Archive of Our Own ^beta

The challenge hung in the air: I know exactly how to give a person pleasure. No sex required. Stephen supposed it was his own fault, when he’d (mostly) teasingly told Tony he probably had no idea what to do without sex.

They were in Stephen’s hotel room—Stephen was only in California for a week long medical conference and while he did want to see Tony’s mansion, he did not want to make the drive—where Tony was supposed to have just dropped him off, but Stephen had for some reason invited him in and offered him a drink from the minibar.

Stephen snorted, crossing his arms over his chest as he arched an eyebrow at Tony in an expression he knew just oozed skepticism and incredulity—he had plenty of practice, after all, because he had too often been surrounded by idiots who said idiotic things. “I will concede you are undoubtedly very good at what you do. But what you do is…” He paused, considering whether to be diplomatic about it, then decided not to beat around the bush. “Sex.”  

This didn’t seem to offend Tony in the slightest. But then, over the course of their multiple (mostly) accidental meetings—mostly, because maybe those last two times Stephen had searched Tony out, and had the sense that Tony had been doing the same thing—Stephen had come to the conclusion that Tony had too much practice with people saying all sorts of things about him to get offended by any of it, anymore. “Which I am very good at, thank you,” Tony agreed. “As it often does, my reputation precedes me. But since that’s not happening tonight…”

When Stephen had said no sex on their first—and likely only—date when Tony had asked him out, it had been a mix of wanting to know if Tony would actually go along with it when Stephen was taking the most obvious motivation off the table and an internal insistence that he would not be just another notch on Tony Stark’s bedpost. Stephen was going to be more than a cheap date—well, a very expensive date, actually, given the restaurant Tony had taken him to—and a tumble in the bed sheets.

The fact that Stephen had invited Tony into his hotel room may or may not have meant Stephen was… considering removing that restriction, but he hadn’t told Tony that, yet. And somehow, Tony didn’t seem to realize Stephen was wavering in that conviction.

It was a little odd, but also strangely not. Stephen had said no, so Tony had seemingly cut the expectation out so entirely, he wasn’t picking up on what felt like, to Stephen, an obvious indication of a potential change of mind.

“Are you offering to show me this ‘pleasure’ you can supposedly provide me?” Stephen asked, pushing away those thoughts of sex and whether he did want to add his name to Tony’s very long list of one night stands.

It would be good, of that Stephen was sure, but…

Tony’s eyes glinted. “If you want.”

“Hmm,” Stephen pretended to consider, even though his mind was already made up. He was going to call Tony’s bluff. If Tony was as good as he said he was, it was a win for Stephen—pleasure was always a win—if Tony wasn’t as good as he said he was… well, that was a win for Stephen too, because he so liked being right. “Go ahead.”

Tony set down his drink and stalked over, slowly walking around where Stephen was sitting in his own chair. “Everyone’s a little different, you know. They want different things, need different things. There are a few cheats. Massages tend to get everyone when it comes to pleasure. Which is what I promised.” His hands fell on Stephen’s shoulders, thumb brushing the back of Stephen’s neck. “Given your job, you’re probably all stiff knots. Most surgeons are, between the stress and the standing for hours on end. I could have you an absolute puddle of pleasure in minutes, I suspect.”

A thrill ran down Stephen’s back as Tony’s thumb rubbed a circle on Stephen’s neck. He certainly wouldn’t turn down a massage.

“But that’s an easy out,” Tony said. “Like I said, it works on almost everyone. It doesn’t take much thought.” He continued his circle around where Stephen was sitting to perch on the arm rest of Stephen’s chair. “I’d say that’s for date two, just to give you a sample, but you are leaving soon. So chances aren’t high date two is happening. Plus, that’s something you’d want, and while it’d win me this little challenge… It’s not something you need.”

They hadn’t said anything about what Stephen needed. Though the idea that Tony would have even the slightest idea of that was somewhat amusing.

