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[ingeniar]

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[ingeniar]

[ There aren't enough adjectives in the world to describe how little Tony wants to talk about this. Whatever it is that lies at the end of this particular rainbow might lead to treasure, but there's a darkness to get through first. An inevitability that's been plain in Stephen's eyes for weeks. An outcome that haunts Tony's dreams, yawning beneath him like a wormhole opening up.

He looks at Stephen for a long few moments, just looking at him, jaw set with resolve and unhappiness, a childish response to the unfairness of a world that's going to be taken away from him. Daring Stephen to take the words back, to say it's all a big joke. He doesn't want to hear any more. He has to. ]

I want to know. [ Grated out before he loses his nerve. Tony tries to clear his throat past the knot in it. Fails. His arms are crossed tight across his chest. He reiterates, the both of them: ]

It's -- I know it's bad. I know. But I need to know for sure. [ Actually, no -- he takes a couple quick, unsteady breaths and adds, before Stephen can get started: ]

Tell me how long I have left.

[rehandle]

[ A cold little pit presses in behind his sternum, sinking.

He's never had to deliver bad news in the family room. Never told a patient he'd promised miracles that the surgery didn't go according to plan. He's got plenty of experience on the other side - told his life was as good as over, told the lives of loved ones had already ended - but this is something else.

It's not the kind of triple threat anyone wants to be. Bearer of bad news, partner in the waiting room, and the butterfly whose knowing wingbeat set a course for impending doom. ]

Not long. [ It's not a band-aid pulled away. Those two short words are more like staples torn out, wound ripped wide. A few seconds of numb nothing before reality hits - he fills it with context. ] When you arrived, you didn't look much different from that last day.

[ And every day he wakes to him creeping a little closer. How long until he's older than he'll ever be? Stephen boths knows and doesn't know. Keeps it at bay. The answer is vague because he's never wanted precision enough to ask for it. He still doesn't want it now.

Eyes fixed on Tony, feet fixed to the floor, Death's harbinger waits, looming and uncertain, for a sign to press on - or to step in and take some of a weight that might prove too heavy to shoulder. ]

[ingeniar]

[ So there it is. Tony feels himself nod a little, accepting it from a distance. The death sentence, the terminal diagnosis. But not as certain as it could have been, with the possibilities laid before them, made real by the fact that they're having this conversation at all. Timelines spinning out, hypotheses answered.

Perhaps it can be changed. A tiny, foolish hope. But enough to keep Tony's gaze steadier than it might have been without it. ]

Right.

[ Still, it hurts. The thought that he might not see Morgan grow up feels like a yawning pit opening up inside him, capable of swallowing everything into a deep and terrible darkness -- so he turns away from it, thrusts it from his thinking. Not yet. He won't think about it until he has to.

Not yet.

His jaw works, muscles bunching. For a lack of anything else, he repeats: ]

Right.

[rehandle]

[ There it is - his sign. Tony Stark, lost for words. What clearer sign is there? And still some part of him thinks he should keep his distance. He, Stephen Strange, the man who set him off down the path that would take him from his family - the man who now benefits from their absence.

But he's been thinking that way since the day Tony arrived. Regretting a past he cannot change, keeping a hair of distance it's far too late for. Mine. Yours. Staying an arm's length from his loss, his grief, his death, isn't a courtesy. It's cowardice.

Stephen swallows his fear past the lump in his throat. A few short steps and it's easy to reach for him, cover the nape of his neck with a palm, let the other skirt across the small of his back as he draws Tony in, wraps him up in arms, huffing a heavy breath out over his shoulder and squeezing a little tighter than he means to for a moment once he's got him there. No more distance. Give him space. A little pocket of it, carved out of this strange world by the border of Stephen's body, to breathe or grieve or hide in. Whatever he needs. ]