Beefy Stephen perhaps? Tony thinks Stephen looks really lanky when he's inside his robes until one post-coital night where Tony really notices how big Stephen is :3
Thank you for the prompt! So this was intended to be a ficlet but I may have been a little too caught up with the set-up and instead ended up with a oneshot. Whoops. I think I met the brief for this one, though, but I can’t quite say for sure if I’ve hit the mark for what you were looking for here, Nonny. It sort of got away from me somewhere along the lines… ^^” I hope you enjoy it nonetheless?
Under the cut for obvious reasons, but the sex is non-graphic and mostly implied.
Wc: 1550
Tony would be lying if he said he hasn’t been waiting for this moment.
It had started with him making a pass at Stephen, more by instinct than anything else—though he isn’t ashamed to admit it was also by virtue of that gorgeous ass, of which is often tragically hidden behind that cloak of his—and he really hadn’t thought it’d get any kind of response out of the wizard at all. Maybe an eyeroll at most. But then Stephen had returned it with his own come-on, and one thing led to another… And so for the past however long, Tony and Stephen had been dancing this little dance of theirs; drawing into each other and pulling away just as quickly, knowing exactly where to push but never quite taking the leap. There sprouted a tension between them, the kind that is palpable to anyone who spends more than five minutes within their general vicinity. And while he loves the thrill of the chase, he knew inevitably it would lead to this one way or another—that it was just a matter of time before he fell in bed with Stephen Strange.
What he hadn’t been banking on, frankly, is just how spectacular it would turn out. It was, simply put, quite the climax, if Tony could say so himself. He was pretty beside himself for it—from the moment their lips connected, there had been a spark of a sort. Some inexplicable shock of electricity, like a circuit snapped to life. He hadn’t been able to pull away, the moment their skin made contact, and he gets the sense the same can be said about Stephen, if their mutually passionate tongue-fucking was any indication. It’s like some sort of magnetic force was keeping them from pulling apart.
He hasn’t felt anything quite like it. For a moment he considered the possibility that it was simply because Stephen is magic, or some other bullshit he can’t immediately explain, but no, this is something else. Hard to describe the way it felt when they slotted perfectly together; it was like a feedback loop of endless pleasure. Things are conveyed when they kiss, made and unmade when their bodies join together.
And the moment they reached their peak, bliss washing over Tony as he finally finishes inside of Stephen, spilling into the condom with a deep groan, he pulls out, ties the condom, tosses it successfully into the bin at the corner of the room, and flops over to the side and just lays there, panting.
“Wow,” he says, blinking up at the ceiling. His breathing is wild and out of control, and much is the same for Stephen, who rolls over onto his back beside him. There is drying cum on the sheets and on Stephen’s stomach, but that can be dealt with later.
“Yeah,” Stephen says, a little hoarsely, and God does that particular timbre to his voice do things to Tony.
“Please tell me this isn’t going to be a one ride pass,” Tony says, which earns him a delightful chuckle from the man.
“You have my number,” Stephen tells him, and they turn to each other with near-identical smirks.
They lay there in post-coital bliss, none of them in any rush to do much else. After a while Tony props his head on an arm and decides to look over at his bed partner.
He doesn’t even attempt to conceal his appreciation at the sight before him at all. Their fucking was deliciously rough and quick, earlier, so he hadn’t had the time to properly admire the gorgeous specimen that is Stephen Strange. And boy, does he take his time raking his eyes over the gorgeous length of the man’s body.
For the longest time he had been operating under the assumption that Stephen is on the lanky side of things; maybe some litheness to him, at best, which is hard not to gain what with his line of work, but apparently that is not the case at all. The robes Stephen wears have evidently concealed a great deal. Watching him bare before him now, it’s hard for Tony to ignore just how beefy Stephen is. There really isn’t any other word to describe it. It’s not all hard muscle, there is certainly some softness to it, but he is undeniably, deliciously big.
He trails his eyes down from the red blooms on his neck, courtesy of yours truly, down those broad shoulders, the sizable swell of his chest—the slight glisten of them, less like he is sweating and more like he is glowing, which is very unfair of him—watching as it narrows to the dips of his waist, to the flare of those hips, stopping to stare at the pretty thing that is his soft cock, resting sated and happy between his legs. Those thighs could certainly crush his skull. He wouldn’t mind being suffocated between those thick biceps, either. Tony is sure he won’t be able to look at Stephen anymore without picturing him naked, after this.
Stephen’s certainly worked for his build, which is a goddamn shame when you could hardly tell he has it at all under his standard robes.
Already he feels the familiar stir of want deep in his gut. Gotta be a track record—he still gets around a lot, playboy and all, but age has certainly done some changes to his stamina and refractory period. But somehow the sight of this body is enough to defy that.
He eyes that chest some more, drinking in the sight of its rise and fall, before he sits up and crawls his way between Stephen’s legs, who lifts his head to watch him with a raised brow.
Tony shoots him back a smirk, spreading Stephen’s legs open to make space for himself.
“You’re gonna have to give me a moment if we’re going for another round, Tony.”
“Well, we have all the time in the world.”
He means it; he’s going to take his time. He reaches up and runs his hands down Stephen’s sides, dragging downwards to squeeze the meaty parts of those thighs. He leans down to catch a nipple into his mouth, delighting in the little gasp and shiver he gets from above. It was pretty quickly into the whole thing that he discovered Stephen has sensitive nipples—a knowledge he intends to abuse in the coming future, assuming they would be falling into bed again with each other after this.
Who is he kidding? Of course they will. He’ll have to make sure of it. He wouldn’t be able to walk away from this after he’s gotten a taste, not for the life of him.
He feels the nipple harden in his mouth, reaching for the other and pinching it between his fingers. When a hint of teeth scrapes the tender skin, Stephen’s back arches. He catches himself midway through a whine, biting his lip to stifle it. Tony just laughs.
“Gorgeous,” he mumbles into the skin. “So gorgeous.”
Tony maps along the skin with his tongue, nipping and biting and licking, forming constellations with his scars, his moles, mumbling praises all the while. Despite Stephen’s protests, his cock seems to be chubbing up pretty quickly at the attention. Can he come from just having his nipples played with? He’ll have to find out—another time, maybe.
He pulls back after he’s had his fill. Several bruises are starting to form where he applied more pressure with his teeth—Stephen’s skin bruises so damn easily—and he smiles satisfiedly at his work. When he looks up, Stephen has his head turned to the side, visibly red from the tip of his ears, spreading across the clean sharp cut of those cheekbones and down his neck and further down stilll—a full body blusher, then, which he isn’t going to be able to get out of his mind anytime soon, it seems—jaw clenched and eyes shut.
“You’re embarrassed," Tony realises.
Stephen looks down at him. He seems a little baffled that Tony cares to point it out. “Hard not to be,” he mutters, almost bashfully.
And it’s then that it strikes Tony.
“You don’t know,” Tony sits up. “You seriously don’t know.”
Stephen blinks at him in apparent confusion. “What…? I mean…?”
“You,” Tony cocks his head a little. He is in utter disbelief. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that, but there are beautiful people who know their worth. People like me, who are attractive and damn well aware of it. We’re a dime a dozen. But people like you, who are unaware? People who don’t know just how fucking beautiful they are?” He deliberately swipes his eyes down Stephen’s body again, hiding none of his hunger behind it. Stephen seems at a complete loss of words. “They’re one in a million.”
And just like that he is surging back down, capturing Stephen’s lips before he can say anything more.
He can’t help but be a little consumed by questions; how come? Has it never occurred to anyone to just worship this body, take it apart piece by piece and hear the way Stephen sings for it? Why? Is that why Stephen doesn’t know?
A single, bright thought flares to life in his head. New objective, he thinks: show Stephen just what he means.
Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Tags: Sick Stephen Strange, Sickfic, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Soft Tony Stark, Stephen Strange Needs a Hug, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Wong is a good friend, Stephen Strange Has Issues
A/N: Fill for day 3 of @febuwhump 2026, alt prompt: Flu. This one's for @harpywritesfic, who loves a sick miserable Stephen as much as I do. As always, many special thanks to my very special beta and lovely friend, @janora00 💖
AO3
On sick days, Stephen remembers his mother.
Or, well, the days when she had been a mother to him, anyway. That Beverly Strange was different. Stephen remembers these were the days before the grief of Donna’s death consumed her, and like a knife she had turned that blame on Stephen, which in all fairness wasn’t unaccounted for. They were better days, days that existed in the realm of before; before she had turned to liquor for comfort, before she had turned into a stranger, before the disease took her for good.
He can vaguely recall being a young boy, swaddled in blankets and soaking sweat into his bedsheets, sicker than he’d ever been, how her gentle hand had felt as it brushed against his forehead; a sweep of cold relief against his overheated skin. She would sit by his bedside and stroke his hair, gently dabbing his sweat-soaked face with a damp cloth. And her soup—he could never forget the taste of her chicken soup, the one that she had always made when either of them were sick, the one that always warmed him inside and out, the homemade kind that he or anyone will never be able to perfectly replicate.
These are the memories that drift in his feverish mind that moment, the cool tiles underneath him a grounding anchor to reality. It takes a while for his sluggish brain to remember he’s in the bathroom, sitting on the floor, back against the tub. He’s not so sure how he got here, just that he feels too weak to move anywhere else. He drifts there for a moment, not really knowing how long—he’s been experiencing intermittent waves of hot and cold all afternoon, but they seem to wash over him continuously now; chills going up and down his spine, all through his aching muscles. There are spikes penetrating his brain, pain pulsing in his temples. He tries in vain to will together some strength to stand, at the very least, but finds that he cannot.
After a while he realises someone else is in the bathroom with him, a palm pressing against his forehead.
“Jesus, baby,” says a familiar voice, “You’re burning up.” Both palms are cradling his cheeks now, and he makes a soft noise at that. “Wong told me to come over.”
It takes a while to find his voice, to push it through the surprising dryness. “Traitor,” he mutters, “I told him I’m… fine,” he manages.
A snort. “Sure you are.”
“He needs to tend to his duties.”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. To babysit your sick ass.”
