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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.

Chapter Text

Tony didn't go to bed. Sleeping would be admitting defeat, and Tony Stark didn't lose. Never. Especially not to doctors with God complexes and cheekbones that should be illegal. No, he would stay awake, uncovering every secret of that son of a bitch until Stephen Strange was forced to admit that Tony was, at the very least, his equal. Or better yet: his superior.

At 3:17 a.m., the hotel's presidential suite looked less like a bedroom and more like a crisis command center.

Blue holograms floated above the unmade bed, projected directly from the private server Tony carried everywhere – because trusting hotel Wi-Fi was asking to be hacked. Neurosurgery charts swirled in the air. Videos of surgical procedures – bloody things that would make most people vomit – were playing on a loop .

Tony was sitting on the floor, his back against the sofa, surrounded by empty pizza boxes and water bottles, his eyes fixed on a grainy recording of a 2012 craniectomy.

" Pause " Tony ordered into the air. The image froze on Stephen's gloved hands. " JARVIS, zoom in on the incision angle. Calculate the hand's stability."

A synthetic voice, still in its early stages of development — soft, British, with a touch of irony that Tony had personally programmed — answered through the speakers of the laptop beside him.

" The vibration is less than 0.02 millimeters, sir. Statistically, this is more stable than a standard surgical robotic arm from competitor Hammer Industries ."

"Of course he is," Tony murmured, leaning his head back on the sofa and running a hand over his tired face. "He's a machine. It's annoying."

Tony hated to admit it, but Strange's arrogance wasn't unfounded. He'd read twelve articles the man had published in the last four hours. Every single one was brilliant. The bastard cited quantum physics in footnotes about nerve regeneration. He used advanced mathematics to predict hemorrhages.

It was... fascinating.

Tony bit his lip, feeling that familiar tug in his lower abdomen. It wasn't just academic respect. Seeing Strange's mind dissected in those papers was almost as intimate as touching him.

The suite door opened with an electronic beep .

Tony didn't move, not even when the sound of stiletto heels echoed across the wooden floor.

"I brought coffee and aspirin, assuming you'd be hungover after trying to drink all the whiskey in the bar," Pepper Potts' voice sounded behind him. "Or maybe I should have brought a lawyer? Did you offend some diplomat? Did you sleep with the organizer's wife?"

Tony twirled a neural network diagram with his finger, making it spin away. "Good morning to you too, Pep. And for your information, I haven't had a drink since I left the bar. I'm working."

Pepper stopped. Her silence was heavy, assessing, as if she were calculating the cost of yet another Stark folly. She walked slowly around the sofa, her heels clicking, until she was facing him. Ignoring the mess on the floor—the pizza boxes, the rolling bottles—she looked up at the floating holograms. She saw the surgery videos, the scientific articles highlighted in red, and Stephen's profile picture enlarged on a separate screen: the one from the Metro-General Hospital website, where he looked like a high-fashion model in a green surgical suit, his eyes grey-blue.

She blinked. She looked at Tony. She looked at the screen again. “Tony,” she began, her voice cautious. “Who is he? And why do you have a complete dossier on his life floating around in the middle of the room?”

"Dr. Stephen Strange," Tony said the name as if testing his taste. "Neurosurgeon. Absolute genius. A complete jerk. He told me I have a Napoleon complex, Pep. Me. Napoleon."

Pepper sighed, that long, pained sigh of someone who isn't paid enough to deal with billionaire egos in existential crisis. She placed the coffee on the glass coffee table, next to a stack of crumpled printouts.

"You tried to get him into bed and he said no, didn't you?"

“He didn’t say no, ” Tony quickly corrected, rising from the floor with an audible crack in his back, his muscles protesting against hours of immobility. “He said I needed to try harder. He said my money didn’t impress him. Can you believe that? Someone immune to Stark charm and Stark bank account. Statistically improbable.”

Pepper crossed her arms, a knowing smile playing on her lips. "And now you're... what? Studying for the medical school entrance exam?"

"I'm preparing for battle," Tony said, grabbing his coffee and taking a desperate gulp. "He has a lecture at 10 a.m. Neuroplasticity. He challenged me to show up."

"He challenged you," Pepper said, raising an eyebrow. 

