stephen had a way of listening without saying anything. by now, tony knew better than to think that the sorcerer wasn’t listening. if anything, he was probably listening too damn closely.
but stephen wasn’t the only one with the ability to read people. even under the cover of his motor mouthing, tony was keeping an eye on his not-really-conversation-partner-but-you-know-what-i-mean.
“it’s about your son, isn’t it? you have sudden parent shock too.”
the observation escaped him before he had the chance to frame it properly, and he realized that he had skipped a few steps verbally. “what i meant was, you’re kinda …” he waved vaguely. “you look like you’re analyzing the situation like you’d analyze a battlefield.”
he cracked a smile at stephen’s attempt to cheer him up, even though his mind was racing a mile a minute to try and figure out how to not die on his kids (solution! don’t have kids!), while simultaneously realizing that that wasn’t how time travel worked. to these kids, he’d died. fullstop. they were never going to be able to get their lost years with their dad back.
“sorry, didn’t mean to dump that on you,” he sighed. “want some caffeine? i have a tea maker – pot – thing – in my office. which is just down the corridor.”
he paused, his mind spinning in non-linear fashion back to what stephen had said. “do you need any enhancements to the fire suppression systems? do i need to balrog-proof this place?”
“my... son.“ stephen stated plainly, crossing his features into unreadable and pondering. “i have other children too, i suppose - but i’m not very concerned about them at the moment. they seem to take care of themselves.”
he hummed for a moment, realizing a bit too late that tony was side-tracking him. looking back up, he stared at the older man before raising brow. “am i?” he asked. this took him by surprise as he looked back down at his desk. “i didn’t realize...” he frowned at himself, deliberately taking the time to pause and think. “i suppose it is a sort of battlefield. parenthood i mean.”
he perked up at the mention of tea and decided to move around his desk and towards the fellow avenger. “you can always vent at me, tony. i may not offer it so verbally but you can.” he attempted a smile before turning to follow him down the corridor.
“did you just use a tolkien reference on me?“ he asked, taken a bit back and looking at him in genuine wonder. “i think your work is perfectly sufficient though, i’m not sure what other improvements you could be making.“
