[ tony lands a little awkwardly on the sill, then ducks his head and slips inside. the moment the fresh air closes off behind him, the suit folds itself away neatly, and tony stares up at steve for a moment, his expression soft, a little unsure. ]
[ there's a lot to be unsure about. steve can feel it even as he shifts to the edge of the cushion he's sitting on, keeping his posture as open as possible as he tries to decide what to say next. this isn't a speech he's giving or a moment to rally; these are his feelings. it's why he'd come back and why they're there now. ]
i don't know where to start. [ a quiet admission. ] how much do you wanna know? because i meant what i said – going back, that wasn't my life.
everything? [ tony says, as if it's the most obvious thing. ]
i don't want excuses. i want to know why you left me, steve. i think it's pretty clear what i want to know.
[ he crosses the room, betraying his admission of being willing to sit. the emotion wins out, the heartbreak takes over and he stands closer than he'd intended to steve. he wants to hear him, to see him. to watch those eyes and make sure he's telling the truth. ]
his eyes roll at stephen's demand. he's never been one for doctor's orders, anyway, but somehow coming from stephen, he's less inclined to obey them.
suddenly and without warning, his resolve softens with a rush as a warm hand meets his skin. strange's hand touches his back with such care, like a bridge between the two of them that tony's been afraid of crossing until now. even then, afraid is the wrong word; it's something similar to... waiting to cross. he's been waiting on one side of the bridge, wishing earnestly that stephen would cross it.
and he has.
once the sudden rush of realization passes, tony lifts his head to ask friday for lights, but she's one step ahead of him.
sure thing, doctor.
his mouth closes and his lips purse while the warm lighting rises, and the fluorescent light above the table flicks on unceremoniously. tony sighs and follows stephen's lead, a little too defeated now to try quipping back or resisting. the fact that he even got stephen's help is a big deal, he shouldn't look him in the mouth. tony hefts himself up onto the table as requested, and suddenly the metal of it is a little too cold, the room feels a little too open.
He could've been dead, for a start, though enough of Stephen had known he wasn't dead or dying in the rainforest somewhere to not put in the call when he first heard the news. It's not that Tony Stark can't be reckless, it's that his work can't be underestimated. Technology developed over years that only ever gets better.
The suit isn't just a lump of metal any more than Stark's just its pilot. So when he says it's not as bad as it could've been, he doesn't mean you could've died on impact.
"Thanks, Friday."
Finally he drops his bag to the floor, stepping up to the table to brandish a freshly-appeared penlight directly in front of Tony's eye. He talks as he assesses pupil response, not about to take a reported lack of a few choice symptoms as concrete proof of an absent head injury. He seems fine, but you never know.
"You've got at least two fractured ribs, and you tore a few ligaments with the impact. You're lucky you didn't suffer a pneumothorax."
Not to catastrophize, but it's really not a far leap from a hairline fracture to a clean break and bone puncturing something important. Except he didn't puncture anything, as far as the scans and the few minutes he's spent in Tony's company so far can tell him, and his pupils are responsive. So all told, it's a positive result. Stephen flicks the light off and it vanishes from sight.
And then he— stops, finally. To take a look at him. Alive and mostly fine. Stephen's breath huffs out like he's been holding it for the last forty-eight hours. Idiot. Whether the thought's aimed at Tony or himself, he couldn't say.
try not to fret, doctor strange, about if tony had been dead or not. with friday's new protocols, he's tony's second emergency contact. colleague, he's listed as, but as tony is subject to an exam and suddenly very close to one doctor stephen strange, he wonders if that's the most accurate label. complicated friend. love interest. there's about a hundred other things that run through his mind as he's the best patient, sitting still, responding appropriately. he's ready for deep breaths and to stick his tongue out, but stephen has other ideas.
"but i didn't," he says less-than-helpfully, but his tone would imply otherwise.
he leans forward on his palms, but that sends a pulse of pain through one side, so when his face twists momentarily, he shifts weight to alleviate some of it. he's quick to school it back to neutrality, maybe even a hint of interest in his eyes, especially now that his diagnosis is... less bad than he'd suspected.
the silence hangs in the air between them, and tony can't help dropping his eyes momentarily down to stephen's lips, then quickly back up again. that's another bridge, though he senses crossing this one might mean meeting in the middle of it. he can't sit around and wait for him, and he's done enough making him be the one to wait.
so tony gazes back, just for another moment, just to let that tension rise between them. when he does speak, though it's not without a hint of sarcasm, his voice is much lower, nearly a whisper.
