The question that kept appearing on social media and in the news was, “What in the hell happened to Tony Stark?”

Tony Stark used to be all genius and razzle dazzle. Now he wasn’t sleeping with models and starlets, wasn’t getting passed-out drunk, or releasing new sex tapes.

Tony Stark was sickeningly domestic. He was married to a mechanic (although no one knew that yet) with a dog. A dog that decided that Tony’s expensive Italian loafers was her favorite chew toy and manipulated him with wide watery eyes that always made him fold.

In the days before Kendis, there were two certainties if he walked into a room: he would always make things interesting, and chaos would soon follow.

Tony was self-aware enough to know that the only reason that Pepper and Samantha had stuck with him as long as they did was that they were not immune to his charm and they felt some fondness towards him. It also didn’t help that he paid extremely well.

But the thing that most people never realized was that loud obnoxious chaos gremlin was simply a mask. A mask that had been forged as a direct result of his parents spending his entire childhood trying to make him normal.

Tony was a genius, but with that genius came crippling ADHD. It came with hyper fixations, a lack of impulse control, a lack of short-term memory, and emotional regulation.

Tony loved his mother, and even though he still felt the ache of her absence, there had been times when he could tell she was wondering why he couldn’t be like other little boys.

His loud, chaotic personality became armor; the need to sow chaos became his weapon.

But Tony was thirty-two and exhausted from it all.

This is what a lot of people who wondered why Tony had changed so much. Everyone said that it was Kendis that changed him. But what they didn’t know is that Kendis only gave him the space and the freedom to get rid of his ill-fitting mask.

Partying and sleeping with anything that moved didn’t help the loneliness or his exhaustion with his life. Tony would look at the body of his most recent one-night stand and think, “Is this all there is?”

His life began to just blur in a mess of parties, short-lived pleasure, projects, and inventions. And then Tony saw Kendis shaking her fantastic ass on that pole at Juicy Lucy’s.

At the time, Tony only wanted to sink inside of her—to wring as much ecstasy from her lithe body as he could get and move on to the next.

But it wasn’t just her beauty or the way Kendis felt around him that made him chase her. It was the way Kendis saw to the truth of Tony so effortlessly even from the beginning. It was the way that he could look in those dark green eyes and see a kindred spirit staring back at him.

Kendis didn’t ask him to be someone else; instead, she opened her arms and accepted him for who he was.

When Tony heard people complain about how much he had changed in such a short amount of time or wonder at what magic spell Kendis used to turn him into a loving partner. He couldn’t help but laugh at the irony. He was married to a wixen and Kendis didn’t need to cast a single spell to make him transform into the man he was today.

The thing they didn’t get was that Tony had been more than ready for a real change, but he had been scared to take the risk.

Tony would have just ignored Kendis’s pull if he hadn’t been ready. He would have thrown up his hands, said that it was too hard, and run as far as his feet could carry him.

Being with Kendis, especially those days she had stayed with him at his house after Coil’s attack, had shown him that happiness was achievable.

And the conversation with Rhodey put it all into perspective. Real joy was within his grasp if only he had the courage to reach out and grab it.

There are many things that people could say about Tony Stark. But they could never say that he ever hesitant to jump at a golden opportunity when it came his way.

When Kendis revived on that stage floor, impossibly alive (and later according to her, had chosen to return to him instead of spending the rest of eternity with the people she loved) Tony felt something click inside of him. A truth that felt bigger than himself: Kendis was it for him. She was the love of his life, and he would be a fool to let Kendis get away.

Weeks later, when Tony had slid that ring on Kendis’s finger, Tony promised himself that he would do everything possible to be worthy of her. Tony wasn’t a stranger to hard work, and he would move heaven and earth to make sure that Kendis wouldn’t suffer the same fate as his mother.

His mother died married to a man who often belittled and humiliated her. A man that showed his care with money and shiny things. Tony knew Kendis well enough to know that she would never stand for that.

Kendis didn’t suffer fools lightly, and Tony knew with a deep-down certainty that she would leave him at the first hint of disrespect without looking back. Kendis didn’t need his money or his fame.

Kendis Black had a full life before him, and she would have a full life after him.

He both loved and hated that about her. Because if she didn’t need him for his money or fame, then what in the hell did Tony have to offer her?

“Your love, your honesty, and your respect,” Kendis answered softly one day when he blurted out the question while they were sitting on her sofa. Kendis stopped for a moment to look at his face, which was unusually serious. Then she leaned forward and framed it between her calloused hands.

Tony closed against her stare because he knew that seeing the sincerity of her words in his spouse’s eyes would shatter him.

He would give her all that she asked for and more. Tony would give everything he had to give and then fight tooth and nail to give her more.

Kendis deserved nothing less.