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As is usually the case, the blame lays at the feet of one Clinton Francis Barton.
(Not really, but that’s Tony’s story and that’s what he’s sticking with.)
Kang is gone, and so are their future children (none of whom belong to Tony, thank God); clean-up is more or less underway, and the Avengers are having a slightly awkward dinner in the Avengers Tower. One minute, Tony’s watching Jess order Peter around so he can be her personal pizza delivery boy, and the next, the ceiling panel breaks in half and a metal safe escapes its clutches to plunge into the embrace of gravity, never mind that it might take the Avenger’s sharpshooter with it on its fall. Tony makes the calculations even as the object accelerates, determines the angle and the force with which it will impact Clint and crush his skull. But Barnes reacts first. He moves before Tony can call his suit and possibly alcohol because he is so sick and tired of his friends dying on him.
The resulting metal on metal clang works better than any alarm clock on the snoring Logan and Thor, who jolt awake and into fighting position. The safe clatters to the floor away from them like a pool ball deflecting from the edge of the table. Barnes shrugs the shoulder of his undamaged metal arm. Clint drops his pizza in alarm. The other Avengers watch with morbid curiosity as he tilts his head at the safe, settled in a deep dent on the floor, then picks up the now dust covered pizza, and takes another bite of it. He chews slowly, and then swallows. “What?”
“Avengers Assemble?!” And then all eyes are on Peter. “Man, I never get to say it!”
“How is this an emergency?” Clint asks.
“Um, you almost died via ceiling safe?”
“Clint almost dying is not an emergency,” Tony replies. His voice is deceptively calm and even considering how badly his fingers are shaking from the need for a bottle of wine. “Have you met this idiot? He eats pizza he’s dropped on the floor – yes, this floor with the questionable slime on it, look he’s still doing it.”
“What about the next time we—”
“Dibs!” Jess calls out, and then stands up. Clint shoves the rest of his pizza in his mouth and follows Jess up. “I’m off to bed, if my bed hasn’t been demolished too.”
“What about the safe thingy?” Peter asks, waving pizza and a free hand in the general direction of the metal box.
“Not my safe, not my problem. Good night boys.”
“Is it yours Tony? What’s in it?”
Tony draws up a blank, as he tends to do about three times a day nowadays. “No idea. Your boyfriend’s calling, by the way.”
“What boyfriend, I don’t have a boyfriend—” Peter follows Tony’s fingers pointing out the broken windows. Fiery letters burn “Usual place!” and a comically round spider-doodle against the night sky. “Excuse me. I have to go kill Johnny Storm.”
And then it’s just Barnes and Tony in an empty living room. Tony suits up. The floors above make up his lab, and there are too many explosive materials up there. So the two of them begin the tedious job of stabilising the floor. They work in silence. Tony makes notes of where the stress is highest, and asks FRIDAY to call construction. She tells him that it’s already been done, and that they’re putting in new fibre optics as well, and thanks Tony for being such a thoughtful boss. Tony rolls his eyes, and flies down to the living room from the giant hole in the ceiling.
“It needs a finger-print,” Barnes says. He’s kneeling on the floor, the safe upright and in front of him.
Tony sighs, his armour hiding within his bones as he comes to sit cross-legged beside Bucky. “Move over.”
“Uhuh. Is it yours?”
“How would I know? I barely remember building this tower, let alone hiding safes in the ceilings.”
“I think you technically put it in the floor of your lab.” Barnes leans back until he is crouching on the floor. “So you want me to leave in case there’s a severed head in here or something?”
“Do I look like someone who would keep a severed head in a safe?”
“Hey, I don’t know you. I don’t know your life.”
“Well, FYI, I wouldn’t keep a severed head in a safe.”
“Okay.”
“That’s what fridges are for,” Tony adds, teasing a small huff out of Barnes. It even sounds a little fond. Tony’s had experience making depressed soldiers laugh; he might as well use his talents for good. He presses his thumb against the fingerprint lock and the door clicks open with multiple beeps reminiscent of R2D2.
“Huh.”
“What.” There are two envelopes inside. He takes them both out and sets them on top of the safe. He calls back his suit to scan them, just in case. One has paper in it; the other seems to have some sort of metal. Nothing toxic, nothing explosive. He opens the letter first. The envelope has his name in Steve’s elegant sprawl. He reads it slowly. I’m trusting you with two things…Save him for me.
Tony looks up, past the star across Barnes’ chest to his perplexed face and rumpled hair. At least he’d done this one thing for Steve. Yours, Steve. It reads. Tony laughs at that. If only. Yours, Steve.
“What’s wrong with you now?” Barnes asks.
“Jury’s still out,” Tony replies. Barnes doesn’t smile this time. He reaches for the letter, but Tony moves it out of Bucky’s reach and holds up the envelope with his name on it. “Last I checked, that’s my name, you Busy-Bucky.”
Barnes rolls his eyes. “Fine, see what’s in the other one.”
There’s a small piece of paper inside the envelope that Tony only notices when he tries to place the letter back in. His fingers touch the old cardboard and he knows what it is the moment his fingers brush against it. An Avengers identicard, back before they had chips and Wi-Fi and eighteen other gadgets inside them. Back when it had been a simple cardboard card with Tony’s signature on it. “That thing looks ancient,” Barnes comments.
“This is Captain America’s very first Avengers identicard. It’s twelve years old, and a piece of garbage.”
