#title thing

[lnc2]

title: wet laundry

That blonde asshole from the third floor always does his laundry at the same time as Marinette.  And he always manages to get to the only working dryer before she does.  But not today. Not. Today.

[turtlewritesthings]

Fic-title: ‘This Iron Heartbeat...’

Oh yum.

Okay. Hmmm.

IM2 AU, I think. Angsty.

The symptoms of the palladium poisoning hit Tony a little harder - to the point where he can’t quite hide it as effectively as he did in the movie (not gonna talk about my bitterness that so many viewers totally missed out on the sheer magnitude of how the poisoning was affecting him. nope. not gonna do it.)

Or maybe it’s just when Tony first starts noticing symptoms.

He’s having trouble thinking clearly.

He’s tired.

He drank a glass of champagne at Pepper’s charity thing one night - just the one - and had to duck into the bathroom when his stomach rather violently rebelled.

And then the black starts seeping across his chest and he figures it out.

He has an idea of how long his body can last - heavy metals and their dangers was something he knew a thing or two about - but he needs to know how long his mind will. He needs to know the timeframe he’s got for trying to figure out a solution or set his affairs in order.

God, he’s got so much to do still.

So he goes to see Doctor Stephen Strange - who is not just the top neurosurgeon, but one of the best neurologists - on the down-low for a consultation. Not a surgery, nothing that will ruin his perfect record, so Stephen accepts. 

And Stephen, of course, is absolutely appalled - both at Tony’s state and that Tony believes he has no options and is, therefore, going to just let himself die in the slowest and most agonizing way possible.

“Why don’t you just remove the reactor?”

“If only I could, Doc.”

And Stephen finds out about the shrapnel.

So Stephen insists on doing a full evaluation of how Tony is being poisoned before he’ll tell Tony how long he’s got left. Tony snarks and is frustrated, but he’s tired and the poisoning makes his thoughts feel like molasses, so he lets him.

“Why not replace the casing for a more efficient design that will prevent the palladium from reaching your bloodstream?” Stephen asks, brainstorming to himself out loud.

“I’d still die on the operating table, Doc,” Tony reminds him tiredly.

Finally, Tony just asks for his answer. Stephen gives him a few months. At best.

Tony thanks him for his time and goes back home.

But it plagues Stephen.

He comes up with solutions and scraps them. Comes up with solutions and scraps them. Calls Tony sometimes to brainstorm. They come up with the chlorophyll solution. Though it’s more of a stopgap measure. Stephen finds the creative back-and-forth to be incredibly stimulating, which only drives him more to find some sort of solution. He observes more cardiothoracic surgeries, trying to find some method that will help. Trying to see if he could improve some method to help.

Tony invites him out to Malibu as the finishing touches are put on the Expo. Shows him all of the failed solutions - every permutation of every known element - and tells him it’s hopeless. Tells Stephen to forget him. Tells Stephen to not let this haunt him. He could never have been saved. This iron heartbeat of his was only ever staving off the inevitable so he could fix his own personal failings.

Stephen calls the hospital to tell them he’s going to take some vacation time for some research.

He starts haunting Tony’s workshop, he pesters Tony until they’re both brainstorming on how they could improve surgical tools and medical tech. They make incredible things. Tony loves it. Tony saves it all to a file to have JARVIS give to Pepper after...after he’s gone. But he saves it with a melancholy smile.

He really has loved every moment of working with Stephen Strange.

And then, of course, the events of IM2 happen with Stephen worrying in the background. Maybe he ends up having to get back to Metro General or maybe he’s there telling Tony what an idiot he is for trying to cut out his friends.

[virmillion]

by the way, i love you- but also that for the title prompt (♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡♡)

Far and away, Virgil’s least favorite thing about the words etched across his shoulders is their ambiguousness. ‘By the way, I love you.’ What did that even mean? What was he supposed to do with that? According to his parents, it’s whatever the last words you say are to the person in life that you care most about. According to Virgil, it’s irritating and an annoyingly popular conversation piece. According to his little brother, Patton, it’s incredibly sweet, and he can’t wait to meet whoever it is that makes Virgil feel so strongly.

