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“Mr. Stark?”
Tony looked up from the expenditures report he had been reading with half-glazed eyes and saw his favorite spangled Avenger hovering in the doorway. Instead of the scale and leather, today Steve wore a simple t-shirt and slacks.
“Cap,” he gestured for the Avengers chairman to come in and and make himself at home in the office. “What can I do for you?”
While not unpleasant, the visit was unexpected. The two men were thick as thieves in uniform, but Steve still didn’t know that it was Tony beneath the red and gold armor. They had a friendly acquaintance, but Steve rarely sought out Tony in civilian guise.
One of Steve’s hands came up to the back of his neck and rubbed self-consciously. “I was, uh, hoping to call in a favor.”
It took a few moments for Tony to search through his mental index for the favor in question. Oh yes, the hand-to-hand combat training. Tony’s mouth quirked. It was a fond memory, even if the circumstances surrounding it had been sad.
“Of course.” Honestly, how could he possibly refuse Steve anything? He asked for so little; it was a joy whenever there was something he actually admitted to wanting. “Ask and ye shall receive, Cap.”
Some of the tension went out of Steve’s shoulders at Tony’s good mood. “Thank you, Tony. I wouldn’t ask, it’s just--you’ve always been great at the press conferences, and I thought that out of all of us, you probably know him the best…”
As Steve fumbled over his own words, a creeping suspicion began to choke out Tony’s cheerfulness. “Slow down, Cap. What exactly do you want me to do?”
“I--” Steve turned pink. “I was hoping you might be able to help me tell Iron Man how I feel about him. I’ve been trying to put it all down on paper, but I keep getting stuck.”
Oh, dear. This was going to be awful.
“If it’s not against SI protocol,” Steve added hastily.
Meddling with an employee’s love life? Even if it was himself? It probably was. But Steve looked at him with earnest blue eyes, so full of determination, and Tony couldn’t tell him no.
“Can do,” he said, reaching for a pen and a piece of stationary. Then, “So, where did you get stuck?”
“Well, I wanted to tell him all the things I admired in him, but it just turned into a list.” Steve pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and slide it across the desk. Tony scanned it, and hoped his ears hadn’t turned red.
He steeled himself, reminded that this was Iron Man Steve had in mind, and for whom he was supposed to be teasing the feelings out of Steve’s heart. Not Tony Stark. Divorcing himself from the problem at hand like that helped.
And, after a fashion, Tony settled into his role. While it wouldn’t have been his first choice for spending time with Steve, Tony even found himself enjoying the opportunity to be candid with Steve, sans the armor.
#
On one of the nights that Tony stayed at Avengers Mansion, he heard a pebble crack against the glass of his bedroom window.
Here we go, he thought. Since the letter that he had helped Steve pen hadn’t shown up yet in his Iron Man mailbox, he could guess well enough what was coming next. It was a pleasant surprise to find that Steve was something of a romantic, bent on making moonlit confessions of love.
But as Tony pushed open the window, letting the coolness of night and the chirping of crickets roll into the room, he saw no darkened shape on the lawn below. He waited several minutes, but heard nothing more. Maybe it was a bird. Or maybe he had imagined it, Tony thought, dimly disappointed as he drew the curtains.
#
“I lost my nerve,” Steve admitted several days later, back in Tony’s office. It took every ounce of self control that Tony had not to shout, I knew it!
“Sorry to hear that, Cap.”
“I know it’s asking a lot, but--could you be there next time?”
This struck Tony as an odd request. “What do you need me there for?”
Steve shifted uncomfortably in the chair. “I started to think--what if he hates that it’s a canned speech? What if he says something and I don’t know how to answer?”
“Steve. He’ll love anything that comes from you. I swear it.”
“But I want it to be perfect.”
You could make the telephone book perfect just by reading it aloud, Tony didn’t say. Instead, powerless to say no, he nodded. “Okay. What day did you have in mind?”
#
“If you laugh at him--” Tony let the threat dangle in the air.
“I think it’s finally out of my system,” Rhodey said, pulling on a red gauntlet. “But of all the reasons to put this thing back on…” He flexed his fingers, and chuckled.
“Rhodey!”
“Last one, I swear.”
Tony took a deep breath and peeked between the curtains to see if Steve was down on the lawn yet.
“I don’t get it, though, Tones.” Rhodey fitted the Iron Man helmet over his head, and the timbre of his baritone voice morphed into electronic notes. “If you like the guy, why go through this farce of helping him pour his heart out to you? Why not just tell him your secret identity? You’ve known him for years, and it’s not like you don’t trust him…”
Tony stared into the impassive gold and red faceplate. His own features were reflected crudely and distorted by the the sculpt of the metal, and he knew the answer.
Deep down, not even Tony Stark liked Tony Stark. Why should he expect different from anyone else? Especially Captain America.
No. As Tony, he could be satisfied with Steve’s casual friendliness. He could be satisfied with a garden of weeds, so long as Iron Man had flowers.
“I don’t think it would be a good idea.”
God , the faceplate looked judgemental when the wearer stayed silent. No wonder Steve had had trouble drumming up the courage to have a heart to heart.
Tony glanced at his watch and saw that it was time to make his exit. “Thanks again, Rhodey. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
Rhodey shot him a salute. “ ‘Course, boss.”
#
It was probably the height of arrogance, helping Steve woo himself. But what could Tony do? Steve was right, there was no one else who knew the Golden Avenger better.
Tony took up position beneath the window as Steve readied his pebble. And when the glass panes creaked open, it was something of an out of body experience to see the armor lean out over the sill and hear the electronic voice ask, “Who’s there?”
