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Fifty bucks. That was the going retail value to babysit Captain America. That and Fury’s “eternal gratitude.”
“Honestly, I don’t even think the electricity is being recouped,” Tony said, turning around in his lab chair just in time to witness a very loopy super-soldier scoop up Dum-E. “Hey, hey, hey—hands off the merchandise!”
Screee, Dum-E agreed.
“Your dog’s makin’ funny noises, I’m takin’ it to the vet,” Cap said gruffly, carrying it towards the door.
He probably shouldn’t be lifting a two hundred pound machine less than one hour after having his appendix removed, but Tony wasn’t getting between a man and his perceived dog.
“Put the dog down,” Tony stressed as Dum-E squeaked over Cap’s shoulder.
“I’m taking it to the vet,” Steve insisted, carrying it to the door.
Tony scoffed. “I dare you.” Steve took him up on it, hauling Dum-E towards the door. Remembering himself, Tony sputtered, “No, that wasn’t—Rogers. Put the dog down. You put the—put the goddamn robot down!”
“I’ll bring it back, quit your whining,” Steve grumbled.
Screeeee, Dum-E whined.
Tony launched himself out of his chair. “Rogers, that wasn’t multiple choice!”
. o .
All right, so maybe Steve was slightly spryer than Tony had bargained for. Fine. Fine.
He wasn’t gonna give in that easily. Oh, no. If he called Fury and said it was too much for him to handle, he would never hear the end of it. Frankly, he had assumed that Rogers would just vege out on the couch to some cartoons like he did. The description “we use these to anesthetize the Hulk once;” “did they work?” “they made him sleepy” were enough to give Tony hope.
Steve wasn’t sleepy.
“God, could you just not,” Tony said, exasperated, as Steve overturned a box of tiny, metal, boomerang-shaped bridges.
“You got mice,” Steve told him, pointing at the hundred or so “mice” now scattered across the floor.
Tony pinched his brow so fiercely he was in danger of inducing an aneurysm. Then he stood up, pointed at a gray couch, and instructed, “Just go, sit, and stop touching things.”
A Roomba scooted out from underneath the storage unit to clean up the mess. Tony placed a foot on its back firmly to stop it. He did not want to have to dig the garbage out of its guts, never mind that he could actually use the untrammeled bridges for his Iron Man suits. “Will you stop it,” he seethed, as Steve tipped another full box of perfectly viable bridges off a storage shelf and onto the floor with a tremendous, waterfall clatter, insisting with upraised hands:
“You got mice!”
“Then why are you dumping them on the floor?”
Steve frowned at him, then the “mice,” then his own feet. He stepped on one gingerly, then removed his foot. “I’ll get a broom,” he muttered, walking away.
Tony seethed. The first Roomba turned up its motor, trying desperately to live up to its dream. Tony growled at it, then Steve, who was washing his hands in a sink, whistling to himself.
Freed from all masters, Dum-E wheeled over, glorious fire extinguisher in claw. “Ah-ah-ah,” Tony said loudly, pointing at it. “You stop that! Not a word.”
Dum-E deflated visibly. Just when Tony reached down to scoop up the first Roomba, feeling like order was, perhaps, in reach, a second Roomba joyfully appeared from left field, and began cheerfully vacuuming its way through the mess, with a horrific killing-of-Roombas garbage disposal sound.
“This day,” Tony seethed, as Steve called:
“You say something?”
. o .
Tony slotted the broomstick firmly between the outer door handles. Dum-E beeped lowly.
“No, it’s not immoral, he has plenty of ventilation,” Tony whispered.
“Gee, it’s kinda dark in here,” Steve said loudly and on cue from inside Dum-E’s storage closet. Dum-E beeped back in agreement. Tony thunked the machine on the head with a fist, then shook out his fist in pain.
“Electricity is expensive,” Tony called, still shaking out his fist.
“Truer words,” Steve hollered back. “Yeah, that’s—oh, I think I—yeah, I found the light switch.” Tony frowned, because he had no idea what the hell was happening, before flinching bodily when he heard a loud clang, followed by an even louder hissing sound.
“What the hell are you even—”
“Say, is there a pipe leaking? Don’t worry, I’ll just—patch it up for ya—”
Growling, Tony jostled the broomstick loose, jabbing himself in the chest twice in the process, before yanking the door open. Miraculously, Steve hadn’t just popped a hole in Dum-E’s coolant hose; no, he had yanked the whole unit off its bolted rack. “Steven Grant Rogers,” Tony fumed.
“You hold this for me?” Steve said, passing the leaking hose to him, immediately soaking his shirt. “Aw, thanks.”
Tony wrung it furiously in his hands, then flung it as hard as he could at the back of Steve’s infuriating neck. It bounced off, landing with a wet flop on the floor. “Say, you’ve got quite the mice problem, anyone ever told you that?” Steve observed, peering remorselessly at the hole he had created in the wall. “You should call an exterminator, see about getting it patched.”
“I will exterminate you,” Tony seethed.
Dum-E took that as his cue to spray them both down in foam.
. o .
Parking himself firmly behind his desk, Tony glared firmly at Dum-E, now fire extinguisher free, and Steve, who had decided to vacuum the metal floor. “You don’t need to do that,” Tony grunted.
Steve started up the vacuum. “What?”
“I said—you don’t need to—”
“I can’t hear you,” Steve chattered back, still wheeling the vacuum over Tony’s pristine floor.
Dragging a hand down his face, Tony swiveled back to his desk and put on a pair of industrial headphones. Through the headset, he ordered J.A.R.V.I.S., “Do not interrupt me unless the lab is on fire.”
“Sir, the lab is on fire,” J.A.R.V.I.S. reported immediately.
“That’s not funny, J.,” Tony said, pulling up a blueprint on his holographic screen.
“Sir, I must express again, the lab is on fire,” J.A.R.V.I.S. repeated.
The distinct smell of burning wire made Tony swing around.
The industrial headphones did the job; in silence, Tony watched Steve pantomime to Dum-E the need for a fire extinguisher as Dum-E, sans fire extinguisher, watched the orange blaze bloom from the heart of the vacuum cleaner. Cupping his cheek in hand, Tony looked up as a red light began flashing throughout the lab, indicating that the fire alarm had finally been triggered. Then he shut his eyes and shook his head in wonder.
Fifty dollars. Fifty dollars.
Then the sprinklers kicked in and he really started ripping Fury a new one.
. o .
“I don’t care if they give me a Peace Prize, I will give you anything you want to take him off my hands,” Tony said over the phones. He had successfully tackled Steve to the couch, then, using shock to his advantage, duct-taped him to the cushions. Then he had J.A.R.V.I.S. play Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in the hopes that it would confuse the hell out of him long enough to prevent him from causing further chaos.
So far, it was actually working. That or Steve was too belatedly buzzed on his Hulk meds to fight the duct tape, which would only be funny if it meant Tony could finally get some work done.
