Borderline Obsessed (or Turkey or Chicken)
Obsession (noun)
: a state in which someone thinks about someone or something constantly or frequently especially in a way that is not normal
: someone or something that a person thinks about constantly or frequently
: an activity that someone is very interested in or spends a lot of time doing
There are days when Tony thinks that maybe jealousy has fangs and claws, sharp as nails and about as painful too. He doesn't feel them often. If at all, they show up when he sees a normal family – a beautiful mother and a handsome father and the cutest little munchkin son you ever did see – in the streets and he thinks about his family. His dad was a drunk womanizer and his mother was a charitable but busy woman, who couldn't spare more than several minutes a week to spend with her son. And Tony was a child genius who was incredibly naïve about the world around him and who got into more mischief than the Grinch on Christmas Eve.
Of course, if somebody thinks to bring it up, he shrugs it off, like, oh, his parents were never around? Same old, same old. Most people left the issue alone after that, maybe because they believe his half-assed lie to this very day, or maybe because they just don't want to deal with the drama of Tony Stark's ever-so-tragic life story. People really are stupid, he thinks to himself often, because even he winces at how unconvincing the seemingly offhand words sound tumbling off his tongue in klutzy manner.
Nobody ever calls him on the bullshit though, because if Tony Stark says he's fine, he's fine.
Until her.
He isn't sure what's so intriguing about her, because when he isn't busy hating her guts or slinging very creative and extensively thought out insults at her, he wants to pry open her head and figure out what makes her tick.
He doesn't get her. It's weird, because it feels like she reads him as easily as he can work through complicated math problems that would probably leave even Albert Einstein scratching his head, or as easily as Natasha can kill a man seventeen different ways with a stiletto and three pieces of flypaper. It's like she has a built in 'Stark's bullshitting you again' homing device. He lied to her once about who ate the last piece of cheese and didn't throw away the package, and just left it sitting out on the counter top. He said Barton did it ''cause dude's always hungry', or some shit like that. She had crossed her arms and stared him down until he was confessing things he thought he had forgot – all of which had no relevance whatsoever to anything important, most revolving around his one night stands.
She knew when he lied about his family – about Howard, and why wouldn't she, because she actually knew the guy. She stared him down again, until his dams broke and he told her everything, and somehow the night ended with them both sitting on the floor of the lab, backs pressed against a workbench, and he was crying into her shoulder and she was hugging him and what the hell had happened that night because Tony Stark does not cry, and Tony Stark definitely does not cry into Captain America's shirt.
Still, for some reason, the gesture – however embarrassing it was for Tony – makes him like her even more, because anybody with the mental ability and the actual talent required to handle Tony Stark during one of his moods is okay in his books. That was why he liked Pepper so much, right? Because she put up with the emotional mess that is a weak-hearted billionaire.
In this case, it only makes him like her even more.
What?
She comes home today all aflutter over some gentleman she met in Central Park this afternoon. It's weird seeing Stephanie swoon over some guy like a fifteen-year-old girl, but that's exactly what she's doing: She's gushing like a lovesick teenager. ("His name is Johnathon and he's so nice. I was out jogging and…" Blah, bla-blah, bla-blah. Tony got the picture: She'd met Mr. Perfect. He probably liked art and old stuff too if he made her this happy.)
Tony is in the kitchen making a sandwich, and conversing off and on with the rest of the team when she gets home.
("I'm just saying, wouldn't it be nice to have our own shawarma bar. Last time we went for post-battle snack time, there was a bunch of people there. And they just stared at us! Superheroes eat too!" "Nobody considers you a superhero." "Give it a rest, Clint. Tony, you know how New Yorkers are." "Come on Bruce? Don't you agree with me?" "Shut up, Iron Ass." "Clint…" "I'll shut you up!" "Tony." "HA! Stark got told off by a girl!" "Excuse me?" "An incredibly sexy girl?")
Then she walks in, practically aglow with happiness and Tony stops talking all of a sudden, kind of flustered and his chest all tight, but in a pleasurable way. It's like she had too much to drink, and is thoroughly intoxicated because she sways with each step and her expression is dreamy. And suddenly the tightness goes from nice to worrisome.
"Steph?" He asks carefully, pushing aside the plate which holds the bread where a couple of limp pieces of processed turkey stare up at him, in a way he considers mockingly because he's convinced the turkey knows he doesn't like processed foods. She barely glances at him when she goes by, just sighs and sinks into a chair at the kitchen table. Tony takes note of the faint pink tinge in her cheeks. She's flushed – or blushing.