“So why do you have it?”
“Beats me,” Tony replies. Amnesia was really coming in handy now, because he’s sure the answer is something pathetic and embarrassing. Tony puts the card back in the envelope and places it in his breast pocket. He opens the second envelope, and nearly drops it. So Barnes grabs it instead, pulling the aluminium chain out of the envelope along with what’s hanging off it.
Tony knows what they are, has seen them around his best friend’s neck for over ten years. He doesn’t need to see the name on the metal to instantly recognise Steve Roger’s dog tags. He locks eyes with Bucky for but a second, and then finds himself fixated on the chain again. There’s something on the chain that he doesn’t remember. It’s a simple vibranium ring, too small for Steve’s fingers.
“A severed head might have been a little less awkward,” Barnes says.
“You’re probably not wrong. Pass these to your bestie, yeah?” Tony gets up. Why does he have it? More importantly, why does he care? Yours, Steve. Since when was Steve his?
“I’m not your messenger. Do it yourself. I’m patrolling with Nat tonight. I’ll talk to you later, and if Hill shows up, tell her I died.”
And with an unceremonious drop of the envelope and its contents into Tony’s lap, Barnes leaves.
Well, fuck.
See the thing is that there is no thing.
Tony and Steve are on the outs. For one, Tony can’t remember any of what he’s done to actually sit down with Steve to talk and shed man-tears. This is why they’d hugged it out, and pretended to move on. It’s why they’re wordlessly agreed that Steve wasn’t looking at Tony like he’d broken his heart or something. For another, Steve’s been avoiding him like he’s got polio and Steve’s still a ninety-pound asthmatic with a compromised immune system. So instead, he takes the envelope, the contents of which were obviously not given to Tony – fuck Barnes and his dumb ideas — shoves it in his pockets, and crashes face-first into the dust-coated sofa.
When he wakes up later in the dead of night, the envelope is still in his pocket. The only positive here is that fact that at least this means he isn’t drunk or delusional. However, it reminds him that it would be much easier to cope if he were drunk.
He sits up and turns the lights on in the living room. FRIDAY must have turned it off. The dog tags are poking him in the thigh so he pulls them out, holding them gingerly in his palms. What in the world are they doing with him? If anything, he’d have thought Sharon Carter would have gotten them, or, possibly Sam Wilson. But Tony? He’d read the news, he’s seen footage of their fights. There was no way these would have been given to him unless he’d stolen them. He’s seen how their friendship had fallen apart, just like the team had the year – no, two years – before that: explosively and right in front of the media’s watchful eyes.
Tony desperately wants a drink. He’s used to feeling like this. If he doesn’t spend an hour without thinking at least once that he needs a drink, he knows something’s wrong. But this sudden urge makes his fingers dig into flesh and the metal of the dog tags.
He doesn’t realise he’s clutching on for dear life, until a sleepy Logan walks in with an apple stuck in his claws and jugging Molson Canadian’s finest beer. Tony’s not a beer kind of guy, but a thirsty man will take even muddy water.
He gets up, knowing when he’s at his limit. He doesn’t run to his bedroom, but it’s a close call.
-
Two hours later, FRIDAY wakes him up with the morning report, a notification that he has 98 new e-mails — 24 of which are SHIELD and Stark Resilient priority marked – and a reminder that he has a meeting with Maria Hill on the Helicarrier in twenty minutes. There’s a slightly crumpled paper card in his hand, and the dog tags. And ring. The ring is the most confusing object. It’s too small for Steve, far too big for Sharon or any other woman in either of their circles. Or really, any woman except for a hulked out Jennifer Walters.
Maybe Steve had met someone new — a not-female someone new.
And that punched in the stomach feeling at the very idea of it is a very terrible way to start a day. Tony breathes in and out. He’s loved Steve for too long to fall apart at the thought of Steve being with someone else. But the thing is, it was easy to accept him being with Sharon or Bernie — both wonderful, striking women who were perfect but not too perfect. Of course Steve would love them. Tony, being a man, was never even in the running, so how could he have lost? “Pull yourself together, man.”
Tony smoothes the card out with care, then puts it in his wallet. He puts the chain back in the envelope and into his shirt pocket.
-
The Tower is rebuilt and the safe is removed and replaced in a new, more unassuming location. The letter goes in there. That at least, belongs to him. The chain is harder to just hide. He doesn’t like the idea of keeping the dog tags in the safe. They’re Steve’s, and he can’t bear the idea of it being locked up in the dark, so he keeps it on his person at all times. Tony tells himself it’s better this way, then he can find the right moment to confess to Steve and ask for forgiveness.
On the days that Tony sees Steve, he thinks of how the conversation will go down, the multiple ways he could provoke another fight with Steve, and then keeps the dog tags where they are. He’ll leave them in the mailbox for Steve. That way, he won’t have to see Steve, Steve won’t worry about where it came from, and then Tony can continue his life without wondering what the hell this is about.
-
A few weeks into it he forgets his jacket in Seattle and spends two entire days searching for it, frantic and desperate. After that, the chain goes around his neck. The echoes that reverberate inside him from its contact with the RT just happen to be a soothing side-effect.
-
A few weeks later, he sees Sharon kissing Steve on the cheek in the Helicarrier and runs a quick search of online databases to see if they’d gotten married or something. He finds nothing, and continues on his way to his meeting with Maria Hill.
