Fic: Way From Normal (Crossover)
Fandoms: Iron Man and Heroes
Pairing: Nathan Petrelli/Tony Stark
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Nothing specific for either, I'd say.
Notes: Written for Sweet Charity. My recipient is brighteyed_jill, who asked for more Nathan/Tony. Hope you enjoy it :)
Sequel to: 1 - Birds of a Feather and 2 - Smoke Signals.
Summary: The article hits the internet two days after the fundraiser - "Iron Man’s ‘Harvey Dent’: Tony Stark ‘close friends’ with junior Senator Nathan Petrelli".
- - -
Nathan, apparently, cannot get rid of this guy.
It doesn’t help that Nathan’s new position on the Committee of Armed Services puts him among those directly in charge of the source of Stark Industries’ funding, of course, but the real clincher is how often Stark shows up completely outside anything having to do with the Senate at all.
“Evening, Senator,” says Tony Stark, with a smile. “Enjoying yourself?”
Not anymore, thinks Nathan. “Of course,” he lies, accepting the handshake, peripherally aware of the reporters lurking subtly nearby. They truly love stories about Tony Stark, and it’s all too easy to come out of it looking like a weak fool next to a billionaire playboy superhero.
“How’s your work?” he asks. Polite, smooth, don’t give the reporters anything to say and they won’t say it.
“Productive,” says Stark. He can see straight through the façade, thinks Nathan - no, ridiculous, no one but Peter has ever been able to do that. Not even Heidi.
And damn the man, damn his silence and that smirk and the way he opens the air just enough that Nathan has to fill it.
“I’m glad to hear that,” says Nathan, smoothly. “I’m sure the taxpayers will appreciate it.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” returns Stark.
“It’s my job to make my constituents happy,” and crap, Nathan said that way too quickly, way too defensively.
“Of course,” says Stark. “I can see that.” He moves to go past Nathan - but catches Nathan’s arm instead, like he’s going to pull Nathan with him -
Nathan holds firm - feels Stark’s muscles shift under the suit and is surprised at how strong he feels, like he didn’t expect Stark to have any strength but the kind the suit gave him.
His breath catches, his heart jerks in his chest, and Nathan might be more afraid of Tony Stark than he’s ever been of anyone.
Stark catches Nathan’s eyes, tilts his head towards a knot of reporters. “C’mon,” he says, in a way that implies all sorts of complicated things, like trust me, and I know who you are, and Nathan doesn’t like that at all.
But they’re standing way too close, in a crowded room of important people, and that, if nothing else, is enough for Nathan to end this now.
He steps away, shrugging his arm out of Stark’s grip. “Have a good day, Mr. Stark,” says Nathan, as he slips away into the crowd. Doesn’t look back.
The next time he checks, Stark is gone.
~*~
That isn’t enough to dissuade him, apparently.
A press conference, just outside the Capitol building. Nathan hopes to duck by it, unnoticed; the bills debated and passed today weren’t from any of his committees or subcommittees, and he has nothing newsworthy to say.
It’s only as he’s passing that Nathan realizes, belatedly, that there are a lot more reporters than usual, and there can only be so many possible reasons -
Stark snags Nathan on his way past, greeting him with a handshake and a friendly arm around the shoulders. Leaving Nathan absolutely no way to get out of it gracefully.
“Senator Petrelli,” says Stark, “fancy seeing you here.”
“Mr. Stark,” Nathan forces out.
“Hey,” grins Stark, at the cutest of the female reporters, his hand still resting on Nathan’s arm. “Denise? Daria?”
“Dana,” she corrects, returning his smile regardless.
“Dana. I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Nathan Petrelli.”
Nathan ungrits his teeth and offers a smile. “It’s a pleasure.”
Dana whatever-her-name-is shakes Nathan’s hand, but what’s in her eyes is more curiosity than greeting.
“Really.” Dana tilts her head. “New York, right?”
“That’s right,” says Nathan. “Junior senator.”
“I heard about your appointment,” she says, “but I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”
“No, I don’t believe we have.”
“Nathan is a - very good friend of mine,” says Stark, and Nathan prays to God that Dana didn’t notice the vaguely lewd way Stark drawled that out (but everything Stark says sounds lewd to Nathan, so who knows, really).
Dana looks quite, quite interested now. “You mean Tony Stark would actually endorse a politician?”
