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If Natasha “Tony” Stark is flying in late and sees Captain America standing on the Tower balcony looking forlornly at the New York City skyline, she's going to land right next to him. She can't not land, not with him looking like a walking recruitment poster, blue eyes and firm mouth and a jaw she could cut herself sitting on.
It's a face she's thought about far too much lately.
The man sees Iron Man before she sees him–Because there's also that extra little layer of fun she has in her life.
Nobody knows she's Iron Man.
Even Steve Rogers.
This is a fact she does not have plans on changing soon. Because Captain America and Iron Man are friends. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers? So-so.
This ambiguous label doesn't keep her from ogling his pecs and thirsting after him like he was a goddamn crispy glass of water, however.
“Cap.” She says, and her voice modulator adjusts her tone and pitch. It's all very convincing–even shes still surprised sometimes. She likes Iron Man's voice. It's kind of sexy. Maybe in another life she was born a man and she wouldn't have to hide.
Boohoo. Oh well. Misogyny doesn't sleep, and this is a fact Tony learned the moment she heard her father half-joking, half not-joking about chastity belts and protecting the family wealth.
She was twelve at the time.
“Shellhead.” Steve says, but he's not wearing a smile, which means only two things: a) Steve's brooding, or b) Steve's brooding and he might also be wearing a secret little red, white, and blue thong underneath all that hunky, American packaging.
Tony bites her lip inside the helmet because she can, he can't fucking see it.
“Why the long face? Didn't see an eagle today?” Iron Man asks. The armor shifts, whirring with the weight, heavy and mechanical and dangerous.
“No. I found out they rejected my letter asking for the Constitution.” Steve replies dryly.
Iron Man gasps, scandalized. “Don't they know who you are.”
Steve ducks his head, smiling easily.
Natasha feels something in her sternum warm up–wait, wait, that's just the arc reactor.
“Y'know, usually I'd just ignore you because you're what the cool kids call The Fun Police, but I figured I'd drop in, give a routine check. Make sure you aren't thinking about jumping.”
Steve lifts his head, chuckling. He smiles at Iron Man softly, pulls himself up and away from the balcony fence where he had been leaning his forearms, dramatic and gorgeous and stupidly attractive.
“Are you here to see Tony?” Steve asks.
Natasha lights up in the way she always does when Steve talks about her. It isn't often, which is why it's exciting for her personally. She loves eavesdropping on herself.
“Someone's gotta keep her from plummeting the stock market.” Iron Man says easily. Steve's smile drifts and he hums, turning his attention back to the skyline.
A quiet passes, and Tony finds herself feeling a little awkward.
There's something Steve isn't saying, and she's not sure if she should pry.
Then she remembers Her Training.
Men Do Not Pry.
“So, should I leave you to your brooding?” Iron Man asks. Steve's lip curls.
“If you leave, I might actually throw myself off the building.”
“Well then I'd have to catch you, wouldn't I?” Iron Man flirts back easily.
Steve gives him a smirking sidelong glance. Iron Man shifts a little closer–not a step, just. Leaning slightly. Tony is very subtle, thank you very much.
Steve looks back out onto the horizon. The sun is gone by now, replaced by stars and light pollution.
“Tony is a fine dame.” he says, completely unprompted, like an insane person.
Tony freezes, her stomach swooping hard. One moment her blood runs cold, the next a shot of adrenaline is chasing after it.
She tries not to swallow her own heart beat.
"What?" Iron Man asks, because what the hell is he supposed to say to that.
Steve glances at him. Pauses. Shifts. Seems to sense he's done something wrong, maybe?
"Sorry." Steve says, but it lacks sincerity–not because he isn't sincere, but because he doesn't know what he should be sorry for. He's more embarrassed than anything. Tony latches onto that, files it away like she always does for safe keeping. There are certain expressions she likes to revisit.
For Science.
"Should I not have said that?" Steve asks, and Iron Man lets out a sound that seems like a laugh.
"No. I just don't know what she'd think of you calling her that."
Steve drops his head, chuckles, self deprecating. "Probably shouldn't test the waters then, huh?"
"Oh, I didn't say that," and there's a lilt there, Iron Man twisting a hand as he speaks. Steve ticks an eyebrow at him, smirking a little.
Iron Man shrugs. "Testing Tony Stark is one of my favorite past times." he says and looks away.
