Word Count: 14k Warnings: Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings Rating:Explicit Pairing(s):Steve/Tony, Bucky/Tony, Steve/Bucky/Tony Character(s): Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, James “Bucky” Barnes Tags:Dubious Consent, Competition for Tony, Love Triangles, Happy Ending, for everyone, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Omega Tony Stark, Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers
Tony slams himself against the wall after he passes the corner, hands smacking roughly against the surface. Hopeless. They can scent him out wherever he is anyway, but he needs to catch his breath—catch his mind. There was a way out of this, but maybe he had passed it on the highway of this misadventure long since past.
The elevator opens and Tony holds back a keen. It’s one or both of them, their footsteps solid on the concrete, and he doesn’t know which he wants to escape more. He scents the air, and both of their unique smells fill his nostrils.
He drops to his knees too fast and he can feel his joints protesting. He’s too old for this shit, the marble hard and cold and unforgiving in a way he’s gonna pay for later. But that’s an irrelevant problem for future Tony. A Tony that is not consumed by the feel of powerful, muscular thighs under his hands. Thighs he wants wrapped around his hips while they rut against each other until both of them forget their names, forget their history, forget all the good reasons why they shouldn’t be doing this.
OR
Bucky gets hurt during a mission. Tony is grudgingly worried. Angry sex ensues.
Tony is the one who picked up a stray, and Bucky is the one who gave him half a bag of cat food. Reasoning: if Tony was the one with the dad cat, Bucky wouldn’t be able to see his porch.
The AIDS epidemic began when he was still not with Pep and therefore probably having fun sleeping around. And since at least in my headcanon Tony is pan, and therefore at high risk, it’s very plausible for him to have caught it. His wealth gives him a plausible way to have survived it. (Note: I’d probably set this later than ‘87 but earlier than ‘90 so that the public at large would not yet be wanting to help but after zidovudine was developed.)
Afterwards, he would likely become a face for those who are fighting it. Create a new section of Stark Medical to specifically work on HIV, because almost everyone else with the resources is busy examining their own rectums. Not the best idea when a deadly disease is roaming about.
Later, this makes his getting the reactor fascinating. Now he’s doubly immunocompromised. (source for continued compromisaition on a lower level after treatment, specifically in the gut: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2777614/ ). He’d need to make a special suit for visiting kids in hospitals so that their germs wouldn’t get in and make him fall seriously ill. He might actually go to medical like he’s supposed to because he can’t afford for an infection to start. His workshop and penthouse are likely crammed with various kinds of disinfecting medicines, lights, and filters.
It probably kills him that he can’t go and comfort his friends when they’re ill. He can’t visit Pepper when she catches a stomach bug, so he sends her soup and tears a chunk out of the sleazy businessmen she would have had to deal with in her place.
He can’t eat any food from the shitty places Clint and Steve love, their lack of good health procedures makes it go from dicey to a serious risk.
Also, HIV can lead to nervous system issues, something I just learned about. (source: https://www.summitmedicalgroup.com/library/adult_health/aha_aids_nervous_system_complications/ ) Since nerves have trouble repairing themselves, this leads to a host of issues that would interfere with his ability to live life normally and would likely remain at the veyr least up until Extremis. Especially since so much of how Tony values himself and how others value him is based on what his brain and hands can do. On the flip side, research into that could be deeply helpful to Rhody after his fall.
In conclusion, HIV+ Tony is a really interesting angst possibility.
Only 16 hours left until the contributor applications close!
Applications will stay open until 11:59 pm in UTC-12 - so no matter what time zone you are in, if you send it in before it’s not April 30th anymore anywhere on earth, you’re still on time.
You’ve met our team of organizers in our recent mod feature posts (or if you missed those, learn more about the team at: https://www.reforgedzine.com/mod-team/).
What makes us think we can pull this off, though? Among the mods, we have a combined experience that includes running fandom events like exchanges, bangs, and bingos, working on collaborations, self-publishing comics or anthologies of art and writing, printing merch and print media, setting print files, building websites and e-commerce shops, and tons of experience organizing teams and projects.
Our collective skills and experience should carry us through this zine, but we are also excited to learn new things, and our excitement for having a Winteriron zine come to fruition will inspire us to conquer the inevitable challenges we will face!
Winteriron - the NSFW add-on: a whopping 94% of you said “yes” or “maybe” to an NSFW add-on! (with 65.1% saying yes). If we manage to fill an additional booklet will depend on applications, so: Are you a writer or artist who is happy to create NSFW pieces? You can join us by signing up here: https://forms.gle/AqcBufV3KfbwsrND9
