No Return, No Return

by Carsonian

Summary:

In many ways, Tony Stark has spent his whole life waiting to meet something real enough to test himself against. He hadn't planned on it being Steve Rogers.

(A re-imagining of Steve and Tony pre-/post-Avengers (2012) with a spotlight on their relationship.)

Notes:

Title from "River of No Return", Marilyn Monroe.

PART ONE: LEARNING

"If you listen, you can hear it call."

He was born knowing he was a Stark, they say, came out of his mother mean and pensive, having predicted his arrival even then.

The kids don’t like him but his father has money and that overpowers the scent of otherness that outlines his figure enough that he gets into all the clubs. He learns quickly that isn’t enough, that he isn’t like them, the other kids, and they know it.

He’s not small, not weak, not poor. He doesn’t get pushed around or sneered at. Instead, he’s avoided, young boys and girls shuffling up to his side only when prompted to by tutors, talking less and never touching him. They think he’s weird and it’s always immediate, an instinct that children cling to and adults do their best to shake off.

It doesn’t affect him at first, his world shrouded as it is with scientific literature and numbers higher than any six-year-old should know. But when no one from his cohort attends the birthday party arranged by his mother, he’s humiliated. His father laughs coming down the stairs that night, glowering over the feast of food that remains untouched on the dinner table.

Something violent in him, unassuming and sleepy until then, shudders itself awake.

It’s the imperative then; its own study. He puts away the chess board and turns his gaze to the students.

It’s a slow process, worked out through the musky thickness of fall into the white relief of winter. It’s little things. Cheering at Riley’s throws, picking up pencils for Anita when Jeremy ran them over, letting Anna ramble about her older sister, encouraging Adrien’s singing, holding Sivy’s bag while she ties her shoes, sharing his lunch with Marco, figuring out how to tell Adi and Venka apart and never mistaking them for the other. It’s all fake but the paint is glossy enough. Make the paint glossy enough and they won’t notice how it creases.

There’s a balance. How to not be too much, how to not seem like a pushover, how to seem real. But he gets there, chips away at the kids until they no longer skip their eyes over him when he walks past. They begin to smile, begin opening up, begin searching him out.

In spring, he’s rolled into the school after a week spent working with his father on a shiny missile. All the kids are waiting there, snotty faces scrambling at the gate, dirty knees and messy hair. Tony steps out of the car. His hair is cleanly combed, his clothes impeccable save for the carefully loosened tie, his shoes a gleaming jet-black. He smells like the cedar he’d spent the night picking apart. They greet him with the pure desire for his acknowledgement.

Tony smiles at them, curls his lips and makes sure his eyes follow.

.

Not everyone falls in line.

Ivan, with his scraggly hair and strange accent, sneers at Tony. He mocks him, makes little remarks that other kids scowl at him for, mutters to himself enough that tutors write him off as a distraction.

Tony tries appealing to the boy’s ego, tries including him with the rest of the kids, tries engaging him in conversation about cars which he knows Ivan loves. He even misses two questions in the arithmetic portion so that Ivan can take the highest score in the cohort. It goes disastrously wrong. The other boy is furious, starts screaming and hurling insults at Tony, spits at him when Tony tries to calm him down.

It’s chaos then. Adi jumps on Ivan, slaps his face and calls him a freak. Sunha tells Adi to let him go, says he’s not worth it. Ivan shrugs Adi off and tackles Tony. There’s a moment there, when Tony thinks he’s back in his father’s laboratory, but there aren’t any lights here, just Ivan’s face arranged into a twisted rictus.

The tutors get him off Tony before anything can happen.

Anna hugs Tony throughout religious service, thinking that his blank expression is because of his shock from being attacked. Tony’s somewhere else, brain racking over how to get past this, the tutor’s words about forgiveness as grace.

When religious service ends, and they walk back to the library, he turns to Anna, and in view of the whole cohort, kisses her.

Howard Stark grins when he hears.

.

He ages. He learns how to talk to people he likes and persuade those he doesn’t, learns how to smile and fake interest, flirt and fake romance. He fucks girls from MIT. He’s fifteen when he takes a boy into his mouth for the first time.

He does all these things, enjoys himself sometimes, and wakes up in a cold sweat most nights.

There’s nothing for it but to swallow the damage. He mouthwashes out the nausea, and goes down to sit with Jarvis.

Jarvis gives him milk with honey most nights. He’s a silent watchman that doesn’t flinch at the strong scent of mint and calls him during exam season to check if he needs help with laundry.

Edwin Jarvis is the only person Tony loves. He loves him in a straightforward manner incongruous with the rest of his life. He’s the first person that reveals himself to Tony without the guise of expectation and anger and hidden fears.

He’s honest with Tony, and Tony loves him very dearly for it.

.

His father digs into his skull, the nights when he remembers the potential of what Tony could be. Tony sasses sometimes, when he thinks his father would like it, but mostly, he talks, tells his father the numbers he wants, gives him the phrases that swim out when drinks are handed to him.

His father isn’t hateful. He doesn’t care about Tony so there’s never any intent to injure. He’s cruel though, merciless and sharp-tongued as he demands progress. It’s for something bigger than Tony, something bigger than any of them, and that’s what justifies all of it.

Tony learns, in his first workshop, that there is a method to greatness, to discovery, and it is rooted in exploitation. No pretty prizes can hide who is being sapped out here.

.

Tony’s nothing if not a quick learner; picks through puzzles and riddles easily, learns how to perform himself by the age of eight, has ideas that make iron mongerers leer in delight.

So it’s safe to say it’s a surprise when, at a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan, his world is blown into fucking pieces.

There’s a huge mess afterwards, the gist of which is that he kills himself in a cave. The mask he’d kept up for so long is thrown out somewhere between Yinsen’s solemnity and the agonising press of shrapnel in every breath.

Still, habits are hard to break, and Tony can’t stand the sniveling worm that shows itself in his expression afterwards. He makes a better mask; no smiling eyes and pretty words, but somber, still metal. Better than human. Inhuman.

He gets out of the cave eventually, or so they tell him. Goes back home, or so they tell him. He re-learns the taste of betrayal and finds it colours him the same deep violet of mortification. He learns of his stupidity, for the first time, from a blonde reporter, and it colours him. He learns of the world, is forced to sit down and watch, and it colours him.

His life has been a long case study in proper schooling. Tony thinks, and thinks, and with deliberate misstepping, does the very thing he thought he’d erased out of his code.

“I am Iron Man.”

He tells the truth.

.

Steve Rogers is an angry, angry man.

Tony figures this out within minutes of meeting him, and every minute after is spent reinforcing it, sketching out the deep violet of the man’s anger. He’s not hateful, not a spiteful kind. But the anger is a scent; enters the room before the man does and lingers when the man’s left.

“Personally, I don’t mind it.” Tony says later, after he’s nearly died for Manhattan.

Steve looks up from where he’d been distrustfully poking at the shawarma, mouth pursed in irritation.

“What?”

“I reckon it’s justified, you know?” Tony explains.

Everyone sees the stoic jaw, the shield lifted up again and again. But Tony’s made it a habit to pick at people, and Steve’s relatively transparent after a bit of provocation.

The injustice of it all!

Steve’s been dealt a bad card and he knows it, is brim to the brink with the fury of it. All those lofty promises of peace and family snatched from the man who gave his all, and he’s left with a team of fuck-ups with the kind of moral history that the all-American hero has to degrade himself to swallow through.

Tony supposes if he had been born good and clean, he would be angry too.

So, no, he doesn’t begrudge the captain his anger but he does want to get close with it. See what shape righteous rage takes when a person has done no wrong.

“To be honest, I’m just curious.” Tony continues when Steve doesn’t reply.

“Alright, Stark.” Steve says, already weary. “You play whatever game you wanna play.”

“Let’s make it Tony, huh?” Tony reaches out, gives his left hand to Steve to shake. “Steve, right?”

Steve looks him over for a few moments, as if he’s trying to puzzle Tony out. Smarter men and women have tried; Tony’s only being partly facetious in mentioning a jury and it’s not a surprise when Steve simply tilts his head and gives him a brief, perfunctory shake.

“Sure.”

.

Teams have always been tricky for Tony. The usual diagnoses are applicable here. Too smart and not in a fun-party-trick way, but in a self-absorbed way that isn’t so useful outside of the workshop. He’s obsessed with his work, never takes the high ground and refuses to lend an ear.

H-E-L-L-

“Morse code’s still a thing?” Steve interrupts Tony’s tapping.

“So you do know it.” Tony replies, putting the spoon down.

“Of course I do,” Steve’s looking at Tony like he’s an absolute nutter. “I was in World War 2.”

“Oh, yeah,” Tony says. “I always forget that about you.”

Steve huffs the faintest imitation of a snort before turning back to the newspaper.

“Do you have any hobbies?” Tony asks.

“What?” Steve asks.

“You know,” Tony stretches his neck, feeling the joints loosen. “Things you do for fun.”

“What do you do for fun?” Steve volleys instead of replying to what is a perfectly normal question from a perfectly normal teammate.

“Everything I do is for fun.” Tony says. “Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard a lot about you.” Steve says, seeming to regret the line as soon it comes out.

“Oh, really?”

Steve, with great, visible reluctance, puts the newspaper down.

“Heard a lot,” Steve repeats, and then pulls his eyes to Tony’s. “Found a lot of it’s untrue.”

He’s clever with it. Tony doesn’t think the man is truly aware of the effect his face and body have—not in the deeply vicious way that Natasha is—but he uses it well. The command his eyes hold is not something that can be manufactured; there is an ease there of delivery, an assurance of authority.

I will speak and you will listen.

Tony knows how to command attention; could take nervy, awkward Bruce and turn him into a simulacrum of Tony Stark in a few months. But this Steve Rogers–this freak of nature–he doesn’t know the magic he’s making.

“That’s nice of you to say.”

Steve blinks in response. “If that’s a joke—”

“Not joking.” Tony reassures, leaning forward. “Believe me, you’d be in on it if I were.”

“I doubt that.” Steve picks up his newspaper. “But I’ll take you for your word.”

“You shouldn’t.” Tony’s shoulders fall forward. “But thanks. It’s a vote of confidence.”

“You’re being friendlier than normal.” Steve says instead of addressing that comment.

“I’m friendlier one-on-one.” Tony puts a finger up to his lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”

.

Days go by, then weeks, and Tony can practically feel Fury’s perverse glee at how deeply his little monologue struck.

Thor’s awfully popular, seeming to have the Avengers in his life only as a side gig, and in between missions looking for the scepter, he’s about as regular a sight as lightning. Tony was worried that Natasha would be weird about their past—and maybe Natasha was also a little worried about it (though that’s presuming a lot) — but she spends most of her time with Clint, whose recovery from the brainwashing has been a little slow for S.H.I.E.L.D.’s liking. Tony doesn’t care about the guy but he does enjoy annoying Nick , and so it goes that a few weeks after Manhattan, he lets the archer move into his tower.

The way the cards fall, Tony spends most of his time with Bruce and Steve. Bruce is even more avoidant about topics outside of work than Steve but he’s got the trump card of an alter-ego Hyde at his call so Tony finds himself not poking around as much. Plus, if Bruce gets annoyed, he stops working with Tony and that won’t do.

And anyway, Steve’s easier to rile up. Tony learns (in starts and stops) what annoys Steve, what genuinely angers him, and what prompts him to leave the tower for a week and hide out in a little campsite up in, get this, Montana.

“I’m sorry.” Tony kicks at a stone.

“No.” Steve says, drinking the coffee he’d refused to make for Tony. He’s not even facing Tony, the prick.

“Please.” Tony draws it out. “Bruce has been absolutely miserable since you left.”

“Sure.”

Tony ends up staying the night, and wakes Steve up every hour or so to complain about the bugs in the tent. He does petulance and spoiled-rich-man very well, so he’s not surprised when at 4:23AM, during Tony’s diatribe about the insect repellent industry, Steve starts packing everything up.

