Title: Man and Woman, Husband and Wife
Fandom: X-Men/Avengers
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Tony/Emma
Rating: R/M
Summary: They're never going to be the same.
Word Count: 2,197
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 475. Mystery
Date Written: 6 April 2025
Warnings: Spoilers
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.






She lays in the lazy, warm afterglow of making love, idly tracing her fingertips over her husband's bare chest -- until she realizes the words she's just thought and freezes. There's a tightness in her throat, but it's not as hard as it once had been every time she'd considered the possibility of truly loving a man. There is a part of her, she acknowledges, that has already come to love her husband, even though this marriage had always been a business deal. There had never been supposed to be any genuine feelings between them, but she'd be a fool not to see them.

She does see them, and it hurts. It hurts, sometimes, the way he looks so adoringly into her eyes. It hurts even more when she finds herself watching him, being pleasured by him, trusting him, yes, even adoring him too... To her horror, she realizes suddenly that what has come to hurt most of all is the idea of leaving him, which she will have to do soon. Sooner than she'd originally intended, Emma tells herself forcefully, pressing her blue lips together. She must leave him just as soon as their mission is accomplished; she dare not idle even one more day.

Love is dangerous. She used to tell herself it was a fairy tale created by men to make women think they love them, and thus to open themselves up to being hurt. But she has seen love in truth. She has witnessed it many times in other couples, Scott and Jean, Charles and Erik, Reed and Sue Richards... She has seen it in many other people but never truly experienced it herself. Oh, she's had her crushes as any girl does, but she's never let anyone but Scott truly get underneath her skin. She'd convinced herself, at one point before Jean's latest resurrection, that what she had felt for him had been love, but it had not been. It had been convenience, comfort, even a deep friendship.

But this -- This is love, or at least the beginnings of it. She finds herself wanting to be with Anthony for no better reason than to share his companionship. She finds herself wanting to ease his pain in lasting ways she'd never truly cared to consider for Scott. She'd wanted to ease his pain, yes, but never at any cost to herself. Emma finds herself repeatedly and frighteningly willing to make sacrifices for the man currently beside her.

All of this and more, she knows, is the reason why those dangerous and telling words just entered her mind: making love. She has not thought of sex as being such a fairy tale since she was very young, certainly since before her career with mutants began. She'd had to use sex as a tool starting in the Hellfire Club, but her acknowledgment of what it is, a tool used by women and men alike to rule over one another, never an expression of genuine love if such does exist -- and, again, she thinks of all the other couples whom she has witnessed in true love -- dates back to long before her months spent in that horrendous asylum into which her fearful, cruel parents had cast her. Sex is a weapon. It is a tool. But it is not a product of true emotions, especially not of love.

Yet... She's never had better sex with any partner, and what she has just experienced, what they both just experienced, cannot be described even by her cynical mind as a tool. She had meant it when she'd gasped out in his name, and she remembers now wishing, at some point during their erotic foray, that she would never again have to part from this man. Such thoughts were almost blasphemy! They certainly went against everything she stood for, every tool, belief, and code in her arsenal that has taught her to survive every battle and war she has!

And yet... She realizes she's tracing his tanned, tight skin again. Yet she cannot seem to help wanting to stay in this bliss forever. But for as much as she has always questioned the idea of love, she knows very well that no paradise can last forever. This marriage cannot last forever. Even if she could abandon her mission to such a silly, idealistic notion as a happy, loving marriage, she knows from hard experience that every paradise man, or mutant, kind attempts to erect will always shatter in the end. Is that not what had sent her on her current mission after all? Is it not what cost them both everything they've worked so hard for their entire lives?

Only Anthony has not just worked for his fortune. He's worked to better the world, the whole world unlike her own desperate schemes to help her people. He has improved the world, from everything she's read not just as a hero but with his technology, with his very mind. But she has come to know perhaps better than anyone else that it is not just his mind that drives him, but his heart that actually powers everything he does.

His heart that had come so close to stopping on him, she thinks, changing the direction of her strokes and gingerly touching the metal contraption sticking out of his chest. She remembers the nervousness she had felt from him when she had first seen him without his shirt. He had thought a woman like her would belittle him for not being a whole man. Everything he has made of himself, everything he has given to all those around him, even into outer space and beyond, and he'd still been nervous, still felt incomplete --

She acknowledges now that there would be some women who would have belittled him for it, would have thought less of him for the piece of metal that is now always a part of him because it enables his heart to beat, him to live and to do everything he does -- But of course those women were not women at all, but still little girls trapped inside a woman's body and who would never truly grow up. She'd known scores of such females. They were all frivolous, little things, and most of them would have been bought by his money regardless. She had entered this marriage wanting his power, his protection, promising him to restore his fortune. She would do just that, too, but this... bond that had formed between them had little to do with everything they'd originally sought from each other.