“You bet,” says Stark. “Nathan’s absolutely unique. The phrase ‘the sky’s the limit’ doesn’t even apply.”
Nathan flinches.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Nathan will vote with his conscience, every time, regardless of politics,” continues Stark, “and, well, I like his honesty.”
Goddamn you, Stark.
“I must admit, Mr. Petrelli,” says Dana, “from what I’ve heard, you present a rather different face to the world.”
“He’s very concerned about public appearance,” Stark jumps in. “Aren’t you, Nathan?”
Nathan lets a half-smile play around his mouth - calculated, and inside, he’s fuming. “We all have our priorities, of course.”
Nathan exchanges glances with Stark. And a moment ago he was pretty sure Tony Stark just did this to torment him, but suddenly he’s not so sure.
“I trust him implicitly,” concludes Tony.
~*~
Then again - again - at a fundraiser in New York City.
“I think this is a little past coincidence, Stark,” says Nathan, softly, such that those nearby can’t quite hear.
“What,” says Tony, “the part where I gutted you in front of a pack of journalists or the part where I keep showing up where I know you’ll be?”
Nathan hesitates.
“You know exactly what I’m doing,” continues Tony. “You can have your cake and eat it too, but I want you to know you should deserve it first.”
“Don’t moralize with me-”
Tony’s cell phone chirps. He half turns away, checks it - and his expression shifts, changes. “Well,” he says. “Have a nice fundraiser,” and then he’s gone. Out the door. Vanished, like he was never at the party at all.
Nathan doesn’t see him again until the Iron Man news broadcasts that air the following morning.
~*~
The article hits the internet two days after the fundraiser.
~*~
Iron Man’s ‘Harvey Dent’: Tony Stark ‘close friends’ with junior Senator Nathan Petrelli -
Ever since shocking reveal of Tony Stark as the so-called superhero Iron Man, billionaire Tony Stark has kept his distance from the stigma of Washington politics. Either it appalls the new, heroic Tony Stark, or it doesn’t suit his maverick public image, despite his obvious patriotism.
However, the sole exception seems to be the junior senator from New York state - recent appointee Nathan Petrelli.
In a press conference on the Capitol steps, Stark gave Petrelli his wholehearted support.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Nathan will vote with his conscience, every time, regardless of politics,” said Stark, “and, well, I like his honesty.”
This easy, open association may lead the American public to hope that Iron Man has finally found his Harvey Dent - a more honest, lawful hero as opposed to the fly-by-night vigilante Iron Man. If so, Tony Stark couldn’t have made a stranger pick.
Nathan Petrelli is currently under investigation for misappropriation of campaign funds and possible ties to Las Vegas mob boss Daniel Linderman. His family has been ripped by scandal - not only centering on his deceased father Arthur Petrelli but concerning his ex-wife and children, torn apart by a car accident that paralyzed Petrelli’s wife and left Petrelli himself with barely a scratch.
Nevertheless, the connection - and friendship - between Petrelli and Stark cannot be denied. There’s hardly a press conference, fundraiser, conference or event that Petrelli attends where Tony Stark’s name isn’t on the guest list; their closeness is unmistakable.
In fact, judging by certain rumors circulating around a Las Vegas casino, the relationship between Petrelli and Stark may, in fact, go far beyond simply ‘close friends’.
It’s true that Tony Stark’s reputed womanizing has declined since he first met Nathan Petrelli, at an Armed Forces Committee budget meeting, even if the only public indicator is the decrease in activity on the forum website StarKrossed, a social networking site designed for those who have had a sexual encounter with Tony Stark.
If Tony Stark and Nathan Petrelli are, in fact, more than friends, it would make Petrelli the first known non-heterosexual Senator in United States history. However, as that, at the moment, is more conjecture than fact, conclusions cannot yet be drawn.
One thing is certain, though: Nathan Petrelli now has the national spotlight. The people of America are waiting with bated breath to see what he does next.
~*~
Nathan pulls Tony aside, when he (of course) sees him again.
“We are not gay lovers,” insists Nathan, lowly, over a buffet table from one of the most expensive restaurants in New York.
“Really?” says Tony. “Could have fooled me.”
“What happened to being discreet?” hisses Nathan.
Tony shrugs. “I got bored.”
Nathan can feel the beginnings of a very nasty headache building behind his temples. “Are you trying to end my political career?”
