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Chapter Text

By the time Steve realized that it had become a ‘thing’, it was too late to change it. He was stuck with it. He really should have known better after all the time he had spent on tour and how that sort of imagery stuck in people’s minds, even when it didn’t make sense and was just another cheap propaganda. But he didn’t have the time to really think it through, and now there was nothing he could do about it.

He was going to have to keep on doing this. For the sake of saving lives, this was the sacrifice he had to make. There was no turning back now.

Oh God, Sam and Bucky were never going to let him live this down.

# # # # # #

It had happened on the very first day Steve had made his way back to New York City under the guise of Steve Williams. He was better at disguising himself nowadays, not just using a cap to hide his face. He was wearing a loose jacket to help mask his frame, loose cargo pants, and sunglasses along with his cap. Alright, it wasn’t the best disguise, and he would probably be recognized the moment he took off his cap and sunglasses, but for the purpose of just walking down the street, it would do.

He had been heading towards Stark Tower, and his chest clenched at the thought that he couldn’t refer to it as the Avengers tower anymore, when a swarm of spiders started emerging from the sewers.

A swarm of car-sized spiders, to be exact. They were scuttling about and working in tandem to herd the screaming people on the streets in one direction.

Once upon a time, this would have given him pause. But he had worked with a guy in a flying suit, a man who transformed into a gigantic green mass of muscular rage, and a man who summoned lightning and called himself a god. He’d fought the god of mischief and aliens and flying murderous robots.

Giant spiders? Weren’t that big a deal.

Steve ran forward to intercept a spider carrying a webbed up woman on its back. He kicked out two of its back legs and grabbed the terrified woman, hefting her over to the side of the road. He ripped the webbing off from her, only to realize that the spider must have ripped the front of her dress because her generous chest was suddenly exposed to the cold air.

Steve kept his eyes pinned to her face and apologized, “Sorry, ma’am, I didn’t realize— Okay, just, here, wear this.”

There was no time for niceties. He pulled off his jacket quickly and handed it to the terrified and now embarrassed woman. She shrugged it on quickly.

“Thank you, oh God, I can’t thank you enough,” she said before pausing for a moment. “Hey, do I know you…”

Steve had the briefest of moments to panic before a distraction delivered itself in the form of two arachnid legs wrapping themselves around his chest. Steve was seized from behind and lifted into the air. He twisted, trying to break the hold on him, but the grip was too tight and all he achieved was ripping his shirt almost in half on the small claws at the end of the spider’s legs. He turned as much as he could and smashed at a leg with his fist, breaking through the tough but brittle exoskeleton.

Rearing back, the spider threw him clear across the street, and he smashed straight through a shop window in a flurry of mannequins and twisted fabric. Steve crashed to the ground and let out a pained groan. He pushed himself up, touching his face as he realized that he had lost his cap and sunglasses in his flight. That was a real problem. Saving lives was his number one priority, but if he got photographed or recognized out on the streets, not only would there be a manhunt for him, but he would likely bring Ross down on Tony’s head again. Ross was going to connect Steve’s presence to Tony, and was sure to make a case out of it. Which wouldn’t be entirely wrong because that was the purpose of Steve’s presence in the city. He needed to talk to Tony, face-to-face. Tony just had no idea that Steve was back.

So, Steve needed another disguise. And he needed more clothing, because his T-shirt was hanging in tatters and even his pants were badly ripped from the trip through the glass window and the spider’s attack. It was a spot of good luck that he had crashed into some sort of costume shop then, Steve realized as he looked around. There were all kinds of clothing everywhere, mainly black and in some sort of fake leather.

Steve grabbed several hangers off the rack, going for anything that looked like real leather or felt thick enough to give him more protection. From those selections, he picked the first thing that looked like his size and with long sleeves. He ducked behind a wall and tore off the remainder of his clothing. When he started pulling on the outfit, he realized that it was a matching fake leather top and pants, both tight, but with enough stretch for him to pull them on. It was pretty strange, but it would do.

In less than a minute, Steve was in a new black outfit. The only splash of colour was the dusty gold belt and the gold edging along the seams. Steve wasn’t sure if the outfit was supposed to leave so much of his chest exposed like that, or if the top was too small, but he didn’t have time to find something else, so instead he rummaged through a display by the counter that had all kinds of bright and colourful masks. He grabbed the first black mask he saw and pulled it over his head. It pulled down to his neck, framing his eyes in black. There was a thick black strip across the bridge of his nose, and his cheeks were covered, leaving his nose and mouth free. It wasn’t that different to his Captain America mask, except his hair spilled out free from the top of this mask.

Steve didn’t bother to look in a mirror. This was just a temporary disguise. The main objective was to protect the people from those mutant spiders. Steve launched himself out of the broken shop window directly at a spider that was scuttling after a screaming man. As he ran, his eyes caught a glimpse of the shop’s name written in curling bold font; Tools de Sade. He would remember the name to leave some money at the store later.

He had just taken down two giant spiders by smashing them in the heads with a heavy manhole cover that he had pried off the ground when he heard the familiar sound of repulsor blasts. Steve looked around to see Tony swooping down from above and blasting a rearing spider in the face. He drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the red and gold armor. It was Steve’s first in-person sighting in months now and he felt his skin prickle in anticipation.

Steve called out, “Iron Man, more spiders headed south down the street. They look like they’re heading for the Baxter building.”

Steve hadn’t been able to go after them because he had to attack a group of six spiders who had hemmed a crowd of civilians in against a corner building. He had managed to break the circle enough for the civilians to escape, but then he had been bogged down trying to take down so many spiders at a go.

“Vision is running intercept that way and he’s more than capable of handling eight legged monsters,” Tony said. “Let’s clean up over here, muscles.”

It was strange hearing Tony’s voice through the Iron Man’s speakers, instead of through the Avengers personal communicators. And Tony had called Steve many nicknames, but muscles was a first. It was enough of a jolt to remind Steve that Tony might not have seen through Steve’s disguise. Tony didn’t know who he was talking to, and Steve wasn’t sure if he wanted to keep it that way.

Then they were fighting together, not back-to-back, there was no trust extended from Tony for it to be as seamless as it used to be between Iron Man and Captain America, but there was a similar synchrony that hummed in Steve’s blood. From Tony’s flight pattern, Steve knew to target the spider on the edge of the circle while Tony blasted at the one closer to the center. When Steve had severed the spider’s head from its body with his manhole cover, he moved on to leap on the spider that had been about to shoot a web into the air at Tony. Steve took that spider down with a few clever blows and turned around to see another closing in on him, only for it to be blasted into the air.

They fought their way through several spiders in that same way, with the type of smooth exchange that left Steve almost giddy with the familiarity.

Soon there was only two of them left, surrounded by giant spider carcasses.

Tony landed on the ground, miming wiping sweat from the cool blank Iron Man face. “I’m making a giant bug spray. It should go a lot faster next time.”

Steve said with a slightly deeper, rougher voice, trying to mask his identity in a fit of panicked uncertainty, “Let’s just hope there isn’t a next time. One infestation of giant spiders is more than enough.”

Tony turned to him, head tilted. ““Let’s”? Are you our new resident superhero? Super tight costume, but no cape. I can’t always tell if they’re a superhero or someone who just wandered out of a particularly fun private party when there’s no cape.”

“Why not both?” Steve shot back, even as he fought back a flush. 

“Huh, a superhero with priorities. So is this your usual stomping grounds?”

Despite the banter, Tony didn’t remove his helmet, which was a sure sign of his wariness around someone he thought was a stranger. But with the way they’d left things, maybe he would have kept the helmet on even if he knew Steve’s identity. The thought sent a pang of unease through Steve and maybe that was why he ended up shrugging, and said, “We’ll see. I could be passing through, I could be staying.”

The mask and slightly altered voice seemed enough to keep his real identity a secret. He had no idea what he was doing, but he just wanted to have a normal conversation with Tony for a couple minutes, without all the history and anger and baggage. He wanted it desperately enough that he was willing to keep up the charade of being a new superhero with a secret identity, even though he knew it would likely cause more problems in the long run.

“You heard of our new laws?” Tony asked, voice blank and steady through the Iron Man modulator.

“Yep,” Steve said, working hard to keep on a mask of nonchalance. The fact that most of his face was hidden helped. “It works for the Avengers, whose identities weren’t kept much of a secret. How does it apply to superheroes who have secret identities?”

It was a question he had been curious about. What happened to that kid with the spider theme going on? He had looked him up and there were mentions of a superhero called Spider-Man swinging around New York, but no mention of whether he had been signed on to the Accords. But Steve did notice that he wasn’t referred to as a vigilante anymore.

“Despite Ross’ bitching and moaning, we did manage to get an amendment in for that. The superheroes sign the Accords with their superhero identity, not the secret identity behind their masks, and agree to only go superheroing in countries outside their usual locations when they have a sign-off from a committee. They contact us with an untraceable communicator that I supply to them,” Tony said with a hand gesture that always looked strangely natural in the Iron Man suit.

Steve wondered if he imagined that challenging tone in Tony’s last sentence.

Steve met the challenge. “How does the accountability work if the governments don’t know the superheroes’ secret identity?”

Tony paused. “Not the question I was expecting.”

“I’m considering all angles, even the ones I might not agree with,” Steve said placidly.

Tony explained, “The superheroes self-govern. If someone crosses the line, the superheroes who signed the Accords are expected to bring in the rogue superhero. There are consequences, even if the secret identities aren’t known. But no external military establishments are to come in to take down superheroes, not anymore.”

“That sounds a little complicated,” Steve said.

“The world is a complicated place,” Tony said, sounding tired. “Why, are you thinking of signing up?”

Steve shook his head. “I’m not sure if this is a permanent gig.”

“First time superheroing?”

“Something like that.”

The red and gold mask looked Steve from head to toe in a blatant once over that actually made Steve feel a little warm. “The ladies, and some men too I would bet, would be pretty disappointed if this is the last they see of you.”

Steve said, “Wouldn’t want to disappoint you then.”

Tony put a gauntlet to his arc reactor. “The mouth on this one.”

It took all Steve could muster not to look down at himself. His outfit wasn’t that bad, was it? He remembered that it seemed to bare more of his chest than he expected, but it still covered most of him. It made Steve realize that he was standing in the middle of an empty street, amongst dead monsters, with no idea of what exactly he looked like and bantering with Tony who he had exchanged blows with the last time they met. What exactly was he doing here?

It was time for a strategic retreat to regroup his thoughts and plans.

As if in answer to his creeping concerns, Vision flew over them and started to land. When Tony turned to look at Vision, Steve ducked into an alleyway and ran. He had no real hope of outrunning Vision, but he was pretty sure Tony wouldn’t ask to give chase. Steve’s new superhero persona seemed to have made a better first impression on Tony Stark than he had as Captain America.

Chapter Text

Steve rubbed an open hand down his face. It was all over the news and the internet. It never ceased to amaze Steve that no matter how much panic there was on the street over the latest catastrophe or alien attack, there would always be someone among the panicking masses who would be filming the entire affair instead of just running away.

There were videos of the latest masked superhero everywhere, and no one could stop talking about his extremely, ahem, revealing costume. Fox news was talking about how it was scandalous and inappropriate to have a superhero dress like that, while the late night talk shows were making endless jokes about superheroes who had day jobs as strippers or superheroes with the superpower to distract villains with their bodies.

Apparently not looking in the mirror had been a mistake.

Given a choice, he wouldn’t have gone with a skin tight suit that had most of his chest bared what with the absurd plunging neckline that went past his navel. For one thing, it was really impractical and provided no protection at all. He might as well issue an invitation to be stabbed through his conveniently bared chest.

But he wasn’t that embarrassed about how he looked in the strange costume he had picked up. There was nothing shameful about bare skin, not in this century where people could walk around practically naked in public without it causing alarm.

Steve had worked with USO girls who did high kicks in tiny skirts. He had worn bright blue tiny shorts over tights when selling bonds. Steve wasn’t shy about his body, not when he had risked so much to gain such a healthy and strong one, not when his body allowed him to help people. And alright, maybe he was a little proud of how his body looked as well. It would always be a novelty to have people actually stare at him admiringly, instead of just looking past him entirely.

But he was embarrassed about how the public was reacting.

He knew people idolized him as Captain America. There was always commentary about his looks, which he could easily ignore. It was insubstantial and shallow, words from people who didn’t know him beyond his physicality. There was always a lot of comments and debate about Captain America to balance it out. But the comments on the new superhero were purely about his fit body, his stunning backside and his amazing abs and chest. There was barely even a word about how he saved people, just how he looked while he was doing it.

Steve despaired about the whole situation. He was dreading getting a call from Sam or Clint any day now, because surely they knew it was really him behind the mask. It was so obvious to Steve, with his blonde hair sticking out and the way he moved. And he hadn’t even achieved his original objective of talking to Tony!

Where he had been so determined and confident in his approach to talk to Tony face-to-face, to work through all the issues they had, he was now hesitant and unsure. Should he admit that he was also the person in the black mask and really low neckline? Would Tony be angry that Steve hadn’t revealed who he was immediately? Or would Tony think this was some big joke?

Steve had been wrestling with this for three days now, with no progress at all. But he was determined to change that today. He was going to approach Tony again, because he just couldn’t delay any further.

The news channel he’d been brooding over suddenly showed a Breaking News alert and cut to a live video of giant spiders descending on Central Park. Damnit, didn’t they already handle this? Being out of the loop was irritating, as Steve realized he never found out if the spiders had been dispatched permanently.

He knew Tony and Vision would be on it. They had handled the giant spiders as well the last time, and while the spiders were abnormally large, they weren’t that difficult to dispatch.