“Tony, I’m in Atlanta,” Pepper said. “And even if I wanted to—”
“So you do want to?” Tony said.
“No.”
Tony wheedled, “How much until you want to?”
Pepper said, “Good luck, Tony.”
Tony whined, “Don’t leave me here.” Pepper hung up. Tony whined loudly, letting the universe feel his chagrin.
Steve said out loud, “This dog’s really weird.”
“Is everything a dog to you?” Tony snipped. Steve looked at him with flat eyes, the Captain America ain’t happy with you eyes, but Tony held his ground because he had the not-duct-taped-to-a-couch ground. “No, really—is everything a dog to you? Am I a dog?”
“Don’t be stupid,” Steve sniffed. Then, shimmying a little, he added, “Is there a bell service around here, or do I just gotta roll on over ‘f I wanna drink or somethin’? ‘m thirsty.”
“Oh, what, you want room and board now? You want niceties? You think you can just sit on my couch in my lab and eat my food after destroying my shit?” Steve’s expression never changed a shade. “You have absolutely no remorse.”
“Why should I?”
“Un-be-fucking-lievable.”
“This dog’s really loud,” Steve said, as Roger Rabbit crashed into a table.
Steaming, Tony pushed off from his chair and announced, “I need a drink for this.”
“You can’t leave.”
“Ohh, watch me. Watch me, Rogers.”
. o .
One bottle of scotch later, Tony was feeling pretty good.
Steve still felt compelled to kill his vibe by saying, “You’re sitting on my stitches.”
“I am not,” Tony harrumphed. He leaned away from them, anyway, sitting against the opposite arm of the couch. Steve had half-freed himself from the duct-tape, one arm loose again.
They were both quiet for a bit, the cooling spot on Tony’s side feeling like a rebuke. “You’re annoying.”
“I’m annoying,” Steve said.
“Yes.” At Steve’s genuinely baffled look, Tony listed off his fingers, “You set my lab on fire, you broke my water pipe, you kidnapped my child—”
Steve was quiet. The rabbit continued to bounce along the scene, crashing through walls and reality. At last, Steve said, “I really do all that?”
Tony sighed, sagging into the couch, because: “No,” Tony grunted. He rolled over too easily for Steve Rogers’ kicked puppy looks. He did lean into the warm spot again.
Steve allowed it, the rhythm of his heart beat almost lulling Tony to a well-deserved cat nap. Then: “You’re leaning on my stitches.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten stitches,” Tony grunted, shuffling until he was back against the arm of the couch instead, cold and alone.
“Maybe,” Steve agreed vaguely. He paused, thinking about it, then decided, “’m thirsty.”
“Sounds like a—personal problem.”
“No.”
Tony waited, staring numbly at the cartoon. Then he thought, Fifty bucks is fifty bucks, before groaning and pushing himself to his feet.
“Where’re you goin’—”
“Water or Sprite?”
“What’s Sprite?”
“Water it is.”
. o .
“S’—carbonated—soda.”
“Hm?”
“Carbonated lime, actually, it’s—fine. I guess.” With a sniff, Tony waved a hand and said, “It’s not, really, but—fix whatever’s wrong with you.”
“S’that so.”
“Occasionally.”
Chasing down more tap water, Steve looked at him, now balled up into his opposite side, and said, “You’re sitting on my stitches.”
Purposefully, Tony leaned more into him, because: “I moved.”
“Yeah,” Steve said tamely. “You’re on my stitches.”
“Are you in pain?” Tony asked bluntly.
Steve considered that for what seemed like a long time.
“I don’t know,” Steve decided. Sipping his water, he asked, “What were we talking about?”
“Sprite.”
“What’s Sprite?”
“Carbonated lime.”
. o .
The tokamak modifications were proving intractable, but at least Tony had Sammy Hagar to get him through it.
The energetic strum of an electric guitar always put him in a good headspace, so much so he startled when a pair of arms slid around his neck. His heart was pounding before he made the quick connect-the-dots to Steve; it’s just Steve even as just Steve rested his chin on top of Tony’s head, resting his body weight against the back of his chair.
“Gave me a goddamn heart attack,” Tony grunted. “What. What,” he insisted, trying to pivot around.
“Missed you,” Steve murmured.
Tony sighed through his nose, then said, “Pushing my buttons,” before tapped one of Steve’s arm, insisting, “Let go.”
Steve held on, resting his cheek against the top of Tony’s head. Tony growled louder as more of Steve’s weight pressed against his chair. “All right,” he snapped, fluttering his hands furiously. “Back it up.”
With shuffling movements, Steve obliged, one painstaking step at a time.
Still steaming, Tony spun around and poked him in the chest, insisting, “Do not touch me.”
Steve blinked.
Tony made an invisible shield in front of himself with his hands. “No touching,” he repeated.
“Okay,” Steve said.
“Nokay,” Tony impressed. “No—okay,” Tony huffed, flattening his arms across his chest. Squinting suspiciously at Steve, he added, “J.A.R.V.I.S., we can drop him off at the nearest senior center, right?”
“Take your dog to the park,” Steve agreed, looking around. “Where’d your dog go?”
“I don’t have a do—” Dum-E almost tipped Tony out of his chair, bumping into it with eagerness. “Fine. If you want to go to the park, go for it.”
. o .
Well, maybe Tony needed to take the little guy out more, after all.
He still wasn’t convinced that Steve should be lugging around a two-hundred-pound robot four hours after abdominal surgery, but neither bot nor man complained about it. Dum-E seemed happy to dig up a pristine plot of upstate farmland with his claw. “You sure we should be letting the dog dig this much?” Steve asked Tony, frowning at the hole in the ground.
“Hm? S’fine,” Tony dismissed. “Just try not to let him—ah!” he yelped, as Dum-E dug up an irrigation line. “What is with you two and water lines—”
Steve took it upon himself to fix the spot, thankfully, while Tony furiously shooed Dum-E away. He crashed into the robot with a pained oof as Dum-E suddenly froze, then leaned its arm down and delicately scooped something up. “Dum-E,” Tony warned, and then, “Dum-E, no,” as the robot gently held out a mourning dove, which cooed softly in alarm. “Drop it. Drop it.”
Dum-E opened its claw. The bird fluttered off.
Tony breathed. Dum-E beeped brightly.
“Yes, pretty,” Tony grunted. “Very pretty. Go—dig a hole or something.”
Dum-E wheeled up the dirt road to do just that. Tony turned to check that Steve wasn’t dead in a ditch.
Steve was dead in a ditch. Tony gasped, scrambling over to the supine figure in the dirt, but even as he moved, he noticed Steve’s arm twitch to shield the sun from his eyes. “Hey,” he punched out, doing the Tony-Stark-panicking thing of kicking him in the leg first. “Steve—Steve?”
Steve squinted at the sky, expression unchanging but eyes clearly open and chest clearly moving, so not dead, and not technically in a ditch, either. “Who needs television,” he said at last. “Got a view like this.”
