Chapter Text
From: Tony Stark's Phone
You’re out of milk, again.
Tony stirred from where he was huddled in the blankets. He glanced at the text, rolling his eyes.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
I just got back from a business trip, sue me. You know I hate strangers in my house when I’m not there. No strangers, no grocery service.
Not my fault we went Freaky Friday before I could get the grocery service there.
By the way, your milk has spoiled, which is even worse.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
Liar. My milk is fine. I doubt you’ve even gotten out of bed, much less opened the refrigerator. I don’t have a hospital shift today.
It was true, Tony had woken up in Stephen’s body and had immediately burrowed back into bed, grateful for the excuse to not have to go to his business meetings.
Sucked to be Stephen, today. Pepper and Obie weren’t going to let him get out of any meetings. Not that that meant he didn’t have things to do. Unfortunately. He rolled out of bed, checking Stephen’s phone for the calendar that Tony and Stephen both kept updated religiously.
He choked.
A date. Stephen had a date.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
What the hell, Stephen!
From: Tony Stark's Phone
What?
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
You have a date! Christine.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
Cancel. Pretend to be sick. You are NOT meeting Christine.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
Christine, as in Christine Palmer? I already know Christine. You went to med school together, Stephen! You’ve worked with her for years.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
It’ll be our second date, Tony. No.
The urge to not cancel was strong. He knew Christine, it wasn’t like this was some new person that Tony might accidentally ruin things with. Well, actually, Tony probably could accidentally ruin things. Not that it mattered either way. They had rules, a system. When trapped in each other’s bodies they followed those rules to the letter. No matter how much of a fuck up Tony was, he had no intention of ruining Stephen’s life for him.
They could both ruin their own lives all by themselves.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
Food poisoning?
From: Tony Stark's Phone
Why is it always food poisoning with you? The people I work with think I have a problem.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
You do. It’s called Stark-Strange Syndrome. Don’t think you want me to claim that, though.
In truth, he chose food poisoning because it could be a 24-hour sort of thing that wasn’t contagious, which meant that when Stephen was back in his own body it was easy for him to claim to be fine again.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
Fine. Food poisoning.
And it'd be Strange-Stark Syndrome, by the way.
Tony huffed out a laugh at that even as he scrolled through Stephen’s phone to send a text to Christine, apologizing for cancelling and setting up another date, updating it in Stephen’s calendar.
He went through the rest of the day’s schedule, but Stephen didn’t have anything else going on. He tended to take his free days seriously.
Especially when there was a possibility that they’d be switching bodies.
They mostly had their system worked out to minimize the hassle of the switch. They might not understand how or why they switched bodies, but they did at least understand the rules. They could only switch bodies when they were both asleep at the same time. And, as far as they could tell, they switched at least once a month but no more than three times a month, always for a single waking cycle, which was a small mercy. Though to be fair, it might have changed since they'd last figured out the rules. They hadn’t done much testing lately. But that was how it had worked when they were children and teenagers when their sleep schedules had been more uniform.
Nowadays they used Tony’s erratic sleep schedule to try to ensure that they switched bodies on days that worked for both of them. Tony, after all, was the furthest thing from a neurosurgeon and wasn’t about to go around performing surgery. Sporadic days in med school did not a doctor make, and Stephen certainly couldn’t claim to be an engineer.
They had tried not switching before, keeping their sleep entirely separate from one another. They’d made it two months before they’d both ended up passed out for ‘unknown reasons’ and then been trapped in the other’s body for a week in what had felt like cruel and unusual punishment.
Being the scientist that he was, Tony had convinced Stephen to let them try again, needing more data. He was more than willing to adapt to a completely nocturnal schedule if it meant they no longer had to switch bodies every month. They’d only made it a month and a half that time before they’d both passed out and switched bodies again, this time for almost two weeks.
Stephen had put his foot down about trying it again. Whatever had done this to them wasn’t going to let them get away with not switching.
So instead Tony did his best to follow a specific and slightly ridiculous sleep schedule that allowed them to live mostly normal lives. He was the eccentric billionaire, after all. He was the one who could get away with sleeping less and at strange times. A neurosurgeon didn’t really have the same options.