Stephen scowls at that, but he doesn’t exactly have full faculties of his facial muscles at the moment, so for all he knows it might just be a slight twitch of his face. The hand is feeling along his cheeks, which must be more than a little warm.
“Let’s get you up and into bed, baby.”
“Can’t,” Stephen says. Another chill goes through him, and he shudders at it.
“I know,” says the voice understandingly, “Me and Red are gonna help you up, ‘kay? Come on.”
His arm is slung over broad shoulders, and that, along with the cloak supporting his weight, manages to lift him off the floor, before he is being led out the doorway.
“You should’ve told me,” the voice—Tony, he remembers now—says, “I would’ve come.”
“I don’t need any help,” he protests.
“Sure. You’re doing just fine back there, sitting miserably on the bathroom floor.”
“I was,” he counters, somehow managing to open his eyes to slits, peering up at the man through his bangs. “Doing fine,” he clarifies. The look on Tony’s face betrays his tone; there’s an obvious crease of worry digging between those brows, and this time Stephen does manage a successful scowl. Tony just searches his eyes, and the soft sincerity there makes Stephen look away.
Slowly they make their way to the bed, and Stephen has no choice but to let Tony tuck him in. The cloak bundles him up, a little too tightly. It doesn’t budge despite his noise of protest.
“Wong told me you’re a flight risk, but considering your state I doubt you’d even be able to walk on your own. But just in case,” Tony says, “Cloak here is putting you in blanket jail. Isn’t that right, Red?”
The cloak tightens around him in response.
“You’re suffocating me.”
“That’s just your clogged nose.”
“This is murder.”
“Oh, stop it, you big baby. Just rest, alright?” Tony drags a nearby chair beside the bed. “I’ll just be right here.”
Stephen huffs as a last attempt at saving his dignity, digging further into the bed despite himself. The combination of fatigue and—he is loathe to admit—the comforting weight of the cloak lulls him into an obliterating, all-consuming, full sleep.
—
He grapples back into consciousness with some struggle. He must have dreamt of something, and it comes back to him in hazy sense-memories: gentle fingers, the heat of steam rising from a bowl of broth, the waft of scent; a blend of something warm and salty and herbaceous. Absently he registers several sensations; the damp, lukewarm cloth over his forehead, the blankets over him, the soreness of his throat. The cloth lifts, is dipped into what he assumes is a bowl of water. He hears it drip as it’s being wrung, feels when it returns, gently draped over his forehead.
Something here feels familiar. He puzzles over this, trying to put his finger on it.
“Ma?” he croaks out.
“What was that, baby?” mumbles a voice that doesn’t sound like Ma, but it can’t be anyone else. Stephen doesn’t remember anyone else having ever spoken to him quite so softly.
“Ma,” he rasps again, and there are blessedly cool, callused fingers sweeping across his cheeks now, up along his cheekbones, higher still to brush away his bangs. Stephen is sure of it now. That hand couldn’t belong to anyone else; it is so gentle.
The tears come completely unbidden. He tries to open his eyes, but is too weak, they are sealed shut, too heavy to lift open. There's a gentle shushing noise above him, whispering little reassuring words.
“Shh, it’s okay, baby. Shh, I’m right here.”
“‘M sorry,” he murmurs, “‘M so sorry.”
That hand smooths over his heated face, his tear-streaked cheeks, soothing away the tears. "Nothing to be sorry for,” the gentle voice says.
“No,” he murmurs, because that isn’t true, he has everything to be sorry for. So many words he meant to say, so many apologies he owes. He’s a burden, he’s a failure, he’s failed her, he’s failed everyone, he could’ve saved her, it was his fault, and he’s sorry, he’s so so sorry, is all he can feel. He doesn’t know if he says part of that aloud, or if he says anything at all. He’s not quite aware of what’s leaving his mouth.
The shushing doesn’t stop, and Stephen leans into the voice, leans into the fingers carding through his hair. He presses a cheek against the pillow, feels it soak his tears, and slowly drifts back into the delicious, magnetic pull of sleep.
Arie is my co creation with my beloved Kit @darkkitty1208
I wanted to make it Indonesian inspired so I had Kit help me find Javanese clothing and patterns for references
And since Arie is autistic I wanted to make their suit autism friendly, so with the help of Kit and a few other friends, we found a way to make it sensory friendly
The whole suit is made of soft, breathable, stretchy, and heat regulated fabric, with lots of loose layers to make them feel secure and comfortable
Their undersuit and inner hoodie acts like a sensory sock (think Iron man's tracksuit in Infinity war) for when they're overwhelmed and need compression/hug sensation to help ground them and the cropped hoodie acts as a weighted vest for a calming deep pressure effect, and the outer hood is noise cancelling to prevent sensory overstimulation.
She has tassles for stimming, and the batik patterns on their skirt are sewn in for them to trace when they need sensory comfort.
The sleeves have built-in stress balls and thumb holes for anxiety relief and comfort when needed.
A/N: Here is some older!kagebros I wrote for the birthday twins @zelldotcom and @jazzy0clock a long while ago!
AO3
“Is this really the right way, Nii-san?”
“Yes,” Shigeo huffs out for the upteenth time, “I know where I’m going. Just trust me.”
They’ve long since abandoned the forest trail, boots dredged in muddy dirt and leaves clinging to the hem of their trousers. Shigeo hikes his backpack higher up his shoulder, hesitating momentarily before directing them to a small clearing beyond the trees. Ritsu has caught one or two desire paths along the way, neither of which they’ve followed through, but Shigeo seems sure of where he’s going.
The late evening breeze rustles the leaves overhead. The moon is shy of hanging high in the sky, greeting the soon-emerging firmament of stars; Ritsu watches as the last dapples of daylight dance over the surface of a lone puddle through gaps in the canopy overhead, then lifts his head skyward and trusts Shigeo’s moving figure in his peripheral to drag them along. It feels like they’ve been walking for ages now.
“Are you sure—”
“Ritsu,” Shigeo interrupts him, not unkindly, and Ritsu clicks his jaw shut. “I said I know a place. I said you could trust me. I’ve been here several times now, to—wind down, mostly. I know where I’m going.” That explains the empty patches on the ground. The random craters. Signs of destruction. Like the wind somehow managed to knock down sections of the forest, sweeping trees off the ground and pulling them out from the roots in its sheer wrath. “And besides,” Shigeo shrugs, “If we get lost, I have you. You always figure out the way back home.”
And then Shigeo’s moving again, searching for something past the branches and leaves and trailing after it. Ritsu only gets a moment to be stunned—a warm curl of nostalgia in his chest—at the words before his feet pick up after him, catching up to his older brother.
His profile is cast in the pale light reflecting off of a nearby stream. Ritsu is struck, not for the first time, by the knowledge of how much his brother has grown. He stands a few feet taller than he used to, the soft curve of his jaw cut into a sharp edge. His features are sharper, too, the last clinging baby fat on his cheeks carved into something frighteningly mature.
“Remember when we were children,” Shigeo says conversationally, and that’s another new thing; Shigeo being conversational, “and we got lost in the forest that one time?”
Ritsu can recall the memory vividly. “Yeah.”
“And you got us back home.”
Ritsu hums. “I did.”
“You followed the moss, because—”
“They always grow on the north side, where the sun won’t hit them directly.”
Shigeo passes him a sidelong look, lips half-quirked up. Ritsu returns it with a small, crooked smile of his own. He stops to help heft Ritsu’s weight up a fallen tree trunk with a firm hand, joining him back down to the ground and steadying him. The Body Improvement Club has definitely done its job well.
“I’m not worried about getting lost, is what I’m saying,” Shigeo tells him.
“Well, we have our phones now,” Ritsu shrugs, “Doesn’t Reigen have a tracker on yours?”
Shigeo doesn’t say anything to that, but Ritsu thinks he isn’t imagining the amusement in his face. His growth shines in moments like this, subtle as they are.
I want to take my emotions more seriously, he remembers Shigeo confessing, and it hadn’t been a fruitless endeavour.
Before long, Shigeo stops in front of a structure—an abandoned greenhouse, Ritsu guesses, with wide clouded glass walls and questionable integrity.
“Is this the place?” Ritsu says, taking in his surroundings. Shigeo nods at him, and there’s a hint of delight in his eyes. Ritsu hasn’t seen that look in a while, rare as it is, but he hasn’t seen Shigeo in a while after he’s gone to college, anyway.
His older brother’s slowly growing into himself, showing more parts of him and his emotions than Ritsu ever thinks he has, and he wishes they aren’t so far apart these days so he can see how it all develops. He wishes the universe would stop putting this distance between them. Not when they’ve only just begun to rekindle. Not when they’ve only just let all that was repressed flood out and run their course, when they’ve only just gone through the rockiest parts of their diverging roads and wind back down into a singular path. Not when Ritsu has only just started picking up and putting together whatever they had left of what they were before.
It always feels like time is never on their side. It’s a fragile thing, this thing they have between them. Shigeo is and always has been his brother, and Ritsu knows that’s what ties them tightly together despite it all, but he also knows they—their shared camaraderie, their bond, the brotherly affection shared in the quiet moments, hesitant and delicate but genuine all the same—have changed, over time. Perhaps it’s selfish to think things could stay the same. Perhaps it’s selfish to wish growing up didn’t mean changing.
Shigeo tries the door, lop-sided on its hinges and scraping unpleasantly against the ground as he drags it open just enough for them to slip inside one after the other. The moon has risen this time around, and it brightens the clear sky and streams moonlight down through the aging glass, streaked with dust and debris and unkempt foliage.
He thinks, as Shigeo squints up at the low glass ceiling, that they can make this work. That things haven’t changed much, after all. That, even if they had, then perhaps that’s okay, too.
“Through there,” Shigeo suddenly points upwards, and Ritsu’s eyes follow the direction. There’s a skylight.
“Nii-san,” Ritsu frowns. “You want to get on top of this thing?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes, Ritsu.”
“What if we—it might collapse, and—we might—”
“Do you trust me?”
Ritsu blinks at him.
“I don’t trust this whole place not to come down,” Ritsu says instead.
“It won’t,” Shigeo tells him, “You said you wanted to go stargazing. We’re going stargazing.”
“Up there?”