Maria is, as always, competent as fuck, and grating as fuck. They hadn’t used to be like this. “Whatever it is I did to you,” Tony says at the end of their meeting, “I’m sorry.”
“You have no idea what you’re apologising for,” Maria snaps, and then takes in a deep breath. “Doesn’t matter. We’ll keep each other in the loop. I’ll see you for the Avengers meeting next week.”
Tony walks the hallways in anticipation. The agents are either staring at him in awe and distrust, or they’ve got a pity thing going on that Tony wants no part of. He turns a corner too soon and crashes into a wall.
The wall moves back, and then the wall is actually one Steve Rogers. “Hey Steve.”
“Tony, sorry about that,” Steve smiles politely. There’s tension in his eyes. “I’m running late, it was nice to see you again, Tony.”
But before Tony can reply, Steve and his fake smile and tired face is running down the hallway.
Tony misses the days they used to sit on the roof and eat bagels and pretend to watch invisible stars over a busy New York skyline.
He makes it to the mail room, standing in front of Steve’s cubby. FRIDAY finally speaks up after fifteen minutes. “Sir, there’s a call for you from Ms. Potts.”
Back to work.
-
He doesn’t know how to return the dog tags, so he lets it be. And tries to forget about it.
-
And if he never takes them off, that’s between FRIDAY and him.
It’s not as good as when Steve used to throw an arm over his shoulders, but Tony, like his company, is resilient, and he’ll survive with what little bit of Steve he’s rationed to.
-
The Serpent comes and Bucky dies but Nick and Natasha tells the universe to fuck off by fixing that. Tony thanks all the Gods but Odin. Steve’s lost enough, and Bucky deserves better. He also curses them because he can’t unsee the crumbled statues of the once flesh and blood men, women and children he couldn’t save.
Some hero he is.
-
The sky is pouring over Seattle and Tony’s balcony is soaking wet. Tony’s too numb to feel the water drenching his silk pyjama pants and raggedy MIT hoodie. He can’t find the courage to go back inside the lonely apartment.
He’s been three days sober.
Inside, he’ll have eight hundred things to do. Inside, the government is clawing for biometric data so they can take Iron Man from Tony – and they’re well within their rights to. Inside, there’s a tablet full of data that needs to be analysed before work begins again tomorrow. Inside, there are a hundred e-mails about the rubble where his tower — his pride and joy — used to be.
Inside, the doorbell rings.
Tony sighs. It’s probably Pepper, or Hill, or someone else who’ll want him to get back to New York because there’s a mess to rebuild and that tends to fall on him. Except he’s broke — he’d put every penny, dime and hope into that tower, and he’d gotten a pile of debris in return. Tony pushes himself up off the ground and makes his way back inside.
Water trickles down his eyelids, and he wipes his face down with his palm, wiping that on the hoodie in a futile attempt to look less like a rain-soaked mutt before he peeks through the peephole.
It’s Steve, dressed in an impeccable suit and shaking his umbrella dry. Tony takes a deep breath and pulls the door open.
“I know you wanted to be alone, but Pepper said you were here, I hope it’s okay — why are you soaking wet?”
“I was on the balcony. Hey Steve.”
“Can I come in?”
“Um,” Tony stutters. His place isn’t the most ideal place for Steve Rogers, especially not right now. “Why don’t we go out? My place is a mess, and you’re probably hungry.”
“I’ve seen your workshop, I can handle it,” Steve says, pushing his way in, tugging his black tie loose. “Why were you on the balcony?”
“It’s a long story. Do you want a hot drink? Kitchen’s this way.”
“I think a shower might be a better idea,” Steve murmurs, looking Tony up and down in a way that’s makes his blood flood his skin with colour automatically. He’s shrugging out of his jacket, and hanging it on the hook by the door. The movement reveals a funeral leaflet in his breast pocket.
Bucky’s ‘funeral’ was today. Tony has a hundred questions but no words. What he does have is a singular desire to refrain from doing anything that would make Steve leave. This is the longest amount of time they’ve spent together that wasn’t related to Avengers business. He doesn’t want to ruin this. Every word out of his mouth is another footstep in a minefield he’d created, and he buried the landmines but lost the blueprints.
They’re still awkwardly standing in the hallway, a foot of space between them.
“Do you have any groceries?” Steve asks.
“I – uh. Not sure.”
Steve nods. “Why don’t you dry off and then we can try to fix up dinner with whatever is in the fridge?”
Tony’s an amnesiac but he’s still a genius, so he knows better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. He heads towards the bedroom to change, pulling off the hoodie on the way. There are cleaned and pressed clothes in the closet, thank Pepper. He peels off his wet clothes and grabs the towel from the bathroom.
He’s bare-chested, pulling on a red shirt when Steve comes bursting into his room, whiskey bottle in his hand and shock and rage on his face. “Why is this on the coffee table?”
Well, there goes any hope of an awkward but peaceful evening. “Because I put it there.”
“Tony!” Steve snarls out his name.
“I didn’t drink it,” Tony sighs, grabbing a t-shirt. This is exactly what he was trying to avoid, why he’d been trying to keep them out of the apartment. “Why do you think I was sitting on the balcony in the pouring rain?”
“Tony.”
“It’s been a shitty week, which I think you can relate to, Steve.”
“Tony—”
“I wasn’t going to drink it. Really.”