"you gonna bill me?"
Edited (a whole ass letter) 2022-02-27 01:19 (UTC)
It would be nice, just for once, if he could piece together any semblance of self control when it comes to Tony fucking Stark. But he never has been able to, has he, from the day that they met to now, and that doesn't seem to want to change for the sake of a measly pair of broken ribs and a conversation Stephen may have thought he was intent on having. They get caught up in one another's tides irrespective of best practice and better judgement, like matched for like in spite of themselves, and the drop of Tony's gaze to his mouth puts in all the legwork you gonna bill me? could possibly need.
Some last, stubborn tension drops and Stephen cants forward, scant distance maintained only thanks to the difference in their positions.
"I should."
He should absolutely bill him. For the fruitless hours spent worrying about him if nothing else.
Instead his voice drops to match Stark's, tantamount to surrender.
"I haven't finished examining you."
Which would be a stronger argument if his thumb weren't hooking over Tony's pinky as his hand settles on the table, a support for his dip downward. His free hand lifts to steady Tony's chin with the knuckle of his forefinger as he succumbs to the inevitable, nose grazing his cheek, mouths brought close enough to invite a meeting.
tony studies stephen the way he studies anything else: with careful attention, taking specific note in his mind of any and all changes. the shift in stephen's demeanor is impossible to miss with an eye as sharp as his, so tony pockets that information, calculates his next move based on that subtle, notable change.
fingers touch and tony adjusts, meets him halfway by sliding more fingers underneath stephen's, nearly like a dance as he moves closer into tony's space. he's used to this dance with stephen, the push and the pull, their ebb and flow like waves. stephen himself reminds tony of the tides, giving and taking however he feels, and the world around him must adjust. he's the epitome of a force of nature, immovable and true, chaotic and gentle.
he's gazing down at their hands when stephen moves in closer, to the steadying finger to his chin takes him by surprise. he lifts his gaze to him, his brown eyes a little wide, betraying what churns under the surface. underneath tony's chin, the only thing grounding him to this moment is that light, familiar tremble of stephen's hand. the tremor keeps tony aware of how close they are, how the lingering scent of stephen's aftershave is all he can smell, how all he would need to do is turn his head.
so he does. tony's head tilts, angling neatly to one side and pressing his lips tightly against stephen's. he hasn't kissed him in days, but it feels like months as warmth begins to spread from his lips, through his neck, his chest flushing a deep red. tony's free hand reaches up to cradle his head in the bend of his neck, his thumb placed carefully on stephen's cheekbone to keep him there, as though those tides might pull him away and leave tony only with what he can find left behind on this beach.
Tony meets him and Stephen's eyes press shut, his lips when they land bringing with them a fierce relief: oil fire burning over still waters.
He's in trouble here. Has been for a while. And it's for that reason that he brings himself to tilt their faces apart after a long moment spent safe in closeness, though for all the effort it takes him to manage it's hardly any breach at all. Barely there, just far enough for breath to have space to pass between them, for his words to rumble over Tony's lips.
"I'm not going to be your get out of jail free card every time."
The hand resting over Tony's becomes a press, a hold, stay here and listen and I'm not going anywhere.
He thinks he gets it. Thrown from the horse his first real time back in the saddle - it had been what he meant when he'd asked are you alright?, but there's no surprise that's not the question Tony answered. He wouldn't have either. Faced with the same question Stephen would have answered it for his body in subconscious self-defence and squirmed away from any further effort to pin him down.
Irrespective of that, it's important that he makes this clear. Now, before Tony builds a habit.
"I don't need the Avengers on my back in three months time because I enabled you to accidentally kill yourself rather than have an uncomfortable conversation."
Being in the bad books of bereaved friends is the very last thing that would bother him in that situation, but it helps to illustrate the point in a way that doesn't leave either one of them too bare. In the long term, he's not going to be leaned on to avoid conversations that need to be had. He isn't here to help Tony annex himself, as convenient as that would be.