He went to Stephen’s fridge pulling out the milk and reaching for the cereal. Stephen’s taste buds were less inclined to sugar than his own, so it was boring granola, which, in Stephen’s body tasted far better than it did in Tony’s own.
The wonders of the human body. The sheer difference in experience based off which body he was in was never going to stop being novel to him.
He wandered to the guest room, reaching above the door for the key that Stephen kept there. That was one nice thing about being in Stephen's body, Stephen was tall.
The guest room, at first glance, was empty except for a table and swivel chair in the middle of the room. It was essentially Tony’s room for while he was in Stephen’s body, equipped with hologram technology and with JARVIS installed.
Stephen had put up a fuss when Tony had suggested that JARVIS be installed in the entire apartment and Tony had given in reluctantly. They already shared enough of their lives, Stephen had pointed out, even if he was very fond of JARVIS and his other bots.
“Hey J,” he said cheerfully.
“Am I to understand that you and Doctor Strange are currently residing in each others bodies?” JARVIS asked, with the sort of calm equanimity that he always exuded.
“Don’t pretend like you didn’t know the minute Stephen woke up,” Tony said, lip quirking up in amusement at JARVIS’ attempt at nonchalance.
JARVIS had once put together a file detailing the differences in how they each held themselves. They tried their best to minimize the differences, adapting to each other’s body postures as well as they could. They’d kept this a secret for over thirty years now, and neither had any desire to change that—the only time they'd tried telling their parents they had thought they were playing a game and Tony and Stephen had eventually decided to 'let the game die' and keep their secret for themselves. Neither of their parents had ever really noticed the difference. Though sometimes Tony had wondered if Jarvis had believed them, but if he had, he'd never said. As for keeping their secret now, it helped, somewhat, that this was something that had been happening since they were children, which meant that some of their habits were engrained in both of them.
Stephen had absolutely hated the dance lessons that his mom had forced Tony to take—and Tony would never stop finding it amusing—but it had done wonders for their posture.
“I did not wish to deprive you of the chance to complain about the hassle of switching bodies," JARVIS told him.
“Nope, no complaining today. Pep’s going to force Stephen to go to a bunch of meetings I don’t want to go to.” He paused. “Do what you can to alleviate that, alright, J?” He did feel, just the slightest bit, bad about the fact that he had been unable to get the day free himself so that Stephen could have a break. But he’d spent the last two weeks in Japan and the meetings today had to happen.
“I shall look after him as I would you, sir.”
“Thanks, J.” He paused. “And make sure Stephen knows that we’re not backing down on this partnership, even if Obie isn’t a fan. I’ve got a good feeling about this one.”
Not that Stephen didn’t enjoy every opportunity to rankle Obie. Tony still wasn’t sure why Stephen disliked Obie as much as he did. Obadiah had been there Tony’s whole childhood, as much a fixture in his life as his dad had been. Obadiah was just trying to look after him and the company, even if they had different ideas of what that looked like.
He turned on the holograms. They were not nearly the same quality as the technology in the Malibu mansion—Stephen’s apartment just didn’t have the faculties for that and Stephen wasn’t about to let Tony buy him a better apartment—but they were good enough for him to get some work done.
Today was going to be a productive day for Tony Stark. Meetings all day and he’d still have the newest tech updates by the end of the day.
He was half-way through an update when the doorbell rang.
Tony froze.
Stephen was perhaps the most anti-social person that Tony knew. People didn’t just ring his doorbell. Maybe solicitors had snuck their way in, those people were scarily persistent for some reason. Or worse, missionaries. He shuddered. His mom might have been a god-fearing woman, but Tony was very firmly atheist and not about to change his mind.
Stephen’s phone dinged and Tony picked it up warily.
It was Christine.
From: Christine
I brought you some soup from that Italian place you love. Open the door, Stephen.
Tony thought Christine was a delight. She was absolutely good for Stephen. Too good for Stephen, really. But right now she was worse than missionaries. Stephen was a secret romantic, and Tony knew he absolutely didn’t want to have to share what he had with Christine with Tony. Which Tony totally understood. If he ever managed to find a relationship, he wouldn’t want to share it with Stephen either. They already shared enough of their lives.