Tony sighed and kicked his leg again, then told him gruffly, “Get up.”
“Nawh, I’m—you got something goin’ on?” he asked, turning his head to look at Tony.
It was unfair how, hair askew, blue eyes almost watering from direct sunlight, he was still indescribably pretty. He had walked off a marble pedestal, yet it had done nothing for his wretched personality.
That’s very pot calling the kettle black of you, Tony’s conscience sniffed, which was very hurtful of it.
Arms across his chest, Tony said aloud, “I kinda want my fifty dollars back.”
“No, you don’t,” Steve breezed, nonsensical but: “S’a lotta money. Know what you could do with that money?” Looking at the sky, he added, “Go someplace nice, have a good time.”
Huffing, Tony told him, “You wouldn’t know a good time if it bit you in the ass.”
“I don’t think you know what a good time is.”
“I think I know exactly what a good time is, old timer.” He reached down to drag Steve’s arm up, groaning at how heavy it was. “Give me something.”
Steve said, “Too busy.”
Tony growled, “For the love of God—”
“Thought you were some kinda atheist.”
Tony flung his arm onto his stomach. “Ow,” Steve deadpanned.
“Dum-E and I are leaving,” Tony announced. Pivoting on his heel, he stalked off to reclaim his robot, which was halfway to Australia.
“You ain’t mad at me, are ya?”
The drawling holler made him pause to state emphatically and for the record, “Yes, I’m mad at you.”
“Why?”
Tony kept walking, choosing to ignore him.
“I’m sorry,” Steve offered.
Tony paused, kicking up a little dirt, because: “What for?”
“I don’t know what for,” Steve said immediately. Tony rolled his eyes, then turned as he heard Steve shuffle upright. It was the most graceless he had ever seen Steve, limbs akimbo as he tried to find his balance from a seated position, then pushed himself to his feet. Although Tony didn’t think Steve was pulling his leg, seeing him off his game tugged a little on Tony’s conscience, made him hold his ground. Steve offered, “But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll—try not to do it again.”
“You’ll try,” Tony deadpanned.
With a loose shrug, almost tipping into the adjacent cornfield, Steve caught himself, then bobbed his head once, and said, “Sure.”
Tony gave him a once-over. Then he said, “Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Okay.”
Squinting, Tony echoed, “Okay?”
Shrugging, Steve said, “S’that not the right word?”
A distressed set of beeps made Tony swivel around sharply. Dum-E had tipped upside-down, wheels spinning in midair. “All right, new rule—help me get the dog out,” he grunted, jogging towards the bot.
“Don’t think your dog’s right, Tony,” Steve called after him, but followed dutifully in his wake.
. o .
As a reward for freeing Dum-E—no small feat, given Steve’s manpower and lack of coordination, and Tony’s stunning abundance of tact but decided unwillingness to get in the pit with a two-hundred-pound flailing robot and an oversized, drugged super-soldier—they stopped by an ice cream parlor on the way back.
“It’s not dinnertime,” Steve noted.
“Wow, pretty and smart,” Tony said, sitting in the truck bed across from Dum-E, attacking a mango soft serve ice cream cone. “Here’s a thought. Maybe you stop talking.”
Steve obliged, for eight seconds. Then he said, “Why, though?”
“Because,” Tony said. Nodding at Steve’s untouched cone, he added, “If you don’t eat that, I will.”
Steve looked at the ice cream, then Tony, then Dum-E. Then he offered the vanilla cone to Dum-E, who joyfully extended his claw, until Tony barked, “Ah-ah-ah.”
Here came the waterworks: “A dog’s gotta eat, Tony—”
“For the last time, it’s not a—”
“It’s just ice cream—”
“It can’t eat—”
On it went.
Finally, in exasperated disbelief, Tony took a bite of his own cone, ending the argument. Dum-E’s arm whirred sadly by its side. “You can’t eat,” Tony said sternly. “Stop it.”
“That’s not how you talk to a dog,” Steve rebuked. Then, passing Tony his cone, ignoring his disbelieving scoff, he leaned forward and gave Dum-E a series of firm pats on the claw, saying, “You don’t listen to him. You don’t listen to him, you’re great. ‘uh? Don’t you worry about it, you’re a great, great dog.”
Grumbling, Tony said emphatically, “I’m keeping this,” and licked the vanilla cone to mark his new territory.
Steve just insisted, “You are a great dog,” while Dum-E opened and closed its claw once, not understanding the words but probably trying to achieve some form of I’m listening and ready to help.
Oh, God, he’d made a dog.
“You should eat that,” Steve reminded, sitting back in his corner and nodding at the melting ice cream in Tony’s hand. Tony passed it to him wordlessly, still a bit too floored by the I made a dog realization to process the loss, before Steve shamelessly licking a big stripe over the cone made him kind of forget the whole thing.
No, Tony didn’t find the mere act of others eating ice cream to be sensual, but the fact that Steve didn’t shy away from sharing it was—nice. Stupid.
Nice.
Stupid.
Be quiet, he grunted, kicking his conscience into a locked box. Steve encroaching on his space made him bristle; it was not nice that Steve was willing to share an ice cream cone with him. Or get down in the dirt to rescue his bot.
Nope. Nuh-uh.
Wasn’t falling for that, Tony’s ruined lab attested to the woes of falling for Steve Rogers’ wiles. “I’m not falling for it,” Tony said aloud.
“Falling for what?” Steve asked, now cone free and reaching for Tony’s ice cream. Tony made an annoyed noise, holding it out of reach, and almost ending up with a lap full of super-soldier.
“Excusez-moi?”
“You’re losing—you lost it,” Steve mourned, as Tony tipped the rest of his cone over the edge of the truck. Dum-E beeped once in agreement. “See, he agrees with me.”
“No, he—it’s voice recognition,” Tony quipped. Then he parked one hand on Steve’s chest and shoved him back into his corner, adding, “What did I say about touching?”
Steve thunked deliberately back into his corner. Clearly he wasn’t sore, Tony thought, wincing on his behalf. Scratching his cheek, he added, “See, wasn’t there a—clause about—”
“No,” Tony said fiercely. Steve’s brows lifted, expression very open, full of surprise and genuine interest, trying to listen. Tony scowled, ignoring the twist of, No, stop that, don’t give me that look, because as much as he hated being on the receiving end of a hearty disappointed look, the earnest ones were quickly getting to him. “All right,” he snapped, shuffling to his knees. “I’ll get more. You stay,” he ordered as Steve started to shuffle after him. “Watch the dog.”
Steve subsided, but he did say, “Awh, don’t be mad at me,” in such an earnest way Tony had to fight to keep his face from flaming as he walked across the lot back to the parlor.
He did linger on the other side of the truck, fresh ice cream in hand, when he heard, “Nah, he’s a great guy. Great guy.”
It wasn’t eavesdropping if it was in a public space, right? Right.
“Whiny, but. Sweet.”