“Yes.”
“But the whole place might colla—”
“Ritsu,” Shigeo levels him a gaze. It isn’t serious, really, but there’s a weight to it that stops Ritsu in his tracks. “You trust me, right?”
Despite better judgement, Ritsu doesn’t hesitate. “I do.” With my life, he wants to say, knowing that hasn’t always been the case. Not with this much certainty, at least.
Shigeo nods resolutely. “Then we’re going up there.”
Shigeo looks around, spotting a small, plastic stepping stool. He drags it over and plants a foot on it, shaking unsteadily as he climbs his way up. Ritsu isn’t sure what to do at first, but jumps into action as the thing tips precariously to the side, Shigeo wobbling above, and lands on his knees just in time to hold it still.
“Jesus, Nii-san,” he mutters. His jeans are ruined. He’s going to have a hard time scrubbing away the dirt.
Shigeo ignores him, instead using the newly acquired height to give the skylight a good few shoves. The old coppery latch finally gives way and the skylight swings open with a pop, hinges squealing, thumping onto the other side and sending dust and leaves and bits of dry soil raining down.
Shigeo gets on his tip toes, reaching up with strong arms on either side of the roof—again, Body Improvement Club has definitely done its damn wonders—and lifting his weight up to climb up and out. Ritsu hears him huff out a breath or two before a hand stretches down in offering. When Ritsu doesn’t take it, Shigeo’s head pops into view with a questioning look.
“This is crazy, Nii-san,” Ritsu says. Shigeo just stares at him expectantly.
With a sigh, he eventually steps up the stepping stool, muttering prayers under his breath as he wobbles, and grabs at his brother’s hand who lifts him up with some struggle.
Once they settle down, and so has his anxiety, Ritsu has to admit—it’s a breathtaking sight. The sky is clear, the moon is bright, and they’re far out enough that the city’s light pollution doesn’t reach them to drown out the few specks of glittering stars. Ritsu admires the view with open awe.
“So,” Shigeo says after a moment of this, their elbows meeting in a light nudge, and Ritsu looks at him with a raised brow. “Worth it?”
Incredulous.
“You’re unbelievable, Nii-san,” Ritsu says, but he’s smiling, and so is Shigeo, and now they’re laughing and Ritsu thinks, yes, this is how things always are. This is how things always will be between them, despite it all.
For once, Ritsu thinks, as he watches a star shoot across the dark sky, their joined laughter leaving a stir of warmth in him, the odds are in their favour.
Batlantern, dialogue-only ficlet, rated T for mildly suggestive talk. Apparently my first time writing this pairing AND this particular type of fic, but oh well.
—
"I've got an order of extra salty pretzels and an order of nachos here for you boys."
"Thanks. Oh, and one more thing, please."
"Yes?"
"How about an order of your number?"
"Not on the menu, sweetheart."
"Damn."
"Pff."
"Shut up, not like you can do any better."
"Jordan, I cannot emphasise how I very much could."
"Well, lucky you, you've got the money and the looks to back it up."
"The money, sure."
"Hey, don't be like that. You get laid like twenty times a week. Or so the tabloids say."
"You read those?
"Who doesn't? Look, what I'm saying is that the ladies—and guys, I assume—climb you like a goddamn tree any chance they get. You get to give your physique a little credit."
"My physique is being held by steel pins and chewing gum."
"Yeah, but your physique can also do a great deal of things, and trust me, even I'd jump at the chance of seeing it in action, if you're getting what I mean."
"Did you just... come on to me?"
"Well, yes. Thank you for noticing. I mean, not like that's anything new."
"...What?"
"...Bruce. Do you honestly— You're telling me they've been flying over your head this whole time."
"I... didn't..."
"Jesus Christ, they have!"
"Well how was I supposed to know? I've been operating under the assumption that you hated my guts."
"Well, sort of, but only when you're being a fascist. Seriously though, how much more obvious can I be? I know your exes like Talia or Selina or some other million people I couldn't begin to know the names of are probably more... forthcoming, but I didn't realise that was a goddamn requirement, Spooky."
"You could've just said something. What? Don't look at me like that."
"Christ, you're unbelievable. Why do you think I pull your pigtails all the time?"
"Why do you think I pull yours?"
"...Huh. Well, that's a thought. Bruce Wayne flirts like a fourth grader. And here I thought you said you could do better than me."
"Your technique isn't much better. But... Well, If I had known sooner you were at all interested..."
"Yeah? What would you have done then?"
"How about dinner, for a start."
"Dinner, huh?"
"Yes."
"Mm. I don't know, are we talking like a bro-to-bro male bonding kind of outing, maybe we can head back to my place afterwards and watch football, I'll get out some of those good beers Ollie left at my place last time we hung out, oh maybe we can even—"
"You are ten years old."
"Heh, and you just asked me to dinner. Alright then, I'm free Friday."
"That's perfect."
"Cool. Anyway, I need to head out, Carol's blowing up my phone, she's probably nagging me about those flight logs. Which I have been delaying on account of saving the universe for the billionth time, but she doesn't care about that now, does she."
"All right."
"'Kay, then. And Bruce?"
"Yes? What are you— mphff."
...
..
.
"In case it wasn't obvious enough. See you Friday."
Classic ironstrange friends to lovers trope/get-together fic, ft. awkward!Tony and oblivious!Stephen.
Word Count: 6,402
Rating: Explicit
Characters/Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Pepper Potts
Tags: Awkward Tony Stark, Oblivious Stephen Strange, Explicit Sexual Content, Humor, Friends to Lovers, Not Beta Read
AO3
If asked about what he’s learnt of Tony Stark over the years, Stephen can say in certainty about three things: one, that the man is ridiculously brilliant; two, that the man can be ridiculously stupid; three, that he makes a decent, if slightly unusual, friend. But then again, unusual is his entire theme, so what say does Stephen even have in that?
In any case, friendship with Tony Stark is a novel experience for him, for more ways and reasons than he can immediately explain. And not only for the fact that it had been unexpected, that something like friendship can bud from the quasi-rivalry they started off of and the uneasy camaraderie they built up to.
Friendship itself isn’t a novel concept to him, obviously, but on account of his deficiency in skills of the interpersonal relationships kind… It comes as no surprise at all that what best constitutes as friendship in his current life only exists in the form of what he has with Wong—other Masters and fellow sorcerers of Kamar Taj he only ever interacts with on a rudimentary level, as the Master of the New York Sanctum, and as a trainer to students and novices seeking knowledge of the Mystic Arts, and little else.
And before that, on a previous life—or what feels like it anyway—he hadn’t been the best with friends, either. There was Christine, but what they had was not quite friendship, or even what one would call lovers, but they were neither of them too bothered with a label there. And his coworkers at Metro General hardly count as friends; he knew then—and winces at the memory now—that most of them had despised his guts, be it borne of envy or general contempt at his then-brash-and-overconfident nature, which he didn’t and doesn’t blame them for. And before that, he had been a naive farm boy in a big bustling city, full of young desperate hope to escape the darkness that lurked back home, to make something of himself, too focused on running a race he is always left behind on than to form any meaningful relationships.
So no, apparently he has no real basis of comparison when it comes to friendship, and Wong, bless him, isn’t nearly as sufficient data. But if he is to really compare them, there are a few things in his friendship with Tony that he doesn’t immediately find in Wong, and vice versa; knowledge of personal boundaries, for a start. Wong has always respected and understood his boundaries the same way Stephen does his. He has never pried into subjects Stephen has made clear he prefers not to discuss—unless absolutely necessary, and by that he means things like, Stephen did you steal a book from the library again or Stephen where the hell did my tuna sandwich go or Stephen that broken vase better not have anything to do with you or any number of little petty grievances he likes to blame Stephen for that day—and he does not push when Stephen says no.
Tony, however, seemingly cannot mentally digest the word no, like being rejected is some foreign intricate concept requiring elaborate mental gymnastics and geometrical reasoning to make any semblance of sense. Which says a lot about him as a person, billionaire-from-birth, and supposed only child. Go figure.
“Like I said, Tony, I will be busy,” he says to the man for the millionth time on the phone, hovering over his ear as he shifts through several pages of a book he is still planning to return to Wong’s library later. Which he will. Eventually.
A dimensional anomaly has stranded a small, mostly harmless creature here, and they have contained it safely but have not tracked down the rift it came from, and not only that but he must first find its origin, and find out if there are things one may need to be wary of about it, but after pouring through several relevant books he had so far turned up with no such luck. The cloak floats over with what it probably assumes would be a helpful book, and Stephen skims through that quickly, mostly to appease it. The cloak likes to feel helpful.
So yes, he’s made it clear that the last thing he should do is join an Avengers-and-associates-exclusive party Tony is holding in celebration of surviving their recent battle.
“Aw, come on. The world isn’t gonna end if you take a single evening off.”
“It in fact has every possibility to, actually.”
“Oh, please. It’ll be fine. Get someone else to handle it for once.”
“You know I can’t—”
“There’ll be free drinks! And someone is for sure going to get sloshed as all hell trying to drink Cap or, god forbid, Thor under the table—not me, I learned from last time—and you are going to want to be there to witness it. We’ll have so much fun, I promise. I’ll pick you up at three tomorrow.”
“Tony, I told you I can’t—”
But of course Tony has already hung up, because the man does not understand that not every instance they’ve succeeded in avoiding universal extinction for at least a couple more weeks is a call for celebration. He sighs, clicks his phone off and portals it god knows where—anywhere he wouldn’t get disturbed by it anymore. The cloak will know, it always seems to know where to find it when he asks. So he turns back to his research, squinting at the small, handwritten latin of an ancient grimoire, and tries not to think too much of the dreadful tomorrow.
The thing is, Tony doesn’t so much cross his boundaries as he flattens them like a raging bulldozer demolishing everything within its general line of sight. It’s almost as though he isn’t even aware Stephen had refused; his attempts at saying no are like squirrels ground into dust beneath the strength of his juggernaut, and Stephen can only really do nothing more than watch. It certainly annoys him, greatly in fact, but it is just another in the line of things you get used to once you let someone like Tony Stark around in your life.
