It was odd to think of Tony Stark as someone who actually aimed at being on time to formal events, but perhaps it was more because this particular event was aimed at raising necessary goodwill for the Avengers post-"Civil War." Media manipulation—the good kind, anyway—was difficult at best on a good day; on a bad one... well, Stephen learned a new appreciation for the adage 'silence is golden.'
So being on time and making an excellent impression was important for this sort of event: this time around, it was just Stephen, Tony, and the Vision; the rest of the New Avengers were either on missions or had alternate, secret identities and did not qualify for required event attendance. Still, though: it did mean that more public teammates had to pick up the difference and, with how often Tony and Stephen had had to attend galas and other similar events in along the course of their careers... they were typically the ones elected to go.
It was unfortunate, then, that Stephen was having difficulty in getting ready.
The battery on his electric razor had died the other day and the Sorcerer Supreme hadn't had the chance to replace it; there had been an emergency of the alternate dimension kind (and there for unavoidable)—one that had been finally resolved earlier that day—and Stephen had spent weeks in Kamar-Taj.
Which still left him pressed for time in preparing for the gala that he was required to attend, no replacement battery for his electric razor, and—surprisingly enough—no automatic shaving spell that would rid him of his unnecessary facial hair. Frustratingly enough, the only razor that Stephen currently had access to was a straight one, but with how badly his hands still shook... even attempting to shave with it was a bad idea in all sorts of various ways.
"Dammit," the sorcerer snapped, tossing the dead razor onto the bathroom's countertop in a fit of pique. His mouth twisted in his irritation while golden sparks flickered to life around the tips of his fingers: nothing truly dangerous, not particularly, but a bleeding off of excess emotion that he still hadn't been able to stop himself from doing.
"Problem, Houdini?" Tony asked with a knock to the bathroom's doorframe and stepped into the room as if he owned it (which he did, truth be told, but it was the set of rooms that had been set aside for Stephen's specific use when he boarded at the Compound). The taller man met Tony's gaze in the mirror, quirking an eyebrow in inquiry: What are you doing in my rooms? the lifted brow supposedly, silently asked. In answer, the inventor just waved a dismissive hand and continued, answering his own rhetorical question: "FRIDAY said that you were nearly ready but that you were having trouble with the final touches—razor not working?"
"It's dead," Stephen admitted with a sigh. "And, with everything that was going on, I forgot to stop by and pick up a new one before heading here to the Compound. I hate using those horrible disposable razors, but I don't have time for anything else. Do you still have any in the guest supplies, Tony?"
There was no immediate answer to the sorcerer's request and, when Stephen glanced up in the mirror to catch sight of Tony once more, he saw that the other man was silently drumming his fingers over the edge of the doorframe, an unspoken war raging within his dark brown eyes: weighing of choices, decisions and options on how to proceed. The sorcerer knew that, should he switch over to his other Sight, he would see a multitude of dimensions, alternate realities, birthing themselves in a spark of gold and flame the longer Tony went without speaking.
"Tony..." the Sorcerer Supreme prompted gently once more.
Tony blinked and his eyes cleared; attention refocusing on the one-time doctor, there was yet another drawn-out moment that stretched between the both of them, but the engineer eventually broke it by offering his teammate a slow, borderline-teasing grin. "If I remember correctly—and I should, since I was the one that originally placed your room's supplies order—there's still an Option B available to you."
That particular comment was enough to finally get Stephen to turn around completely to rest his backside against the edge of the countertop to give Tony his full, undivided attention—and unimpressed expression. "Your Option B—the straight razor, if that's what you're referring to, Tony—isn't an actual option because if I did attempt to use it, I'd most likely accidentally slit my own throat when my hands give an unexpected tremor."
The grin that Tony offered up in turn was decidedly wolfish, all teeth and sharp-edges and predatory interest. "Option B is still available to you if someone was willing to step up and offer their assistance."
It was Stephen's turn to pause at the inverted offer, eyes narrowing as he considered the choices before him: he could still refuse and default to the disposable razor that he had originally requested—and most likely spend the rest of the night with small, stinging cuts reminding him of how much he hated the blasted things. Or, more intriguingly, he could take the other man up on his offer and let Tony use the straight razor to remove the excess facial hair. With the second option, as well... Stephen could admit to himself that he was curious.