Tony reaches out, casually straightening Nathan’s tie. Close, intimate, something only a lover would do - “Heroes aren’t fictional,” murmurs Tony. “It’s not a pie-in-the-sky idealist dream to swoop in and change someone’s life. You don’t even need an arsenal or a suit to do it.”
He steps back. “My hotel room’s upstairs.”
A few minutes later, he’s gone; Nathan can’t seem to focus on anything, any conversation, any person besides Tony Stark.
~*~
Thirty, maybe forty-five minutes later, Tony pins Nathan back against the door of the hotel room - the event downstairs is far from over, but Nathan can’t take it anymore, the politeness, the suites and ties as far as the eye can see, and maybe that was what Tony was trying to do all along.
Nathan sips in air, in between kisses, hot, hungry, wet, open - Christ, what was Nathan thinking, staying away from this?
“There’s a balcony back there,” says Tony, tilting his head towards the far end of the hotel room.
Nathan’s mouth twists. “It’s impossible to say no to you, do you know that?”
“I do,” says Tony. “I do it on purpose.” He shucks his suit jacket off, draping it over the bed. “Are we a go for AirPetrelli?”
Nathan tugs his tie free from his neck. Still hesitates, but there’s a part of him that just doesn’t care what people think. “The sky’s wide open,” he says, looking back to Tony.
“Just the way I like it,” Tony counters.
One pull, and the door to the balcony is open.
“You ready?” asks Nathan.
“Always,” returns Tony. He takes Nathan’s outstretched hand - Nathan loops it around the back of his neck, slipping his own arms around Tony’s waist. Pulling him close.
And the world falls away underneath them.
When Nathan first started practicing, first started learning the extent of his own abilities - as discreetly as possible, of course - he was surprised at how easy it all was. There was no effort involved in flying. It just took the strength to let go of the ground.
“Jesus,” manages Stark, but it’s not of fear. His arms tighten, around the back of Nathan’s neck.
The lights of Manhattan stretch out below -
“This is great,” says Tony, “no, I’m serious. How can you not just stay up here all the time - hey,” as Nathan lets himself fall back, Tony braced on top of him.
“I can’t,” says Nathan, and he hopes Tony understands.
Tony settles in, a little more comfortably, straddling Nathan’s waist. “I know,” he says. “It’d be nice, though, right?”
“Yeah.”
Tony tilts his head. “Once we get down there, are you just gonna disappoint me again?”
Nathan reaches up - releasing his hold on Tony’s waist, so Tony’s grip on Nathan tightens, reflexive caution, even in the face of Tony’s reckless nature - and he undoes the first, second, third buttons on Tony’s shirt.
Tony freezes. “Nathan,” he manages -
Nathan pulls the shirt aside, stroking the arc reactor with the edge of his thumb, and Tony shivers, makes this little choked noise. His grip is tight enough on Nathan’s arm to cut off circulation - but Tony feels like he just can’t help it.
For God’s sake, Nathan has been alone with Tony Stark three times now - just three - and already it feels like nothing in the entire world could be this important. He has Tony, the billionaire, the superhero, perched fragile and human in the air above Manhattan. So damned vulnerable, and not just physically, either.
He kisses Tony, if kiss is even the word for it - it doesn’t begin to describe the way Tony unravels at Nathan’s touch, trembling, unwilling, unable to pull away from Nathan’s fingers, skimming the reactor, over and over again. Or the way Tony whines into Nathan’s mouth, twisting and restless as Nathan undoes the clasp of Tony’s casual-but-immaculate pants, slips his hand inside.
Tony hasn’t even tried to keep Nathan at a distance - every move he’s made has brought the two of them closer, despite Nathan’s indifference, his defensiveness. But the two of them understand something that no one else in the world does, and eventually that’s got to be too much for Nathan to ignore. But now Tony doesn’t have anywhere to run even if he wanted to.
Nathan remembers feeling this the last time he slept with Tony - a pale, bare echo of this feeling, but still the same. Then, he doubted it - but no, this is something no one else could possibly give him, and Nathan sees, now, that it’s absolutely genuine, that Tony feels something with Nathan that he’s never felt before.
The instant before Tony completely comes apart, Nathan lets them go.
Gravity accelerates at nine-point-eight meters per second; in math, it’s clean, and it’s simple, and it in no way expresses the terror of plummeting uncontrollably towards the city lights beneath them.
