ironmonger | (no subject)

Tony walks in through the door sort of sideways, midsentence, all of his attention clearly concentrated on the room he is leaving and not the one he is entering.

"—yeah, I know he does, I just—" The door swings shut. He blinks, looks around, and sighs. "Great."

Obadiah, of course, hears him right away, even over the Milliways din. He glances up to be sure of which Tony it is before he draws attention to himself.

When he catches Obadiah looking at him, three things happen in quick succession:

He starts to smile, a quick, warm, fond little thing.

He stops smiling.

He frowns with a complicated mix of emotions, of which exasperation and disappointment are the most obvious.

Ah. Yes. He's been wondering exactly how much damage control he would end up needing to do. Time to go find out.

He gathers up his things and makes his way over to Tony.

"Maybe we should talk privately," he suggests.

"Obie," he says, "it makes sense for Sherry to get all high school because he's actually in high school. You kind of aren't."

Obadiah smiles gently.

"It was a bit more complex than that," he says, and starts for the stairs.

He follows. "Really? 'Cause it didn't sound like it."

Granted what it sounded like was Sherry coming home at godawful o'clock, saying nothing to anybody, and not quite managing to hide the faded bruises that told even Tony more or less what had happened. The number of actual words exchanged was not large. Mostly there were cuddles.

"I assumed I could at least trust him to tell you the truth," Obadiah says reflectively as they go up the stairs. "Foolish optimism on my part, apparently."

"Sure, he told me the truth. He told me what happened. Not in a lot of detail, for which: thank God, but he did. What I wanna know is why you went along with it."

Obadiah unlocks the door to his room, pausing to let Tony step through before going in himself and closing it firmly behind him.

"Why did I assume he was capable of making his own decisions?" he asks. "I'm confused, Tony. Do you want me to treat him like a human being in his own right or not?"

"Oh, Jesus Christ, are you missing the point on purpose or do you just not know how this shit works? I mean, like, 'a person' and 'somebody I should probably not have kinky sex with' are not mutually exclusive categories. He was... not in it for okay reasons. You weren't in it for okay reasons, I'm pretty fucking sure."

Obadiah unloads his things onto his desk.

"I wanted it to be clear that I am capable of respecting someone's boundaries. It seemed to be the only way he'd listen."

"That doesn't really make it not a bad idea."

He straightens out the things on his desk unnecessarily, not looking up.

"I had very few choices," he says evenly.

"You could've told him to fuck off," Tony suggests.

"That," Obadiah says, "would not have ended the way I wanted."

He pauses, then says, voice still steady,

"I did what I had to do, it's done, and I would prefer not to think about it anymore."

He crosses his arms.

"Why not?"

Obadiah reaches up to straighten his collar, fingers brushing against his scars.

"I think," he says stiffly, "we've sufficiently established that I'll do what's necessary for your sake. No one has perfect judgment, Tony, not even me."

Tony softens. A little.

Good. That's enough of that angle; if he pushes it too hard, he ruins any of the already slim chance of Tony falling for it.

"I apologize if I made a mistake," he says. "It sounds like I still have a lot to learn about reading him correctly."

"I just... thought you were both smarter than that," he says plaintively, unfolding his arms and coming across the room to give Obie a hug.

He exhales a little and embraces Tony with a faint, very fond smile.

"As much as I hate to admit that you might have overestimated me . . ."

"Pfft."

Grinning, Tony kisses him.

Obadiah makes a pleased little sound, stroking Tony's cheek as he kisses back.

For a second it's almost like they love each other, and it's the best thing in the world.

And then he sighs, breaks the kiss, and leans his head on Obie's shoulder.