Chapter Text
When aliens fail to invade, Tony can't get out of doing his other job.
Minimal comments are made about the weekend bombshell news when Tony joins the rest of the board members for the meeting on Monday morning. Tony can see the wondering (pitying) looks but they slide off him like water off goose. He has put a lot of effort into his faultless appearance that morning. He looks good. Polished. Invincible.
His proposal for new acquisitions (two small local startups with software patents that would round off Stark Industries' portfolio nicely) is met with open minds. His summary of the vision for R&D in the coming months receives a bit more scrutiny as he goes through the presentation. Pepper's encouraging face gets him through it, reminds him this is important; she is the one who always champions his ideas for the board when it's something a little riskier than a new phone design. When it's something like SI cooperating with Wakanda on building a new energy grid in Africa.
There's less technical detail than Tony would have liked to include, but then he always wants to discuss the interesting bits and only Pepper's careful couching ensures he ends up communicating the strategic direction for their R&D division rather than treating the board as his chance to show off research advancements. Thus his presentation has more graphs and pie-charts than he knows what to do with, but it's good. They are focused on the job, not on his personal life, just how Tony likes them. He doesn't like them very much at all, and they don't like him, but they are all on the same page about their symbiotic relationship. They need each other.
"That's different from before," one of the men says with a frown at one of the bullet lists, while the others hmm and haw. Somebody's paying attention.
"Yeah. I'm altering that design, pray I don't alter it any further."
Across the table, Pepper gives him this look. Tony uses all of his willpower to continue looking blandly serious without letting the corner of his mouth curve up.
An interminable number of minutes later, they disperse for a fifteen minute break and Tony retreats into his office to regroup. He has a threatening headache ― simple stress, nothing unusual ― and as always when left on his own it occurs to him how easy it would be to call his armor to him and just leave. Go anywhere. Take a shower. He'd done his part, shown off his ideas and gotten approval on majority of the critical points. He'd been responsible. They didn't rubber stamp it either, he'd gotten some interesting comments. It's good to see the board engaged because as much as he hates attending these meetings, the day they agree on everything just to get out of the room is the day their company starts to die. That doesn't change the fact that these things aren't fun, not the way working on tech is fun for him. The next couple of hours after the break requires listening to super detailed presentations and exhaustive financial reports by other members designed to get the rest up to speed. Tony swallows down some water from a convenient water bottle on his desk and stares at his phone in thought.
"Hey," Steve says after a couple of rings, "What's up?"
It's convenient openings like these that occasionally end with Tony in compromising situations, but a quickie on the phone is not what he wants right now. He wants to spread Steve out on their bed and take his time. Later tonight.
"Is there any catastrophe that requires my immediate attention?" he drawls. "Because I can be there in five." He is mostly joking, although the temptation to put on the suit and go is buzzing under his skin.
He can hear the smile in Steve's voice as he answers. "Unless you count the usual crisis of who gets to be on which team, no."
"Ah, right. Your kids."
Steve volunteers at a pitch in Brooklyn in the summer, officiating weekly middle-schoolers' baseball games. He is remarkably good at ensuring there are no disputes about the referee calls, the word of Captain America and the eagle-eyed sight of the super soldier safeguarding fair play. At least that's how the GQ article put it when they did a center-piece on Captain Rogers: The All-American Hero's Life Outside of the Avengers, about a month ago. The picture they used for the cover had been very flattering; Tony saved that issue. He also fucked the All-American Hero through the mattresses that night, but that was just between the two of them.
"Am I distracting you?" he asks.
"Always," Steve answers warmly. "It's fine. They are batting around."
"Sounds exhausting," Tony says without any idea what it means, despite Steve's repeated attempts to couch him on the rules of baseball. He swivels in his chair, listening to the distant shrieks of middle schoolers on the other end.
"Did you need something?" Steve says, and there's a moment of distraction in his voice before he calls out some kind of directions to whoever's on the pitching field with him.
"Just want to hear the sound of your voice, darlin'," Tony flirts.
There's a smile in Steve's voice, "How's the meeting going?"
"The current diagnosis is that the head of R&D is still compos mentis, which is Latin for 'not gone off the deep end'."
"He is a character that one," Steve says, "You best keep an eye on him."