If Tony makes any noise, as he hits his climax, in the midst of this free-fall, the wind seizes it before it gets to Nathan’s ears; all he knows is the feel of Tony’s body clenching up, twisting against Nathan with a heady recklessness, a loss of control like maybe nothing Tony has ever felt before.
Nathan slows them, bit by bit, until they land - a little less than smoothly - back on the balcony, where they took off.
Tony staggers; Nathan catches him.
“That was,” says Tony, “amazing.” His voice is breathless, soft, awed.
“I’m sorry,” says Nathan - sorry that Tony doesn’t have this gift any time he wants it, sorry that they didn’t do it before, sorry that he disappointed Tony the first time and sorry he’ll have to do it again.
Because he will. Of course he will. He’s a politician, it’s part of the game -
And, if nothing else, Nathan has to play the game.
~*~
Tony Stark’s assistant sends Nathan an invitation to Stark’s annual benefit for firefighters and police officers in Los Angeles. Nathan doesn’t plan on attending; but then, somehow, he finds himself in Los Angeles that night. Barely a week after he took Tony flying for the first time.
He feels oddly uncomfortable - even though he knows he can blend in with the upper crust in any part of the country. He grew up with it, after all.
Tony arrives late in the evening. The very picture of the stylish billionaire. He moves through the crowd with ease, forgetting more names than he remembers, but his charm gets him through.
He stops, though, when he sees Nathan.
“Well, Senator,” says Tony, “I’d say this is getting a little past coincidence, wouldn’t you?”
Nathan laughs. “It was never coincidence,” he says. He touches Tony, along the line of his jaw. Feels the flicker of apprehension, and swallows it, pushes it away - and, heart hammering in his chest, presses a short, chaste kiss to Tony’s mouth.
Tony stills, for a moment. In shock, maybe, that Nathan actually did something. Took action, in a place this public.
And Nathan knows it feels (looks) familiar and new, all at once.
At least one camera flashes before they break apart.
Tony blinks. “Okay,” he says.
“Thank you,” says Nathan, softly, in Tony’s ear, and he lets himself smile.
Pairing: Nathan Petrelli/Tony Stark
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Nothing specific for either, I'd say.
Notes: Written for Sweet Charity. My recipient is brighteyed_jill, who asked for more Nathan/Tony. Hope you enjoy it :)
Sequel to: 1 - Birds of a Feather and 2 - Smoke Signals.
Summary: The article hits the internet two days after the fundraiser - "Iron Man’s ‘Harvey Dent’: Tony Stark ‘close friends’ with junior Senator Nathan Petrelli".
- - -
Nathan, apparently, cannot get rid of this guy.
It doesn’t help that Nathan’s new position on the Committee of Armed Services puts him among those directly in charge of the source of Stark Industries’ funding, of course, but the real clincher is how often Stark shows up completely outside anything having to do with the Senate at all.
“Evening, Senator,” says Tony Stark, with a smile. “Enjoying yourself?”
Not anymore, thinks Nathan. “Of course,” he lies, accepting the handshake, peripherally aware of the reporters lurking subtly nearby. They truly love stories about Tony Stark, and it’s all too easy to come out of it looking like a weak fool next to a billionaire playboy superhero.
“How’s your work?” he asks. Polite, smooth, don’t give the reporters anything to say and they won’t say it.
“Productive,” says Stark. He can see straight through the façade, thinks Nathan - no, ridiculous, no one but Peter has ever been able to do that. Not even Heidi.
And damn the man, damn his silence and that smirk and the way he opens the air just enough that Nathan has to fill it.
“I’m glad to hear that,” says Nathan, smoothly. “I’m sure the taxpayers will appreciate it.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” returns Stark.
“It’s my job to make my constituents happy,” and crap, Nathan said that way too quickly, way too defensively.
“Of course,” says Stark. “I can see that.” He moves to go past Nathan - but catches Nathan’s arm instead, like he’s going to pull Nathan with him -
Nathan holds firm - feels Stark’s muscles shift under the suit and is surprised at how strong he feels, like he didn’t expect Stark to have any strength but the kind the suit gave him.
His breath catches, his heart jerks in his chest, and Nathan might be more afraid of Tony Stark than he’s ever been of anyone.