“So what is it that I want?” Stephen asked. “Or need?” he added, making sure his skepticism shown through.

Tony hummed, gaze taking in all of Stephen’s face. “I’ll have you know, that I don’t actually do this part much. Just because I’m very good at reading people, figuring out how to give them what they want or need, doesn’t mean I actually do it all that often. Sex is easy. Everyone wants sex. And as you said, my reputation precedes me. And want… that’s easy too. I’m very good at giving people what they want. Need… need is complicated. That… that I save for special occasions.” He stood, tugging Stephen to his feet and then pushing him to the bed.

Stephen went with it, trusting that Tony wasn’t going to try to turn the tables and sneak that sex Stephen had said no to. And he was curious, really, about what Tony thought he needed. Especially with that strange implication that he was special, to have Tony give him—or try, Stephen wasn’t convinced—what he needed, not what he wanted.

Though, again, it seemed so entirely implausible.

Tony crawled onto the bed after him. He put his hands on Stephen’s shoulder, keeping him in place when Stephen tried to adjust himself so they were even on the bed. Somehow, in the next few moments, Stephen found himself with his head on Tony’s lap, looking up at him.

The first gentle touch almost went unnoticed it was so soft, but the second brush of Tony’s hand through his hair had a thrill running down Stephen’s back. “You want to feel fragile,” Tony told him.

Stephen blinked, opening his mouth to inform Tony that he very much did not.

“Precious,” Tony corrected, or maybe clarified. His fingers brushed through Stephen’s hair again, nails scratching gently against skin and Stephen closed his mouth, unable to deny it even if he almost wanted to. “You need to feel precious,” Tony repeated. “You want someone’s whole attention focused on you and your comfort. You want someone to tell you you’re allowed soft things, kind things.” Tony’s smile went a little crooked. “You want and love grand gestures and bold statements, but you don’t believe them.”

Stephen found his gaze focused on Tony, who was looking down at him with soft eyes, but with so many emotions in them that Stephen couldn’t read them. Tony’s fingers were still brushing gently through Stephen’s hair, soft and almost tender. Tony was just proving a point, Stephen reminded himself, but it felt so good and Tony’s gaze was so soft and no one had touched him with such gentle intimacy in or out of sex in so long… Certainly no one had looked at Stephen like he really might be precious.

Oh, they looked at him like he was valuable—valuable for the hospital, for his reputation, for what he could do—but that was something else entirely. Valuable for what he could do for them—which Stephen had no problem with, he’d done everything to become valuable, that was the point—but not for who he was, not for himself.

Stephen was valuable. He’d ensured that.

Not precious.

“You’re a neurosurgeon,” Tony continued. “You specialize in seeing how everything falls apart on the smallest fractures, the smallest wounds. More, you specialize in fixing those small things. You want grand gestures, but you need small intimacies.”

Tony’s fingers continued their gentle strokes, pausing at times to twist a lock of hair around his finger before letting it loose.

The whole thing was leaving Stephen feeling entirely off. Because this was… God, this was nothing. All Tony was doing was playing with his hair and looking at Stephen with a soft something that Stephen felt translate as a warmth in his chest—but that had to be Tony playing the role because he was proving a point and they barely knew each other—and yet… When was the last time someone had touched him gently? When was the last time someone had told him he was precious or that he was allowed something like this?

Had anyone?

He was so focused on the thoughts, the questions spinning through his mind, that it took him a second to realize the hotel tv had been turned on. He shifted his head slightly to watch as Tony channel surfed before landing on some b-rated sci-fi show. “And of course,” Tony said. “Something mindless in the background, something to turn to when you need to turn away from whatever thoughts have that furrow in your brow.”

“I thought you were an expert on reading people and what they want and need?” Stephen asked. “Are you saying you don’t know what I’m thinking?”

