A/N: edited 11/11/15

you crossed the line

pt 1

So, a dive bar in the ass-end of the galaxy is not exactly where Tony had been expecting to spend his weekend. But he can look on the bright side; he still has his suit, there is alcohol, it is free alcohol thank burly, blonde Thor, and at some point Pepper should figure out what has happened to him, and get the other Avengers to come and save him. He has a handy dandy Asgardian locator beacon built into the suit he has with him, so it should be an easy enough job to find him.

Unless of course...oh that's right. Pepper probably isn't speaking to him because of the incident with the green chick - what was her name? Galaxia? Tony can't remember now but it doesn't really matter what her name is - just that she's the one who took off from this falling-apart excuse for a space station without bothering to take him with her. Well shit. He didn't think he'd been that bad in bed. He smirks to himself, remembering that yeah, the past few days had been relatively strenuous. What's-her-name/Galaxia had pushed Tony to his limits, but he thought he'd risen to the occasion.

But mind-blowing sex aside, without Pepper, Tony may be kind of fucked. He either has to figure out a way off this hunk of junk, or hope that Galaxia-or-whatever-her-name-is comes back, as the bartender said she would. She was the one who wrangled the free drinks for him, so she can't be too mad, Tony supposes idly, sipping at the blue concoction in his glass. It tastes like Barton looks after several paranoid days spent crawling through the Tower vents and dropping from the ceiling at intervals like some kind of heart-attack inducing jack-in-the-box. All sweaty and gross.

Tony wrinkles up his nose and spit-dribbles the rest of the mouthful he has back into the glass.

"Barkeep! Barkeep!" He waves imperiously - he's already drunk three ways to Sunday, all right, shut up, don't judge - and shoves the drink along the bar toward the weird-looking alien that shambles over, trying to count the thing's eyes. He keeps getting to thirty-two and losing count. "No offence, but your 'Butterfly Floater' tastes like a sweaty archer in a glass." He gets a bemused - or at least he thinks it is bemused - look for that. He sighs. "Just...next on the list, would you?"

Tony nods and smiles encouragingly at the alien, and the alien barman finally takes the drink with a grunt and shambles away again, hopefully to mix up the next horror for Tony to sample. Tony has decided, in lieu of absolutely anything else to do, that he is going to drink his way through the bar's entire drinks list. And then maybe curl up in a corner somewhere and die.

And then Pepper will miss him, and send someone to come and find him.

Yes.

Exactly.

Shit, he is so screwed. And the next drink is the color of pus. Oh; same consistency too. Nice.

"Bottoms up," he tells the barman, and takes a sip, nose wrinkled and shoulders hunching as if that can ward off the bad taste. But it tastes like honey, and sets off a warm buzz that spreads through Tony's body like liquid bliss, leaving him invigorated and happy, and he drinks three in a row. He suspects one of the ingredients might be rather similar to MDMA, but doesn't particularly care, just giggles quietly to himself. Maybe this - strictly temporary - stranding won't be so bad after all.

He's pretty sure his liver would disagree. Fuck his liver. What'd it ever do for him, anyway?

Three days of terrible food and fucking amazing drink go past in a blur that contains no trace of sobriety - and okay, so Tony is beginning to get just a little worried about his incipient rescue - when a human face wanders into the bar. Tony's more than a few drinks in - not that honey-pus beverage of the gods, but back to working his way through the bar's drinks again. He's feeling edgy, jittery. He misses his workshop, and Pep, and his comfy ridiculously huge bed back at the Tower. He even misses Barton, the little fucker.

And then a human kid with sandy hair and - okay, not a kid, maybe early 30s or so, but with a punk-ass look on his face and cocky kind of walk that makes Tony think of himself when he was just hitting his twenties. But he's not like that now. He's mellowed since he reached his 40s. Not really, but, well, he never owned a red leather jacket, so that's gotta be a point in his favor. Or was there the...the Armani? Was that...?

The human strolls on in while Tony's crinkling his brow and trying to remember if in fact he has ever owned a red leather jacket, right up to the bar next to Tony. He leans over it and calls for a drink, shooting Tony a sideways glance; assessing and sharp, and Tony's jerked out of his thoughts by the sight of a weapon at the man's hip.

Tony buries his nose in his drink, but his peripheral vision is on full alert, because the man looks like he'd be comfortable using the weapon. It looks like some kind of...stun gun? But Tony can't be sure unless he gets a closer look, which might not be a good idea. Tony getting a close look at strangers' weapons never works out well for the stranger, unfortunately. Or on rare occasions, for Tony.

His suit is in his room, about four walls away. It should take less than a second to get to him.