Uncertainty is fair, self-agency and the decision to step solo out into the field equally so, but going it entirely alone is the shit that leaves you sitting around with busted ribs waiting to feel okay enough about it to reach out for help. And Stephen Strange isn't somebody anyone should end up falling back on as a one man support system.
tony feels it. he can feel it coming before it's said, that damn high tide being dragged out from under his feet. the water is rushing away from shore, threatening to pull him with it, the way it does before a tsunami hits. tony has always known, when water suddenly recedes, you run for safety.
his lips press into a hard line and he exhales sharply through his nose, keeping his eyes down to their still-clasped hands. it's his life ring, right now. that intended reassurance does its job, showing tony in the way he knows best that he isn't going anywhere, that he wants him to listen, but it's that second part that has tony digging his heels in like a dog that doesn't want to move. listen. listen.
"yeah, i know," he says, and it's not loud, but it is sudden. his head tilts both upward and to one side, as though trying to catch stephen's attention, but it's ridiculous of him to think he wouldn't have had it in the first place. stephen is there, his eye contact is less deliberate but just as intimidating, though tony won't let his own stray.
"i know, strange. think about something for a second, alright? between you and bruce banner, who do you think would be less of an asshole to me about the whole thing? hm? who do you think would just quietly bandage me up and make me super pinky promise not to do it again?" brown eyes stare up into stephen's, unrelenting, confident. it's the truth, though: bruce lets tony push him around, he goes along with what he says. he's incredibly intelligent, and over the years has grown more and more of a spine, but if tony asked him to jump, he would already know how high.
but tony realizes a little too late that he's coming on too strong. he wants to run from the shore, like he knows he's supposed to, but maybe he just needs to let the tide in again.
"i didn't come to you because you were the easy way out." his voice is back to the quiet reassurance, and his gaze drops again, to his lap, to their hands. he squeezes, almost like a question earnestly awaiting an answer.
[ There are few things in the world that would be able to stop Peter from accepting this invitation and making it there in record time, and luckily for him, none of those things happen. No crimes pop up on the route he takes, no scolding aunt or friends, no school deadlines that would make or break him graduating. He's lucky that it's so quiet for a Friday night, but perhaps that's partially because it's so late at night and all good little hooligans are at home snug in bed.
Suffice to say, he doesn't take the scenic route on the way to Tony, but he does swing himself halfway up the building and then sneakily crawl the rest of the way. He has to hype himself up a little while also calming himself down, but in the end, he trusts Tony to be able to, well... lead. He's good at taking control of situations, he can handle Peter, they've built up a good rapport and friendship over the years—there's nothing to worry about.
So he doesn't pause for more than a few seconds when he gets to the window and then flips through it to land on the balls of his feet. Part of him is still half expecting this to be a joke, or maybe a really well-planned and cruel trap some new villain is playing on him. He takes a few steps forward, waiting for his sixth sense to detect danger, and then pulls his mask off with a sigh of relief when it doesn't. ]
[ luckily for peter, tony's plans for the evening mostly consist of bourbon and dicking around with some code in one of his holo desks, but truth be told, this feels like a much better way to spend an evening alone. morgan's at pepper's for the weekend, and his meetings are done until monday, so he had meant it with his chest when he said all night. he has nowhere to be.
still... as he closes up the unassuming table and boots friday back up again, her holo displays gently fading into life above him, he feels as though his heart is in his throat.
tony's good at being smooth, at getting someone into bed, but that person has never been peter parker. it's always been someone he never intends on seeing again, someone he can just smooth talk and get what he wants.
this is different, entirely. there might be strings attached, and for all he knows, he might be peter's first? that's a whole other thing to unpack, but he's not given the luxury of time when he hears his name gently called out into the house, like he's just as nervous.
at least it's not just him. ]
downstairs!
[ tony gets to his feet and busies himself with friday's boot process, making it look like he's been busy with her all along and not lost in thought, in his nerves.
there's also the ever-present flashes in his head of what peter might look like breathless, red faced, moaning out tony's name, but that's the one he forces away for now. if he's lucky, he won't need to imagine it for long. ]
as promised, the portal opens just to tony's left, and the man is slightly startled out of the comfortable space he'd found himself in. clearly visible on the other side is an otherwise unassuming living room, and tony hesitates just a moment before he stands. ah, this feels. a bit like an invasion of privacy. still, who is tony to say no to an opportunity like this?
so he shoves both hands into his pockets and takes a careful, tentative step inside, bracing himself for that strange lightheaded feeling that strange's portals give him. it never comes; if anything, this one is a little more pleasant, and tony's emergence out the other side is much less jarring.
the sound of running water catches his ear in the otherwise quiet living space, so tony slowly, his eyes still alert, takes a seat and begins to pull his shoes off. his shirt is next, and it gets folded, placed gingerly on the arm of the sofa.