Though for some reason he, in equal parts, finds it fascinating, to live with the kind of impulsivity that Tony does, to do things simply because he wants to, without regard to anything in the way or anything that it might entail, and sometimes it isn’t all that bad to get roped into doing something he had initially refused to do simply because Tony asked (read: forced) him to.
And then even more interesting is when this is paired with his not insignificant paranoia—how does one choose to live in quite the way Tony does, oscillating constantly between afraid and uncaring? But then again he doesn’t have much say in the matter himself. It’s not like Tony had been the one to face death in the eye and strike a bargain with it, of all the ridiculous, unthinkable things.
Of course, that impulsivity and inexplicable sense of adventure has its benefits to their friendship, even though it isn’t always the best trait to carry into the field. Tony has such an approach to life that is curiously intriguing to him—often Stephen would be roped into doing random activities with the man on an unsuspecting day, and sometimes it’s something ordinary like bar diving, but other times he rings Stephen out of nowhere and says things like, so there’s this museum in Iceland that’s whole thing is displaying preserved male genitalia—anyway you can portal anywhere in the world, right? or ever heard of competitive butter sculpting? No? Nevermind that, I’m coming over, you better have butter in that creepy kitchen of yours. His idea of fun is as confounding as it is, well, admittedly, fun.
But then there are moments like this, where Stephen’s genuine, plain refusal goes flying right over Tony’s head, and he has to deal with having to free up time tomorrow, and also mentally prepare himself for a social outing, and also find someone to keep watch of the Sanctum for him, and also also choose a presentable outfit from his severely lacking wardrobe, maybe they wouldn’t mind him showing up with a black turtleneck again for the bazillionth time, wait is he expected to bring something to the party, and oh god he hasn’t replaced the wards, Wong is going to kill him, what if something terrible happens while he’s away, what if Mordo suddenly decides to go on a killing spree, what if this mystery creature of theirs goes on a rampage in the wild streets of New York, what is he going to do then.
But of course, tomorrow comes anyway, and so he goes, because Tony asked (read: forced) him to.
—
So admittedly the party isn’t so bad. Or at least it starts out fine. He drinks and chats and mingles and tries not to feel incredibly out of place. Tony occasionally shoots him a smirk from across the room when they aren’t in conversation with the rest, and he isn’t sure if it’s meant to be reassuring or what. The bar has a selection of basically every alcoholic beverage thinkable, but Stephen sticks with a simple glass of beer, which he sips at incrementally, just to have something to occupy his hands. Thankfully they’re in good shape today—or at least as good as they can get these days, anyway—so hopefully the shaking isn’t too noticeable.
And then at some point things become quite a bit much, as they tend to after one spends a good chunk of their social battery, so he falls quiet and just sits there, watching everyone. At some point he decides to slip out onto the balcony to get some fresh air, standing against the railing, nursing his drink, watching the city, the darkening sky.
He gets a few moments of solitary peace before the balcony door slides open.
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you. Thought you left,” Tony says. Stephen nods at him, smiling faintly. “You’re not, though, right? Leaving, I mean. Not like it’s your first time ditching a party by jumping off a balcony. Which, Christ, you gotta stop doing that.”
“I always have the cloak with me.”
“Well, when you jump off a balcony the average witness’ first thought usually isn’t, oh don’t worry he’s got a flying cape, he’ll be fine.”
Stephen snorts. “Cloak.” The cloak, who has winded itself around his neck as a scarf, flutters as if in offense.
“Yeah, whatever. Tomato to-mah-to.”
Stephen only rolls his eyes at that. Then they fall silent, quietly drinking their respective beers, watching the scenery.
“So. Listen. I’ve been—meaning to ask you something.”
Stephen arches a brow, turning to him. “Okay.”
“Right. So here, look. You and me, we had a rocky start, when we met, right?”
“I’m not exactly to blame for that, I believe.”
“Great, wonderful, you’re ten years old. Also, that is some major fucking historical revision there, but I’ll let it slide. What I was trying to say,” Tony leans forwards, licks his lips, shuffles on his feet, leans back again, all the while blinking rapidly. “What I’m trying to say,” he begins again, stops, then starts again, and Stephen wonders if the man had maybe hit his head at some point during their last mission because all signs were leading to a concussion of some kind. Brain damage is also possible. “Look, you and me, we may have started out on the wrong foot, in the beginning, but where we are now, right, how our relationship—as in, professionally, but also as like—like friends, you know, we’re not—we are better, right, like I mean—we’re good. We’re in a good spot. At the moment. As friends. Right?”
Stephen frowns. Not only is Tony acting strange, and rambling erratically, he is not making any sense at all. Where the hell is Tony going with this, he wonders, but then again it is impossible to decipher the man’s line of thought most of the time. Has he had one too many beers? But that doesn’t make sense, Stephen is sure this is his first one. “...Right,” he says obligingly.
“Okay. Good. Because I mean, that’s great. And the thing is, right. I was wondering, you know. I mean, I’m not— I don’t want to make assumptions or anything in case this isn’t the case, you know, but when we met I sensed… You know that feeling, when a guy has certain preferences? Like, guys like us can sense it. You know. But again! I’m not trying to make assumptions or anything. But me, personally, I am— I go out with all sorts of people. Like, I’m not picky in that department.”
Stephen only frowns very, very deeply. “What on Earth are you implying?” he asks. “Are you trying to hook me up with one of your exes as an attempt to escape them?”
“No, no, god no.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Okay this isn’t really going well, is it? Look. My point is. I’m just, you know. I was wondering if you’d be interested in—”
The balcony door slides open and in pops Rhodey’s head. “Hey Tony, you gotta get in on this, they’re running a bet for—”
“Rhodes,” Tony says tightly, and he has never heard the man speak in such a tone at his presumably best friend of years and years, nevermind call his name like that.
Rhodey quickly spots him standing beside Tony, and does a double take before going, “Oh shit, right, my bad,” and slips back inside. Whatever the hell that was about.
“Right,” Tony turns back to him, nervously pulling at his collar. “Uh. So.” He clears his throat, a little too loudly. Stephen is beginning to get concerned for his state of mind, frowning intensely in puzzlement. “I was wondering if you would be amenable… if you would like to maybe, sometime, or—or any time you’d like, really, in the foreseeable future, if you would like to… to…” Stephen continues to watch him, trying very hard to understand the words coming out of the man’s mouth, and he sees the moment Tony changes his mind, eyes turning suddenly downcast. “I… Nevermind. Just—nevermind, forget I said anything.” He turns for the door, but Stephen catches his arm quickly.
“Wait,” he says, and Tony stops reluctantly, not fighting against his hold but not looking at him either. Tony is chewing on his lip. “Where are you going?”
“I— I gotta leave.” Stephen only frowns deeper. Tony Stark does not leave parties. This is a known fact. He either started them, left them to do otherwise inadvisable things, or saw them to the end, which means there is always a likely possibility one would find him passed out in the morning in somebody’s arms or draped across a piece of furniture, and one would be lucky if he is half dressed. “There’s some—boring board meeting I have to attend tomorrow, non-negotiable. Which means Pepper will flame my ass if I don’t at least show up, okay? Sorry.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“You’re not looking at me,” Stephen tells him, releasing his arm. “Which tells me you’re lying.”
“Since when do you think you know shit about me? Just—I need to leave, alright.”
“You were going to ask me something.”
“And I said to drop it.”
“It sounded important.”
“It’s—look, I’ll ask another time, okay? Just, you know, not now.”
“You can ask now,” Stephen insists, “Is it about last week’s mission?”
“No, it’s not about— It’s not.”
“Then spit it out,” Stephen says, “What the hell are you trying to ask me?”
Tony huffs a frustrated breath, then—“Out!”
“What?”
“That—dammit, that’s what I was going to ask you.”
“Out of where?”
“Fucking pigshitting godfucking cocknuzzling motherfucking god, will you just—fucking forget it, I’m leaving.”
“Tony, wait, what do you mean by—” And then his brain comes online. “Ask me out,” Stephen realises. “You were going to ask me out?” There is a slight upward lilt at the end there which implied a question, but he didn’t mean for it to come out as one.
Tony is just watching him, silent for a moment, eyes flitting about, analysing the lines of his face. Stephen just watches back. “Yes,” Tony mutters after a moment of this, then quickly looks away in—embarrassment, for god’s sake. The man’s embarrassed. “Look,” Tony says, and his voice has changed. “I know, alright, it’s ridiculous. Just—forget I said anything. It’s stupid.” He turns away. “I have to go.”
“No,” Stephen says, and Tony stops in his tracks.
“What.”
“No, I can’t… just forget what you said.”
“Goddammit, Strange, do you gotta make everything so goddamn difficult?”
“No, I just meant…” Stephen falters here, and Tony turns back around to watch him. “I didn’t know you had that kind of… interest. In me. I didn’t realise that was a possibility for you. For either of us.”
For a beat too long, long enough he grows uncomfortable under Tony’s eyes, a silence hangs between them. Then, with what sounds like some cocktail of realisation and a comically great deal of exasperation, “You didn’t…” Tony runs a hand down his face, huffing out a laugh. “God. Of course. Stephen, I’m more than a little interested, is the thing. Have been for some time now.”
“In me,” Stephen thinks aloud.
“Yeah.”
“I think I am, too,” Stephen blurts out. “In you, I mean.”
“Oh,” Tony says, and if that doesn’t make him feel ridiculous. Of course. Of course. All these years of dancing around each other, and he had thought it was strictly playful flirting. He had thought there couldn’t possibly be a chance Tony would be at all interested in him in that way, that it was only by some playboy instinct that Tony considered hitting on him at all. But looking at Tony now—could it be possible he had been wrong? Could it be possible that the thing he had not allowed himself to think of, the thought he had never allowed himself to entertain, is a very real and likely possibility after all?
In a flash something cold and frightening runs through his middle. Reality is beginning to rapidly set in—is this real? Did they just… do what he thinks they had? Is this happenning?—and it takes a while for him to realise he has not, in fact, answered Tony’s question yet.
