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Steve is in the kitchen, and there are pancakes and coffee on the counter when Tony finally drags himself out of bed after a late evening of tinkering. He may be getting too old for all-nighters, but then again, old habits die hard. The Avengers had their own engineers - kids these days seemed to come out of the cradle coding - but you couldn't replace good-ol' practical experience. Tony had built things that hardly seem physically possible, and after years of that, it was hard to find a project he couldn’t work through. Now that he was retired, he offered to churn out some tactical-suit upgrades every so often. He shoots a quick email to Dani Cage to let her know that he was ready for her to swing by, and then gets up to open the kitchen window.
If someone had told Tony thirty years ago that he would be living out his golden years in an apartment in Brooklyn, he would have laughed in their faces.
He and Steve had lived in the Tower for a while, even after he'd officially retired from the Avengers. It was fine when he was younger, but after a while he had to admit that he needed a change. He was getting too old to fight supervillians day-in and day-out, even with the suit, and living with the Avengers, the temptation to join in and lend a helping hand was always there. Steve was in a similar predicament. He hadn't led the Avengers for years: that job had fallen to Danielle Cage, as had the title of Captain America. Despite this, Tony had seen Steve struggle with the transition with Steve still in the tower, not because he was reluctant to let go, but because the rest of the Avengers were. He was the original Captain America after all, and it was always a standard to live up to. He’d wanted to give Dani the space to lead the Avengers her way, without feeling like he was looking over her shoulder, or that her people were looking to him.
So the older Avengers had moved out, the kids took over, and the Avengers were stronger than ever.
Steve moved back to Brooklyn, and Tony moved uptown to one of his penthouses. They met up regularly for lunch, or bagels and coffee, and marveled at how long they'd managed to go without having their apartments blown up by the supervillain of the week.
(In retrospect, that was tempting fate a little more than was wise.)
When an incident with a particularly bitter Cabal of Synthezoids left Tony with a brand new skylight and millions of dollars in damages, he’d known he would need to relocate for the repairs. He would be upset if he weren't so damn used to it, but he's pushing into his sixties at this point, and he's seem much worse and for much pettier reasons. Steve offered him a place to stay during renovations, and Tony was loath to turn him down despite the fact that he had plenty of empty properties of his own that would be more than accomadating. According to Steve it was only right - after all those years of putting Steve up, the least he could do was return the favor.
Steve's place wasn’t small, but it was fairly plain. He set Tony up in a Spartan spare bedroom (which Tony immediately set to decorating) and told him to stay as long as he needed to. It was a little cramped, between Steve's studio space and Tony's workshop, but it felt lived in in a way that Tony’s carefully-decorated apartments never did, and Tony found that he’d missed the clutter without realizing it.
Steve’s workspace was particularly disastrous, but Tony only looked on it with fondness. Once upon a time Steve had used a standing easel, but he'd graduated to a desk setup a few years ago. Steve may be a supersoldier, but he was still human. It's a part of aging, for things to work a little less efficiently than they did in their youth. For Tony that meant reading glasses. For Steve, it meant that all those years of jumping from rooftops and planes were starting to catch up with him, and his knees weren’t exactly willing to forgive him for it.
(Steve shrugged it off, but Tony knew privately that it was a huge weight off his shoulders when his doctor told him that this was all a natural part of aging. Steve would never admit it, of course, but the idea of his friends growing old without him had weighed on him for years.)
Tony had never seen a man so excited to be diagnosed with arthritis. They'd set up their desks opposite one another, in the sunny part of the living room, and settled into the space.
Rebuilding was only supposed to take a few months. But then schedules were modified and renovations started to drag on. Furniture was re-arranged, until each room had a little touch of Tony as well as Steve; eventually he started directing his mail to their little Brooklyn apartment, and Tony's old penthouse was replaced with office spaces for the Maria Stark Foundation. Three years later, when they’d started shopping around for a larger apartment, they both had forgotten that this arrangement was ever supposed to be temporary. Steve set up a corner studio for his art, which wouldalways be just a hobby to him, but which had turned quite lucrative after hanging up the mantle of Captain America for good. Tony set up an office of his own for when he couldn’t be bothered to head to his Stark Industries workshop. The spare bedrooms fill and empty at random; it seems someone was always visiting, and between each other and their guests, they never want for excitement, even after hanging up the masks.
Steve squeezes Tony's shoulder to pull his attention away from where he is browsing the news on his tablet. Tony hums in acknowledgement and finishes skimming through his page.
"Elisa asked if she could come by this afternoon," Steve says. "I told her we'd be around."
Elisa Danvers-Maximoff was one of the few nieces-and-nephews who wanted absolutely nothing to do with superheroing. She was a graduate student working towards a Masters in Art History - which, she argued, was far more perilous than fighting supervillains anyway. She’s always loved spending time with Steve, and when she'd asked if she could feature him in her thesis work, Tony hadn't been at all surprised. She comes straight from class, lugging along a backpack that is literally straining at the seams with references for her thesis. Steve smiles fondly and offers to carry it upstairs for her.