Both he and Tony tended to be arrogant and assholes, Tony a futurist who had laid his roots in engineering and robotics and Stephen himself was a doctor-turned-sorcerer: similar enough that they had gotten on well from the very beginning when most others would have been ripping out their hair at having to deal with the two geniuses' attitudes and intelligence both—there came a comfort, too, in knowing that either of them were no longer the smartest men in the room; there was someone there who could match the other step-by-step.
The warm fondness and sparking arousal that Stephen had begun to feel in regards to Tony had started quite some time before—and both feelings had, if the sorcerer wanted to be honest with himself, been unexpected but not unwelcome. Not after Christine had very gently but very firmly made clear to him that there was no way that they would be resuming any romantic relationship between the both of them ever again. And Stephen hadn't been bothered to look for a different partner since.
Here, now: there was an opportunity to see what other possibilities might exist.
With Tony Stark.
"Option B would only work if I trusted that someone to put a blade to my throat and know that I was safe in friendly, experienced hands," the sorcerer pointed out, idly enough. The words, however, were enough to darken Tony's mahogany gaze with grief and horror and hurt, and the one-time doctor knew that the other man was thinking of his old team and the events that had happened in Siberia. Before the inventor could bow out, assuming that Stephen's words were a rejection of both Tony, as well as his offer, Stephen continued: "So if the offer of assistance is made from anyone but you, Tony, then I would have to decline."
"...oh. Oh!" came the soft exclamation, and watching the shift from bleak resignation to slow hope, a dawning sort of potential—a desire to see this played out as Tony's slow grin once more returned—was something that Stephen found truly spectacular and humbling to behold. "Well, then," Tony continued and made his way further into the bathroom, shooing Stephen out of his way. "Go and find a handtowel and a chair to sit in, and I'll get everything else set up for you."
Stephen went and did as requested, and it was only s short while later that he was returning with the items in hand; Tony had already set up his station on the sorcerer's countertop and had attached the strop to the towel rack. The goosebumps-inducing sound of steel against leather—the soft scrape that accompanied each motion of Tony's hand—was enough to make Stephen pause and watch, Tony's blade gleaming dangerously in the bright lights of the lavish bathroom as the engineer continued to run both sides along the strip of leather.
The taller man eventually managed to drag his attention away from the sight of tanned, scarred hands competently refining the deadly blade and instead settled in the chair after placing the handtowel next to the shaving mug and brush.
"So what were you going to do if I didn't have any more disposable razors?" Tony asked as he set aside the razor to switch over to the handtowel; the water was turn on, hot enough that steam immediately rose from the faucet, and slipped the cloth beneath the constant stream.
"Still go because Carol would have my head, otherwise. Hope that your charm would be enough to distract away from my unfortunate hermit-esque appearance."
Tony laughed at that reply, grin brighter and more genuine even as he began wrapping the handtowel around the sorcerer's lower face and throat. "Unfortunately," the inventor answered, grin wicked and amused, "My powers of charm aren't that powerful—not when my other Avengers attendee currently has a opossum attached to his face."
Stephen tossed a glare Tony's way for that particular assessment—no matter the fact that it would most likely have ended up being trueconsidering how bad the scruff had gotten—and was tempted to respond with a small hex in kind.
Before the sorcerer had had the chance to decide, however, Tony was removing the handtowel and lathering up the shaving soap in its mug; not that much long after, the brush was used to carefully coat the one-time doctor's face—expression layered with concentration, eyes dark with it as the engineer carefully moved his brush over the planes, valleys and peaks, of Stephen's face. He was close enough, as well, that Stephen was able to watch how Tony's pupils dilated, going large and endless in depth and darkness, as their gazes met.
There was want in Tony's gaze.
It called to an answering heat that sparked to life within Stephen's body, desire pooling and skin aching to be touched—wanting to know how the engineer would touch, callouses rough against Stephen's skin, with such arousal darkening his chocolate-rich gaze.
The first touch of Tony's fingertips against Stephen's chin—coaxing the sorcerer to tilt his head back, baring the vulnerable line of Stephen's throat—was enough to make the taller man quietly exhale and a tiny shudder wrack through his body.
"...Stephen?"
Tony paused as he reached for the straight razor, fingertips stopping just as they brushed over the slick metal of the blade. The engineer's gaze had turned assessing, searching, and Stephen met it eventually as he ordered: "Continue, Tony."