It’s just that—it’s been a while, is the thing. It’s been a while since he’s allowed someone in, in that particular sense. Not ever since Christine, and even that particular wound hasn’t sealed itself completely shut. And then there was finding Kamar Taj, and the Mystic Arts, and everything that came afterwards—he has come to terms with the fact that this kind of life does not allow space for romantic entanglements, or anything that requires any sense of commitment.
Then again, if there is anyone who understands the kind of things this line of work demands, it would be someone who knows what it’s like, deep in their bones, the need to do good, to protect this fragile life of theirs, the fallibility of every human life, the need to shield their loved ones from the terrible dangers of the universe—someone like Tony. But there is the other thing, the unnameable, terrifying thing, that if they are to involve themselves in such a way it would only put them both at risk, and Stephen cannot afford that. The last thing he needs is his enemies finding a new target, a way to exploit the weakness that is his human heart.
And even more dangerous is himself. It has been proven time and time again on numerous occassions that relationships are not exactly his forté. Exhibit A: Christine. One way or another, Tony will get hurt, whether directly or indirectly, because of him. Not that he thinks Tony is any better in that department, either—with how things ended with Pepper, bizzarely amicable as they are now, he gets the sense that he isn’t the only relationship fuck-up. But that doesn’t make things any better.
All in all, this is a recipe for disaster. It wouldn’t end well at all. No, it is far better for him to avoid that kind of fuss, to avoid tangling himself in such a situation again. The temporary joy is never worth the pain of the aftermath.
But then… But then Tony is drawing near, and nearer, and nearer still, and too late he realises he’s been frozen, almost paralysed on the spot as he spirals into deeper and deeper thought. The thing he thought dead in his chest begins to pound and ache, and in his panic he recoils a little, and Tony must’ve noticed this because his face does a minute shift, and he draws back some, and—no, wait, that was not what he wanted to happen, he didn’t mean—
“Stephen,” Tony is saying in this low, tentative voice. Stephen swallows. “Is this…” Tony comes nearer again, and there is a thread of need in his voice, in his beautiful eyes—is he allowed to think that now? Is he allowed to acknowledge how unfairly beautiful this man is?—attention honed completely, solely on him, “Tell me if this is okay,” he says. The cold feeling runs down his spine again, the fear, the knowing of what he is about to let himself be led into… The door of possibilities they are about to push open would be more akin to Pandora’s box than anything.
But there is something inexplicably earnest in Tony’s eyes, and when those eyes flick down to his lips, he thinks: fear is for people who have never executed a flawless free-hand extraction of a hardened bullet from inside a brain.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, and their lips meet.
It feels—indescribable. He wouldn’t know where to begin if asked.
It’s like he’s back again, all those years ago, in that time The Ancient One thrust a hand upon his chest and slammed him backwards into the realm of things unseen, things unknown, things undiscovered, opening his eyes to the vastness of their reality. All the things he only knew of in the theoretical sense, only knew of intellectually, and so much more than that, he suddenly saw clearly, viscerally, tangibly—an infinite terrible and beautiful and bizarre and impossible things, insurmountable in its boundlessness, incomprehensible in its complexity. Kissing Tony Stark feels like discovering new secrets of the universe.
“Oh my god,” Tony says when they part, “Stephen.”
Stephen makes a sound, he isn’t even sure what, but he needs to put his lips on Tony’s again. Suddenly what he thought he knew in absolute certainty only moments ago was not completely true, and it is like his entire worldview is being shifted by a single kiss.
Tony Stark is interested in him. Tony Stark has been interested in him for some time, which implied a timeline, which implied planning. It makes so much sense now—the nervousness, how he responded to Rhodey walking in on them, the incredibly vague tip-toe-y broach in asking Stephen about his sexuality. It makes him feel light, heady with the knowledge. Tony is kissing him like he means it, and—how could there have ever been a doubt? Of course. Of course.
He presses the line of his body close against Tony, who has a hand on his waist and the other pulling him nearer by the nape and—oh Jesus, those fingers are carding upwards into his hair, pulling slightly, making him shudder and moan, and is this the right time to point out he has particularly sensitive follicles? Doesn’t matter, Tony is licking into his mouth like he’s carving something out in there, walking him backwards until his back is braced against the railing, and he can’t think of anything else but the press of their bodies, the slick slide of their tongues, the shocking masculinity of their goatees rubbing against each other. They are about to trip off the goddamn balcony and he doesn’t even find it in him to care.
“Wait,” Tony pulls back, sounding as breathless as he feels. He is keeping their hips apart, and Stephen knows it’s because he doesn’t want him to be aware of the evidence of his arousal, but Stephen just presses back, letting his tenting hardness press against Tony’s hip instead. Tony lets out a low groan, hips bucking against him. The thought that he has the same effect on Tony as Tony has on him is—god, he feels like his head is being steadily filled with helium, ready to float away. “Fuck, wait. I want to do this right. God, I wanted to do this right.”
“You planned,” he rasps, “You had all this planned in your head.”
“Yes, fuck,” Tony laughs, “I was gonna— I wanted to take you out, someplace nice, maybe, we were supposed to have dinner, this beautiful evening, I was going to charm the pants off you, I was imagining something—slower.”
“You wanted to woo me.”
“Well I mean, I wanted to ease you in.”
“Forget about easing me in,” Stephen decides, “We’ve waited long enough.”
“Fuck, you’re right, baby, come here,” Tony murmurs, kissing him again, and that word—baby—makes him feel all sorts of things in his chest, and perhaps a bit lower. “You think they’ll notice if we ditch?”
“Since when does courtesy matter to you?”
“Well we can’t walk out there with full fledged boners.”
“I can make portals.”
“Oh,” Tony says, “Right. I forgot that. Excuse me, my brilliant brain did not think of that, on account of the fact all my blood seems to be down south. Will you fucking portal us out, please, because I am about ready to explode in my pants, here.”
“What happened to taking things slow?”
“Stephen, I swear to fuck, any slower and my balls are going to fall off.”
Stephen laughs, and then obeys, because Tony asks (read: forces) him to.
EPILOGUE
“Stark. Your phone,” Stephen rasps at him, nudging him awake with needless force, and then giving up to instead bury his head underneath the pillow. Tony rouses from his sleep at the insistent buzzing noise, blinking confusedly, and dear god, will it just stop.
“Jesus Christ,” he groans, hand blindly searching for the source of the obnoxious sound vibrating the entire goddamn room.
“Incoming call from Ms. Potts, sir,” FRIDAY chimes helpfully from above. Tony makes a vague noise of acknowledgement.
What’s got her panties up in a twist this time? Tony considers burying his face underneath a pillow also, but then Stephen’s rumpled head pops out and he says, “I am going to portal your phone into the Sahara if you do not get it to stop making that goddamn noise.”
“All right, Jesus. It’s a custom model, kindly do not.”
Stephen plops his face back down, voice muffled when he says, “You can afford another.”
Tony does not dignify that with a response, instead choosing to clamber over the pile of limbs beside him to get to his phone, which clatters to the floor when he reaches for it. He mutters a word that would impress a sailor and bends down for it, knocking his elbow on Stephen’s arm in the process, who doesn’t even budge or protest. Figures he’d be dead asleep again already—the man probably hadn't been sleeping for a while now.
He accepts the call, because declining Pepper’s call is suicide.
“Anthony Edward Stark.”
“Oh no,” he says. Middle name means nothing good. “Good morning to you, too, Pep. And speaking of which, it is barely six in the fucking morning.”
“Yes, and you should be up.”
Tony rubs up and down his face. “There are worse sins than waking after dawn, you know. Homicide. Animal abuse. Milk before cereal.”
“Sloth is the root of all those,” Pepper responds without missing a beat. “You have a board meeting in an hour, which is ample time to nurse that hangover and go over the notes I sent you.”
“What notes,” he rasps, “And I’m not hungover.”
“Oh?” Pepper says across the line. “Is that so.”
“That so.”
“Fine. Check your email. I need you to at least consider the points I made there. The last thing we need is you offending the shareholders.”
“I’m never offensive. I’m plenty likable. I always know the right words to say.”
A sigh crackles across the line. “Check it regardless. And you better not be late.”
Tony shifts to a more comfortable position, sighing at the pleasant ache in his muscles, courtesy of last night’s vigorous activities. “Can’t you push the meeting, I don't know, to tomorrow at least?”
“No!” Pepper says exasperatedly, “I’ve told you how important this is, Tony, I’ve told you that—”
Suddenly his phone is snatched off of his hand.
“Good morning, Miss Potts,” Stephen says pleasantly, “I’ll be sure to send Tony off in time for his meeting. Rest assured he will not be late. Good day.” And then he clicks the phone off.
“You asshole,” Tony says when Stephen hands him back his phone, who then promptly pulls the blankets back up around him, like the blanket-hogging monster he is.
“So you weren’t lying about the meeting. Good to know. Wake me up when you need a portal,” the lump in the blankets says.
“Asshole,” Tony says again, “Unbelievable.” But then he couldn’t quite contain his laugh, because now he is imagining what Pepper’s face might look like, after Stephen’s little stunt. Well, not the first time Pepper is accidentally privy to the people he takes to bed. Except, of course, Stephen isn’t just someone he’s taken to bed, because this sure as hell isn’t going to be a one time thing, and it sure as hell would entail a lot more than helping each other get off.
A smile tugs up his lips as he skims through his phone notifications, ignoring Pepper’s and a million other emails in favour of scrolling through the litany of text messages, stopping to click into Rhodey’s.
Hope I didn’t mess it up for you and the good doctor, the text says.
Nah, he types. Actually it went very well.
Oh? Rhodey immediately replies, and Tony isn’t surprised he’s awake at this hour. Military habits, he thinks. How well?
Stephen suddenly turns to him, draping a heavy arm across his chest and pulling him down. “Mmmmgfffhhhh,” the blanket hogger says. Tony chuckles fondly, bending down to kiss his forehead. Stephen’s nose scrunches up adorably, and then his eyes are open. His hair is a torpedo, his eyes are puffy, and he looks deliciously gorgeous.
Well as in, I need to go now, he shoots back at Rhodey.
You’re kidding, he manages to catch, but misses the several other messages popping up, setting his phone on the nightstand. He bends down to kiss Stephen’s cheekbone, the edge of his brow, the side of his nose, then down to his lips. Stephen reciprocates easily, sighing into the kiss, hand reaching up to cup the back of his neck.