Resisting the heroic urge to elbow the truck, Tony leaned against the front tire for another, spiteful moment, well-aware that Steve probably wasn’t even talking about him, and he was probably being stupid, and the ice cream was actively melting. He licked it out of spite just as Steve said, “Not like you, though, you’re just—wow. Never seen anything like you. God, you’re so ugly.”
He heroically muffled a laugh against his sleeve. Walking around the side of the truck before he hurt himself, he saw Steve sitting next to Dum-E, wistfully gesturing at the clouds above, adding, “Don’t take it the wrong way, now—”
“Whiny and ugly,” Tony greeted, stepping around the side of the truck.
Steve went very still, like a deer in the forest. Then he leaned conspicuously towards Dum-E and murmured, “S’why I only talk to you, you know?” Leaning away with a sigh, he began, “Now, I don’t want you to, you know, to think I—”
Tony raised his eyebrows expectantly.
“Think I got, got—problems with—” Waving a hand, head low with apology, Steve said, “You’re beautiful, why you make such ugly things is—”
Tony leaned an arm against the truck, eyebrows high. He let Steve squirm a bit more, even as he basked in, You’re beautiful, figuring it would last a good long while. “I don’t—I don’t think I’m explaining this right,” Steve said at last.
Tony waited, feigning indifference.
“Tony,” Steve complained quietly. Tony conceded, climbing into the truck.
Steve immediately hauled him into his arms, pressing his nose against Tony’s shoulder. Tony froze up so completely he couldn’t form a single thought in his head beyond, Um. He waited, but when nothing bad happened, he dared to lick at the melting ice cream. He felt a huff of laughter at his back and froze. “You still got that ice cream?”
With a dignified sniff, Tony said, “I’m not wasting it.”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed with a sigh.
Tony thought, You gonna let me go? and forgot to voice it. It wasn’t the most comfortable he had ever been—it was just hot enough to merit ice cream, and their combined body heat made sitting in the back of a truck together almost stickier than the ambient humidity—but the cool sweet flavor cut sharply through the heat, and the oddly soothing pressure of Steve’s weight against him wasn’t something he was eager to shake off.
“Am I on your stitches?” he had the presence of mind to ask.
Steve just said, “Nah, all gone. All gone,” with a breezy exhalation that made Tony shiver involuntarily. “You cold?” he added, hugging him tighter.
Tony huffed, because he was an idiot, but—an endearing one. Sometimes. Maybe.
“Fine. Don’t squish me.”
“I won’t,” Steve promised, relaxing his grip. “Sweet guy. Nice guy. Sweet tooth.”
“S’that it? My redeeming quality is my sweet tooth?”
“I don’t think it’s a . . . redeeming quality, Tony,” Steve said, voice slow, comfortable.
Tony hummed. “So, I don’t have any redeeming traits.”
“No. No.” After an amusingly long pause, only Steve’s steady heartbeat and breath to confirm he was still actively present, he went on, “You’re beautiful.”
Tony did finally wiggle out of Steve’s hold. Without Tony’s shoulder to support it, Steve’s chin dipped immediately towards his chest before popping back up, blue eyes snapping open, looking around. They settled on Tony and held for a long moment, enigmatically soft. “Probably should head back,” Tony pointed out.
“Know I. . . .” Steve paused, one hand reaching out, settling clumsily, heavily on his wrist, giving it the gentlest of squeezes. “I . . . respect you, Tony.” It was clear that he wanted a different word, but even in the fuzziness, the strength of the compliment was felt.
Tony patted his knee once, said, “I respect you, too,” and started to get up.
Steve let him go, then, ruefully, said, “I don’t even—know which is down, right now.”
That was easy enough. Tony tapped the truck bed with an open palm. Steve looked at him, amused, as Tony said, “That’s down.”
“Just gonna—”
“Oh, no—” Tony tried to stop him, but Steve had already flopped over, curled on his side. Tony let out a hard breath, because: “Come on. Up front.” He tapped Steve’s shoulder with an open palm, but Steve just mumbled something incomprehensible and started snoring.
Dumb bunny, Tony sighed, shaking his head. He looked at Dum-E, whose claw tilted briefly. “Say nothing. Say nothing,” he insisted, using an extra cord to help tether Steve to the robot, which beeped once in affirmation.
. o .
Emboldened by the power of one-and-a-half mango ice creams, Tony miraculously avoided being pulled over, despite what had to be the world’s most suspicious-looking cargo. At least Dum-E was happy.
As for Steve: “C’mon. C’mon,” Tony impressed, shaking his shoulder with both hands. It was almost dusk, and he needed help getting Dum-E out of the truck, unless he wanted to break out the suit. Why should he? It was upstairs in the lab and he had a perfectly good mover right in front of him.
Who was snoring peacefully, totally out of commission.
With an aggrieved sigh and a promise to jack up his own commission rate, Tony stalked off to the elevators. He returned, three minutes later, wearing his Mark VIII armor. Dum-E beeped joyfully at his arrival. “I said I was coming back,” Tony grumbled, using his newly enhanced strength to carefully haul the bot out of the truck. He then carted the robot off at his lab before returning to the garage, praying that the commotion had awoken his still-snoozing charge.
But why would it? That would be too easy.
“Come on. Come on,” Tony insisted, pushing at Steve’s shoulder. He was tempted to use an actual alarm, but he also knew that startling a soldier could go over poorly for him. So he kept shoving, then, frustratedly, said, “This isn’t working.”
“Might I advise,” J.A.R.V.I.S. began, and somehow that, that was enough to jolt Sleeping Beauty upright, fast.
“Whoa. Hey.” Tony held out two metal hands, as Steve sat, rigid and ready to launch at the first thing that moved wrong. “It’s just me.”
A piercingly long moment passed. Then Steve exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face and muttering, “Gee, Stark.” Tony resisted the urge to say something small and mean like, So back to Stark, then? He was grateful, actually, to hear some sensibility back in Steve’s voice, even if some part of him wondered if, maybe, he should have just laid in the dirt and looked at clouds more. Maybe that wasn’t the worst thing. “You scared the shit outta me.”
“Well. Call it my—” He paused as a hand flopped onto his suit, clearing his throat audibly. “Looking for something?”
A thumb traced a single arc over the metal, then slipped off. Tony wasn’t quite sure what to make of it—it didn’t seem accidental, but it also didn’t feel like it wanted to be there longer than it needed to, either. “No,” Steve said at last. “Just—soft,” he said.
“You know I said you couldn’t touch,” Tony pointed out, keeping his voice neutral, almost hard behind the mask.
Steve said, “Sorry. I,” he reached out like he would rest a hand on Tony’s armored leg, then immediately retracted it to his own thigh. “It just don’t feel real, sometimes,” he said, then grimaced, looking away. “Don’t, uh—don’t worry about it,” he said, a quiet urgency behind his tone.
Tony chose not to. “You can get a cab?” Tony quizzed, because there had to be somebody, anybody in the world who could take over the night shift.