“You don’t gotta look so smug about it.” Steve grumbles.

“How’d I do?” Tony asks.

“Stellar performance.” Steve rolls his eyes. “You were made for television.”

Tony grins widely, puts a hand over his heart. “I do love a kind review.”

.

The thing that makes it very, very easy is that Steve doesn’t have anyone.

It’s horrible, really. Tony doesn’t think S.H.I.E.L.D. should have let Steve out without a therapist trailing behind. The man may be sick to death of Tony’s pestering but he never seems to linger on it after the fact, and Tony pins that on his loneliness.

Tony gets cocky because he’s not really a good person, not in the way that matters. He oversteps.

It’s delivered offhandedly, the casual stroll of a rabbit across a landmine as he opens his mouth to talk about Peggy’s marriage to—

Tony’s hauled up against the wall, Steve holding him up by the neck, eyes a film of blue that’s wholly unfamiliar, red in his cheeks, and veins gnarly and close to the surface of his skin.

“Not this.” Steve seems to cut the words out from his throat. “Not you.”

‘Genuinely angers’. Another point to jot down.

He’s shaking, Tony realises, the good Captain’s arms are trembling in their hold. Tony pats the man down. The grip on his neck isn’t as firm as someone truly lost to rage, and he has enough breath to say:

“Understood.”

Steve lets him down, looks away as Tony breathes through the lingering strain. He can see Steve’s fingers twitch, that restless need to do something, make right of a bad moment. Tony curls his mouth downwards.

“It’s fine.” He says.

“I need space.” Steve says, and makes no move to claim it.

“That was on me,” Tony shuffles into the man’s space. “On me, not you. So don’t get all annoying and go to Montana again. Please.”

Steve lets out a weak exhale, nods his head, looks Tony over. His eyes stutter on Tony’s neck. Tony knows it isn’t bruised, isn’t going to be bruised, but it’s probably a little red.

“It’s fine.” He repeats.

Steve turns, and leaves.

.

In the aftermath, he thinks: Maybe Steve needs better friends.

.

“You’re the angriest person I’ve ever met.”

Steve flinches under the kitchen light. He’d been hunched over toast, butter knife in hand.

“You need something?” Hoarse voice says.

“Have you been crying?” Tony asks, intrigued and anxious both.

“What?” Steve turns around to face him, no red eyes or nose. He hasn’t been crying.

Oh, well. Maybe next time.

“Why are you in the kitchen at 3 AM then?” Tony thinks out loud.

“I was hungry.” Steve says, picking up the knife.

“Hey, wash your cutlery.” Tony insists, and then moves forward when Steve doesn’t make a move to do so.

“You tryin’ to piss me off?” Now, Steve’s gaze has just a bit of steel in it, a subtle threat of violence. Could be angrier, he seems to say, but you don’t want me like that.

“No, but seriously, you are the angriest person I have ever met.” Tony says. “And I know the Hulk.”

“Alright, great, real chat.” Steve’s annoyed, annoyed at his cutthroat jaw not scaring Tony off. “Let me through.”

“Damn, but I so want to talk about it.” Tony pushes. “Don’t you want to talk?”

Steve rolls his eyes, then moves forward. His hair flops forward as he meets Tony’s eyeline, the blond strands unkempt enough to suggest that he’d rolled out of bed and not bothered to look in a mirror.

Steve blinks at him. “Have you been crying?”

“Aw, sweetheart,” Tony simpers. “Only a sniffle.”

Steve looks him over, gives a disdainful flick of the head, hair flopping away again, and then: “Talk to Natasha about it.”

“But I want to talk to you.” Tony follows the man out, not knowing the game he’s playing but enjoying the pursuit, the landscape’s blurriness. It’s the little things, see, at this point, that keep his brain happy. Being a futurist is a tireless campaign.

“Besides,” Tony says. “Isn’t it your duty as the team leader to ensure the mental wellbeing of your minions?”

“Leave me alone, Tony.”

“I’m curious.”

“Oh my God,” Steve halts his stomping away to turn back to Tony. “Get it over with then.”

Tony’s smile broadens, and it’s only then that he becomes aware that he had one on. It startles him; he didn’t know he’d let his guard down.

“I wanted to talk about your call in the skirmish today.”

Steve is surprised, flashes it in a hastily-concealed furrow of the brows. “Now? You want to do this now?”

“When’s a better time?” Tony shakes his head to fix up his expression, gets it pleasant and mockish. “When we spend a minute arguing over the logistics of using my armour as a buttress for a collapsing building?”

“It worked out.” Steve’s words are defensive but he sits down, right there, on the floor, in the middle of a space with six bar stools, two couches, and a love seat. He looks up at Tony, a clear challenge.

“Old people.” Tony scoffs, and makes to sit down on the floor.

“Young people.” Steve retorts, then takes a bite of his toast. He gestures for Tony to talk.

“Efficiency of communication is important, we both agree. Yes?” Tony begins, and doesn’t bother waiting for a response before going into the speech he’d rehearsed in the car while Happy updated him on Pepper’s latest boytoy.

The crux is that no one knows the capabilities of the Iron Man armour. It’s not an anomaly. Tony knows the power he harnesses can not be an accessible one, not when their enemies have every advantage at display, not when his allies have stabbed him in the neck.

But Steve Rogers regards the Iron Man armour with an almost aloof respect, not indifferent but certainly not invested in it.

And, well, Tony’s always thrilled in a tough crowd.

Steve’s eyes slowly take on a sheen of genuine surprise as he realises Tony’s offering an exclusive, deluxe, never-before-seen insight into the armour. At the end of the speech, he blinks at Tony, vague dispassion overpowered by caution as he weighs his response.

“Can I have a bite?” Tony gestures to the toast.

Steve sighs. “No.” He passes over the sandwich.

Tony grins and takes a big bite before promptly scrunching up his face.

“Is this just toast with butter?” He says, through the bite.

Steve grimaces in return. “Don’t talk with your mouth open.”

Tony passes the sandwich back. “Here. Sharing is caring.”

.

Steve is a good leader. There’s a lot that’s similar to other good leaders; he leads by example, he’s quick on his feet and quicker in the head, he knows how to use his team, he can improvise a viral-on-YouTube speech.

But he’s not the golden boy the memorials purported him to be, that Howard described him as.

No, he’s devotedly human and the cracks work for him.

He’s curt with superiors and people he doesn’t like, curt with Tony until he figures out how Tony works, and starts to prod him along to his own tune by letting him breathe and talk and build on his own. Steve’s a little petty and a lot bloodthirsty, and it’s useful, letting some of it show so that S.H.I.E.L.D. strike teams don’t exactly want to be assigned to his missions.

There’s also his sentimental side. Tony doesn’t recognise it as such until he sees how Steve is with his memories, all proud and sweet with old Peggy, thickly morose with Bucky Barnes, fond and pensive with the Howling Commandos, staunchly loyal to the mother.

Steve doesn’t show it off for the world to bear witness, but Tony watches him more often than not these days and he stockpiles the information like a dragon with his hoard.

.

A gala dinner. Presumably for raising funds for those whose homes had been razed by the Battle of New York. The Avengers are cordially invited.

“What would you do if I kissed you, right now?”

Steve gives him a side-eye. “Do not kiss me.”

“I kissed Rhodey at a party once. I was seventeen and drunk, and he wasn’t either of those things, and there were these guys, Ivy league sort, trading slurs, and they loved me, but they didn’t know I was queer, so I thought–hmm, let’s fuck that up, and so I kissed Rhodey.”

Steve doesn’t reply but Tony can tell he’s listening.

“Rhodey didn’t talk to me for three days. He said I’d used him.”

Tony takes a sip of his drink, steels his nerves. “He was right. I was using him a little, but it wasn’t about him. It was about me. Me needing to prove. . .something. I don’t know what it was, what was so important that I hurt the only—”

Steve takes Tony’s drink, swaps it with his in a neat move that Tony barely catches the fringes of before he’s left sniffing at a glass of—

“Apple juice?”

“Drink up.”

Tony does so, shuffles closer to Steve and presses his head against the man’s shoulder. Steve doesn’t lean away even though the room is still adequately packed. A few minutes pass like this, an activist, hedge fund manager and lawyer pass by and Steve engages in wooden conversation with them. Tony does a fairly decent impression of anemone.

“I kissed Anna when I was eight.” Tony mumbles into Steve’s sleeve. “I used her too . . . I was not a good kid.”

“Tony,” Steve sighs, put-out, tired, and takes Tony’s glass, pulls him up so that they’re facing each other. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Do. . .what?”

“Tell me about your—past.” Steve says the word like a kid blurting out a swear word, all abrupt and unbidden. “It’s not going to change what I think of you.”

Tony can’t feel his face.

He’d learned how to go from deadbeat drunk to falsely sober when he was younger, can fake lucidity with the best of them, spray on cologne, get rid of the taste. But this–bluntness. No, not bluntness. Truth.

This deliverance of truth is more sobering than anything Tony can create.

He turns, and leaves.

.

They can’t find the scepter. It’s quite irritating, moreso for Thor than anyone else, and the son of Odin paces the length of the quinjet with reckless power.

Tony notes his pacing from the corner of his eye, and tracks Natasha’s coddling of Bruce out the other. He’s not as annoyed as the others; he’s realised these excursions are simulations of what the Avengers could be and he’s starting to acknowledge the vision of Fury’s little monologue.

Remarkable people, if fighting under one cause—

He’s technically co-pilot but Barton’s not too talkative today and the flight goes without a glitch. Tony should be relaxed, too.

But with the enhanced hearing granted by the Iron Man helmet, he can detect muted curses from the bathroom where Steve is wrapping a broken rib.

“Aren’t you going to go help him?” Natasha comes up behind him.

Fuck you, Tony thinks.

“Nah,” Tony says. “You go ahead.”

“I think he’d prefer you.”

“Pft,” Tony snorts. “He can’t afford me.”

Barton’s head turns slightly, clearly listening in. Tony frowns a little.

“Did something happen between the two of you?” Natasha asks as if she doesn’t know, as if Steve and her don’t have a cute little camaraderie.

“Go away, Natalie.”

“Hey.” Barton’s voice is a warning made bolder by the hand he lays on Tony’s metal shoulder.

Tony shakes it off brusquely; don’t fucking touch me.

He can tell they’re talking with their eyes, a closeness borne from years of being shithead spies together.

Natasha leaves, and Barton resumes their wordless routine.

Tony resolutely pretends he doesn’t hear the bathroom door open, Natasha’s wry. “You come here often?”, Steve’s huffing laugh.

.

Tony thinks sometimes, of what it would be like, if he woke up tomorrow, and forgot about Afghanistan. If, by some devil-ordained gift, he had no memory of the blood on his hands.

Then he goes back further, thinks what it would be like if he wasn’t so empty that he let Obadiah Stane fill his shadow.

If he’s being really self-indulgent, he’ll go back even more, imagine himself at age four, toss the circuit board aside instead of rubbing his pudgy, unsure fingers over it.

And he knows this one’s a real fantasy but, occasionally, under the wrong influence, he’ll go back to the start, write his name out: TONY, and leave out the other one.

.

“The one good thing about all of this is Iron Man.”

Tony gestures to the armour standing sentinel behind him.

“It’s beautiful. It’s better than anything I’ve made. I’ll make another one, and it’ll be even more divine. And another one. And it’ll be better, stronger, faster.”

“It doesn’t matter, too much, what this says about me,” Tony clutches his face, his loose mouth. “My hands can be the focus now."

He puts them up, shows them off, the well-worked topography of his fingers and palms.

“I know now what to do with me. And I know, in my heart, that it’s right.”

Edwin Jarvis’ stone doesn’t reply but that’s okay. The man didn’t talk much when he was alive either. Tony presses a hand onto him regardless, lets the rough texture catch on his skin, just the slightest scratch so he can keep his old, dead butler’s touch on his hands when he flies back to the tower.

.

Captain America comes to visit, shield in hand, stern look on his face.

“Where have you been?”