“Mm,” Tony hums, “We’ve got an hour to spare. You know, just to put it out there.”
“Looking to put that time to good use?” Stephen rasps. God, how can a voice be that sexy? it’s criminal levels of hot. “How about those notes Pepper mentioned,” he suggests.
“I was thinking of something else.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?”
“Like this,” Tony says, and kisses him again. They kiss languidly, and Tony is struck again with the same kind of surprise he was last night, when he found out how enjoyable kissing can be with Stephen Strange. Normally kissing is just an overly moist prelude to more exciting activities, but with Stephen, just the act of kissing is pleasurable in itself.
He gently lays Stephen back on the bed, pressing his weight down purposefully just to hear that delightful catch in his breath. Slowly he trails kisses down Stephen’s neck, collarbones, chest, making a stop to catch a nipple into his mouth, earning a groan from above, and then further down still to hover over his prize; Stephen’s morning wood stands proud before him, and the sight makes Tony lick his lips.
He starts by kissing the head first, languidly stroking the long, gorgeous length of the shaft. He licks along the slit teasingly, fondling the balls, smirking slightly when Stephen’s hips buck up in desperation.
“Tony,” Stephen says from above, already a hoarse, broken thing.
“Shh, baby, let me take care of you,” he murmurs lovingly, finally pushing his mouth down and bobbing his head slowly. Stephen throws his head back and lets out a delicious groan, neck straining. Tony keeps his eyes on the man as he takes his time.
He plays with Stephen’s balls some more before letting his fingers dip lower, down to his perineum. Stephen’s voice cracks on a moan, breathing raggedly.
“Please,” Stephen groans, “Oh god, please.”
Deliberately, Tony swallows him down to the hilt, nuzzling down until his nose is pressed flush to his trim pubic hair, letting him feel the clench and contraction of his throat, then drifts a finger lower to press into his hole, still a little loose from last night, crooking it just so.
Stephen lets out a cry as his hips buck up involuntarily, rope after rope of cum pulled out of him that Tony swallows obediently. He sucks him a bit more, letting Stephen ride his orgasm to oversensitivity, until he shakes and shudders, and only pulls back when Stephen begs him to.
Only once he’s finished does Tony become aware of his own pressing need.
“Let me—” Stephen tries to sit up, but Tony only pushes him down.
“On your side,” he orders, unsurprised by how gravely he sounds. Stephen obeys, turning onto his side. Tony settles behind him, and adjusts them so that he has his cock pressed between those strong thighs. Stephen’s hand wanders backwards to clutch at him, murmuring, “Come on, sweetheart, fuck my thighs.”
Tony does not need any further prompting. He starts off slow, finding his way, and only begins thrusting in earnest when Stephen presses his thighs together tighter. He’s leaking just enough to slick the way, and dear god, the flex of those muscled thighs will be the death of him, he’s clutching at Stephen’s shoulder by the end of it, groaning endlessly as he spurts his load all over the mattress and Stephen’s thighs.
He lays there for a moment, enjoying the post-coital bliss. Stephen’s hand has reached up to start a slow, gentle scratch up and down his head. After a while he gets up, planting a kiss on Stephen’s temple as he goes, who hums contentedly. He smiles as Stephen stretches like a cat, curling, soaking up the warmth of the bed with an open yawn.
He heads to the bathroom for an epic piss. When he returns, it is with a damp cloth, which he uses to wipe away the drying cum between Stephen’s legs. Stephen cranes his head back to kiss him in thanks.
Once finished Tony settles back against the sheets, sighing. He turns to watch the New York skyline stretched across the floor to ceiling windows of his glass-and-steel behemoth of a modern minimalistic penthouse. He can see the little A perched atop the Tower from here, buried in a sea of skyscrapers. He has never noticed it before, but the Tower stands vaguely to the East—which means that as the sun rises and her rays unfurl to the slowly bluing sky, he can see the light catch at the very top of it, marking the beginning of a new day; the branches of possibilities spreading out before him.
He’s got half an hour to spare, he thinks. Half an hour to enjoy this new, fragile, beautiful thing—and maybe even several years more of it. He smiles faintly, heart alight.
“Hey FRIDAY,” he calls, “Book a reservation in The Algonquin tonight, will you?”
“On it, sir.”
“Thanks.”
“So we’re actually getting that date now, are we,” comes the rumbling voice beside him.
“We kind of did everything in reverse, but hey, I meant what I said last night.”
“Which part? Because most of it was hardly decipherable.”
“Asshole. It was a good speech.”
A snort. “I was convinced you were either drunk, concussed, or suffering some form of brain damage. Or a combination of those. It was less a speech and more like watching an active forest fire.”
“Well at least I made a move. Which was more than what you were planning on doing.”
Stephen makes a humming noise, which is technically a response but linguistically useless. He is obnoxious like that.
“Anyway, what I was saying. I meant it when I said I wanted to do this right. Even though we sort of caved the first night, but you know. Sometimes you gotta take them to bed before taking them to dinner. Not that I think you don’t deserve to be wined and dined, because god knows I can treat you right that way, I just mean—look, it’s not my fault we practically climbed each other the moment we could, even though—okay, wait, what I meant to say is that I’d really love to—”
Stephen rumbles out a low, pillow-muffled chuckle. “Like I said. Active forest fire.”
“Asshole,” Tony says again, face flushing. But he laughs along anyway, because when you have Stephen Strange looking gorgeous in the morning light and laughing a beautiful laugh like that, you can’t help but be filled to the brim with joy and disbelief at this wonderful miracle the universe has landed in your life.
They’re still laughing quietly with each other as he turns to fold Stephen into his arms, curling against his back like wings. In his head he imagines all the future possibilities, of tonight and of the many nights and days ahead, all of the sorrow and ugliness and beauty and miraculousness of them, all of them shared with the man tucked comfortably to his chest.
Tags: Fluff, Developing Relationship, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining, Vignettes, listen this is just 4k of plotless romancey bullshit idk what to tell you. are you an adult in need of plotless romancey bullshit to soothe the loneliness of your love life? are you in a mid life crisis and find yourself in need of a fucking break? do you go by the name reigen arataka? then this fic is for you!
A/N: Special thanks to the lovelies @soholdmetightao3 and @blackiearry who volunteered for beta help! 💖
AO3
It’s not love at first sight. Not exactly, at least.
Serizawa remembers the first time they met—unconventional, but so were the rest of the years of his life, which is something that comes with having unconventional abilities—and the emotions he felt for Reigen then were frighteningly similar to when the president first lended him his umbrella—which is torn to shreds, now, burnt away like the last of his admiration for the man. But there’s something about Reigen that Serizawa knows is nothing like the president.
And he’s proven so, months into working in Spirits and Such.
He can put his finger on it now; Reigen is just much too human. There’s just something so painfully different about the way Reigen holds himself, behaves, is. Where the president is always put-together, strikingly neat and poised with perfect rows of white teeth and sharp appraising eyes, Reigen is sweaty and awkward and clumsy with wild gesticulations of his hands and crooked teeth and an odd, unconventional sort of charm.
Serizawa still looks up to him, of course—Reigen is, after all, a man of many skills that Serizawa lacks, and then some—but it’s hard to put him on the same pedestal as the president when he’s spent enough time around Reigen to figure out his ticks and tells and the little idiosyncrasies that make Reigen himself. The president always seems infrangible, too high up in the sky to ever be perceived as just a human being, but Reigen is solidly on the ground next to him. Reigen feels plainly real.
And that’s when it started.
Serizawa doesn’t think he knows how, exactly, though he knows there were signs—however notices them only in hindsight. They’re little things between the daily mundane, like his chopsticks trembling whenever Reigen’s knee bumps against his own under their usual table at the corner of the ramen restaurant they frequent, sweat decorating their foreheads and broth stains clinging to their collars. Or the flutter in his chest when Reigen smiles gratefully at him when he serves him tea in the morning. Or the swoop of his stomach when they pass paperwork and their fingers inevitably brush together. Or the way his eyes linger too long on the line of Reigen’s neck down to the tantalising, exposed bit of clavicle when he loosens his tie and undoes a few buttons of his dress shirt before a physical exorcism.
It doesn’t stop there.
Sometimes he finds himself speaking a little lower when they’re out drinking, purposefully, just so Reigen would lean in the slightest bit closer to his side of the bar to listen better. Sometimes a client gets a little too comfortable with Reigen and Serizawa has to consciously tamp down the spike of jealousy that rears its ugly head in him before he throws them out the window. Sometimes it feels like Reigen’s under his skin, shoved himself into his mind, and Serizawa finds he can’t force him out.
He’s always thinking about when they’ll next meet, what restaurant Reigen would take him to for their after-work not-dinner-dates, the kinds of conversations they’ll have, one-sided or not. He thinks about the way the sun frames Reigen’s head like a halo when the office is quiet. He thinks about Reigen’s hands moving with careful, practised precision during his massages, working each muscle with deliberate care.
Reigen, Reigen, Reigen. Always him. It feels almost natural for him to ease his way into Serizawa’s heart like that.
This—this growing inevitability—and the way it only seems to grow out of his control, sharp and keen and bright enough it might split something open in him and break a new thing out; longing like a furnace, the sort of gnawing that he knows when sated will only serve to stoke it further, whet it sharper—it isn’t something Serizawa had ever expected.
But he knows one thing for sure: falling for Reigen happens slowly.
—
1. Spring
They’re out on a case.
Reigen is muttering something about how he should’ve had the foresight to check the pollen count for the day. He’s rubbing his nose aggressively with a handkerchief. Every time he pulls back it turns a darker shade of angry red.
Serizawa observes their surroundings, scanning for any signs of a spirit. If the frantic notes he scribbled while Reigen was on the phone earlier are in any way accurate, the client mentioned seeing a silhouette in his garden while looking out of his porch in the evening, notes that he hears “suspicious” noises throughout the night, and wakes up to most of his garden wilted and destroyed. The client’s convinced it’s the work of an evil spirit. Reigen’s convinced it’s an average garden vole, he tells Serizawa when the client hangs up, but he brings Serizawa along just in case.