“Yeah, I can get a—what do I look like? Course I can get a cab. . . .” Trailing off with a semi-belligerent mutter, more exasperated than mean, Steve started to shuffle out of the truck bed. Tony backed up to let him. Steve was slower than normal as he hopped down, and he scrunched his eyes shut for a moment, like he was queasy, too. “Thanks for—” He waved a hand vaguely around him.
Tony thought of him lying in the dirt in a cornfield, looking at the blue skies, and missed opportunities. “I have rooms, you know,” he said. “Lots of—space.”
“For nightly activities?” Steve said dryly.
A week ago, Tony might have punched him in the face for that. It reeked of accusations made on a sterile spaceship, and a blue scepter and two wolves ready to bite at the first opportunity. But Tony just sniffed once, a diffusing gesture, and said, “Yeah, ‘nightly activities.’”
Steve screwed his eyes shut, grimacing as he said: “C’mon, Tony, can’t just say that, should—knock my teeth out for that, what the hell is wrong with everybod—” He grunted when Tony stepped forward and looped his metal arms around him. He expected Steve to fight it; he didn’t expect Steve to just lean against the armor, limp.
The armor held the weight. Tony stood in the dim garage, pensive.
Without really thinking about it, he squeezed, trying to elicit a response. He got one: “I don’t need you,” Steve snapped, belligerent, pushing against his hold but not hard enough to break free immediately. “I don’t—”
“Stop,” Tony said flatly. “Why are you mad at me?”
Steve huffed, “I’m not—” Then, more aggrieved: “Can you let me go?”
Tony did. Steve stumbled back, found his balance on the edge of the truck. Breathed. Head bowing for a moment, he said, “I can—I can get a cab. I can get a cab.”
“Forget the cab.”
Steve growled, one hand scrabbling into a fist, visibly frustrated. He hunched a little, breathing harder, face going pale. Tony sighed, said, “Garbage, ten feet to your left,” and feigned interest in his metallic palm as Steve staggered over to it and stuck his head into it.
Hoping onto the truck bed, kicking his feet lightly, Tony mused, “What are we, two-fifty? Three hundred? Gotta be pushing three-fifty. I don’t come cheap.”
Steve panted, ignoring him. Tony kicked his feet and said, “And overtime, too.”
Steve just groaned.
. o .
“You don’t have to do this.”
Seated on the elevator floor, legs stretched out in front of him, face pale and bathed in sweat, Steve sure looked ready-and-raring. “In that case, I’m doing it of my own volition,” Tony said cheekily, pushing the button.
Steve screwed up his face, but it seemed more in response to the query than in danger of emptying his stomach again.
“Look, I’m sorry,” Steve said, as Tony dragged him step-by-step down the hall. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“Keep apologizing and it’ll turn into white noise.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve said again, defiantly, tiredly.
“Yup, there it is. Doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
Tony didn’t run a hotel, but the thought of a premium Tower with ninety-three floors and only one penthouse was very lonely. So, there were enough rooms to house at least a hundred guests comfortably and up to four times that number if they were willing to share. “Real estate being what it is in this city, why host externally when you can—have your own private Olympic-sized pool?”
“You have an Olympic-sized swimming pool?” Steve rasped, tripping over the words as he stumbled over his own feet.
Tony caught him, barely, armor whirring as it moved. “Hasn’t been used, yet,” Tony said. “Wanna break it in?”
Steve gave him a very unimpressed look.
“You surprise at every turn,” Tony told him. He unlocked the door to a standard suite and breezed, “Welcome to su casa.”
Steve did the deer-in-the-woods thing again, pushing back against him when Tony tried to step across the threshold. “What? Mice?” Tony asked, leaning up on tiptoe, but J.A.R.V.I.S. said:
“There are no mice in Stark Tower, sir.”
Steve jerked forward at that.
“Just a computer, don’t worry about him,” Tony said loudly. Steve still looked worried, drifting back towards the door. Tony put a hand out to stop him from colliding with the armor. “This cannot be what shocks you about the twenty-first century,” Tony pointed out.
A wall shuttered over Steve’s face as he said, “No, no.” Then, shaking his head vigorously, he added, “No, it’s just—just crazy, crazy. Outta your head, you know? What kinda a guy—” Tony watched, almost fascinated, as Steve paced around for a few seconds, almost belligerent, crashing into first a small table, then a dresser, before visibly reigning himself back in, slipping into something closer to the Captain America persona. “I—this is—great.”
“Five stars?” Tony prodded. Steve’s silence spoke for him. “Really, I’d think that would be—I’ll put you down for a love it.”
“It’s great,” Steve said neutrally, resting a hand on the desk. It shook visibly. He lifted it.
Tony added lightly, “So, super-metabolism, do you need to—”
“I don’t need a babysitter.”
Arctic winds snapped with less force.
“Well,” Tony said, grateful he had the suit to protect him, Steve’s silence almost petrified, “in that case, I will . . . leave you to your meditations.” Who knew, maybe the guy just needed space. Tony hated being smothered.
He didn’t even get to pivot, though, before the trembling hand settled on the desk again. Intuition prompted Tony, king of not sticking his nose in other people’s business, to ask, “You know this whole team business . . . means we sink or swim together, right?”
He didn’t want to spell it out any more than that, didn’t want to—prod at unwanted things, even suggest the day had happened. If he could just hold it tight and close like a lightning bug in a jar, flickering but never escaping, that would be ideal. He didn’t want it under a spotlight, scrutinized too harshly.
It was one thing to suit up, kill a few giant alien bugs, shake Captain America’s hand, maybe exchange a few words. And sure, the thought of Steve wallowing in a S.H.I.E.L.D. lab did, in fact, compel him more than the stingy compensation. He somehow doubted they would be willing to let their multi-million-dollar asset wander freely until he was back in sound mind, and Fury’s offer to let him stay with somebody outside the facility had seemed like a square deal at the time. It was always good to have just one-up on your enemies, Tony had told himself—a favor in needing of cashing.
He didn’t do it for a friend. But that shaking hand. It twisted him, sobered him.
“You okay?”
The hand flexed a little. Steve’s back was to him. Tony thought, What the hell am I doing, and wondered if this was how Rhodey felt when he had been at his lowest moments, except Rhodey had dragged him out of sorrier pits, in somehow worse states. Steve hadn’t exactly lashed out, either.
No, he just stood there—very alone, the only person in the world to defend himself.
Cold job.
“I’m fine,” Steve said, almost predictably gruff.
Tony thought about prodding him, poking him with a stick until he went down, No, you’re not, I know you’re not, anyone can see you’re not, how long are you gonna keep pretending you’re not? But then he thought about four desperate words:
Don’t worry about it.
He was already pretty damn thin. Not visibly, of course—looked strong as ever, could put Tony through a wall, suit or no suit, if push came to shove. He didn’t need Tony at his throat, too. “I’m on your side,” Tony reminded, and Steve flinched at that, like that was the blow, the last straw. “Hey, c’mon.” Tony strutted over to the bed, covered in the standard gray sheets, and made a show of flopping down on top of them. “Don’t be dreary, all right?”