Elisa laughs easily and cuts to the bone with her sarcasm, just like her mothers. Tony loves her to death.
“Do you drink coffee?” Tony asks as they make their way inside.
“I’m a graduate student,” Elisa says.
“Espresso, then,” Tony says. He pulls the machine down from the shelf and rummages around for the grinder.
Steve drags some of his old, unfinished canvases out from his studio closet. Some of them are near finished, with only the barest details remaining to be touched up. Others Steve hasn't even begun, blank canvases covered in stark pencil slashes, outlines of shapes and notes. All of these are have titles scrawled from corner to corner, light enough in pencil to eventually be hidden behind layers of oil paint.
Elisa studies these, of all things, with interest. She asks why Steve's written on them like that, and he explains his method: first a concept, sometimes a title, to get his vision for the painting straight. Next sketching in pencil, basic shapes to transfer the layout in his mind to the layout on the canvas. Steve's art is dynamic and full of life. His paintings aren't so much people, or places: they're events, snapshots in time - or so Elisa says. Many of Steve's paintings are like this, immersing the viewer in the scene of the painting, plunging them into battle in Germany, in France, taking them to the streets of New York, where Galactus looms. Steve shrugs and admits he's never thought of them like that. He just paints what he knows. Elisa is the expert, though, and Steve's willing to take her word for it.
"This one is different," Elisa says, plucking one near-finished painting from the pile.
"Ah, yeah. This one was inspired by Tony, actually. I guess you could say I was experimenting," Steve says, looking embarrassed. Tony feels something clench uncomfortably in his chest, when he glances over at his name to see the painting they’re referring to. The embarrassed look on Steve’s face drives a spike into his chest, dread settling uncomfortably, when he realizes what that means.
"What's it called?" she asks.
"I haven't decided yet," Steve says quickly. He shuffles it back into the stack and pulls out another for her to look at, one where the first splotches of paints are just beginning to cover his outlining.
Tony halfheartedly excuses himself to get more coffee. Steve glances up at him as he goes, and Tony offers him a quick smile. It's enough to turn Steve's attention back to Elisa, and Tony slips out the door. Instead of the kitchen, Tony heads to his bedroom. He needs to sit down.
Inspired by Tony. Steve had said it so offhandedly, like it wasn't any big deal. And then he'd lied, so smoothly, without batting an eye. Elisa had asked him for the title of the painting, the way that she had with all the others that were too far completed for her to see the pencil notes underneath. But he had picked a title, Tony had seen it while he was working out the little details of his composition at the kitchen table weeks ago.
Love, Unresolved.
And it was inspired by Tony.
(Fuck).
How long has Steve suspected? Tony knew Steve, god, he'd probably noticed Tony's feelings for him a long time ago and just had never had the heart to turn him down. Had he been making Steve uncomfortable all this time? Tony scours his brain for any hints that Steve had been trying to make him back off. He can't think of any, but then, if Tony is anything it was the Champion of Willful Ignorance. Tony twists the cuffs of his sleeves between his finger, bites down hard on his bottom lip. How long had Steve been resenting him for this?
No. He wouldn’t. Steve was too good to hold something like this against Tony. He was...God, he was the best person in Tony’s life, it was half the reason he’d fallen for him so long ago. No, Steve wouldn’t resent him. If anything, he was probably trying to spare Tony’s feelings, and their friendship, in whatever way he could, but… what if, after all this time, he'd simply never said anything because Tony was paying the rent, and Steve was too damn kind to complain? Jesus, he'd really made a mess of things.
When Tony doesn’t return with the coffee he’d claimed to be fetching Steve doesn't seem to mind his absence, probably assuming he'd been distracted by something and forgotten his original purpose, as often was the case these days. Instead Tony frets in his solitude, listening to the quiet conversations drifting through the hallway. He considers briefly what he will do if Steve admits he wants space once this is all out in the open, and then clamps down on the emotion that thought drags up, deciding he had best not jump the gun.
Elisa packs up her books just before dinner. Tony hears Steve invite her to stay, but she already has plans and he doesn't want to hold her up. Tony meets her in the hallway to say goodbye, and then follows the sound of running water to the kitchen, where Steve is putting a dent in the dishes that had piled up in the sink over the course of the day. Steve glances over his shoulder at him with a small smile, and then does a double-take when he sees Tony's expression. He cranks the faucet closed and turns to dry his hands, looking concerned.
"Can I talk to you?" Tony asks, before he can lose his nerve, and Steve’s frown deepens. He has to ask, because if he doesn't he's going to lose his courage. He doesn't want to leave things unsaid. He's old enough to know that leaving things unsaid has never worked for them. Steve, for his part, can tell that something is wrong. Tony can see the gears turning as he tries to figure out if he's done something wrong. "It's about your painting. The one you told Elisa you hadn't named yet?"