The only problem of course was that it was only Tony and Vision right now, and maybe the Spider kid from last time, whereas they used to have a whole team of six or seven in the Avengers to deal with abnormal attacks like this. The team had been halved, and Steve shared half the blame for that. While he had no doubt that Tony and Vision could eventually take care of the spiders, how many people would be hurt in the meantime?

“Damnit,” Steve swore under his breath.

He had no problems heading out again and fighting behind a mask.

His biggest issue right now was that he hadn’t found a new disguise yet. And there wasn’t time to get another one.

# # # # # #

In the end, the costume he wore wasn’t exactly the biggest issue.

All around Steve, Central Park was covered in dead or dying spiders. It had been a challenging fight, the battle turning against them several times before Steve, Tony, and Vision rallied against the spiders and outsmarted them. Steve was exhausted and ready to just lie down. But it wasn’t over yet.

“Heads up, Baywatch,” called out Iron Man from above him. “Just one more round to be sure you’re clean.”

Steve sighed and closed his eyes against another heavy torrent of water being emptied over him, bracing his body against the powerful downpour.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. must have been the one piloting the quinjet. She had it hovering over him while Tony, still in his Iron Man suit, tipped a massive tank of water out, sending the water sluicing over Steve like the strangest manmade waterfall. After what seemed to be an unending amount of splashing, enough to block out the buzzing sound of the quinjet hovering, the water finally stopped and the quinjet flew a short distance away to land.

Steve wiped off the excess water from his face with his hand. He really wanted to pull off his mask, but he was still holding on to his secret identity, even though he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea. He had done some good in the fight, but the lack of communication he had with the other superheroes meant that he wasn’t aware of their plans and had gotten caught unawares in their trap. It didn’t hurt him, not like it hurt the spiders, but it was still unpleasant.

The sound of repulsors from jet boots signalled Tony’s arrival, happening just as Steve was trying to wring out the edges of his unnecessarily low hemline. It was a pointless endeavour because he really was thoroughly soaked to the skin. Even his black boots were squishy with water.

“I think New York actually has to thank the giant spiders today,” Tony said. “Or me. They can thank me. The general public is going to love me so much when I tell them this was my plan.”

Steve looked up in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

He was just in time to see Tony slide up his face plate, and it was almost a kick in the guts to see Tony’s brown eyes in person, after so long apart. The lack of hostility was a painful relief to see after what happened the last time he met Tony’s gaze without the Iron Man faceplate between them, even though it made sense since Tony didn’t know who he was talking to right now.

Steve’s own surprise over how he was suddenly looking straight into dark eyes framed by darker lashes meant he almost missed Tony’s very blatant once over, eyes focused on Steve’s bared chest. Almost, but not quite. Which was how Steve realized that Tony was quite openly ogling him, in a way that Steve had never seen Tony look at him before. Never seen Tony direct at anyone else either, except for Pepper when they were still together.

Tony smirked, utterly unrepentant as he met Steve’s eyes. “I’m talking about how I developed potent bug spray, and then came up with the plan to herd all the spiders to this area, and then spray them down with bug spray.”

“It was a good plan,” Steve said, still a little uncertain why Tony thought he would be receiving accolades for it. In the large scheme of things, the Avengers had faced far bigger threats and came up with far more complicated plans to deal with those threats regularly.

“Oh, but the part where I’m going to receive public adoration is how we unfortunately, couldn’t avoid hitting you with the bug spray as well since you were helping us herd the spiders and we couldn’t tell you about our plans in time for you to move. Thanks for the help by the way, great job intuiting that we were trying to herd the damn eight legged monstrosities to this part of the park,” Tony said, gesturing at the dead spiders.

“It was pretty obvious from your flight formation,” Steve said. “And I don’t see how hitting me with the bug spray is going to earn you love from the general public. I don’t think the general public hates me. They don’t even know me.”

Tony said, “It’s the aftermath that they’re going to love me for. The effects of washing off the bug spray have been rather… stunning. I guarantee you, they’re going to know you after this.”

Steve wasn’t that dumb. He was just a little in denial about what Tony was implying, because he had never had Tony comment so blatantly about him like that. But it was impossible to deny any further with Tony raising his eyebrows and openly eyeballing Steve’s torso, which was clad in dripping wet black fabric, and a bare chest which made Steve hyper conscious of the rivulets of water still running down his pectorals.

“It’s not that bad, is it?” Steve asked, a little hopelessly, as he tugged the clingy material away from his stomach, which probably did not help much because all that did was reveal more of his wet skin.

Tony feigned fanning himself with his gauntlet. “Blue eyes, the whole water and skin tight suit combination is leaving very little to imagination.”

Steve looked around and said, “But most of the people have been evacuated from this area.”

Except that was only partially true now. The area had been evacuated, but as per Steve’s earlier observations about New York and their urge to film the city being attacked despite any potential danger, he could see that there were a few civilians who had crept back in after the spiders had been taken down, and they definitely had their phones and cameras out and pointed in his direction. They weren’t really that close, but Steve knew firsthand that distance didn’t necessarily mean anything against modern day cameras.

Steve knew how he looked. He knew what the serum had done to his body, and with the amount of offers he got, he knew that he was attractive. But for some reason, it was the way Tony looked at him that made him feel like squirming in his wet outfit, that colored his cheeks under the mask.

“I’ll just— I had better get out of here,” Steve said.

“I could give you a ride,” Tony said, and the way he said it, with a faint smile and that slow deliberate blink… Steve wasn’t sure if it was an offer to ride on the Quinjet, a ride in the sky with Iron Man or something else altogether. Steve wasn’t sure what he would have preferred either, only that he was feeling an unexpected blossom of heat in his chest.

“I’m fine, I can get back with no problem,” Steve said, trying not to fidget where he stood.

Tony looked more serious when he said, “We could talk about better ways to communicate and coordinate in the future. Prevent future occurrences of unnecessary drenching in the field, much to the despair of New York, but probably to your comfort.”

Steve wasn’t sure if he should commit to this path of action, so he said, “I might not be staying here long.”

Tony shrugged, always an interesting sight when he did it in his armor. “Always coming and going, huh? Ever the traveller?”

“Something like that,” Steve said. “It’s a recent development.”

“Well, see you around then,” Tony said, still staring at Steve with an odd look in his eye.

Not wanting to prolong this conversation into awkwardness, Steve turned around and loped off. He felt Tony’s eyes on his back the whole way to the nearest street junction and for some reason, that made him feel self-conscious and warm in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Personal preoccupation aside, it also didn’t escape him that he was being photographed by many civilians, and he tried to keep his head ducked down the whole time. The more cameras there were pointed at him, the more he felt like he was moments away from exposure, that any second now, he would hear the words, “Captain America?”

He was surprised that he hadn’t heard it from Tony’s lips yet.

# # # # # #

Later that day, he realized there was no need to worry about being discovered by Ross or hunted as a fugitive in New York. The news about the giant spiders invading New York was all over the internet and on every news channel. But they weren’t talking about the giant spiders or Captain America returning to New York.

Every report on the incident was talking about the new superhero on the block, and featured prominent photos of Steve, either battling giant spiders in a black suit that looked like it was straining to contain his muscles, or more commonly, photos of Steve in his wet outfit, talking to Iron Man. Hell, many of the photos seemed to have zoomed in on Steve, cutting out the red and gold figure altogether. Some reports were even focused entirely on various body parts.

Even CNN had a short segment joking about superpowers in the form of superhuman physique. 

Steve wasn’t embarrassed about his physique, but usually, there wasn’t so much of it on display. Some of those photos were surprisingly clear, in high definition, and seemed like it was taken a lot closer than Steve would have guessed. But maybe the general public had been unusually motivated today, because Tony had been right. The wet clinging material really didn’t leave anything to the imagination. On the TV screen, his chest was glistening with water, and even his nipples were visible through the black material, probably pointy and stimulated from the cold. His groin was outlined in the black fabric to an embarrassingly clear degree, with the lines of his briefs standing out clearly, and you could practically trace his abs and thigh muscles through the material. Steve didn’t think black had ever been that revealing before. It was a little embarrassing, even for someone who was as proud of his body as he was. 

But on the other hand, Steve was also a brilliant strategist. After watching the fifth commentary on the spiders and the new superhero, he noticed something important. No one was speculating about his secret identity. No one had even mentioned a peep about how familiar he looked, or wondered about his superpowers, other than to make jokes about his super abs and pecs. Steve wondered if they would have even recognized him if he had a more revealing mask. Everyone was so focussed on his body, that no one was at all interested in the person behind the mask.

There was a power to such anonymity. Which meant he was going to have to keep the outfit.

Steve leaned back against his couch and covered his eyes with his forearm as he groaned. He knew what all this spelled out. He really was never going to live this down if it ever came out.

A familiar voice from the TV screen had him uncovering his eyes and looking at it again. It was Tony, still in his Iron Man suit, being interviewed by a reporter at Central Park as the carcasses of giant spiders were being carted away by the Iron Legion.

“You were seen talking to the new superhero on the block. What did you talk about?” the journalist asked, holding a microphone to Tony’s face.

Tony smiled, wearing that friendly expression he sometimes plastered on for the cameras. “Mostly about how the public was going to love me for pouring several gallons of water onto him.”

The journalist chuckled. “Yes, New York City thanks you for that one. That was a real public service.”

“You’re welcome. I live to serve the people. I’ll be sure to prepare another few gallons of water for our next encounter on the field,” Tony said with a grin, spreading his arms in an over the top, magnanimous gesture.

Steve could practically see the journalist lap this up, giggling at Tony’s remarks. It irritated him for some reason.

“His outfit is rather daring, isn’t it? I don’t think I’ve see a top cut so low outside of the Grammy’s red carpet,” she said.

“I’ve always been a proponent of ‘if you have it, flaunt it’. And I’m sure no one is really complaining, other than the usual bellyachers.”

“That sounds about right. So do you know who our new superhero is?” the journalist asked, the first time Steve had heard that question so far. He tensed up, waiting to hear what Tony would say.

Tony tapped a gauntleted finger against his lip. “His identity is a secret, and we might not see him frequently here in New York anyway. From what I understand, he’s a bit of a nomad, traveling from place to place, a real mystery figure. Part of his charm, I think.”

“A nomad? We would certainly hope he stays here for a little while longer, and treats us to more appearances,” the journalist said.

Tony smiled. “Maybe if we asked nicely.”

The journalist was obviously a smart lady, because she took that as her cue to turn to the cameras and say, “You heard it from here first, people. Tony Stark thinks our nomad will stay with us a little longer if we asked nicely. Our website is open to comments, so leave your thoughts on our latest mysterious nomad. You might be able to convince him to stay.”

The pseudonym caught fire, and within the hour, #Nomad and #NomadinNewYork was trending as one of the top hashtags on twitter. Jessica Chau, reporter to a small news channel, was credited as having been the one to coin Nomad’s superhero pseudonym.

But it didn’t escape Steve’s notice what had really happened. Miss Chau clearly had the smarts to pick up and expand on a good line, but it was Tony who had set up the pitch for the homerun.

Chapter Text

“Nomad. Really?”

Steve sighed, tucking the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he walked up the stairs with all his groceries. He knew it wasn’t a good idea to take the call, but he had ignored Sam’s last two calls and was feeling guilty about it. What if they really needed him for something?

But no. It was about Nomad. He should have trusted his instincts.

“I didn’t come up with the name,” Steve said, a touch defensive.

“No, Tony did, and don’t think we won’t come back to that point,” Sam said. “I was talking more about how you left the safety of our current location to go and talk things out with Tony, because “things can’t continue like this,” you said. Because you sent him a phone instead of calling him and he didn’t call you to your surprise, so this “needs to be resolved,” you insisted.”

“I remember what I said,” Steve sighed again, climbing yet another flight of stairs. “And I am going to talk to Tony.”

“You say that now but I haven’t heard back from you about how you’ve resolved all your issues. All I’ve heard is from the news, about some guy named Nomad running all over the place and helping the Avengers. I was thinking to myself, this can’t be Steve. Steve isn’t there to pretend to be a new superhero. Steve wouldn’t wear… that.”

“I didn’t have much choice regarding the costume either.”

“Trust me, we’re coming back to that as well.”

Steve finally reached his apartment door and started digging for his keys from his jeans pocket. “Could this wait a moment until I get into my apartment in case there’s any listening ears?”

Sam said, “Sure, what’s another five minutes.”

Steve winced. Sam really was pissed. Steve got his door open, and closed it behind him after he walked through. He flipped on the small round device sitting on the table beside the door. The little electronic gizmo had been given to him by T’Challa when he had decided to leave Wakanda. It would disrupt all signals except for the one from Steve’s phone, which was also specially made in Wakanda. No one could eavesdrop on him using any surveillance equipment planted outside or inside the apartment with these precautions in place.

“Alright, we’re secure now,” Steve said.

“Good. You ready to explain what the hell is going on there? How is this helping with anything?” Sam asked.

Steve put his groceries and his phone down on the table, switching on the loudspeaker function on his phone. “It happened really suddenly. I was on the way to see Tony when these giant spiders appeared out of nowhere and started attacking people. I couldn’t just stand by but I couldn’t help without a disguise with Ross just waiting to get me so I took something from a costume shop that had been smashed in. Then Tony was talking to me, only he didn’t know it was me. He thought it was some… other superhero. Who liked low necklines.”

“I’m not even sure that counts as a neckline. It’s just a big triangular hole in the front of your costume. Your costume is more hole than fabric,” Sam pointed out.