“Didn’t you get my text?” Tony asks, head down on the workshop table. Steel is such a nice, cooling surface. “I texted the groupchat.”

“Not much of a text.” Captain America speaks again.

Sorry smth came up! Good luck w/ the scepter tho!

Tony concedes. He pulls his arms up so that he can rest his head on them. He looks at Captain America properly now, the pinch of his eyes.

“Did you find it?”

“No.”

“So I didn’t miss anything.”

“That’s not the point.” He pauses, considering, before sitting down on the table, across from Tony. He puts the shield on top too.

“We spoke about–open communication.” He’s so earnest, it’s almost endearing.

“Who am I talking to?” Tony says before he can help it. “Cap or Steve?”

“Don’t!” Steve’s hurt for a moment before he physically reels himself back. “You think it’s so easy? Just taking off the armour?”

Tony winces. “Sorry.”

Steve nods, accepts the apology. He pulls off his helmet, his hair a flattened mess underneath it.

“I spoke with Natasha.” Steve starts. “Don’t roll your eyes, it wasn’t like that.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Tony rolls his eyes again, makes sure Steve sees it.

“She suggested that maybe there’d been a misunderstanding.”

“About?”

“The night at the gala.”

The night at the gala.

“Let’s not—”

“No, I think, maybe I wasn’t clear.” Steve says.

“You were clear.” Tony says, weakly.

Steve looks him over, and his eyes sharpen, the way they do when he’s turning the gears of a strategy in his head, seeing a pathway in a fight. Tony doesn’t like being looked at with those eyes.

“No, I wasn’t.” Steve says, slow and deliberate.

“I think, maybe, you tell me these things about your life to drive me back.” Steve breathes. “That night–what I meant to say was—it’s not going to work. You’re my teammate, and–I hope, my friend. I’m not going to pretend–pretend that you haven’t made bad choices, but it doesn’t change that I care for you—”

.

“Shut up!”

“Tony, come on!” Steve’s jiggling the lock, and Tony makes a note to remove all locks, make his doors all smooth, unridged metal, another coffin for him. “I’ll break this fucking door open, don’t think I won’t!”

“Shut.” Tony leans his head back against the bathtub. “Up!”

“Let me in.” Steve insists.

“Fuck off. Shut up!” Tony doesn’t really know what he’s saying. He’s so–something. Something thrumming in him he can’t name.

There’s a splintering noise, somewhere, and Tony brings his head up to meet Steve’s angry gaze at the doorway.

“What the fuck, Tony?” Steve storms in.

“Go away.” Tony spits at him.

“No.” Steve grits out. “Why’d you run?”

“You’re just like her, trying to fucking psychoanalyze me.” Tony says. “Natalie says this so it must be true.”

“What?” Steve shakes his head. “I’m not even–Tony, you’re not listening to me.”

“I don’t want to listen to you.”

Steve works his mouth for a moment before shaking his head again, all resolute, scrawny Rogers flashing in the gesture.

“Too bad.” Steve says, sitting down at the edge of the tub. “We’re still talking.”

Tony thinks for a moment. “Bring me your shield then.”

Steve looks him over a moment, assessing something and then, he nods.

Tony’s so shocked that the man’s gone that he doesn’t even think about running somewhere else until he re-appears, shield in hand.

Tony pulls the shield over his torso, a barrier between him and Steve. It’s a bizarre pressure, the shield, sturdy but not quite heavy. Reassuring.

“I can see why you like it.” He relents.

“Why do you keep talking to me then?” Steve asks. “Telling me about you?”

Tony thinks on it for a few minutes. Well, actually, he only puts up a pretense of doing so for the first minute, but when Steve’s patient expression doesn’t wilt, he begrudgingly thinks it over.

“You’re team leader.” Tony’s tongue is heavy. “I think you should have an accurate insight into—”

“Bullshit.”

“You realise you’re a bad conversationalist, right?” Tony asks, conversationally.

“Sure. My therapist has mentioned it.” Steve answers, dismissively.

“You see a therapist?” Tony asks.

“You think S.H.I.E.L.D. would let me leave without one?” Steve’s face twitches with the urge to grimace as he says it, obviously not too keen about the ultimatum.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t let you leave without one.” Tony says. “Sorry.”

Steve tilts his head, disappointment at the admission obvious in the set of his eyes.

“I gotta say it.” Tony says. “I gotta remind myself.”

“Of what?”

Tony presses his lips together, feels divots where his fingers are clenching the shield, little red imprints.

“Tony.” Steve says, so soft it’s barely got anything to it.

“I was born with a hole in me. I don’t know why—I don’t know what the diagnosis would be, but it’s always been there. And I carved myself around it, became something I thought I needed to be but then Afghanistan...blew the shell right off and I was stuck with the emptiness. And I can’t let myself...justify becoming something evil again. But I can’t pretend it didn’t already happen—”

He looks up finally, at Steve, those blue eyes. “I have to say it. I pretended for so long, kept it inside too much, I ended up believing the gimmick. If I remind myself, then I’ll have no way to go but—forward. I have to–I have to face it.”

There’s a beat of silence then as Steve works the words over.

“You seeing a therapist?” Steve asks.

“Yes.” Tony smiles tightly. “You think Rhodey would let me do all this without one?”

“Good man, Rhodes.” Steve agrees, before shifting a little. “I want to ask, though, why me?”

Tony doesn’t want the shield on him anymore, doesn’t like how heavy it is, flimsy and big and garish. He skids it over to Steve, who scowls at the sound of it scraping the tiles.

“Because you would never pretend, I guess.” Tony says while Steve’s still distracted turning the shield over.

“Huh?”

“You know, ‘cause you’re–well, you’re Captain America, sure, but you deserve it. You came into it the right way. Because you always knew it was the right thing to do, and everyone knew you were a good man,” Tony fumbles with the words, trying to express the enormity of something so full and ripe that it’s hard to convey with words. “I don’t think you’d make any of the mistakes I would. So when I tell you, it’s me telling someone who–who reminds me of what I’m striving towards, keeps me, grounded, I guess.”

He meets Steve’s eyes again, and flinches back.

Anger issues. Tony thinks. Call the Veronica protoype.

“You’re telling me–this–this whole time, you’ve been beating yourself up and using me as the stick.” Steve’s voice is trying so hard not to be mad that it’s devoid of anything.

“No.” Tony shakes his head, and then as he shakes it, begins to think, that, well, in a specific light, okay, well. “Maybe.”

Steve barks out a poor mimicry of a laugh. “I thought maybe it meant–fuck, Tony. I’m not, I don’t want to be your—punishment.”

“Steve, what are you bugging—”

Steve stands up, shield over him, looking small and mean. “No, talk over.”

Tony’s got the feeling he’s missed a step there, stuck a foot out too late and landed hard on an unforeseen step.

“What the fuck, Steve!”

.

Tony gives it time, gives it space. But he’s pulled back into orbit without quite realizing his trajectory.

“You’re a real quiet guy.”

Steve turns from the windowsill. If Tony didn’t know Steve, how utterly unaware he is of his face and body, and the effect it has on people, he would have thought that the man was posing. The sunlight through the window, the way it caresses the lines of his body.

“Hey.” Steve’s gentle and inviting, which Tony didn’t expect. He’s not going to take it for granted though.

Tony walks closer, lingering in the shadows of the window. Close enough to touch, but he won’t do it. He won’t.

“Hey.” Tony says, hesitantly.

“You’re a real chatty guy.” Steve says.

“Ha,” Tony says. “Yeah, I know.”

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, a prickling sensation he meets head-on.

“Hey there.” Steve says.

“Hey.” Tony repeats. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay.” Steve says.

“No, I’m serious.” Tony says. “I didn’t think of it as—”

Tony’s drawn into muscled arms, and finds himself blinking out the window.

Steve is giving him a back-hug.

“This is gonna be hard to explain if someone walks in.” Tony says.

“We’ll cross that bridge when it comes to it.” Tony can feel Steve’s voice, vibrations through his back.

“I am sorry.” Tony repeats, even though he’s starting to feel like the word’s not registering.

“It’s alright,” Steve’s breath presses against the tips of Tony’s left ear.

“Okay, then.” Tony pointedly doesn’t stiffen up, relaxes into the hold, letting his weight rest on Steve’s torso.

“I called Sam.” Steve says, impromptu, after a few minutes. Tony had been basking in the sun, warm glow on his face and at his back.

“Your jogging buddy?” Tony asks, confused.

Another breath, amused-like. “Sure.”

“Why’d you call him?”

“I needed perspective on. . .the talk.”

“Did you get it?”

“Yeah,” Steve says. “I did.”

And that’s that.

 

PART TWO: CASE IN POINT

"Sometimes it's peaceful, and sometimes wild and free."

Steve takes Tony to Brooklyn.

Tony’s been there before but Steve’s all giddy about it in that nervy, fumbling way that’s very rare, so Tony asks a few more questions than he normally would. Steve sees through it after twenty minutes but he just loops his arm around Tony’s shoulder and shakes him a little. The important thing is he keeps talking.

There’s a scattering of moments when Steve dims, walking by streets wholly unfamiliar, gentrification a little too distasteful, but he’s steady, better than Tony expected, moving forward with just a hard shake of the head.

It’s the longest time they’ve spent with each other, without the pretense of work, without the guard of the shield and armour.

.

Tony hates Natasha, and she knows it.

He hates the easiness of her expressions, the way she plays circles around him, flirts ahead and back. She’s what he wanted to be at eight. She’s what he wanted to be at twenty-one. She’s survived, made the gimmick work for her while he’s been left with an identity that oscillates between large and small, fake and real.

He hates, and she knows.

“I understand, you know.”

Her arm is broken. Tony’s put it in a sling only because Barton is still tied up in decontamination and Steve’s stuck debriefing Fury.

“When the scepter is found, I don’t want to see you ever again.” Tony says, pertly.

“It wasn’t a bad performance.” Natasha reassures. “It was just obvious that you couldn’t actually stand it.”

“Maybe only to you.”

“Me, a couple of other people. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy.”

“Is there a point to this?” Tony fumes, offers her a painkiller that she shakes her head at. Invincible Widow won’t even take a fucking pill for pain.

Tony swallows the pill in stupid rebellion though he’s entirely unmarked. Natasha quirks a smile at that; a secretive little thing that tells nothing.

“Did you ever stop to think,” Natasha says. “That the people who have stayed, the good eggs, are the ones who know the real you? That maybe even if you can’t trust yourself to know the real you, you can trust that they wouldn’t stay if you weren’t worthwhile?”

Tony stills.

“I’m not sure if the wording’s right.” Natasha tilts her head. “Why do they say “good eggs”? Why eggs?”

“Don’t fuck with me.” Tony says, sits down next to her, puts a hand on her shoulder. The injured one.

“I’m not.” Natasha’s ability to erase herself makes Tony seethe with jealousy. “I don’t do that to friends.”

“We are not friends.” Tony pulls his hand away like a kid from a hot stove.

“I paid for it.” Natasha says, instead. “It was a heavy price.”

Tony examines her, the severity in her expression, how he can’t trust anything in this chameleon, doesn’t know what rules she plays by.

“I can’t trust you,” Tony says. “Not all the time.”

“I know.” Natasha nods. “It’s a part of the deal I was forced into.”

“Oh.” Tony looks away. He doesn’t know what to do with the restlessness in his fingers.

“I didn’t choose it, but I have to live with it.”

“I chose it.” Tony admits. “Until it didn’t–fit.”

Natasha nods. “I understand.”

He quells his fingers by putting them on her knee, patting the material there.

“I don’t.”

.

“Hey,” Tony asks. “How you holding up?”

Steve manages to look both out-of-place and utterly at ease in his dress uniform. It’s a startling kaleidoscope of a picture and Tony had taken a few moments to try and capture how it was possible. He’s reached no definitive conclusion and only ended up adding it to the ever-growing list of moments defining the duality of Steve Rogers.

“Having a blast.” Steve says in a deadpan tone.

