Duo wasn't sure if he should be surprised to find Stark looking like he was about to fall off his workbench, precariously perched there and looking ready to fall any moment. Apparently Duo got his ability to fall asleep literally anywhere from his father.
Walking over to him, he looped one of Stark's arms around his shoulders.
"I'm up," Stark said in that particular groggy voice that no one who was ever actually awake actually used.
"Sure you are," Duo replied, wrapping an arm around Stark's waist to get him up and moving toward the couch.
"No, I'm really up, and hey, you're still here?"
Repressing the urge to sigh, Duo said, "Yes, I'm still here."
"I didn't think you'd stay."
"Are you drunk?"
"No, I haven't had a drink in…" He stumbled and Duo caught him. "Nope, not in a while. FRIDAY, how long has it been since I had a drink?"
"Please don't tell me your AI monitors your alcohol intake."
"She doesn't," Stark replied defensively. "Most of the time."
"Boss's last alcoholic beverage was on—"
"Don't tell me," Duo interrupted her. "I don't actually want to know."
"But FRIDAY knows—"
"Your AI is seriously creepy."
Stark pulled out of his grip and flopped onto the couch reminding Duo of nothing so much as an overgrown toddler.
"FRIDAY is a precious darling, and I won't have you speak of her that way," Stark said, seeming more awake and together. He wasn't quite smiling, but something about the tone was part teasing, part serious.
Shoving Stark over and down, making sure he had a pillow under his head, Duo said, "You're biased."
"I made her less smart than JARVIS," Stark said, somewhat sadly. "She's not nearly as autonomous as he was."
"If that's true, I don't want to meet JARVIS," Duo replied absently, grabbing a blanket off the back of the couch and starting to cover Stark with it.
"Hey," he said, trying to bat away Duo's hands. "Why are you tucking me in? You're the kid here. Shouldn't it be my job to tuck you in?"
Sighing, Duo pushed Stark back. "Tell that to your not-creepy and overly intelligent AI," he said. "She sent me down here to make sure you didn't fall off your stupid stool and crack your head open or something similarly embarrassing and ignoble."
Stark blinked at him for a long moment, then said, "She said embarrassing and ignoble?"
"I'm extrapolating."
Duo couldn't quite read the expression that flashed across Stark's face. It was too odd a mix of delight and disappointment, and Duo didn't think a single face should be mobile enough to betray that particular mix so clearly. "Ah," Stark said after another pause, his features rearranged into something that might conceivably be called neutral. It looked like Duo got his mobile, expressive face from Stark too.
"There," Duo said, managing to tuck Stark in once he stopped fighting him. "I'd tell you to go up to your bed like the damn adult you are, but I doubt you'd actually do it, so if you're going to take a nap, at least do it in a way that doesn't have your overprotective AI sending someone down to check on you."
"She really shouldn't be autonomous enough for that," Stark said, beginning to sit up again.
Pushing him back before he could really rise, Duo said, "Sleep, Stark. Even supergeniuses and supersoldiers need it sometimes."
Stark blinked at him again, and while Duo was hardly unaccustomed to making people blink at him like that, this seemed oddly different. "Can I ask you a favor?" Stark asked, sounding—not small, never that—tentative.
"You can ask me anything you want to," Duo told him. "I just make no promises to answer."
Stark nodded, though whether it was in reply to Duo's warning or something else, he wasn't sure.
"Can you call me Tony?" Stark asked. The request was so odd that Duo stopped to stare at him. Stark picked at the fuzz on the blanket covering him, not looking at Duo, not letting Duo see anything but his profile, though his hunched shoulders and the way he bit at his lip rather gave away how nervous he was.
It wasn't a big request. It really wouldn't be hard to do ask Stark asked, though he'd probably need to adjust how he thought about the man. The question still spilled off his tongue. "Why?"
"Look, if you don't want to call me 'dad,' I get that, okay? I really do. I haven't earned that, especially after the last couple of days. But I don't think I've ever met a single person who calls me 'Stark' who actually likes me."