Steve nods, mouth pressed in a thin line of rose ink, and walks back out.
Tony’s fingers are cramping. He looks down and realises they’re at his chest, tight around the dog tags and the fabric covering it.
-
Tony wonders if Steve took the bottle of whiskey with him when he left. He pulls himself off the bed, makes his way to the kitchen. The room smells like air freshener.
Steve’s chopping bell peppers. There’s a simple ring on his left hand. One day, Tony’s going muster up the courage to ask Steve about it, and the near-identical, smaller one around his own neck. Still he isn’t sure how badly he wants to know. Right now, he can pretend the ring is his. He hasn’t dared put it on his finger, but he’s a mechanic, he’s good at eyeballing weights and shapes. It’s easy enough to pretend. Once the truth is out, neither alcohol nor work is going to wipe that memory of it from Tony’s mind.
Steve doesn’t look up.
“I thought you’d left.”
“If you’re thinking of drinking, then I definitely can’t leave,” Steve says.
“I can handle it.” Even as Tony says that, he’s looking for the bottle. He finds it empty in the sink. That would explain the air freshener smell. Even when Steve’s angry at Tony, he still cares enough to make sure the house doesn’t smell like alcohol.
Tony wants to weep.
“How long have you been sober, Tony?” Steve asks, eyes still focused on the vegetables on the kitchen island.
“Three days.” The knife slips, and clatters on the marble island.
There’s blood on the counter, on Steve’s fingers. “So the reporters are right. You were flying drunk.”
Tony has no words. How does he explain that his sobriety was the only thing he had left that was worth anything to Odin? Instead he pulls open the medical drawer and gets the disinfectant and butterfly closures out. The cut will have healed in a couple of hours, but dressing it can’t hurt and it gives him a reason to look away from Steve.
So he stays silent, takes Steve’s hand in his own and begins to spray the disinfectant. Steve doesn’t even flinch.
“Tony.”
“Yes. I drank. I-I had to sacrifice something to Odin, get his attention. It worked, didn’t it?” The butterfly closures are easy to work well on the large cut on Steve’s pointer finger, even if Steve’s fingers are shaky. “There, good as new. Soon enough, at least.” He pats the hand, fingers bumping against a very familiar looking ring before he lets go, but Steve doesn’t let him. He takes his hand in both hands.
“I want to talk about Paris.”
“Stop,” Tony hisses, trying to pull away. “We’re not doing that.”
“It triggered you. Why else would you have given up six years of sobriety?”
“I know it might be hard for you to believe, but maybe because I thought the lives of everyone on our planet might be more important than my alcoholism,” Tony hisses. “Why are you here, Steve?”
They’re not friends, despite whatever happened in Oklahoma, and they’re not even teammates anymore, so he really doesn’t know what Steve is doing here, holding his hands tight enough that Tony can’t pull further away.
Steve lets go. “I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about you. You need a friend and I want to be here for you.”
“Friends don’t avoid friends for weeks, Steve.”
Steve has the good manners to blush at that. “I’m sorry. I know I haven’t tried very hard to repair our rel-friendship. I… I see you and I have a hundred things to say but none of them will make any sense to you so I hide like a kid, and it’s not fair.”
“I’m sorry.” He can’t remember, god knows he’s looked everywhere for some other backup, somewhere to retrieve those memories.
Steve sucks in his breath. “For what? After Asgard, you apologised, and you said you wanted to earn my friendship. Well, here’s the thing. First you have to know what it was that broke our relationship, and then you have to realise why it was wrong and apologise for it.”
“Didn’t I already do this?”
“That’s not the same as apologising for things you don’t even remember! That’s no better than Bucky apologising for the things he did in his Winter Soldier days. It wasn’t him, not really, so how can he, or you, be held accountable for them? I can’t come to terms with your choices when you don’t even remember making them! I remember, I was there. And it wasn’t entirely your fault. You weren’t, but you’ve always been an expert at self-loathing so you think it was all on you. Believe me, if you remembered, you wouldn’t have apologised.”
“I saw the news, I saw what happened. I fucked up. I get that.” He doesn’t understand this cycle of argument they keep having. From the outside, he understands why he did what he did; at the same time, if it had cost him Steve’s life, then it had clearly been the wrong course of action.
“It wasn’t just you, dammit,” Steve’s shoulders slump. “I’m so tired of everyone — and that includes me — blaming you for everything. Guess no one felt like they could blame me because I’m the one who ended up dead.”
Tony closes his eyes at that. He still remembers sitting at the table and reading that, the way his stomach had rolled and his heart had shattered at the news. If not remembering means he doesn’t have to remember actually watching Steve die, then it might just be worth it.
“Tony, you’re my… my best friend. You gave me a home.” That sounds like a loaded sentence, and there’s something in Steve’s eyes at the word “best friend” that makes Tony doubt that more than just a bit. But Tony just nods. “I miss you.” That’s true, at least. Steve doesn’t hate him. There’s a letter in a safe in New York City that promises that.
“I…” Tony pulls out his wallet instead. He holds out the slightly damaged card with Steve’s name and Tony’s signature on them. “So apparently, non-amnesiac me spent two million dollars for this. It’s yours.”
“I – what?”
“It was in my safe, but it’s yours.”
“But when did this even—”
“I don’t know, sometime in May, right after your uh… funeral.” Steve’s funeral. The words make his stomach turn.