Obviously the rest of the team is on alert now. Was she drugged or something? No, she can't be drugged. The serum, remember. "Stephanie, are you alright?" Bruce asks carefully, putting down his newspaper and pushing his cup of tea to the side. Tony takes note of how she smells different, like… cologne? Some kind of pine- outdoorsy, maybe old leather too. It's nothing in comparison to the aroma of machine oil and hot metal.
Also, she's wearing a coat that he knows does not belong to her. It's a simple brown leather jacket, not unlike the tan colored one Tony bought for her after he found out she was admiring it in a store window because it reminded her of the one she had back in 1942.
"I'm great!" She says a little too loudly, then winces and lowers her voice. "I mean, I'm fine. I just had a really nice day today." Tony still can't relax because he knows for certain she met a guy and he probably asked her out, and guys with brown leather coats that smell like nature and do not happen to have an Arc reactor implanted in their chests can't be trusted.
"So when's the date?" He asks and she looks up, kind of startled, like, how'd you guess? It feels like there's only the two of them in the kitchen, the way everybody else is silently watching the exchange. Her cheeks get even pinker, and her fingers absentmindedly fiddle with the sleeve of her borrowed jacket.
"Ah, Friday." Tony waggles his eyebrows at her and she smacks him on the arm, embarrassed and giddy. Clint gives her a thumbs up and winks suggestively. Tony has to wriggle a little to keep from throttling the archer right there in the kitchen.
She kinda does that cute half smile up at Tony and puts her elbows on the kitchen table so she can rest her chin in her hands. Tony shoots her a charming grin back, and pretends that his stomach isn't doing flips. Besides, even if it is, it's because of that slimy turkey. It's not because he's a chicken or anything.
Her blush is really cute…
No.
The evening of her date comes earlier than he thinks it will.
"Sir, Mr. Fury is on line three. He's requesting…" JARVIS says. Tony looks up at the ceiling in frustration, barks out, "Mute!" and resumes agitatedly watching the football game on – man, the Texans suck this year. He's not in the mood for one of Fury's bitch fests about the lack of control Iron Man displays during missions, or how conveniently all of the PAs stopped working and instead started blasting Black Sabbath's Iron Man yesterday at precisely four seventeen in the morning.
Nope. He wants to sit and brood over turkey and chicken, and why the hell anybody ever decided chicken was a suitable synonym for cowardly. And maybe Steph's date tonight, although he convinces himself that that's a very tiny reason as to why he's in a very crappy mood.
(There's not even a need for a 'Stark's bullshitting you again' device, even he can tell how bad he is at lying when it comes to Steph.)
The rest of the team is in the lounge with him, for reasons only Odin knows, because normally there are set times for team-bonding, and tonight is not one of those times. They're sprawled all over each other in a pile on the floor, watching the game and shoving their faces with popcorn, and yet Natasha still manages to look dainty sitting cross-legged on Thor's muscular back and yelling at the T.V. in exasperation. Tony's on the couch, trying to ignore the lack of innocence in the room because somewhere two floors down and thirty three feet in a southwesterly direction, Stephanie is dressing up for her date with Jonathon Crosby, an English gentleman and an author of World War II history books.
(So what if he knows the exact location of Stephanie's room? How is he expected to find his way to her if there's ever a fire or an explosion, and let's face it guys. They're Avengers – fires and explosions are kind of a part of the job description.)
"Hey Tony, got anymore popcorn?" Clint asks from underneath Bruce's crossed legs. He flails his arms around in a pathetic attempt to show that he can't get up, and is therefore implying that Tony should play butler for a minute or two, and go get some for him. Natasha snorts and maneuvers her high heeled foot over Thor's left arm, around Bruce's midsection, then kicks him soundly in the head.
"Get it yourself, Barton." Yes, she does look dainty, or dare he say it, royal, perched upon her pile of Avengers like they are a carefully crafted throne. All that's missing is Steph, who is pretty much the assassin's best friend because they're the only females in this testosterone dominant tower. Stephanie would look so at home with her head on Tony's stomach, wearing a tank top and a pair of shorts like she does every surprise game night, versus all dolled up in a skirt and make-up and out with some creep Tony's dubbed Sir John Bon, whatever the hell that means.
"You okay there, Stark. There's steam comin' out your ears, you're thinking too hard." Clint remarks, attention still fixed on the game. Bruce's popcorn bowl is suspiciously- or coincidentally, whichever way you want to look at it- missing and Clint is once again shoving butter and grease down his throat like a starving man. Considering the quality of SHIELD's cafeteria food, he's not surprised.