“He implied I’d be too dumb to keep up,” Tony corrected, gesturing to the holograms. “So I spent the night memorizing his entire career. I’m going to walk into that room, Pep, and ask the most complex, brilliant, and devastating question that auditorium has ever seen. I’m going to tie his arrogant brain in knots.”

Pepper laughed. She shook her head, picking up her tablet to check her schedule for the day. "Oh my God, Tony."

" What? It's simply a matter of intellectual dominance. Pure and simple."

" You're completely in love. Or obsessed. Same thing in your dictionary."

Tony choked on his coffee. "I'm not in love! I met the guy six hours ago! I want to destroy him academically and then see if he's as flexible as he is morally. This is lust and competitiveness, Potts. Keep things clear."

“Of course, ‘lust and competitiveness.’ That’s exactly how you started building that V8 engine from scratch in the living room last year,” Pepper walked to the door. “The car’s waiting downstairs in 20 minutes. Take a shower. You look like a mad scientist, and if you want to impress Dr. Strange, I suggest you wear the navy blue suit. The Tom Ford one.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest, but Pepper was already leaving.

"Oh, and Tony?" she paused in the doorway, glancing back. "Try not to propose to him in the middle of the Q&A session. We have a flight at 4 p.m."

The door closed.

Tony stood alone in the silence of the room, surrounded by the blue glow of the holograms. He looked at Stephen's photo again. The intense gaze, the raised chin.

"Marriage? Please," Tony snorted at the empty room. "I just want to see him lose his composure."

He canceled the holograms with a quick wave of his hand.

"JARVIS, get your blue suit ready. And download the latest three studies on peripheral nerve tissue regeneration. I have twenty minutes in the car to read them."

The game was on. And Tony Stark was never late for a challenge.

________

The auditorium was packed. Medical students sat on the steps, residents crowded at the doors. The air was thick with the silent reverence usually reserved for religious figures or rock stars.

At the center of the stage, under a single spotlight, Stephen conducted the room.

He didn't use notes—not a card, not a tablet. He didn't look at the giant screen behind him, where 3D holograms of neural networks spun in hypnotic loops. Instead, he walked around the stage with his hands casually tucked into the pockets of his charcoal-gray suit trousers, dissecting the complexities of post-traumatic synaptic remapping as if he were reciting the alphabet to children. His voice—deep, authoritative, with that timbre that vibrated in the chest of the listener—filled the space effortlessly.

Tony slipped into the front row exactly three minutes after the start. He was wearing the navy blue Tom Ford suit—as Pepper had ordered—and violet-tinted glasses. He didn't ask permission. He simply sat in the empty chair reserved for the "University Dean," which no one had dared to occupy, sprawling in the seat in a relaxed manner, legs crossed, a crooked smile already curving his lips.

Stephen didn't even blink. He continued his sentence without a pause, without a break in rhythm.

"The biggest obstacle, however, remains the latency in signal transmission between the synthetic graft and the residual nerve tissue," Stephen explained, projecting a 3D model of a damaged spinal cord. "Biological electrical resistance creates a delay of 0.4 milliseconds. It seems irrelevant, but for the human motor system, it's the difference between holding a glass and smashing it."

The room was silent. It was the "unsolvable problem" of the field. The Berlin Wall of modern neurosurgery.

Tony felt that familiar buzzing at the base of his skull. He knew that problem. He had solved something similar in the gyroscope system of the Jericho missiles two years ago.

He didn't raise his hand. Why stoop to protocol when you're Tony Stark?

"It's an impedance problem, not a biological one," Tony's voice broke the respectful silence of the room.

Three hundred heads turned simultaneously toward the front row. There were audible gasps. Someone in the back dropped a pen. Interrupting Stephen during a lecture was academic suicide.

Stephen stopped walking. He turned slowly on his heels, looking down at where Tony was sprawled in the chair. Stephen's face showed no shock. No anger. Not even surprise. He merely arched an eyebrow, his expression unreadable.

"Go on, Mr. Stark," Stephen said, his tone dry. "Since you've decided to honor the academy with your voice, enlighten us."

Tony stood up, buttoning his jacket with one hand.