“Thank you, Tony.”
“It’s yours.”
Steve takes it and puts it in his wallet, just behind his SHIELD identity card. When Steve looks up at him and smiles, Tony’s lungs remember to function again.
-
They end up making carbonara, eating in front of the television and watching the new Star Trek movie. It was already two years old, yet it’s the first time that they’re watching Star Trek and Steve’s the one who’s seen it already.
“I’m not sure I like this Scotty,” Tony remarks at one point. “I like my Scottish accents sounding distinctly Canadian, thank you very much.” Steve takes a double take at that. “What?”
“That’s exactly what you said last time,” Steve says, with a fondness that he hadn’t realised still remained in Steve for Tony. Tony nods at that, and settles back into the cushions. Soon enough fatigue and stress catch up on the lifelong marathon he’s been running against them, and Tony begins to doze off, turning sideways inch by inch until he’s using the armrest as a pillow and Steve’s thighs as a heater for his cold feet.
Sleep clutches at his wrists and drags him down.
-
Tony wakes up with a startle, sitting up in bed with a gasp. It takes a split second for the warm hand at his shoulder to push him gently back down and order him to “Sleep.”
Tony sleeps.
-
FRIDAY wakes him up with the morning weather and stock reports, and tells him he has no less than seventy-nine e-mails to reply to. He’s alone in bed, but there’s a suit jacket draped over his couch, the one Steve had been wearing yesterday. Tony is actually in nothing but sweatpants and socks, so he pulls on a t-shirt — folded with military precision and set on his bedroom bench — and makes his way to the kitchen.
The microwave reads six am and Steve’s not home, but there’s a kale smoothie and fresh coffee in the filter. A note on the table reads: Tony, stay at home, it’s Sunday morning. Back soon to make breakfast. Yours, Steve.
Again. Yours, Steve. Tony remembers a hundred notes like this from their shared years at the mansion. He’d never signed them off as Yours, Steve before. He folds the post-it note up and puts it in his pocket. Out of sight, out of mind, right?
Tony downs a mug of coffee, tries the surprisingly appetising green concoction, downs another cup of coffee, and plops down on the breakfast table with his tablet.
E-mails.
-
Tony doesn’t realise Steve’s back until a plate of pancakes are set on the table in front of him. “When did you get back?”
“Half an hour ago.”
“Did you get groceries?” Tony asks. He doesn’t remember having flour in his kitchen. He doesn’t remember anything other than take-out menus in the kitchen, if he were to be honest with himself.
“Nope, but you had bananas and eggs,” Steve replies. “And they hadn’t gone bad yet.”
They eat in relative silence, Steve working on the crossword while Tony continues with work, all the while keeping an eye on Steve. Every once in a while, they catch each other’s eyes. Steve smiles and Tony smiles back and everything is good.
For now.
After thirty minutes of it, Tony presses his palms down on his thighs to stop the fidgeting, and says, “You don’t have to babysit me, Steve.”
“I know. But I also don’t have anywhere to be, I left Sharon in charge. She’s a hundred times more capable that I am anyway. This is where I want to be, unless you don’t want me here.”
I can’t stop thinking about you.
“Okay. And you’re buttering me up like toast why?”
Steve pauses at that, looks Tony in the eye. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s something you don’t remember.”
“I’m pretty sure I’ve read every news article and SHIELD debrief since the date I lost my memory.”
“This is something no one else would have known, Tony. Something about you and me.” Steve’s eyes drift from Tony’s eyes, down his face. A fraction of a second is devoted to Tony’s mouth, and his eyes wander down from his neck to his RT. Steve brings his right hand up to the RT, and Tony tenses. He relaxes when his hand moves further up north until Steve’s fingers make contact with the outline of the aluminium ball chain over his t-shirt.
Fuck.
Tony hadn’t taken his shirt or socks off last night, yet he’d woken up shirtless and sockless. Steve must have undressed him. He pulls away from Steve’s touch, reaches behind and unclasps the chain, holding it out to Steve. “I found this in the Tower. I keep meaning to get this back to you. Here.”
Steve shakes his head. “I gave those to you, Tony. They’re yours.”
“What.” But. Tony wasn’t a soldier but he knew the significance of dog tags. That was a soldier’s identity. And Steve had given that to Tony. Along with a ring.
It doesn’t compute.
Tony stands up, ignores the look of what can’t possibly be heartbreak on Steve’s face, takes the chain and walks into the bedroom. He enters the master bathroom, locks the door and sits down.
The ring fits his finger perfectly. Tony sits on the floor for a long time. Two years. In two years, they’d gone from best friends to possibly married to enemies and Tony has no idea how.
Tony has accepted his love for Steve. He’s been in love with Steve for probably as long as he’s known the other man. It was simply a part of being Tony Stark. Genius, billionaire, alcoholic, superhero, idiot who fell in love with one Steve Rogers.
And he’d learned to live with it. He’d learned to go on with being Steve’s best friend. He’d met Rumiko, loved her. He’d been happy. Simply being allowed to call Steve friend had been enough. He hadn’t been missing out anything in life. He’d had Steve’s back, and known Steve had his. It would still be enough. He would have been satisfied.
-
(It was never going to be enough. Had he really been lucky enough to have it all, and then thrown it all away?)
-
He can’t bear to take the ring off.