“Someone’s getting the hang of modern lingo.” Tony nudges Steve in a badly-concealed attempt to get near him.

Steve clutches his elbow, drags him closer to mock-whisper. “Totally lit.”

Tony laughs. “How long till the speech?”

Steve checks his watch. “10 minutes, give or take.”

“Ugh.” Tony says. “I can’t wait for this to be over.”

“Thanks for the support.” Steve lets go of Tony’s elbow to pinch his neck.

“Ow, hey, can you blame me?” Tony asks. “Barton said cheeseburgers after.”

“You can call him Clint, you know.”

“I can do most anything.”

“Can you be patient and act the part of dutiful teammate during my speech?”

“Cheeseburgers, Captain America’s speech...cheeseburgers, Captain America’s speech,” Tony weighs the options with two hands.

“Well, we can’t all do both at the same time.” Steve points out.

“Aw, you have been watching footage of me.”

“You betcha.” Steve said. “Was it pre-meditated?”

“The Iron Man thing?” Tony catches on. “What do you think?”

“Hm.” Steve frowns for a brief moment. “Knowing you, it was probably inevitable.”

“Inevitable.” Tony repeats. “You know what? I like that.”

.

There’s a crater in the wall. Tony whistles a low note as he makes a path across it.

“Steve did this.” Tony confirms, more to himself than his company.

“Yeah,” Barton says. “Apparently S.H.I.E.L.D.’s been hiding some shady shit.”

“How surprising,” Tony says drily. “On both ends.”

“Ha, yeah.” Barton runs a hand through his hair. “You know where he is?”

“Let me check my tracker.”

Barton’s hand stills and he gives Tony a deer-in-headlights look.

“...I don’t have a tracker.” Tony frowns. “Obviously.”

“Oh-kay.” Barton draws out uncertainly.

“I really don’t.” Tony says. “Is this what my reputation has come to?”

“I don’t put much stock in reputation.” Barton shrugs after a moment’s thought.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “How does one land on Hawkeye as a name?”

Barton shrugs again. “Make friends out of enemies?”

Tony huffs. “No wonder you and Romanoff get along so well. This cryptic faux-socratic messaging is starting to get real boring.”

“Please.” Barton snorts. “You ever sat third-wheel to a conversation between you and Cap?”

“I can guarantee it’s not boring, at the very least.” Tony says.

“Highly debatable.” Barton volleys. “But I guess love makes for the best rose-tinted lenses.”

“Love?” Tony cringes. “Not so sure about the Hawkeye moniker anymore.”

Barton’s returning laugh is self-assured.

.

Tony walks up behind Steve, making no effort to hide his approach.

The man’s back is bowed forward and he doesn’t straighten at Tony’s easy footsteps.

“You can’t actually be surprised that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s full-a shit.” Tony decides on after a few seconds of waiting for Steve to acknowledge his presence.

Steve doesn’t respond immediately, head turning just a little to indicate his attention. Tony’s thinking of saying something else, anything that’ll bring those shoulders back up.

In a thought he immediately regrets after its conception, he thinks that he’d prefer Steve’s anger—bitter and unchanneled—over this dewdrop sadness.

While he’s wincing through the acid reflux of his personality, Steve speaks up.

“You ever feel like you’ve done all that was needed from you in your life? That the things you’ll be remembered for, that you were born for—you’re past that, and all that’s left is waiting for the days to end?”

“No.” Tony answers honestly.

“...Yeah, me neither.” Steve lies. He straightens in a blinking moment, like a safety clicking on.

“You need help.” Tony blurts out before he can think on it. “This isn’t—coping.”

“I’m coping.” Steve turns around, eyes red and bloodshot, and it’s worse than an open wound, worse than a crater, worse than a fucking slit wrist, bearing witness to Captain America’s defeated brow.

“All I do is cope.” Steve continues in that same deadened tone. “I just feel like—”

He cuts himself off with a frustrated grimace, turning back to face the star-studded view offered by the Stark Tower penthouse.

“I don’t know if...” Tony watches the city, lets the mass of buildings carry him farther than here, than this moment. “Whatever you say, I don’t think I’m in a place to judge.”

“Which is to say,” Tony clarifies. “That you can say whatever you want.”

“You need him, though.” Steve says. “You need Captain America."

“I can find other legends to compare myself to,” Tony clears his throat. “I think you underestimate my narcissism.”

“I think you do a good job of pretending to be the bad guy.”

Tony gives him a sharp look, deliberates on his words for a beat longer. “I could save this world single-handedly. It wouldn’t be easy and I’d make enemies out of everyone I love but I could get it done. A suit of armour around the planet. A legion of metal soldiers. Control so far-reaching that even the Saudis would clutch their pearls.”

“Only thing is,” Tony adds, forcing himself to look at Steve and not the safety net outside the windows. “I don’t want to do that if there’s a—more humane option. Not...well, not anymore. I’m not infallible, you know."

Steve’s not returning his gaze but the cast of light over his face reveals the little frown between his eyebrows, the twitch of his lips.

“I can’t afford to be fallible.” Steve begins softly, and then the tap’s on. “Doctor Erskine, he, I don’t know if he knew what he was doing wholly and I’m not—I’m not complainin’, but ever since the serum, it’s like—I’m not afforded the same humanity that everyone else gets. I spent my whole life so fucking mortal, so weak and—and I know this is a gift but fuck, they didn’t tell me I was relinquishing my right to be a human. To be my own before everyone else’s.”

“They want me to fight and kill and win and win and win and never let any of it touch me,” Steve rambles. “Easy enough to shake off the broken bones, isn’t it? To pretend like there’s any right choice in the wars you’ve made in this fucking—future—but I can’t fucking rest. God, I can’t close my eyes at night and they’re all looking at me to tell them what’s right. And I don’t know anything. I don’t understand anything.”

Steve’s hands have found their way to his head where he clutches the blond strands in a grip that looks painful.

“I’ve outlived them all.” Steve adds in an undertone. “Outlived my life’s purpose and I can’t keep up pretending—keep going on.”

Tony’s hands are on Steve’s, digging into the joints to loosen his grip. He thinks it’s the surprise that does Steve in, the jolting cold of Tony’s poorly-circulated hands against Steve’s warm fingers. He lets his hair be and Tony combs his fingers through the strands, an earnest need to erase the injury, to settle Steve’s head.

He’s not aware of the minutes that pass in silence between them as he performs his task, unhurried and uninterested in moving back until the tension wriggles itself loose from the man.

Steve sighs with the unwitting grace of a man past the point of hurting.

“It’s worn you down, huh?”

Steve’s head lowers under Tony’s hands as he nods.

“You can’t carry it all.” Tony says. “Your mistake is in the arrogance of assuming you’re the only one who can.”

“You ever tell yourself that?” Steve’s a little acerbic with it but even Tony can’t bother to take it personally.

“Every time I have a drink put in my hand.” He answers. “Every time I have to face my reflection without the Iron Man suit.”

“Does it stick?”

“God, no.” Tony puts his head on top of Steve’s, leaning down with the motion. From here, he can see the buildings Steve’s been hiding himself in, a bit higher than him but still so very close it’s like all of Steve’s emotions are making themselves a little clearer too, in the reflection of the glass.

“It’s why people do therapy.” Tony guesses. “Have friends. Hobbies. Pets. Perspective. Remember?”

“You’re saying I should talk to my therapist better?”

Tony hums. “I’m saying that you’ll never stop wanting the day to end if you don’t let Steve Rogers out to play.”

“It’s a pretty idea.” Steve says. “Not sure anyone needs me more than Captain America.”

“Since when do you need permission?” Tony asks. “Did you need permission to become him? To fight the unwinnable war? To save the fucking planet? Why is it—fucking hell, why is it that you’re waiting for permission to fight for yourself?”

“It’s not so ea—”

“I don’t care.” Tony interrupts, and with the awareness that this is a key in a lock, a hand latching onto another, he adds. “And if you’re looking for someone who needs Steve Rogers more than Captain America, I’ll be the one. From now on. I need Steve Rogers more than Captain America, and I’ll ruin anyone who tries to convince me otherwise. Including you.”

.

“We may as well look for El Dorado while we’re at it.” Bruce grumbles.

Tony raises an eyebrow. “My god, is that an actual sense of humour, doc?”

He grabs Bruce’s hand and high-fives it before the man can react and pull away.

“What is this El Dorado?” Thor asks.

“The lost city of gold.” Tony says.

“It’s not real though,” Bruce pitches in at Thor’s intrigued expression. “It’s a myth.”

“Oh, yeah, myths.” Natasha calls out from the pilot seat. “Like Norse gods.”

“That’s...true.” Bruce concedes. “You ever heard of something like it, Thor?”

“No,” Thor frowns. “Though I was never particularly studious when it came to other races. That was always my broth—Loki’s—specialty.”

It’s neat, how a single name becomes a tide, carries with it an emotion heavy enough that it snuffs out everything in its path. Barton’s all stiffened arms at the co-pilot seat, Steve’s wary look has pulled away from his phone to check each person’s reaction like he’s weighing whether he needs to get involved.

Thor’s got that awkward look he always gets when he realises he’s overstepped, hit harder than humans are equipped to take. It’s worst when it comes to Loki because Thor talks about his brother with the easiness of someone who in their heart of hearts doesn’t harbour any lasting ill will. It’s strange, Tony thinks, to hold both contempt for someone’s actions and unflinching devotion for that person in the same breath.

How strange, conclusively, to be in the presence of Gods. Tony isn’t sure if he likes how Thor strides, how he makes the air smell of ozone and messes with the suit’s readouts.

“I don’t think we need to debrief with Hill today.” Steve walks forward. “I’ll send in a report and she’ll update the ledger accordingly.”

“What exactly is there to update, anyway?” Barton jokes, managing to keep any lingering frustration sitting back in his throat. “Just another country crossed off the list.”

“Well, Guatemala was better than Budapest.” Natasha adds, giving momentum to a staggering conversation. “Food’s better.”

Tony thinks of speaking up, of filling the silence with quips, of pushing them along.

I don’t like any of you enough to do you the favour.

He’s about to turn and walk to the little alcove where the Iron Man suit rests when he catches sight of Steve, the heavy set of his eyes on Barton’s back. The worry’s palpable and it’s stupid for Steve to care about Barton of all people, who had laughed like a winner when Tony had sniped that he was completely wrong about him and Steve. Heart on his sleeve, that’s our fucking Steve, Tony thinks, and it rhymes and that’s how he knows it’s all a joke that he’s going to be the punchline of.

“Are we ever gonna learn about Budapest or are you just going to dangle it in front of us until I get curious enough to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Natasha smirks at him but the blunted edges make it look like a smile. “Maybe if you do all your homework and eat all your greens, I’ll consider telling it to you as a bedtime story.”

“Only if you promise to tuck me in and keep the nightlight on.” Tony quips.

Thor laughs, swinging his hammer the way a person may twirl a pencil idly.

“Jane has told me of your bedtime stories!” Thor offers cheerily. “Perhaps I may regale you with a tale of my own one evening.”

“Sounds like an insomniac’s wet dream,” Barton offers. “Seeing as most of your stories take up half a’ night anyway.”

“It is no fault of mine that you mortals fight so briefly and poorly.” Thor brings his fist up. “Our battles are rich. Like the flesh of a gilgasnipe.”

As the quips continue, Tony slips over to Steve’s side.

“What do you think of Thor as a children’s audiobook narrator?” Tony says. “Audiobooks as in books on tape.”

“Is he telling our—uh, Earth children’s stories?” Steve asks.

“Pft. Imagine a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood.” Tony puts on an imperial tone. “Though, truthfully, I would not have mistaken a wolf for my grandmother, being that she embodied a tree in her downtime.”

“Did she really?” Steve’s mouth quirked.

“Scholars contend.” Tony says. “And it’s not exactly a thread I want to pull on.”

“Gives a whole new meaning to family tree, though.” Steve says with a wry smile.