Drearily, Steve stood by the desk, facing the wall, the lone corner of the room he had chosen to stay in. Tony huffed, starfishing out for a moment, enjoying a moment off his feet. “You’re missing out, man. These beds are fantastic. Pepper picked them out. Even I couldn’t muck it up.”
He made snow angels, just for the hell of it. When Steve still didn’t turn, he offered, “You like soup, right?” Still no answer. “More of a bread guy, myself—” He paused, but not too long, as Steve finally sat on the bed, before breezing on, “But chicken soup’s for the soul.”
He did actually hold his breath as Steve reclined, facing away from him. He resisted the urge to prod, instead maintaining his starfish claim to the entire bed.
They lingered for a few long moments.
Tony waited. He didn’t hear any snoring.
Delicately, he broached, “It’s going—to be—okay.”
Steve said drearily, “I don’t want soup, Tony.”
Well, that was progress. “Okay, then, bread,” Tony said decisively. “A staple of the—”
“I don’t want bread.”
“You gotta work with me,” Tony deadpanned.
Steve chose not to.
Taking a very small risk, Tony rested a hand on a marble shoulder. It did not move. “It’s gonna be okay,” Tony repeated.
Steve said nothing.
“Star Spangled Man with a Plan? Doesn’t ring a bell?”
Silence.
It was weirdly unsettling. Tony was so used to Steve’s cavalier, Sure, Tony. It’ll be okay, attitude, that he didn’t quite know what to do with the broken glass. “C’mon,” he insisted. “Tomorrow’s a new da—”
“I hate it here.”
Tony could hear his own heartbeat in the helmet.
Finally, he released Steve’s shoulder, but only long enough to take off the helmet, and tell the open air, “Well. If you didn’t. I’d be surprised.”
That got Steve to actually roll over and look at him, expression full of sullen anger, mournful loss. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admitted quietly.
Tony arched his eyebrows, unconsciously conveying, Do any of us? He didn’t say anything, though, leaving the floor open as Steve looked down briefly, looking at his blue heart, and went on quietly, “I don’t even . . . I don’t even know if I wanna know, I just—I just go. I just go.”
It was nonsensical. It was heartfelt.
It was pain.
Tony did the only thing he really could—he reached up and cradled the back of Steve’s skull, gauntleted fingers sifting through straw-colored hair.
Steve could have headbutted him. Done a lot of things to convey his anger, his disappointment. Instead, he shut his eyes, tucked his chin a little, making it ever-so-slightly easier for Tony’s hand to curve around his head. A tear slid down his cheek. Another.
Tony was absolutely certain if he said a single word, Steve would have been gone. So he didn’t; he just laid there and kept his touch light, wondering if there was a way to untangle the thread between them.
Who was he kidding? He didn’t goddamn want to.
. o .
Steve seemed happier for a shower. More like himself, anyway.
“This your soap?” Steve asked, holding up the proffered bottles.
Tony shrugged and told him, “Pepper’s is also available.”
Steve’s face warmed to a bright magenta. Tony failed to point out that Pepper would definitely kill one and/or both of them if they broke into her supplies, and also, Pepper’s supplies were located in a very distinct room of her own. “I’m sure she’d be very happy to share—”
“It’s fine,” Steve said, face even rosier.
Tony might also have neglected to mention that he had a concierge service that would happily procure more soap at any hour, because he was a gremlin who enjoyed sowing chaos. There was no feasible reason for Cap to wear his cologne, but—it was oddly intoxicating to catch a whiff of him not smelling like a S.H.I.E.L.D. factory.
“Stop smelling me,” Steve grumbled, turning away from a not-so-surreptitious sniff.
Caught, Tony pouted, “You smell nice.”
“I smell like you,” Steve pointed out.
“I smell very nice,” Tony agreed easily.
Steve gave him a look. Then he pulled on a gray shirt—one procured by the concierge; as much as Tony wanted to see him test the seams on one of his own shirts, he also figured that the dark red healing patch on his side might appreciate more breathable wear, even if the stitches had already come loose—and grumbled, “You’re a nuisance.”
“Aw.” Steve’s ears turned red again as Tony murmured, “You love me.”
“I . . . tolerate you.”
“One step closer to true love.”
Steve actually rolled his eyes, but he didn’t make any further motion to dismiss him, seeming a bit more comfortable with the space, at least, with Tony in it, despite verbal objections to the whole “babysitter” idea. Tony got it: he hated being nagged, almost as much as he hated actually being in a position where he deserved it all. Nothing like being kicked when you were already down.
“I do appreciate you,” Steve said suddenly, looking at Tony with such sincerity that Tony’s quip about, One step closer to true love, got stuck in his throat. “You’re a—” Apparently Steve didn’t know what to do with it, either, instead shrugging and finishing, “Real good guy.”
“You said I’m beautiful,” Tony pointed out, hoping to tare the conversation back to light, but Steve said as easily as breathing:
“You are beautiful.”
Tony blinked, caught off-guard. Steve held his ground, unblinking, blue eyes so intense they were hard to look at.
“So like in an artsy, fathomless way,” Tony said, almost breathless.
“No,” Steve said, feet firm on the ground. “No, I mean that—all you do, is try to make people not like you, and you’re still the only person everybody wants to look at. That’s you, you—you’re—effortlessly, beautiful, Tony, if you lost it all, you’d get it all back because you, you ain’t got it all in banks, you are full of it.” He prodded Tony in the chest, a gentle tap that landed directly on the arc reactor. They both froze for a second.
“You mean that in a good way,” Tony said, looking down at his own reactor, the finger hovering above it, not to steal it but to point to it, look at that, look at you.
“Yes. Yes. Why wouldn’t I, what wrong world—” Steve sighed as Tony slid his own hands, carefully but gently, around his neck, intertwining them, “this world, I don’t even know anymore. All I know is, you—you’re something.”
“Good something?”
Steve rested his forehead against Tony’s, looking at him with those deep blue eyes, so very earnest.
“Good something,” Tony decided.
“You’re beautiful,” Steve repeated, and Tony’s heart fuzzed with warmth.
“You can’t say that,” Tony insisted, squeezing his neck.
“Course I can,” Steve said. “I can say it all I want. You’re beautiful. You’re beautiful.” He said it with an almost ferocious warmth, like he meant it.
It squeezed Tony’s heart tightly. “Whiny, though.”
Steve closed his eyes, and sighed, pressing his forehead against Tony’s temple for a moment. He seemed exhausted, and it was probably unfair to press the point, but: “Your words. Not mine.”
“Mm.” He hooked his hands, shower-warmed and gentle, around Tony’s hips, then, just as easily, retracted them.
Tony squeezed his neck again. “You can—”
“You said don’t touch.”
“I kinda just wanted you to stop breaking my shit,” Tony admitted.