Tony immediately sent a text to Stephen.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
Christine is at the door. This is not my fault.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
NO, TONY!
The doorbell rang again.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
She brought soup! Stephen. SOUP! From the Italian place we love. There might be leftovers.
From: Tony Stark’s Phone
…Take the soup. DO NOT LET HER STAY.
Stephen had so little faith in him, Tony thought wryly. And it was only somewhat deserved. No, actually. He didn’t deserve it at all. Tony had never ruined Stephen’s love or sex life. Stephen was the one who had complained endlessly about waking up with strangers. Tony had only just begun to develop his reputation as a playboy when he had ended it. Not that the media seemed to have realized that. They all seemed to think he was just as much of a playboy as he’d been when he was twenty.
Though the beautiful ladies on his arm at every event probably had something to do with that.
He shut the door to the guest room behind him, locking it and putting the key back up. He stopped at the mirror to practice his ‘vaguely unwell’ look, he did supposedly have food poisoning after all. It didn’t look quite as good on Stephen’s face as it did his own, but it would probably do.
He kept the look on his face as he opened the door. “Hello Christine.”
She gave him a look, and Tony took a moment to realize that he had dressed in his ‘Tony’ clothes, which included a wife beater and sweats. It was not the sort of thing that Stephen would normally be wearing. Really, it wasn’t the sort of thing that Stephen would own if he didn’t regularly share Tony’s body.
“You really are sick,” she said, face twisting in concern.
“Just some food poisoning,” Tony said quickly. “It’ll pass.”
“Where’d you eat this time?” Christine asked, voice a mix of compassionate and amused. He really did use the food poisoning card a little too often. People were under the impression that Stephen had a delicate stomach.
Tony tried not to find it hilarious, but it absolutely was.
“Tried to cook for myself,” Tony pretended to admit. “Think some of my groceries were out of date.”
Christine tried and failed to hide her amusement. “I have a hard time picturing you cooking.”
Tony put a hand to his chest. “I’m a man of many unknown talents, Christine, I’ll have you know.” Had that been too Tony-esque? Stephen never had a problem boasting, but he wasn’t quite as dramatic as Tony was about the whole thing. “I’m normally quite good.”
Bonus: Stephen actually could cook. Tony had been reliably informed that that most people found that an attractive trait in a partner. He was absolutely boosting Stephen’s credibility and attractiveness level here. Stephen should be thanking him.
“Maybe one of these days you could cook for me,” Christine said, smiling softly at him.
“Consider it a promise. I even promise to not give you food poisoning as well,” Tony said, making a mental note to inform Stephen he was now signed up for cooking Christine dinner. Given Stephen’s feelings for Christine, this could only be a good thing. “I’d invite you in now, but…” he trailed off meaningfully.
“Oh, right.” She held out the bag in her hands. “I kept it simple, just a tomato basil soup, I know you don’t like their chicken noodle.”
“Your memory is impeccable,” Tony said. Honestly, she probably remembered Stephen’s preferences better than Tony did. The number of times he’d eaten something that Stephen didn’t like that he did, or ate something Stephen liked that he didn’t while in the wrong body was ridiculous. At least neither of them was allergic to anything. That would be a disaster. “You are my hero, Christine.”
Christine smiled a little at that. “For being sick, you’re in a good mood.”
Tony held up the soup. “How could I be anything less? Good food that I don’t have to cook, delivered by one of my favorite people.”
Christine just raised an eyebrow skeptically. She always had been good at calling Stephen out on his bullshit. Though really, this wasn’t fair.
“I’m not always an asshole,” Tony defended. And that wasn’t even a body swap problem. Even Stephen had his nice days. Admittedly rare. And God knew that Tony was his own breed of asshole, which meant that about 98% of the time, it didn’t matter who was in whose body, they were both assholes. Really, it was amazing that they didn’t cause more problems than they did in each other’s lives.
Or maybe it was because they were both assholes, so no one noticed the difference.
“You do have your good days,” Christine agreed. “Hopefully I’ll see you tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’m sure I’ll be better by then,” Tony said quickly. He and Stephen would switch places tonight and then Tony would go back to a mostly nocturnal sleeping pattern for a few weeks to keep them separated.