Steve blinks at him, and then it clicks, and his face twists into a mixture of embarrassment and sadness. His expression hits Tony hard, his gut twisting uncomfortably. He hates that he's making Steve look at him like that. "You saw the title," Steve guessed.
"I did," Tony says. "Look, Steve. I just wanted to say that I was sorry."
"You don't have to apologize," Steve says. "This is...it's me, not you. Obviously. I should have asked you, maybe, or something... I didn't mean to make things uncomfortable."
Tony tamps down on the laugh that threatened to bubble out of his throat, not trusting it to stay on this side of hysterical. Of course Steve would take the blame for himself. "I didn't realize I was so obvious," Tony admits. He crosses his arms across his chest, balling his fists in the sleeves of his shirt. Humiliating. This was humiliating. "I guess the least I can do is inspire a painting, huh?"
Steve blinks at him, and then his brows furrowed. He reaches out just far enough to brush Tony's elbow, to get Tony to look at him. His touch feels electric, and Tony resists the urge to flinch away, or maybe lean into him, he can't decide, he's all mixed-up...
"Sit down," Steve says. "Just for a minute."
Tony does as he's told, kicking out one of the dining chairs with his foot. He leans his elbow on the table and watches Steve retreat from the room. The ticking of the old analogue clock above the dishwasher is deafeningly loud in the absence of Steve's retreating footsteps. He resists the urge to pry the batteries out while he waits.
Steve returns with a stack of sketchbooks, some so old they were yellowing, some crisp white and newly opened. Tony watches with wary curiosity as Steve sets them down in front of him.
"I prefer painting," Steve says. Tony nods. He knew that. Steve had always liked working with oils; it was something he couldn't really afford when he was younger, and he loved the textures, the ranges in colors that you couldn't get with pencils, the flexibility of the style. He’d told Tony this a thousand times before. "Sometimes its easier to just pull out a sketchbook, though. Go on. Take a look."
Tony isn't really sure where Steve was going with this, but he reaches out and flipped open the first sketchbook on the stack, turning to a random page in the middle. He turns another page, then another. He switches to another book in the stack and repeated the process. Steve waits patiently. Steve doesn't stop him, doesn't seem to care where he started in the stack, or what page he turned to. They all got the same point across. There was some variety in the sketches: pictures of the Avengers, their kids. Figure drawing practice, different pages dedicated to testing out different styles of lines and shading. And Tony.
Tony, Tony, Tony.
"I don't understand," Tony says. But no, that wasn't true. Steve had a whole stack of sketchbooks here, some yellowing - they had to be years old, his art clearly far improved in the more recent books - and some brand new, all showing Tony in various levels of detail: quick sketches of him in the lab, in the armor. Helmet on, helmet off. Wearing crisp tuxedos and slouchy jeans. Some done with a reference and others with little made-up details, like shirts he didn't own or clothes and hairstyles that he'd never worn together, details that made Tony think they were pulled from memory. There was really only one way to interpret that.
Oh god. There really was only one way to interpret that, wasn't there?
"Steve?" Tony clears his throat and looks Steve in the eye, searchingly. The silence draws thin between them. He feels like a tightly coiled spring, ready to fly apart.
Steve laughs, and Tony couldn't really tell whether he is laughing at Tony, or himself, or both of them. "We're so stupid," Steve says. Tony's hand is balled into a fist on top of the sketchbooks, pinning them in place, and Steve reaches out to cover Tony's hand with his own. He squeezes his hand gently, then works his grip loose so he can tangle their fingers together. "Tony, I had no idea. I thought - God, Tony, I had no idea."
Tony wasn't sure whether he felt like laughing or crying, but his heart felt like it was going to burst, and if it hadn't been for the RT he might have worried about having a heart attack right on the spot. Steve leans forward, eyes darting to Tony's lips, and as much as Tony wants to take that as permission enough to kiss him, he has to ask:
“How many years?”
“Too many,” Steve says. “Too many," and that all the conversation he can bear before he pulls Tony in for a kiss. It's effortless, the way their mouths fit together, the way Steve's lips tug into a smile. His skin is warm and soft, and Steve cups his hands around Tony's face and slides his fingers through the hairs at the nape of his neck. It's everything Tony has dreamed of, only better, because this is real, and he's got the god-damned sappy painting to prove it.
They rest their foreheads against one another and grin, breathing each other’s air, fingers twined together. Tony can't believe his luck, and he's fairly certain if he voices that though that Steve would only agree. They've wasted so much time, but right now Tony can't even bring himself to care, not really, not when he's got Steve here, and Tony loves him, has loved him for years, and Steve loves him, too.
By the time Elisa's thesis is published, all of the paintings she'd mentioned from her interview have long since gone on the market. Steve sets one aside for her, as a gift, a beautiful family gathering in the life of the Avengers. Two others, he puts aside for Tony. Tony would kill him, otherwise.
Two parts of a set: the first a blurry portrait of a man looking away, dark and unfocused. The second much brighter, much clearer; the only portraits he'd painted in decades.
Love, Unresolved.
Love, Resolved.