Chapter Text
At the Long Beach Airport, Pepper whisks Steve off the plane, away from his teammates, and into a car before he can protest.
"The others – " he starts to say, but she cuts him off so smoothly that he almost doesn't even realize he's been interrupted.
"- have rooms at a hotel that I've arranged." She leans forward slightly to speak to the driver. "Take us to the house, please, Happy."
In the rear-view mirror, Steve catches a glimpse of sunglasses sitting below a furrowed brow. Happy has never matched the nick-name that Tony bestowed upon him, but Steve doesn't need to see his entire face to determine that it's a particularly ironic misnomer right now.
The file, of course, had included how Tony met Happy. The latter had been a down-on-his-luck boxer just fired from his job as a bouncer after bouncing a bad-mannered relative of his boss. Tony had been twenty-five at the time, and, being Tony, had managed to lose his bodyguards while bar-crawling, and then get mugged while drunk. Happy had seen what was happening, charged into the alley, and evened the odds to two-two, then two-zero; Tony had offered him a job on the spot... right before passing out. He'd repeated the offer once he was sober and no longer concussed, though, and Happy had been his driver-slash-bodyguard ever since. When he'd read that, Steve had wondered at it. The one person who ever did him a real favor who wasn't working for him, and Tony immediately offers the guy a job? Well, maybe it was a better response than asking him out on a date – when he did that, the person offering the favor always turned out to have some kind of ulterior motive.
Steve nods to Happy in acknowledgement, and the man tilts his face back down again, so maybe he caught it.
"The timing on this is very tricky," Pepper explains as they drive. "Tony's never going to just let you into his workshop, but if you attempt to apologize anywhere else I guarantee he'll just start sniping at you. The workshop is..." she tilts her head elegantly, "...his space. But if Jarvis or I simply use an override to get in, he won't speak to you then, either."
"Oh," says Steve, because if Tony is still that angry after two weeks, then is there really any chance at all that Steve can makes things right?
"However, he ran out of coffee this afternoon – we organized a shortage. He phoned me a half-hour ago and asked him to bring him some." She nods toward the front of the car, and Steve sees four enormous paper cups in the cup-holders there, the Starbucks logo on their side.
"Won't he know you were in New York?" Steve asks worriedly, because despite everyone telling him that sci-fi movies are a terrible way to get a grip on modern technology, he's come to the conclusion that it's safer to assume that anything that sci-fi thinks can be hacked, Tony can hack.
"I left my actual phone with Happy, and Jarvis was kind enough to rig up a back door to it through a disposable," she says, pulling a sleek phone from her pocket and glancing at it briefly. Steve tries not to wince. He knows how much phones cost – especially ones with touch-screens – and although he's become acclimated to much of the wastefulness of the future, that seems... well, like the sort of luxury that only someone as rich as Tony Stark or Pepper Potts could afford.
"Jarvis will inform Tony that Happy brought me by with coffee," Pepper continues. "Then Happy and I are going to enjoy our coffees, and you are going to bring the other two down to Tony in the lab, and enter in this code." She hands him a slip of paper with a five-digit alphanumeric code on it, and Steve memorizes it in a blink. The serum hadn't done half as much for his mind as it had for his body, but he's always been quick to remember things – a helpful skill for an artist and a saboteur alike.
"Tony may or may not check the security cameras, and if he does, he may or may not decide to accept coffee as a peace offering and allow you in," Pepper finishes crisply. "In the event that he doesn't – " she breaks off, her eyes narrowing that tiny fraction of an inch again as she considers.
"I've never been one to run away, ma'am," Steve says solidly.
She nods serenely. Steve has no idea if this is because she approves of his answer or because she's already resigned herself to his failure. He's pretty sure that she's hoping he'll succeed, however, because Pepper Potts is not the sort of woman who would go to all this trouble in the hopes that he would fail; such pettiness is beneath her.
The remainder of the car ride is spent in silence. Steve rehearses his apology in his head again. There are a couple of variants on it – despite how much confidence he's tried to project, he's reminded of the way he'd called Tony pathetic: Tony, who had spent three months in a freezing cave, been tortured by terrorists and watched the man who'd saved his life die. The memory of Erskine's last words bubbles back up in his mind – "Not just a soldier, but a good man." And Steve has never, ever wanted to be a bully.