Reassured, Steve put his hands back on his sides. They were very warm. It was very lovely.
“You didn’t have to do all this,” Steve sighed.
“Mm. No,” Tony agreed. He rocked a little. Steve held him steady, then leaned against him more, and Tony declared gruffly: “Okay. Bedtime.”
“It’s like five o’clock.”
“It’s almost midnight,” Tony wheezed.
Steve groaned loudly. Tony assured him bracingly, “Only—seven hours. That’s not bad. It’s not,” he insisted, half-leading, half-dragging him to bed. “I’ve had—much worse hangovers.”
“I can’t get drunk,” Steve informed him, leaning on him.
“Oh, well—lucky you.”
“S’not lucky.”
“Kind of? No hangovers.”
“I can’t get drunk,” Steve said, melancholy.
Tony managed to tip him onto bed. Steve let out a small but audible grunt of discomfort. “Just be glad Bruce believes in the miracle of modern medicine and not the leather strap,” he puffed.
“Yeah, remind me to sock him,” Steve grumbled, already reaching for and hugging a pillow. “I hate modern medicine. I hate this place.”
Tony huffed, pulling a blanket over him and saying, “Why?”
Steve squinted at him, then said mulishly, “Tell you later,” and flopped over. “It’ll ruin your day.”
Tony stroked a hand up his spine. Steve sighed luxuriously. “I think you already ruined my day,” Tony pointed out. Sitting down on the bed, he stroked Steve’s back idly.
Steve relented: “It just . . . changes the . . . electric signals, so you think the pain is less intense. But you still remember everything. I hate it. My teeth hurt. I wanna go home.”
“So. . . .” Drumming his fingers, processing, Tony said, “Wait, you’re saying—”
“If you can’t take it away, you neutralize it. Like antivenom. Inspired, right?”
“Right,” Tony said. “Wait, you know about—”
“So, you,” with a deep barrel-chested groan, Steve rolled over. Apparently, whatever “antivenom” was coursing through him had worn off. His face was gnarled, eyes screwed shut as he held his abdomen and elaborated, “just inject a bunch of specialized neurotoxins, and then—”
“I’m sorry, whose idea was this?”
“Banner. Yell at him.”
Tony made a mental note, then switched to sitting cross-legged nearby, absentmindedly scratching Steve’s arm as Steve went on, “Let the snake venom run its course. If it can kill ten thousand men, surely it can knock just one unconscious for an hour, right?”
“Of course,” Tony agreed blandly.
“The future is a nightmare of creativity and I don’t like it,” Steve grumbled. “And my teeth hurt and I want soup and—that’s nice,” he said, apparently in a communicative mood, as Tony switched to scratching the top of his head lightly instead. Turning his head a little to get the angle just right, he sighed a little and murmured, “Yeah, okay. It ain’t all terrible.”
“No, that snake story’s terrible and I’m leaving Bruce an angry letter.”
“There’s always the leather strap,” Steve drawled, and Tony did choke a little on air, because—
“Yeah, that—I choose snakes.”
“I choose snakes,” Steve agreed blandly. Rolling closer, he tucked an arm around Tony’s waist, burying his face in Tony’s leg and saying, “I have a headache.”
“You’re dehydrated.”
“You my Ma or something?”
“Sure hope not.” Running his fingers through Steve’s hair again, Tony mused, “Surprised you made it seventy years with an appendix.”
“Yeah, thought I had too much on me,” Steve said darkly. Tony tugged gently on his hair in rebuke, then simply rested his hand there as Steve told him in a very tired voice, “I hate this place.”
“Long day,” Tony said, sweeping his hand lower, to his shoulders. The shirt was soft, at least—he hated the thought of brushing a scratchy material against his skin. Steve hummed in gratitude, saying:
“Yeah, I don’t—morning was terrible. And then it’s . . .” He squeezed Tony’s waist a little, reflecting in a mournful tone, “I’m kinda hoping it was just a fever dream until I woke up in your garage.”
“Not even the ice cream was real?”
“If the ice cream were real, I wouldn’t be this goddamn hungry.”
“Captain America,” Tony chided, raking his nails lightly over those sweeping shoulders. Steve didn’t move, humming in response. “Such terrible words you have.”
“Mm.” Pillowing his cheek on Tony’s leg, Steve muttered, “Should’ve heard the ones I gave to Fury.”
“Hm?”
“Said—something about you, said—” He was quiet for a moment. Tony let his hand still, back resting against the headboard while Steve focused. Then, Steve said, “Oh, yeah—he said, ‘He’s a tough shell to crack,’ and I said, ‘Ey? You look in a mirror lately?’ and then I kinda lost track of it for a bit. I might be fired,” he said dizzily. “Gee, I might be fired. Maybe that’s why he stole my appendix.”
Smoothing a hand over his shoulders, Tony said, “I don’t think it retails for much.” Oddly touched, he added, “You do know I can stand up for myself.”
“Ey? Don’t be stupid, that kind of talk don’t stand, c’mon,” Steve said, immediately slipping back into the heart of Brooklyn. “You stop it right there. Fury knows and I know and you know you ain’t got a mean bone in your body. Stupid, maybe, lotta that but—”
“Pedal back,” Tony said, amused, but Steve was on a roll, insisting:
“Not one goddamn mean bone in your body, don’t you let them talk back to you, all right? You tell them, you send ‘em my way, set ‘em straight, all right? Sheesh, they think they can just, they think,” all fluffed up about it, he rolled over just so he could flop onto the bed, look up at Tony earnestly and point, “you ain’t good enough. Guess what? Wrong.”
“I ain’t good enough?”
“You is—are—dammit, Tony, you’re wonderful.”
Tony burst into giggles, even as Steve attempted to hole-punch his quote into his arc reactor. It didn’t hurt, exactly—Steve wasn’t at full-power, thankfully—but the sheer absurdity of it, coupled with the emphatic nature of Steve’s sincerity, caught him off-guard.
“Steve. Honey,” Tony insisted, capturing Steve’s hand and flattening it against his chest. “I got it. I got it.”
Steve blinked at him, then down at his hand, then huffed once, “Well, I—” with such enthusiasm Tony dissolved into even greater laughter. It took all remaining wind from his sails; he deflated, saying, “Okay. Good,” very tamely.
Patting his shoulder twice, firmly, Tony said, “What else would I do without you to defend my honor?”
“Defend it,” Steve grumbled.
Tony patted him again, then said, “I’ll get soup.”
Steve started to leverage himself off the bed, insisting, “No, you won’t, you’ll—” but Tony used a pillow to whack over his head, insisting:
“I will get soup. You will not set anything on fire.”
“I did not set anything on fire, you are making that up.”
“He is not,” J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in politely.
. o .
Being the accommodating house guest that he was, Steve had dozed off by the time Tony had rustled up soup.
He thought about letting him sleep through it, if only because he didn’t know how to best wake Steve, when J.A.R.V.I.S. chimed in helpfully, “Captain Rogers, the soup has arrived.”