"You're trying to force the signal through scar tissue. It's like trying to pass an elephant through a garden hose. The resistance increases, the heat rises, the signal is delayed." Tony gestured to the hologram on stage. "You don't need better grafts. You need a predictive bridging algorithm. If the implant guesses the movement 0.4 milliseconds before the nerve impulse arrives, the latency drops to zero."

The room held its breath. It was brilliant. It was an application of mechanical engineering to pure biology.

Tony smiled, anticipating the shock. Anticipating Stephen would be speechless. Anticipating that "ah, he got me" moment that Tony loved to see in his rivals' eyes.

But Stephen just... sighed. A short, almost bored sigh.

"A predictive algorithm," Stephen repeated monotonously. He turned to the screen and, with a gesture of his hand, changed the slide to the next one.

There it was.

In the bottom right corner of slide 42, in small print: " Possibility of correction via predictive AI: discarded due to thermal load ."

Tony froze, his smile faltering for a microsecond, his stomach clenching in a mixture of frustration and... excitement?

“Your suggestion is lovely, Stark, and it would be revolutionary if we were building toasters,” Stephen said, turning back to face the audience and completely ignoring Tony. “But the processing required for a real-time predictive algorithm would generate about 40 degrees of heat. It would cook the nerve endings in three minutes. The patient would have perfect movement for 180 seconds and then be permanently paralyzed.”

The audience laughed. A nervous but genuine laugh.

Stephen looked at Tony again, his eyes gleaming with that dangerous intelligence.

"Unless you have a subatomic cooling system in the pocket of that expensive suit, I suggest you leave medicine to the doctors and go back to building your toys." Stephen paused dramatically. "Any more contributions from mechanical engineering, or can I continue saving hypothetical lives?"

Tony felt his face grow hot. He wasn't ashamed.

He was excited .

Stephen had not only anticipated Tony's solution; he had refuted it before the lecture even began. He was three steps ahead.

Tony sat down slowly, a wide, genuine smile spreading across his face, his eyes fixed on Stephen like one predator admiring another.

"No more questions, Doctor," Tony replied, his voice hoarse. "Go on. I'm fascinated."

***

An hour later, the lobby was in chaos: groups of academics swarming like shoals of fish, hands outstretched for handshakes, business cards exchanged in reverent whispers. Everyone wanted a piece of Strange—a question, a photo, a crumb of wisdom.

Tony leaned against a marble column, watching Stephen politely dismiss a group of German researchers. As soon as the last one left, Stephen checked his wristwatch—a discreet but obscenely expensive Patek Philippe—sighed with a touch of impatience, and looked directly at the column where Tony was "hiding."

"You're as persistent as a viral infection, Stark," Stephen said, walking toward him without slowing his pace. "The kind that resists antibiotics."

Tony pushed himself away from the column with a lazy shove, landing on the step beside him.

"And you're the first person in a decade to make me look stupid in public," Tony said cheerfully. "That was amazing. The thermal load detail? A stroke of genius. Although I could solve that with a heat-dissipating gold-titanium alloy..."

Stephen stopped abruptly in the middle of the lobby, forcing Tony to stop as well. They were now standing in front of the hotel's glass doors.

"Gold-titanium is toxic to the central nervous system if corrosion occurs," Stephen retorted instantly.

"Not if I use a vacuum-sealed polymer coating," Tony countered, without blinking, his eyes locked on Stephen's.

Stephen blinked. For the first time that day, there was a pause. He looked at Tony, really looked, calculating the physics of the suggestion.

"...Sealed polymer," Stephen murmured. "That would increase the thickness of the implant by 2 micrometers."

"Which is irrelevant if you use the epidural cavity for anchoring," Tony finished, stepping forward and invading Stephen's personal space again.

They stood in the hotel entrance, pedestrians dodging them. The air between them crackled. It wasn't just sexual tension, though there was plenty of that; it was the electricity of two nuclear reactors coming into sync.

Stephen exhaled slowly, a reluctant, almost painful smile curving the corner of his mouth. That same smug smile Tony had seen the night before, but now there was something more. Respect.

"You said you'd pay for lunch," Stephen said, his voice low and hoarse.

" I said it. And I keep my promises. Sometimes."

" I hope you like Thai food. Authentic Thai food, not that Americanized junk. And if you try to impress me with the price of the wine again, I'm leaving. Without hesitation."