But this apology is not about Steve, or making himself feel better. It's about Tony, and trying to do something – anything – to ease the shaking in his hands.
The driveway up to Tony's mansion is... impressive. It's also a bit daunting, driving that close to the cliffs. Steve would be fervently hoping that Tony never drives drunk, except the file has already informed him that Tony occasionally does. Never on public roads, and never with anyone else in the vehicle, but occasionally he'll drive up and down his driveway in one of his custom-modded cars, speeding around the curves and whooping every time he scrapes the rail. Steve glances over the side as the car cruises along, carefully guided by Happy, and promises himself that he'll make sure one of the team is always available to intercept Tony should he ever attempt to do that in the future.
At the house, there's a second gate, to compliment the one back at the beginning of the driveway. This one requires retinal scans of all of the people in the vehicle, instead of only the driver, and Steve thinks over the house defences listed in the file. SHIELD breaches them often and easily enough, but the file speculates that SHIELD personnel are, in fact, on a ‘non-lethal response' list - much as Tony is on a similar SHIELD list - and advises that new or unregistered agents not attempt to breach the perimeter without further scouting.
The truth of the matter is that it's impossible to fortify any place or database so that it can never be breached - unless you're willing to kill all comers. Nick, knowing that Tony will be Tony, attempts to keep him alive, in his own way. And Steve's pretty sure Tony wouldn't kill anyone. But then again, the summary at the end of the file had noted that Tony still designs WMDs for a lark in his meagre spare time, so...
The house itself is stunning. Steve can't help but gawk; it is elegance and space and light. The Tower has Tony's fingerprints all over it – literally – but this place was clearly done by somebody else... except for the rough hole in the floor of one of the front rooms with cabling dropping down into it; Pepper follows his gaze, and says casually, "That's for the particle accelerator." She sounds a bit resigned; Steve supposes it does ruin the decor.
Before two weeks ago, Steve would have no idea what a particle accelerator was. Even though he's gotten pretty caught up on modern technology, the cutting edge of science is still far beyond him – and he thinks it always will be. He was hardly a scientist before the ice, after all, and it's progressed so much farther in the time since, it's boggling – and amazing, really, everything that has been accomplished. Even if there are no jetpacks. But now Steve does know what a particle accelerator is, and he could pick up enough tone in that particular report to know that the scientist writing it was awed at somebody who personally built a particle accelerator in his basement on a moment's notice.
Pepper takes her coffee firmly and stands beside Happy, who still has that frown fixed on his face. "Down those stairs," she indicates, when Steve just stands there awkwardly, holding Tony's two coffees and unsure of where to go. "His lab is on the very bottom floor. It's the only door available."
Steve nods and takes a deep breath. "Thank you," he says sincerely.
"You're welcome," she replies serenely, but as he begins to turn away, she adds, "And captain? Good luck." It's the first time since she picked him up that her words haven't been coated in thick layer of professionalism, and Steve lets it bolster him.
"Thanks," he says again, no less sincerely but a bit less formally. Then he starts down the stairs.
They end at a long glass wall, through which Steve can see Tony sitting at a massive workstation. Just like in Stark Tower, all of the desks are rotated to grant line of sight to both the door and the garage entrance, but Tony doesn't look up or give any other indication that he's aware of Steve's presence. Steve makes it about fifty-fifty odds that Tony is merely feigning ignorance. Thanks to Pepper, though, a lack of acknowledgement actually gives him a better shot that he'll be able to get in, so he goes over to the door, juggling the coffees until he has a finger free to poke at the keypad. The door slides open, perfectly silent: success. Either Tony really didn't notice him, or he's willing to accept the olive branch of coffee rather than locking the entire place down. Steve hopes it's the latter.
Inside, the workshop is quiet. "Potts mentions that since his return from Afghanistan Stark no longer has loud music playing in his lab while he is working. Previously he had stated that he worked best while having enough noise to drown out any distraction." That note in the file had been from Coulson, with an added reference underneath that Tony's preference for loud music dated all the way back to MIT. The note had reports from two different psychologists appended to it, discussing the various possible reasons and implications for the change. Steve wonders if it's maybe just as simple as Tony getting used to the silence – although he hadn't gotten used to the cold...
