The Hamptons' House

2012: Part 1

You didn't see Tony in person in the three years between 2009 and 2012. In a way, that was a good thing. He'd said if he got so sick and sure that his arc was going to kill him, he'd call you and you'd get to say goodbye. That didn't happen - he was still here and you were once again in the car with Kurt headed to the house in the Hamptons. Tony was alive and though he'd never called to tell you that he'd solved the problem with his arc reactor killing him, you knew that he must have.

Besides, even though you hadn't seen him in person, you'd seen him on television a lot. You'd seen clips of him at the launch of the Stark Expo. You weren't of whether or not he had fixed the problem at that stage. He looked healthy enough, but you knew too well how good he was at faking being okay.

You'd then seen him again at a press conference after the HAMMER industry attack on the expo, and while you couldn't tell for sure, the arc looked like it had gone from a circle within a circle to a triangular shape inside the circular housing. Whatever the case, he was still going strong every time he popped up on news reports about Iron Man or Stark Industries.

Then a few months ago, there were reports of an actual Norse god attacking someone at a museum event in Germany, and then a day later aliens spewed out of the sky in New York. Tony and the group calling themselves the Avengers were all over the news. The story saturated the media. Aliens existed and they were hostile and now a group of what was being called superheroes were all that stood in the way between them and the inhabitants of Earth.

Except Tony wasn't a super anything. He was a hero. If anyone tried to argue otherwise you'd be the first to stand up and tear their argument apart. But he was just a regular guy. A regular guy with his ribs carved out and a heavy magnet thrust into his chest cavity. A regular guy with a problem with alcohol and a heart condition. He wasn't a super soldier or a god. He just had a metal suit.

That was when the stone-cold truth of what having this kind of relationship really meant. Tony Stark could die at any time and you'd most likely hear about it first on the news.

There had been a moment when that had struck you, where you seriously considered just ending it. You only saw him every three years; it could potentially be possible to just stop and have it not be a big deal. Then when you got the news he'd been killed by some crazed being from another planet, it wouldn't hurt as bad. He was just a guy you'd known once a long time ago.

In the end, you knew that wouldn't work. Tony was important to you. You couldn't just ghost him like that. You'd named one of your daughters after him. He wasn't just an acquaintance you saw once in a while.

More than that was the knowledge you had that you were important to him. You were a constant for him in a chaotic world. He deserved to have that. Not just because you loved him and cared about him, but because if he was going to go out there and put his life at risk he deserved to have someone there who was always there that cared about him.

"You think any of those other Avengers will be there?" Kurt asked as he turned into Tony's street.

"Pretty sure Thor isn't on Earth anymore," you said.

"Damn, I bet he'd have totally been up for an orgy," Kurt mused. "His people wouldn't all be hung up on sex like they are here."

"His people are aliens," you said. "They might have their dicks come out of their eye sockets."

Kurt started laughing hard. "Oh my god," he wheezed. "Why do you have to ruin my fantasies."

"I'm just saying," you teased. "For all we know, he could be smooth down there like a Ken Doll."

"You are the worst," Kurt laughed and pulled the car into the drive and parked it alongside someone's Lexus. "If any of them are here, which ones would you want to sleep with?"