"I'd rather you kept your eyes on him if it's all the same," Tony says. "How's later tonight?" It pops out before he even knows that's the reason he called. He'll be dead on his feet, sure, but if just hearing Steve's voice is enough to reduce his headache in half, imagine what being in his physical presence would do for Tony's mental well-being. His board should write Steve checks for his service to the company, they really should. Idly, Tony wonders if he could get that past Pepper.
"Clint's organizing some kind of a get together at five," Steve informs him. "At Erv's. Just us and a few of his old buddies from SHIELD, nothing formal."
"And he didn't invite me," Tony says with mock disappointment. He'd been thinking something a little more intimate, but fair enough, Steve's already made plans.
"You're always welcome to join us if your meeting ends on time." There's a thread of doubt in Steve's voice.
He is not going to be free till at least seven because he has to run things by Pepper before she flies out to Japan tomorrow morning. "I'll see what I can do." He glances at the watch. Three minutes. Time enough to flirt a little more.
"Did they make you wear a cute uniform for the game?" he says. He could use that mental image for later.
"I thought my regular uniform is cute enough."
"Touché," Tony says, smiling despite himself. He has been over every inch of that uniform both professionally and... not. He designed some of the inner lining, guaranteed to protect Steve's lovely soft skin from any harm.
"Speaking of, would you stop throwing out my socks?" Steve says non sequitur, the slightest edge of annoyance in his voice. "I looked for them all morning."
"Only if you stop leaving them by the sink."
"Tony."
"Steve."
"I leave them there so I don't forget to wash them!"
"Well, I don't want to feel like I'm living in Motel 69, so you'll have to figure out another system."
Steve grumbles across the line.
Tony tilts his head back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling imagining he can see Steve's griping face. He smiles. "Did you say: sorry honey, I'll do better next time?"
"Something like that," Steve sounds like he is speaking through clenched teeth. He switches topics: "Good luck with the rest of the meeting. Don't work too hard, alright?"
Tony hmms. He looks at the stack of papers in front of him. He won't even have time for lunch.
There's a momentary silence on the line as the conversation draws to a close, they're both waiting to see if one of them says it. Tony doesn't need Steve to say the words casually, but it's only fair to give him the opportunity to do so once in a while.
"Right, yeah, I gotta go," Steve speaks quickly. "It's the next inning."
"Yeah, go. Love you."
Steve makes a choked off noise on the other end before they both hang up.
Tony huffs at the phone in his hand, but his mood's unshakably buoyant today.
He thinks about the possible future stretched out ahead of him: putting up with Steve's dirty socks and his stubbornness, signing off with a 'love you' (and occasionally hearing it back, when Steve's not too embarrassed to say it, not in public). Missing Steve after a few hours without his company.
It's not a bad way to live.
"About the PR-nightmare," Pepper starts after the day is done and they are alone in her office. That damn video.
Tony is perching on the edge of her desk ― she hates that, but he hates sitting in the low chair across from her more ― and fiddling with his phone. No missed calls. He waves a dismissive hand, "I'll sit down with a journal, whatever, they can do a cover story; it won't be an issue. Or rather it will be an issue. A journal issue."
"Okay, but they're going to ask―"
"How I feel about it? Not thrilled. But the truth shall set you free and all that? Like I told Steve, it's better than some of the theories that have been circulating about what really happened that night."
When he glances up from his phone, Pepper is studying him with narrowed eyes, as if she is trying to read his mind. Tony forces himself to stare guilelessly back. He is so grateful that she can't.
"You seem remarkably level-headed about this," she says.
Tony rolls his shoulders. Yes, he still has adrenaline course through him at every reminder about the video, but it's getting easier to keep calm. It's like he is getting better, taking healthier emotional turns. It's like his life is making sense to him, the road that he has to walk is clear. He knows what he wants, and it's not to think about how a small-time bad guy gets his rocks off at their expense. He wants so much more now. The future expands with possibilities and he likes the odds.
"Don't worry about a thing, Pep, I've got this covered. You just run my multi-billion dollar company and do... whatever it is you do with your free time. Which I'm certain is time well spent."