Stark catches Nathan’s eyes, tilts his head towards a knot of reporters. “C’mon,” he says, in a way that implies all sorts of complicated things, like trust me, and I know who you are, and Nathan doesn’t like that at all.
But they’re standing way too close, in a crowded room of important people, and that, if nothing else, is enough for Nathan to end this now.
He steps away, shrugging his arm out of Stark’s grip. “Have a good day, Mr. Stark,” says Nathan, as he slips away into the crowd. Doesn’t look back.
The next time he checks, Stark is gone.
~*~
That isn’t enough to dissuade him, apparently.
A press conference, just outside the Capitol building. Nathan hopes to duck by it, unnoticed; the bills debated and passed today weren’t from any of his committees or subcommittees, and he has nothing newsworthy to say.
It’s only as he’s passing that Nathan realizes, belatedly, that there are a lot more reporters than usual, and there can only be so many possible reasons -
Stark snags Nathan on his way past, greeting him with a handshake and a friendly arm around the shoulders. Leaving Nathan absolutely no way to get out of it gracefully.
“Senator Petrelli,” says Stark, “fancy seeing you here.”
“Mr. Stark,” Nathan forces out.
“Hey,” grins Stark, at the cutest of the female reporters, his hand still resting on Nathan’s arm. “Denise? Daria?”
“Dana,” she corrects, returning his smile regardless.
“Dana. I’d like to introduce you to my good friend Nathan Petrelli.”
Nathan ungrits his teeth and offers a smile. “It’s a pleasure.”
Dana whatever-her-name-is shakes Nathan’s hand, but what’s in her eyes is more curiosity than greeting.
“Really.” Dana tilts her head. “New York, right?”
“That’s right,” says Nathan. “Junior senator.”
“I heard about your appointment,” she says, “but I don’t believe we’ve ever been formally introduced.”
“No, I don’t believe we have.”
“Nathan is a - very good friend of mine,” says Stark, and Nathan prays to God that Dana didn’t notice the vaguely lewd way Stark drawled that out (but everything Stark says sounds lewd to Nathan, so who knows, really).
Dana looks quite, quite interested now. “You mean Tony Stark would actually endorse a politician?”
“You bet,” says Stark. “Nathan’s absolutely unique. The phrase ‘the sky’s the limit’ doesn’t even apply.”
Nathan flinches.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Nathan will vote with his conscience, every time, regardless of politics,” continues Stark, “and, well, I like his honesty.”
Goddamn you, Stark.
“I must admit, Mr. Petrelli,” says Dana, “from what I’ve heard, you present a rather different face to the world.”
“He’s very concerned about public appearance,” Stark jumps in. “Aren’t you, Nathan?”
Nathan lets a half-smile play around his mouth - calculated, and inside, he’s fuming. “We all have our priorities, of course.”
Nathan exchanges glances with Stark. And a moment ago he was pretty sure Tony Stark just did this to torment him, but suddenly he’s not so sure.
“I trust him implicitly,” concludes Tony.
~*~
Then again - again - at a fundraiser in New York City.
“I think this is a little past coincidence, Stark,” says Nathan, softly, such that those nearby can’t quite hear.
“What,” says Tony, “the part where I gutted you in front of a pack of journalists or the part where I keep showing up where I know you’ll be?”
Nathan hesitates.
“You know exactly what I’m doing,” continues Tony. “You can have your cake and eat it too, but I want you to know you should deserve it first.”
“Don’t moralize with me-”
Tony’s cell phone chirps. He half turns away, checks it - and his expression shifts, changes. “Well,” he says. “Have a nice fundraiser,” and then he’s gone. Out the door. Vanished, like he was never at the party at all.
Nathan doesn’t see him again until the Iron Man news broadcasts that air the following morning.
~*~
The article hits the internet two days after the fundraiser.
~*~
Iron Man’s ‘Harvey Dent’: Tony Stark ‘close friends’ with junior Senator Nathan Petrelli -
Ever since shocking reveal of Tony Stark as the so-called superhero Iron Man, billionaire Tony Stark has kept his distance from the stigma of Washington politics. Either it appalls the new, heroic Tony Stark, or it doesn’t suit his maverick public image, despite his obvious patriotism.
However, the sole exception seems to be the junior senator from New York state - recent appointee Nathan Petrelli.
In a press conference on the Capitol steps, Stark gave Petrelli his wholehearted support.