"anyone home?" he calls out into the space, fully aware that he might not be heard over the water. tony makes his way to the bathroom door, drawn by the sound and the light underneath it, then knocks gently and slowly opens it.
One of the great things about magic, particularly Billy's brand of it, is that he can make the generic tub in his apartment into something actually worthy of soaking in, which is exactly what he did. It's a big claw-foot affair, and Billy's already in it, arms over the edge and dark curls damp and pushed back on his head.
He smiles as the door opens and Tony steps in, eyes drifting down the older man's chest before flicking back up to meet his own gaze. "Looks like you got here in one piece," he teases, as if there was any doubt of that, and sits up a little in the tub, unfolding his arms to reach toward him. "Come on, I'm pretty sure you've been down in your garage way too long today."
As he's down in his garage way too long most days, in Billy's experience, but there's not a lot he can do about that right now.
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[ tony lands a little awkwardly on the sill, then ducks his head and slips inside. the moment the fresh air closes off behind him, the suit folds itself away neatly, and tony stares up at steve for a moment, his expression soft, a little unsure. ]
i'll sit. i'm just here to listen, anyway.
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i don't know where to start. [ a quiet admission. ] how much do you wanna know? because i meant what i said – going back, that wasn't my life.
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i don't want excuses. i want to know why you left me, steve. i think it's pretty clear what i want to know.
[ he crosses the room, betraying his admission of being willing to sit. the emotion wins out, the heartbreak takes over and he stands closer than he'd intended to steve. he wants to hear him, to see him. to watch those eyes and make sure he's telling the truth. ]
switching to prose but you don't have to match!
his eyes roll at stephen's demand. he's never been one for doctor's orders, anyway, but somehow coming from stephen, he's less inclined to obey them.
suddenly and without warning, his resolve softens with a rush as a warm hand meets his skin. strange's hand touches his back with such care, like a bridge between the two of them that tony's been afraid of crossing until now. even then, afraid is the wrong word; it's something similar to... waiting to cross. he's been waiting on one side of the bridge, wishing earnestly that stephen would cross it.
and he has.
once the sudden rush of realization passes, tony lifts his head to ask friday for lights, but she's one step ahead of him.
sure thing, doctor.
his mouth closes and his lips purse while the warm lighting rises, and the fluorescent light above the table flicks on unceremoniously. tony sighs and follows stephen's lead, a little too defeated now to try quipping back or resisting. the fact that he even got stephen's help is a big deal, he shouldn't look him in the mouth. tony hefts himself up onto the table as requested, and suddenly the metal of it is a little too cold, the room feels a little too open.
"that bad?"
a good excuse to stretch my prose muscles
He could've been dead, for a start, though enough of Stephen had known he wasn't dead or dying in the rainforest somewhere to not put in the call when he first heard the news. It's not that Tony Stark can't be reckless, it's that his work can't be underestimated. Technology developed over years that only ever gets better.
The suit isn't just a lump of metal any more than Stark's just its pilot. So when he says it's not as bad as it could've been, he doesn't mean you could've died on impact.
"Thanks, Friday."
Finally he drops his bag to the floor, stepping up to the table to brandish a freshly-appeared penlight directly in front of Tony's eye. He talks as he assesses pupil response, not about to take a reported lack of a few choice symptoms as concrete proof of an absent head injury. He seems fine, but you never know.
"You've got at least two fractured ribs, and you tore a few ligaments with the impact. You're lucky you didn't suffer a pneumothorax."
Not to catastrophize, but it's really not a far leap from a hairline fracture to a clean break and bone puncturing something important. Except he didn't puncture anything, as far as the scans and the few minutes he's spent in Tony's company so far can tell him, and his pupils are responsive. So all told, it's a positive result. Stephen flicks the light off and it vanishes from sight.
And then he— stops, finally. To take a look at him. Alive and mostly fine. Stephen's breath huffs out like he's been holding it for the last forty-eight hours. Idiot. Whether the thought's aimed at Tony or himself, he couldn't say.
