ironstrange oneshots

high school AU (6/?)

Stephen is confused by Tony's sudden change in attitude and, honestly, a little hurt.

He hasn't said anything or brought it up with him, but he wants too.

I mean, how could he just ditch him like that? It's not fair to him. He didn't do anything wrong...Did he?

Maybe he said something to Tony one day that just pushed him too far, maybe he did something during his sleep while at the sleepover.

There's an endless list of things he could have done to Tony to accidentally make him mad and end their friendship because, well, he doesn't really know Tony.

He knows some things. He knows his favourite food is cheeseburgers, and that AC/DC is his favourite band, that science is his favourite subject, his favourite colour is red and he's goddamn smart. But anyone could learn that about Tony from a five-minute conversation, not a three-year-long friendship, which just leaves Stephen wondering why Tony isn't more open with him.

Of course, he doesn't force it on him. If Tony didn't want to be open with Stephen that's okay. He would be a hypocrite if he said it wasn't because he hasn't told Tony about his sister- or that he even had one- and why would he? Donna isn't alive anymore so she doesn't have any input on the situation.

Stephen knows he's not always easy to get along with and sometimes he does that on purpose to avoid even the possibility of getting hurt like Donna's passing did, but he also doesn't like being alone.

He knows he wants Tony, but he's so scared of actually getting him.

He knows he can't wait forever, but now it looks like Tony doesn't even want to be friends and especially anything more. He saw Peter post a video of Tony failing to cook something on his Instagram story so he knows that Tony isn't avoiding everyone, just him.

They haven't had a real conversation in weeks and Stephen needs to know if this is permanent or if something is just going on with Tony. Tony usually either sleeps on Peters floor or goes home at any time from six to ten o'clock at night because he worries about keeping Peter's aunt up, so Stephen will just wait until around eleven to message Peter and ask what's going on, just to be safe.

Stephen checks the time and sees that it's only eight o'clock. Still not late enough. He huffs out a large breath and puts his phone face down on his bed next to him, picking up one of his pillows on his bed and hugging it close to his chest and rests his chin on the top of it until he's just on his side and curling around it.

He closes his eyes and lets his brain just do it's own thing until he can talk to Pete.

How did he get himself into this mess? And why did he? Maybe he should have just stayed a loner and not met Tony and started to fall for him. And how much does he even like Tony? It's been...definitely at most a year or two. That's a little sad but he didn't really know how to respond to it. He and Christine had only just broken up and he was still figuring out who he actually was as a person.

Donna's death was still pretty new in his life at that point and he was still healing. He'd still have frequent nightmares about swimming around, looking for her in the lake before finding her floating face down in it. It was horrifying and he's never felt like such...such a failure.

It wasn't fair to Donna, and it's still not fair that he wasn't able to save her and he's still the one that is so upset about it. She doesn't even have the option to be upset.

Stephen is a Grade-A asshole, and he knows that.

His eyes start to droop and he let's them, the tight grip he has on the pillow loosening as he lets his body relax and his mind too. It'll just be a nap. He's sure he'll wake up in time to call Peter, and even if he wasn't, he's too lazy to set an alarm now right as he's about to fall asleep.

————
Stephen feels a vibration next to his head and his phone is ringing. He knows it is but does he have to answer it? How long was he asleep for?? It doesn't feel like a long time.

He groans and picks up his phone, and the call ends right as he does. Damn. He looks at who called and his eyes widen immediately, not sleepy anymore.

1 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘛𝘰𝘯𝘺 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘬.

Stephens not fully sure why he has Tony's full name in his contacts, he doesn't know any other Tony's, but it just makes it even nicer every time he gets a call from him.

He slides the notification and goes to the 'call back' button, and it starts calling him.

He answers almost immediately.

"Oh- hey uh I was just about to call you."

Stephen hears Tony laugh nervously on the other end of the call and Stephen thinks about what to say.

He should of thought about this before he actually called him.

"Yeah uh well. I saw that you called me because it woke me up so I thought I should call you back."

There's silence on the other end of the line and Stephen feels like he messed up.

"Unless-unless that's weird. I can hang up if you want-"

"Please don't. I was just uh I was just calling to tell you something...But if you were sleeping then I should probably let you just go back to sleep now."

"No no," Stephen sits up in bed now, intrigued and completely awake now. That's probably gonna be an issue considering that it's twelve in the morning now.  "Don't worry. I'm not tired anymore. I was asleep for six hours or something like that so...What did you want to tell me?"

There's another pause before Stephen hears Tony take a deep breath.

And then he talks.