Chapter Text
The Meridian elevator had mirrors on all the walls.
Tony thought this was a profoundly masochistic design decision. Every morning he was forced to confront endless copies of himself—honest dark circles under his eyes, a slightly crooked tie because Harley had bumped into him in the hallway with the casual violence of a ten-year-old with no sense of personal space, coffee still in his hand because coffee was non-negotiable and anyone who said otherwise could leave his life.
Copies and copies and copies of Anthony Edward Stark, CEO of Stark Industries, father, and a man who clearly hadn't gotten enough sleep since Harley learned to ask philosophical questions at eleven o'clock at night.
"Go, go, go" he murmured, holding the door open with his elbow as Harley sped down the hallway at a snail's pace. His backpack slung over one shoulder, his hair still tousled from the pillow, a buttered toast in his right hand. "Harley. Harley. The 21st century is happening without you."
"There are still four minutes left," said Harley, without quickening his pace.
"It takes four minutes to lose a two-billion-dollar deal."
"You're taking me to school, not to a meeting."
"Life is a meeting." Tony waited for him to enter, then let go of the door. "It's a huge, poorly organized meeting with bad catering and everyone pretending to know what they're doing."
Harley bit into the toast. "Did you sleep?"
"Sporadically."
"Pepper called last night after you went to sleep."
"I know. I saw."
"And you didn't call back?"
Tony pressed the ground floor button. "I know how a phone works, Harley, thank you very much."
Harley looked at him with that specific expression he'd developed around the age of seven, which Tony recognized as a miniaturized and disturbingly accurate version of his own I know more than I'm letting on face . It was disconcerting in his own son. It was especially disconcerting before seven in the morning.
The elevator went down two floors and stopped.
Eighth floor . Tony glanced at the illuminated panel. New apartment—8B had been empty since Mrs. Kaminski moved to Florida in March, taking her noisy chihuahua with her. Tony had noticed the boxes last week and had actively decided not to bother.
The door opened.
The man who entered had dark hair, slightly disheveled on top with the stern discipline of someone who had clearly tried to tidy it up but was too late to care. A well-tailored gray suit. A navy blue tie. A child of about eight years old clinging to his left arm.
"Peter." The man's voice was low, tired, with the kind of patience that came from nearly depleted reserves. "You can walk on your own. I know that because you've done it your whole life .'"
''But it's faster this way,'' said the child, who clearly wasn't in any hurry.
The man sighed through his nose, stepped into the elevator, and stood on the other side, staring at the panel. Elegant. Unnecessarily tall. With that particular air of people who are used to being the most competent in any room and know it.
Tony knew this trick. He practiced it every morning in front of the mirror.
''Ground floor?'' Tony asked, his finger already on the button.
The man looked at him. Light eyes—green, or gray, hard to tell in the elevator light—with the calibrated expression of someone quickly assessing a situation and deciding the appropriate level of sociability. Tony recognized this process, too. He himself had come to the conclusion that the appropriate level of sociability for an elevator at 6:58 in the morning was zero.
''Ground floor,'' the man confirmed.
Tony pressed the button. The elevator continued to descend.
The child — Peter — looked at Harley with the open, uninhibited intensity that only small children can sustain. Harley looked back, with a bored expression.
''Do you live here?'' Peter asked.
''Tenth floor,'' said Harley.
''We live on the eighth floor.'' Peter seemed genuinely delighted by this information, as if geographical proximity were foundation enough for a lasting friendship. Perhaps it was. Tony had met Rhodey in a college dorm room, and the man still showed up unannounced in his living room three decades later. ''Which school are you going to?''
''Midtown.''
Peter's eyes widened. ''Us too!''
Harley looked at Tony. Tony raised his eyebrows, which was his grown-up, sophisticated way of saying, Don't look at me like that, I have no control over it.
The man in the gray suit was staring at the panel with the expression of someone who had asked the universe for a simple morning and was rapidly having his wish denied. Tony felt an involuntary and irritating solidarity with this.
''Are you his father?'' Peter asked, pointing at Tony.
''I am,'' said Tony.