And then the younger man sees him looking; he raises an eyebrow at Tony, all slouched over the bar, an amused look pasted on his face - not classically hot, but features all in the right places, and Tony suspects Pepper would call him boyishly handsome, and Tony would nod and agree with enthusiasm - but it feels like there's anger underneath. A sense of it edging along under the man's mask of neutrality. And then the boyishly handsome man flexes the hand that isn't holding his drink, like he's itching to hit something. Or Tony. Very possibly Tony. It's a very meaningful flex.

"Hey man," the dirty blonde says, all casual and friendly, with a jerk of his head to acknowledge Tony. "Peter Quill."

Tony swallows. "Uh. Hey. Tony Stark." He tips his drink at the younger man and then takes a sip from it, appearing to focus all his attention on his drink in the time-honored code between drinkers that says 'I see you but I'd rather pretend I didn't and drink myself into a stupor while maintaining the illusion that I am alone.' Peter Quill eyes him blatantly, and Tony eyes him right back, sneaky like a ninja.

"Come here often?" Quill asks after he's knocked back several drinks, and Tony's mouth helpfully answers without waiting for his brain's assistance, seeing as his brain is trying to figure out what the fuck the drink he just tried is doing to his stomach. Possibly eating its way out by way of something-that-is-not-an-exit, because holy god he thinks he may be on fire.

"You looking to pick me up?" comes out, and shit. Shit. Quill's eyes go a little wide and his head jerks back, and that mask of friendly slips for a second; enough for Tony to get a look at a whole lot of mad. But the man is silent and Tony babbles on, backed into a corner, and no, Tony Stark does not acknowledge the first rule of holes. Instead his mouth fires on fully automatic, and goddamnit he will dig his way out of that hole or die trying.

"Because not that I'm not flattered, or tempted, but I'm actually waiting on a girl, so that would be...a...no... I guess. Unless of course you were actually asking if I came here often, in which case the answer would be, no, this is in fact my first time."

"...yeah..." Quill says on an exhale, scratching at the back of his head. He squints at Tony, frowns. Bites his lip and widens his eyes, as if he's trying to look inside Tony's skull. And Tony's drunk enough that he's just going to wait and see where this is going. Yeah, that seems like a decision he's not going to regret at all. "...I don't get it."

"You don't get my face?" So Tony slurs a little. He's not proud.

"Well, no, I don't get the...the goatee, beard...thingy you've got going on there - is that actually in style now? Jesus - but that's not actually what I meant. You shit." Quill slams his hand on the bar, and his voice goes loud in a way Tony doesn't appreciate. Quill's radiating his anger as he shifts his stance, turning to face Tony full on, all tall and broad-shouldered and built like a mini-Thor, hand shifting to his weapon but not drawing it. Suddenly Quill looks perversely appealing and nerve-racking all in one.

"Am I missing something?" Tony's hackles go up. He leans toward Quill a little, jabbing his finger at what he's finally recognized hanging around the guy's neck and trailing down to his weaponless hip. "You have a walkman around your neck, you mouthy little fuck. Who the hell has a walkman these days? Seriously. You know they have these things called mp3 players now, right? You don't have to inflict that horror on yourself. Unless you're a masochist, in which case I can respect that. Other people's fetishes, totally not my business."

"Oh. Oh. Nice one, buddy." Quill's face darkens - it looks wrong on him, like he was made to be all friendly snark, and Tony's like, 97% sure he's not an evil villain - and he shifts on his feet, all fight and fury. "First you fuck my girlfriend, and then you insult my mother?"

Tony just has time to think - oh god, girlfriend, green chick, Galaxia-or-what's-her-name, oh shit that makes the worst kinda sense ever, but hang on, how the hell did I insult his mother - before the other man's fist meets his face. Tony would've dodged but he's drunk and his reflexes are slow and laggy, and his attempt to duck the punch results in a glancing blow to his cheekbone that smarts like a bitch, and him falling backward off his bar stool.

His hands move without him thinking, calling the suit with one swift motion, and then just as he's scrambling up to his feet - oh god his back, ouch, that hurts, maybe he's getting too old for this shit - Quill decides to lend a hand, helpfully hauling Tony up by the neck of his t-shirt. The guy's strong; Tony'll give him that.

"Okay..." he says in a strangled voice, because his shirt is strangling him, ow, ow, ow. "Okay...I possibly, may have...accidentally had relations with your girlfriend, but I can assure you, that was not my intent, so..." Where the fuck is his suit? It should already be on him. And that's when he suddenly realizes that his suit is not in his room, as he assumed but never actually checked on over the course of the past several alcohol-sodden days. He must have left it on the unfaithful green girlfriend's ship. Well, that explains why Thor hasn't come to find him, at least. It's not that Pep's mad - necessarily - they're most likely just searching in the wrong damn place. Well fuck. This is going to be...unpleasant.

