Chapter Text
Leaving Stephen on the track was perhaps the worst thing he had to do in this moment. After meeting T'Chaka, finding out a shot in the dark play with Charles Xavier had given them results, he'd been on cloud nine. He'd barely reacted to Romanov working with the coordinators who were just so excited to have Tony Stark in person for the race. And did he want to see the cars before the race?
He played along, dressed into a fire resistant diving jumpsuit, and shoehorned his way to his own sponsored car, taking over from his driver. Pissing him and the team off. Just like he had originally. He knew what was to come, so he'd let his driver be mad. This would keep the man safe. Showboating, playing around like he had a death wish. All for the act. He could do this, and would do this.
But he didn't have to not enjoy it. Tony was at his very essence still an adrenaline junkie. He felt the Formula 1 car under him like a forgotten friend. Fun, fast, and lithe. But it wasn't a sit and was therefore inferior.
He shot down the track at the start, linking with the rest of the races and climbing through them for position. So much fun all on its own. Maybe another year he would do this without a crazy douche bag set out to kill him.
Then, the car jerked under his hands without his control. It removed him off walking towards that grenade in Afghanistan. The car crashed, and he hated it. Because at least in his suit, it would absorb the damage.
It was eerie how much he missed being in action. Putting the suit on and fighting. What was different was protecting Stephen at his back. That put an even heavier spin on everything. Before he had protected Pepper and Happy. This time Happy took cover, and Vic was there to make sure Stephen was covered. Stephen, who couldn't use magic without revealing himself, had to play a civilian.
That made putting Ivan on the ground all the sweeter this time. Crushing his inferior version of the Arc in his fist. It still felt easy, almost too easy. So many years of experience telling him Ivan was small potatoes. But Tony had to divide attention to him. This was an open book that needed to close. That he'd intended to close since childhood.
Tony turned his attention to clean up once the authorities claimed Ivan. He helped remove debris, safely pulled the cars apart to let the EMS and Stephen get to driver after driver. Watching Stephen work, like had had during their charity clinics, was a marvel. He commanded the space. Ordering in French and English, splinting and treating wounds professionally and swiftly. It was a wonder, he was so damn perfect.
It soothed the snapping edge of his heightened adrenaline soaked awareness. No longer in action, he didn't have to keep on edge. He even calmed himself down more letting Stephen look after him. Then they had to split up. He still had his role to play. And frankly, a conversation was overdue.
"We ran his prints, we got nothing back, not even a name." The investigator told Tony as he led the way through their holding cells and interview rooms.
"Where is he?" Tony asked firmly.
"Over there," The investigator waved to a doorway ahead of them. "We're not even sure he speaks English, he may not understand us. He hasn't said a word since he got here."
"Five minutes," Tony said and the investigator nodded.
They gathered a the door. Opening it into a darkened interior, with bench seats instead of a table. Ivan was sitting in the center, in only threadbare boxers, cuffed to the bench bolted to the floor. A tapestry of Bratva tattoos covered his body, scars alongside them. His salt and pepper hair was loose about his head. He tilted his head as if noticing he wasn't alone. Like this meeting wasn't all he wanted.
"Decent tech," Tony told him as he crossed the room. Well away from him, but eyeing the figure all the same. He had knowledge he hadn't originally. Would it be worth the change? "Your cycles per second are low. Could double up your rotations. You focused repulsor energy through ionized plasma channels. It's effective, but not very efficient."
Tony sat down on the other end of the bench. He fiddled with his hands for a second, gathering his thoughts and what he wanted to say. If he wanted to say anything. He had had a thought, when he was suffering through infancy and childhood...that maybe he could prevent this? Maybe he could separate Ivan from his father and prevent this situation? He'd obviously been hampered by childhood. But he had thought about buying out Ivan's father for his contributions to the Arc Reactor. But his father had cut them off for a reason, and he knew it in this life. Ivan had been deported for trying to sell the Arc to black market crime syndicates. Deporting the man for that and not to steal his ideas was the reality. Ivan and his father clearly hadn't thought so.
Tony's plan had been to reach adulthood, gain control of the company, and buy out Ivan as reparation. Cutting this entire event off. Then Anton Vanko had sent out a kidnapping order. And Stephen was caught in the crossfire of it. Unacceptable. Tony wasn't amused then; he wasn't amused now. So here they were.
"You know, with a little fine-tuning, you could have sold it to North Korea, China, Iran, or gone to the black market and made a sizable paycheck," Tony said and they looked at one another. In another life, had Ivan's father not gotten in bed with crime syndicates, they might have been friends.
"You come from a family of thieves and butchers," Ivan told him. "And now, like all guilty men, try to rewrite your own history. You forget all the lives the Stark family has destroyed."
"See, I did do my research. I did look into who all the company screwed over before it was in my hands." Tony looked at Ivan. "If you did your research, you'd know your father, was deported for sharing trade secrets with foreign competing bodies. Trying to turn the Arc Reactor into a weaponized energy source."
After the Tesseract, Tony knew Howard hadn't been about that. Not really. Not if he'd hidden the blueprints for the Starkanium element. SHIELD knew, but they didn't know. Only Tony and Howard had in his past life and in this one. Tony shook his head.
"You know, I had thought to reach out when my parents died," Tony said and Ivan looked at him in surprise. "I had thought to pay out all the rights to half the Arc's worth. But then I found this interesting note, about a kidnapping attempt made on me when I was a child. My best friend, my partner was caught up in that. We were children. The kidnappers linked back to your father who put out the order. By then I was looking into who he was, who you were. And he was ass deep in the Bratva and the weapons trade, trying to make up his debts. So, I said I wasn't going to pay out the criminal that tried to have me held for ransom with innocent kids in the crossfire."