"At least I have the mental ability to think hard about something, Barton." Tony remarks acidly. Clint's jaw drops, far enough to cross the line between 'pushing it, yet understandable,' and 'drama queen'.
"Do you think my ability to hit my target dead on from a distance of over a hundred meters is dumb luck Stark? I'd like to see you do that." He retorts indignantly. Tony is about to reply with something he assures you is very witty, clever and mean when Steph makes her grand appearance.
Lucky for him, nobody notices the fact that suddenly his mouth is dry and he can't breathe, let alone think, because they're all just as shocked.
"Wow, Steph… you clean up nice." Clint says finally. That doesn't even begin to describe her, because she's as radiant as the sun. Her hair is long, straight, and waist length on an average day, but now it's curled in loose ringlets and very shiny and it skims the bottom of her ribcage. There's a little mascara adorning her eyelashes, and some eyeliner the color of storm clouds tracing her wide blue eyes. She's wearing barely any makeup, just touch-ups every here and there, and she looks like a goddess. It's mind boggling.
"Ya think so?" She asks, pinching the form-fitting fabric of her top and pulling it away from her. It's colored a turquoise blue hue, like the oceans of the Caribbean, and the sleeves droop down to her elbows, the style loose and breezy like that of an Arabian top's sleeves, except they don't cinch her skin at the ends, just stay all… flappy.
(It's hard enough to process, don't make Tony explain too.)
And… she's wearing… she's wearing a skirt. A black skirt that flares out when she twirls, which she does, much to the delight of Tony.
"Your beauty is one that rivals the loveliest of Asgard." Thor agrees. She blushes deeply, and the pink contrasts with the blue and the black and it makes her look even more desirable to Tony, who is having a magnificently difficult time controlling his urge to drool.
"You look lovely, Steph." Bruce inputs with a kind smile. Something wriggles inside his stomach, makes him clench his fists underneath the throw pillows. Natasha contributes an approving nod.
"Tony?" She ventures softly. "What do you think?" And then… My God… She twirls… For him. Just for him.
Well, aren't you special?
(Tony silently tells that cynical part of his brain to shut its effing mouth before he makes, because it's ruining the nonexistent moment here.)
His throat feels dry and his voice cracks a little. "Beautiful." He swallows. "You look beautiful, Steph." The smile, wide and beaming, she gives him is worth it.
But something is off…
"Are you wearing perfume?"
Stephanie looks over at Clint, then blushes. She puts on her shoes, a pair of- surprise, surprise- heels, albeit short ones, the color of the night sky. Finally, when she's pulling on the leather jacket – the one that Tony bought for her, he notices victoriously- she replies self-consciously.
(Stephanie should never feel self-conscious.)
"Yes. Why?"
"No reason. You just… smell nice."
Tony can feel those green fangs sinking into his neck.
Stop.
How'd the date go? The question is relentless and so terribly clichéd, and Tony doubts Steph is one to kiss and tell. Still, it circulates on a never-ending track through his brain. She does that to him, makes his head go all screwy, whether it be in the middle of a battle or at breakfast, when there's jelly residue at the corner of her mouth. He envies that jelly.
Somehow, everything keeps coming back to Stephanie and Tony and jealousy. That good-for-nothing green-eyed son of a bitch.
The rest of the team is asleep. After all, it's past one in the morning and while nobody else is concerned, Tony is worrying like there's no tomorrow. Shouldn't she have been back by now? I should go looking for her. Still, he sits obediently on the sofa watching reruns of bad television sitcoms and downing whole mugs of coffee in two gulps so he'll be awake when she gets home, and he can grill her for information.
It's like magic, because she comes in just then with that same dreamy look on her face, and her jacket in one hand, and someone's hand in the other.
Sir John Bon is in the hizz-house.
"Tony! Why are you still up? What did I tell you about sticking to a regular sleep schedule? How much coffee have you had?" She's like a mother, always nagging and always acting towards the better good. The man is forgotten in her hustle to clean up the billionaire sitting on the couch, drunk off his ass on caffeine and maybe a few swallows of liquor, and Tony smiles internally because anything that draws attention away from the poser is a good thing.
Anything that involves drawing attention away from the poser and means she has to be close to him is even better.