Steve’s huge swallow was practically audible. And as strange a situation as it was, Tony was almost happy to be here to see this. The Steve that routinely faced down aliens and superpowered criminals never showed anything remotely like this kind of fear. It was a new side of him that Tony had never seen before.
Steve didn’t answer the question, instead focusing his gaze on the sheet with Tony’s neat handwriting.
“Iron Man, I long to speak to you face to face,” Steve said, his deep voice floating upwards in the night air. “I know it isn’t possible, but when I’m talking to the mask, I can’t help wondering what your expression must be like underneath. Do you smile at my puns? Roll your eyes? I’ve depended so much over the years on your turn of phrase and the inflection of your voice to see where my eyes can’t. And I think for that, I’ve grown to know you better.
I want for you to know me in kind…”
And as Steve poured his heart out with the words Tony had helped write down, Tony couldn’t even enjoy it. All Tony could think was, Rhodey is never going to let me live this down.
But it was fine. Things were even going well, until Steve reached the end.
“I don’t know what to say, Cap,” Rhodey said, “except that I’m pleasantly surprised. Would you like to discuss it further over dinner next week?”
Wha-- Tony’s thought process short circuited. That was not in the script. Rhodey was supposed to be bashful and hide behind concern about what a relationship between them would mean for the team. He’d known Rhodey didn’t approve of the excuse, but he hadn’t expected this...
Steve’s eyes got huge and he looked at Tony. Neither of them had been prepared for this, it seemed.
I can’t answer that for you, Tony mouthed. This was a herculean effort as his brain had assumed the consistency of Silly Putty, and had twisted and contorted itself to keep Tony from assuming the more rational explanation, which was that he was hallucinating.
Steve looked so happy though...
Which is how Tony found himself sipping a shake through the helmet the following Tuesday, and how he wound up in a relationship with someone who didn’t even know his first name.
#
It probably said a lot about Tony that his lack of clothing wasn’t as embarrassing as his lack of mask.
In Tony’s defense, it wasn’t every day that the armor was disintegrated and one’s boyfriend found out one’s super secret identity --or that sometimes all he wore under the armor was a red thong.
When they found Molecule Man Tony was going to kill him. Probably not literally. But maybe.
Steve stared at him, all of him , and it really wouldn’t have been Tony’s first choice for an unmasking. But there they were. Steve was smiling. That had to be a good sign, right? It was either that, or he was keeping up appearances for the others. “Tony Stark...You’re--?”
“Iron Man! Right, Cap!” Boy he hoped his...everything...wasn’t red with embarrassment. “I feel a little foolish about keeping that secret from you till now!”
Steve clapped him on the back with a look that said they’d talk about this more later, before turning to another friendly face. “Dr. Don Blake--you are Thor?”
#
As they all waited for the authorities to arrive at the castle and take Molecule Man away, Steve drew Tony off to the side with a stern look set on his face.
“I don’t understand it, Tony.”
Tony tensed. This was a dramatic departure from the smile Steve had worn earlier when he’d first seen Tony. Maybe it had all been for the benefit of others, but he wasn’t used to Steve putting on a show.
“How could you propose murdering someone as a viable solution?”
Tony blinked.
Oh.
If it was possible to feel even worse about the whole day, there it was. He’d just assumed Steve had meant his deception.
“I’m sorry, Cap. I never imagined we’d be able to talk Molecule Man down.” He hung his head. “We’re lucky we had Tigra with us.”
“Yes, we were. But even if we hadn’t, I don’t think you could have actually gone through with it.” He felt Steve’s touch on his arm, a solid and comforting presence.
“Thanks, Steve.” He remembered how adamantly Steve and the other Avengers had stood by him after Justin Hammer hijacked his armor to murder an ambassador. The memory was followed by a sharp pang--the sort he hadn’t felt since he’d left the old chestplate behind. “That means a lot.”
He looked up to find Steve half-smiling.
“What?”
“It’s just...different, without the helmet--not having to guess anymore.”
“I should apologize for that too.”
“We can talk about it later.” Steve shrugged.
But Tony couldn’t help seeing disappointment in the gesture. At him. At the whole situation. Maybe Rhodey had been right, he probably should have just been honest from the moment Steve turned up in his office doorway. Would things be too awkward between them now? Did Steve think Tony had played him for a fool? And if so, would he ever be able to forgive Tony?
Tony wasn’t sure he could wait to have this discussion--too many ifs and maybes boiling in his mind, liable to drive him mad. As Steve turned to go, Tony caught him by the hand.
“Are you mad?” he asked, point blank. The question had been burning in the back of his mind since Steve had first laid eyes on him. How could he not be? “About...about who I am? And that I didn’t tell you--”
Steve’s eyes softened as he cut Tony off. “No, Tony. I understand the headaches of having a secret identity. If anything it should be you mad at me for putting you in that situation. Boy, helping me write that letter must have been frustrating.”
Tony gaped at him. “I could never be mad at you.”
“Oh good.” Steve pulled Tony close in his arms, hesitating for a moment, locking them eye to eye, then lip to lip. It was a wonderful impulse that left Tony light-headed and giddy.
When Steve drew back, he seemed just as euphoric. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do that. Ever since that night you asked me on a date...” Then he frowned. “Wait a second...if you were there with me that night under the window, who was in the armor?” The implicit question there was, Who asked me out on a date for you?
Tony laughed. “That was Rhodey. I told him not to do anything I wouldn’t, and he really hammed it up.”
“Oh.” A mischievous glint lit in Steve’s eyes. “In that case, I think I owe him a thank you letter. Want to help me write it?”
Tony made a point of rolling his eyes. Maybe Steve would come to miss the helmet where Tony's reactions were concerned. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it, though. "Sure. Anything for you, Steve."