Chapter Text
Tony Stark was, predictably, bored.
The auditorium at the Zurich Convention Center smelled of new carpet, cold coffee, and the academic despair of two hundred people who had paid three thousand Swiss francs to hear a Harvard cardiologist repeat the obvious with slides in Comic Sans disguised as "minimalism."
He was sitting in the last row of the auditorium at the Zurich Convention Center, hidden behind his dark red-tinted glasses, balancing a stylus pen between his fingers. On stage, a renowned cardiologist, whose name Tony had already forgotten and mentally renamed "Dr. Monotonous," was presenting a study on vascular grafts that was at least five years behind the technology Tony had in his drawer of "discarded projects."
"...and therefore, long-term viability remains inconclusive," concluded Dr. Monotonous.
Tony stifled a sigh. He just needed to hold on for another ten minutes. Pepper would kill him if he left before the break. He was already calculating the quickest escape route to the bar when the moderator opened the floor for questions.
A polite silence filled the room. Timid hands went up. Tony was about to stand up to ask a question that would humiliate the poor guy, just for the sake of sports.
Then, someone stood up in the third row.
Tony noticed the posture first. The man didn't stand; he unfolded with a lazy elegance. Impeccable pinstripe suit—tailor-made, probably Italian, Tony's brain cataloged—hair combed back with a touch of gray at the temples, and an aura of self-confidence that made the air around him seem thinner.
Tony recognized that face. The covers of Forbes, Time, and Scientific American. "The man who turns the impossible into routine."
Dr. Stephen Strange.
"Your methodology on slide four is fundamentally flawed," Strange's voice rang out across the auditorium, unaided by the microphone his assistant was rushing to hand him. It was a deep, authoritative, and utterly bored voice.
The speaker blinked, confused. "Excuse me?"
The assistant nearly tripped while running with the microphone. Strange caught it without looking, his fingers gripping the cable with a firmness that made Tony swallow hard involuntarily.
“You’re basing your tissue rejection calculations on 2018 data. If you had applied Wolpert’s Law of cell regeneration, you would know that the ‘inconclusive’ result of your study is actually just a 0.4% miscalculation in your control variable.” Strange paused, tilting his head slightly, a predatory grin spreading across his lips. “In short, Doctor: the patient didn’t reject the graft. Your math defied logic.”
A shocked murmur echoed through the room. It was brutal. It was arrogant.
It was the hottest thing Tony had seen in six months.
Tony straightened up in his chair, his glasses slipping slightly to the tip of his nose. The boredom evaporated, replaced by that familiar electric hum he heard when he encountered a new puzzle.
Strange handed the microphone back to the stunned assistant and sat down again, checking his wristwatch as if he had just told the time, not ruined someone's career. He didn't even look back. He didn't need to. He knew he was the smartest person in the room.
Well, thought Tony, a crooked smile curving his lips as he stood, completely ignoring Pepper's whispered protests beside him. The second smartest.
Tony needed that man. Or, at the very least, he needed to see if all that arrogance could last five minutes in a verbal battle with a Stark.
"Where are you going?" Pepper hissed, grabbing his arm.
"Networking, Pep," Tony replied, without taking his eyes off the back of Stephen Strange's neck. "I think I've just found someone who speaks my language."
_______
The hotel bar was a depressing extension of the convention center: beige carpet, excessively bright lighting, and wine that probably came from a crate.
Tony leaned against the bar, swirling a glass of cheap whiskey—the "best in the house," according to the bartender—His eyes, hidden behind his glasses, swept across the crowded room filled with white coats and dangling name tags. And there he was: Stephen Strange, isolated at a high table in the corner. He was typing on a tablet. Three doctors—two nervous residents and a professor with a ridiculous bow tie—orbited around him, trying to strike up a conversation with idiotic questions about "trends in craniotomy." Strange ignored them: a nod here, a distracted "hm" there, never raising his eyes.
Tony smiled. Here I go.
He crossed the room, the confidence of someone who owns half the hemisphere radiating from every step. He stopped right next to Stephen's desk, casually invading his personal space—close enough for Tony's body heat to mingle with his, but not close enough to justify a punch. Yet.
"I hope you're writing an apology letter to the poor cardiologist you gutted in there," Tony said, his voice low and laden with that lazy playboy charm that had already toppled empires (and panties). He tilted his head, letting a glimpse of white teeth show through his smile. "The man looked like he was going to cry."