Tony barks out a short laugh. “Quick. Did the serum-afflicted Avengers wake up with a sense of humour today or what?”

“Serum-afflicted.” Steve repeats.

“For Bruce, anyway.” Tony says. “Hey, what do you think the moral of your children’s story would be?”

“What?” Steve blinks at the non-sequitur.

“You know,” Tony says. “Moral of the Steve Rogers story.”

“I don’t know.” Steve says. “What would yours be?”

“I asked you first.”

Steve furrows his brow, obviously thinking it over. “I really don’t know. Maybe, if there’s a will, there’s a way?”

“Too simplistic.” Tony shakes his head.

“What would yours be then?”

“If you’re a genius billionaire with a 240 pound flying metal suit, there’s a way.”

Steve snorts at that. “Clever.”

“One of my defining traits, yes.” Tony agrees.

“Mine’s is shorter.” Steve says. “It’ll stick with the kids better.”

“It’s also horribly vague in the way of most morals.” Tony points out. “What if you don’t know the way? What do you do with all will and no direction?”

“Story of my life.” Steve shrugs.

“Um, yeah, that’s what the hypothetical’s about.” Tony leans away from Steve’s pinch. “You know, for a man with so many martial arts under his belt, you really go for the most underhanded hits.”

“I meet you at your level.” Steve says serenely.

“Fucking—clever.” Tony cedes. “Guess we’ll have to wait for the sequel, then.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“What to do when there’s no clear way but the will is there.” Tony scrunches up his nose. “The wording’s clunky though.”

“Project Rebirth 2.0.” Steve offers.

“Better.” Tony says. “But you’re assuming the audience caught up with all the sordid details from the first book.”

“I’m a fan-first, market-second kinda guy.” Steve says with gravity.

“Alright,” Tony wags a finger. “You serum-takers definitely woke up on the right side of the bed today. Fucking A plus.”

.

“Hey, shellhead.”

Tony looks up to where Natasha is hovering over him, closer than comfortable. His fingers fumble over the gauntlet he’d been working on, caught off-guard by her proximity.

“You don’t call me that.”

“Okay T.” Natasha amends. “Thanks for earlier.”

“What?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Natasha smiles faintly. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.” Tony says. “Or for Barton.”

“I know.” Natasha says. “Doesn’t matter to me who you were doing it for, just that you did it.”

“Always needing to have my voice heard.” Tony rolls his eyes. “Isn’t that part of your profile of me?”

“You read into things too much.” Natasha tilts her head. “And besides, who says no one wanted to listen?”

Cryptic faux- socratic messaging, Tony thinks as the redhead leaves with a pleased sway to her hips. The thought is not quite brittle.

.

Steve is in Tony’s room and Tony’s got his shirt yanked up, but it’s not like that.

He flicks a finger against the metal to hear it clink as he finishes up his explanation of how the arc reactor came to be to Steve. The man makes for a good audience, attentive and expressive. Tony had been able to track the bits which made Steve flinch and the bits which stoked intrigue. The whole story’s been unspooled in the last hour, from:

“Yeah, peace, I love peace. I’d be out of a job with peace.”

to

“They are your loyal customers, sir.”

to

“So you’re a man who has everything, and nothing.”

to

“Don’t waste it. Don’t waste your life.”

Etcetera, etcetera. Tony waits now for Steve to give vocal feedback.

“It’s. . .God, I’m sorry, Tony.” Steve says. “That you have this—ugly reminder of what happened sitting in you. Does it—does it hurt?”

“No.” Tony shakes his head. “Not anymore.”

“It used to hurt?”

“Sure.” Tony says. “But I didn’t mind the hurting as much as the dying.”

“What?”

“I’m all good now. Don’t worry. That’s—that’s another story, anyway.” Tony purses his mouth. “Actually, I think it’s quite beautiful.”

“What?”

“The reactor.” Tony splays his left hand over it, watches the blue light dance in shadows over and between his fingers.

“Reminds me,” Tony begins. “Reminds me that I paid for it. That I didn’t walk away clean.”

“...That’s a good thing?” Steve asks in a hushed tone. His eyes hone in on Tony’s hand with curious attention.

“Maybe not a good thing.” Tony clarifies. “But a necessary thing, for me. I’m not like you. I wasn’t born good. I wasn’t a good person. It’s a truth I’ve come to terms with only because the weight of this—the reactor—reminds me that I bore my reckoning. I survived and I get a second chance, to be better. To make good. You know how you said the serum made you—inhuman? Well, I think I only became human after Afghanistan. That I only dared to be something true after it blew through all the—holes.”

“That’s why it’s beautiful.” Tony closed his left hand, brought it back down. “Because without it, I was uglier and emptier than anyone should ever be. And now, I’m Iron Man. And that’s beautiful.”

Steve’s hand comes forward carefully, drawing the barest of touches around the rim of the reactor. The tips of his fingers graze against Tony’s skin, setting off a shivery warmth in Tony’s chest. Steve’s hand makes contact with the blue light in brief passes and something about the man softens, though Tony can’t figure out what’s changed in the lines of his body.

When Steve meets Tony’s eyes again, there’s something yielding in them.

“I don’t believe that you were born bad, Tony.” Steve says quietly. “Or ugly.”

“That’s kind.”

“I wish you would believe me.”

“I think,” Tony tilts his head in thought. “It’s enough that you believe it.”

“It matters to me that you believe it.” Steve insists.

“Well.” Tony shrugs tightly. “I think that’s a waste of your time.”

“The reactor is beautiful.” Steve tries a different starting point. “I see it now. Because it’s a part of you. And you’re beautiful. Always have been.”

Tony looks over at Steve, at how close he’s sitting now. How Tony could blow a breath out and touch Steve’s cheek. They’re on his bed, for God’s sake. The sun is low enough that time oscillates between day and night. All is quiet and watchful.

“I’m not trying to be mean,” Tony says softly. “But you don’t even want to be here.”

“Most of the time. Yeah.” Steve blinks. “Not all of the time, though.”

He holds Tony’s hand. There’s no lead-up or hesitation. He just takes Tony’s left hand and folds it between both of his until it’s smothered.

“I can’t ask you to wait for me.” Steve starts.

“Then don’t.” Tony returns.

“I’m asking anyway.” Steve says in the next moment, contrary to a fault.

“That’s not fair.” Tony says.

“You can say no.” Steve says.

“I didn’t even know you were queer.” Tony points out.

“Yes, you did.” Steve corrects gently.

“...Yes, I did.” Tony admits.

There’s a slow minute, passing by with Tony’s left hand in Steve’s paws. His right feels bereft, and he blames it on that, blames it on the sun finally molding into the ground, blames it on Steve’s kind face.

He puts his right hand over Steve’s hands, squeezes around them as far as he can reach.

“I’m not built for romance.” Tony warns.

“I wouldn’t even know where to begin.” Steve warns in return.

“I won’t wait too long.” Tony insists.

“I won’t make you wait too long.” Steve says with a barely-there smile.

Tony makes a little moue, shrugs. “I guess that’s acceptable.”

Steve’s answering smile is bright enough to make Tony think the sun’s risen up again.

.

Rhodey is much like a panic attack in that he comes suddenly and without warning, becomes the singular focus of Tony’s time while he’s there, and always leaves him with a wanting taste in his mouth.

“But you’re much better than a panic attack on the whole.” Tony reassures. “On account of how you bring me treats and intel.”

“I thought you counted those in the same category.” Rhodey is unhurt by the comparison, grinning easy as he offers Tony a chocolate biscuit.

“Sub-categorisation is where I thrive.” Tony twiddles his fingers. The biscuit is delicious and he makes his approval known by shoving the other half into Rhodey’s mouth.

“What’s the lowdown anyway?” Tony asks.

“Iron Patriot was a good idea.” Rhodey admits between chewing. “They’re hankering for a taste.”

“I never agreed on that name.” Tony says. “But good. When are you gonna take her out for a ride?”

“Me?” Rhodey says. “Wait—I thought it was going to be—”

“Like hell am I going to have the time to pilot another suit.” Tony rolls his eyes. “And the remote-control is still not 100%. Maybe another year and they’re not going to wait. Even then, I think it would work best as a manned machine. And there’s only one person in the army I trust with my suits.”

“Air force.” Rhodey corrects absent-mindedly, brain quite obviously having taken a back seat to the proceedings as he processes the information.

Tony steals another chocolate biscuit, having it with his coffee as he waits Rhodey out.

“You’re serious.” Rhodey says, and then. “I didn’t consider this in my five year plan.”

“You know I don’t measure my plans in five year segments.” Tony smiles. “You gotta think more long-term.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re thinking centuries ahead.” Rhodey huffs with a smile, shaking his head a little in disbelief. “This changes things.”

“Sure does.” Tony crosses his arms. “But there’s only one question you really need to ask yourself.”

Rhodey looks up expectantly.

Tony grins with wild abandon. “You want in?”

.

“...And I’m waiting for Steve Rogers to give me the “go ahead” for sex.”

“What?” Rhodey says from inside the suit Tony’s packaging him in. It feels very much like how Tony imagines little kids feel when dressing up their barbies.

“So we’re planning on deploying it from an SI satellite, name TBC, but Bruce is still unsure about whether—”

“What did you say about Steve Rogers?”

“Well, it wouldn’t be just sex. I think he’s an old soul, and that’s not even considering the whole back-to-the-future shtick he’s got going on. It would probably be like. An actual relationship.”

Even though he’s got a helmet on, Tony can feel the judgemental look through the visor. That, or Thor really was making a point about the inherently judgey vibe the suit’s helmet gives off.

“We got close. Mostly by talking a lot and being fucked up in similar enough ways to connect but not reinforce. He’s going through...he’s going through a lot. And he’s seeing a therapist but I’m not sure if it’s helping too much. He’s making an effort though, and he says he wants to be with me. Just not quite now. It’s—I think I matter to him and he doesn’t want to go through with it until he knows I won’t just be a crutch.”

“He said that?”

“He’s sixty-six years into the future with PTSD from a war which no one but the elderly remember. He’s got—remarkably little. One friend outside the team who he avoids connecting with outside their jogging routine. A team that’s got no guarantee of remaining as such after finding the scepter. These are the facts.”

“You think getting with him is a good idea?”

“I’m not sure.” Tony flexes his hands restlessly. “I didn’t know that I could love someone without wanting to make them wholly mine.”

“You know, I think he’s the first person I want to be with that I can’t find a use for.” Tony frowns to himself, finishing with. “I think he’s the strongest person I know.”

Rhodey is quiet for a few seconds, letting Tony resume his adjusting of the straps around his shoulders before he gives his verdict.

“Trust yourself.” Rhodey says, and it’s so unjustified that it’s almost shocking. “You’re in the right of it.”

Tony tries not to let emotion bleed through his voice as he answers. “That’s the best thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“You deserve it. I mean it.”

 

PART THREE: CHECK (+)

"Gone, gone forever."

 

Tony bites the inside of his cheek.

He waits as Steve reads through the file, a dreadful finality to the moment that he can’t stand quietly in facing.

When Steve finishes reading, he puts his head in his hands.

It’s been eighty-three hours since Steve found out that Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes is alive. Since he found out how exactly he’s been kept alive and what he’s been up to since his fall.

Tony had thought for a while about whether or not to bring this particular file to attention, having only come across it five hours ago. He’s still not sure that he’s made the right decision, only because of how heavy Steve’s shoulders already look, but he knows that it’s a file that needs to be considered for how it changes things going ahead.

“God,” Steve’s voice is so very frail. “Tony, I’m so sorry.”

Steve’s crying, Tony realises, and trying to hide it but there’s no mistaking the little hitching noises. He sits down next to the man, puts an arm around his shoulders and tries not to make it feel like more weight for the man to carry.

“Hey, it’s okay.” Tony says helplessly.

“No, it’s not.” Steve sobs once. “None of this is—none of this is okay.”

“Okay, it isn’t.” Tony admits. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I don’t—you shouldn’t cry.”

Steve breaks away from his hands, looks over at Tony with an incredulous expression, tears still dripping down his cheeks.

