Give him back to me, or so help me god

Epilogue

"Stark."

Ross stood in the doorway to his office, a gawking intern beside him holding a clipboard whose contents were slowly slipping to the ground while the kid gaped, staring down at where Tony sat across from his desk. Ross's eyes were wide, his jaw set, but the skin around his noise was still slightly swollen. The nose itself a little crooked.

Tony didn't even try to hide the smirk that crinkled his lips.

"I wasn't aware we had a meeting on the books." Ross said, recovering enough to step inside the office. The intern Ross must have been speaking to until he reached the doorway continued to gape from just behind the man until Ross promptly slammed the door in the poor kid's face.

Tony turned back to the desk in front of him, turning his back to Ross where he was still frozen just inside the door.

"We don't." Tony said, watching the Newton Cradle resting on the desk in front of him to the floor. Any other day it would have made him nauseous, but today he found it oddly soothing. One movement leading to the next. Action and re-action. "This is more of a tête-à-tête sort of thing."

Ross finally recovered, sauntering around Tony to stop behind his desk. He didn't sit though. Instead he reached across to a cardboard box neatly resting on the far edge. It was open already, the mailing tape hanging loose from the sides. Ross reached in and pulled out a dark, curved bottle. Scotch. He waved the bottle in Tony's direction.

"In that case you won't mind...?" He asked with a shrug. The sneer Tony had come to associate with his face was slowly growing, though there was a small amount of satisfaction in the fact that it looked more than a little painful now. Ross's swollen skin pulling too tight in a few too many places.

Ross ran a finger over the pristine label. "I wouldn't normally accept this kind of thing – it was a gift from some Venezuelan dignitary or another – but it is my one vice, said so in a Military gazette once hoping someone might take note."

"I remember," Tony said. Ross's eyes darted to him. "September, twenty-fifteen edition of the jarhead gazette." Ross's brows rose. "I read it."

He waved the bottle in Tony's direction again. An offering this time. Tony shook his head. Ross shrugged again, cutting through the wax around the bottle with a practiced twirl of a letter opener. "1926 Macallan. This bottle alone will set you back-"

"-Fifty-five thousand." Tony cut across him dryly. "Or thereabouts."

Ross let out a huff as he maneuvered the cork out of the head of the bottle. "The Venezuelans have more money then they know what to do with."

"I'm sure the there people disagree."

Ross poured himself a generous glass of the scotch and slid into his chair, reclining easily. Swirling his scotch in slow, even movements that somehow synced with the Newton's cradle.

"You seem awfully chipper for a man with seven billion dollars littered across the floor of the pacific." Tony observed, watching Ross dip his face towards the glass and take in a long breath. Tony found himself wondering if the surgeons had really been able to save his sense of smell after the damage and surgery, or if the act of smelling the scotch was just for show.

Ross's eyes snapped from the glass to Tony's.

"Well, that's just the danger of building on the water." Ross's eyebrow twitched as he spoke, and the hand holding his glass moved rest on the arm of his. His face was solemn, but his eyes were dancing.

He was enjoying this.

"The ocean can be a cruel mother. Hurricanes are not uncommon."

A barking laugh broke free of Tony's chest before he could even begin to swallow it.