He felt the drain on Stephen, because all he got was reassurance. So Tony stayed focused. He nodded to the tattoos on display that Ivan looked down at. Proof of Ivan's personal contributions to the criminal underworld. His ties to the gangs that had owned his father. "Looks like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
"If you can make god bleed, then the people will cease to believe in him. And there will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come." Ivan told him and straightened his tattooed shoulders. "The truth is all I have to do is sit here and watch as the world consumes you."
"Well, see about that." Tony stood up and stalked for the door. His decision final.
"Hey Tony," Ivan spoke, and Tony hid his inward smirk. This was the moment he needed, for all of SHIELD to see. "Palladium in the chest, painful way to die."
"It's just unbelievable, it proves that the genie is out of the bottle and this man has no idea what he's doing. He thinks of the Iron Man weapon as a toy." Senator Stern said looking as stupid and blithe as always on television. "I was at a hearing where Mr. Stark was adamant that it can't exist anywhere else, don't exist anywhere else, never will exist anywhere else. At least for five to ten years, and here we are in Monaco, realizing uh-oh these suits exist now."
"Mute." Stephens' voice cut over the television in the darkened suite room. Tony looked over his shoulder to see his lover in pajama pants and an open robe as he padded to the back of the couch.
"They should be giving me a medal honestly." Tony snarked, because he had originally. And he didn't want to change anything right now. He didn't want to weigh up the pros and cons of one mad man's decisions against his father's. With the reality of the past and this new life in his mind.
"Perhaps, but you don't actually care for the flattery and the fluff. You'd use it as a coaster." Stephen huffed at him as he reached out to run fingers through Tony's still-damp hair. Tony took that hand and pulled it down to kiss. Letting the texture of his hand soothe the roiling irritation inside him.
"No, no, I don't care. I just... don't want to deal with Stern, is all. He wants to put his mitts all over my second baby." Tony pouted, letting it soothe him.
"It would be your sixth baby." Stephen corrected him and Tony grinned.
"Have I told you it's sexy that you remember my children?" Tony teased and smiled at the eye roll that earned him.
"James will not let them play with War Machine, the contract states that he alone will decide if War Machine is necessary or not. And your contract, which is in talks with the president right now, mind you, says the same. There will be no other pilot, there will be no actual government oversight, and it will be in the best hands possible." Stephen told him and turned his hand to cup Tony's jaw. His long lean form bent over the couch to kiss him. "Don't let Senator Stern bother you."
"I won't," Tony smiled, looking at him. "How was your nap?"
"Restful, it was not a major change Tony. I didn't even get a nosebleed." Stephen told him, his stormy eyes looked him over and assessed the wound under his eye as well. "How was your talk with Vanko?"
"It did what was needed, gave SHIELD what they need to think they can control me. I knew he was bad before. After Fury told me what Vanko wanted with the Arc. Ivan was the more practical of the two it seems. My father didn't want to allow the Arc to be weaponized in either life. Besides, they tried to kidnap us. Ivan can rot," Tony answered. He'd made up his mind. "I pay him out and he just keeps coming back, pawing at me, my company, and the assets he thinks he deserves. His father did this. Not my father, and not me."
Tony reached out to draw Stephen around the couch to join him. His doctor wizard lay down, and Tony crawled across him to cuddle. A facsimile of all the times they did this, all the way back to childhood in Cambridge House. When they had been denying feelings but were unable to stay away from one another. He pressed his ear to Stephen's chest and listened to his heart beat. Safe, strong, home.
"I won't let anyone think they can use you. If you don't want to then you'd don't have to. Ivan Vanko is not part of our mission. He's just part of your journey." Stephen told him as he worked those dexterous fingers into his hair. Tony melted into the touch.
"Goddamnit." Tony cursed and wrapped his arm tighter around Stephen.
"What?" Stephen startled, and Tony rolled until he was on top of his lover.
"Our friends were betting on some bullshit. And I'm proving them right." Tony growled and held out his hand focusing hard on what magic he did know. He didn't make it look effortless like Stephen could, but he beconed with his whole hand instead of his fingers. And the little ring box he'd been toting around flew to him.
"Tony?" Stephen questioned.
"Stephen," Tony sat up fully, and Stephen stayed where he was, hands now framing Tony's hips as he straddled him. "I love you, I never thought even in the first life that I could feel like this. That I could love and be loved like this. You're trying to save the universe and still give me the world. I feel you in me like Disney romance songs and every possible sense of support imaginable. I never feel like I'm going to screw us up. I've never been so sure about something in my life, not since I set that bet with you. Not since you lost that bet to me."
"Tch," Stephen scoffed but his side of the bond was a riot of emotions, positive and excited. Warm and accepting, with a little swoop of fearful anticipation. Maybe that was Tony though?
"Anyways, we've done this whole journey together so far. Hiding from Stane, and I hated that. I hated not coming to this point sooner. It just wasn't safe. And I never want you to be unsafe because of me. And I know we're going to be doing stupid, dangerous shit in the next decade. I know we're going to risk it all. But right now, we're here. And it's you and me. And that's all I want, just you and me." Tony opened the box for his show ring made from pieces of the Iron Man suit, designed to adjust the side, shape, and weight if Stephen ever wanted it. He still knew the actual marriage vow in magic, but that would come later. If Stephen accepted. He presented the ring to his partner and looked into the gray eyes he loved. As mesmerized now as he'd been when he'd first seen them. "Will you Marry Me, Stephen Strange?"