Tony laughed, amused. “Not in the slightest. I can tell you what you want. You want some sort of reassurance, but I couldn’t tell you what you want reassurance for.” Reassurance? Is that what Stephen wanted? “People are complicated and frankly confusing, just because I’ve taught myself how to give people what they want, doesn’t mean I understand all the why’s behind it, even if I can sometimes guess. Hence the tv. I can’t guarantee the right reassurance, the next best thing is distraction. Someone like you is liable to trap yourself in your own thoughts, you need a diversion for when it gets too much. Likewise, I might be able to tell that you want and need some sort of small intimacy, but I admit, I didn’t necessarily know that playing with your hair would do it. That was a guess based on the available small intimacies, our current knowledge of each other, and the statistics on pleasure points; there was a plan b if this didn’t work. I did say I’d give you pleasure, so that was the goal.”

Pleasure, yes. But it wasn’t the pleasure Stephen had expected. It wasn’t just physical pleasure, this was… emotional, too.

The massage, that’d have been physical. This… 

“Is that why you’re looking at me like that?” Stephen asked, because maybe Tony was right, maybe he did want some sort of reassurance. “To give me me what you think I want? To give me pleasure?” Stephen immediately regretted asking the question. Because he wanted honesty—would Tony see that, too?—but he also wanted this strange fantasy he’d fallen into. Which did he want more? Which did he need? Which would Tony give him?

“And how am I looking at you?” Tony asked, nails giving another one of those gentle scalp scratches.

Stephen considered the question, not quite sure how to answer it. Maybe because he wasn’t quite sure what the look in Tony’s eyes was in the first place. “It’s… soft.”

Tony hummed at that. “I do have to admit I’m rather fond of you,” he said, sounding a little bemused at that. “For all that we’ve met, what, five times now? Very fond, really. There’s something about you that makes it hard to look away and that means that I’ve also seen you. Though I won’t pretend to either of us that I’ve seen you in your entirety, but I do think I’ve seen maybe more than you ever meant to show. I respect you. Like you, even.” Tony was quiet for a long moment, a slight purse to his lips that made Stephen think he wasn’t quite finished with what he was saying. “And, I suppose, there’s something about giving someone who has made their entire exterior prickly and sharp, who has put up all those walls because they think they don’t deserve to let someone in, something soft. Most people don’t think you deserve soft, do they?” A slight tilt. “You don’t think you deserve soft, even if you want it.”

That was something Stephen didn’t want to answer, so he didn’t.

“So this—” Stephen reached up, touching Tony’s cheekbone, running his finger across the warm skin beneath Tony’s eyes, taking in the softness of Tony’s gaze. ”—isn’t a lie? You’re not just proving a point?” Was that softness really for Stephen? Tony called it fondness, respect, even genuine like… and Tony had a point, they’d met a total of five times and the first two times they’d snarked and insulted each other more than anything, they didn’t really know each other.

Maybe Tony could see what Stephen wanted—needed—but that didn’t mean Tony knew him. Like Tony had said, people were complicated and confusing.

Tony tilted his head slightly, clearly thinking. “You don’t want a lie,” he said after a moment. “That would ruin everything for you. So, no, it’s not a lie. Though I wouldn’t read too much into it either,” he added, something strange in his voice. “I told you, I’ve taught myself how to read what people want, how to give it to them. But that’s in moments…” His smile was a little lopsided. “I can’t give you—I can’t give anyone—that longterm.”

“Who said I was reading anything into it?” Stephen asked. Was he reading into it? He wasn’t sure. “I’m going back to New York in two days. Even if I wanted to read into it, there’d be no point, would there?”

“Exactly,” Tony said. He gave a gentle tug to Stephen’s hair. “So enjoy this while you’ve got it. Let me give you something soft.”

For a long moment Stephen just let himself. Despite Tony having turned on the tv, he didn’t turn to look at it. Just watching Tony as Tony watched him, playing with his hair. It made him feel so startlingly vulnerable. And, just as Tony had said, it somehow made him feel precious. Tony’s focus was on him, on his comfort, on giving him something Stephen didn’t really deserve, for all that he wanted it. Maybe needed it. “Does anyone give you what you want?” Stephen asked into the silence.