“Thanks, J.,” Tony said loudly, as Steve snuffled to alertness so violently he fell off the bed. “You’re my honey. You’re my baby.”
“I’m your what?” Steve grunted from the floor.
“Soup,” Tony said, setting it aside. “You okay?”
“Somebody clobbered me,” Steve complained. “So, no.”
“Poor baby.” Grumbling inaudibly, Steve dragged himself upright with none of his usual spryness. “You look sore.”
“What gave it away?” Steve grunted. He was definitely favoring his right side, trying to cover the former wound.
“I brought soup,” Tony pointed out.
“Great.” Steve did soften a little when he realized Tony was sincere, even if his expression was still pinched. “Thanks.”
“It’s for me, too,” Tony reminded.
They sat in the den to eat. Steve seemed on low power, hardly talking at all, barely upright as he mostly gulped down his container. “Man of few words,” Tony mused, breaking into a loaf of rye bread he had brought for himself. Steve eyed it. Tony rolled his eyes and wordlessly broke off a large hunk, adding, “But formidable appetite.”
“Mm-hm.” He did seem to spunk up a little, enough to say, “S’good food,” and then, “S’one thing I like. You know, we used to—boil, everything. Meat, potatoes, everything. Don’t know why,” he said. “Open fire’s where all the flavor’s at, you know?”
“Everyone’s a hipster,” Tony mused.
“No, no,” Steve insisted, reaching for more crackers, hungry, hungry. “Just—you know, I don’t miss it, I don’t miss it,” he disclaimed, a double negative, “but there were times, outside the War, when we were in local villages, and they’d bake, you know, and, being,” he waved a hand in a complex but somehow eloquent gesture that enveloped Captain America, “you’d get a taste for the cuisine, and it—you’d love to have it all the time. At least not rations. God, not rations.”
Tony watched his fingers dab up the last crumbs, then managed, “But you miss it.”
Steve paused, then, like a mouse with its nose halfway to the cheese, head in the trap, whiskers fluttered over the trigger. “You gotta,” he said at last, voice soft, sad, wistful. “You gotta miss it, Tony, don’t you?” Tony frowned, but Steve waved a hand around, enveloping: “All the—people? The sounds? You know, roads, they don’t—make cars, like they used to. Rules are different, and they don’t sound right, it’s all the little things, piled together, city doesn’t sound right. And then you start to miss the everyday things, the flavors, like . . . ice cream, and kids playing stickball, and the music, God, everything’s just so . . . far out.” With a big shiver, like he was trying to shake off some water, he finished, “It’s just so different sometimes you wanna get it all off ya. Run home. But you can’t. Just gotta . . . get used to it, you know? You just . . . sink in. But I don’t wanna forget, I don’t wanna . . . I wanna miss those things, I wanna miss those things, the music and the streets and the best of food and people but—” He frowned thoughtfully, still dabbing at crumbs, still mulling.
“I wanna be grateful,” he admitted softly. “I wanna be grateful for the grace behind the effort, you know? I’m not stupid. I’m not, I see it—all the time. All the time.” Carefully backing his proverbial whiskers out of the mousetrap, Steve went on, “I love the hot water, I love the soft beds, I love—four walls and a lock feels like a dream come true to me. Sometimes, I shouldn’t have dreamed,” he said, his voice thinning. “I was so determined, you know? I never even thought, what happens if you do make it out alive? And this is what you do. And this is alone.”
Seated across from him, Tony let his knee bump into Steve’s. Steve puffed out a breath. His eyes were red, tired, as he said, “Yeah, you know that. What it’s like to be alone. I read—” He paused, then, and finished, “I read. Not all of it, I didn’t want to read—all of it, about you. The world knew about me. It knew everything. I guess I kind of hoped—” Shrugging awkwardly, he finished, “I wanted to judge the real person. And you know what I found?”
Tony leaned back in his chair pointed, setting his foot against Steve’s knee instead.
“You’re a lot of things. I can’t name all of them, it’s impossible. But I do know that you’re good. This is really good soup,” he finished, tapping the empty container.
“I can get more,” Tony offered benignly.
“I’d rather sit with you,” Steve said honestly.
A knot formed in Tony’s throat. He rubbed his foot against Steve’s leg.
They sat in silence for a while, content.
Then Tony said, with a bittersweet laugh, “I didn’t make it.”
Steve cocked his head.
“The soup—I didn’t make it. I paid someone else to. It’s not me.”
“You have good tastes.”
“You said I make ugly things.”
Steve frowned thoughtfully. “You make things outta ugliness,” he said. “Iron Man outta shrapnel. Robots outta scraps. You aren’t careful, you can shape them right back into the ugliness from which they came. But you . . . you take pain and make it into something. It ain’t always pretty. But it’s sure as hell something. And those suits, Tony? Those suits are—goddamn gorgeous.”
“What about Dum-E?” Tony murmured.
“Ugliest dog I’ve ever seen,” Steve said immediately. Tony pouted. Steve added assuringly, “But one swell robot.”
“See, it’s a good thing he’s not a dog.”
“I am sorry.”
“As you should be,” Tony said, tilting his chin up. “Now he has—hopes and dreams.”
Huffing, Steve pushed his chair back. Tony lifted his eyebrows at him. “You coming to bed or not?”
Tony checked an invisible watch on his wrist, then rolled down his sleeve again and followed without a quip about overtime, because he didn’t want Steve to assume he was following for any other reason than he wanted to.
Honestly, he didn’t want to kicked out from the deliciously warm, inviting space next to him. It was hard not to mention, I don’t do sleepovers or You make a great pillow even as Steve snored softly, gratefully dropping off back into dreams.
Tony was glad that he could rest. Glad that he felt safe enough, well enough to rest.
Cheek pillowed on Steve’s shoulder, he stared into the blue-tinted darkness for a while.
And then at last, to the comforting motor of Steve’s heartbeat, he drifted off to sleep.
. o .
Only once, in the middle of the night, did Tony stir. “Hey,” he shushed sleepily, as Steve shifted nearby, restless. Rolling over under the sheets, he reached out, stroked Steve’s arm. “Hey. Steve.”
Bleary blue eyes lit up in the reflective glow of the reactor, flicking down, then to his face. “It’s okay,” Tony told him. “Just a bad dream.”
Still breathing shallowly, Steve looked at him for a few long moments, then shuffled closer, ducking his forehead underneath Tony’s chin. “Shh,” Tony hushed, kissing his forehead. “Go back to sleep.”
Steve breathed against him, one hand slipping around his waist, comfortingly quiet.
“Go to sleep,” Tony repeated, against his forehead, and then Steve tilted his head up and gently kissed him, a brief, warm contact. Tony closed his eyes into it and almost lost to his own instruction, breaking apart and enjoying a few moments of utter serenity, stroking his thumb over Steve’s hip, before he heard his breathing deepen again.
It didn’t take long at all to join him. In dreams, it was bliss.