“How are you not?”

“Who says I didn’t?” Tony bites the inside of his cheek, feels skin give away under the grip.

“Tony—”

“My father was—he never got over losing you. I don’t care that he wasn’t a great dad. I don’t care that he was petty and stupid and cruel. But I care that I couldn’t scrub him out of me for a long time. That I played along, like the very best creation, the very best machine. His murder I can process, with time. I can understand why someone would want that. I mean, I got close sometimes, in my own head. But my mom—”

Tony blinks, turns away, takes his arm off Steve’s shoulders. “My mom was a kind woman. She loved films and music and she had the kind of laugh that swallowed everything in its path. She didn’t—didn’t deserve that.”

Steve’s hugging him. And talking, though Tony can’t parse what he’s saying with the fullness of warmth surrounding him. It’s all a little too much and he feels one or two late-bloomer tears slip free. He thought he’d cried himself out earlier. It’s not fair that Steve can wring him out like this.

He bites the inside of his cheek again, trying to reel it all in.

When he feels just about firm enough to hold it, he pulls back from the embrace, tunes back into Steve saying:

“—I’m so fucking sorry, Tony, please don’t—”

“Anyway, this changes things.” Tony interjects.

Steve looks at him with unbridled pain.

“I can’t go with you to get Barnes.” Tony says. “I think you should recruit Sam, take him with you. And Natasha. Barton, if he’s willing. I can’t go, Bruce is too dangerous and Thor is overkill.”

“Tony—”

“I wish I could help you with this. But I’m not confident that I can go with you and not—” Tony grimaces. “And not kill him.”

Steve shakes his head, so upset it’s bleeding out of his face.

“I need a bit more time. More time than you can afford to wait out. So, you get him first. Bring him here. I’ll be around. Once I feel—once I get over it, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“You done?” Steve asks in a husked out tone.

“Yeah.” Tony folds his hands together. “I’m done.”

Steve doesn’t say anything for a moment, just trains his eyes on him like he’s trying to memorise Tony, playing his very own spot-the-difference game in his head.

Before: thinking your parents died in a car accident and keeping anything to do with it buried so deep within you that most days you didn’t even remember it happened.

After: finding out your parents were killed by the brainwashed BFF super-soldier of the guy you’ve got the hots for.

Do you see the difference or does the mask still work?

Steve brings a hand up to Tony’s cheek, rubs at the line of his goatee, a slow sweeping line that’s so tender it burns his skin.

“You’re bleeding.” Steve whispers, his other hand swiping at the thin line of red dripping out of Tony’s mouth.

He’s bitten the inside of his cheek raw and it’s betrayed him. Looks like he’s the one bleeding right out of his face, then.

“You don’t have to be strong.” Steve continues. “Please, don’t—not with me. Not with this. Not you.”

Something about the line triggers the faintest deja vu. Not this. Not you.

Tony blinks back to himself.

“I don’t want to see you upset.” Tony says. “Even if it means I win.”

Steve shakes his head, that same helpless pain on his face.

“I’ve got more fingers than people I feel that for.” Tony says.

Steve hushes him, cleaning up the traitorous blood with his sleeve.

“Can I hold you?” Steve asks.

“Only if you promise not to apologise for this.” Tony says, and then in a more pleading tone. “I really don’t want to hear it. Please.”

“God, Tony, someone oughta be sorry.” Steve says. “Your parents, your—your mother, Tony, I don’t know how you can stand to look at me, let alone—”

“You didn’t pull the trigger.” Tony cuts him off.

Steve looks sick as he says it, like he hates himself a little deeper for it, but he makes it known anyway: “He didn’t do it either, not in the way—”

“I know the facts.” Tony scowls. “I’ve seen the medical records they found. I know all of that. Intellectually. But I’m—I don’t know why I’m lagging, I just can’t connect the dots between that and who he is to you.”

“I know, I know.” Steve says in a low, apologetic tone. “I’m sorry, look, let’s not talk about that now, huh? Let me just hold you. Please.”

“No apologies then.” Tony presses. “I’ll walk away.”

“I won’t apologise.” Steve agrees.

.

They’re in Tony’s room again but it’s not like that.

Or maybe it is; Tony doesn’t know what to make of this moment, where it fits in their little one-step-forward, one-step-back dance.

See, Steve’s got his arms around Tony. It’s profoundly consuming, an embrace like a full-stop, like running out of words. Something fatally finite. They’re not laying on the bed but Tony’s so heavy on Steve, his whole body resting itself on him. He may as well be lying down.

Steve had tried to talk in the beginning but Tony had hushed him. There’s nothing he can say that’s more effective than this—submerging Tony in his Christmas miracle heat.

Tony knows Steve’s a little perturbed, unsure of Tony’s stilted reaction, unsure of what role he plays here between Barnes and Tony. Steve’s about as far from a man of inaction as can be and Tony half-thinks that if he put a fingertip up to Steve’s brain, he’d feel it whirring away, trying to pinpoint the right way forward.

There’s nothing you can do.

Tony wants to say it, feels as if he has said it already, but it won’t stop Steve from thinking he’s just a few minutes away from figuring it out.

Maybe they’re alike in that way.

It’s easier, regardless, to let this moment be about Steve. To focus on this—this abscess through Steve’s lens, process it secondhand like it’ll dull the realisation. Tony wonders if people will find out about this, people as in the public, people as in his mom’s family back in Naples, people as in everyone whose never had a right to his past and never let that stop them from digging up the graves of it.

Digging up the graves. Tony screws his eyes shut and wills himself to settle back into a forced calm, for the sudden uptick in his breathing to be a flickering glitch.

Steve’s arms loosen as the man makes a questioning noise, tilting Tony’s head up to him. He keeps his eyes resolutely shut and doesn’t react even when he feels the stolid press of Steve’s thumb on his cheek, stroking at the skin there.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Tony manages after what he thinks has been two or three minutes but what feels like thirty.

“Okay.”

“I’m not ready to talk about it.”

“Okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“...You’re right.”

“Now you’re just saying what you think I want to hear.”

“There’s only one thing I’m trying to say, and it’s that I’m sorry, and I don’t know what to say but I want to help, I want to be—here, for you. And I wish I could take this pain from you and I’m going to be sorry till the day I die that I can’t."

Tony blinks his eyes open, caught off-guard for a moment by how bright everything looks even in the dim light of his bedroom. He looks over at Steve and manages to hold the man’s gaze.

“I told you not to apologise.”

“I know.” Steve says without an ounce of regret shading his tone. “But someone should be sorry.”

Tony shakes his head. “You’re so goddamn stubborn. I used to think it was all anger but it’s looking more and more like dumb stubbornness.”

“Dr. Gupta does agree I have anger management issues,” Steve says in a low tone. “I’m trying to work on it.”

So he has been going to therapy more often.

“Oh, what, anger issues, is that all?” Tony rolls his eyes. “Sometimes I think you don’t realise the depth of how fucked up your circumstances are.”

Steve furrows his eyebrows.

“I’m just saying,” Tony leans in close, prompts Steve to wrap his arms around him with a fussy tap on his shoulder. “If it were me, I would be the pseudo-Hulk. Complain about everything. Smash it all.”

“...You know, you talk about how much you complain more than you actually complain.” Steve says.

Tony snorts and it’s almost normal, if he ignores how congested his nose is, how his skin’s gone taut from the tears drying, how emotionally bankrupt he feels, how everything is stuffy and dry and empty.

“Thanks.” Tony says.

“For what?”

Going along with this. Not using this against me. Not bringing up Barnes.

“For being here. With me.”

Steve replies, simply and earnestly, his own tears now faint marks on his skin. “It’s where I belong.”

.

For all the back-and-forth about each other via Steve, actually meeting Sam Wilson is a real non-affair.

“Your tech is shit.” Tony says flatly, making a circle around the man. “This is from a history exhibit, surely.”

“Wow.” Sam gives Steve an affronted look. “I thought you said he was nice.”

“I—don’t think I’ve ever used that word to describe him.” Steve crosses his arms, looking oh-so-pleased about the coming together of his two lives.

It’s a better reaction than Tony anticipated, considering that introducing friends to whatever Tony is to him means that Steve’s moving forward, getting better at seeing this life as permanent. It also proves that the jogging buddy is a real guy and not a metaphor, an idea which Tony has occasionally wrestled with.

“Luckily for you, I’m handier than I am nice.” Tony says, putting his hands on his hips. “I can fix this.”

“Who asked you to?”

Tony gives Sam a mean look. “You can’t possibly expect me to trust you to protect Steve with this as your arsenal.”

“Aw, I think he has a crush on you, Steve.” Sam says.

“Yeah.” Steve offers in a concise reply, grinning to himself a little. Oh-so-fucking-pleased with himself! Oh my god, if only it didn’t suit him so well.

Tony sneers at both of them, to make a point, out of principle and whatnot, before looking back at the wings, taking measurements in his head that he knows he can double check with J.A.R.V.I.S. later. It’s lightweight, sure, but also lightweight in what it offers in maneuverability and speed.

“This is pretty shit, yeah.” Tony says. “Have you actually had successful missions using this? Seems like easy picking.”

Sam blows out a long, low breath. “Boy, you are an acquired taste kind of guy, aren’t you?”

“I’m exclusive, yeah.” Tony agrees. “Now get out of that suit.”

“Alright, alright.” Sam says, unstrapping—my god, unstrapping—the wings.

Tony sidles up to Steve in the meantime, pokes his arm.

“Baby, be nice to my friend.”

Since when is he Steve’s baby?

Tony hides his grin by swiping a hand over his mouth.

“I approve.” Tony says. “If you’re asking.”

“I’m not.”

Tony looks at him from the corner of his eyes. “You were, a little.”

“Fine.” Steve brings his arm around Tony, squeezing his shoulder. “A little.”

.

On the day that Steve and his merry band of three go off to hunt down—sorry, persuade—Barnes and bring him back to the tower, Tony visits an old friend.

“Hello, Ivan.”

They’ve handcuffed him to the table but Tony knows with a bone-deep certainty that if Ivan Vanko really wanted to hurt him, the handcuffs would be little more than a minute’s nuisance.

Suit-up time is down to 9.31 seconds, on last check.

“Fuck off, Stark.”

“Why did you agree to meet me, then?” Tony asks. “If you’re going to be so rude.”

“I didn’t know I was meeting the bullshit Stark.” Ivan sneers. “Hello, bullshit Stark.”

“Cute.” Tony resists the urge to wince. “How have you been?”

“They won’t let me have my bird.” Ivan says cryptically. “So I have been making my own fun.”

“...That’s not a metaphor, is it?”

“I don’t put little dresses on my words and paint them up like fucking dolls. I’m not like you.”

“We’re not so different, you and I.” Tony points out.

“I disagree.”

“What I mean is, it could have been me sitting where you are.”

Ivan stills, looks him over with an intrigued gleam in his eyes. “So it’s not the bullshit Stark that has come to visit today.”

“I do have a first name, you know.”

“All you are to me is a Stark.” Ivan says honestly.

“...Fair enough. I guess.” Tony tilts his head.

“Why did you come?”

“Perspective.” Tony says. “You’re the only person alive who knew me as a child.”

“It is a weak man that has to return time and time again to his childhood for answers on why he is the way he is.” Ivan says.

“Have you ever seen me differently?” Tony asks.

“You’re right that I’m the only one who knew you as a child.” Ivan ignores Tony’s question. “You were a fucking bully.”

Tony nods, tacitly urging him on.

“Those who are bullied at home can’t help but become bullies outside, is what they say.” Ivan recites, then frowns. “I disagree. I think the choice remains one’s own. And you picked the easy way out. You became your father."

Tony wonders, in a distant part of him, whether continuing to sit here proves he’s a masochist.

“And now?”

Ivan looks at him with what appears to be honest confusion. “What now?”

“What do you think of me, now?”

Ivan thinks for half a minute, hands curling inwards and outwards restlessly.