"Huh." Is all Steve says. Iron Man looks at him.
"What?"
Steve shifts, looks away again. "Nothing."
Oh, well now Tony is intrigued. First Steve is standing out here, staring off into the sunset longingly, and then he brings up Tony twice unprompted?
How do men ask other men if they have a crush, she finds herself asking, because she's pathetic and would be lying to say she’s not interested.
She's more than interested, in fact.
Far more interested than Steve could probably ever reasonably put together.
"That wasn't a nothing 'huh', Cap. That was more of a I-have-a-patriotic-thought-and-I've-elected-to-ignore-it 'huh'."
Steve shakes his head, mouth twitching again before he schools it. He crosses his arms–relaxed, not guarded. Still not looking at him.
"You two spend a lot of time together." he says it easily, lightly, an observation.
It's somehow framed as a question and also a statement.
Tony inside the armor pauses.
Steve isn't looking at her. Him. Them. Whatever.
"I occasionally guard her body." Tony says, because she knows how it sounds.
Steve barely turns his head. He squints at him.
Something in the air shifts, then. Something she can't discern, but she senses it.
They hold eye contact for a long moment.
"What." Iron Man says again, and Steve turns his eyes back to the sky.
Tony can see it, the pressing question. She tries to be nonchalant, but she can't help the laugh pressing at the roof of her mouth, threatening to escape.
"That's one way to put it." Steve says, and there's a tone there, subtle disapproving, not too much. Just enough judgement in a way that's deeply Captain America.
Tony pauses. She squints, because now something feels different. Steve isn't bantering with him–her–Iron Man like he usually does.
"Would you say it's inaccurate?" Iron Man asks. Steve shifts again. Shakes his head once.
"No," he replies, then adds after a beat, "seems kind of crass." He shrugs.
Tony can't help the way she lights up inside. Not because she's proud, hell no. Just that it's funny. It’s entertaining.
Steve is so funny. If he didn't have such a stick up his ass, maybe she'd enjoy spending time with him more–outside the armor, anyways.
"I need you to know that being crass is part of the brand. Trust me, my statement is Tony Stark approved."
Steve glances at him again, a flicker in his eye. A flash of recognition.
Tony waits.
"As long as she's fine with it." He says eventually.
Another thing that sounds like a laugh escapes the armor.
Is Steve defending her honor???
"What, you'd think she'd object?"
Steve doesn't say anything for a second.
"No." He eventually replies, but there's something else.
Iron Man leans against the railing, as casual as can be for a guy in metal armor.
"Good. I wasn't going to start taking advice from red white and blue undies over how to refer to my employer."
"Right. Your employer." Steve says.
Another pause. Tony bites her lip hard, giddy with intrigue.
"Yes." Iron Man says. Then he leans a fraction closer.
A beat.
"What else would she be?"
This time Steve's ears turn pink. Tony delights, triumphant in the reaction.
"Nothing."
There's a long pause. Tony can see he has more to say.
"You two just seem..."
"What."
Steve huffs, shaking his head, embarrassed and annoyed that Iron Man is really going to make him say it.
"Like we’re fucking?" Tony asks, because she can't help herself.
Steve's head whips up, and she expects him to fluster, scandalized.
Steve scowls instead. That also makes a little sense, but it's less expected.
“No.” He grunts, annoyed. He drops his arms from his chest, hands falling to his sides.
Iron Man says nothing.
“I wasn’t going to say that.”
“I know.”
Another pause.
The question hangs there in the air between them.
“Why?” Iron Man asks without answering.
“Why what?”
“Why do you need to know?”
“I don’t.” Steve says it like he’s partly chastising himself and partly annoyed with Iron Man for continuing the conversation.
Tony feels warmth flooding every crevice of her body. She sees an alert in the corner of her HUD–JARVIS trying to tell her something about regulating body temperature.
She ignores it.
“Jealous, Cap?”
It’s a dangerous question. There’s a flicker there. Steve pauses, just barely, and Tony can see him forcing his shoulders to relax.
“No.” Steve says quietly. Tony is prepared to keep pressing, but then something happens–
Steve turns to leave.
Which is surprising and unexpected and kind of annoying, because Tony was starting to have fun.
“Cap, wait.” Iron Man says to his back. The man stops, but he doesn’t turn around to look at him.
“We’re not.” Iron Man answers the question.
“Together, I mean. Or–fucking, despite what the tabloids say. Surprising, I know.”