"Oh! Gosh, where did my manners go? Tony, this is Johnathon Crosby. Erm, John, this is Tony-"
John Bon interrupts her, which brings an unconscious frown to Tony's face. "Tony Stark. A pleasure to meet you, good sir. Johnathon Crosby." The damned man even has dimples, which are total off-springs of the devil. He just looks so likeable, it makes Tony want to spit. Sir Johnny notices Tony's sour mood, how, he doesn't know (because it just couldn't be the big ass scowl on his face), and laughs good-naturedly.
"Oh, this one doesn't like me. Don't worry, I'll treat her right." He says with a smile. Steph is watching anxiously, practically pleading him to say something, kind of bouncing up and down in her heels like an impatient child. It's so innocent and damn it – so very Stephanie. Tony forces a smile, swallows down the sour taste in the back of his throat and dives in, pretending that Johnny Boy is his new best pal. Only for her.
He's not sure how, but Sir John Bon manages to weasel twenty minutes out of Tony's very busy schedule, when he could be down in his lab, or maybe in his garage, banging out his frustrations on old sports cars or figuring out the best way to make an acid bomb blow up in John's face. He's sure it wouldn't take too long; after all, there's plenty of raw emotion coursing through his veins due to the jaw-droppingly beautiful woman with her slender and muscular arm linked through Mr. World War II expert over there. What happened to opposites attract?
It's ten past two when Johnny announces, "I must be going. I'll contact you, Steph." Tony bites back another acidic glare, because Steph has been on one date with the guy and suddenly, he's special enough to use the team's nickname for Stephanie. Who does Johnathon Crosby think he is?
Still, Tony's glad to see him off. Stephanie doesn't go to bed just yet, and suddenly Tony is sick of today, and just wants to be alone, so he bids her a good night and pads down the hall to his room.
Once inside, he discreetly tells JARVIS to delete any Johnathon Crosbys from the list of guests allowed in the penthouse area. Stephanie is going to kill him later.
At least she'll be the last thing he sees.
Please.
The next time John is brought around, Stephanie is already up in the lounge. Her lovely little boyfriend is invited to movie night, a sacred ritual for Avengers after a taxing mission, and last Tony checked, Johnny wasn't able to control the dead or burst into spontaneous flames without a second thought. (And before he forgets to mention, she almost murdered Tony when John attempted to come up when Tony was off at a Stark Industries conference in Italy. Thanks to Tony's request, Johnny was stuck standing outside in the rain for a good forty minutes before Pepper showed up and let him in. Bummer that even Pepper likes the guy, but seeing the images of a scowling man standing out in the rain is a huge bonus.) All the better, because if he could do that he would be a lot harder to dislike. Thankfully, he's just a tall, clean-shaven young man with dimples and a square jaw and golden colored hair and really bright green eyes, and damn that man is lucky, not because he's handsome, because Tony is handsome too, but because in addition to all of that, he's got Stephanie wrapped around his finger.
Movie night goes on with or without any missing team members, as long as two are up for it, or one team member just wants to really relish in that forever alone feeling by eating ice cream straight from the container and secretly sobbing over a romantic tragedy. It's no surprise to the team that Bruce is skipping out, opting to stay down in the lab and work on a project long forgotten beneath developments meant for Stark Industries or SHIELD. It does come as a surprise to the team, in fact, when Tony bails at the last moment, coincidentally remembering he has work that needs to be done ASAP on the Iron Man suit, just in case Fury decides to call in for a mission during pizza night again, and the suit is at the moment a chunk of gnarled metal and red-hot paint.
What makes it coincidental is that he decides to remember this detail approximately four seconds after Johnathon walks in, dressed in comfortable pajama pants and a grey t-shirt. A pillow is tucked under one arm and the other is wrapped around the circumference of a jumbo tin of caramel covered popcorn, most likely big enough to keep the army going for a month.
Tony had hoped that maybe the team wouldn't like the guy when they met him a week ago, but they attracted to each other like glue. Even worse, caramel popcorn is Clint's favorite snack, and Natasha and Thor both have extremely large sweet teeth.
He thinks the universe hates him.
Tony hides out in his room for an hour, wearing a dirty white t-shirt that provides anybody looking with an excellent view of his bright blue Arc reactor. He has decided this shirt is his distress shirt, for panic attacks and freak-out moments.
He sits upon his bed, holding a pillow to his chest and thinking as hard as his mind will allow. Nothing that passes through his brain isn't connected to Stephanie in some way. His favorite thread of thought is post the Chitauri battle, when he thought he was going to die. He remembers, he called Pepper, although the person he really wanted to talk to was trying to distribute her weight between Thor's broad shoulder and an overturned car.
