A life together

Beginnings

DISCLAIMER THIS IS NOT MY WORK I HAVE GOTTEN PERMISSION TO POST THIS

https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anothershadow24/pseuds/Anothershadow24

-2008-

Tony Stark was angry. Well, not angry, but quite irritated.

You must be wondering why. It's actually quite simple.

Pepper - loving, intelligent, annoying Pepper - locked him out of his own goddamn house with the help of J.A.R.V.I.S. just because he got drunk. Again. So now, he finds himself waking up in the Malibu Public Library with one of the worst hangovers of the last year. Why in the public library? No clue. It's not like he remembers much of what happened that night.

"Sir, you can't sleep here." Tony, still trying to figure out what he was doing there, looked up from where he was sitting on the floor against the wall. An older woman was watching him with judgement in her gaze. "Oh wow, are you Tony Stark?"

"Nope, just a copycat here. I need money to buy breakfast, you know? What do you think? Is the beard okay? Maybe it's too dark, maybe it's not accurate enough, I don't know... I don't trust the photos that they publish in magazines. Either way, I'm much more handsome than the original billionaire, don't you think? "

Rolling her eyes, the lady turned and began to walk away. "If you're not going to look for a book then you can start walking towards the exit"

"How nice of you," he said as he got up muttering. First time in years he walked into this place, he might as well look around. It can't hurt anyone. The loneliness and silence may even help get rid of the killer headache.

Anyone who reads the tabloids would think that the great Tony Stark, master of technology, would despise a library. However, since Edwin Jarvis - his family butler - had a habit of giving him a book for each of his birthdays while growing up, this differed greatly from reality.

He enjoyed the silence of the place. Rows and rows of shelves filled with unexplored worlds, stories to discover, things to learn, words to enjoy. And at the end of one of the corridors, the silhouette of a person.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor and completely absorbed by the book in his hands, was a man.

A handsome man.

A handsome giggling man.

"I've finally seen it all"

The man looked up, still smiling at whatever it was that was causing him such amusement, and almost knocked the air out of Tony with his piercing green eyes.

"I do not know what you mean," he replied, tilting his head to the side curiously.

"This is the first time I've heard someone laugh in the library. Especially if that laugh was caused by a book. Don't get me wrong, but unless that's a book about bad jokes there, it doesn't make much sense."

He smirked, "Perhaps you have not read enough books to have an informed opinion on it. You too would laugh if you read such nonsense."

"What are you even reading?" He asked, taking a few steps closer.

"Nordic mythology", he turned the book and showed him an image of a horse with eight legs. "This animal is supposedly the son of the God of mischief, lies and fire."

Tony huffed upon hearing that, "See? That right there is why I don't like myths. I'm a man of science. I need proven facts, theories, hypotheses. An eight-legged horse? Could be. Now, an eight-legged horse, son of a God on an unknown planet with a colorful bridge and magic hammers... that's a little more difficult to believe. But hey, we don't know everything about space. We could be part of a floating particle in another completely different universe. Who knows?"