Tony's left with no option other than to slam his knuckles into Quill's nose, kneeing him in the balls for good measure, because fighting fair is not his game - he spars with Natasha on a bi-weekly basis when she's not on assignment; fighting fair would get him hurt, or worse, earn him one of her patented scathing looks. Quill drops his grip on Tony with a choked moan as he jackknifes double, trying to clutch at both his nose - gushing blood - and his crotch. He's mumbling something miserably and nasal as he staggers on the spot, and Tony feels sorry for him.

He'd probably like the guy under different circumstances. Cute. Good banter. Nice shoulders. Pretty green eyes. The adorable-but-kinda-dumb vibe that works until Tony get bored. Pep'd love him too. And now he's dripping blood on the bar floor and whimpering something that sounds like 'fucking dick' all full of attitude and Tony's pissed, so he grabs Quill by the hair and slams his adorable-but-dumb-and-kinda-bloody face into Tony's knee. The younger man makes a gurgling sort of sound, and tries to fall over; Tony lets go of his hair with the aim of letting him do that.

Ohhh shit. Bad idea, bad idea! Tony's brain shrieks at him, as Quill stumbles back to his full height, dazed and seeping blood everywhere. It runs sluggish from his nose down over his lips - he swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, and coughs weakly. Tony backpedals across the bar - no one's going to step in and help him, he's on his own. Shit. Quill shakes his head as though he's trying to clear it, and then those pretty green eyes fix on Tony. And they're more 'rage' than they are 'pretty' right now. He surges across the room, moving fast and slick, and Tony dodges clumsy, but successful.

"Jesus Christ, calm the fuck down!" he yelps over his shoulder as he rabbits it, not expecting his plea to garner any results, and not getting any either. Quill comes after him, sliding over a table in the way between them and sending dirty glasses crashing to the floor. Tony's out what seems to be the bar's back door - it's heavy metal and opens outwards, okay, he can work with that - into a corridor with its grated flooring and blank grey walls. He stands behind the door, and when Quill comes skidding through, slams it as hard as he can into the man's face.

"Oh shhhhit. Man, not the face again, what the fuck?" Quill gets out all thick and rough as the door swings open again, hands hovering gingerly in front of his wounded face, his eyes a misery of pain. And Tony slams a fist into his gut and attempts to steal his gun. Only the thing hooks up onto Quill's belt somehow in some fiddly stupid way, and Tony can't get it out. Not good, not go-od, he hums frantically in his head in singsong, wrenching uselessly at the gun.

"There's a knack," Quill says with a dry kind of humor through all the blood, and when Tony looks up he sees pained but amused green eyes that are anything but dumb, staring out of a smeary mask of blood, and something weird happens in his pants - and then Quill hits Tony hard enough that he sees stars and his knees disappear altogether for a moment. Quill lifts him up again - it's going to become a habit if they aren't careful, Tony thinks with blurry, drunk hilarity - and half-carries, half-drags him across the width of the corridor, slamming his back into the wall hard.

"Agh," Tony chokes and he thinks his back might be about to go out, he can feel the twinging in his sciatic nerve. Not right now. It is not a good time. Then it's: "Fuck. Careful with the merchandise," when he gets his breath back, grinning at Quill as blood trickles from the fresh split in his lip, his own blood disconcertingly warm on his chin.

"You fucked my girlfriend!" Quill yells, and there's an oddly impotent sort of rage in the way he grabs Tony by the shoulders and slams him repeatedly into the wall. It isn't going to do any real damage. But it still reeeally hurts though. But it's not a bullet to the brain, and hey, he's feeling optimistic today. He's looking on the bright side.

"I didn't know she was your girlfriend! It's not my fault she couldn't resist the Stark charm," Tony says in frustration that is partly real but mostly snarky, and when Quill gets in real close, he spits blood and saliva on the man's cheek. Quill rears back and gives him a disgusted look that is extremely comical considering the situation - both of them bloodied and panting, up against a wall, and hey brain, come back here, where are you going? Tony swallows hard and tries to wrestle a drunk and indiscriminate libido under control.

"You spat at me? Seriously?"

"You're...you're complaining about the spitting?" Tony asks, forgetting to try to get away in his disbelief, and also not really wanting to be hit in the face again, because damn, that hurts without the suit.

"Yes!" Quill shouts, flailing one arm about as if he's a shitty teenager throwing a tantrum - his other arm pressed hard across Tony's chest, pinning him against the wall rather effectively - before scrubbing the gobbet of bloodied spit and most of the other blood off his face with his sleeve. It leaves behind streaks and smears, but clears some clean patches of skin on his face. His eyes are bruising beneath already - from beneath one, darkening on the bridge of his nose, to sweep beneath the other. They're still a very appealing green though, and Tony actually sort of likes the raccoon look on men.

Steve had needed to give Tony a talk once Barnes stopped being so murderous and started being, well, less murderous, warning him off trying to sneakily flirt with the ex-Winter Soldier. Steve is no fun. But this is not the time to get distracted, Tony. He forces himself to glare at Quill, who he's nearly 99% sure is not trying to kill him.