“That’s not the point, Sam,” Steve said desperately, putting all his fresh fruit in his fruit bowl. “The point is that I didn’t intend to start all this up with a secret identity from everyone. It just happened.”

Sam said, “Have you spoken to Tony then? Did you both come up with the name Nomad?”

Steve winced as he put away the last of his groceries. “Not… exactly.”

“You haven’t talked to him.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Steve… why?”

Steve sank down on a dining room chair. “I don’t know how to. I didn’t mean to pretend to be another new superhero, but that’s what happened. He’s not going to understand why I lied to him. Again.”

“That sounds… likely,” Sam said, and Steve could practically see the wince.

Steve asked, almost plaintive, “What do I do, Sam?”

Sam said, “I can’t tell you what to do. But you know Tony is just gonna be angrier when he finds out, if you keep the truth from him any longer.”

The words of advice was an echo of Sam’s surprise in Wakanda, when he found out what had happened between Steve and Tony in Siberia, the secret Steve had been keeping surrounding Tony’s parents’ deaths, and how it was revealed to Tony in the worst way possible.

“I know,” Steve said, quiet.

Now it was Sam’s turn to sigh. “You don’t make it easy for yourself, buddy.”

“I know that too,” Steve said and smiled a little.

“Okay, that’s your mess to figure out. Now let’s talk about your superhero costume.”

Steve groaned.

# # # # # #

The weird thing was that at the end of the conversation with Sam, they had both agreed that keeping the costume was the best way forward. Steve desperately wished Sam would come up with a good reason for why he should discard the costume immediately. But after the initial jokes, Sam had seemed to think the costume was the best disguise so far. It was revealing, scandalous, and just the right amount of distracting that no one was talking about Steve’s secret identity. Steve groaned and put his head down on the table.

He was stuck with it.

Which was how Steve found himself watching the news and patching the Nomad outfit with neat, black stitches. The costume had torn in places from the last battle with the spiders. Steve was handy with a needle because he hadn’t been able to afford to replace torn or worn down clothing when he was growing up. He had to patch his Captain America outfits as well during the war when they were in the middle of a warzone, but those outfits didn’t tend to tear easily. Nomad’s leather-but-not-really material he was working with didn’t actually offer very much protection, but at least it wasn’t hard to patch up either. The fabric was stiff and firm, not the type that frayed easily.

As he sewed, Steve wondered how he would look with a cape. Thor and Vision often looked majestic as they soared through the air, brilliant cape unfurling in the wind behind them. It was silly and probably impractical, but this might be the only chance Steve was ever going to get to wear a cape. Steve smiled down at his stitching, amused at where his thoughts had taken him. Was he really considering wearing a cape of all things?

His cape-related thoughts were interrupted by an update on the news channel about an attack by yet another group of spiders, this time led by what seemed to be a giant talking spider.

Steve thought they had killed off all the spiders with the spider-bug-spray, but it looked like he was wrong. Where were all these spiders coming from? And now they had a leader that talked? That was strange, even by Steve’s standards.

Thankfully, Steve’s costume patch-up was done and ready for a hasty change. He strapped on two knives and their matching sheathes to his belt — another gift from T’Challa. Steve had not intended to use them, but in the face of humongous spiders, it seemed like a good idea to be better armed, since he no longer had his shield on him, and he couldn’t exactly keep prying up manhole covers.

In less than five minutes, he was out the door.

This time, there were gigantic spiders scuttling down from a tall skyscraper, with what seemed to be their leader, a larger white spider, clinging to the side of the building and giving them orders. In English. How was it even talking in English? It didn’t have the human vocal chords to be doing so. And how did the other giant spiders understand English?

Surprising lack of language barrier aside, Steve started directing civilians to safety through the best routes, co-opting a traffic cop to help him, and gradually making his way closer to the spider-infested skyscraper. He noted the name on the side of the building; Baxter building. It sounded familiar, but he didn’t have time to tease out the reference from his memories.

As he came up to the building, Spider-Man swung down from a nearby roof to land on the streetlamp Steve was standing under.

“Spider-Man,” Steve said, and couldn’t resist adding with a gesture to the giant spiders on the building, “No relation of yours?”

Spider-Man tilted his head. “Wow, I so did not expect to be snarked at by the new superhero on the block today.”

“It could be a serious question. The world’s a crazy place,” Steve said, mock-earnest.

“No blood relation, but I’m thinking of calling him Man-Spider,” Spider-Man said.

Steve paused. “Man-Spider.”

Spider-Man pointed his thumb to his own chest. “I’m a human with spider powers. I’m Spider-Man.” Then he pointed a finger at the giant white spider, still giving orders to its spider minions. “That’s a spider with human speech and intellect. That’s Man-Spider.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Sounds logical. Except for one thing.”

There was the faintest of scraping sounds from behind them.

“What’s that?”

“Could be Woman-Spider. Might not be male,” Steve said, and dodged to the side as a big black spider leapt down towards where he was standing. Spider-Man was ready, webbing it in place instantly.

“I should have thought of that. Why didn’t I think of Woman-Spider?” Spider-Man said, as he back-flipped off the street lamp to land on his feet next to Steve and the webbed up spider.

Steve had to suppress a grin. Looked like Tony actually found someone chattier than he was in the field.

As if he could hear him thinking, Spider-Man turned to him and said, “Oops, Iron Man is telling me to get a move on. I’m supposed to give you this.”

Steve instinctively caught the pinkie-sized black object tossed in his direction. It was an earbud, familiar in its shape and size, the way it hooked behind the ear. It wasn’t the Avengers’ personal comms, but one of the ones that Tony had built for S.H.I.E.L.D. once upon a time. Steve felt a pang of loss, but tried to push it aside. It made sense that Tony wouldn’t be giving out the Avengers’ personal comms willy nilly to any new superhero finding their way to New York.

It still hurt, even when Steve tried to tell himself that it was ridiculous to miss their team earbud. 

“Iron Man says it’s too hard to coordinate with you if you don’t have one of these and I can stop playing messenger once you have it. And stop repeating exactly what he says. Thanks, Spidey-kid. Oh wait, that last part is for me,” Spider-Man said, sounding not at all embarrassed. “Gotta run, Nomad. Have to stop some creepy crawlies!”

Before Steve could reply, Spider-Man was swinging up into the sky again. Steve put in his earbud, turning it on in time to hear Tony’s familiar voice finish his sentence with, “-part of the creepy crawly family.”

Spider-Man’s response came through clearly, “Time to get myself disowned then!”

He followed up on the words by launching himself directly at a spider coming down a wall.

“What’s the plan of attack, Iron Man?” Steve asked.

Iron Man was blasting at spiders a few stories up, obviously trying to target the leader that was heavily protected by its spider subordinates. Vision was carrying three civilians in his arms, flying them to safety. The Avengers were definitely stretched thin, and that was another reason why Steve had to help.

“There are some spiders heading to the roof of the Baxter building, a few running around in the building, and more are spreading out at street level. We need to figure out what’s going on and stop them, but it also looks like there are still people in the building who didn’t manage to evacuate before the spiders swarmed, so we need to make getting them out a priority.”

“Not a problem,” Steve replied, “Is the bug spray a no go this time?”

“Yep. Too many spiders scattered around and too many civilians still in the area.”

Steve’s thoughts matched Tony’s quick analysis. The last time, the terrain was easier to work with and they had the element of surprise after they herded the giant spiders to a corner of Central Park that had already been cleared out of people. It wasn’t a tactic that could likely work again with so many spiders and people all over the place.  

“What about Man-Spider?” Steve asked.

“Please don’t encourage him,” Tony said, as Spider-Man whooped, “Yes! The newbie likes the name!”

Vision’s voice cut in, “Considering the likely age difference, it seems logical that you’re the ‘newbie’, Spider-Man.”

Steve could almost hear the quotation marks.

“Hey, you’re toddler-aged, Vision. If anything, you’re the baby newbie here!” Spider-Man crowed.

A short pause, and then Vision said, “I take your point. Nomad can be the newbie instead.”

“I feel ganged up on,” Steve said.

“Ignore the commentary from the baby generation. We’ll deal with the spider-human hybrid when we’ve cleared out all the civilians,” Tony said, “Incoming, Nomad!”

Hearing his new superhero name on Tony’s lips made Steve shiver slightly, for reasons he couldn’t pinpoint. He wasn’t used to it yet, but there was something in the way Tony said it that made it seem natural. Even through his distraction, Steve turned towards where he last saw Tony, and braced himself for the red and gold armor swooping down on him. He reached out an arm and was swept off his feet as Tony curled an armored arm around his waist. The impact left Steve slightly breathless, and then they were up in the air, Steve held close to the cool metal body. The swooping sensation was familiar and welcomed, adrenaline spiking as Steve felt himself shooting forward into the air and the wind whipping against his face.

Through the thinner Nomad outfit, Steve could feel the metallic coolness of the Iron Man suit much more than he ever had through the Captain America outfit. It felt more intimate, every hard, graceful line stark clear against the arm Steve had wrapped around Tony’s shoulder.

Then Tony’s voice was speaking to him warmly through his earbud, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Steve couldn’t suppress a laugh under the combined excitement from soaring through the air and from being so close to Tony again. “I bet you say that to all the superheroes you pick up.”

“Only the ones in really, really scandalous outfits,” Tony said with obvious mirth.

“And you better keep it that way,” Steve said without really thinking, surprising himself with the flirty undertone. It was just so easy with Tony and without the baggage they both usually carried.

Tony said with some glee, “Why, Nomad, if I didn’t know better, I would say you were possessive.”

Steve couldn’t resist a smartass response. “Then maybe you don’t know better.”

Tony lapsed into silence. It was a surprise. Usually, Tony had a comeback for anything Steve batted towards him. But then again, the only other times Tony had ever struggled to respond was when Steve revealed something about himself.

Before Steve could come up with a way to restart their conversation, they had reached the roof and Tony was swooping down to drop Steve off on the rooftop. Steve landed in an easy crouch, waving Tony off.

“I’ll have F.R.I.D.A.Y. keep an eye on you, but I have to go clear out the civilians and handle the Man-Spider,” Tony said, doing a loop around the rooftop.

“I’ll clear the roof,” Steve said with a salute as Tony dived back downwards.

Then he looked around and realized there were already a dozen giant spiders up there, with a couple more scuttling up over the edge. They seemed to be congregating around a giant spindly metal structure, all sharp lines in the shape of a spiky arch. Two spiders were dragging it clumsily across the roof.

Well, that made it obvious what Steve should target.

He charged forward, leaping into the air to bring a kick crashing down on the first spider that swung around to face him. He drew out the blades T’Challa had given him as he landed on his feet. They might not be his weapons of choice, but they would do in a pinch.

The fighting on the roof rapidly devolved into a seemingly endless clash of fists and knives against chitinous shell. Steve moved fast, attacking spider limbs at their joints before launching himself at the next target. He took on the spiders two at a time, attacking the first, aiming to injure, before he moved on to the next, and then coming back to permanently disable the first one. He ducked and weaved, blocked and smashed. It took all his agility to avoid the spiders’ counter attacks and to break through their own defences.

After he had taken out half the spiders, the remaining half abandoned the metallic arch to attack him all at once. Suddenly, there were spiders everywhere, and he realized he needed to get clear before he was overwhelmed. Steve ducked right under a spider, smashing at its legs as he went skidding out the other side.

Another two spiders skittered over the one he had just downed and shot their webs at him. He dodged one spider’s web by rolling forward on the ground, but when he leapt back to his feet, he felt the second spider’s webs smack into him and wrap around his upper torso. He felt the abrasive webs scratching against the bare skin of his chest, and he mentally cursed the impracticality of his suit.

He ignored the minor pain and instead, started to run a wide arc around the spiders. Another spider started to approach him from the side, but he shot forward suddenly towards it. When it froze at his charge, he pivoted and ran past it. The spider that had webbed him was trying to pull him back with its end of the web, and with him pulling on the other end, he managed to tangle the taut line of webbing against the legs of the spider he ran past. It went down in a clatter of limbs.

Steve used the distraction to cut himself free of the webs with his knives, only for him to realize he was flanked by two spiders. They both webbed him quickly around the torso, pulling in different directions, obviously having learned from the previous attack.

A third spider started coming towards him, but Steve had done this whole dance before with Spider-Man. When he didn’t have the brute strength to defeat his opponent, there were other ways around it. When the third spider skittered quickly towards him, Steve ran backwards, feeling the webs pull tighter against him. He pushed backwards more, sensing the strain in the webs, until the third spider was less than six feet away. Then he launched himself forward, using the released elastic energy in the webs to send him shooting through the air. He smashed a two-legged kick into the third spider’s head and it went down with a solid thunk.

Steve twisted in the air, cutting himself loose from the webs with his knives before his feet even touched the ground. He looked up and noticed that while there were fewer spiders standing, the arch had also been set up in the corner of the roof and was now glowing ominously. Across the arch, a crackling blue film started to form.

Steve tapped his earpiece. “We have an arch up here and it’s glowing blue.”

“What? What arch?” Tony asked.

“The spiders were dragging it around. It looks like it might be some kind of… magic door.”

“Not a portal again,” Tony groaned.

Vision said, “ETA in five minutes.”

But they didn’t have five minutes.

Steve backflipped over a spider trying to attack him from behind and landed on its back. He held on as it tried to buck him, scuttling erratically in a way that took him closer to the arch. Another spider tried to take a swipe at him and he leapt off his ride, somersaulting over the attacking spider and taking off at a run the moment he hit the ground. He was close to the brightly glowing arch now.

The lone spider guarding the arch shot webs at him, a wide frantic spray that he ducked by throwing himself onto the ground in a roll. The wide net of webs actually landed on another spider that had been chasing Steve, taking it out by sheer luck as a result of friendly fire.