Tony grinned, opening the glass door for him with an exaggerated flourish, the cold wind slightly ruffling both their hair. "Doctor, after that verbal beating in there? I'd let you order a Happy Meal if you wanted."

Stephen rolled his eyes, walking past him. "Don't push your luck, Stark. Come on. Can you explain to me how you intend to vacuum-seal polymer without compromising its structural integrity? I have 45 minutes before my next roundtable. Try to be concise."

Tony watched Stephen walk out first, his posture impeccable, his suit billowing in the cold Zurich wind.

Tony had already had everything he wanted in life—money, power, admiration. But as he followed Stephen out of the hotel, his heart pounding at a rate he couldn't control, he realized he had never worked hard for anything. He had never needed to.

Until now . And, holy shit, it was addictive.

Chapter Text

The Thai restaurant was small, noisy, and smelled of lemongrass, roasted red chilies, and sesame oil burning in a wok. Formica tables crammed together, creaking ceiling fans, a TV in the corner showing football without sound. Perfect. No Michelin stars, no wine priced like a car. Just good food, honest noise, and zero chance of anyone recognizing Tony Stark or Stephen Strange in there.

Tony loved it.

He enjoyed even more watching Stephen Vincent Strange – the man who looked like he had been carved from marble and dressed by Italian tailors – graciously wrestling with a pair of cheap bamboo chopsticks while discussing thermodynamics.

"You're not listening," Stephen said, pointing a shrimp at Tony. "The problem isn't the material. It's the interface. You can coat it with whatever you want, Stark, but if the nerve ending doesn't 'believe' the metal is bone, it's going to recoil."

Tony pushed his half-eaten plate of Pad Thai aside, wiped his fingers on the napkin, and pulled a new one—cheap paper, red border with Thai ideograms—from the dispenser.

"So we just mess up the ending," Tony said, pulling a fine-tipped pen from his inside jacket pocket. "Look here."

He drew a quick sketch, black lines cutting across the white paper.

Instead of a direct connection, we created a haptic feedback loop. The nerve fires, the chip vibrates at the natural bone frequency. The body thinks "ah, that's me" and grows around the implant, not against it.

Tony slid the napkin across the table. His fingers brushed against Stephen's.

It was just a touch. Skin against skin.

But after hours of verbal duel, it felt like a 220-volt electric shock.

Stephen stopped. He looked at the drawing. His eyes, that stormy, intelligent blue, traced the lines of Tony's solution. He saw the elegance in it. The simplicity.

He slowly raised his gaze, meeting Tony's brown eyes.

"A bone resonant frequency," Stephen whispered. The arrogance had vanished, replaced by something far more dangerous: pure admiration. "This... this would work."

"I know it would work," Tony said, his voice hoarse. He didn't remove his hand. His fingers were still touching Stephen's on the scribbled napkin. "Because I'm a genius."

Stephen let out a low laugh, a sound that vibrated in Tony's chest.

"You're unbearable," Stephen said, but he turned his hand, intertwining his long, firm fingers with Tony's. The grip was tight. Possessive.

The air left Tony's lungs. The noise from the restaurant faded.

"And you," Stephen continued, leaning across the table, his eyes darkening with undisguised desire, "have a fascinating mind, Stark. It would be a waste to leave it focused solely on theory."

Tony swallowed hard. The challenge was there again. But this time, the prize wasn't lunch.

"My suite is three minutes from here," Tony said. "I have a whiteboard. And a bed. Not necessarily in that order of priority."

Stephen squeezed Tony's hand, pulling him slightly toward him.

"Forget the whiteboard," Stephen murmured. "I want to test your physical endurance."

The bill was paid with an oversized bill that Tony had tossed on the table without looking at the amount or checking the change. The drive to the hotel was a blur.

Hands on the back seat of the Mercedes, Stephen biting Tony's earlobe while the driver pretended to be blind.

The elevator was going up too slowly, Stephen pinning Tony against the mirrored wall, his tongue invading, his fingers already loosening the knot of his tie.

Top floor hallway, Tony walking backwards, kissing, stumbling, laughing against Stephen's mouth.

The suite door slammed shut.

There was no more talk about polymers or nerves.

Stephen shoved Tony against the first available vertical surface—a glass wall—and ripped the buttons off his shirt. Buttons flew off.