-
“Tony?” Steve’s voice asks from the other side of the bathroom door. Tony can feel the pressure of Steve’s back against the other side of the door. “Are you okay?”
“So, what happened?” Tony asks, proud of how little his voice breaks. “Undercover marriage? Political play? I got arrested in space and the only way to save me was to marry me?”
“We weren’t married, we were engaged.” Steve says, not answering the question.
“You’re avoiding my question.”
“What happened is that I asked you to marry me and you said yes.” Steve sounds weary.
“But why?”
“I don’t know, Tony, is it so hard to believe you might have loved me?”
Tony clasps his mouth shut so he doesn’t laugh at the very idea that he might have loved Steve. Like it was a coincidence, like it wasn’t his general state of being for the last decade.
Two months ago, they’d been best friends. Two days ago, they hadn’t even been on speaking terms. Engaged. The word seems foreign. “It’s harder to believe you might have loved me.”
“Yeah,” Steve whispers. Tony’s fingers are twitching from how badly he wants a drink in his hand right now. He’d had everything he could ever need, and he’d thrown it all away. Tony hates his drunk self something awful, the version of himself who’d had everything he could ever have wanted, and then thrown it all away. He’d prefer to be drunk than remember what that selfish Tony had done. Then he wonders how drunk that Tony must have gotten after Steve had died. If he could meet Tony Stark from last year, he’d shake him until he understood how fucking senseless he’d been. “We hadn’t told anyone, you know. But we wanted a big wedding. I always promised myself I’d be a better husband than my father’d been. Then I nearly beat my fiancé to death, and I wasn’t even drunk for it,” Steve says, sobbing between every word. “And when you came back I was so relieved you didn’t remember – how awful is that? I didn’t want you to remember I’d nearly killed you. Even if it meant you didn’t remember our relationship. I thought it was better this way.”
“Steve, come on. I saw the footage. It was an all-out brawl. You’re making yourself out to be a bad guy, and that’s just not true. We’re okay. It’s okay.”
“No,” Steve sobs. “I wouldn’t listen. You offered us a way out and we — I tricked you. I was so hurt by you not being open with me from the beginning that I stopped trusting you. And you were just lying there on the ground, half-dead, telling me to finish it! Two weeks earlier we’d gone dancing and I was trying to convince you we shouldn’t get married on the moon, then two weeks later, I broke your face. That is not okay.”
There’s a clock in the bathroom, one with AA batteries, those old school ones that tick. He has no idea how such an antique even showed up in his bathroom, but for now he’s thankful for it. Tony’s counted 490 ticks so far. But even they can’t cover the sounds of Steve’s heart breaking leaving his mouth.
Tony opens the bathroom door.
Scientific theories are accepted when no other theory can explain the observed phenomenon. The sun went around the earth, until Copernicus gave the world seven reasons why it didn’t. The earth was flat, until the predecessors of scientists looked up at the moon and proposed otherwise. Dinosaurs had all died out. Until Huxley discovered Archaeopteryx and then looked at birds.
Steve wasn’t ever going to be in love with Tony. Until he already had been for two years — until he’s crying on the floor of Tony’s apartment, legs drawn up to his chest and arms around them in a desperate attempt to self-soothe. Until Steve’s shoulders are shaking, until he’s sobbing like a child who’d lost something irreplaceably dear.
Tony gets the sneaking suspicion that it was him.
It’s still hard to believe, but if Tony can’t see what’s so obviously in front of him, then he’s not allowed to call himself a futurist anymore.
So Tony drops to his knees, and presses his body against the plane of Steve’s back, head resting on Steve’s neck. He wraps his arms over’s Steve’s. “You didn’t kill me. I’m right here. I’m here, and I’m sorry, and I forgive you.”
Steve only sobs harder at those words. “You don’t even know what you’re saying.”
Tony presses himself even harder up against Steve, lets the dog tags leave an imprint in Steve’s skin, remind him who he is. “Just because I don’t have the memory of it doesn’t mean it didn’t kill me to learn what we’d done to each other, Steve. Listen to me. Knowing what I know now, I shouldn’t have kept knowledge of the SHRA from you. I certainly wouldn’t have built that clone – God.”
Bill, dead. So many others, dead. For a futurist, Tony still can’t keep the bodies from falling.
“What were you thinking?” Steve croaks out. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
Tony knows now, he’s sure of it. It’s the same reason why he’d held that bottle up to Odin, the same reason he had plans to weaponise the sun and manage the infinity stones.
“Fear.” Tony presses the word into Steve’s hair. Steve lets him. He wonders how many times he’s held Steve like this — or even better/worse, how many times Steve held him like this. How afraid must he have been, to risk losing Steve’s love? Scared to death, of Steve’s death, more likely. Tony could live in a world where Steve didn’t love him back; that had been the status quo for as long as Tony had known him. He couldn’t take another breath in a world where Steve wasn’t alive. “Steve, if I thought there was a threat to your life, and I could stop it, I would, without delay, even if it meant you’d hate me forever. That’s who I am, I won’t regret that. I only regret that it failed.”
“You went and made the decision that I didn’t need to know about it until it was too late. So you could keep me safe? Is that how little you trusted me? I could have helped you.”