Steve rolled to his feet and jumped onto the spider in front of the arch. It reared up, trying to smash him down with its multitude of legs. Steve dodged, parried, ducked too slow to avoid the lashing leg that scored a hit across the side of his head. His head snapped to the side and his cheek stung, probably cut open by that hit. Steve ignored the pain, concentrating on the legs bearing down on him.

Keeping low, Steve rushed forward beneath the spider’s rearing front and crashed into its torso shoulder first, using his momentum to push the spider backwards and upwards. It reared further unsteadily on its back legs and Steve took the opening. He pushed off into a spinning high kick, hitting the spider under its torso which further destabilized it. He spun around and kicked once more, with enough force that the spider actually toppled over backwards, landing awkwardly on its back where it waved its legs about, struggling to right itself.

Steve ran past it. He didn’t slow down, because he could see the arch now. To his great disturbance, he realized that there were hundreds of tiny spiders clinging onto the metallic arch, like they were there to worship the doorway dedicated to giant mutated spiders. Something was starting to come through the sparking blue film framed by the arch. They were gigantic spider legs. Many, many spider legs.

Not knowing what else to do, Steve decided to go with his instincts. The spiders had been trying to protect the arch from him, so they knew that a battle-ready human could stop their plans with the arch somehow. The arch was formed by messy metallic spikes, and Steve braced one knife into a corner where two spikes joined. Then he smashed the back of his forearm into the hilt like a hammer, over and over again. The spikes cracked apart and his arms reverberated with the impact, but the portal was still open, so Steve kept it up, digging into different joints and smashing again and again, arms aching as he smashed at the hilt with all his strength.

The side of the arch he was attacking suddenly split in two, a bright glow pouring out from the parted spikes. There was a thunderous crack in the archway, and a flash of light. The blue light emitting from the arch turned black, an inky darkness that drained light from around it.

Then there was a huge wet sound, like a great big suction of air being pulled into vacuum, and Steve felt a great big heave against him. His feet almost left the ground until he threw himself flat on the roof, fingers finding cracks in its surface to try to anchor himself.

A spider flew past his head and he looked up to see it being sucked into the arch and then disappearing. Alright, something had happened and it didn’t look like spiders were coming out of the portal anymore, but they were being sucked back into it. More and more spiders were being pulled violently into the arch, limbs scrabbling helplessly as they shot through the air towards the gaping black maw.

With Steve’s proximity to the portal, he could feel his body being dragged towards it as well through sheer momentum from all the air movement.

Steve was starting to feel a little panicked as he felt his legs lift from the ground again, the scant handholds he’d managed to get on the ground doing nothing to keep him there. He had no choice. He was in a corner, too near to the arch to get to the other side of the roof without being pulled in.

He kept an eye out and when another spider went flying past him, he kicked at it with both legs, sending himself hurtling backwards and away from the portal… to drop off the edge of the roof.

“I need a lift!” Steve shouted.

Silence.

He reached frantically for his earpiece, only to realize it was gone. He remembered the blow to his face, the scrape on his cheek. His earpiece must have dislodged then. It wasn’t like his Avengers’ communication devices, integrated into his Captain America mask to ensure it wouldn’t fall off during his fights.

And now he was in freefall, with no contact with the rest of his team.

Steve twisted in the air, trying to grab hold of a ledge, a window sill, anything. His hands scraped against the wall of the building painfully, but he wasn’t close enough to get a solid hold on anything at the speed he was going. Damnit, damnit, damnit. He was plummeting without slowing down at all, and all Steve could do was angle his body so that he would hit legs first. He would probably break most of the bones in his body, but at least he would be more likely to survive if he didn’t smash head first into concrete.

Heart pounding, all Steve could think was how Tony would react if Nomad died here, if Tony had to pull off the black mask from a bloody face only to see Steve’s dead eyes. A betrayal even in his death… Steve took a deep breath, squinting against the wind, braced himself–

A hard impact from the left sent him hurtling sideways instead, smashing all the air out of his lungs. Steve gasped, twisted, but his body was suddenly gripped snugly in an implacable hold.

Iron Man.

Steve grabbed and held on tightly to the metal arms around his waist, never gladder to have Iron Man crash into him, resulting bruised ribs and all. Steve turned his head to see the smooth gold of Tony’s faceplate. Unreadable as always of course, and without his communications unit, Steve had no idea if Tony was talking to him.

Then they were descending to the ground, Tony setting him gently on his feet like he was made of porcelain, instead of fuelled by supersoldier serum.

Without wasting a moment, the Iron Man helmet slid back and Steve could finally hear Tony, who seemed to be midway through a rant, expression twisted with anger.

“–suicidal ideas, you could have called for help even if you were short on time. Were you planning to hurtle to your death in complete silence?”

Tony seemed to freeze at his own words, like saying them almost made them true. Even with the armor on, Tony staggered in his suit, face pale as he stared at Steve.

Steve stepped forward, resting a hand on Iron Man’s shoulder. “I did call for help, but the communication device fell out in the middle of the battle. I had to risk jumping because I was going to be sucked into the arch if I hadn’t left at that point.”

Tony closed his eyes, put a gauntlet to his own face like he wanted to just wipe away the stress of the day, which would have only given himself a black eye if he had tried it with his gauntlets on. It seemed like Tony was out of words, out of witty comebacks.

“I’m alright, Tony,” Steve said. “I’m fine. You caught me in time.”

“This time,” Tony said, voice muffled into his gauntlet.

“Every time counts,” Steve said.

Tony shook his head. “I can’t believe you can say that with a straight face.”

Steve replied, “I might not be. Maybe you just can’t tell with my mask on.”

Tony rested his forehead against his armored hand before looking up, looking tired even as he tried on a weak smile. “No, you seem like the type.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “Anyway, thanks. That was a good catch. Glad you saw me, uh, falling.”

“No problem. You’re kind of hard to miss,” Tony said even as he waved off Steve’s words. “Did you say you almost got sucked into the arch?”

“Yeah, it looked like there were more gigantic spiders coming out of it. But after I destroyed part of the arch, the spiders were sucked back into it instead.”

Tony frowned. “Maybe it really was a portal of some sort. It sounds like the kind of thing Reed would be involved in.”

It took a moment for Steve to make the connection. “The rich guy who owns this building?”

Tony said, looking pinched, “The rich guy who owns this building and recently irradiated himself and his family, and gave themselves superpowers. I’m going to guess that this is another one of Reed’s experiments, which he might have forgotten about before they went on a vacation to the other side of the planet. F.R.I.D.A.Y., call Vision.”

There was a pause, then Tony continued, “How’s the mysterious arch?”

This was followed by another short silence before Tony’s face visibly relaxed and signed off from his conversation with Vision.

Steve said, “I take it the situation is under control?”

“Seems like. We’ll have to examine the arch to really understand what it does, but it seems to have stopped sucking things through it. The Man-spider was a casualty of falling debris during the fight so we can’t find out more through it. If that really was a portal to another dimension, then cracking the arch probably destabilized it enough for it to shut down. Interdimensional elasticity might have ensured that the right balance was restored before the dimensional rift closed by sucking the spiders back to their rightful dimension.”

Steve eyed Tony’s serious face, and said, “In other words, you don’t have any idea why it happened.”

“No fucking clue,” Tony said cheerfully. “Multiverse theory is more Reed’s branch of science, and I’ll need at least an afternoon to master it. I’m going to spend months pointing out that he might have achieved multidimensional travel but all he got was giant spiders.”

Tony paused, like he was interrupted on the communication channel Steve could no longer hear. He sighed. “I guess it’s time for clean-up. F.R.I.D.A.Y., what’s the damage?”

Clean-up didn’t take that long, not once Baxter Building’s employees returned from where they had evacuated to help with the clean-up too. Steve watched fondly as Tony had a long argument with one of the scientists working for Reed, which no one understood at all, until Vision distracted Tony so that the scientist could go give the press a statement on the attack at the Baxter Building.

Tony came over as Steve was helping to gather debris to a corner of the street, debris which included car parts, spider parts, lamp poles, and, mysteriously, an oven.

“So, I was thinking, it would be good if you got one of the communicators the Avengers use, instead of the temporary one you had earlier. Something that will definitely remain in place, so that we don’t have any more unnecessary near-death experiences where you jump off tall buildings like a squirrel that thinks it’s a flying squirrel and with no one to catch you on the other end,” Tony said, talking quickly like the speed of his words would help convince Steve.

“I wouldn’t say no to a better communicator,” Steve said carefully as he dropped the mysterious oven on top of the trash heap.

“And you would be easier to reach if you had the communicator. In case of future emergencies that needs more superheroes.”

So, Tony was willing to let Steve – no, not Steve, let Nomad – join the Avengers on a more permanent basis.

“I wouldn’t object to that either,” Steve said, meeting Tony’s eyes now.

Tony had retracted his helmet completely by this point, and he ran a gauntlet through his sweaty hair. “The only thing is that we can’t really be calling you to help us regularly without dealing with the matter of the Accords.”

Steve’s heart sank. There was the catch. His facemask itched, sticking to his face from all the sweat and dirt, and he wished he could remove it for this conversation with Tony. But he was Nomad right now, not Steve, and he made sure to maintain the same lower, gruff voice he had been using as Nomad.

“I’m not sure if I agree with the Accords yet,” Steve said, slow and careful like he hadn’t been when they first argued about this. “From what I know about it, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to let governments make the call on superheroes’ activities. There’s always the risk of a political agenda which takes priority over human lives. And didn’t Hydra infiltrate multiple government agencies?”

Tony’s lips thinned. “We still have to respect the sovereignty of foreign countries, even if we don’t agree with their government, otherwise we won’t be seen as much more than a superpowered invading force. It’s not just the governments. Even the people won’t want us around then either.

“Look, we’ve made amendments to the first cut of the Accords. They aren’t run by any one government. Within this country, the movements of superheroes aren’t controlled by the US government. It’s governed by the superheroes themselves. That’s how it’s being set up in other countries as well.”

Tony had a point, Steve knew that. And the changes in the terms sounded significant as well, heading in a direction that Steve found a lot more workable.

But Steve wasn’t sure if he felt swayed by logic… or by something else. The siren call of being one of the team again was not something to underestimate.

“I need time to review the Accords,” Steve said finally.

He could see the disappointment in Tony’s brown eyes, depthless as they stared back into his own. Then Tony sighed and nodded.

“We’ll have to meet up at some point for me to hand them over to you, preferably not at the scene of destruction by overgrown arachnid.”

“Is it still arachnid if they’re bigger than we are or have we discovered a new species?” Steve asked, faux-serious.

Tony couldn’t stop a snort of laughter, and just like that, the serious and somewhat tense moment broke.

Tony pointed at him, “Don’t quit your day job to go into comedy, Nomad.”

“You don’t know my day job, Iron Man,” Steve said, even though he knew he was tempting fate.

“Oh? I thought it was fairly easy to guess,” Tony said, looking Steve over from his toes to his hair, a slow heated stare that warmed Steve up from the pit of his stomach. “I would say… something to do with dancing. In dim lighting, loud music, involving removal of fabrics.”

Steve couldn’t believe what Tony was saying, but it was too blatant to misinterpret.

“I’m not, I’m really not…” Steve said, almost a stutter.

Tony grinned, a boyish expression that took the stress off his face. “Aww, too much? Don’t worry, I’m sure you don’t make money from Hen’s nights and birthday parties for people looking to wave some bills at a handsome buck. I’m just teasing.”

Christ, half the things Tony said didn’t even make sense, but Steve’s cheeks burned from his tone all the same.

“Are you turning red under that mask?” Tony said, with glee in his voice as he inched closer to peer at Steve’s cheeks.

Vision did a flyby and must have said something to Tony through the communicator, because Tony sighed and stepped back. “Damn, the press are asking for a statement from the Avengers. If you don’t want to get asked to do a twirl for their photographers or have to answer questions about whether you’ve signed the Accords or not, you might want to skedaddle.”

That was a good point. So far, the press hadn’t asked Steve any serious questions, but that could change at any point.

“Thanks, I’ll head off then,” Steve said.

Tony gave him a wave, not moving from where he stood. It seemed a little strange, but Steve turned and jogged off, dodging broken glass and stranded cars on the road. He looked over his shoulder once, and realized that Tony was watching him go. For some reason, he felt Tony’s gaze like a hot brand against his back.

He was just about to turn off from that street when Spider-Man swung down and attached himself to a brick wall. Steve had to crane his neck to look up at him.

“Heeeeyyyy, could you do your Spidey friend a favor and take the next alley instead?”

Steve just stared at him, not saying anything.

Spider-Man clearly heard the unasked question, because he answered, “I might have set something up there, which will totally be harmless to you and won’t do anything to you at all, really, unless you decide to pull off your mask once you turn off this street, which seems unlikely. So keep your mask on, and nothing will happen to you except you will have used a different street. You know, times are hard and you’ve got to give people what they want. Do me a solid, please?”

His voice took on a distinctly wheedling tone by the end of that ramble. Spider-Man sounded really young at that moment, but Steve wasn’t going to comment on his age because he knew what it was like to be young and wanting desperately to make a difference. He had also seen Spider-Man in action, and that kid’s strength and agility could outstrip most superheroes’.

Steve considered Spider-Man’s request, and then sighed to himself. If it wouldn’t harm him, and he was confident it wouldn’t, then why not? He was pretty sure he had a handle on the kid.

“You owe me one, kid,” Steve said, even though he knew he wouldn’t be calling on this favor if it turned out to be a harmless request.

