ironstrange headcanons

Childhood

Stephen and Tony talk about their childhood.
Trigger warning: slight mention of abuse- idk if this will be long or short.

It's a beautiful day of December , a sunny and warm one to be a winter day. The perfect day for stephen and tony to go out for a walk. They usually walk to their favorite place and stay there all day, talking, making jokes, eating, cuddling and also relax when they're in the right mood, but this time, It doesn't take much for Stephen to see that today something was wrong with tony.
"What's wrong dear?" Stephen asks concerned, intertwining his fingers with tony's
"I'm fine, Steph." He reluctantly answers.
"Liar. Even a blind man could see something's bothering you. Come on, go ahead. Tell me everything." The wizard calmly and lovingly says to tony, taking his boyfriend's hand close to his chest.
"Look at the date" tony says, pointing at the date on his phone lockscreen.
Stephen reads it but doesn't understand. "December 16th? I.. don't recall anything.. I have a pretty bad memory and-"
"It's my parents' death anniversary." The smaller man says looking down playing with his fingers. "I've never told you about them, it's obvious that you didn't know anything about this." Tony smiles as he looks at his boyfriend's blue eyes "it's hard to tell you what happened exactly."
Stephen nods and gives him a reassuring smile "you don't have to tell me. Take your time. You have just got to be ready to talk about it. I know it's hard."
Stark moved to the couch and sat on it, giving stephen a sign to follow him and sit near him.
"I am ready. It's just really painful. I wish I had spent more time with mom."
Stephen is confused. "Just your mom?
Tony sighs in response "I didn't like my dad so much. He was.. not the kind of father anybody would've wanted to have."
"Oh I see. You've got daddy issues too, yeah?"
Tony giggles and nods, leaning on his boyfriend's shoulder "indeed. He sucked as father, in all honesty."
"Sure as hell you haven't taken that trait judging from your parenting skills with Peter " stephen states, wrapping one arm around tony's neck to cuddle with him.
"No need to be cheesy every time, witch doctor" the smaller man says, not admitting that he loved when he behaved like this
"Oh well I like to show you off more than you already do" tony sighs and looks up to him, grinning "yeah, yeah, thanks. Anyways.. I was saying.." he takes a deep breath and looks down again, looking at his own hands.
"My father never behaved like a father. I wasn't the perfect child of course, but I don't think I deserved all of that. I just wanted him to love me you know? Maybe he did, maybe he didn't."
"I am pretty sure that he did. He probably didn't know how to show it properly?"
Tony sighs loudly "if you loved your child and didn't know how to show it, you would've hit him to show him you loved him? Every single time you showed him something you made?"
There is a pause, a moment of silence in the room that was pretty much awkward and filled with sadness before stephen broke it. "I.. I'm sorry. I didn't know. Maybe it's better if we talk about so-"
"No." He interrupts stephen "I need to let it off my chest. I've kept it inside for too long."
Stephen nods and gives tony a kiss on the top of his head "okay, but if it's too much stop talking, alright?"
"Okay." He takes deep breaths again and starts talking "he was so centered on his job. He always worked and never gave a single fuck about me, and when he did he either used to beat me up or insult me till I closed myself in my room and stayed there for days. Jarvis always used to come there and check on me, he always cooked food for me despite me being a stubborn child with an eating disorder. He was my only friend."
Stephen notices that tony has began to shake and impulsively holds his hands, kissing his cheeks "shh.. it's okay now, honey."
"I'm good. It's just- you know, yeah emotions can take over me too."
"Oh I know, you're a human, it's obvious."
Tony giggles. "The only memories I have got of my father are just episodes of abuse. Verbal and physical abuse. He affected me too much. I used to be a.. a playboy and p-please i know that- that's not a great thing but I just wanted to be loved. I just wanted to receive the love I've never received from my own father. That was my coping mechanism. I've never enjoyed that. I wanted to look strong when in reality I was just so broken and in need of love and appreciation. I wanted to be happy and not to fake my happiness behind a person I was not." The small man is now quietly sobbing in his boyfriend's arms, holding the fabric of his shirt tightly. "It's okay baby, let it out.  You're safe" stephen just holds him with his arms as habit, and since tony has breakdowns every day he knows exactly what to do every time. "Breathe in, breathe out. Do it with me. Everything's fine. Tears clear your eyes" tony giggles like a little kid at the man's words "you legit say this every time and every single damn time it makes me giggle."
"Oh well it's part of my charm." He says sarcastically, passing his shaking hands through tony's hair "better?"
Tony nods. He lays on Stephen's lap and looks up to him, playing with the wizard's goatee, tickling him gently
"What about you, love?  You didn't like your family?"
Stephen sighs and breaks eye contact with him, looking away. Tony feels immediately sad and guilty, but it was not his fault.
"I'm- I'm sorry stephen i-"
"No. No it's fine. My family wasn't really a family. That's all." He gives his boyfriend a little smile "I raised my brother and sister by myself. Dad was an abusive asshole and mom died when I was young to brain cancer. My siblings died too, In front of my eyes. Dad died and I was.. happy. Kind of. He wouldn't hurt me or my siblings anymore. But they died and I  couldn't save them. It's because of all the trauma that I became such an asshole throughout the years. The hatred, the pain, the grief, everything, built up the person.. I was. I just wanted love too."
Stephen says it like he was narrating a kids' fairytale, staring blankly to the wall in front of him. He doesn't have tears in his eyes, but you could feel the tension and sadness that is surrounding the room. "I wanted to undertake the career of neurosurgeon because of my mom. Cancer has taken away the person I loved the most and I wanted to beat it. I wanted to defeat the thing that took away my only will to live I had when I was a kid. I studied so hard, I saved so many people with that dreadful condition.. but I knew I wasn't going to actually defeat it. I wanted to revolutionize medical studies but I wasn't capable of that. I pretended too much. I'm not God and if I was, diseases such as cancer wouldn't exist."
Tony listens to him and doesn't answer immediately, but when he notices that Stephen is now the one sobbing, sits up and gets on top of him, holding his wet face from tears.
"Stephen, honey. It's not your fault if those diseases exist. You have worked hard and it has showed up over the years. As you said you saved so many people. You should be proud of it. Your mom would be. I'm sure she's so proud of you."
"I don't think she'd loved the person I became after her and my siblings' death. I was so focused on my job and money that.. I couldn't care less of love. I was a stranger to it. Then I realized that how I was behaving was wrong after the accident. I realized there are so many things to focus on other than the job. Then you came into my life and you've completely overturned it. Thanks god you stayed, otherwise I don't know if I'd still be here now, alive and talking."
Tony smiles and rubs his boyfriend's face with his thumbs, wiping away the little tears that remained on his cheeks. "It's the same for me as i told you. We are so similar, Stephen. And now I know what real love feels like. I know what it means being loved. Now I care. I care about you and your health. And you care about my health. You make me feel loved every single day, every single second. I'm so glad you exist." As tony stops talking he immediately kisses stephen, holding onto him like his life depended on it. Stephen's hands were on tony's back tracing circles on it, but he moves them to the back of his boyfriend's head, pulling him even closer than the possible.  The kiss last for some solid minutes till stephen pulls away to catch some air and rests his forehead on tony's with the eyes closed.
"I'm so in love with you, Anthony."
"And so am i, Stephen."

Heyy! How're you doing? Im doing okay, school is stressing me out but overall I'm fine-
Do you have some requests? If so, tell me in the comments!!❤️