He was right. It’s an angry, chittering thing when they find where it’s burrowed itself in a tunnel in the soil, and it’s angrier when they trap it in the cage Reigen’s brought with him.
“Right, then,” Reigen says, holding the cage at arm’s length and keeping a wide berth from its occupant’s frantic clawing between the wiry mesh. “I guess we can call this a job well done,” he announces with a nod of finality.
But that’s when Serizawa feels it. He hadn’t felt anything when they first arrived at the scene, but there’s a tingle now. The slightest scratch of… wrongness, he supposes. Reigen moves towards the gate, but Serizawa stops him short.
“Wait,” he says, grabbing ahold of Reigen’s wrist. Reigen looks down at his hand, then blinks up at him in confusion. “I feel something,” he explains, focusing his energy towards the source ahead. A gathering of shrubs. Laser-focused eyes. “Stand behind me.”
Reigen obliges without protest as Serizawa guides him by the hand to stand behind his back. When he lets go of his wrist, Serizawa hears him clear his throat.
“I uh, definitely felt it, too,” He sniffs, deliberately casual. “But if you insist on dealing with that, then by all means, go ahead! I’ll stand back and watch you work. Of course I can definitely rid of it myself, seeing as it’s a low-level spirit, but with powers like min—”
“Reigen-san.”
“Right,” Reigen’s jaw clicks shut. He can practically hear the flap of Reigen’s hands. “Of course. I’ll stop talking. Go on.”
Serizawa can’t help the private smile that works its way to his lips at that. He raises a hand, feels the static gather to the tip of his fingers as he channels his aura, and closes his eyes in concentration. He tugs, coaxing the spirit to come out. Then he waits.
Sure enough, Serizawa opens his eyes just in time to see the apparition—red-eyed but faceless, wriggling, angry, threatened, frightened—unearth itself with a crackling screech. It lunges up and towards them with inhumane speed, but Serizawa is quicker to slash it with a wave of his hand—faltering only momentarily when he feels the nervous clasp of Reigen’s fingers on his shoulder—in a blinding blast of polychromatic light, and from its center-point the inky black of the spirit bursts and pops into nothingness with a final fizz.
From it a strong gust of wind blows out and ruffles their hair, their clothes, brushes sharply between gaps. A wild swath of leaves and petals fly along with it. He hears a muffled sneeze. Reigen’s hand leaves a lingering warmth on Serizawa’s shoulder as he makes quick work of shaking out where the leaves and petals have stuck to him, but mostly to no avail.
Serizawa uses his aura to brush most of the ones on him away and is about to ask permission to do the same for Reigen when something catches his eye. There, buried amongst the shrubbery that only moments ago he’s sure had not much to note, were bright yellow blooms a similar shade as familiar strawberry blonde.
He plucks one from its bed—he doesn’t know what kind of flower it is, but he thinks Reigen might if he asks, plant expert that he is—and holds it up to Reigen’s head, observing the way it would blend almost seamlessly in his scruffy crown. Reigen’s still patting down the rest of the leaves from his head and muttering little somethings under his breath when Serizawa finds himself carefully tucking the small flower over Reigen’s ear, brushing away a stray leaf near the shell of it. He’s as surprised as Reigen is at the action.
They both freeze. Lock eyes. Serizawa holds his breath, fearing it would come out a squeak.
“It—” He sputters a little. There are pink peonies, blooming on the skin of Reigen’s cheeks. He thinks the sight of Reigen’s perplexed face turning that lovely shade up to the tip of his ears—contrasting wonderfully with the flower adorning it—is worth the rising embarrassment. “I thought it’d look good. In your hair, like that.”
Reigen’s flush deepens. Soft pink to deep scarlet. Serizawa’s sure from the burning of his own face that it’s perfectly mirrored.
“I-it does?”
He nods, once shakily and twice firmly. “It—yes,” he confesses, “Yes, it does.”
Reigen’s beet red. Serizawa’s face burns impossibly hotter.
Reigen doesn’t move the flower where Serizawa’s placed it when they speak to the client, or on their way back to the office. But he does, though subtly, when a client walks in for their scheduled appointment.
—
2. Summer
It’s not the first time Reigen’s taken him and the kids—and Dimple, he supposes, uninvited but always welcome, tagging along behind Shigeo-kun like he always does—on a beach outing in what he calls a “company retreat”. He may rattle off about the benefits of team building and bond strengthening between coworkers when he suggests the idea, but it goes without saying that everyone knows that’s not fully the reason he pitches these trips.
They’ve rented out a car for the day. The kids decided to carpool; Reigen doesn’t share much detail about it but Serizawa pieces as much from Tome’s loud, staticky voice from his old flip phone’s speakers.
So. Him and Reigen are the only ones in the car.
Reigen insists on driving. He does so slowly, in fits and starts. Serizawa, sitting nervously on the front passenger seat, briefly wishes he had a driving license—his mother has been giving him some driving lessons, but he’s still too anxious to take the test. Maybe this is his needed push?
He catches a slice of his reflection on the rear view mirror. Eyes the bit of Reigen’s forehead he can see off the side, the little crease that’s wedged itself between them. One of Reigen’s hands relents its death grip on the wheel to turn up the radio—it’s playing a foreign pop song he recognises from his trips abroad during his days in Claw. It’s a catchy tune; the obnoxious kind that loops in your head for days on end. He remembers Hatori used to play it repeatedly in his earphones during their downtime, loud enough he can hear bits of it.
He hums the tune now, lowly and under his breath. Mumbles the few lyrics he remembers. When his eyes flick back up, the divot between Reigen’s furrowed brows has eased a little.
"You know this song?" Reigen side-eyes him, not unkindly.
Serizawa hums affirmatively. "I do."
"I didn't know you listened to foreign songs."
That pushes a sheepish chuckle out of him. “I don’t,” Serizawa admits, “Not often, anyway… But I’ve heard a lot of them from my trips abroad.”
“You’ve been abroad?”
“During my time with Claw,” he says carefully. “We, uh… Tend to fly across different countries, to expand or maintain connection… or at least that’s what I’ve been told. I just followed the Pr— Mr. Suzuki around and kept guard during meetings.”
Reigen is uncharacteristically quiet, though listening attentively. He nods slowly, eyes on the road but occasionally meeting Serizawa’s in sidelong glances.
“They were always business trips, but there are days where I’ve had to leave Mr. Suzuki’s side—usually during confidential meetings, I think—and we’d get the time to just… explore. It was… pleasant, mostly. I got to see the world.”
“Wasn’t it hard to adapt?”
“Well—yes, sometimes. I still can’t adjust my tongue to some of the food. And my english isn’t very good, though I was never expected to—speak much. Otherwise everything was just…” He shrugs, “provided for me.”
Reigen hums. "I'd love to travel, too, one day. Maybe you can be my tour guy." The focused frown is gone. In its place is a cheeky, boyish little smile Serizawa’s grown familiar with, devoid of the customer service front he plasters in front of clients. It’s a small, irresistibly endearing thing.
"Sure. I'd love to visit some places again," he admits, "Preferably without the intention of world domination this time." He chuckles. Reigen’s smile crinkles his eyes softly. "I'd love to travel with you. There’s lots of places I know you’ll love. And food I think you should try.”
He thinks the flush on Reigen’s cheeks then is unmistakable, but Reigen plays it off by turning the air conditioning up and mumbling complaints about the heat.
Eventually they arrive at the beach. The kids tumble out together in a merry band towards them just as they finish setting up a spot near the shade, but close enough to the shoreline. Their greetings are short. Reigen gives them a talk about the dangers of sunburn. Everyone grumbles when they put on their sunscreen.
Shortly after, Tome and Shou run headfirst into the water, yelling about a bet on whoever stays under for the longest, and Serizawa thinks it might’ve been a bad idea to introduce them to each other. Ritsu, Teru, Mob, and a floating Dimple watch, exchanging conversation, before eventually joining them, too.
Reigen moves to lounge on a deck chair, groaning like an old man as he settles down. Serizawa takes the one beside him. They enjoy the shade.
“This is nice,” Reigen comments after a while.
Serizawa sighs a contented hum of agreement. He turns to watch Reigen.
There’s not much to note from his bare torso, but Serizawa finds himself drawn anyway. He observes the few fading scars littering his skin, likely from rougher cases, and tries not to stare at the bit of fat gathered at his sides and the pudge around his tummy and… fails, tremendously. He imagines what they’d feel like in his hands. He wonders if they’d be soft. His face burns hot. At least he can blame the sun.
What catches his attention the most, however, is the soft smattering of spots blooming from the bridge of Reigen’s nose, delicately along his cheeks, down his neck and along his shoulders.
"You have freckles,” Serizawa points out.
Reigen pauses at that. "Oh.” He looks over his shoulders where freckles span along the skin. "Yeah, I do. I just haven't been in the sun as often lately so they're not as visible.”
They’re pretty, he wants to say, but holds his tongue. Instead he swallows and turns away, resisting the urge to openly admire them.
Then he hears a loud thump against the sand in the distance, followed by Tome’s louder voice scolding Shigeo-kun to “Get your head in the game, Mob-kun!”. Apparently they’ve moved to volleyball.
“Alright,” Reigen suddenly says, smirking that boyish smile, taking his sunglasses off. “It’s time to show them some special moves. I was on the volleyball team back in highschool, you know?”
“Really?”
“Yep,” he says, standing up, chest theatrically puffed out, arms akimbo. “For about five minutes.”
Despite that, Reigen strides forward with confidence as he calls out to the rest of the kids and joins them. Serizawa is content to just watch.
—
3. Autumn
Autumn rain seals summer away like an envelope, tucked with its sunny days and the last of its heat safely inside until her time returns. The trees blush hearthful hues, born butterfly wings, fallen leaves crisp under his dress shoes as he walks down the well-worn streets of Seasoning city. The sky bleeds glossy red and gold, an early greeting of colder days, the first lines of winter’s song. The chilly breeze forces his use of a scarf.
Autumn rolling in also meant another thing.
October tenth.