"Okay," Pepper says after another moment of shrewd consideration. She must believe him because she lifts her tablet. "Come around and look at these files―"
They spend the next hour going over the pitch she'll be making in Japan the next day. It's seven by the time Pepper leans back on her leather high-chair and stretches out her long legs under the desk, working out the stiffness. "I'm going to keep going, but you don't need to stay." She says it with a certain magnanimity, like she is letting him off the hook somehow. "I'm sure you're expected."
"Hmm?"
Pepper rises an eyebrow.
Tony looks back at her, confused.
After a moment, she briefly shuts her eyes before reopening them with a steely look. "Sometimes I forget how―Nevermind." She presses her lips together. "You know what the date is?"
"June 4th," he answers automatically. Then he checks the date on the phone, because of the pitying look she is now giving him. He is right. It's not her birthday, he doesn't think. It's not Steve's birthday either, he's pretty sure. "What?"
She lifts one immaculately plucked eyebrow and says, more kindly than she's spoken to him all day. "Peggy Carter died two years ago today?"
Tony jerks up and off the table, running a hand through his hair. Shit. Steve.
He'd been downcast and morose that morning and Tony had thought it was because he hadn't been getting enough sleep. But it wasn't.
Pepper leans forward and catches Tony's arm at the elbow. "It's been working for you, this thing you have," she says quietly. "Don't mess it up."
"I won't. I won't," he says, nodding, backing away and letting her hand slip off his suit. "I gotta go."
He doesn't know what he is going to do. Steve's having drinks with Clint and some SHIELD buddies? At Erv's? Yes, Tony can find the bar easily enough.
He turns back to her at the door. "Thanks, Pepper."
She just nods and turns back to her work.
Tony calls his armored suit to him, stored in the briefcase he is never without. He doesn't remember the take off, his mind is racing. Selfishness is not a new trait for him, but it doesn't mean the depths of thoughtlessness he has plunged to can't still take his own breath away. He has been taking and taking from Steve, leeching his warmth like a parasite and never even asking Steve if he was alright, or trying to find out what Steve's needs were.
But that was gonna change, right now.
He streaks across the evening sky. There's still a few hours 'till sunset. It's minutes until he is at the doors to the bar, the soft rock music pouring out into the street through the doorway. He steps out of the suit, its metal frames parting and sliding away as he strides forward, before locking up behind him. "Wait for me," he commands and heads inside.
It's a low-key, old-fashioned affair with wooden tables and counter-tops, and wine glasses hanging high over the counter. It's crowded enough that there's a buzz of activity around the room, but not so much that it's stifling. He tries to see it with the eyes of someone born at the start of the previous century and it seems to fit. Heads turn at his entrance, Tony can see he is recognized, but after a moment people turn back to their own conversations again. Gotta love New York. Tony spots Clint's flashy purple vest on the opposite end, in a booth, but no Steve. No other former SHIELD agents either, who are probably home with their families by now. Tony weaves his way around the tables taking care not to brush against other people.
It's unclear if he has been noticed until he slides into the booth opposite Clint and the man doesn't even blink. Tony feels as though his seat is still warm from another person's body heat.
"Look what the cat's dragged in," Clint says with only the tiniest slurring of his voice. He gives Tony the stink eye. "You're late."
"I'm a busy man. Where's Steve?" Tony chooses to ignore the spectacular failure at casual he was going for with that and stares at Clint expectantly.
"Restroom," Clint points with a thumb over his shoulder. There's a dark hallway turning behind the corner with a sign. After a moment studying him, Clint motions towards the bar on their side, a tiny barely noticeable jerk of the chin, "Those girls have been flirting with us all evening." Tony turns to look, eyes critically appraising the female clientele. Long legs, delicate clothing, lush lips. Young. The sort of girls he would have seen in a very different light at another time in his life. Clint snaps his fingers between them and Tony turns. "You're lucky I kept him company."
As if Steve would ever. The idea is ridiculous. But the thought that Steve might have sat here, cold and weary in this wooden booth, with all the memories and nobody to hold onto isn't so easily dismissed. It twists his insides.
"You randomly show up―" A thought occurs to Tony. "It wasn't random." And not about him.
"Nooo," Clint drawls. "Last year this time Steve was like a ghost. I promised him, if he doesn't have better plans next year, I'll be there."
"Trust me: he has better plans," Tony says.
"What's that?" Clint grins at him.