A beat.
And then, because she can't help herself–
“I have seen her naked though, far too many times, and I can’t say I’ve ever been disappointed–” because she's a little self-aggrandizing like that.
Steve huffs, annoyed. Iron Man raises his hands in false surrender.
“Alright, alright, sorry. Don’t mean to offend your sensibilities.” Iron Man shrugs.
Steve half turns to glare at him.
“Does she know you talk about her like that?”
Tony freezes. The Iron Man armour freezes. She can tell that Steve can tell.
Slowly, Iron Man shifts forward, no longer leaning against the rail.
Tony finds herself at a loss for words. She doesn’t have much else to say, because this conversation had taken an unexpected turn.
Because Tony had talked to plenty of other men as Iron Man, had been asked questions about her body while standing right there in the armor.
How good is she?
Do you keep the helmet on?
Is she all used up or still a little tight?
She’s on the other end of something, something she’s unwilling to name.
Eventually Iron Man breaks the silence, half sarcasm, half failure.
“Legally? No. Spiritually? Probably yes.”
Steve turns to face him then, glaring in a way that looks painful.
Glaring in a way that he never has, at least not directed at Iron Man.
She can see it in his eyes, a look of betrayal and disappointment.
Tony can’t help the way she shrinks under his gaze–at least metaphorically.
“What’s wrong with you.” Steve asks, like even the question alone makes him sick.
“Uh, a lot. Do you want me to start with my psychiatric notes, or the thing my dermatologist said last week–”
“No, seriously. What’s wrong with you?”
A long pause. Tony’s heart is pounding in her ears.
For just a small fraction of a second, Tony wonders if Steve might actually fight her–him.
If Steve might punch Iron Man.
Over Natasha Stark's honor.
“Listen.” Steve huffs, takes a slow few steps forward. Tony’s eyebrows shoot up, and she ignores the instinct to step backward.
“I don’t know Tony that well, and I understand that you do. But I don’t think that gives you the right to degrade her like that, especially around other people.”
Steve’s pointing at her. He’s doing the Captain America point at her.
No. At Iron Man.
“And what, you think she’s around to appreciate the sentiment?” She blurts, because she's running out of responses.
“No,” Steve says immediately, “that’s not the point, and you know damn well it isn’t.”
Steve is closer now, nearly in his face, just a few feet away from Iron Man.
He stops dead in front of him, straightens his posture, and crosses his arms.
“Now,” he says, "apologize.”
Tony can’t help the choking sound she makes.
Steve glares. “What, that funny to you?”
She immediately shakes her head.
“No, no–” She says, and then realizes how she’s behaving–Less like a man, and more like herself.
She clears her throat, adjusts her posture, tries to raise her chin.
“It’s just–” she stops, trying to find the words. Steve looks at her expectantly.
“All her life, she’s been talked about that way. Like it’s a fact.”
Steve ticks a brow. “And?”
Iron Man shifts, and Tony doesn’t realize how gentle she sounds when she says it. Steve seems to catch it immediately, though–
“She’s just never had someone defend her like that.”
Steve pauses for a long moment, and then steps away, breathing a heavy sigh through his nose.
“Isn’t that your job?” He asks without looking at Iron Man.
Tony doesn’t know what to say to that, so she says nothing.
A silence passes between them, embarrassing and awkward and weird.
Eventually Iron Man apologizes.
“I’m sorry.”
Steve looks at him. Says nothing.
“I, uh. Her and I have a dynamic. And I hope you know that we–we’re good friends. She trusts me with her life, and I–” he pauses, “Believe it or not, I trust her with mine.”
Steve takes this in. Seems to find it good enough. He steps back, nods once.
“Good.”
Another awkward silence passes. Steve turns his head just a bit, and says quietly, under his breath.
“She deserves better.”
Tony, inside the armor, is warm now. Warm enough that JARVIS has to tick the degrees down a little on the internal cooling units.
Her mouth dries.
“Yeah,” she barely says. “She does.”
Another silence, and then Steve leaves without saying goodbye or even goodnight.
It's a first.
This time, Iron Man does not call after him.
After Steve disappears, Tony looks back out into the skyline.
“JARVIS, did that just happen or did I accidentally get into Barton's brownies again.”
“Ms., you have not consumed Mr. Barton's baked goods in recent memory.”
Natasha shifts.
“Right.”