“I have absolutely no doubt that Nathan will vote with his conscience, every time, regardless of politics,” said Stark, “and, well, I like his honesty.”
This easy, open association may lead the American public to hope that Iron Man has finally found his Harvey Dent - a more honest, lawful hero as opposed to the fly-by-night vigilante Iron Man. If so, Tony Stark couldn’t have made a stranger pick.
Nathan Petrelli is currently under investigation for misappropriation of campaign funds and possible ties to Las Vegas mob boss Daniel Linderman. His family has been ripped by scandal - not only centering on his deceased father Arthur Petrelli but concerning his ex-wife and children, torn apart by a car accident that paralyzed Petrelli’s wife and left Petrelli himself with barely a scratch.
Nevertheless, the connection - and friendship - between Petrelli and Stark cannot be denied. There’s hardly a press conference, fundraiser, conference or event that Petrelli attends where Tony Stark’s name isn’t on the guest list; their closeness is unmistakable.
In fact, judging by certain rumors circulating around a Las Vegas casino, the relationship between Petrelli and Stark may, in fact, go far beyond simply ‘close friends’.
It’s true that Tony Stark’s reputed womanizing has declined since he first met Nathan Petrelli, at an Armed Forces Committee budget meeting, even if the only public indicator is the decrease in activity on the forum website StarKrossed, a social networking site designed for those who have had a sexual encounter with Tony Stark.
If Tony Stark and Nathan Petrelli are, in fact, more than friends, it would make Petrelli the first known non-heterosexual Senator in United States history. However, as that, at the moment, is more conjecture than fact, conclusions cannot yet be drawn.
One thing is certain, though: Nathan Petrelli now has the national spotlight. The people of America are waiting with bated breath to see what he does next.
~*~
Nathan pulls Tony aside, when he (of course) sees him again.
“We are not gay lovers,” insists Nathan, lowly, over a buffet table from one of the most expensive restaurants in New York.
“Really?” says Tony. “Could have fooled me.”
“What happened to being discreet?” hisses Nathan.
Tony shrugs. “I got bored.”
Nathan can feel the beginnings of a very nasty headache building behind his temples. “Are you trying to end my political career?”
Tony reaches out, casually straightening Nathan’s tie. Close, intimate, something only a lover would do - “Heroes aren’t fictional,” murmurs Tony. “It’s not a pie-in-the-sky idealist dream to swoop in and change someone’s life. You don’t even need an arsenal or a suit to do it.”
He steps back. “My hotel room’s upstairs.”
A few minutes later, he’s gone; Nathan can’t seem to focus on anything, any conversation, any person besides Tony Stark.
~*~
Thirty, maybe forty-five minutes later, Tony pins Nathan back against the door of the hotel room - the event downstairs is far from over, but Nathan can’t take it anymore, the politeness, the suites and ties as far as the eye can see, and maybe that was what Tony was trying to do all along.
Nathan sips in air, in between kisses, hot, hungry, wet, open - Christ, what was Nathan thinking, staying away from this?
“There’s a balcony back there,” says Tony, tilting his head towards the far end of the hotel room.
Nathan’s mouth twists. “It’s impossible to say no to you, do you know that?”
“I do,” says Tony. “I do it on purpose.” He shucks his suit jacket off, draping it over the bed. “Are we a go for AirPetrelli?”
Nathan tugs his tie free from his neck. Still hesitates, but there’s a part of him that just doesn’t care what people think. “The sky’s wide open,” he says, looking back to Tony.
“Just the way I like it,” Tony counters.
One pull, and the door to the balcony is open.
“You ready?” asks Nathan.
“Always,” returns Tony. He takes Nathan’s outstretched hand - Nathan loops it around the back of his neck, slipping his own arms around Tony’s waist. Pulling him close.
And the world falls away underneath them.
When Nathan first started practicing, first started learning the extent of his own abilities - as discreetly as possible, of course - he was surprised at how easy it all was. There was no effort involved in flying. It just took the strength to let go of the ground.
“Jesus,” manages Stark, but it’s not of fear. His arms tighten, around the back of Nathan’s neck.
The lights of Manhattan stretch out below -
“This is great,” says Tony, “no, I’m serious. How can you not just stay up here all the time - hey,” as Nathan lets himself fall back, Tony braced on top of him.