It’s a party they’ve planned for ages—with Tome as their main organiser, who’s very set on her decisions and is very particular about some details, which Mob and Serizawa and a begrudging Dimple could only acquiesce to lest they wish to face the full wrath of her—and one that, Serizawa thinks, proved mostly successful.
Reigen falling face-first onto the cake was definitely not part of the plan, but not an unacceptable deviation. Except, perhaps, for Reigen. Who cried all of during the party but would definitely deny it when the kids—and Dimple—especially Dimple—would inevitably tease him about it sometime in the future.
All things considered, it went well. And Serizawa’s happy for him.
Once it all wraps up and the kids are out the door, Serizawa lingers to help with cleanup. Dimple floats about them and makes the occasional teasing remark as they scrub frosting off the floor. Eventually he gets bored and takes his leave, saying he’s got movie night with Shigeo-kun and his little brother to catch up on.
“Right.” Reigen takes in the office once they finish. “No more frosting anywhere? I keep finding them in random places. How did it even get that far under the table? That doesn’t make sense.”
Serizawa stands up and brushes his knees, looking at the man.
“Ah, you missed a spot, Reigen-san.”
“Oh—?” He looks around. “Where—”
Serizawa pulls out a handkerchief, one his mother gave him during earlier days of him working in Spirits and Such. Reigen turns to him in confusion. He steps nearer, silently asking Reigen permission with his eyes. Reigen nods after a couple blinks of surprise.
“Here,” Serizawa hums, and wipes delicately along the crook of Reigen’s jaw. There’s a hint of stubble there that makes his stomach flip. Reigen must’ve missed it while shaving. “And here.” He raises his hand, softly pushes away the blonde strands on Reigen’s forehead, wipes at the bits of frosting. A scar lives underneath, hidden from plain view. Serizawa halts his ministrations and finds himself gently tracing it with a thumb, tucking the handkerchief in his palm.
He’s quiet for a moment. Reigen, too, falls into contemplative silence.
“How’d you get this one?” he asks, not unkindly. Gently, even. A touch curious.
“That’s…” Reigen chuckles almost sheepishly. “Remember when Mob… Remember the earthquake? The tornado?”
“Hm.”
“Yeah.” Perhaps he’s imagining it, but Reigen seems to lean into his touch a little. He doesn’t dare move his hand away. “There was a… not a boulder, exactly, but like—a large rock. About this size—” Reigen measures a size with his hands. It’s a concerningly big rock. “—and it uh, landed here.” He places two fingers where Serizawa’s thumb is still studying the raised skin.
He looks down to meet Reigen’s eyes, searches them. He’s not sure if either of them are breathing. Reigen’s lashes look thicker at this angle. “I should’ve come with you,” he murmurs. I shouldn’t have let you go alone. I could’ve protected you.
Reigen shrugs, letting out a breath of laughter. “There’s nothing you could’ve done,” he says matter-of-factly, “And it’s—happened. For better or for worse. And it couldn’t have ended differently, either way, I think.”
Serizawa wants to argue that he could’ve done something to protect Reigen better. That Reigen could’ve chosen not to throw himself into danger like that to begin with. But he doesn’t have it in him to say the words when they’re like this. When he can see the small flecks of black in Reigen’s dark brown eyes and he’s hyperaware of the shared air between them. When he wants so badly to plant a kiss on Reigen’s scar and run his fingers over his hair and soothe it all away.
Serizawa draws in a breath, small and thin in his chest. He wants, so, so badly.
“Hm,” Serizawa hums, regarding the man still, and figures he’s closer than appropriate. He pulls his hand back. Moves to give them some distance. Reigen doesn’t say a word as they part. Nor does he move where he stands.
Serizawa offers him a smile. “I hope you enjoyed the party today. Happy birthday, Reigen-san.”
There’s that crooked, boyish smile again. “I did, thank you.” He chuckles. Then, with a tilt of his head and a familiar question in his eyes, “So… drinks?”
Serizawa nods. His smile widens of its own accord. “Yeah. Let’s.”
—
4. Winter
They say falling in love with someone makes your heart beat faster. Skipping a beat, thundering in your ears, thumping in your chest—Serizawa only ever feels those things when something bad happens.
When he’s around Reigen, it’s almost as if his heart slows down. That the constant weight on his shoulders eases off him and his body is allowed to fully, properly relax. When he’s around Reigen, all that matters in the world narrows down to his boyish grin and his soft crow’s feet and the warmth of his hand clasped assuredly on Serizawa’s shoulder.
Which leaves him as Reigen stumbles his drunken way forward down the snow-blanketed road, catching himself on a nearby utility pole. Serizawa’s reaction is slow in his own inebriated state, and the breath of relief he lets out comes out in foggy condensation.
Two figures stumbling side-by-side in the white horizon, lit dimly by the orange streetlight and the moon above.
“I think you’ve had too much to drink, Serizawa,” Reigen says airily between fits of giggles. His face is flushed. Serizawa wants to cup his ruddy cheeks between his hands.
“And I think you should slow down a bit before you fall forward, Reigen,” his mouth decides to speak before he can stop himself. “You really should’ve stopped after that first drink.”
Reigen clutches imaginary pearls with a dramatic gasp of feigned offense. “Are you, Serizawa, accusing me of being a lightweight?”
He cracks an amused smile. “I think that’s the case, yes.”
“How dare you,” Reigen lightly jabs him. “Don’t make me regret making you Deputy Director, mister.”
“I would never,” he retorts, and Reigen’s laugh is bright and bubbly. Drunken. Beautiful.
“Whenever did you get so—bold?”
Serizawa stumbles closer. “You bring it out in me.”
Reigen’s nose wrinkles at that as if he’s said something ridiculous. Though there’s a smile lingering in his lips, nevertheless.
They make it a few steps forward before Reigen has to lean on another pole, and this time he levels Serizawa with an odd sort of look.
“Don’t tell Mob.” He makes a shushing gesture. Serizawa isn’t sure what he means until Reigen reaches into his pocket to pull out a cigarette box, shakes one out, and produces a lighter after he tucks the box back in. “I only smoke when I’m drunk, promise.”
His fingers are clumsy as he attempts to light his cigarette. It takes several tries and some muttered cursing. The joints of his long digits are rosy, darker at the tips where he knows the cold must bite through the skin. Serizawa wants to lend him his gloves. Wants to rub Reigen’s hands warm for him. Wants to soothe the cold away with his lips, press kisses over his knuckles. Wants to shove the cigarette aside and tuck his hands securely into Serizawa’s coat pockets.
This feeling, the winding one in the center of his chest, is warm and fluttery and tightening further each moment.
“You make me want to do stupid things, Reigen.”
The liquid courage has definitely loosened his tongue, he thinks.
He can feel his heart in his chest. It’s beating calmly.
“Yeah?” Reigen pauses, lit cigarette a hair's breadth away from his parted lips. He pulls it back only slightly to say, with a curious tilt of his head and a growing smile, “Like what?”
Serizawa wants to kiss him.
“Like this.”
He surges forward and, in a drunken haste, steals the cigarette from Reigen’s fingers and stomps it on the ground.
He cups Reigen’s ruddy cheek with a gloved hand. Watches his eyes turn wide, flickering wildly before landing on Serizawa’s lips.
He pulls close, closer, and Reigen meets him halfway until their lips connect in one bursting, nerve-wracking moment. He can feel Reigen’s hand fluttering about him, hesitating before it lands on his shoulder, drawing them flush together. Serizawa angles his head just right to deepen the kiss, feels the way Reigen’s lips part with a gasped breath—he takes his own, because it seems they both wholly forgot to breathe at all—but diving right back in the next second. Reigen’s hand trails up to his nape—those lovely, long and thin fingers carding up his hair and pushing insistently against the back of his head, and it’s all Serizawa could do to dip it obligingly—
The streetlamps along the road within their immediate radius burst and engulf them in darkness.
Reigen parts from him in surprise, and he can see the slight motion of his head turning this way and that in the dark.
And then he hears laughter. “You—”
“Me.”
Reigen’s laugh is infectious. “You just—”
“Yeah.”
“And—”
“I think I’m in love with you, Reigen.”
Silence. He breaks it when the anxiety rises in his throat.
“You don’t—need to say it back, I just—”
Reigen reaches up and pulls him by the scarf until their lips meet again. This time they take it slow, a press of lips against lips. It isn’t rushed. It’s soft. Gentle. Perfect.
The world is quiet here. Nothing exists apart from them. A rush of dizziness, a swell of fondness. Serizawa has imagined kissing Reigen a million times before but nothing could hold a candle to the real thing.
When they part again, Reigen leans his forehead on Serizawa’s, noses brushing, eyes closed. Serizawa watches the way his lashes flutter.
Their frost breaths mingle. There is something light and giddy in Serizawa’s chest. Everything but Reigen is distant.
“I don’t know if I’m ready to say it yet,” Reigen confesses, “But trust me, Serizawa, whatever you’re feeling—” A breath, “I—I feel it, too.” He pulls back to smile. “Just… wait for me. Will you?”
Serizawa considers him. Reigen looks lovely, even in the dark like this. “Of course.” He wants Reigen to know there is devotion in his every word. “I’ll wait. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be there. I’ll wait for you.”
So apparently posting this whole gets it flagged--here is instead the link to a dragon Tony fic I wrote for @janora00 💖
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (Movies), Doctor Strange (Movies)
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Tony Stark/Stephen Strange
Characters: Stephen Strange, Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Dragon Tony Stark, Explicit Sexual Content, Historical Fantasy, Medieval Fantasy, Anal Sex, Bottom Stephen Strange, Top Tony Stark, to clarify the sex happens in HUMAN FORMS, this is not that type of fic unfortunately, Not Beta Read
Series: Part 1 of The Sun, The Moon, and The Stars | For Janora 💛
Summary:
“Have you been sent to slay me?”
“Yes. But I don’t plan to.”
“Curious and curiouser.”
“I’ve come here more of my own volition than by orders of the king,” he explains. “I’ve come to bargain.”
“Bargain?”
“Yes.” Forget about asinine, he knows this is downright suicidal.
OR
Sorcerer Stephen Strange is sent to defeat Dragon Tony Stark, except that isn't what happens.