Virgil has avoided using any combination of those words as if the phrase itself were a pariah, all the way through the tumble down the stairs, all the way through the ambulance ride, all the way through the humming lights of the hospital, all the way to Patton’s bedside. His parents couldn’t even be there, too busy for another fall, another false alarm, Patton got hurt all the time, so why bother worrying? Why bother being concerned about the incessant itching on Virgil’s shoulders as he whispers through his broken sobs.

And now, fifteen years later, Virgil ruefully shakes his head as Logan pokes him, inquiring as to how Virgil could be so certain that Logan won’t be the one to hear the phrase on his back. Let Logan wonder. No one deserves to hear something so significant from Virgil except the person it was intended for, even when that person is long gone.

[turtlewritesthings]

This is a headcanon and a title in one: His Italian Roots.

This is an absolutely correct headcanon. How did you know I LOVE that? Italian Maria raising Tony to know his heritage is LIFE.

Anyway.

For this one, I’m actually just gonna give you a plot I came up with a while back that I’m not sure I’ll ever get around to writing.

TW for mentions of domestic abuse and child abuse bc Howard Stark.

Tony comes home from college, not even 18 yet, and already used by Sunset Bain and he takes his father's shouting with a stoic face and then once Howard leaves just breaks down in front of his mom like "I don't understand why she didn't love me? I did everything she wanted?"And Maria is just struck by the parallels of this being what she's been teaching tony unconsciously.

So she divorces Howard in the scandal of the decade. She takes half his money and she takes Tony with her. 

They get a little house (maybe that cabin on the lake?) and she starts taking a more active role in Tony's life. 

And he still has a whole ordeal with Tiberius, but he gets out sooner bc Maria and Rhodey both are like "oh honey no." He gets out of the party scene earlier and Maria drags him by the ear away from alcohol. 

Tony flinches at touch a lot after Sunset. Maria is absolutely fury incarnate thinking Sunset forced her baby boy into sex before he was ready. Ty just makes it worse.

Maria encourages him to branch out into all the things that interest him and get away from weapons, which Howard is pissed about, but Tony gets REALLY into her charity work and non-profits and "hey mom do you think I could start a business to help people?" 

And maria encourages him and he gets so into it and it's just BOOMING and she worries about how lonely he seems sometimes. 

And then tony starts diving into medtech bc surely he can help there too, right? He meets young up and coming neurosurgeon Stephen Strange and is absolutely smitten.

At first, Maria thinks it's just a fascination with Strange's work - Tony has a tendency to ramble and rave about people he finds interesting and intelligent - except Tony doesn't really stop talking about Strange. And the comments start shifting from how brilliant Stephen is to "oh man, Stephen told this joke -" and "Mom, can I borrow your lasagna recipe? Stephen thinks cottage cheese is an acceptable replacement for ricotta and he needs to know he's wrong."

Maria, remembering Sunset and Tiberius, asks around about Stephen. The response she gets terrifies her. Cold, exacting, unfriendly, snappy, ambitious - she is instantly reminded of Howard.

So Maria has Tony invite Stephen to dinner. 

Tony is a nervous mess about it bc he's been wanting to ask Stephen out and he feels like maybe this is out of the proper order of things. But he's not about to deny his mom, so he's all "yes...my friend. Yeah."

Stephen comes over, dressed to impress bc he's been wanting to ask Tony out and obv that means he needs to impress Maria. So he's formal and polite and a little cold, which really isn't how he normally is with Tony. He doesn't realize that a good first impression to the rest of elite society is a disastrous first impression with Maria. So once dinner is done, Maria arranges a long vacation for her and Tony "bc she misses spending time with him." 

While they're away, she introduces Tony to lots of nice men and women, trying to draw his affection away from Stephen. But Tony calls and texts Stephen a lot. They argue a lot via phone and Maria just can't see through her own past experience that it's friendly arguing.

She introduces Tony to a literal prince and Tony’s just like “But does he have a PhD?”

“I don’t know? He might have a pretty huge dick, how should I know?”

“MOM!”

She’s just trying to keep up with her kid, okay? Gotta learn that slang.

The vacation has another part to it. And that's that Maria hasn't been feeling herself lately really. So finally, she talks to Tony about Stephen. And she mentions how much he reminds her of Howard. And Tony is instantly offended - insisting that Stephen is nothing like Howard and they have a big fight about it bc neither of them are really listening to the other.