"I could answer that honestly―" Tony starts. Clint's misapprehension that all that Steve and Tony do while they're alone is screw each other silly is hilarious; Tony does his best to encourage it.
Instantly, Clint grimaces. "No thanks." He folds his hands on the table and he is suddenly dead serious, looking up at Tony from beneath his brow. He leans forward and Tony finds himself wanting to lean forward as well, like they're sharing a secret. "Look. He'll say he's alright and he's moved on, and that's true, but he still wants to talk about her. So let him talk."
"I can do that."
Clint looks about the bar with obvious disappointment across his features. "I thought this was a good idea 'cause he said he used to go to places like this on anniversaries and the like, but he's just sadder now."
Leaving wouldn't be a problem for Tony: too many people, much too close. There's a group of college-aged friends sitting right behind him, and their raucous laughter carries, carefree.
Steve walks out of the restroom looking unfairly attractive in a blue sweater that highlights his eyes; they light up when he spots Tony at their table, with something like warm surprise.
"You made it," Steve says, borrowing a chair from the nearby table to drag it between the two of them. This is the moment where there's a space for a kiss, but as it is Steve just sits and folds his arms on the table. "Did the meeting go well?"
Tony shrugs a negligent shoulder. "I got the Board's okay. Wakanda's scientists are visiting next week to hammer out some of the details."
Steve radiates approval; Tony basks.
Clint orders them a pitcher and Tony has a chance to unload a few choice words he hasn't been able to say all day in front of the Board of Directors, about an embargo SI is dealing with, which Tony knows is just some push-back and political posturing because he is a part of the company wanting to do business, and he is also an Avenger. Can't have that, can we! Steve looks sympathetic and Clint refrains for mentioning anything about making his bed and lying in it, which he definitely would have two years ago.
At that moment a girl peels away from the group of friends and approaches their table, moving with the grace of a jungle cat in her high-heels and dark burgundy dress hugging an hourglass-shaped figure.
"Hi," she says. "How are you doing?" And her dark brown eyes go straight to Steve.
"Doing okay," Steve says. "How are you?"
"Night is looking up. I'm Mandy."
"Steve." He turns politely to introduce the rest of them. "Tony. Clint." It's adorable that he thinks he has to do that.
"I know," she says with a smile that has no edge to it, just a straightforward cheerfulness. She has a heart-shaped face and a slightly impish look in her large eyes. "So, I hope you like honesty because I knew I'd regret it if I didn't come over and ask. Would you like to have a drink with me, and maybe see where it takes us?"
"I'm with someone," Steve says, not unkindly.
"Oh," a single shapely eyebrow rises at the news. A moment later she regroups, smiling with a flirty air, and there's no doubt of her meaning when she says, "Wanna call her, maybe she's up for spicing things up a little?" She winks. She is so young. There was a time when Tony had been similarly fearless, when he had nothing to lose.
Steve's lips twitch and he glances at Tony, a barely noticeable side-glance. This is where Tony could look down to play with his phone and Steve would fib her off with a non-committal answer, but instead Tony drawls, "Sweetheart, just don't."
Steve's smile grows pleased. He looks back at the woman. "He says no."
"Oh. Oh!" She glances between them. "Wow." There's a startled smile that almost turns into a giggle, before she says, "Good for you, then," and bows out of the game. "It was nice to meet you Steve."
"Likewise."
On the way back to her friends she throws a curious glance over her shoulder, a mix of surprise and amusement. There'll be a lot of such looks in their future, Tony guesses, since apparently they are taking the next step.
"So this is, like, normal for you?" Clint grouses with an envious look Steve's way, "Girls like that throwing themselves at you?"
"Hey, aren't you married?" Tony points out with a smirk.
"Doesn't mean I want to be invisible," Clint sighs, then shakes his head. He downs the rest of his drink in one gulp and slams it on the table. "Okay, I think I've reached that point in my evening where a conjugal visit sounds good. You crazy kids have fun."
Tony gives him a wave, half-way to a salute, if he could only be bothered.
Steve says warmly, "Thanks, Clint. Don't be a stranger, alright? Always a place for you at the Tower." Tony tries to contain a shiver. There's something about Steve comfortably extending these invitations to their home that sends electricity up his spine; he likes it.