Whatever the reason, the lack of background noise means that Tony can't easily ignore Steve's entrance, and apparently he's not up to trying. "Pepper gave you a security code?" he says, rolling his chair back a bit from the desk and making a gesture at the monitors that Steve knows means his work will be saved and closed. "That – that's Pepper's code, that is not cool, you do not give out passwords and access codes to non-authorized personnel, or even authorized personnel, every authorized personnel gets their own access code, this is a security breach, this is how security breaches are made," he insists, not pausing for breath.
Steve crosses over to the desk and puts the pair of coffees down, within easy reach, before backing off.
("Although his dislike of being handed things was initially an attempt at compensating for his compromised immune system during the palladium poisoning incident, it has now fully developed into a minor phobia. As Stark's immune system has still not fully recovered, and may remain depressed for the rest of his life (Section 142.3), unless the phobia significantly worsens no intervention is recommended," Natasha had written.)
Tony meets Steve's eyes throughout his entire monologue, doesn't even look away as he reaches for the coffee, until Steve has to make himself look away, look at his shoes, despite his training telling him no, don't give in, don't flinch first and his stubbornness backing it up all the way. But while the file has been flitting around in his head for two weeks and has had time to sink in, he hasn't had time to start seeing past it again, and just talking to Tony, his friend, as he normally would. Right now he's remembering the part of the file dedicated to analyzing four-year-old Tony's social skills. His parents (or rather, their butler) had taken him to a psychiatrist shortly before his birthday because, although Tony could build a circuit board, he never looked anybody in the eyes. Later on he'd been trained out of it, but Natasha noted from her report on working with him that, "Eye contact is very important for him. He maintains actual eye contact when he is comfortable with a person; in all other situations, he instead stares at the bridge of his target's nose. Spotting the difference is difficult."
Steve had always been taught that you looked somebody in the eye to be honest. But the eye-contact thing was dwelled upon in the report; one psychiatrist was convinced that it was because Tony fell somewhere on the autism spectrum, another thought it might be due to the neglect he was faced with in early childhood. The ones that cited adult causes – guilt over lives taken – were not considered particularly seriously by the people in charge of the file.
Even Natasha had written a full paragraph about it in her summary of How To Manage Tony Stark. "Except with persons whom he is comfortable with (Potts, Rhodes, Hogan), prolonged eye contact makes Stark nervous, as does too much avoided eye contact. As Stark is rarely allowed to stay in his exceptionally narrow comfort zone in this regard, when he only has to deal with limited eye contact he becomes considerably more tractable. Unfortunately the range has doubtlessly narrowed further due to his petulance over this report. Unless familiar with Stark, agents should be aware of how eye contact influences his mood, but not attempt to make use of this method."
When Steve looks back, Tony has his face buried in one of the coffee cups, his hands clutched around it like it's the Holy Grail. It has to be uncomfortably hot, but he chugs it without pausing to breathe, his Adam's apple bobbing as he gulps it down; he finishes it in less than half a minute and takes a gasping breath, already talking again on the exhale: "Okay, I forgive you, and you too, Jarvis, there can be security breaches for coffee, because coffee is sacred, but make a note because this is not the type of shit that you should be allowing on a regular basis – I'm serious, this sort of bad practice is how systems are compromised, ninety-nine percent of the time. Jesus, I hate having to correct Pepper, it makes me feel like the world's been turned upside down. There's just something wrong about that." He picks up the other coffee, but doesn't drink it, instead just staring down at it for a bit before his eyes flick up to meet Steve's.
Or, no, not entirely, Steve realizes: he's using his trick. Lacking Natasha's lifetime of training in how to read others, Steve wouldn't be able to tell if he weren't forewarned and blessed with serum-enhanced eyesight. How many other times had he thought Tony was looking him in the eye, when really the other man was avoiding doing just that? Had Tony ever actually been comfortable with him before – would he ever be again?
Well, here's Steve's shot at securing that chance. He takes a deep breath. "I owe you an apology."