Spider-Man cheered as he shot out his webs to swing off the building. “Thanks, Nomad! You’ve made my day!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Steve said, wondering what he was getting into.

By the time he reached home through a circuitous route that ended on the rooftop of his building, Steve hadn’t seen anything which would explain Spider-Man’s request. The second street he had taken had held no surprises, and Steve wondered if there was something he had missed, that Spider-Man wanted him to pick up on.

After a long hot shower and large meal, he turned on his TV to see photographs of himself, from the front and back, as he ran down a familiar looking street, the very street Spider-Man had directed him towards. The photographs were high-quality, taken from various angles which suggested that cameras had been planted before Steve arrived, since there hadn’t been anyone there at the time. The reporter talked about an unnamed source, and winked at the camera as she referred to Nomad’s, ahem, assets which could be seen quite clearly in those photos.

Steve groaned, dropping his head back against the couch. He wouldn’t try to find out who the photographer was, but he was guessing he knew how Spider-Man was earning extra money now, and the kid definitely owed him one.

Chapter Text

Things were getting out of hand, which was why Steve decided that he was going to open communications with Tony now. Not that he hadn’t spoken to Tony yet; the problem was that it happened while he was Nomad. Tony didn’t know Nomad was really Steve. He was amiable towards Nomad, and invited Nomad to sign the Accords, join the team, but Tony didn’t really know who he was talking to. He made all kinds of comments to Steve, and even, well, flirted with Steve. Steve could admit that. There. Tony flirted with Steve. Except it wasn’t Steve, it was Nomad. Because Tony didn’t know who Nomad was.

That was all beside the point. The flirting was beside the point.

He tried to tell himself that even as he wondered. Was it beside the point? Since when did Tony flirt with guys? Who else had Tony been flirting with all this time? Did he flirt with Thor? Clint?

But no, it was beside the point.

The point was that Tony hadn’t received any communication from Steve Rogers. He probably thought Steve was still in Wakanda, because of course Tony knew they were in Wakanda. Steve came here to talk to Tony, but he had been caught up in all this Nomad business, to the point where he hadn’t yet achieved his original goal. But he was going to correct that now.

He decided to send Tony a text message.

He could have called Tony, that was straightforward and he did prefer to talk things out in person or over the phone, rather than through endless exchanges of text messages. But he felt… uncertain. He had been talking to Tony, face-to-face as Nomad. Would hearing Steve’s voice remind Tony of Nomad’s voice and reveal his secret identity?

Steve realized he was probably overthinking it, but he couldn’t help himself. The secret identity issue was preoccupying his mind, to the point where he could hardly think straight. So he would send a text message and think about the rest of it later.  

Steve:
- Hi, Tony. This is Steve. Are you free to talk? -

Tony:
- I don’t know who that is. -

Steve’s heart sank. Was Tony so mad at him that he was pretending not to know Steve? Then the next message from Tony came in.

Tony:
- This thing called a flip phone has erased all my memories of people called Steve. It’s a common danger with antique phones, you should look it up on Wikipedia before sending it to other people. -

Steve let out a sigh of relief, and smiled at the dramatic denial.

Steve:
- I thought you would get a kick out of it. The tech is old, should remind you of the good times. -

Tony:
- I’m not the one hitting 90, old man. -

Tony:
- And I did get a kick out of it. I kicked it out the window and it almost killed the tower’s head gardener. It’s a hazard to innocent people living in the modern century. -

Steve:
- That doesn’t seem possible. -
- Miss Chang is too spry to be killed by a flying phone. She would catch it. -

Tony:
- How did I forget that you flirt with my 60 year old gardener -

Steve:
- I can’t help it, she keeps making me these killer dumplings. -

Tony:
- You’re such a hussy for good food. -

Steve pressed a fist to his lips as he tried to suppress his inner turmoil. He wanted to keep going like this, to pretend that there was nothing wrong and they could just keep exchanging teasing jabs like they used to always do when they had a moment of free time. But the reason he had a Nomad-shaped secret that he had to keep from Tony and the world was because he hadn’t been able to give up the easy banter with Tony when he had the mask on. He couldn’t fall into the same trap of his own making again. He was talking to Tony as Steve now, not Nomad, and he couldn’t continue to ignore what had happened between them. If he was living a lie as Nomad, he couldn’t also live a lie as Steve Rogers.

There was no easy way to lead into what he really wanted to talk about, so he decided to get right to it instead of attempting a gradual shift in topic.

Steve:
- Other than gardeners and food … -
- I wanted to talk about what happened in Siberia. I think there are some things we need to clear up. -

There was a short pause before Tony responded.

Tony:
- Nothing to clear up, we’re all on the same page. -

Steve typed and retyped his response, carefully wording it to ensure he had written something that couldn’t be misunderstood before he sent it.

Steve:
- Can we talk about it just to be sure that we are on the same page? -

Tony:
- I’m sure that we are. -

Based on how the conversation started, Steve had hoped that this wouldn’t go too badly, but Tony was much more resistant to actual discussion than his earlier tone had suggested. After the light banter between them, Tony digging his heels in like this frustrated Steve. He knew that Tony tended to avoid talking about personal issues, and Steve wasn’t all that different in that respect so he understood the urge to shy away from opening up about his sore points. But the thrumming urge to make things right again was overwhelming his tendancy to avoid talking about his own issues. Steve couldn’t bear Tony’s evasion, couldn’t accept the idea that this was something that would always be between them and they could never really move past it. At the idea that this could be the end of the road for them, Steve abandoned his attempt to think over every message before he sent them.

Steve:
- I understand your position, but I don’t think you understand mine -

Tony:
- Thanks, but no thanks, don’t need your condescension. -

Ouch. Okay, this was going wrong quickly. Steve’s nerves made him reckless, typing and sending his next message without even rereading it.

Steve:
- It’s not condescension. I understand your motivation and I understand that I fucked up. But I hope you understand why I did what I did too. -

There was a long moment where there was no reply, and Steve decided that he needed to add something more to that. That last sentence on its own asked for a lot without giving anything away. He thought about his last conversation with Sam, how he first came to New York because he thought things couldn’t continue like this. He needed Tony to know that he didn’t do it all on a whim, that the team did matter to him. He typed quickly.

Steve:
- I thought I was doing the right thing and I thought we could fix it after. I wasn’t choosing one friendship over another, I was doing what was urgent first. Then when things got too far, I couldn’t stop because I knew if I stopped, it would have destroyed all of us. -

He wanted to write more. He wanted to say that at the end, when they were fighting one-on-one, he realized that he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop because if he did, Bucky might die. And Bucky didn’t deserve to die, because it wasn’t Bucky’s fault. He couldn’t let Bucky die. Bucky was his best friend, the person who had always been there for Steve even as Steve had failed him so many times.

He also knew that Tony couldn’t see the truth of the matter involving Bucky’s actions as the Winter Soldier. Tony was consumed by rage and betrayal — some of it because of Steve’s own screw ups — and Steve didn’t want Tony waking up from that blinding rage to realize he had become a murderer who had killed an innocent man.

He knew Tony was wrong, but Tony was wrong because Steve had been wrong, wrong to hide the truth from Tony, leaving him vulnerable to Zemo’s manipulation in the worst way possible. Bucky couldn’t be the victim of both Steve and Tony’s mistakes. At the same time, he couldn’t let Tony make that mistake for Tony’s own sake as well. He would come to his senses and maybe make excuses to himself, but he would regret it, Steve knew that. The kind of regret that would eat away at him. And he didn’t deserve to have that kind of regret on his conscience.

But Steve worried that if he said any of that, explained his position in detail right now, Tony would see it as more condescension or a confrontation. So he kept all his other thoughts in and hoped that Tony would read the implicit message without feeling like he was being challenged or insulted. 

A message finally came in during Steve’s reverie.

Tony:
- Did T’Challa tell you that the Accords have changed? We put a lot more work into it, got international superheroes involved, more input from T’Challa, less Ross being Ross. -

A change of topic then. It was disappointing, but maybe that was the best he could hope for in this limited mode of communication.

Steve:
- I’ve heard some things but T’Challa’s lawyers are still working the kinks out before he shows it to us. -

Tony:
- Read the draft, ask for changes now. T’Challa has more pull since he’s the king of Wakanda, land of precious natural resources, and he’s Supercat. Felines are very popular right now. He’s got a lot of perspective too and a lot of leverage. Hard for other countries to say no to him. -

Steve let out a sigh of relief at the return of Tony’s irreverent tone. At least this was better than Tony’s anger or complete silence. Steve knew that if Tony was still talking to him, then that meant that Tony would at least think over what had been said.

Steve:
- I’ll ask T’challa for a draft. I didn’t think it was so far along now. -

Tony:
- I thought you’d be keeping tabs on the progress. Too busy catching up with the BFF? -

That sent a stab of pain at the memory of where Bucky was, stuck in cryogenics until they could remove the brainwashing triggers that turned him into a mindless puppet. He understood Bucky’s decision. Not being in control of his own body, after everything he had gone through, must be a nightmare. But it was still painful to see Bucky putting his life on hold again as a result of the atrocities that had already been inflicted on him.

Steve:
- No, Bucky went into cryo. Too dangerous. I’ve been busy with something else. -

Steve braced himself, unsure about Tony’s response to the touchy subject of Bucky Barnes. There was another pause, but this time shorter than the previous one.

Tony:
- Sucks. -
- Busy with blonde CIA cutie? -

Steve:
- I’m a fugitive, remember? -

Tony:
- There are ways around it -

Steve:
- I have other things on my mind right now. -

Tony:
- Secret superheroing? -

That was too close to the truth. Steve tried to change the subject.

Steve:
- I saw you on the news. How’s the team? -

Tony:
- Same old, same old. Except for the youngters. Too many kiddies around between Vision and Spider-boy. Got a newbie who likes the breeze on his skin -

No way was Steve touching that last one.

Steve:
- I heard Spider-Man is your protégé -
- You feeling parental? -

Tony:
- Don’t project onto me, Avengers-mom. -
- How’s the others? -

Steve:
- They’re okay. Wanda is almost back to normal but she misses Vision. Sam has a lady friend, one of T’challa’s guards. Clint and Scott miss their kids. -

Tony:
- They made their choices -

That reply came quickly, as if Tony had been waiting for it, waiting for a rebuke that didn’t exist.

Steve:
- I know. They know -

Now there was a pause, before Tony’s unexpected message.

Tony:
- Why can’t you be a little less reasonable? -

That surprised a laugh out of him.

Steve:
- I don’t feel very reasonable about all this. I don’t know what I’m doing. -

Then he felt stupid the moment he sent it, too honest and exposed, like he had opened up his soft innards for Tony to poke at and unravel. He tried to lighten the moment.

Steve:
- How do you want me to be less reasonable? I can try harder -

At the same time Steve sent the message, Tony wrote back.

Tony:
- It’s hard to stay angry at you when you’re reasonable -

That lifted Steve’s hopes, enough for him to try to insert some humor into the situation.

Steve:
- You have figured out my evil plan. World domination through reasonableness. -

Tony:
- Mastermind evil Cap. Could be scary -

Steve:
- Not Cap anymore. Yes, my choice too -

Tony:
- Just a boy from Brooklyn -

Steve:
- From Brooklyn, Washington, New York. I’m figuring out who I am again -

Tony:
- Let me know when you figure it out -

Steve:
- Don’t be angry at me… but how’s Rhodey? -

Tony:
- He’s walking again but he can’t pilot War Machine…yet -
- Also being infuriatingly reasonable too -

Steve:
- How so? -

Tony:
- Said that it was his choice and that shit happens in battle. That I can’t blame anyone, including myself. That he wants a rocket launcher in his cane. -

Steve:
- Sounds like a reasonable request -

Tony:
- Of course you would think so -
- I’ve gotta go. Meeting. Yet another one, can’t believe I still have to go to meetings even when I’m not CEO -

It was a familiar complaint, and it filled Steve with a strange nostalgia. He couldn’t believe he was nostalgic about Tony complaining about meetings.

Steve:
- Alright, don’t have too much fun. -

Tony:
- Oh sure, that will be difficult -

Then it was done. Their first contact after their inability to agree split their team in half and left them fractured, no longer a working whole.

God, Steve had missed this banter and easy dialogue. Even with Tony’s mercurial temper and their unresolved issues, even the struggle over conversational landmines, it was all worth it. Steve hoped he wasn’t just imagining it, but it sounded like Tony was trying as well.

It gave him hope.

Maybe this rift wouldn’t be forever.

Chapter Text

The next time Steve went out as Nomad, it was for a small fight. Spider-Man probably didn’t need his help, but Steve was in the neighborhood and saw the news while he was getting coffee.

It was a moment’s work to leave his sweater and jeans in his backpack behind a dumpster. He had taken to wearing the Nomad costume under his civilian clothing and carrying his mask in his backpack. It was one of the perks of having a skintight superhero costume with almost no padding or bulk at all. It was possibly the only perk to it.

Spider-Man was fighting Rhino, and handling him pretty easily, so all Steve ended up doing was crowd control and keeping the civilians back as they tried to edge closer for photographs. None of them had any sense of danger at all. Steve could appreciate the irony of Captain America being relegated to crowd control. It was a change in pace, and surprisingly, harder than half his punch ups with supervillains.

Many in the crowd started taking photos of him instead of Spider-Man, and he endured it just to get them to move a block down from the fight. One thing he did notice was that there were far fewer requests for him to hold a kid for a photo compared to when he was Captain America. There were definitely more teenage fans of Nomad and some of those cameras weren’t pointed anywhere close to his face.