Clint looks between the two of them. "Next time I visit, I might bring entourage if that's fine."
"Peachy," Tony says too quickly, and tries to fill the empty space with more words, "Steve can drag Barnes to see the Mets."
"I thought you liked baseball," Steve says, with a slightly jutted out lower lip.
"I don't dislike it?" Tony offers, hoping to save himself.
"Ha!" Clint barks out with a laugh before he leaves them to it. Tony can tell without looking that Steve's frowning at his side. Clint weaves around the tables, heading back to his wife.
"You know, they say married people have more sex," Tony says while they watch Clint's retreating back.
"So you have been thinking about it!"
"I've been thinking about something, alright." With a rakish grin, Tony catches Steve's eyes. Steve smirks.
Then he looks suddenly intense. Tony worries for a brief moment until Steve says, earnestly, "If you just watch a couple more games, you'll get used to the rules and I'm sure you'll enjoy it."
Oh God, the baseball. Steve's like a bulldog with a bone.
"I'd enjoy it a hell of a lot more in our bed, on a wide-screen TV, without the rest of the people there." Tony's mind skips from idea to idea for a second and he says, in what he hopes counts as casual tone, "You know, we could make a tradition of it. One of us picks what we'll watch and we could do it, on, say, anniversaries or something."
Steve stills a little, then he sighs. His fingers fiddle with a paper napkin, wrinkling it. "I thought you didn't realize."
"To be fair, Pepper remembered before I did," Tony admits. "I'm not exactly great at this stuff, I know that. I forget, I get distracted. I miss things. Like today. I don't do anniversaries in general. I'll never remember your birthday."
"It's the forth of July."
Tony thinks about it. "Okay, bad example. But I― I get distracted..."
"Yeah," Steve's smiling for some reason. "Kind of one of the things I love about you."
What? "What?"
Steve doesn't even glance around to see if anyone overhead him, he is looking only at Tony. "That you've got so much stuff going on, all at once, all of it important and needing your attention right away. When you choose to spend time with me, makes me feel like that's important, too."
Tony swallows. "You are important," He can't ever express how much. "I wish I could show it more. You shouldn't have to say, about Peggy. I know what she meant to you."
"I thought it would be awkward to talk about the past. I didn't want to remind you about those times. Especially not recently," he gives Tony a significant look. He means that damn video again, coming between them, an ugly, vulgar cleft. But it's also only a tape, thin and insubstantial in the face of fresh memories, and Steve is right next to him, his warm and steady light, the North star that guides Tony's thoughts. Give him a lever, and he would move the world for Steve. He would invent a lever.
"Her grave-site is in London," Tony says, pulling out his phone. He is momentarily distracted by the screen, so when Steve's hand covers his he looks up in surprise.
"Don't charter us a plane," Steve says.
Tony's protest that he wasn't ― you don't charter a quinjet, because you have the foresight to own it ― dies on his lips at the look on Steve's face, his overly bright eyes. Tony knows suddenly what it's costing him to refuse, even as the flash of naked longing on Steve's face is thoroughly shuttered, his jaw ― stoically set. Steve is so very careful never to bleed his needs on anyone.
"Transatlantic flights are probably rough outside the Iron Man suit," Tony mentions somewhat furtively. In his head, he is suddenly back to the configuration of a suit of armor he could build for Steve. All new propulsion system so that Steve could visit Peggy in her resting place whenever he wanted.
"I'll make the trip to visit her next time I'm in Europe."
Tony studies Steve as though he can physically examine that stubborn streak of his, looking for any cracks or weaknesses. Seeing none, he kicks back in his chair, nearly cracking his head against the high back-seat. "What's the point of dating a billionaire if you can't even make a little trip for an anniversary?" Why won't you let me do this for you, he doesn't ask.
Then he fidgets a little under Steve's long stare. After looking inscrutable for too long a moment, Steve seems to snap to a decision.
"Come on," he says, laying a hand on the table, palm up. Tony glances at the hand, up at his face, and back to his hand again before he slowly puts his own fingers in Steve's, making Steve smile a little as he pulls Tony up out of his seat, towards the exit. Steve says definitively, "I know what we need to do."
Steve doesn't let go of his fingers as they walk out the bar together. Tony is conscious of every look burning into their backs, but it only makes him glad. Steve is with him.
