Tony Stark, accept no substitutes

Sherry did, of course, do a background check.

"Andy Wright, age 24, graduated cum laude from Bethlem College in South Dakota with a BA in Creative Writing. No criminal record."

Tony was not impressed.

"Licensed bartender. Works in coffeeshops a great deal, as well. Published several poems in a few magazines around the country."

He shouldn't have been surprised, either, and after the initial shock he wasn't.

"Did you expect me not to? Her work isn't bad, though I think she relies on her allusions a little too heavily."

But now, if he's going to email her, he should probably get that out of the way first thing. He sprawls out in bed with his laptop and starts typing.

Subject: so hi
From: tonys (dcxvi)
To: awright (gmail)

Hey,

Sherry totally did do a background check. :( Sorry. It all checks out, though, so that's good I guess.

Anyway. If you seriously want to talk, I think I seriously need to. But like I said, I don't want to freak you out or anything. So... I dunno.

Coffee sometime?

-Tony

He worries about Sherry.

If you'd asked him, before he moved to the other corner of the continent, he wouldn't even have thought of the possibility. Worry? About Sherlock Holmes? What about him, exactly?

But that's just it; he doesn't know. Oh, Sherry sends emails and Jarvis fills in the gaps, but he still doesn't really know what's going on back there, not the way he would if he were still in the house. And there's something going on, he's pretty sure, and Jarvis is being coy and Sherry hasn't said a word, and Tony worries.

Which is why, although he told that cute redhead that he couldn't walk her home because he actually had to finish this problem set tonight, there is very little calculus going on in his room right now.

It's been five days since this and two days since that and Tony only left the hospital to sleep last night because they kicked him out. But apparently Obie is awake and can have visitors now. Awesome.

Tony is not entirely sure, as he steps through the door into the (of course) private hospital room, that he isn't just going to strangle him.

"My first memory," he starts, gripping the edges of the podium with both hands, "is of falling off my bike. I was, like, five, and the damn thing had training wheels and I still managed to crash it. And Obie—" He smiles into the distance. "Okay, Obie laughed his ass off. Then he picked me up and got me going again."

For a moment, he pauses, looking down at the blank wood empty of cue cards. When he finds his voice again, it's softer.

"He made Stark Industries what it is today. It's his legacy as much as it's my dad's. And I can't talk about Obie without talking about my dad. If he heard me saying it he'd come back from the grave just to kick my ass, but it's true. They were best friends. In fact I'm pretty sure he was Dad's only friend. After—" (he swallows) "—after Mom and Dad passed away, before I sold the house, he used to come visit and he'd drink whiskey and I'd drink Red Bull and we'd talk about family."

Someone coughs at the back of the room. Tony can't even muster the energy to be angry, although he has spent most of the day being exactly that—viciously, bitterly angry at the rest of the world for not caring the way he does. He ignores the interruption and keeps on going.

"He was an only child, you know that? In case any of you are wondering why there's no flock of Stanes showing up to cry with me, it's cause he was the last one. He lost his parents before I was even born. We talked about that. And when I moved to Sunnydale, he kept flying in at the most ridiculous hours to stay for a few days. Checking up on me, he said. 'Cause a phone call just wasn't good enough, I guess. Obie was like that."

Without him quite being aware of the process, his head has dropped again until he is inspecting the woodgrain and the cheap plasticky texture of the varnish on the podium.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, he was there for me. He's been there for me all my life, and now he's not."

At last, the room is completely silent. Tony looks up. Sherlock is standing by the door, half hidden by a pillar, like he can't wait to get out of here. Which is still better than half the assholes sitting in those nice neat rows. He speaks past them all, even Sherry, addressing his final words to somewhere on the other side of the back wall.

"God, I miss him."

Tony gets tired of waiting for Sherry to come home at around one and goes to bed. The next morning, his first clue that something is wrong comes a few seconds after he gets up again.

"Good morning," Jarvis tells him, sounding subdued—which is a four-page treatise on bad all by itself—and doesn't follow it up with gossip or a joke or the weather forecast or reminders of upcoming tests.

"What's wrong?" he asks, rubbing his head.

"I think you'd better see for yourself," says Jarvis, and that is how Tony ends up in Sherlock's bedroom for the first time in at least a year.

Tony wakes up, which he has been doing a lot of in this journal, to a message from Jarvis indicating that Sherlock would like to know if he is willing to drive Alyce into town to pick up some of her belongings.

"Sure, why not," he mumbles, yawning. "'M gonna have a shower. Lemme know where she is when I get out."

"Certainly, sir."

So, last night was bizarre.

Let's start with how Sherry brought a girl home. She turned out to be a wizard, which was pretty kickass, but then Tony got shot and that part wasn't so great. And dammit, they didn't even manage to get those wards up. Well, like hell is he going to ask her to try it again, at least not until she's recovered from the first time and he's had a chance to upgrade the external security cameras on the house. And next time they can do it in broad fucking daylight, too.

This is what's running through Tony's head as he stumbles downstairs, yawning, in search of coffee and something resembling food. Under normal circumstances he's equally likely to wake up at two in the afternoon or two in the morning, but right now, it is (according to Jarvis) ten after nine. AM.