And when they get back home, Tony dives into work and Maria goes back to her charities and her empty house. And then Maria collapses and a maid takes her to the hospital and tony rushes there as they find out she's got a brain tumor. So of course, Tony goes to the best neurosurgeon. And Stephen, of course, is totally clueless that he's been what Tony and Maria have been fighting about. But he really likes Tony. Maybe even loves Tony. So he takes the surgery and the surgery goes well. And Maria wakes up to Stephen slouched awkwardly in a hospital chair, Tony sitting even more awkwardly on his lap and snoozing on his shoulder.

Maria watches until Stephen snorts awake, wincing at the crick in his neck from falling asleep the way he had. He'd come right to stay with Tony and Maria after cleaning up post-surgery.They kind of stare at each other a bit. 

"You're going to be fine now," Stephen murmurs, hand coming up to cradle the back of Tony's head. 

"What happened?" she asks weakly. 

"You had a small tumor in your brain. It had begun to press on a blood vessel and you passed out. I removed it. You're going to be just fine."

(please bear in mind I am not a doctor AT ALL)

Maria grunts and looks at Tony. The way he clings to Stephen in his sleep, fingers dug into scrubs. "He loves you, you know?" 

Stephen buries his blushing face in Tony’s hair and Maria can’t help but coo at him just a little when she sees his ears turning red.

And she's just like "Oh. So now I have TWO shy boys. Okay. I can do that."

Maria finds out later on that Stephen doesn't go home anymore bc he's on bad terms with his parents: "It's okay. I'm your mom now."

Meanwhile, these two idiots haven’t actually asked each other out yet.

She's finally released from the hospital and they just pester her relentlessly about her health and she loves it. Her house isn’t empty anymore.

Maria teases them about when they're going to go on a date. They both just sputter and fidget.

“Mamannnnn!""Uh... did you want--" "I mean, if you wanted to we... could?" "We don't have to, of course, I just..." "No it's... it's a nice thought uh..." 

Maria finally just rolls her eyes and sends them to one of the Maria Stark Foundation galas together. She gives the tickets to Stephen, "Just... ask him out already, please. I swear, I'm going to die of old age before you two get it together." 

Fin.

[turtlewritesthings]

Fic Title: A Shooting Star Named After You

Kinda wanna steal this for my IM3 AU, but it doesn’t quite fit.

So. IM1 AU.

Stephen and Christine are hanging out on a rare night they both have off. There’s a blaze across the sky. 

“Make a wish, Stephen,” Christine would laugh.

And Stephen would make a wish, pretending that Christine was being silly and childish so she wouldn’t ask what he wished for.

Several minutes later, they’re both called in.

To perform surgery on Tony Stark. Who crashed in an experimental suit of flying armor.

Pepper there to have them sign NDAs bc they really don’t need news getting out of their CEO nearly killing himself just after he’s gotten back from captivity. And bc they need to keep this so close to the chest, Stephen gets stuck doing follow-up where he’d usually pass it on to someone else so he could move on to the next big surgery.

He gets to know Tony - snarking ensues - and they fall in love.

Stephen’s wish was for love.

[turtlewritesthings]

*rubs hands* For the title thingy: "It's the fucked-up beauty of Nightmare Realms, dear."

Oh nice.

For this, I’d do a post-Endgame fic and have Stephen dreaming of Tony - alive, healthy, and so happy in love with him. And then the dream always turns. Shifts to some memory of those alternate timelines that Stephen worked so hard to avoid. Shifts to Tony dying.

Stephen always wakes crying out for Tony, knowing that he’s long-dead.

Wong hands him a book on blocking out dreams one day, but Stephen can’t bear the thought of using the spells within.

The nightmares are worth it - just to see Tony happy for the little bit that he can.

Nightmare - the entity, King of the Realm of Nightmares - would lurk in the back of his dreams, laughing.

[lnc2]

“lullaby for a cat” for the title thing!

Ladybug hums a certain song on chill patrol nights that puts Chat to sleep. Marinette absentmindedly hums it in class with disastrous results.

[lnc2]

title thing: "some little things got left out (and a little means a lot)"

Ladrien Accidental Pregnancy