He wants her to stay. She knows that, and freezes again when his hand suddenly clasps around hers. She's expecting the talk to come, to have to tell him again that she cannot stay, that she must not stay for her people's sake. She's trying to find words to let him down gently and instead decides to change the subject before he can approach it. "You really are quite marvelous, you know." She cannot stay with him, but at least she can leave a lasting impression with him that will comfort him on more than just his long and lonely nights.

She feels him tense, her fingers so close to where the light emits from the device in his chest. She's found it shines brighter at some times than at other times; there had been a moment during their lovemaking just now where it had shone so brilliantly it had been like a Hope diamond illuminating the otherwise dark room. The device is mysterious -- she would like to understand it better --, but what is even more mysterious is how any human man can care so much about the world around him that he has given it all Anthony has. This world does not deserve him.

He squeezes her fingers gently but laughs. It's a warm sound that Emma has come to like a great deal, and she smiles as she feels it rumbling all the way through his chest. "The whole world knows I'm marvelous, Emma." He lifts her hand and begins kissing her fingers, one at a time. With any other man, she would think he was getting ready for another round, but Emma recognizes his tender expression of love for what it is.

Her heart aches. She wishes she could stay. She knows she cannot. "You are," she says and pushes herself up. She gazes down at him, her blonde hair falling to one side, and as their eyes lock, she tries to convey every emotion she dares not voice to him through her eyes. "You really are, and not simply because of your Iron Man technology."

"I know -- " he starts to say, and she interrupts him.

"I mean it, Anthony. There are very, very few humans in this world who care as much about the world as you do."

"The Avengers -- "

"How many of them almost died before they came to the team? How many would have suffered the way you suffered -- and don't try to tell me you didn't -- and found a way not just to survive but used those survival skills to better the entire freaking galaxy around them? You need to stop belittling yourself, Anthony."

She'd told Scott very much the same thing once during their early days together, but she'd never meant it as she does now. She'd seen what he and Robert too could do and had tried so hard to help them improve upon themselves. She had tried to do the same for Sean and Namor, both too egotistical to see their own weaknesses and where they need to improve not just for the team and kingdom they had been trying to lead but for themselves. But Anthony is not like any other man she has ever known before, and not just in boudoir. He is a man, a man who needs no further training, a man who knows himself inside and out and has dedicated his every being to improving the lives of all he can reach. He doesn't need teaching, but she wishes nonetheless she could stay with him.

He caresses her face, and she leans into his gentle touch. She turns her head just enough she can kiss his palm, but her kiss is chaste, tender, sweet -- nothing like anything she's ever shared with any of her past lovers or, she knows, ever will again. "I am going to miss you." The truth is out before she can stop it.

She quickly looks away, back down to his device, back down to the instrument that keeps him alive, the device that is both so much an important part of the way he became the man he is and so little a driving force behind who he is. He could not do anything he does without it, but Emma knows it's far more than his brilliance and technology that empowers the man he is today. It is with that man she'd like to stay, even if he didn't have wealth, power, or kept saving the world. It's a girlhood dream long put away, but in this quiet and tender moment, she knows she would, in truth, like nothing better than to hide away from the rest of the world for the rest of their lives and just spend the rest of their days loving each other as husband and wife.

It cannot be. She has to leave. Almost as though he's read her thoughts -- but she knows he hasn't -- , Tony strokes her face and hair with more tenderness and love than she's ever known or will again. "I know you have to go, Emma." He smiles gently, but she also recognizes the sorrow hidden just behind that charming smile. "But we still have a mission to complete, so for now, you're still my wife."

"I am," she whispers, and realizes she's become more than that. He's become more than that to her. Even when their mission is over, even when she does leave him, there will be a part of her that will forever cherish moments like this. All the more reason, she tells herself, straddling him while being careful of his device, to make more memories. She wants to tell him she loves him, but she doesn't dare. Instead, she kisses him again and again, her tongue diving into his mouth, her legs squeezing his. Her hands sweep around the reactor, stroking both metal and skin, each of which is equally him. Each of which is equally her husband, a man who has forever left his mark on her soul, a lover who, for the first time, has left feelings of goodness and love in her, of his own light just as bright as the one that shines from his chest, forever more. She will carry with her these memories of him wherever she goes for the rest of her life, she acknowledges, and she can tell, not just from their psychic link, that she'll always be with him too. And if either of them cries while they make love this time, neither will ever call on the other on their tears.



The End