And then everything went black.
Her face was the first thing he saw when he woke up, shell-shocked and breathless and terrified because damn, he thought he was a second away from death. Her pale cheeks, bright but weary eyes, soft pink lips, a trickle of ruby colored blood smearing her forehead. And she was leaning over him, looking like a goddess with her golden hair dangling down in front of her face, and he couldn't help but hope…
"Please tell me nobody kissed me." He had wished – no, prayed – for the opposite.
He has to get out of here.
I think
Bruce looks up to a crash at the door. An enthusiastic billionaire is splayed against the glass of the door, sweaty and out of breath, like he ran a marathon before stopping by. In the center of his chest is the Arc reactor, glowing a faithful cerulean color.
Sock-feet skid across the floor, making Tony's run more of a slip and slide. He makes a distressed and unsuccessful lunge for the table, still flying at full speed. The jolt of a body making contact with cold linoleum and shiny metal jars his research sends a thousand dollar laptop bearing the logo Stark Industries flying across the room.
"Tony," Bruce's voice is exasperated and tinged with frustration. "What are you doing?" He gestures at the rumpled appearance, pinches the sleeve of Tony's white shirt and pulls it back. What looked to be pure white before is actually white spotted all over with cookie crumbs and other various food stains of varying colors and textures. How'd he miss that purple jelly stain?
Maybe he would be more sympathetic if three days' worth of work hadn't just been singlehandedly destroyed by flying bodies in the lab.
His anger softens a bit when he hears the ragged breathing coming from the man. Like he's… crying. "Tony? Are you okay?"
Tony lifts his head, and although he isn't crying, his eyes are red and maybe a little watery. He's obviously distressed over something, which Bruce hopes isn't inconsequential like maybe he's out of liquor – impossible – or maybe that his Iron Man suit isn't working how he wanted it to.
It's unlikely to cause a man like Tony Stark to cry. Looking back, Bruce hasn't ever experienced it, although he knows for certain that Steph has. Apparently it was a thing to behold, the great Tony Stark blubbering like a little boy into Captain America's shirt.(
Don't tell him Bruce said that.)
"Bruccceeee…!" Tony moans into his arms. "What do I do?" Bruce doesn't know what this is about, and he doesn't think it would be the kind of question a genius should have to ask. So he settles for the general advice that works for practically everything, even when you know nothing about anything on the topic at play.
"Follow your instincts."
I might.
Stephanie and Johnathon Crosby break up a week later, because, according to Stephanie, 'Their interests were too different', to which Tony promptly and pragmatically- and also internally- calls bullshit, because the dude was practically an expert on World War II. Not that he's complaining that they've split… Tony was there to comfort her, let her cry into his shirt like he cried into her's all those… was it weeks? - Ago. (Wow. Time flies when you're hating Sir John Bon.) He can't help but feel like something's come to a complete circle.
And on the bright side, Stephanie is finally taking notice of his very pathetic, don't lie to him so help me, attempts to show Steph the feelings he's coming to terms with. She gave him a kiss on the cheek a couple of days ago, when he saved her from what would have been a very ugly display of life-sized patriotic splatter art. (AKA, she fell off a skyscraper during a mission and several stories before a freefall would have become instant death, he swooped in and caught her.) She yelled at him for kind of a while for providing such a painful landing and disobeying orders to save her life, but hey- if that kiss was anything to go by, then who cares that she spent the better part of her day reprimanding him on how bad he is at leaving her to her own devices?
Maybe things are finally looking up.
Love you.
A/N: So…? What did you think? I personally really like it, although I would like to go back and add more to the end of it. Either way, I think it turned out pretty well.
Also, I got a couple of reviews on my other Avengers FanFiction, which said they wanted me to update. On the off chance that I get those reviews on this story, very sorry. This is strictly a one-shot. But I am extremely flattered that you liked it that much.
EDIT 11.26.13: Okay, so I did add a little more to the end, for clarity, but that's about it. Oh yeah. And I fixed the line breaks, cause they were kinda confusing. Anyway, just hoping you enjoyed. If so, check out my other works!
Review!
WORD COUNT: 4,051
EDIT 12.29.13: I really have no life, right guys? Because this is the third time I've been so bored I reread this entire thing and went and added a buncha stuff to it. Hope you appreciate my dedication (lol, no).
NEW WORD COUNT: 4,393