Tony snorted. “People constantly cater to what I want, Stephen,” he said as though that was so obvious he shouldn’t need to say it at all. “If they give me what they think I want, then they hope I’ll give them what they want. Expensive gifts, a bit of fame, a piece of my brain.” He shrugged. “I try to acquiesce. Seems only fair.”

“Hmm. So they don’t,” Stephen said.

That earned him an arched eyebrow. “That is the exact opposite of what I just said.”

“No, you said they give you what they think you want. Not what you actually want.” And Stephen knew just how different those two things could be.

Tony didn’t deny it, just snorted in amusement. “You would be persnickety about word choice.” Which was most certainly not a denial, even if Tony was probably pretending it was.

“What do you want from me?” Stephen asked, curious. He didn’t have Tony’s ability to read what a person wanted, what they needed. 

“Nothing,” Tony said. “You were an excellent verbal sparring partner in our first few meetings, an even better conversationalist on the matter of the science of the human body the next few meetings, and tonight you managed to keep up no matter what I threw at you during dinner and—” he smirked at Stephen in a way that was meant to distract, ”—you were excellent eye-candy.”

There was a reason Stephen had said yes to the date, and it was because Tony had made a rather good verbal sparring partner and conversationalist himself. Excellent eye-candy, too, if they were adding that to the list. Still, Stephen considered Tony above him, trying to decipher the real truth. “You know what I think?”

Tony snorted. “I already told you, I can figure out what people want, I have no idea what people think.”

That was probably partially a lie, though also true in the sense Tony meant it. Stephen didn’t let himself get distracted by quibbling over that little detail, though. “I think you’ve spent so much time figuring out what other people want and how to give it to them that you don’t even know what you want anymore.”

“Fascinating hypothesis,” Tony said dryly. “But wrong. I’m exceptionally simple. I want a good time. I’m really not all that complicated. There’s a reason I have a reputation, and while you may not be reaping the benefits of that reputation tonight—your own choice, I’ll remind you—that doesn’t mean it’s not there for a reason.”

Stephen didn’t believe it for an instant, but he suspected that Tony actually did, or at least spent a lot of time convincing himself of it, consciously or not. “You should come to New York,” he said.

Tony only blinked once at the apparent change in topic. “Stark Industries’ board is in New York,” Tony said. “As much as I’d often rather not go to New York, I already do that far more than I’d like, due to the aforementioned board. But I suspect that’s not what you meant.”

It wasn’t, though it did make things more convenient. “It’s not. No. You should come to New York because I want to return the favor.”

Tony just arched an eyebrow in a subtle sign he expected Stephen to elaborate.

“I’m going to give you what you want,” Stephen told him. He shook his head—though he was very careful not to dislodge Tony’s hand from his hair, where his fingers were still threading through strands with gentle care. “Let me correct myself. I’m going to give you what you need.”

He didn’t actually know, yet, what Tony wanted. Much less what Tony needed. He didn’t have Tony’s ability to read it in a person. And the fact that Stephen was laying here with his head in his lap while Tony played with his hair and looked at him with soft eyes and made Stephen feel good… Well, it was a fairly significant indicator that Tony’s ability to read those wants and needs was likely not a fluke. Especially in the way Tony had outright explained the reasons why Stephen wanted this—needed this—in ways Stephen himself had never put to words and probably never would have been able to because Stephen hadn’t known, so how could Tony? 

That wasn’t a lucky guess, not really.

“Really? And what is it that I want and need?” Tony asked him, sounding more amused than curious. Because Tony had already said it, all he wanted was a good time. And just because Stephen was pretty sure it was a lie, didn’t mean Tony realized it.

Stephen smiled at him, letting Tony see the challenge in his eyes. He didn’t know yet, but he planned on figuring it out. “Come to New York; I’ll show you.”