“You wouldn’t have listened, Steve. I know you. If you saw registration coming up, you would have resisted with every cell in your body. And we needed to compromise. We needed at least one person on their side so they could steer them in the right direction. This isn’t fighting, it’s governing, and that’s a whole lot harder. That means you compromise on the things you can, and you fight for the things that matter.” Steve gasps then, and lifts his head, resting it on Tony’s forearms, “But if you refuse to be at the negotiating table, you’re throwing away your vote. I wasn’t there. I don’t know. But it seems to me, what with the whole EMP debacle, that you weren’t even willing to listen.”
There are tears on Tony’s arms, Steve’s eyelashes brushing against the wetness there. “I’m sorry. I should never have done that.”
“I deserved it.” He’d lied to Steve first after all; even he should have known Steve’s patience would run out one day.
“No, Tony. I… took it too personally. You gave me the chance to sit down and talk about everything and I deceived you. Then it just snowballed from there.”
“So we fix it. We don’t let history repeat itself.”
Steve smells like salt and aftershave and the Head and Shoulders shampoo he’s been using for a decade now. He’s warm, and Tony can’t stop touching. He has a decade of self-control when it comes to keeping his desires in check but now that he knows his touch is wanted by Steve, he can’t let go. Still, the clock in the bathroom has ticked over two thousand times by now and his knees are aching, so he pulls away reluctantly. Steve follows the movement, pulling his entire body towards Tony. Tony reaches around Steve’s chest and squeezes him tight, then lets go of him. “I’m not going anywhere, Steve, let’s just move to the couch.”
Tony stands up and offers him an arm up. Steve clasps it tight.
-
They can’t stop touching each other. They sit with their thighs pressed against each other’s. Steve hasn’t let go of Tony’s hand yet. He holds it with both his hands in his lap instead, rubbing his thumb along the back of Tony’s hand. Steve breathes in and out methodically, as if he’s counting breaths. Tony copies, mainly so he has something to do as well.
Unfortunately, Tony’s always been good at multitasking. They still haven’t talked about it, and Tony has a million ideas floating around in his head. So when the confusion and curiosity finally gets the better of him, he assures himself with the fact that he’s not a cat anyway, and says, “Tell me about us.”
“Tony.”
“Tell me.”
Steve laughs; it’s a hollow, broken thing. “It wasn’t anything big. We were having dinner at my place, and the power went out. We lit candles and drank half-blended smoothies and talked. Tony, we used to never be able to stop talking, do you remember that?”
Tony nods. Walks in Central Park back when they’d been a family in the mansion, sprawled in the garden or in the library, speaking over each other and listening when it was important, and the way Steve’s face lit up when Tony articulated too much with his hands.
“It was three in the morning and you were exhausted, we’d dealt with the Raft breakout and you’d been up for days. And I wanted you out of the Tower so you’d stop working and get some sleep but you had a hundred ideas and I didn’t even know what you were talking about but I didn’t want to stop your smile. And I just. I don’t know what it was. I kissed you,” Steve laughs again. “A decade of self-control and I gave it all up because you smiled and I needed to know what that tasted like.”
Tony kisses Steve.
One second, they’re sitting beside each other, and the next, Tony’s in Steve’s lap, one hand cupping Steve’s face as the other one is pressed between their chests. Tony means it to be a chaste press of the lips, a declaration of… something. But it’s like Steve’s finally waking up. He finally lets go of Tony’s hand, only to grab him by the ass, pull him closer, and kiss him like he’s aching for it — tongue in his mouth and hands moving up to wrap around Tony tight enough to bruise.
“Tony, no.” Just as quickly as that passion had awoken, it retreats. Steve pulls away and pushes Tony away – not enough to push Tony off of him, but enough that Tony can’t feel Steve’s breath anymore. Of course. Steve had loved him. Past-tense. How had he read this so wrong? Tony attempts to climb off of Steve and run with his tail hanging to his bedroom, but Steve doesn’t let him get any farther. “We failed horribly the last time we tried this.”
“It’s okay,” Tony says, wishing Steve would let him go. His hands are flat against Tony’s back and it makes Tony want to press even more skin to skin. “Even attempting a relationship with me should result in an automatic Nobel peace prize. To consider it a second time, and this time not even without the incentive of feelings, that’s foolish.”
“Tony, I love you.” Tony opens his mouth. Then closes it. Opens it again. He nods instead. “I can’t just be another one of your… conquests. I love you and I don’t want to let you go. And I know you don’t remember having feelings for me—“
“I’ve been in love with you since I was twenty-four years old, Steven. I want this.” Tony doesn’t know how those words leave his mouth considering how hard he’d shoved those feelings down his guts. But the smile on Steve’s face, sad but hopeful, is worth the turmoil in his stomach. “Did I never tell you that?”
Steve shakes his head, pressing his palms against Tony’s side, and then letting him go. “Tony we failed. Our relationship failed. We can’t do it again unless we know what broke us apart and how to make sure it never happens again.” Steve is gentle with words, and his arms are loosening around Tony.
“What do you need from me?” Tony asks. Six simple words, the most complicated question he’s ever posed.
“Trust. I need you to trust me. Even if you think it’s smarter not to. I hate it when you plot behind my back. Trust me, tell me everything. I need you to be able to tell me anything and everything.”
“Oh, is that all?” Tony asks, and Steve laughs. Honesty? Well, he could try, that’s for sure. Starting now. “Sometimes I think if I tell you everything about me, you’d be disappointed. You wouldn’t want me. So I hide things I shouldn’t.”