Tony raises his eyebrows and leans back in his chair, the picture of carelessness as he doesn't quite meet Steve's eyes again. "You owe me an apology?" he asks incredulously. "I know I have a tendency to Stockholm everybody in my vicinity into insanity, but this is a bit further down the road than people usually get, other than the more stalker-y of my adoring fans – not something I expected you to fall to, although I guess you did come, uh, preloaded with existing issues – clearly – "
His eyes present a front of innocence covering a darker cruelty, and the only thing that's off in the guise is the direction of his gaze – and that by only the barest fraction of an angle. When on the defensive, Tony's mask is prone to slip – which is why he likes going on the attack, where it's damn near perfect. But Steve wasn't expecting him to attack like this (which is doubtless why he's doing it), and all his careful, rehearsed apologies are going to require some frantic improvisation. He's not sure whether he should be cutting Tony off or letting him finish his rant, and hesitation means he chooses the latter. But maybe that's the wrong thing to do, because Tony just charges into the breach, pulling up new weapons just like the Iron Man suit always pops new armaments out of the shoulders, forearms, legs, hands, everywhere –
" – I mean, I knew that, but I make no apologies, I'm an engineer, I like testing to destruction. Destruction is fun – and it's the only way to really learn a thing, go through all the depths and all that shit. I mean, I wasn't expecting you to be quite that, uh, frail, but hey, it's a weak spot, clearly identified, one of your biggest – and maybe it'll get SHIELD to sit up and fix you, or something, I'm sure they've got head-shrinks for that. God knows that if Loki had actually used ice you'd have been fucked – well, not that you were all that much use against Loki anyway, until he had an army to play with, but if that had been an army of frost-giants... well, Thor noted how much they liked to freeze people. Just think, you could be a capsicle for another seventy years – we could stick you up in Times Square, let you watch life pass you by properly this time..." he trails off suggestively. His eyes are clear and easy and his smile is friendly.
Steve is torn between snapping back, rolling his eyes, and hunching in on himself and wilting. The first is the reaction to Tony's increased cruelty, because of course, it hurts – when he wakes up sometimes he's not sure what year it is not because he thinks he's in the past, but because he's convinced he's in the future, waking up once again to an entirely new world and leaving all his friends dead behind him. But Tony's attack is weak, coming after two weeks of running away and shutting himself up in his lab – does he really think Steve'll buy it? He must be desperate, and Steve wonders how much Tony is lying to him, and how much Tony is lying to himself. Pepper had said he'd showered yesterday, but how much sleep has Tony had in the past few weeks? Malibu should have been a safe haven for him, but Steve had wrecked that, and that makes him feel worse than any of Tony's words.
So instead of letting any of his initial three reactions show – or at least, letting them show entirely; Steve's not as adept at lying as Tony is, not by a long shot – Steve just looks back at him calmly. "Clint let us know you don't like the cold."
That gets him more raised eyebrows. "Uh-huh? I'm fine with the cold, Steve. Ask Bruce – God knows he complained enough every time I turned down the thermostat in the lab."
"And he explained that caves get pretty cold."
Tony rolls his eyes, the picture of an arrogant man fed up with everyone else around him being an idiot. "Look, Afghanistan was Afghanistan, and – well, it sucked, but some of us have learned to put our issues behind us, Steve," he says, leaning forward, and now he's definitely lying to himself as well, Steve is sure. "And if you can't get a handle on your own – if you're projecting them onto me now? – then maybe you shouldn't be leading the team."
Does Tony realize how much of himself he gave away with that? Steve wonders. He's so obviously trying to pick a fight, he's showing his hand. Maybe if Steve had let himself get pissed off by the opening salvos, he wouldn't notice it now.
"And seriously, why are you relying on Clint? The widow-maker off on assignment elsewhere? Because I don't know if you've noticed, but Barton? Not the smartest tool in the shed. Possibly a bit too much ‘cognitive recalibration' done on that one."
Letting Tony rant a bit isn't working, Steve realizes – he's just working himself up more, with every passing moment that Steve doesn't retaliate, starting to pull out the nastiest tools in his arsenal. Steve can't even remonstrate him for being unable to trust that his teammate won't hone in on Tony's own weak spots because – well, Steve had. All he can try to do now is patch up the situation; they can work on how to fight – how to properly fight, without ripping into each other – later. "Tony," he says firmly, and Tony tilts his head to the side and looks back at him, so uncaring. "What I said to you was undeserved. You are one of the most amazing, remarkable, selfless men I know."
Tony stares at him in disbelief.
"You're not cruel, you're not petty – "
" – uh, about a thousand models would disagree with you there, even if you didn't hear any of what I just said – " Tony interrupts, but Steve just keeps talking right over top of him. Because sure, everything Tony has said in the past five minutes has been cruel and petty, but cruelty and pettiness is not why he said it. Steve is sure of that. The bags under Tony's eyes are too dark.