"I don't fucking know! Spitting seems like a reasonable reaction to have when someone is trying to kill you!"

"I'm not trying to kill you!" Quill shouts - god the man is loud, inside voice buddy, Tony is only a few inches away, oh sweet Jesus, he's licking his lips and Tony is drunk and dumb and maybe he explodes a little on the inside. "Just..." Quill falters.

"Just beat the crap out of you a little bit, I guess" he admits all uncertain and gauche, and Tony wants to 'aww' and melt just a little bit, except he wants to beat the bastard repeatedly over the head slightly more. He doesn't do either though.

"Why?"

"You screwed my girlfriend, Iron Man," Quill says all meaningful then, and narrows his eyes to ridiculous levels of Western-showdown. Tony holds back a giggle. "Yeah, I know who you are."

"Of course you know who I am. Everyone knows who I am," Tony says with remarkable aplomb, and smiles sweetly at Quill. "The question is, who are you?"

"I'm Star-Lord! Jesus, why does no one know that? Star-Lord! Star. Lord. You know me now?" Quill gestures at his face, eyebrow cocked and expression so hopeful and puppy-dog that Lewis would cut whoever got between him and her attempt to feed him her famous homemade lasagna - her grandma's recipe and Tony has honestly never tasted a better lasagna. Tony likes Lewis.

Unlike Steve, she is fun.

And has boobs.

"Nope. Sorry. No clue. Should I?" Quill's face falls, and Tony almost feels bad for the guy. Okay, so he does. His girlfriend has screwed another man - okay, screwed Tony - his face has taken more abuse than is really fair, and Tony has no idea who he is. "How about this though. How about we stop hitting each other, and go have a drink?"

"And why would I want to do that?" Quill asks sullenly, but his heart clearly isn't into it.

"Because of this," Tony says, and scramble-ducks like an eel out of Quill's grasp, walkman held aloft and teeth bared in bloody victory. "You try to hit, pummel, bruise, bloody, or otherwise injure me, and I will reduce this to its component parts in a second."

"No!" Quill's tone is desperate and strangled, and he goes white beneath the blood streaking his face. Tony freezes, his sense of triumph draining away, because that's raw pain in the other man's voice, and it's awkward and wrong and Tony is not okay with it. Not. Okay. Quill reaches one hand out toward Tony and the stolen walkman, but he doesn't move an inch. He's frozen to the spot as though he's terrified. "Please. Not the walkman. I swear I won't fucking hit you again, but don't hurt my walkman. Please."

Tony thinks that Quill might not kill him over a girlfriend, but he would definitely kill him over a walkman. He can't help but admire that kind of dedication to a piece of technology. "Then let's go have a drink instead. And no one will hit anyone, and nothing will get destroyed. Agreed?"

Quill twitches toward the walkman as though it's a magnet pulling him in, and his face is all kinds of frantic and cornered, the cord for the headphones dangling useless against his chest, his bruised-beneath eyes bright and needy. "Okay. Agreed. Whatever. Just give it back."

"I think it should be a hostage." Tony is sulky - because yeah, adrenaline coursing through his body or no, he is still drunker than...than something really drunk, and sometimes he gets sulky when he drinks, it's just a thing. Pepper cures it with hot chocolate and glares, and occasionally an actual pointy stick. He backs up a few steps as Quill sways toward him, fingers flexing and reaching out toward the walkman.

"I disagree." It seems Quill can do sulky too, only he does it with a need vibrating in his voice that Tony lacks. It's pretty convincing, and that incredibly inappropriate surge of arousal makes itself known once more when Quill licks his lips again, and then gently nibbles the un-split side of the lower one. A beat passes. "I really have to disagree. I'm saying please here and everything. Honest. I won't try and beat the shit out of you again. Just...give the walkman back."

"I'm an idiot." Tony sighs, and then takes out the tape inside the walkman, and holds each up in separate hands. "I'll hold onto one for insurance. You can have the other back. Which do you want?"

Quill clenches his jaw, and then says reluctantly: "The tape."

"Fine, buddy - here then," Tony tosses the walkman lightly at him, and Quill swears in a panic, caught off-guard, and has to scramble to catch the thing before it hits the ground. The younger man's inelegant fumble for it ends with the walkman cradled gently in Quill's hands, and an injured and indignant expression on his face.

"I could've dropped that! I nearly had a damned heart attack you fuck. And shit, I knew I should've said the walkman!"

"You caught it. It's fine. Don't be such a baby - get over it," Tony says easily, shifting the tape around in his hands and reading the label - a mix tape? Shit, how old is this thing? He nods his head at the door they came bursting through, hoping the barman will forgive them the minor mess made. "Now move, 'Star-Lord'. I need a fucking drink."