“I can’t,” says Nathan, and he hopes Tony understands.
Tony settles in, a little more comfortably, straddling Nathan’s waist. “I know,” he says. “It’d be nice, though, right?”
“Yeah.”
Tony tilts his head. “Once we get down there, are you just gonna disappoint me again?”
Nathan reaches up - releasing his hold on Tony’s waist, so Tony’s grip on Nathan tightens, reflexive caution, even in the face of Tony’s reckless nature - and he undoes the first, second, third buttons on Tony’s shirt.
Tony freezes. “Nathan,” he manages -
Nathan pulls the shirt aside, stroking the arc reactor with the edge of his thumb, and Tony shivers, makes this little choked noise. His grip is tight enough on Nathan’s arm to cut off circulation - but Tony feels like he just can’t help it.
For God’s sake, Nathan has been alone with Tony Stark three times now - just three - and already it feels like nothing in the entire world could be this important. He has Tony, the billionaire, the superhero, perched fragile and human in the air above Manhattan. So damned vulnerable, and not just physically, either.
He kisses Tony, if kiss is even the word for it - it doesn’t begin to describe the way Tony unravels at Nathan’s touch, trembling, unwilling, unable to pull away from Nathan’s fingers, skimming the reactor, over and over again. Or the way Tony whines into Nathan’s mouth, twisting and restless as Nathan undoes the clasp of Tony’s casual-but-immaculate pants, slips his hand inside.
Tony hasn’t even tried to keep Nathan at a distance - every move he’s made has brought the two of them closer, despite Nathan’s indifference, his defensiveness. But the two of them understand something that no one else in the world does, and eventually that’s got to be too much for Nathan to ignore. But now Tony doesn’t have anywhere to run even if he wanted to.
Nathan remembers feeling this the last time he slept with Tony - a pale, bare echo of this feeling, but still the same. Then, he doubted it - but no, this is something no one else could possibly give him, and Nathan sees, now, that it’s absolutely genuine, that Tony feels something with Nathan that he’s never felt before.
The instant before Tony completely comes apart, Nathan lets them go.
Gravity accelerates at nine-point-eight meters per second; in math, it’s clean, and it’s simple, and it in no way expresses the terror of plummeting uncontrollably towards the city lights beneath them.
If Tony makes any noise, as he hits his climax, in the midst of this free-fall, the wind seizes it before it gets to Nathan’s ears; all he knows is the feel of Tony’s body clenching up, twisting against Nathan with a heady recklessness, a loss of control like maybe nothing Tony has ever felt before.
Nathan slows them, bit by bit, until they land - a little less than smoothly - back on the balcony, where they took off.
Tony staggers; Nathan catches him.
“That was,” says Tony, “amazing.” His voice is breathless, soft, awed.
“I’m sorry,” says Nathan - sorry that Tony doesn’t have this gift any time he wants it, sorry that they didn’t do it before, sorry that he disappointed Tony the first time and sorry he’ll have to do it again.
Because he will. Of course he will. He’s a politician, it’s part of the game -
And, if nothing else, Nathan has to play the game.
~*~
Tony Stark’s assistant sends Nathan an invitation to Stark’s annual benefit for firefighters and police officers in Los Angeles. Nathan doesn’t plan on attending; but then, somehow, he finds himself in Los Angeles that night. Barely a week after he took Tony flying for the first time.
He feels oddly uncomfortable - even though he knows he can blend in with the upper crust in any part of the country. He grew up with it, after all.
Tony arrives late in the evening. The very picture of the stylish billionaire. He moves through the crowd with ease, forgetting more names than he remembers, but his charm gets him through.
He stops, though, when he sees Nathan.
“Well, Senator,” says Tony, “I’d say this is getting a little past coincidence, wouldn’t you?”
Nathan laughs. “It was never coincidence,” he says. He touches Tony, along the line of his jaw. Feels the flicker of apprehension, and swallows it, pushes it away - and, heart hammering in his chest, presses a short, chaste kiss to Tony’s mouth.
Tony stills, for a moment. In shock, maybe, that Nathan actually did something. Took action, in a place this public.
And Nathan knows it feels (looks) familiar and new, all at once.
At least one camera flashes before they break apart.
Tony blinks. “Okay,” he says.
“Thank you,” says Nathan, softly, in Tony’s ear, and he lets himself smile.