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"but i didn't," he says less-than-helpfully, but his tone would imply otherwise.
he leans forward on his palms, but that sends a pulse of pain through one side, so when his face twists momentarily, he shifts weight to alleviate some of it. he's quick to school it back to neutrality, maybe even a hint of interest in his eyes, especially now that his diagnosis is... less bad than he'd suspected.
the silence hangs in the air between them, and tony can't help dropping his eyes momentarily down to stephen's lips, then quickly back up again. that's another bridge, though he senses crossing this one might mean meeting in the middle of it. he can't sit around and wait for him, and he's done enough making him be the one to wait.
so tony gazes back, just for another moment, just to let that tension rise between them. when he does speak, though it's not without a hint of sarcasm, his voice is much lower, nearly a whisper.
"you gonna bill me?"
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Some last, stubborn tension drops and Stephen cants forward, scant distance maintained only thanks to the difference in their positions.
"I should."
He should absolutely bill him. For the fruitless hours spent worrying about him if nothing else.
Instead his voice drops to match Stark's, tantamount to surrender.
"I haven't finished examining you."
Which would be a stronger argument if his thumb weren't hooking over Tony's pinky as his hand settles on the table, a support for his dip downward. His free hand lifts to steady Tony's chin with the knuckle of his forefinger as he succumbs to the inevitable, nose grazing his cheek, mouths brought close enough to invite a meeting.
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fingers touch and tony adjusts, meets him halfway by sliding more fingers underneath stephen's, nearly like a dance as he moves closer into tony's space. he's used to this dance with stephen, the push and the pull, their ebb and flow like waves. stephen himself reminds tony of the tides, giving and taking however he feels, and the world around him must adjust. he's the epitome of a force of nature, immovable and true, chaotic and gentle.
he's gazing down at their hands when stephen moves in closer, to the steadying finger to his chin takes him by surprise. he lifts his gaze to him, his brown eyes a little wide, betraying what churns under the surface. underneath tony's chin, the only thing grounding him to this moment is that light, familiar tremble of stephen's hand. the tremor keeps tony aware of how close they are, how the lingering scent of stephen's aftershave is all he can smell, how all he would need to do is turn his head.
so he does. tony's head tilts, angling neatly to one side and pressing his lips tightly against stephen's. he hasn't kissed him in days, but it feels like months as warmth begins to spread from his lips, through his neck, his chest flushing a deep red. tony's free hand reaches up to cradle his head in the bend of his neck, his thumb placed carefully on stephen's cheekbone to keep him there, as though those tides might pull him away and leave tony only with what he can find left behind on this beach.
please let him stay in high tide forever.
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He's in trouble here. Has been for a while. And it's for that reason that he brings himself to tilt their faces apart after a long moment spent safe in closeness, though for all the effort it takes him to manage it's hardly any breach at all. Barely there, just far enough for breath to have space to pass between them, for his words to rumble over Tony's lips.
"I'm not going to be your get out of jail free card every time."
The hand resting over Tony's becomes a press, a hold, stay here and listen and I'm not going anywhere.
He thinks he gets it. Thrown from the horse his first real time back in the saddle - it had been what he meant when he'd asked are you alright?, but there's no surprise that's not the question Tony answered. He wouldn't have either. Faced with the same question Stephen would have answered it for his body in subconscious self-defence and squirmed away from any further effort to pin him down.
Irrespective of that, it's important that he makes this clear. Now, before Tony builds a habit.
"I don't need the Avengers on my back in three months time because I enabled you to accidentally kill yourself rather than have an uncomfortable conversation."
Being in the bad books of bereaved friends is the very last thing that would bother him in that situation, but it helps to illustrate the point in a way that doesn't leave either one of them too bare. In the long term, he's not going to be leaned on to avoid conversations that need to be had. He isn't here to help Tony annex himself, as convenient as that would be.
Uncertainty is fair, self-agency and the decision to step solo out into the field equally so, but going it entirely alone is the shit that leaves you sitting around with busted ribs waiting to feel okay enough about it to reach out for help. And Stephen Strange isn't somebody anyone should end up falling back on as a one man support system.
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his lips press into a hard line and he exhales sharply through his nose, keeping his eyes down to their still-clasped hands. it's his life ring, right now. that intended reassurance does its job, showing tony in the way he knows best that he isn't going anywhere, that he wants him to listen, but it's that second part that has tony digging his heels in like a dog that doesn't want to move. listen. listen.
"yeah, i know," he says, and it's not loud, but it is sudden. his head tilts both upward and to one side, as though trying to catch stephen's attention, but it's ridiculous of him to think he wouldn't have had it in the first place. stephen is there, his eye contact is less deliberate but just as intimidating, though tony won't let his own stray.
