Chapter Text
You know the feeling you got when you walked into a room and everyone stopped talking, so you knew they were talking about you? Steve did. He had experienced it plenty of times, but never more strongly than right now. He stopped halfway through the door and just stood there, staring: the instant he opened the door, Clint and Sam had jumped up and in front of the television. Not looking at Steve, Wanda reached past them and delicately switched it off.
In the sudden quiet, Steve said, “Okay. What was it this time?”
Because they had been keeping up with the coverage as best they could considering how frequently they had to move. La Rochelle wasn't Steve’s first choice for a destination, but it was on the water and large enough that no one really paid attention to them. The only real problem with France was that Sam and Scott didn’t speak French. Wanda knew a few words, enough to make herself understood, and Steve’s French was passable, if outdated. Only Natasha and Clint were really fluent.
It had been a point of contention, so he wondered what on earth they could’ve all been watching so intently considering that the half dozen channels they could get were all French. In the beginning, everyone had crowded around the television no matter what language it was in. But it was really only Steve and Natasha who cared now. Natasha watched to keep track of politics, and Steve watched to catch a glimpse of the world he'd left behind.
No one said anything for a moment. Then Natasha sighed. “He’s going to find out sooner or later,” she said to Clint. “He probably won’t even care.” There was a glint in her eye, sharp enough for Steve to cut himself on if he wasn't cautious. Natasha had changed.
Well. In his more honest moments, Steve could admit that they had all changed. Sometimes for the worse. And that fact was never more evident than when Tony was on the television. For some people (Clint and Wanda, if Steve had to name names) nothing Tony ever did was right. Their pointed jabs and muttered comments made Steve uncomfortable at best. This wasn’t how Steve wanted things to be.
“Show me what?” he asked, a tight feeling spreading through his gut. Nerves, maybe. Dread. He wasn't going to like what he saw, at any rate.
It was Sam who switched the television back on and jostled Clint out of the way. It took a few seconds for Steve to understand what he was looking at. It was Tony, of course, standing on the press platform. A couple of the other new Avengers – Jessica Jones and Stephen Strange – were standing towards the back of the platform, showing a united front. Two of the Guardians, Peter Quill and Gamora, were there as well.
The crowd of reporters was yelling, questions tumbling together too fast for Steve to make out. French captions streamed across the bottom of the screen, but he didn’t have a good enough grasp of the local slang and colloquialisms to understand. Tony held his hands up and laughed, and the sheer joy in the sound made Steve’s heart lurch. He hadn’t heard Tony laugh that way in years.
“One at a time. One at a time!” Tony said. For once, no one else appeared on the screen to talk over him while translating his words. Instead, the station seemed to be settling for captions.
“When did this happen?” a male reporter yelled.
“Two weeks ago. On my birthday.”
Tony’s birthday. Steve had wanted to call him so much. But Natasha’s cooler head had prevailed; she'd stolen the phone from him and hid it. Not because she thought that calling Tony would be dangerous, but because Tony didn’t need to feel that kind of pain on his birthday. She looked Steve straight in the eye when she said that too, as though daring him to try and take the phone back. He hadn’t.
“Was it romantic?” someone else shouted. Steve frowned a little. Romantic?
“I’ll have you know I am very romantic,” Quill spoke up. He was already standing beside Tony. Now, he wrapped an arm around Tony’s shoulders. “My fiancé loves that about me.”
Fiancé. A cold feeling swept over Steve. The hair on his arms stood up straight. He didn’t even know that Tony was dating anyone. He thought… he’d hoped -
“Isn’t this sudden?” a female reporter called out.
“Not sudden. We’re just very good at keeping our relationship out of the public eye. Unfortunately, planning a wedding is one of those things that draws attention,” said Tony. He leaned into Quill and took his hand. The camera zoomed in immediately, focusing on Tony's hand.
Scott let out a low whistle. "That's a nice ring. Expensive."
"Hey." Clint elbowed him.
Steve paid no attention to the brawl that promptly broke out. His throat felt tight; the discomfort in his chest suggested that he might throw up, except he couldn't bring himself to move as Tony turned his head to gaze at Quill. The look of adoration and affection on Tony's face... it was the same look that Steve used to see reflected at him. Words couldn't describe how much it hurt to see that look directed at another man.
And Quill was smiling back at Tony like there was no one else in the room with them, like they were the only two people in the world. Strange, Jones and Gamora were all looking on approvingly. And Steve... Steve didn't understand. That should be him up there on the platform with Tony. This should be his and Tony's engagement that the world was celebrating. Steve should've been the one leaning in to press a gentle kiss to Tony's lips, the one feeling the rasp of Tony's beard, the one coaxing forth that sweet, shy smile.
"Steve?" Wanda asked cautiously. "Are you okay?"
"I thought he'd wait for me," Steve whispered to no one in particular, and now none of them would meet his eye. Sam and Scott shared a look, and so did Clint and Wanda, but no one spoke.
Then Natasha snorted. "Tony loved you," she said cruelly, placing deliberate emphasis on the past tense of that word. "But you didn't love him. You wouldn't even hold his hand in public."
Steve flushed - with embarrassment or rage, he wasn't sure. "We were taking it slow! I love Tony!"
"Right," Natasha said, that one word imbued with so much sarcasm that Steve could hardly stand it. "You love him so much you smashed your shield into the arc reactor and then left him for dead in the middle of Siberia. If that's love, then feel free to hate me." She shut the television off and walked out of the room, leaving the door hanging open.
He stared after her, and for a split second he did. He hated her. Because Natasha was only here out of some misguided sense of loyalty, not because she really wanted to be here: she was lashing out at every opportunity, always twisting the metaphorical knife deeper, as though on a quest to make sure that Steve never forgot what his actions had done. And of course, she never came right out and said anything that he could defend himself against. To bring up Bucky now would be like admitting she was right.
One by one, Scott, Sam, Clint and Wanda slipped out of the room as well, until Steve stood there alone. He found himself turning the television back on just in time to catch the end of the press conference. Tony and Quill were walking off the stage hand-in-hand. When they got to the door, Quill spun Tony around and dramatically dipped him backwards. Tony's laugh was swallowed up in both the kiss and the applause from the reporters.
The remote hit the screen. Steve hadn't even realized he'd hurtled it until the glass broke, scattering everywhere. With a low crackle and hiss, the television went dead. The silence pressed in on Steve's ears until he couldn't bear it, and he turned to grab his bag. He couldn't stay here. He needed to get out. He needed to run.
If only he had somewhere to run to.