I’m going to test something and I figured you might want to witness it,” he says and he pauses for effect, “I’m going to change into my fox form and see if I have all nine tails.”
Tony’s eyebrows lift in surprise but he gestures for Stephen to go ahead. Stephen takes a breath and closes his eyes, shrinking down into a white fox with hints of gold in his fur. He also has nine tails unless Tony can’t count, and he knows he can. Stephen sits there with his eyes closed for a moment and Tony realizes he’s nervous so he speaks up. “It’s okay, open your eyes,” he says and Stephen does, jumping around when he notes his light fur and extra tails. He bounds over to Tony and Tony totally gets to pet him and he’s as soft as he looks.
Stephen lets Tony pet him for a few minutes before he shakes him off and walks away a little bit before shifting back into his human form, “I did it! I have nine tails!” he says excitedly. He jumps up and down a little in surprise and Tony shakes his head at Stephen’s uncharacteristic behavior.
Then, to Tony’s surprise, Stephen walks back over and kisses Tony. At first he doesn’t know how to react but then he relaxes into it a little, kissing Stephen back. He pulls away after a few moments and winces, “sorry, I probably should have asked.”
“I have no problem with what just happened get back here,” Tony says but Stephen scorns him by moving away again.
“I have my tails!” he says excitedly again.
“Yeah, yeah, you’ve completed your Pokémon evolution, can we get back to the kisses?” Tony asks and the look on Stephen’s face is priceless.
“Did you just call me achieving the highest power a kitsune can posses a Pokémon evolution?” he asks, horrified.
“Yeah Ninetails, I did,” Tony tells him and Stephen shakes his head.
“Oh my god, I fell in love with a savage,” he says and he walks away but Tony leaps out of his chair, floored by Stephen’s statement.
“Did you just say you loved me? Stephen! Come back! No not the circle thing, get back- oh you’re gone somewhere that kind of looks like a city damnit,” Tony mumbles as Stephen’s teleport circle things closes.
Stephen comes back later with Indian food that was actually from India and tells Tony that if he ever calls Stephen a Pokémon again he was leaving him for good this time and, because Tony never could leave well enough alone, he immediately calls Stephen Ninetails.
He doesn’t leave, he just tries to keep the curry for himself.