He refuses to let Tony in on his plan, or to tell him the destination so Tony could fly them there in his suit, still waiting patiently outside the bar. So they end up strolling through the streets of Brooklyn together, until Tony is shivering slightly in his business attire, unsuitable for the evening's chill.
The shiver must make it down his arm because Steve shoots him a little concerned glance and then rubs his cold fingers with the pad of his thumb. "It's not far," he promises.
Tony cottons on to his plan when they come up to the doors of a small white-stone little church tucked in between the newer buildings. He isn't sure if he is shivering from the cold or nerves anymore.
He kind of has a feeling he knows what Steve wants to do inside as they walk up the steps into the heavy wooden doorway of the church. This needs to be dealt with sensitivity and tact, which means that Tony can't help himself:
"I don't even have a ring yet."
Steve's eyes attempt to roll out of their sockets and he tugs Tony inside. He has picked up the eye-rolls from Tony in the past year, and Tony wants to warn him he is going to hurt himself if he keeps that up. Meanwhile he lets Steve bring him inside the church. There's nobody around to pay attention to them, which is a relief. The decor is a little worn and very cheap, but when they make their way to a side-altar in the bay of the nave there are hundreds of tiny lit candles by the wall.
Steve finds a few bills in his jeans' back-pocket and drops it into a donation jar, picking up a candle from a box-full and lighting the wick off of one of the lit candles. Then he stares at the flame long enough for Tony to start watching the wax melting at the tip while attempting to contain a nervous twitch. There's a part of him that wants to subtly yank his hand out of Steve's hold, but he knows that part of himself well, knows not to trust it. He curls his fingers against Steve's seeking to encourage.
Steve's shoulders tense momentarily as though he is steeling himself, and he sets the candle down into an empty spot on the wrought-iron candle holder.
"Peggy," he says, with a note of finality. Tony holds utterly still. Steve draws in a little distressed breath of air. "I miss you."
He keeps speaking, pushing the words out in that rough voice that rakes through Tony's insides. "I try to follow your advice, try to live my life. And do the right thing when I can, even if it feels as if―" he suddenly squeezes Tony's fingers, and turns to look at their joined hands, lifting them up as if inspecting them carefully, "―sometimes there are only a few things you can be sure of."
Tony doesn't dare say a word, and Steve slowly lowers their hands to the side again, looking back towards the burning candle. Even though his voice is still drawn, he is smiling. "So I'm alright. Got a future to look forward to, and people to help me figure it out. Rest easy, Peggy."
Steve stands and looks at the candles for some time. Tony figures it isn't much different than what he himself does with B.A.R.F. and Steve seems to get comfort from it, anyway.
A bit of a noise from outside, like multiple people oohing and ahhing, break their silent reverie and they both twist around a column to look. Some kind of a commotion is happening outside the main doors of the church.
"That would be Iron Man," Tony says after a moment. "The armor is set to follow us at a discrete distance, and I think it gathered an audience. Sorry. I can―" He goes for his watch, but Steve shakes his head.
"Let's go home," he says. "I'm― I want to go home."
Before they leave, in his head, Tony says a few words of his own to Peggy Carter, who was an amazing woman in every way. No matter what his thoughts on the afterlife, those are promises he is intending to keep.
The group of people surprised by the presence of a suit of armor on the steps of a church move aside when they pass through and the armor unlocks, taking Tony in and sliding around him as a comforting, solid weight. He leaves the faceplate up until he pulls Steve to him and takes off into the sky. The cell-phone cameras follow them into the sky but the speed means they are gone from view relatively soon and nobody sees Steve briefly press his forehead to Iron Man's metal shoulder.
Tony sets them down gently on the rooftop, letting Steve out of his arms. The Manhattan skyline is a glorious view from here, but he's only got eyes for Steve. Unlike Tony, Steve never wants to be alone when he gets morose, he just thinks he's bad company and tries to keep out of everyone's way. He tries to keep himself busy. Sometimes he starts cleaning their room, or polishing his shield for hours, or worse, writing reports to the unreceptive UN Panel about the latest Avenger activity ― that stuff is guaranteed to make you want to huddle under a blanket in short order.
