Chapter Text
As co-leaders of the team, Steve and Tony always sit next to each other.
At team meetings, press briefings, galas to raise funding - hell, even during team movie nights, - Tony is always on his right.
And Steve likes to think that all that close proximity has made them both extremely attuned to each other, or - well, he knows it has on his part anyway.
He knows that whenever there’s leg room and probability of no one seeing it, Tony bounces his left leg whenever agitated, particularly when the press turns to a line of questioning he hadn’t anticipated.
He knows that Tony has a habit of biting his nails after a particularly bad night of restless sleep, the jagged edges of his nails looking so out of place against his otherwise impeccable appearance.
He knows the tell-tale signs of an oncoming panic attack whenever he hears the short but rapid pulls of breath as Tony tries to breathe.
He knows that Tony taps at his arc reactor surreptitiously whenever he needs reassurance or whenever someone likes to bring up SI’s past.
They don’t dare ask about anything related to Obadiah anymore though. Not whenever Steve is there anyway. Not after the last...incident.
So as they’re sitting here at what is a routine press briefing meant to discuss yesterday’s events and the growing nuisance that Doom seems to be proving, Steve doesn’t expect the question.
He doesn’t expect to find out through a reporter from Fox News that Tony used to date Victor Von Doom.
Neither does Tony, because his leg starts to bounce. You wouldn’t be able to tell though because his voice is as steady as ever when he answers, “I know I make an impression but Victor and I were never that serious. Plus, I believe his tastes run somewhere a little more blonde and invisible these days. Or well, brunet and elastic depending on who you ask.”
Some laughter rolls around the room at that but the reporter continues on, undeterred. “Maybe so, but the Avengers are the ones who always respond to him. Is this because you, Mr. Stark, are still harbouring feelings for a criminal?”
The room goes dead quiet awaiting Tony’s response, whose leg is bouncing alarmingly, but he doesn’t respond.
And that, — that moment of hesitation to refute it, causes the entire press floor to burst into noise; laughter replaced with questions and accusations being hurled in a cacophony of sound and flashes that makes Steve’s head hurt and Tony’s breath come in stutters.
“Alright, if the members of the press have nothing of value to ask, then I think we’re done here,” Steve says, voice cutting through the noise before pulling Tony up and out of his seat.
Tony’s palms are damp and once they’re off the platform and away from prying eyes, Steve sits Tony down and places those palms on his own chest, rubbing at his inner wrist with his thumb. “Count my heartbeat and breathe with it, Tony. Come on — breathe in, there you go, and breathe out. You’re doing great.”
Steve stays crouched in front of Tony’s chair until his breathing goes back to normal and his eyes don’t look so glassy, filled instead with resignation and despondence and Steve hates it but it’s still better than empty.
“We shouldn’t have just walked out,” Tony says eventually, voice still a little shaky. “That’ll just make it worse. They’re definitely going to run with the ‘Iron Man secretly still in love with Doom’ story now.
“Yes, but you’re not in love with Doom anymore, right?” Steve says, and he really didn’t mean for it to come out as a question but part of him just needs to hear Tony say it.
Tony sighs, pulling his hands away and Steve has to clench his own so he doesn’t do something stupid like snatch them back. “I was never in love with him. We barely even went out and I —,” he sighs, rubbing at his left temple — the sign of a migraine coming on.
“Come on,” Steve says, gently taking Tony’s hands in his again and pulling him out the side entrance where he knows Happy is idling with the car. “Let’s just get home, huh? The rest of them can find their own way back.”
There’s a slight quirk to Tony’s lip when he says, “Nat’s going to kill you if she has to ask SHIELD for a drop off. She’s still fuming at Fury over last time.”
“I can handle it,” Steve says, sliding into the backseat after him. “I’ll just tell her it was Sam that ruined her boots on that last mission.”
He doesn’t get Tony’s delighted warm laugh, the one that’s real and what Steve imagines sunshine would sound like, but he still manages to get a laugh and that’s the important part.
“Smart move,” he says, before going quiet, looking down at their entwined fingers long enough that Steve stops rubbing his thumb along the back of Tony’s hand.
He doesn't make any move to pull away though, so neither does Steve.
“Somedays I think I should have kept my identity to myself,” he says, after the silence stretches, still not meeting Steve’s eyes. “I never get to just be Iron Man. I don’t get to be a hero, I’m a debate.”
“I’m a danger, a weak link — and somehow I’m always the bad guy because yeah sure, Iron Man saves people from aliens and falling buildings but Tony Stark? No Tony Stark is untrustworthy and the wild card of the team — a liability. I should have just stuck to those cards,” he says all in a rush, and he’s blinking rapidly, staring up at Steve now with wide eyes like he can’t believe he’d just said any of it at all.
“That’s such bullshit, Tony,” Steve says vehemently. “Iron Man is fantastic, he’s brilliant but that brilliance is born from you. You were a prisoner stuck in a cave in the desert and you built that suit from scraps.”
“And you think that suit is what makes you a hero? No, Tony Stark has been a hero long before he was Iron Man,” Steve says, turning Tony’s head towards him so he can look into his eyes.
There are tears pooling in them and Steve cups Tony’s cheek to rub his thumb across the salt that spills there.
“Steve — you, that’s not, that's not fair. You can’t just say that,” Tony says, a little breathless as he stares at Steve.
“Why the hell not? It’s the truth,” and Steve hasn’t really finished that sentence before he has an armful of Tony Stark, face tucked into the crook of Steve’s neck.
“Thank you for being here,” Tony says, and Steve refuses to physically react to the feeling of Tony’s lips moving against his skin.
He rubs his hands along his back comfortingly and tells him, “Anytime, Tony,” as if he doesn’t mean forever.