" – and I should have known better than to think for one instant you were trying to be. You are a good man. What I said was stupid – "
" – no surprises there, Rogers, a lot of what you say is – " and that does make Steve want to roll his eyes at him, because it's the weakest offense he's managed to launch yet.
" – and so was letting myself think it, even for an instant. Tony," he pauses, waits until he's sure that Tony isn't going to interrupt him again, "not liking the cold doesn't make either of us weak."
The silence that follows is only interrupted by Tony absently drumming the fingers of his left hand against the arc reactor. Steve wonders if he's doing that on purpose, if he's aware he's doing it at all – it doesn't look like he is, but, well, Tony does love his misdirection. Steve wonders if this is supposed to signal the end of Tony's attempts to misdirect away from his own issues, or if Tony is merely gearing up for another round.
"I'm sorry," Tony says abruptly.
"For being an idiot who can't accept an apology?" It's a weak joke.
"You don't owe me an apology, you've never owed me any – look, I made my bed, I'm content to lie in it – "
"You didn't do anything to deserve what I said," Steve protests. He'd been able to cut off Tony's self-flagellation before, but Tony's more intent this time, determined to cast himself as the villain in retrospect, if he can't secure the position here and now. Steve can practically see him mentally switching tactics; he's on the defensive, now.
" – God knows I've trolled you and everyone else plenty of times before – "
" – but never like that," Steve interrupts, because if he lets Tony keep talking then this is going to go the exact same way as it had the last time Steve had attempted to apologize for anything, and this time Steve is determined not to let him go on thinking he'd earned it, somehow. "You know where our lines are and you're careful never to cross them, Tony, and that I let myself think you would was – "
" – you had a lot on your mind, okay? It'd been a tough couple of weeks – "
" – not acceptable. Tony."
"Steve," Tony says right back, mimicking his tone perfectly. "It was a perfectly rational assumption to make, given my past behaviour. So. I'm apologizing. For that past behaviour."
"It was a stupid and wrong assumption, is what it was. You're one of the best men I've ever known."
Tony smirks. "Careful, Cap," he says teasingly, perfectly normal except for how he still isn't actually meeting Steve's eyes. "I already need a half-dozen or so mansions besides the Tower to store my ego in, you wouldn't want it getting any larger."
"Look." Steve buries his face in his hands, lets his exasperation show. "I was the one who fucked up, okay? Me and Bruce and Natasha – "
" – that I find hard to believe, but then, hey, Captain America just swore," he hears Tony mutter, and Steve lifts his head to give him a stern look.
"I owe you an apology. Will you just. Accept it?" he lets pleading slip into his voice.
"Fine," Tony says, rolling his eyes. He scoots his chair forward and gestures at his screens, which start lighting up again. "Whatever floats your boat – "
"Tony," Steve says again. He waits until Tony glances in his direction again before pouring all the sincerity he can into his words, even if it makes him look over-the-top sincere, because Tony seems determined to dismiss everything, and Steve is running out of ideas on how to get this through his head. When he catches his eye – only for an instant, before Tony's gaze slide-slips to the center of his forehead again – Tony swallows.
"You are a good man, and a hero. And the cold – or, the water – " Tony doesn't quite flinch, and Steve regrets bringing it up, wondering if he's gone too far, but there's no taking it back now, " – and whatever you may think of them does not make you anything less. You weren't being cruel, and I'm sorry I thought you might be, because I. Was. Wrong."
Tony stares back at him for what feels like an age. Steve's internal chronometer disagrees with this assessment, but tells him that it is a good full minute. Finally Tony exhales, just the slightest bit shakily. "Okay," he says quietly – just that, and nothing more. No qualifiers. Finally.
Steve can't stop from smiling in relief. "Not everything's your fault, you know. You don't get to hog all the blame."
Maybe that's the wrong thing to say; Tony gives a half-hearted shrug and looks back at his screens. "Lack of blame implies a lack of control, Captain, and that's just unacceptable."
It's such a close paraphrase to what Natasha had written in her closing report from her stint as Natalie Rushman that Steve finds himself blinking; he'd been remembering that quote just a moment before. Tony looks up quickly and catches his expression, smirking in satisfaction. "So you did read it."
"Last week," Steve admits. "Before that I'd only seen the, uh, short version."