When the fight was over and the police came by to pick up Rhino, Steve and Spider-Man adjourned to a fire escape of a nearby rundown apartment building. It was the middle of a weekday and it was fairly quiet there.

“Thanks for keeping the civvies away. They never run when it looks like the fighting is under control,” Spider-Man said, sounding baffled.

“No problem,” Nomad said. “You finished it quick, and kept the property damage and risk to the civilians as minimal as you could. That was a good job.”

“Yeah?” Spider-Man said, sounding thrilled. “That’s, uh, that’s cool. Good to know. Thanks. I knew that, yeah.”

Steve suppressed a smile. He remembered being that young once.

Then a thought occurred to him. “Where are they taking Rhino?”

Spider-Man said, gesticulating at the back of the huge armored truck that was driving off with Rhino, “There’s a secure facility just outside New York. If you’re thinking about the underwater version of Azkaban, that idea’s been scrapped.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, even though Spider-Man probably couldn’t see it through his mask. “Oh? All I know from the news was that there was a big debate when photos of that place were leaked. I heard many politicians tried to divorce themselves from knowledge of the Raft.”

“Oh boy, apparently Ross was so mad when the photos got out, but he couldn’t trace the source. He kept trying to call Mister Stark, and Mister Stark kept giving him excuses about absurd Avengers emergencies for why he couldn’t take his call. My favorite was when he said that Vision had a costume malfunction and he urgently needed a safety pin delivered to him,” Spider-Man said with obvious glee. “Vision can make his own clothes in a blink of an eye. He doesn’t even need safety pins!”

That sounded so very much like Tony at his worst. Steve suppressed a smile. It also made him wonder if Tony had a hand in leaking the photos out. It was a simple way to force the issue without crossing any lines openly.

“I knew there were arguments about the Raft among the general public, but I didn’t think it was enough to get the place scrapped,” Steve said, trying not to sound too cheerful at the idea that the place was gone now.

He actually knew it had been closed down from T’Challa, but it was interesting to hear Spider-Man’s take on it as well. Steve saw it as a little intelligence gathering.

“Nah, it wasn’t popular among the Accords’ representatives too, I mean the governments from all the different countries who signed on. They knew there was going to be a facility or a prison, but they hadn’t agreed on much of the details around the Raft yet at that time. They decided that the Raft was established outside of the boundaries agreed by the Accords, gave the US government too much control over superpowered people, and it was too easy to exploit the situation. And Cap kind of proved how useless it was anyway, with how easy it was to break into, not that the public knows about that since the arrest and break out were all hushed up in the first place. There’s a new place now, managed by superheroes and one of Mister Stark’s A.I.s.”

It was still strange to hear Captain America being referred to in third person in front of him. He let Spider-Man ramble on.

“There’s psychic evaluation as well, because it’s been observed that a lot of the superpowereds that go rogue are kind of…” Spider-Man wobbled his hand. “Imbalanced? Some of them seem like they need help. They’re evaluated for rehabilitation too. I was writing this up for my school essay– Er, forget I said that last part.”

Steve said, wryly, “I had already guessed you were still in school, Spider-Man.”

Spider-Man groaned. “Mister Stark is always telling me that I can chatter, since he does the same too, but it should be to distract my opponent, not myself.”

“Well, I’m not your opponent, so I won’t say anything to him,” Steve said, a little more gently.

“Yeah, but I’m meant to be practising any time I’m in my suit,” Spider-Man said, a little glum, before his head snapped up. “Oh, before I forget.”

He pulled out a slim case from what looked to be a new pouch he was wearing at his waist, and passed the case over to Steve.

“What’s this?”

Spider-Man said, “New communicators and new gloves. Mister Stark asked me to pass it to you if I saw you doing my patrol today, and here you are! He said it’s a new kind of communicator that will stay in your ear no matter what, through some sort of electrostatic adherence. It can only be put on and removed by the gloves he’s included.”

Steve felt a rush of warmth. Despite everything Tony had said about how Nomad had to sign up before he could be part of the team, he had still ended up making Steve communicators that didn’t have the same weakness as the temporary communicators Steve had worn the last time. Tony was always looking out for his team.

Not that Steve was really part of the team and not that Tony knew it was Steve under Nomad’s mask. Suddenly, Steve was caught between a strange mix of being pleased and being put out. It was clear that Tony liked Nomad enough for the tech gifts to start coming his way… but at the same time, Nomad was a virtual stranger to Tony, and here Tony was, flirting with Nomad and giving him tech gifts. 

“So, no more jumping off buildings without calling for back-up, as the bossman says,” Spider-Man said, giving him a jaunty salute.

Steve dragged his mind back to the current conversation. “Thanks for the delivery.” Steve paused and gave Spider-Man a wry look. “And you’re welcome. For the photographs.”

“What photo– Oooh, er, woah, look at the time,” Spider-Man said as he looked at his costumed wrist that was completely devoid of a watch. “I have to go before I miss my bus, bye!”

Spider-Man somersaulted backwards off the fire escape and went swinging away.

Steve couldn’t help but smile even as he shook his head. Tony had his hands full with that one. He looked back down at the communicator, already itching to try it out. He still had mixed feelings, but it seemed too tangled up to easily pick apart.

This Nomad identity might have allowed him to help in a pinch, when he was desperate, but maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to be Nomad for much longer.

# # # # # #

“I think you should stay Nomad.”

“What?” Steve asked, baffled.

Sam elaborated, “Maybe not forever, although Nomad’s popularity is rivalling Captain America’s at its peak, especially internationally, so you might want to consider that. But at the very least, you should stay Nomad for a little while longer.

Steve massaged his forehead. “Last I heard from you about this, you were laughing like a loon about Nomad. What’s changed your mind?”

“Clint and Scott are heading back tomorrow,” Sam said.

It was such a non-sequitur that Steve just blinked in silence until Sam continued, “T’Challa has wrangled some kind of deal for them, claiming that the Accords were still in its infancy at that time and a lot of the agreements have changed by now. He’s claiming that Clint and Scott weren’t presented with the Accords officially, so they weren’t aware of the change in status. Basically, it’s a whole bucket full of horseshit.”

“But they bought it?”

“After Stark backed him up. I was surprised to hear that, but apparently he did, and that was enough to sway most of the countries backing the Accords,” Sam said. “I think there would be more hue and cry over it, but the media’s attention on the Accords and what will happen to the rogue Avengers have shifted now to the new superhero running around New York.”

Steve groaned. “You’re joking.”

Sam said, “Not even a little. T’Challa’s people provided some stats. Ever since Nomad’s appearance, the media’s coverage on the Accords have dropped by almost 20 percent and the public approval rating of superheroes have gone up a whopping 16 percent. It’s allowed some flexibility in how the Accords has to treat us rogue elements and right now, all the major parties want things to move fast before too much public attention swings back to discussions around the Accords and throws up more roadblocks. The sooner the amendments are ratified, the less unstable the Accords will seem.”

Well, Steve always knew a show and dance was sometimes needed to gain public approval, and he had been the dancing monkey once upon a time… He could hardly complain when this was benefiting his team directly.

“When are Clint and Scott coming back?” Steve asked.

“They’ll be flying back tomorrow. T’Challa thought it was best to do it sooner rather than later, while the attention is still off the rogue Avengers.”

“You’re really enjoying the name ‘rogue Avengers’.”

“I feel like it suits me better,” Sam better. “I’ve always been a bit of a rogue.”

Steve laughed. “You keep telling yourself that, Sam.”

“It’s the truth, so I will. And since you’re going to have to continue using your new superhero identity, T’Challa is going to send you more new weapons. They’re some kind of electrified discs. You can zap people while holding the discs or throw the discs. It will be back on familiar ground for you.”

That could be helpful. Without his shield, Steve still felt like he was learning how to handle combat in a different way. “Give T’Challa my thanks.”

“T’Challa thought you would say as much,” Sam said with a grin that was obvious even without video to accompany the call, “and said you could show your gratitude by getting on the news an hour or so before Clint and Sam’s arrival, preferably while flexing at the cameras. That would provide sufficient distraction for their re-entry, on top of other security precautions that he’s taking. Those were his exact words. Flexing! That king of cats has a great sense of humor.”

Steve sighed. It seemed like everyone had a sense of humor when it came to his suit.

“I’ll… stop a mugging or something,” Steve said, despondent.

“If you could make it something that involves heavy lifting, it would probably result in more flexing,” Sam advised with a complete lack of shame.

Steve sighed again.

# # # # # #

Coming out from his bathroom, Steve scrubbed the towel through his hair, drying it roughly. He hadn’t needed to go look for a mugging in the end. The next day, there had been a fire not far from his apartment, and he’d arrived before the firemen, so he had gone in and helped evacuate people as quickly as possible. By the time the reporters had pulled up, drawn there by news that a superhero was helping with a fire, the firemen had the fire mostly under control. Nomad was photographed exiting the building with a kitten tucked under his arm and gently handing over the bedraggled animal to the crying child who had looked overwhelmed and relieved to see the kitten. He had earned a kiss on his cheek from the child’s mother.

By the time Steve was done with his shower, the photos were all over the news, with long commentary about Nomad’s gentle side and speculation over whether New York could court the nomadic superhero into staying. He also received a message from Sam saying that Clint and Scott had been safely delivered home, so he considered it to be a job well done in all ways.

Steve lay down on his couch and finally, pulled up his phone to read his text message exchanges with Tony. They had exchanged a few more text messages since that first conversation, and he had reread all of them a few times over. He knew it was strange and unnecessary since he had committed all of them to memory by now, but it was almost comforting to reread the words. Made them seemed realer, a reminder that maybe he was heading in the right direction again. These days, he wasn’t even sure what he should be doing the next day, let alone how to achieve his overall goal of meeting with Tony again. Not that he knew what he would do once he actually saw him again either. He hadn’t felt this directionless in a very long time.  

Steve gave in and typed a message to Tony. His fingers moved over his phone quickly, a testament to how he had taken to technology like a dry duck to the only pond in the desert. The convenience technology brought to the modern age was one of Steve’s favorite things about this century.

Steve:
- Hey. -
- Working on S.I., the Avengers or personal tech? -

Steve and Tony tended to start conversations like they were already in the middle of one. 

Tony:
- Who said I was doing any of that? -

Steve:
- Well, are you? -

Tony:
- Paperwork at S.I. :( -
- Send help -

Steve:
- Paperwork? You’re on your own. -

Tony:
- Captain America, defeated by paperwork -

Steve didn’t want to touch the whole Captain America issue and how he no longer wore the uniform again, so he took a different approach.

Steve:
-Just regular Steve Rogers and his allergies to many things, including paperwork -

Tony:
- I think you’re cured of that. I’m pretty sure I saw notes about how the super soldier serum ensures a higher tolerance of paperwork. -
- You should test it for science! -

It was an oblique reference to Howard, with no sign of a cutting edge. Tony must be in a good mood.

Steve:
- Don’t be ridiculous -
- There was no such thing as paperwork back in my day -

Tony:
- Paperwork was invented by the Devil so it’s been around since the beginning of time. You don’t fool me, grandpa -

Steve:
- Tony Stark, believes in the Devil. I can already see the headlines. -

Tony:
- Hah, that would be one of the milder headlines then. -
- As long as the headlines aren’t about giant spiders anymore, I’m good. -

Steve:
- I saw that in the news.  Do you know what caused it? -

Tony:
- Likely some experiment in Reed Richards’ building went wrong, even though he’s denying that he was running anything that could open a portal -
- It’s under investigation anyway -

Steve remembered that Reed Richards was one of the early signatories after the Accords was revised, so he took this to mean that the American branch of the Accords was looking into things. He decided it wasn’t worth poking at.

Steve:
- At least it’s resolved now with no casualties -

Tony:
- That’s down to bug spray and unexpected help we got -

Steve knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help himself. He was curious.

Steve:
- The unexpected help was Nomad, right? I’ve seen pictures. -

Tony:
- Everyone has seen pictures. -
- His pictures have given the paper magazines and newspapers a 10% boost in sales and news sites a 30% boost in hits -
- I hear that his existence is single-handedly reviving spandex sales -

Steve felt himself flush.

Steve:
- You’re okay with how he dresses? -

Tony:
- Why wouldn’t I be? Not exactly hard on the eyes. -
- Why have it if you don’t flaunt it. That’s my philosophy.  -

Steve:
- So you like how he looks? -

Then he felt like a heel for asking Tony about himself in such a dishonest way, when Tony wouldn’t know he was talking to Steve about Steve.

This was so confusing.

And he didn’t know why he felt so conflicted by what Tony was saying. He knew Tony was bisexual. But hearing Tony say that Steve’s body wasn’t exactly hard on his eyes was a whole different level of personal.

Tony:
- Everyone and their grandmother likes how he looks, Steve -
- Don’t you? -

Tony definitely didn’t intend it that way, since he didn’t know Nomad’s secret identity, but that was a question that required more self-reflection than Steve was ready for today.

Steve:
- Doesn’t seem practical, that’s all. -

Tony:
- I think it helps distract the villains. It’s a sound strategy. Villains are too busy staring to do villainy right. -

Steve:
- Or civilians get drawn in by all that peacocking and get hurt in a fight. -

For some inexplicable reason, Steve was feeling tense and annoyed now. He knew he was getting snappish at Tony over Nomad, which was ridiculous because he was Nomad, but he couldn’t seem to stop. There was a short pause before Tony responded.

Tony:
- I don’t think he’s peacocking, just trying his best with what he got. What do you have against Nomad? -

Steve:
- Nothing. Just worried. -

Tony:
- About what? -

Steve:
- He’s the one watching your back now. -

There was a much longer silence, and Steve started to squirm, wondering if he had crossed a line.