“You know I showed up?” He says. “Your sixth birthday party. Your mother invited the whole class but I heard the kids saying that you were weird and they wouldn’t go. I didn’t care. I went anyway. I was the only one who showed up and your father saw me, recognised my accent and told me to fuck off to my commie father.”

Tony’s lips part. He hadn’t known that. Something very much like shame burns in his cheeks.

“So if you ask me what I think...” Ivan meets his gaze and the anger there is like a bullet for how it lances through Tony. “I do not believe that the crimes of our past can be so easily forgiven. And you have a legacy that bleeds ugly even now."

In the gnawing aftermath, Tony wrestles with himself for the right response.

“And it was necessary that you make me bleed.”

“Yes.” Ivan says. “You deserved to be made mortal, for all your fucking parading around like you were better than them. Like you were special for having a bad home and a quick brain.”

“None of them saw me as a bully.” Tony says. “And they never will.”

“The truth doesn’t change just because people refuse to face it.”

“Thank you for seeing it.” Tony says. “I know you’ll hate me more for saying this, but you really helped me.”

“...Really. Your arrogance will kill us all.” Ivan says, eyes alight with a tired pain.

Tony smiles. “Between you and me, I mean, really, just between you and me, I think the world can withstand me.”

Ivan glares at him with moody discontent.

“Come on, don’t pout now that we’re becoming friends.” Tony clears his throat self-consciously. “Alrighty then, let me find this bird of yours. As a flat fee for the therapy.”

 

PART FOUR: TAKE THE BAND-AID OFF

"I can hear my lover call. “come to me"."

 

“Hey Tony.”

Steve’s voice is harried but warm over the phone.

“How’s it going?”

“Uh, okay. He slipped through our hands once, but we’ve got a better plan. Planning to intercept in—two hours. We’re on the jet.”

“How are you?”

“I’m. . .I don’t know, Tony. Half of me’s excited to see him, to hold him and know he’s alive and that I have someone. . .someone I didn’t think I’d ever see again, with me, in this—re-birth. The other half’s full a’ guilt over what it means, that he’s alive, what’s happened to him, what he’s endured, what it’ll mean for those he’s. . .those he’s hurt. I feel selfish for wanting him with me, by my side, when I think of how I’ve abandoned him.”

“I don’t think you can abandon someone without knowing it.”

“Hell, Tony, I’m all over the place. I thought he was dead. How can I—how can I look him in the eye and apologise for that?”

“I don’t think he expects you to apologise.”

And if he does, Tony will dissuade him of that notion very quickly.

Tony shakes his head. Jeez. The man’s been tortured by fuckin’ Hydra. A little sympathy wouldn’t hurt.

Tony straightens. No, but I don’t think I’d care. Not before Steve’s pain.

Great. He’s arguing with himself.

“Maybe. Hey, listen, how’ve you been? What have you been up to?”

“Visited an old friend.”

“What, Rhodey?"

“No.”

“You have just the one old friend. Who’d you visit?”

“Hard to explain. I’ll introduce you to him one day.”

Ha. Yeah, right.

“I don’t mean this to. . .please don’t take this as an actual ask but I wish you were here. I miss you.”

“Aw.” Tony hides how pleased he is by that with bluster. “You want me to send you a picture?”

“Huh? What’s that—a picture?”

“You know, all dressed up for you.”

“I—Tony. No, no I don’t. The—the team is here.”

“Then find a corner.”

“No. Tony, come on now, you’re making fun of me.”

“Only a little. Only ‘cause you’re so easy.”

“Besides, when we get around to—all that, I want to be there in the morning.”

“All that.” Tony echoes in amusement even as his mind fixates on the “when”.

When, when, when. No ifs.

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

“Tony. Look, Nat’s laughing at me now. I see you!”

Tony smiles to himself as Steve’s admonishments towards Natasha continue over the phone, feeling lighter for hearing how Steve’s voice is lighter.

“...Alright, alright. I’m going.”

“Where?”

“Oh, no, I was just—finding a corner.”

“Steve.” Tony drew out.

“Not like that, Tony.”

“Uh-huh."

“Though. . .I wouldn’t mind if—can we do the video feature?”

“You wanna video call?” Tony pulls the phone down, switches to video call. “There we go.”

He pulls his phone back up and sees Steve squinting down at his phone, a look of consternation that erases like a windshield wiper over a rainy surface, clearing up to reveal an expression of fondness.

“Hey, baby. There you are.”

“Here I am."

Tony does a quick survey of Steve, cuts near his ear and cheek, bruise on the lower part of his neck.

“You’re a sight for sore eyes, shellhead.”

“So’re you, winghead.”

“I—I mean it. You ever think—you didn’t know what you needed till you have it?”

“Steve, that’s borderline diabetic.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m your sweetheart.”

“I mean, it goes both ways.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, you’re the tall drink of water after a workout.”

“Aw, Tony.”

“No, no. We’re going to pretend I didn’t say that.”

“You’re a cup of coffee in the morning.”

“No, we’re not doing that.”

“You’re sunlight after a week of rain.”

“No—”

.

“They say when they’re coming in?” Bruce asks.

They’re in the kitchen, both with a coffee in hand and with the time past normal coffee drinking hours. It’s a neat flaw to share.

“They’re a day out.” Tony answers. “Coming from Minsk.”

Bruce raises his eyebrows. “Seems to have gone smoother than anticipated.”

“Luxury of distance talking there.” Tony shrugs.

“Huh, yeah.” Bruce takes a sip. “You wanna. . .talk?”

Tony looks the man over. The mousy brown hair, the twitchy expression, the slacks.

“Steve put you up to this?” Tony surmises.

Bruce sighs, and there’s a relief about it. “Natasha, actually.”

“She told you to play the role of therapist?”

“Not in so many words.” Bruce says. “Just that we spend a lot of time together in your workshop and that builds a trust that—if we choose to—can be extended to other activities and thoughts we want to share.”

“I may be the most emotionally obtuse person in this room,” Tony raises his eyebrows to deliver the rest. “But I believe the word you’re looking for is “friend”.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that.” Bruce narrows his eyes. “Is that, like, a thing you do when you don’t have an alter ego that can snap at any moment and level a city block?”

Tony can’t help the smile that splits his lips wide and genuine.

“There’s always something.” Tony says. “Some reason that justifies not reaching out, that justifies carrying it inside, that justifies—being alone. If you make it your choice, it can’t be taken away from you.”

“You talk like you don’t feel that way anymore.” Bruce says.

Tony parts his mouth, frowns to himself.

“Maybe...I don’t know. I have something I don’t want to hold back from. Ugly and good, hand in hand.” Tony says.

“All in.” Bruce adds absentmindedly.

“Yep.”

Bruce smiles at him, all crooked awkwardness and generous sincerity. It’s remarkably endearing.

“I’m happy for you, Tony.” Bruce says.

“I’m happy for you.” Tony volleys.

“I didn’t—there’s nothing going on with me, though.”

“You sure?” Tony tilts his head. “Romanoff told you to talk, did she?”

“Yes, Natasha did.” Bruce shakes his head. “Hang on—no. That’s not—”

“Uh-huh. Let’s you and me have a chat.”

.

Tony has experienced many a’ moment climactic and anti-climactic. Never has he felt like he’s in the jaws of something bigger than him, something vast and unseeable and so achingly close that it’s all he can do to not grab it by both hands.

Point being: Steve’s just landed and found his way to the entrance of the penthouse.

Their eyes meet.

Fireworks, right? And it’s oh-so-easy when the serum wears its strength out for the world to balk at. Steve’s got him by the waist and Tony’s flying for a second even though the suit’s downstairs. Then, with applause like the world’s beginning again, they’re hugging.

“I missed you.” Steve greets, breathless and wanting.

“I missed you too.” Tony returns.

“You’re beautiful,” Steve grins with a slow ease. “Smiling like that.”

“Says you.”

“I do say so.” Steve says.

Tony puts a hand on Steve’s face, strokes the line of his jaw. “The cheek on you."

“I see what you did there.”

“So, you got the reference?”

Steve huffs a laugh, running a hand through Tony’s hair with such a casual familiarity that it burns inside him.

“I really did miss you.” Steve says, quieter but no less sincere. “I didn’t realise how much I’d grown to need you, to want you around.”

“I love you.” Tony confesses, unwilling to have the knowledge hidden for even a moment more.

Steve’s hand falters in its flirtations with Tony’s hair. Something in the vast, glacier blue of Steve’s eyes changes, a tenderness unfolding like flowers blooming, a candle wick aflame. Tony tracks its dawning but is still caught off-guard by how Steve steps closer, leans in, and—

“Oh, you’re going to kiss me.” Tony whispers.

Steve’s breath falls over Tony’s lips, short and wistful.

“You don’t want me to?”

“I said I loved you, didn’t I?”

Steve’s mouth quirks. “You did.”

“Then why do you need an answer?”

He closes the distance between them, and Tony can’t help inhaling sharply as Steve’s lips meet his. It’s gentle at first, two mouths resting against each other, but then Tony purses his lips, presses into it. Steve responds in kind, and then it’s learning each other’s mouths; a rich, velvety intimacy that sets off Tony’s body like he’s got electricity running in his blood.

“I love you.” Steve says when they break for breath.

It was hard enough trying to catch his breath as is.

“Dirty—” Tony says. “Dirty move.”

“I wanted that to be the first thing I said after kissing you.” Steve says.

“Difficult precedent to set.” Tony says. “Gonna make me expect it every time.”

“I can do this—”

Tony covers Steve’s mouth with his hand. “Really? You’re gonna pull that out?”

Steve puts his hand over Tony’s, pushing it tighter over his mouth and pressing a kiss to his palm.

Tony blows out a breath, caught between affection and appalment that this is the man he's chosen.

“You—” Tony manages. “You really were inevitable, huh?”

“...I like the sound of that.” Steve says. “I like the sound of that a lot.”

.

Tony was planning on giving it some more time but there’s never been a conversation he wanted to avoid that he’s ever actually been able to avoid. Not for as long as he wants to, anyway.

He’s heading to the kitchen to get himself a coffee. The workshop has the same sort but he was starting to get stiff hunching over the suit, and thought the walk would do him good. Steve’s long kissed him goodnight, and it’s twilight hours now, so he’s expecting it to be a quiet, unobtrusive trip.

Of course, life decides to play its own little tricks.

Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, looking worn-down and somewhat greasy, stands in the kitchen. His head is already turned to Tony with a watchful wariness that suggests he’d heard him come up. He doesn’t give any indication of surprise at it being Tony but trying to read his body language for answers is probably futile anyway.

Tony doesn’t think of the dossier that S.H.I.E.L.D. had put together on Bucky Barnes, what they knew of the torture that had been inflicted on him, of what that turned a person’s emotional triggers into.

“...Hey.” Tony offers when the man doesn’t speak up.

“Hey.” The sergeant echoes.

“Uh...I’m just here for a coffee.” Tony says, walking forward to the carafe. Barnes moves out of his way, scuttling back a few meters silently.

Tony’s about to get out the coffee beans when he realises the carafe’s mostly full and hot.

“I just made some.” Barnes explains, behind him. “Please help yourself.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Tony turns his head briefly to smile tightly.

Tony pours a cup out for himself, trying to ignore the feeling of being watched.

“Can I ask you something?”

Tony screws his eyes tight for a moment.

“Sure.”

He turns around to face Barnes, putting on a placid expression.

Barnes’ eyes trail over Tony’s face for a long moment, and when he finally speaks, it’s in a tone audibly hoarser.

“What the hell am I doing here?”

It’s not appropriate but the first thing that comes to Tony’s mind is the Radiohead song.

What the hell am I doing here? / I don’t belong here.

I don’t belong here. In more ways than one, Winter Soldier.

“You’re here to heal. So.” Tony shrugs. “Whatever you need.”

“You know,” Barnes swallows. “About your—”

“Yes.”

“Then what the hell am I doing here?”