"Is he really your son?"
''Peter,'' said the father, in a tone that clearly meant we talked about this.
''That's a legitimate question,'' Tony said, and felt Harley glance at him. ''Biological.''
Peter processed this for a moment. ''My father is my real father, but my mother died when I was born, so it's just the two of us. And Aunt May. And Wong. And Christine, but she's in the hospital.''
Silence followed.
The man closed his eyes for a second. ''Peter.''
''What? You always say that we shouldn't be ashamed of things that are true.''
''That's true.'' A pause. ''Thank you for applying my lessons so consistently.''
Peter seemed pleased. Tony glanced sideways at the man, quick enough not to appear to be looking. The man wasn't looking back—he was looking at the elevator panel.
The elevator stopped. Ground floor.
The doors opened onto the white marble lobby, the doorman at the counter.
''Good morning,'' said Tony, because that's what people said.
The man looked at him a second time. This time Tony could decide—blue. The eyes were blue. With that kind of reserved, slightly surprised expression of someone who wasn't expecting friendliness.
''Good morning,'' he said.
They went out the doors together. On the sidewalk of 72nd Street, Peter and Harley walked ahead without planning, Peter already talking about something Tony couldn't hear, Harley with his hands in his pockets and his toast finished.
Tony and the man in the gray suit stood side by side for a few seconds before going in slightly different directions — the man to the left, toward the taxi stand, Tony to the right, where Happy was standing with his car.
Tony didn't look back.
Tony got into the car.
''Who was that?'' Harley asked from the seat next to him.
''New neighbor.''
''Peter is cool.''
''You spoke four sentences to him.''
''You can tell.'' Harley looked out the window as the car drove off. ''His father seems serious.''
Tony thought of the blue eyes. Of the expression on the elevator panel.
''Doctor,'' he said, for no particular reason to say it aloud.
Harley looked at him. ''How do you know?''
Tony didn't know. It had been a hunch—the unpretentious suit, the specific weariness of someone who works long, irregular shifts, the calibrated patience of someone accustomed to keeping their voice under control in situations where other people would lose their temper. The way he had looked at the elevator panel in the same way Tony had seen doctors look at hospital walls.
''I deduced it,'' said Tony.
Harley looked out the window again, clearly unconvinced.
The car turned onto Amsterdam Avenue. Tony opened his morning emails—seventeen new ones since midnight, which was a moderate number for a Tuesday. He saw a message from Pepper with the subject CALL ME STARK in all caps, which meant she was fine and just annoyed, not that there was an emergency. He replied with a heart emoji. She was going to hate it. That was the intention.
He decided, actively and deliberately, to stop thinking about his neighbor on the eighth floor.
He managed to get through for approximately five blocks.
After that, completely involuntarily, he found herself wondering what the man's name was.
Three blocks back, in the taxi, Stephen Strange took the last sip of coffee that had gone cold forty minutes earlier and looked out the window without seeing the city passing by.
''You talked about your mother to the stranger in the elevator,'' he said.
''He didn't seem to mind,'' Peter replied, with the serenity of someone who had just solved a problem his father didn't even know existed.
Stephen was silent for a moment. Outside, the city continued on—noise and movement and people who had places to be. He had surgery at eight, a meeting with the department head at noon, and needed to pick up Peter at five because May had a doctor's appointment and Wong was on call until six.
''He was well-mannered,'' Peter continued, his voice sounding like he was preparing an argument. ''And his son goes to our school.''
''I know.''
''Then we'll see him again.''
''Probably.''
Peter looked at him. ''Are you okay, Dad?''
Stephen looked at his son. He felt that familiar feeling in his chest—part exhaustion, part love, part something that didn't have a proper name but which, he had concluded over the years, was what kept most parents awake not out of worry, but simply because there was a child in the world who depended on them to be well, and sometimes being a parent was just that: not wanting to fail.
''I'm fine,'' he said. ''Hold onto the handle.''
The taxi braked at a red light. Peter obeyed, resting his forehead against the window.
Stephen didn't think about the man in the elevator again.
Or he almost didn't come back.