Christine hesitated for a moment, looking uncertain, but then she stepped forward pressing up on her toes to press a quick kiss to his lips. Tony mentally winced—Stephen was going to kill him—but pressed back softly so that she didn’t get the idea that Stephen wasn’t interested before he pulled back.
He and Stephen were going to have to talk. They’d always said that if one of them got serious about someone they would tell that person the truth, but so far neither of them had actually gotten to that point. He wondered if Christine was going to be the one to change that.
But it was only Stephen’s and Christine’s second date, Tony really didn’t need to start borrowing trouble.
Christine gave him another soft smile before she left and Tony closed the door behind her.
From: Stephen Strange's Phone
Don’t kill me.
From: Tony Stark’s Phone
What did you do?
Tony. Tell me you didn’t.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
From: Stephen Strange’s Phone
I didn’t even say what happened!
From: Tony Stark’s Phone
You kissed her.
From: Stephen Strange’s Phone
I would never!
But she might have kissed me.
More of a peck, really.
And remember, if you murder me, you might murder you too. We still don’t know how that works.
From: Tony Stark’s Phone
You’re dead to me.
Tony rolled his eyes. And people thought he was dramatic.
From: Stephen Strange’s Phone:
I can live with that.
I’ll save you some soup.
Tony opened the soup, taking a deep breath of the absolutely delicious scent of tomato basil. The Italian Place, and that was its actual name, really made sublime soup.
He poured half of it into a bowl and then stuck the other half in the fridge, taking his bowl back into the guest room, turning on some music.
He couldn’t blare it here without risking bothering the neighbors, which was a shame, but he could still give himself enough of an atmosphere to get properly in the mood.
He rocked through another three designs before he got another text.
From: Tony Stark's Phone
JARVIS says you’re still awake. Go to bed, Tony. I want to be in my own body tomorrow morning.
I'd prefer not to be sleep deprived.
Tony scowled, it was only one in the morning, that was barely even late. Stephen’s body need far too much sleep. He glanced at his half-finished specs for an improved MRI scanner that was essentially a gift to Stephen, mourning the unfinished project. Sleep was such a hassle. Why did people even need it anyways? It always meant he had to leave a project unfinished. Imagine how much more he could change the tech industry if he could just not sleep.
Obie hated the fact that Tony had expanded Stark Industries to more than weapons. Tony hadn’t exactly been able to explain that he shared a body with a doctor who hated the weapons industry, even if he did reluctantly understand why Tony refused to leave the business. Rhodey and people like him were out there protecting their country, Tony would do his best to protect them in return.
He didn’t know why Obie was complaining anyways. They had turned Stark Industries into a tech empire. Even if the weapons industry went down tomorrow, they’d still be thriving.
Personally and secretly, Tony was glad. He was good at weapons, there was no doubt about that. There was literally no one better. But weapons weren’t his dream, weren’t the thing that got him out of bed in the morning—or in the afternoon, or the evening, depending on which part of the sleep cycle he was on. Tech was just more fun. And Stephen gave him the excuse he needed to do more than weapons. Even if it was only an excuse he’d had to make for himself, the reason he was able to look at Obie and say no when he wanted Tony to focus purely on weapons.
It was something he was never going to tell Stephen though. Stephen already thought Tony had the better end of the deal with this whole thing, Tony wasn’t going to give him more ammunition for that absolutely absurd claim. Personally, Tony thought that they had fairly equal give and take on who had it better or worse.
From: Stephen Strange’s Phone
You’re such a buzzkill.
Going to bed.
He shut down the holograms, telling JARVIS to make sure they were synced to his workshop in Malibu before wandering to the bedroom. Tomorrow would be another day, and this time he was going to have to be the one that had to go to all of the meetings he would really prefer to not have to go to.
God, sometimes he wished he could be just a little more irresponsible.
It was probably Stephen’s fault, somehow, that Tony couldn’t be. He wasn’t sure why or how it was his fault, but it undoubtedly was.
Now, he just had to get his mind to shut off so he could sleep. As nice as having the day off from meetings had been, he had to agree with Stephen. It was always better to be in his own body.