Tony:
- He’s one of several watching my back. I think I can trust him. -

Since when did Tony get so trusting so quickly anyway? Before Steve could respond, Tony sent another message.

Tony:
- gtg, time for a meeting. -

Maybe it was better that they ended their conversation at this point. Steve took in a deep breath.

Steve:
- Enjoy! -

Tony:
- Sadist. :( -

Steve put the phone down and covered his face with his hands. Masochist, maybe. What was he thinking? Why was he so upset that Tony was willing to trust Nomad?

Steve decided to go for a run, because he really didn’t feel up to thinking about his own reasons.

Chapter Text

Another day, another supervillain. This time, Steve was alone and first on site. He put his personalized communicator in, and kept the black gloves on. They matched his outfit pretty well, enough so that he wondered if Tony had made them on purpose. They were certainly sturdier than his original costume’s fake leather gloves, so he had no complaints.

Steve used the new communicator to update F.R.I.D.A.Y. who was managing the communications for active superheroes. At a quick glance, he assessed the threat level as low. Near as Steve could tell, the statue of Atlas had just walked off its stand and decided to throw a tantrum. The 15-foot-tall, gleaming bronze figure was hefting its skeletal globe and menacing the empty cars parked on the street. The general public had been cleared out of the vicinity of Rockefeller Center quickly, and the bronze figure just stomped around without direction, waving the sphere around in anger.

Steve didn’t think the others needed to be here for this since there didn’t seem to be any immediate threat to the general public. It was eerie to see the usually crowded place so empty. There was a general hustle and bustle coming from the intersections, where the police barricades were keeping the public back, but other than that, Steve was standing in a small strip of quiet and peace in the middle of New York City.

As long as one ignored the bronze statue kicking around in a fit of tantrum.

Then a woman dashed out from the imposing structure that was St Patrick’s Cathedral across the road from the Rockefeller Center, and ran directly towards the statue. She was shouting, “Stop! Stop it, please!”

Steve sprinted from where he had been standing on the corner of Fifth Avenue, observing the statue, and scooped up the woman before she could reach the rampaging statue that had ignored her approach. She struggled a little, even punching him in the shoulder, but he ignored it. He ran a dozen feet away from the statue along the now empty street, and set her on her feet.

“Ma’am, it isn’t safe to approach the, uh, statue,” Steve said.

She had tears in her eyes as she looked up at him, but they looked to be tears of anger and frustration. “I know that! But I’ve to stop him, it, the statue! This is my fault, and I don’t know what I would do if the statue hurt someone.”

Steve frowned, trying to figure out her role in this. “You… animated the statue and lost control of it?”

“I didn’t mean to,” the blonde woman said, a little despairingly. “It just happened. It’s been happening, but only with small things, and, and they stop after an hour or so. But nothing so big. I think it’s because, because I was just so angry. I was just laid off, I didn’t mean to–”

“Alright, I understand. Why don’t you stay here, and see if you can figure out how to use your abilities to un-animate the statue, but preferably without animating anything else. I’ll just keep the statue contained for the moment, until it loses its animation. If it’s a temporary effect, I don’t think it can cause much damage for long,” Steve said, trying to maintain a low and soothing voice.

She nodded jerkily. “You’re right, that makes sense. I can try that. Thank you so much for helping with this.”

Steve nodded. “That’s what we’re here for.”

He turned back towards the statue and watched it as he provided another update to F.R.I.D.A.Y.. Then he prepared to play sheepdog.

It worked for about fifteen minutes, during which the statue mainly just stomped around its stand. Then all of a sudden, it headed away from its original location, towards the barricade the police had put up to keep the cars and pedestrians from coming past the Rockefeller Center. It was causing a hellish traffic jam, with a lot of car horns going off as vehicles inched along, redirected by the police. There were a lot of people pressed up against the barricades as well, trying to snap a photo of the moving statue and the new superhero in town. Maybe all the commotion attracted the statue, somehow.

Steve had no choice but to give it a much more interesting target. There weren’t any convenient heavy objects he could use without causing damage to public property and the electrified discs he received from T’Challa probably wouldn’t be of much use against a bronze statue.

So he made a strategic decision, taking a running leap and kicking the statue in the head. After that, it descended into a brawl.

It was surprisingly fun. The stakes were low with the area cleared and the bronze statue wasn’t that much of a challenge, but Steve was trying to avoid doing it permanent damage so that it could be restored to its stand with minimal cost. So Steve engaged the statue in a roundabout game of tag. Unfortunately, the statue did end up throwing its sphere at him in a fit of pique, which Steve caught easily and set aside— it would have to be reattached later. The plan to return the statue to its original position without major restoration was starting to come apart.

Steve stopped the statue from going towards a car, probably to use as another projectile weapon, by jumping on its back with full force. It teetered and then fell forward with a resounding crash. Steve twisted at both its arms, trying to pin them behind its back, but one arm wrenched free and made a backwards grab for him instead. He twisted out of the way, but the bronze fingers managed to snag the top of his outfit.

The thin fake-leather material was no match against bronze and he felt his outfit rip with a jerk of the statue’s arm. Steve grimaced. How was he going to repair that? He jerked back, watched as more of his outfit was left in the statue’s fist, and then finally, managed to pin the statue’s arms behind its back.

The statue bucked and heaved, making hellish, grinding sounds of bronze against paved road. After a few minutes of this, the statue stilled suddenly. Steve could actually feel the animation leave the statue, although he couldn’t explain it exactly. It was like he had been holding water in the cusp of his hand, before it suddenly turned to ice. What was once malleable just turned into stiff, immobile bronze.

Steve released the bronze arms tentatively, but the statue made no move. He got to his feet and watched the statue for another minute before he was satisfied that it was no longer animated. He looked around. There was no damage to any public property this time, which could only be a good thing.

Then he spotted the woman who had claimed responsibility for the animated statue and the familiar red and gold figure next to her. She was sitting on the ground, shoulders slumped, and Iron Man was crouched beside her, helmet up.

Steve tentatively made his way towards them and caught the tail end of their conversation.

“–the right people there who can help you learn control and go back to your normal life if that’s what you want. I know this guy, real stick in the mud and a little obsessed with the Men in Black look, but he has contacts with people who know what it’s like to have powers manifest out of nowhere. You don’t even have to meet them. With the tech these days, we can get you something fancy, like a phone, maybe. I’ve got a spare lying around somewhere,” Tony was saying, pretending to pat his armor down for a spare phone.

She let out a shaky laugh at that. “Maybe I can talk to them through that fancy helmet of yours.”

“Yeah, good try, but you’re not putting my suit on,” Tony said with a wry smile Steve could just see as he trotted up to them.

Steve asked, “Everything okay here?”

Tony said, “I was just promising Jeremiah here that we won’t invite her to join our secret boyband if she’s not interested, but that there are all kinds of other options regardless of what she chooses.”

“Except for pretending that none of this happened,” the lady mumbled.

“Except for that,” Tony agreed with a grimace. “You have to learn to control what you can do or accidents like this will keep happening.”

Then he looked up and froze.

Steve watched as his brown eyes widened and then wandered down from Steve’s face. Steve frowned, and looked down only to realize that half of the top of his costume had been ripped off. He was wearing one sleeve with dark fabric flapping from it, but otherwise, there was a lot of exposed skin. Geez, he looked like Tarzan of the Apes.

He looked up to see Tony nudge Jeremiah gently and say, “Hey, I know things are crappy right now, but if you look up, I think you’ll feel cheered up.”

Steve blushed when she looked up as well and her mouth fell open almost comically. It would be funny if it wasn’t for all the staring that he was getting from both Tony and Jeremiah.

“Um,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his flushed neck. “It’s… I guess the statue got me good. At least it left my pants intact.”

“What a shame,” Tony murmured.

“Total bummer,” Jeremiah said.

Steve sighed. “I’ll just get out of here then.”

“If you really have to,” Tony sighed, but Steve was already turning away, trying to hide his hot face.

# # # # # #

CNN Twitter:
Atlas statue came to live to fulfill New Yorkers’ dream, ripped off Nomad’s costume #NewYorkCelebration

CNN Twitter:
You heard it here first. Ex-Atlas statue to be set up again on plinth, new name as Atlas’ Gift.

Steve stared at the photo of what had been the Atlas statue. Now it stood on its plinth, but with arms behind its back, pinned in place by Steve when it had still been animated. For some reason, Atlas looked particularly beatific in this pose, an expression of calm and unworldly satisfaction. A photo from behind showed that there was still a scrap of black fabric clutched in the statue’s fist.

The plaque on the statue now read “Atlas’ Gift”.

Steve dropped on the couch and put his arms over his face with a heartfelt groan.

His phone chimed and he picked it up reluctantly.

Tony:
- Did you see the latest pictures of Nomad? I think I better make him a less flimsy costume although the world probably wouldn’t thank me -
- Might keep the, ahem, interesting design though -

Steve’s teeth ground in annoyance, although he was hard pressed to determine exactly why he was annoyed. He just knew that the idea that Tony was obviously admiring Nomad’s body and making things for Nomad already just really pissed him off.

Steve:
- Not sure what the fuss about Nomad is all about. -

Tony:
- Are you kidding me? -
- Have you seen his everything? -

Steve:
- Yes. And I still don’t see the big deal. -

Tony:
- Oh, there are so many big deals when it comes to Nomad. -

Which led to Tony sending Steve pictures of Nomad, titled, ‘Big Deals’, which were all close-ups of Nomad’s backside, his half-bared chest, his biceps, his thighs… Even his, well, groin area, which was rather indecently outlined when photographed with a telephoto lens and when he was wet from the time Tony had poured gallons of water over him to clean off the bug spray. Good god, and Sam encouraged him to keep wearing this outfit?

Steve glared at the photos. Theoretically, Steve knew that this meant Tony was expressing enjoyment from looking at Steve’s body, but at the same time, Steve knew Tony had never expressed anything of that sort when he knew it was Steve’s body. No, Tony only openly admired that body when it was Nomad, in Nomad’s outfit.

Stupid Nomad.

Steve made one of his infamous, reckless decisions.

Steve:
- I’m coming back to New York -

There was a very long pause, during which Steve fiddled with his phone, checking its reception every ten seconds to ensure he was still able to get messages from Tony. It took maybe ten minutes for Tony to reply, but Steve felt like he had been put in a wringer for an eternity.

Tony:
- Permanently or for a visit? -

Steve took a deep breath and decided it was time to be more honest with Tony.

Steve:
- Depends on how our conversation goes -

Tony:
- Sounds ominous. -
- The Accords still not up to your standards? -

That was the sharp prod Steve had been expecting since he had started exchanging messages with Tony again. He sighed and rubbed his forehead. Well, he was the one who decided to go down this path and it had to happen at some point.

Steve:
- We probably should discuss the Accords but mostly, I want to discuss the events that happened during the introduction of the Accords. -

Tony:
- What’s there to discuss? I think we’re clear about where we both stand on this. -

Steve:
- I have my doubts on that. -

Tony:
- You still know better than everyone else, I see. -

Steve sucked in a deep breath and decided to go for broke.

Steve:
- Some days, it feels like I don’t know anything at all. -

Several minutes past with no response from Tony, and Steve wondered if he wasn’t going to reply at all. He decided to put himself out there.

Steve:
- If I come to New York, would you meet me so we could talk? -

Tony:
- We’re already talking -

Steve:
- I think this needs to be done face-to-face -

There was another short pause, during which Steve would have given anything to be able to see Tony’s face, to read those expressive eyes. Then, Tony replied.

Tony:
- Sure, sure. Do you need a place to stay? -

That was an olive branch and Steve felt a huge surge of relief and affection, along with anxiety. Did he want to take it that far?

Steve:
- I’ll let you know -

Tony:
- Mi casa en su casa -

Steve:
- I don’t understand this modern day lingo. -

Tony:
- That dumb blonde act doesn’t work on me, Cap. -

Steve:
- By golly gee, I’m just an old man from the 40s, what do I know -

Tony:
- You’re such a troll -
- Alright, I’ve got to go. -

Steve:
- Okay, take care -

Tony:
- I always do -

Steve:
- No you don’t -

Tony:
- Says you, Captain Parachutes Are For Suckers. -
- Bye~ -

# # # # # #

The next time Nomad made an appearance, it was to mop up the aftermath of two groups of criminals fighting it out over territory using modified Chitauri weaponry. He had just handed off the captured criminals and the alien tech to the Iron Legion that were under Vision’s command, when Tony landed beside him with a heavy thump. Tony flipped up his mask, and looked Steve up and down.

“I can already see the outraged headlines,” Tony said, while sketching a hand in the air. “‘Nomad in Parka and Jeans? Will New York Survive this Latest Catastrophe?’”

Steve tugged at his black parka in embarrassment. “You might have heard that my outfit was destroyed by a bronze statue. It was always meant to be temporary anyway.”

Tony shook his head. “At least you still stuck to your black on black look. But you know, you can’t just change costumes midway through your superheroing career. It’s your trademark now. How will people know you’re a superhero and not just a burglar in a fancy ski mask?”

“By the fact that I’m rescuing them instead of robbing them?” Steve asked wryly.

“This is New York, they’ll think you trying to rescue them is just a trick of some sort before you rob them of everything they’re worth. No, you can’t change outfits on them now. There would be riots on the streets. But luckily for you and New York, I was prepared,” Tony said, presenting the package he had tucked under one arm in a flourish.

Steve sighed. “Gee, you shouldn’t have.”

“Your enthusiasm is noted. Now open it,” Tony said airily.