"You can say ‘hacked', Steve, I won't take offense," Tony says, and something in Steve's chest unknots, because even if Tony won't meet his eyes dead-on, his tone no longer has that hard edge to it, warning that Tony's about to go for his throat. Almost two months of friction between them and then two more weeks of silence isn't going to be fixed in a single conversation, but Steve hasn't screwed this up. There's something to build on.
And if they're all going to be moving to Malibu, then there will be time to build. The thought makes Steve look away awkwardly, something that doesn't escape Tony's attention; out of the corner of his eye he sees the other man's gaze sharpen with curiosity. But he hasn't planned for that conversation, and it's only now he realizes that it's because he'd thought he would fail, thought he'd doomed his friendship with Tony. The fact that he hasn't makes him smile. He can do this.
They can work it out.
-
A few days later, Steve and Clint are sitting out on the deck – one of the decks – sharing a cooler of beers, when Tony comes out. He looks pale and wan in the bright sunlight – which makes entirely too much sense given how often he locks himself in the lab; too much of his public appearance is carefully applied makeup. Clint looks at Steve with a raised eyebrow, and he gives a tiny nod back; when Clint relaxes into his chair and tosses Tony a beer, Steve knows that they are in agreement: We need to start dragging him out of his lab regularly again. Steve makes plans to enlist Bruce – whom, he knows, has taken to doing his morning meditation out here, listening to the waves crash against the cliffs.
Yesterday, he wouldn't have considered making such plans, not with Tony still stand-offish. But this morning Jarvis had spoken to Natasha at breakfast for the first time in days - Steve doesn't know when Natasha apologized, but she must have - and now Tony has actually emerged from his lair. Scheming for his own good can recommence.
Tony turns his nose up at the beer and sniffs, muttering something that sounds vaguely like, "Plebeian," under his breath. But he cracks it open anyway and collapses into one of the reclined chairs, his limbs sprawling everywhere (though he manages not to spill his beer).
The beer was a suggestion of Pepper's, made a couple of months before. On his own Tony drinks a lot of hard alcohol – there was a section in the file about that, too, with enough data on just how much and enough speculation about the whys that Steve now isn't certain that they shouldn't be keeping all alcohol away from Tony. But in social situations where he's comfortable – which translates roughly to only with the Avengers, Pepper, or sometimes Rhodey – he'll drink lighter stuff if he's offered some– and he won't head over to the liquor cabinet on his own afterward. Steve still has his doubts – but he has to admit that in the months they'd been living at the Tower, Tony had been drinking frequently, but during the summer at least he'd refrained from the excesses that Steve had seen plastered all over the tabloids.
They sit in comfortable silence for a while, soaking up the rays of the sun. After a while, Tony sits up and peels off his shirts – he was wearing multiple layers, again.
"So, you've lost at least fifteen pounds," Clint says to him.
Tony shrugs drowsily. "It happens. I'll pig out for the next few weeks and gain it back."
"Weight cycling isn't good for you, man," Clint shakes his head, but Tony just flaps a hand at him.
"If you fall asleep like that, you're going to get sunburned," Steve observes.
That earns him a one-eyed glare – since Tony apparently can't be bothered to open his left eye to even the minute amount that he opens the right. With his hair all dishevelled, he reminds Steve of the stray calico cat that lived around his apartment in Brooklyn the summer of '38. He'd practiced drawing it many times, since once it had curled up in a sunbeam it was content to stay there for hours, and fed it scraps of food in return, when he had enough to spare – which wasn't often, but a little fella like him hadn't needed as much food as bigger guys.
"Why did I invite you to come live here, anyway?" Tony grouses. "Oh, right, I didn't. You just all showed up here and started nanny-ing me." There's a layer of fondness very badly hidden behind his half-hearted irritation, but Steve refrains from laughing at him, because Tony looks like he might actually fall asleep right there and Steve doesn't want to give him a reason to get properly indignant and wake up fully. Tony needs all the sleep he's willing to get, and then some.
Instead, Steve puts aside his beer and gets up to fetch one of the umbrellas and a heavy base to keep it in place. The breeze off of the ocean is constant and pleasantly cool, although it does make sketching a bit difficult at times. He might ask Tony about putting up one of the invisible wind-deflectors on this deck, like he has around the top of Stark Tower – but later.
By the time the umbrella is fully up, Tony's asleep. Steve returns to his own chair in silence, sipping his beer and closing his eyes. The warmth of the Malibu sun seeps through his skin and into his bones.