Dark eyes flared in answer.
He finished his reach and carefully arranged his fingers along the spine and tang of the blade, holding the razor with an expertise that spoke of the fact that this was definitely not the first time that Tony had handled such a blade. The experience appealed to Stephen's competency kink, the satisfaction at knowing that the object of his desire was more than capable of fulfilling the tasks set before him—the knowledge gathered, retained, and practiced that stated without words that assistance from Stephen would be unnecessary and, potentially, unwelcome. All Stephen had to do was wait and watch an expert work within his trade.
Silent now, Tony gently turned the sorcerer's head to the side to show the far side of his face, and it was then that the shorter of the two men lightly rested the edge of the razor to Stephen's skin and followed the grain of his beard downwards. Soap and steel were cold against Stephen's cheek, but perhaps—moreso—that arctic chill came from the knowledge that one small slip and Tony could hurt the sorcerer and hurt him badly... accident or no.
Tony's hand remained steady as the blade eased over Stephen's skin.
Still silent, the engineer again coaxed Stephen into turning his head: this time shifting to the opposite side as he scraped away the detritus of weeks of foregoing his more personal, vain grooming to focus on keeping the world as safe as he could make it. Feeling the bristles falling away, soap cleared to show suddenly naked feeling skin... the stress of that time in Kamar-Taj also pulled away, and Stephen finally began to feel settled and like himself once more. It was—a relief, this pseudo unveiling.
Again, Tony's work-calloused fingers maneuvered Stephen into a different position, and the dangerous gleam of the blade began to move in and out of the sorcerer's peripheral vision as Tony began to work on cleaning up the usual design his goatee took: clearing out the unwanted weeks' worth of growth, sharpening lines, neatening corners—the inventor's competence was truly arousing in this particular matter, and Stephen almost felt... drugged at the knowledge that it was Tony's experience and Stephen's trust in it that kept the shave skirting along the edge of dangerous, too-much, and marrow deep arousal. There was a blade to Stephen's throat, and the sorcerer discovered the unexpected urge to shift up beneath it to see just how long the edge would kiss his skin before Tony pulled it away.
The razor's edge trailed down the line of the sorcerer's throat, and Stephen had to resist the urge to audibly swallow even as his skin pricked in goosebumps, pale blue eyes falling shut as Tony again lifted the razor to run over Stephen's Adam's apple. Up and over, shifting as with the ebb and flow of the tide—so very, very careful with each and every touch and pass.
More settled awareness returned when Tony scrubbed the still-damp towel over Stephen's face to clear away any remaining traces of the shaving soap's foam; those experienced, calloused hands came soon after, damp as fingertips rubbed aftershave over the sorcerer's cheeks and throat; a palm lightly settled over Stephen's throat, lingering for just a moment, but it was enough pressure to finally make glacial eyes open again to look up to meet its dark match. The warm, familiar scent of sandalwood filled the enclosed space of the room around the two men.
"Do I now pass muster, Tony?" Stephen eventually asked, not even bothering to mask how his voice had gone husky and rough, low with desire.
"I believe you do, Doc," came the murmured response as a thumb brushed along the sharp edge of Stephen's cheekbone, and it was that absently given gesture of affection and the slightly quirked edge to Tony's smirk that decided the still-seated man:
Stephen reached up to hook a finger beneath the collar of Tony's bowtie, using his hold to coax the shorter man down to straddle his lap. He leaned in closer until their lips nearly brushed, a tease and a promise both, and spoke: "We need to leave shortly to make sure we're on time for the gala. But, when it's done, I'd very much like to have you in my bed for the night—and to cook you breakfast in the morning, as well."
Tony laughed at that, and the sound was bright and happy even with the arousal that threaded through the pealing sound. "I suppose that that could be arranged," the inventor agreed and catch Stephen's lower lip between the white trap of greedy teeth, nipping hard enough to redden the tender skin caught between them. "You'll need help shaving again in the morning, after all."
"So altruistic," the sorcerer snorted and used his hold on Tony's bowtie to draw the inventor in closer still.
"I'm a philanthropist, didn't you hear?"
--was the only rejoinder that Tony managed to toss out before Stephen caught his bantering mouth in a much more thorough kiss.
::fin::