Straightening, Duo crossed his arms. "You know that even if I do call you Tony, that doesn't necessarily mean I like you, right?"
"Yeah, well, I think I said that no one who calls me 'Stark' actually likes me. I didn't say that people who call me 'Tony' do. I mean, Cap still calls me Tony, but he doesn't like me."
It was Duo's turn to stare at him. Was Stark actually that dense? Or was it just his own bias hiding the obvious attraction? He rubbed at his forehead. No way in the black was he going to play matchmaker for either of them, and not just because he didn't like Rogers. "He doesn't hate you," he had to say though.
"Well, hate is a strong word and I honestly don't know if Capiscle is actually capable of hating another human being. Maybe Hitler? Possibly Hitler? But I'm sure not anywhere on his list of favorite people."
Do not get involved in this, he told himself firmly. Besides, he was the last damn person who should be giving relationship advice. "For someone who is as intelligent and fortunate as you are, you have some astonishing self-esteem issues. Has anyone ever told you that?"
"Yes, of course," Stark replied, whip quick. Duo wished he were in more of a frame of mind to be able to appreciate it. He liked Stark's type of intelligence and his cleverness. He admired his brilliance, but it was difficult to really appreciate it any of it under the current circumstances. "I, of course, refute the sentiment entirely because I am a genius, billionaire, and philanthropist, among other things. No one will ever tell you that I am unaware of my own brilliance."
"You have confidence in your intelligence, yes," Duo said. "What you lack is a sense of value for yourself beyond that intelligence. You think that if not for your genius, no one would ever want anything to do with you."
Stark flinched as if he'd been slapped, and Duo ran the words back in his head, but he didn't see anything there except the truth. Apparently, the truth was a difficult pill for Stark to swallow.
"Aiming a little low with that one, don't you think?"
"No," Duo replied firmly. "I don't tell lies, remember?"
Waving a finger in Duo's direction, Stark said, "I see that you word that in a very specific way. You don't say that you tell the truth, you just say you don't tell lies. Fine hair to split, you got going on there."
Duo raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "I've split finer. Will you just lay down and go to sleep?"
"Well, I could, but you haven't actually answered me, and I asked you a question."
"What did you ask again?" Duo asked, repressing the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose and sigh.
"Will you call me 'Tony'?"
Taking a breath so deep that his shoulders rose and fell with it, Duo said, "I said I can do that."
"You can," Stark said, eager, almost as if pouncing. "You didn't say you would. And I don't want to be constantly reminding you of what you said, you know?"
No, he didn't know. "It seems, given that, the simpler solution it to just keep calling you Stark," Duo replied with an edge of warning creeping into his voice.
"But we also established that no one who actually likes me calls me Stark."
It was on the tip of Duo's tongue to say maybe that's because no one likes you, but he knew that it wasn't only unfair, it was patently untrue. Stark probably knew that too, when he was less loopy from sleep deprivation.
Whether he believed it was a different question.
"Will it really make you happy if I call you Tony?" Duo asked, and Stark's head whipped up to watch him with something like banked hope in his eyes. Duo didn't want to kill that hope, exactly, but he wasn't comfortable with being the target of such hope for such a trivial thing. "Even if you know I'm only doing it because you asked me to?"
The hope was replaced by something a little softer, a little warmer. "Even if you're only doing it because I asked, I'd like that."
Duo felt like there were words Stark wasn't saying, things that he felt or believed that Duo didn't think were true, but if Stark didn't say them, Duo couldn't exactly tell him he was wrong.
"Fine," he said with irritation, but it just made Stark—Tony—grin, obviously pleased. "Anyway, it's very late, and you are very tired—"
"Did FRIDAY wake you up?" Stark—Tony, damn it. Duo was never going to change how he addressed the man if he didn't fix it in his head first. Tony looked concerned by the possibility.
"No," Duo assured. "I was already awake."
"And yet here you lecture me about getting enough sleep."
"I am twenty-two," Duo replied haughtily. "You are the old man here."
"Ouch," Tony said, putting his hand over the center of his chest. "Right in the arc reactor."