Stephen didn't blink. He wasn't startled. He didn't drop the tablet, as if Tony were just an annoying buzzing sound in the air.
"He should be crying," Stephen's voice was calm, deep, and not at all impressed. "His incompetence made me waste forty-five minutes of my life. Time that, unlike yours, Stark, is spent saving lives, not posing for magazines."
Finally, he locked the screen with a click and turned in his high chair, his eyes slowly rising to meet Tony's. Those clear, stormy eyes scanned Tony's body, a clinical analysis that made Tony feel stripped bare and placed under a microscope.
“Doctor Strange,” Tony greeted, widening his smile to “magazine cover” level, leaning forward a little further. “I’m glad to see your ego is as big as your reputation.”
"And I'm disappointed to see that your height is inversely proportional to his," Stephen retorted without hesitation, picking up his wine glass.
Tony blinked, the low blow landing squarely, but instead of anger, a shiver of excitement washed over him. Dirty trick. I liked it .
— Ouch. A direct hit to the Napoleon complex. Very original, Doctor — Tony chuckled softly, moving even closer, resting his elbow on the high table, invading Stephen's field of vision. The scent of expensive antiseptic and woody cologne overwhelmed his senses. — I was thinking… this place is deadly boring. I have a suite on the top floor. I have a bottle of Macallan 18 that doesn't taste like nail polish remover, and a view of Zurich that makes up for the company.
It was the classic card. The "Stark Look"—half-closed eyes, crooked smile, implicit promise of unforgettable nights. It worked with everyone: models, actresses, journalists . Tony waited for the sparkle in their eyes, the subtle blush, the veiled acceptance.
Stephen, however, let out a short, dry laugh.
"Do you think this will work on me?" Stephen asked, arching a perfectly drawn eyebrow, his tone condescending as if he were explaining basic anatomy to an idiot resident.
"It usually works with everyone," Tony admitted, his arrogance faltering for a microsecond, just long enough for a muscle in his jaw to twitch.
Stephen leaned forward then, his face inches from Tony's. Tony felt his breath—warm, controlled—brush his skin, and something in his stomach tightened, descending further south.
“So you must be used to people who are impressed by shiny objects and inflated bank accounts,” Stephen murmured, his deep voice vibrating in Tony’s chest. “I’m a neurosurgeon, Stark. I spend my days navigating the most complex thing in the known universe: the human brain. Do you think a bottle of whiskey and a cheap invitation for casual sex are going to dazzle me? Make me fall to my knees?”
Tony opened his mouth for a sharp retort, something witty about "knees" and "dexterity," but nothing came out.
His brain short-circuited. Nobody talked to him like that. Nobody rejected him with such... class. The rejection wasn't a moralistic "no"; it was a "you need to try harder".
And, holy shit, Tony was hard as a rock.
The intelligence, the arrogance, the utter lack of subservience... Tony felt a heat rise up his neck that had nothing to do with alcohol. It was as if Stephen had been tailor-made to flip all the wrong (and right) switches in Tony's brain. He needed to dismantle that perfect facade, mess up that impeccable gray hair, hear that baritone voice break into hoarse moans.
"You're speechless," Stephen observed, a satisfied smile curving his lips. He seemed to revel in Tony's silence. "This must be unprecedented. I'll ask the Guinness Book of Records to register it."
Stephen finished his wine in one elegant gulp, stood up, and smoothed his suit.
"It was a... pleasure, Stark. But if you want my attention, you'll have to offer something more stimulating than your money or your body. Try using that brain you claim to have."
Stephen began to walk away, leaving Tony standing in the middle of the bar, with the forgotten glass of whiskey in his hand and his heart pounding against his ribs.
Tony spun on his heels.
"Hey!" he called, loud enough to turn a few heads. "I'm also an expert on hands. Robotic hands, of course. But I bet I can teach you a thing or two about manual dexterity."
Stephen stopped. He didn't turn completely, but Tony saw his profile. Was there a smile there? A small, almost imperceptible smile at the corner of his mouth?
"Tomorrow. 10 a.m. My lecture on neuroplasticity," Stephen said, without looking back. "If you can keep up without falling asleep, maybe I'll let you pay for lunch."
And with that, he left, leaving Tony Stark — the man who had everything but the patience for games he couldn't control — completely starved.
Ah, it's a game, Tony thought, biting his lower lip as he watched Stephen disappear into the elevator. And I'm going to win.