Steve smiles and it’s another broken one. He takes Tony’s hands in his own and brings them to his mouth. It’s that smile of his, the one that screams: I want to cry and throw things but I can’t so instead I’ll smile this smile that makes me look like a Hydra henchman got a hook into my side. “Tony, there is nothing you can say or do, that will drive me away. At this point, we’ve done our worst, haven’t we? I’m here. You will always be one of my best friends.”
“Steve, you don’t listen. You get so judgemental and you’re right and we’re all wrong, and you do what you want.”
“I don’t—”
“Yes, you do. Who wouldn’t even listen when I tried to explain why we need to work with congress?”
Steve hangs his head in shame. “I was wrong about that. I should have listened to you. But you assumed I wouldn’t listen, to you, and it just… I couldn’t think. You just took matters to your own hands, making decisions for everyone, including me. You thought that if you beat us to it, you could fix it. That’s not how the Avengers work. We’ve always done it together, but you didn’t even give us that chance.”
“I should have trusted you.”
-
Then silence again. This time it’s welcome. Tony settles against Steve. The three words reverberate within Tony. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.
Tony’s thighs are falling asleep, some nerve pinched by his position. Steve is completely asleep, thigh and all. He looks tired. “I love you so much I feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust from it.”
His ring is warm from Steve’s fingers.
-
Tony opens his eyes to a graveyard full of statues. The tombs are being dug and the coffins are inside, open caskets filled with limbs of stone. Tony runs, but the statues are everywhere, graves piled to the top and overflowing. The Grey Gargoyle laughs and laughs but Tony can’t find him, just a pathway covered in filled whiskey tumblers. So he drinks and drinks and clears the pathway but it never ends. He’s got burning lungs, and nothing to show for it. Duval is still too far away and he can’t make it he needs another— another — another —another —
Tony opens his eyes with a gasp and Steve’s rubbing his back, rocking them back and forth. “Shh, it’s going to be okay. I’m here. I’m here. It’s over. You’re in Seattle, with me. It’s Sunday night, or Monday morning, on the 15th of May. I’m Steve Rogers, you’re Tony Stark, and I love every inch of you.”
Tony’s lungs are still on fire. He rasps out a pained, “Steve,” and gives up when his vocal cords decide to go on vacation.
“I’m taking you to bed,” Steve says, walking towards the bedroom. He pushes Tony down on the bed and then pulls off his own shirt and pants, folding them up neatly. Tony watches and lets it drown every other thought in his mind. “Okay, your turn.”
“Hmm?”
“Come on, you’re even wearing a belt. Take it off.” Steve’s so beautiful. Okay fine, I’ll take it off.” Steve’s hands feel like life against his skin. Flesh and blood, not hard like stone. Steve is real. He helps Tony pull off his shirt and trousers, then sneaks the two of them under the bedding. “You comfortable?”
They’re side to side, until Steve slides in an arm over his torso and pulls his back close to him. Oh. They’re spooning. Like an old married couple. Steve’s hand is splayed over the RT, pressing the dog tags against Tony’s make-shift heart.
“You can have them back.”
“Do you not want them?” Steve asks.
Tony considers his answer. “I do.”
“Then stop offering to give it back. It’s yours. Questions?”
“Does this mean I can kiss you again?”
“If you want to. In the morning. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Can I keep the ring?”
Tony can feel Steve’s smile against the back of his neck. “Only if you promise to put it back on the chain. Otherwise you’ll go on an engineering spree and then melt it. Again.”
“That sounds like a fun story.”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow.”
“Last question.”
“Yeah?”
“Tell me you love me again?”
The smile is replaced with a kiss. “I love you. Tony, I love you.” Yours, Steve.
“I love you too.”
“I know, now go to sleep.”
-
Tomorrow comes bright and gorgeous, with a shower-fresh Steve bringing him coffee in bed, and the morning newspaper.
The front page is a full page photograph of the Avengers Tower wreckage.
Tony downs his coffee. “We have so much work to do. Where’s everyone even staying?”
“The mansion, mostly. On the one hand, MJ loves babysitting Danielle. On the other, the government can’t afford safe housing for everyone.”
Tony smiles at that. “Neither can I. Still want to date me now I’m dirt poor?”
Steve reaches for his face like it’s a familiar motion. It probably is, to Steve. “Think you can survive in a Brooklyn Heights loft for a while? I have no king-sized bed, but there’s a nice pizzeria nearby and the neighbours are all elderly and quiet.”
“Do you have Wi-Fi?”
“Yep.” Steve’s thumb rubs against Tony’s cheekbone.
“Did I set it up for you?”
“Yep.” Steve’s mouth should be arrested for being this lewd, the way it touches Tony’s mouth, his moustache. Tony pushes Steve away with a palm on the chest, then inhales the rest of his coffee, nearly dropping the mug while setting it on the night stand. When he turns back to Steve, he’s staring at Tony like he’s his cornerstone.
They have so much ahead of them. So many feelings and hurts to discuss and cracks in their hearts to repair. They’re probably going to need therapy. Tony’s not even sure he has insurance for that anymore.
Steve makes his coffee just right and keeps touching Tony like Tony’s not real. Steve peppers his face with kisses and holds his hips with a gentleness no one else has ever granted Tony. Steve is flesh and blood and that’s exactly how he’s going to stay.
Tony looks at the newspaper cover one more time. “Let’s go home, Steve.”