Amused despite his irritation, Duo said, "You don't have the arc reactor anymore, remember?"
Grasping at his chest as if looking for something, Tony gasped theatrically. "Why, you're right! It's gone!"
"Big shocker there," Duo replied drolly. He was doing his best to remain visibly unamused, but it was hard. Tony had charisma for days, and when he made an effort to be liked, it was difficult not to like him.
…Which wasn't like Duo himself at all.
Not wanting to dwell on yet another similarity, Duo said, "I'm going to try to go back to bed too." He turned on his heel, beginning to head for the door when Tony's voice stopped him.
"Are you really going to stay?"
Duo needed another shoulder-heaving sigh before he could make himself turn and look at Tony again. "If, for some reason, you really want me here."
"Yes," Tony insisted, sitting up again. Duo went back over to push him back down, and Tony wrapped a hand around Duo's wrist, waiting till Duo met his eyes to speak. "Yes, I want you to stay. I want to be part of your life," he said low and like a promise.
Skepticism ran deep in Duo's veins. "You seemed pretty damn sure earlier that you didn't want a son who was a murderer."
"Would be a bit hypocritical of me to say that," Tony said quickly.
"Sure was," Duo agreed.
"I did kind of imply that, didn't I?"
Duo made that sound people make when they really didn't agree with something and were just trying to decide how blunt they were going to be with their rebuttals. "Less implied and more literally stated."
Tony winced. "You're still staying though?"
"Unless you want me to go?"
"No!" Tony said quickly, firmly. Duo wasn't sure if it were gratifying or not. Tony seemed to have made quite the about-face in a relatively short time, but just because he'd changed his mind once didn't mean it'd stay changed. "I want you to stay. Please do stay."
"Okay, then." Duo turned to leave again and was stopped again.
"If you're going to stay, are you still going to the Gala with me?"
The MET Gala. Right. Duo had said he'd go with Tony to that. He wasn't really looking forward to it, either the pomp and circumstance or the tell the whole world that you're Tony Stark's son aspect of the thing. If things went sideways between him and Tony, the world would still know him as Tony's son. He wasn't at all sure how he felt about that. Then again, the world already knew Tony had a son; it was only a matter of time before Duo was identified as the wayward progeny. "Yeah, I'll go. If you actually want me there," he said.
"Uh, it's kind of a hoity-toity thing. We'll need to get you something to wear. I'm sure Pepper can help… if you don't mind that… Obviously all expenses on me."
"Think I'm going to embarrass you?" Duo couldn't resist needling. Tony didn't seem to be making a commentary on Duo's style, and Duo knew exactly how big of a deal this whole thing was. He'd been Relena's escort for it four years ago because the year before, Heero had nearly made some sort of scene and had been firmly told not to return.
The people-watching had been amusing, especially with Dorothy, but the sheer money on display kind of twisted Duo's stomach up.
"No! No, not at all! I'm not embarrassed by you. I just don't want to set you up as a target for paparazzi…" He trailed off and gave Duo a closer look, then asked, "You're yanking my chain, aren't you?"
Putting up a hand with his fingers held only a bit apart, Duo said, "Maybe a little."
Tony blinked at him again, and Duo would swear he could see the wheels turning in his head. "I guess that's fair, all things considered." His eyes drooped, making Duo wonder if he was going to drop off midsentence.
"Why don't you get some sleep?" Duo tried to turn again, but Tony interrupted.
"You'll be here in the morning? To talk about this?" Tony said before he was interrupted by a massive yawn.
It basically was morning already, but Duo didn't point it out. "I'll be here tomorrow," he said instead.
The relief that washed over Tony's face was palpable. "Good. Good…" His eyes fell closed as if the lids were too heavy to hold open. Another minute or two and his breathing evened out into the deep, even rhythm of sleep. It made Duo feel tired just listening to it.
He padded over to Tony to tuck him in a little better, then impulsively carded a hand through Tony's hair. It felt like his own, similar texture and density.
"I hope neither of us regrets this," Duo said, finally turning and showing himself out. Tony, apparently honestly asleep, didn't stop him this time.