Tony steps out of the suit of armor, heading for the common areas and expecting Steve to join him. "Let's go downstairs and scrounge up some food, then shower..." Being a genius, he'll certainly find a way to take Steve's mind off things before the evening is done.
As they step into the elevator, Tony directs Friday to have a fresh pot of coffee brewing for when they arrive, and turns one hundred percent of his attention to Steve. Who just happens to be looking at him with the softest expression on his face, hands reaching for Tony. Their lips meet as if designed for it; Steve's mouth tastes of beer, the wet slide of his full lips intoxicating on their own. Tony's eyes slide shut involuntarily as he sinks into one of the hottest kisses of his life. That they can still kiss like this after so many months together, when the novelty's worn off, never fails to amaze him.
Steve kisses him like he is dying of thirst and Tony is water. His fingers are in Tony's hair, Tony's go around his waist to keep them pressed up against one another for long moments while the elevator travels down to the common floors of the Tower.
They have to part reluctantly when the doors slide open, and to their surprise a pair of familiar green eyes meet theirs from the sofa. Natasha watches their arms slide from around each other as they separate, follows them with the turn of her head as they come around the sofa's front only to see―
"Is that a cast?" Tony looks at the leg stretched out in front of her, foot on the coffee table. It is definitely a cast, wrapped around the ankle, with her bare toes peeking out, painted red, of course.
"Twisted my ankle climbing," she explains in familiar reserved tones.
Climbing what? And for whom? A mission from the newly returned Nick Fury? Natasha comes and goes wherever she is needed, but she is always there when the Avengers call, so there is never a conflict. The Avengers Tower is a soft place to land for numerous superheroes, but the founding members of the team are a special case.
Steve rushes to get her more comfortable pillows from the nearby rooms. Tony leans against the opposing armchair and studies Nat. She wouldn't twist an ankle just to give Steve a reason to fuss, surely, but the results are handily apparent. Gone is the morose man at his side, broken out of his bad mood as soon as he saw another person's pain. Now that he has something to do and someone else to take care of, Steve forgets his own sadness.
"You're not in any kind of trouble, are you?" Tony asks the woman on the sofa, crossing his arms.
She shrugs a shoulder. "I do okay."
Her hair is dark again, and a curling strand falls into her face when she lowers her eyes. Natasha brushes it away quickly.
"You'd tell us if you weren't?" Tony insists.
Her lips quirk and her green eyes stare at him balefully from beneath thick black eyelashes.
Tony sighs and rolls his eyes. He uncrosses his arms and comes to sit next to her on the sofa. "Okay, Kettle."
He realizes his hand is already lifting off his own accord, and after a moment's hesitation doesn't stop himself, brushing his fingers against the top half of Natasha's back. Not sure what expression is on his own face, he watches the play by play on Natasha's at the attempted comfort, something quietly stirred up and just as swiftly buried.
Steve comes back with two fluffy pillows and helps Nat settle her ankle more comfortably. She smiles her gratitude at Steve more easily, but doesn't move away from Tony's careful hand.
"Impromptu movie night?" Steve asks with a quirk of his brow. His eyes linger on Tony longer as if asking if Tony is okay with postponing their evening plans, gaze traveling between the two of them when Tony nods slightly.
"What's new that's worth watching?" Tony says. He doesn't keep track of movie release dates since the only time he watches something is with the team, and he lets them pick. Less responsibility for him. "Friday?"
His A.I.'s voice echoes through the room as she offers suggestions. Steve brings drinks ― and Tony's fresh coffee and a croissant ― as he and Nat decide on one of the recent releases.
Steve settles on the other side of Natasha so the three of them take up the entire sofa, stretching one thick arm across the sofa's back to where it would just touch Tony's shoulder. He rubs the tips of his fingers against the material of Tony's jacket, and Tony briefly leans his shoulder into the warm touch. He wishes he could lean into Steve completely, with his entire body. He needs, wants that man like air.
But that's alright; they would still have the rest of their night once the movie ended.
They can spend the rest of their lives together.
Some kind of a space-comedy is starting to play on the large screen that descends from the ceiling, and Steve turns his head to read the titles.
When they are alone, later, Tony will tell him.
That he has thought about it.
That nothing could make him happier.
The sexiest word in the English language.
Yes.