"i know, strange. think about something for a second, alright? between you and bruce banner, who do you think would be less of an asshole to me about the whole thing? hm? who do you think would just quietly bandage me up and make me super pinky promise not to do it again?" brown eyes stare up into stephen's, unrelenting, confident. it's the truth, though: bruce lets tony push him around, he goes along with what he says. he's incredibly intelligent, and over the years has grown more and more of a spine, but if tony asked him to jump, he would already know how high.
but tony realizes a little too late that he's coming on too strong. he wants to run from the shore, like he knows he's supposed to, but maybe he just needs to let the tide in again.
"i didn't come to you because you were the easy way out." his voice is back to the quiet reassurance, and his gaze drops again, to his lap, to their hands. he squeezes, almost like a question earnestly awaiting an answer.
"you have never been the easy answer, stephen."
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depends on your mood
i could rail you
i could make it last all night
or i could order pizza
your call
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both?
it'll work up an appetite
railing all night
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pretend you said something much smoother than that
pizza and sex it is
window's open
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but you still like me so
maybe you're smooth enough for the both of us
don't get cold waiting for me!
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chop chop spider-man
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Suffice to say, he doesn't take the scenic route on the way to Tony, but he does swing himself halfway up the building and then sneakily crawl the rest of the way. He has to hype himself up a little while also calming himself down, but in the end, he trusts Tony to be able to, well... lead. He's good at taking control of situations, he can handle Peter, they've built up a good rapport and friendship over the years—there's nothing to worry about.
So he doesn't pause for more than a few seconds when he gets to the window and then flips through it to land on the balls of his feet. Part of him is still half expecting this to be a joke, or maybe a really well-planned and cruel trap some new villain is playing on him. He takes a few steps forward, waiting for his sixth sense to detect danger, and then pulls his mask off with a sigh of relief when it doesn't. ]
Hey, mis— Tony?
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still... as he closes up the unassuming table and boots friday back up again, her holo displays gently fading into life above him, he feels as though his heart is in his throat.
tony's good at being smooth, at getting someone into bed, but that person has never been peter parker. it's always been someone he never intends on seeing again, someone he can just smooth talk and get what he wants.
this is different, entirely. there might be strings attached, and for all he knows, he might be peter's first? that's a whole other thing to unpack, but he's not given the luxury of time when he hears his name gently called out into the house, like he's just as nervous.
at least it's not just him. ]
downstairs!
[ tony gets to his feet and busies himself with friday's boot process, making it look like he's been busy with her all along and not lost in thought, in his nerves.
there's also the ever-present flashes in his head of what peter might look like breathless, red faced, moaning out tony's name, but that's the one he forces away for now. if he's lucky, he won't need to imagine it for long. ]
took you long enough. c'mere.
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[ of course he ignores everything else tony says. everything of substance. everything that matters. ]
i'm thinking we don't have that conversation today
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[ Phase one: denial. ]
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good to know i can lie to you when i need to
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sorry for the delay i wanted to give it a little more length...
no worries! it's great!!
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i am so sorry for him he'll get over it soon
weep we love him anyway
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as promised, the portal opens just to tony's left, and the man is slightly startled out of the comfortable space he'd found himself in. clearly visible on the other side is an otherwise unassuming living room, and tony hesitates just a moment before he stands. ah, this feels. a bit like an invasion of privacy. still, who is tony to say no to an opportunity like this?
so he shoves both hands into his pockets and takes a careful, tentative step inside, bracing himself for that strange lightheaded feeling that strange's portals give him. it never comes; if anything, this one is a little more pleasant, and tony's emergence out the other side is much less jarring.
the sound of running water catches his ear in the otherwise quiet living space, so tony slowly, his eyes still alert, takes a seat and begins to pull his shoes off. his shirt is next, and it gets folded, placed gingerly on the arm of the sofa.
"anyone home?" he calls out into the space, fully aware that he might not be heard over the water. tony makes his way to the bathroom door, drawn by the sound and the light underneath it, then knocks gently and slowly opens it.
"coming in. i hope you're indecent."
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He smiles as the door opens and Tony steps in, eyes drifting down the older man's chest before flicking back up to meet his own gaze. "Looks like you got here in one piece," he teases, as if there was any doubt of that, and sits up a little in the tub, unfolding his arms to reach toward him. "Come on, I'm pretty sure you've been down in your garage way too long today."
As he's down in his garage way too long most days, in Billy's experience, but there's not a lot he can do about that right now.