Tony works his jaw for a moment, thinking: what the hell is with this guy, does he want to be punished, does he want me to talk about what it meant to hear what happened, no, don’t fall for that.

Go for the simplest explanation; go for the truth.

“Steve wants you here.”

Barnes waits for a few seconds after, obviously expecting more.

“He told you to let me stay?”

“No.” Tony says. “I told him to let you stay.”

“Why would you do that?” Barnes says. “I killed your parents.”

“I’m well-aware.” Tony crosses his arms.

“And you’re still letting me stay?”

“Steve believes there is good in you.” Tony says. “I trust him. That’s all that matters.”

“That’s awfully gracious.”

“Yeah, yeah, what can I say? I’m a sucker for a redemptive storyline.”

“I’m better off dead.”

“...So you intend to not try?”

“What?”

“If you truly believe that you’re better off dead, why stay here?” Tony asks.

Barnes thinks it over for a minute, ultimately shrugging. “I don’t know. Part of me—part of me just didn’t want to keep running. I didn’t realise that nothing would get easier, coming to a stop.”

“Give it time.”

“I don’t think I have time.” Barnes says. “How long before the world starts looking for justice?”

“That’s not for you to worry about.” Tony says.

“Isn’t it?”

“Not right now.”

“Then when?” Barnes says. “When do I factor that in? Is there a schedule I’m not privy to? Because it’s starting to feel like I should’ve just kept running, instead of squatting at the house of the man whose parents I killed.”

With more ferocity than Tony knew he could muster, he says. “If you use me as your excuse to leave, I will hunt you down and finish the fucking job.”

Barnes doesn't respond to that, eyes looking back at Tony with an unnerving lack of feeling in them.

“I don’t think we disagree.” Tony continues at Barnes’ lack of reaction. “That Steve deserves better than both of us.”

Barnes nods after a moment.

“But if he says that you are someone worth fighting for,” Tony pauses, sighs. “Who am I to disagree?”

“You’re better situated than anyone else to disagree.”

It’s a brute point to make but an honest one, and even as Tony flinches at the ever-hanging reminder of what connects them beyond Steve’s love, he can’t help the sliver of gratitude for Barnes for daring to call the elephant out.

“Let me be exceedingly clear about this,” Tony says. “I don’t have so much grace that I can take that kind of talk.”

“Exceedingly noted.”

Oh god, it’s another super soldier with wit.

Tony turns back to his coffee so that he can roll his eyes discreetly.

.

There’s a switch there in that twilight hour. A palpable shift makes itself known between them, a barrier pulled back when they meet each other’s eyes. An understanding. Not of respect but recognition in the fact that Tony will meet him step-for-step, that he will not compromise Steve for Barnes, even if the man himself wills it.

(And though neither of them know it then, it is this very even-keeled recognition of the other's unflinching loyalty that will become the bridge between them; that will allow them to stand side-by-side behind the boy from Brooklyn and not see their positioning as a competition with the other but an alliance.)

 

PART FIVE: MORAL OF THE STORY

"I can hear the river call: no return, no return. (No return, no return)."

 

Of all places; Namibia.

It’s a hard country, its people tough and weathered. There’s a heat to its ground, like the very core of the earth is closer to the surface.

The dunes are a sight ripe for fighting and they’re all primed for it, but in the end there’s nothing waiting for them but a cold, blue stone sitting snug and heavy in the carpet of crystals. Tony scans the surroundings for activity, for any presence waiting for them to bite the bait, but there’s nothing but dry, empty space.

It’s Thor that finally plucks it out of the ground and it’s as neat of a circle as can be made. The two aliens on Earth united.

The quinjet hovers over them, its doors opening like a jaw unhinging, eager to finally taste the meal its been hunting for.

Thor presses his free hand to Steve’s shoulder then Tony’s, shaking them back and forth in gleeful congratulations. Then, without a word, he flies up into the open mouth of the quinjet.

Tony unfolds his arms, motions Steve close. The good captain steps neatly onto Iron Man’s feet, holds onto the ridges of the suit’s waist.

Tony enables the thrustors.

.

Tony seals the stone in the metal case they’d made specifically for transporting it. Bruce hovers behind him, close enough for the glow to catch his face but far enough to demonstrate how little he cares to have its touch on him. Natasha and Clint are the pilots today, and have both shown little interest in coming close to it. The former had given a coy “Well done, boys.”. The latter had given a tight, uncertain smile as the blue light passed by. Steve’s gone to wash off the sand from himself in the bathroom and Thor’s sitting in one of the seats near Natasha, a thoughtful expression on his face.

All in all, it's a soundless victory.

.

“Well, damn, I guess I’ll be the one to say it.” Clint starts.

The six of them are in a loose circle around the metal case, still shut away. Tony’s got his suit on, but he’s left his helmet by his chair.

“What now?” Clint finishes.

“Now I take it,” Thor says. “To Asgard.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is going to want a look it.” Natasha mentions.

“Do we really trust them with that?” Bruce asks.

“I don’t.” Tony says.

“Me neither.” Bruce agrees.

“I will let them have their look at it.” Thor swings Mjolnir, and the motion is almost casual. “But I’ll be there to see what they’re looking for.”

“I’ll be there too.” Steve crosses his arms.

Things have been testier between Captain America and S.H.I.E.L.D. in the past few months.

“That’s all very good, but I meant, what happens to us?” Clint asks. “The Avengers?”

There’s a short silence as looks are exchanged. Bruce looks to Tony and Steve, Natasha goes from Clint to Steve to Bruce, Thor looks around without settling on anyone in particular, Clint looks between Natasha and Steve. Tony—well, he’s looking everywhere to figure out where everyone else is looking, and the last person he lands on, the last one left to figure out, is Steve.

The man’s looking at Tony with a staunchness that says he didn’t bother looking at anyone else.

It makes it easier.

The armour releases and Tony steps out, sidles up to Steve. The man pulls an arm up, lets Tony nestle into his side and rests the arm along Tony’s waist.

“New York isn’t an anomaly. It’s an opening move.” Tony answers. “And Fury wasn’t correct, exactly, but he was on the right path. The Avengers—could be something. If we want it to be.”

“Cards on the table,” Tony presses a kiss to Steve’s shoulder, uncaring of what it reveals to Natasha, what it reveals to the team. “I think there’s something here. The tower can be a base. A—start.”

“I’m in.” Clint says, immediately. “Hell, S.H.I.E.L.D. knows we’re in. ‘S why they’ve stopped the long-con missions.”

“I’m in.” Natasha says neatly.

“I cannot say.” Thor frowns. “I can not say I will always be here, that I will always fight your wars, that I will always respond to your needs, but while I remain here, I will be honoured to be an Avenger.”

“Honour’s ours, Thor.” Clint grins.

“I’m not sure, either.” Bruce says. “I mean, it’s complicated.”

“When’s it not?” Natasha asks, and at Bruce’s shaded look of hurt. “It’s not going to get easier out there. You know that.”

After a quiet, deliberating minute, Bruce nods. It’s as much of an answer as they’ll get, springing a yes/no on him in front of everyone.

Tony tilts his head up to Steve. “How’s about it, Cap?”

Steve smiles down at him. “I don’t have any plans tonight.”

And so, almost a year after the first time they came together, the Avengers finally settle on the brand.

.

Tony’s walking into Stark Industries—trailing jet-black shoes over the polished floors and minimalist architecture of the lobby—when he catches sight of it.

It’s not that he hasn’t seen it countless times before. It’s not even that he hasn’t seen it and been struck to a stop by it before. It’s another of his habits, wrung to bloody completion.

His father looks back at him, as severe and hungry in portrait as he’d been in real life.

He can remember still, how it felt to be pinned under those eyes, so similar to his own gluttonous brown that sometimes, even now, he’ll look at himself in the mirror and think, that’s my father looking at me.

But that’s not on his mind, today. Not for longer than the space of his heartbeat, crooked though it is by the metal that sits in his chest.

Nah, all he thinks as he gives the portrait its minute’s appraisal is: I don’t exist to prove you wrong. I exist to prove myself right.

And it doesn't always hold true, but the moments when it does—well. They make up for the moments where it doesn't.

.

It’s nearing midnight when Steve comes to bed. Tony had been reading one of Steve’s novels, not wanting to get his brain kickstarted by work and not wanting to break the comfortable silence of the room by calling for J.A.R.V.I.S. to pull out an article.

Bucky’s been having episodes, and though Natasha says that Steve’s presence oscillates between a balm and a gunshot for what it does to the Sergeant’s emotional state, there’s no keeping Steve away from Bucky.

Steve walks in with a stiff gait that says it wasn’t a night where his presence was wanted. Tony dog-ears the page and puts the book back on Steve’s side.

“Come here, sweetheart.” Tony beckons.

Steve pauses at the threshold of the bed, eyes flitting over Tony for a moment before he gets in, finding his way right to him.

“You are a sight for sore eyes.” Steve says, and it should get tiring hearing that. But there’s an aching appreciation in his tone, every time, that makes Tony feel like his heart might thump right out of his body. Even now, with exhaustion like a coat he can't get off, Steve manages to make the words sound energetic, unmarked by the roughness of his night.

“You alright?” Tony asks.

“I am,” Steve says. “No, really, baby, don’t look at me like that, I am.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

“No, not tonight.” Steve says. “Just—let me hold you, huh?”

“You know I’m easy for it.”

“You, baby,” Steve huffs. “Are the farthest thing from easy there is.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Tony agrees, smiling.

Tony’s not sure if it’s sadness or love that softens the slope of Steve’s eyes but when he reaches a hand up to stroke along the man’s cheek, those blue eyes shutter themselves away from any further inspection.

“It’s going to get easier.”

“I know.”

“I’m going to be here.”

“I know.” Steve opens his eyes, and the love is stronger there, brighter. He takes Tony’s hand and presses a kiss to it. “You know that means everything.”

Tony hums, pulls Steve down to properly lie on the bed.

"I know it's not always going to be easy," Steve says. “But that I get this, this solace at the end of the day. You, with me."

"Takes the ugly right out of the day." Tony assures. “I know, I know."

“I mean it.” Steve brings Tony close. Tony nuzzles into Steve’s neck, and feels the man exhale in a long, expelling breath.

“Just lookin’ at you, sometimes, makes me feel lighter.” Steve says. “Like it doesn't matter that I got no choice but to go forward."

“It’s the same for me.” Tony says. “You know that, right?”

“Like a drink of water after a workout?”

“Stop.” Tony draws out. “We’re not doing that again.”

“Like a cup of coffee in the morning.”

“No. Steven. I’m being serious.”

“Like sunlight after a week of rain.”

Steve’s laughing now, and it sounds like healing.

“You’re insufferable. Absolutely and wholly insufferable."

"Ah, yeah, but I'm wholly yours."

Tony huffs. “Wholly a pain in my ass, maybe."

"That too." Steve concedes.

"You," Tony pulls away. “Oh my god, you've got jokes."

"Like a good stretch after sex." Steve says, reeling him back in. “That's what you are."

"A gag that never ends." Tony murmurs. “That's what we are."

“Oh, no, honey, that's not us,” Steve tilts his head up, presses a kiss all-too-gentle on his mouth. “You said it best, remember? We’re inevitable.”

Inevitable.

And, well. Tony likes the sound of that.

Notes:

I hesitated throughout writing this fic because parts of it felt like too much of a mirror to To Be With You (Is Easy) but this has definitely been a much heavier beast to tango with. While I'm not 100% on how it's all come out, about halfway through writing this, I realised that I'd *have* to write the shitty version of this story in order to one day write a better version. And there are parts of this one that I think hold up and I hope I'll look back on the whole experience with a kinder lens. That day will probably be two days from now when I go back to check for spelling errors :D

Anyway, that's all the time I'll grant my whimsy. This is unbeta'd so if you spot any spelling / grammatical errors, point 'em out and I'll send a kudo your way. + Concrit still welcome.

Lastly but really the only note that matters: thank you for reading and giving this story a bit of your time today. Have a good one out there. Cheers for a Funky February!