"This suit cost twelve thousand dollars," Tony managed to say between kisses.

"Send the bill to my lawyer," Stephen growled, already on his knees, unbuckling Tony's belt with his fingers. "Or better yet, I'll pay with interest."

His mouth was hot, demanding, perfect. Tony banged his head against the wall, groaning loudly enough for the next room to complain.

Chapter Text

The morning light in Zurich was grey and merciless. It streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows, illuminating the jumble of clothes scattered across the carpet: a suit, a tie used as a makeshift blindfold sometime during the night, and the crumpled but salvaged restaurant napkin on the headboard.

Stephen was already awake.

Of course he was. The man would probably wake up at 4:57 AM even after being fucked until he lost his voice.

Tony watched from the bed, eyes half-closed, the sheet wrapped around his waist. Stephen was finishing buttoning his white shirt, his back to him. His back was broad, his shoulders tense as he adjusted the collar in the mirror. He seemed composed. Untouchable. As if the previous night—the moans, the sweaty skin, the moment he whispered Tony against his neck like a prayer—had never happened.

Tony felt a cold pang in his chest. Here we go again , he thought. The "it was a mistake" or "I have a career to protect" part .

He hated that part.

"Are you going to leave without saying goodbye, Doctor?" he asked, her voice hoarse from sleep and from shouting Stephen's name until he was breathless.

Stephen stopped. He turned slowly, finishing tying the perfect knot in his tie. He looked impeccable, except for his hair, which was still slightly disheveled, a small trophy of Tony's victory.

"I have a flight in two hours," Stephen said. His tone was calm and practical. "And you have a meeting with investors at nine. I saw your schedule on the tablet."

"Did you snoop through my schedule?" Tony sat up, the sheet slipping dangerously low on his hips. "That's a violation of privacy, Strange. I can sue."

“Scientific curiosity,” Stephen said, a slight smile curving the corner of his mouth. He walked to the bed, stopping beside Tony. He didn’t lean in to kiss him. He stood there, tall and unreachable. “Last night was… instructive.”

Tony snorted in disbelief. "Instructive? I gave you three orgasms"—he held up four fingers—"four, if you count that one in the shower that you denied happened, and the solution to a problem that neurosurgery considers unsolvable, and you give me an 'instructive'? Are you a robot, Strange? Do I need to check if there's a battery in your chest?"

Stephen laughed. He leaned forward, placing his hands on the mattress, one on each side of Tony's hips, so close they were face to face. Close enough for Tony to feel his warmth, the scent of soap.

"That was the best night of my life, Tony," Stephen said, honesty glistening in those grey-blue eyes for a second, completely disarming Tony. "But I live in New York. You live in Malibu. And we're both married to our jobs. This has no future."

Tony sensed the challenge. The logical "no".

Tony Stark never took "no" for an answer. Ever.

Especially when it came wrapped in so much logic.

"New York, huh?" Tony leaned back against the headboard, crossing his arms behind his head, letting the sheet slip a little further just to see Stephen swallow hard. "Funny you mention that. Stark Industries is opening a new biotechnology division. It's on the East Coast. I'd need a senior consultant. Someone to yell at me when I ignore the laws of biology."

Stephen raised an eyebrow. "Are you offering me a job so I'll keep sleeping with you?"

"I'm offering you consulting services," Tony corrected, with a mischievous grin. "The pay is obscene. Access to technology is unlimited. And the board meetings... well, they can happen wherever we want. Including in this bed."

Stephen looked at Tony. He looked at the napkin on the bedside table. He knew it was an excuse. Tony knew it was an excuse.

Stephen grabbed his jacket. He pulled a heavy, black business card with silver lettering from the inside pocket and threw it onto Tony's bare chest.

"Send the contract to my lawyer," Stephen said, heading towards the door. "And Stark?"

Yes, Doctor?

Stephen stopped in the doorway, looking back with that arrogant, devastating smile. "If the 'private meetings' clause isn't included, in bold, with an attachment of preferred positions and a minimum weekly frequency... I won't sign."

The door slammed shut with a soft click.

Tony took the card, twirling it between his fingers as a victorious smile spread across his face. He picked up the phone.

"Pepper?" he said as soon as she answered. "Cancel my trip to Malibu. We're going to make a stop in New York. I have a contract to draft."