With no small amount of trepidation, Steve lifted the lid off the fairly flat box to reveal black-as-coal fabric. He pinched the material between his fingers and realized it was cool and supple to the touch, but thick enough to be leather. It seemed as tough as his Captain America outfit, but thinner. The black material had gold edging around it, the color an almost perfect match to Steve’s own hair. There was a mask as well folded neatly in the box, and it was an identical replacement for the one he was currently wearing except for the new coal black material and the softest, velvety lining on the inside of the mask that felt decadent against his fingertips. Everything about the outfit looked and felt like it had been made with the finest precision.

“It’s a reinforced memory polymer, which makes it fireproof and bulletproof up to .30 caliber fired at close range. It has fairly basic nanotech, but weaved in a way that means that the material is thin but strong, so it’ll be as close as second skin, which should mean it won’t get in the way of your fighting style,” Tony explained with familiar excitement, the kind of glee he exuded when talking about his creations.

So it was likely that Tony had made this specifically for Nomad, an improvement even on the Captain America outfit.

“I’m sure the second skin part was hundred percent for my fighting abilities,” Steve said, surprising even himself.

Tony grinned unrepentantly. “Absolutely. I wasn’t thinking about anything else at all. You seemed to prefer it based on your last outfit, so I was just following suit.”

Steve shook his head. “I was serious when I said the last outfit was meant to be temporary. I wasn’t prepared the first time I was fighting those spider-things in public so I just pulled on what I had on hand.”

“Tell me more about how you have skin-tight black lycra with a plummeting neckline just coincidentally on hand,” Tony said.

“It’s a long story,” Steve said with a huff, rolling his eyes.

“Sure, sure,” Tony said. “Look, if you really would prefer something less form-fitting, I can redo this outfit.”

Steve thought about how busy Tony was, and how much time Tony had spent making things for the new guy on the block already, about the way Tony looked at Nomad and how that made him feel simultaneously warm and jealous which just didn’t make any sense…

“You have better things to do with your time,” Steve said, lifting more of the outfit out of the box. Then he added with some despair, “I see you kept the neckline.”

Tony grinned. “As I said, the outfit is your trademark. We wouldn’t want the public crying and rending their clothes on the street now, do we? Especially the rending their clothes part. That’s more your department.”

“Not anymore, if what you said about the toughness of this material is true,” Steve said.

Tony pretended to snap his fingers, which wasn’t really possible in his Iron Man suit. “Damn, I knew I forgot something. The public will be disappointed.”

“Just the public?” Steve said.

It was flirty. There was no other description that would fit Steve’s lowered tone, and the small smile that he couldn’t stop edging across his lips.

And to his surprise, Tony smiled back. “Well, I count myself among the general public too, most days.”

“There’s nothing general about you,” Steve said, which was a little inane but served to make the corners of Tony’s eyes crinkle in pleasure.

Steve’s heart thumped for no discernible reason at the sight of that familiar affectionate smile and those deep brown eyes trained on him. 

“Thank you for noticing,” Tony said with a laugh.

They were interrupted by Vision flying by and saying, “Iron Legion are starting clean-up now. There is only minor damage to public property this time.”

“Thanks to you, Nomad,” Tony said.

The name brought Steve back to his senses and he nodded. “Yeah, no problem. I guess I should get going.”

It was probably Steve’s imagination that made Tony look disappointed at that. It’s not like Tony was that close to Nomad anyway, why would Tony be disappointed that he was going? Not like Tony was disappointed when it was Steve leaving.

Tony nodded and powered up his repulsors, lifting up slowly from the ground. “See you around, Nomad. Oh, and check the bottom of the box. I think you’ll like the new addition.”

Steve lifted a hand in a wave, watching Tony take to the sky. He turned his attention back to the box and shifted the outfit aside. Beneath the black material with gold edging that was his new suit, Steve found a ream of silky soft material in matching yellow-gold. Steve frowned, momentarily confused, before he saw the clasps on it, seeing how it could be hooked to the black material of his suit.

It was a cape. A yellow-gold cape.

Steve remembered the first conversation he — Nomad — had with Tony. 

“ I can’ t always tell if they’ re a superhero or someone who just wandered out of a particularly fun private party when there’ s no cape.”

Steve smiled down at the outfit, thinking about how Tony obviously remembered that first encounter despite all the other things that had to be occupying his mind. He brushed a hand against the soft but sturdy looking cape.

He couldn’t… He would look ridiculous.

But he always did wonder how it was like to wear a cape for real.

There were hundreds of photos of Nomad and Tony the next day, even though Steve had only been in black parka and jeans instead of his usual Nomad outfit. The headlines weren’t about Steve disappointing the public with his change in outfit. All the photos had clear shots of Nomad looking at a black outfit and gold cape that Iron Man had handed over, Nomad and Tony’s heads bent close together in conversation.

Most of the headlines were a variation of, “Iron Man dresses young Nomad?” with articles speculating about Tony and Nomad’s relationship. Public opinion was split on Tony obviously taking advantage of a young superhero by dressing him up inappropriately and the other side pointing out that Nomad was dressed like that from the start even before Iron Man had met him and everyone who wasn’t a prude was appreciative of it, thank you very much.

Steve was annoyed by the commentators trying to put a sleazy spin on something as innocent as Tony making Steve a replacement suit, but he was also mostly distracted by the photos all over the Internet. Among the many photos where Tony and Nomad were talking and smiling at each other, there was one drawing the most attention among the fervent superhero fans. It was a very embarrassing shot of Nomad smiling softly down at the box while touching the gold cape reverently, like a lovesick dope admiring the most precious of gifts.

Steve groaned and decided he would stop reading all the gossip on the Internet.

Chapter Text

Steve waited three days after telling Tony he would be coming back, which he judged was enough time to theoretically make preparations and travel from Wakanda to New York, before he texted to let Tony know that he was back in the city. Tony didn’t respond immediately, but when he did, he seemed in a good enough mood.

Tony:
- How do you like the changes in the city? -

Steve was a little puzzled by that.

Steve:
- Seems to mostly be the same. -

Tony:
- The changes are probably not all obvious. -
- When do you want to meet? -

Steve:
- When are you free? -
- I mean, when are you least busy? -

Tony:
- I have more free time these days, what with the new superhero running around. -

Steve:
- How about 8pm tonight then? I’ll meet you at your tower. -

Tony:
- See you with jet boots on. -

Steve wasn’t sure if that last line was a good sign or a bad one. It seemed light enough, but it could also ominously mean that Tony was up for another violent encounter. Tony also sounded like he wanted to talk about Nomad, but Steve was not in any way ready for in-depth conversations on that particular landmine of a topic.

Like all best laid plans, that was the evening that the Wrecking Crew descended onto New York and tried to destroy Tony’s tower. It took three hours to subdue them, and by the time Steve was leaning against a wall to catch his breath, he realized that it was half past eight and Tony would surely have been expecting a message from Steve.

As if Steve’s thoughts summoned Tony, Steve felt his phone vibrate in the pouch on his waist. And as if as Steve’s thoughts summoned him twice, Tony landed in front of Steve just as he was reading the message from Tony.

Tony:
- Guess you must have seen the fighting on the news -

Steve almost dropped his phone in his haste to close the message just in case Tony could somehow read his own message to Steve from across him. Steve wouldn’t put anything past Tony when it came to technology.

To Steve’s horror, Tony pointed at the phone. “Nomad, what is that?”

Steve looked down and tried to affect a light tone. “Rumors of your skill with technology must be exaggerated if you don’t recognize a cell phone, Iron Man.”

“That isn’t a cell phone,” Tony said, flipping up his gold face plate to reveal an expression of sincere disturbance. “That’s a relic of the ancient past that was better left there. It’s a flip phone, and it’s not even an old Stark model of a flip phone. Oh my god, Nomad.”

Worried that Tony would try to grab it from him, Steve closed it quickly and put it in his pouch. “I like flip phones.”

Tony gave him a withering look. “I knew you were too good to be true. There’s definitely something wrong with you.”

“Me?” Steve said, a little surprised at the comment.

Tony muttered, “Reminds me of another too good to be true asshole who likes flip phones.”

Steve said, a little stiffly as he tensed with worry over his secret identity potentially being uncovered, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we should go help Vision restrain the Wrecking Crew.”

Tony sighed. “Do you think the criminals use some online app to pick their names? Oh, how do you like the new addition to your suit, by the way? Does it work?”

Steve had almost forgotten about it. He touched the golden cape hanging down by his side, rippling softly in the breeze. It was… different. He had considered leaving it off since he was sure it was just a joke. And he thought he would look absurd, like a kid playing dress up.

But it was a joke made out of what felt like really expensive material, feeling satin smooth to the touch, and Steve had remembered how Thor and now Vision made wearing capes look easy and striking. Thor had once told him that the cape made for a good distraction in a fight, making people target the red flag rather than where his back actually was. Steve had never thought it would be something he could wear with any comfort, couldn’t even begin to imagine Captain America with a cape…

Except he wasn’t Captain America anymore.

And he wanted to try something different, something new. He wanted to stretch outside what felt comfortable and familiar, because it seemed to be producing results.

He wanted to have fun with a cape, damnit.

And he wanted to see Tony’s expression when he saw it, too. It was proving to be satisfying so far. Tony was eyeing up the cape with a mixed measure of disbelief and delight, his eyes creasing with a genuinely happy smile.

“You didn’t think I would actually wear it,” Steve surmised.

“I hoped you would, but I didn’t expect you to,” Tony said. “Do you like it?”

Steve smiled. “I like everything you make. The cape is surprisingly hardy and from today’s fight, I guess it’s been reinforced as well. I noticed that it reflects light in a way that’s confusing to the eye, so it was really distracting the Wrecking Crew earlier.”

Then, because he wanted to coax more of a reaction out of Tony, Steve swept his cape up in one arm dramatically, letting the cape flow down in a long stretch of fluttering gold cloth, and said, “And I look impressive in it.”

It surprised a laugh out of Tony, a genuine loud bark of laughter, and Steve felt like he had achieved more in that one moment than he had in that entire fight with the Wrecking Crew.

“That’s the most important part I think. I would say you’ve even exceeded impressive and moved into majestic territory.”

“Majestic might be pushing it. I’ll stick with impressive,” Steve said, a little wry.

“I think ‘majestic’ suits just fine, but perhaps that’s an argument for a different battlefield. I had better get going before Vision makes pointed comments about my absence during the boring bits again,” Tony said as his face plate came down. Tony gave Steve a thumbs up as he lifted into the air, making a sharp turn and heading towards where Vision was preparing the Wrecking Crew for transportation.

Steve smiled, but then rubbed the side of his head as he considered his see-sawing emotions throughout the conversation. He had nearly broke into cold sweat over the flip phone, when it seemed like Tony might link Nomad’s use of a flip phone to Steve sending Tony a flip phone, but then soon after they were all smiles and banter again, with Steve feeling warmed by Tony’s easy laughter. Steve was busy treading water to stay afloat with this secret while pretending there was no secret.

Maybe his urge to stir Tony up with old technology was a problem when he was trying to maintain a secret identity. After all, T’Challa had said that he had a wide array of phones that weren’t flip phones, and he had worn the same look of disgust that Tony did when he had handed over the phone. Steve was just lucky that the flip phone he sent to Tony wasn’t the same model as the one he was using.

That was a close one, in any case. If Tony had arrived a few seconds earlier, just to see Steve react to his vibrating phone at the same instant that Tony had sent his message, then the game would have most definitely been up. Steve needed to think about how to manage the two separate identities in a better way.

Or consider telling Tony about Nomad’s real identity.

# # # # # #

The next night, Steve actually made it to Tony’s tower. They had rescheduled their meeting, and surprisingly, New York remained free of abnormal attacks this time.

He went undercover, with his cap on, trying to slouch a little so as not to be noticed. He didn’t want news of him being back in New York and meeting up with Tony to get out. Ross would make Tony’s life hell on earth if he ever found out.

Steve stood fidgeting in the lift taking him up to the common areas where the Avengers used to spend their time. The lift was moving so quickly it felt like it was launching him all the way to space, and yet, it wasn’t moving quickly enough. When the lift doors finally opened, Steve practically stumbled out in his impatience.

And there Tony was, standing in the middle of the large open space that was once the Avengers’ common area. The couches were there, like they were expecting several more people to join them. There was still the bar to the side with its gleaming dark marble top and the shelves of fancy drinks.

Nothing seemed to have changed.

Steve stared at Tony, at his perfectly trimmed goatee, at the faint dark circles under his eyes. He couldn’t stop staring at that dark gaze, those beautiful brown eyes framed by extravagantly thick lashes that were even now, dipping as Tony blinked. Then the faintest of smiles touched Tony’s lips, and it was enough to break Steve out of his reverie, the back of his neck flushing from the embarrassment of getting caught staring.

Steve had seen Tony before this. He had seen him so many times since he came back to New York, fighting side by side, strategizing together on the fly. 

But out there, Tony was in his untouchable red and gold suit, and between them was the black mask of Nomad.

In here, Tony was in a pair of dark jeans and a long-sleeved maroon shirt with some band’s logo on the front. He looked comfortable, like he had been relaxing on the couch before the lift arrived. And Steve was looking at him without any masks on, without having to pretend to be Nomad, affect a different voice, pretend not to know Tony. Steve could just be Steve again, and Tony… here Tony was, smiling at him. Not at Nomad or Captain America, but at Steve Rogers.

“I see you have your undercover cap on,” Tony said, gesturing to his own head.

Steve touched his cap, just realizing he still had it on and took it off.

“I’m surprised you recognized me with it on,” he said with a wry smile.

“Oh my god, is that you, Steve?” Tony exclaimed, clutching a hand to his chest. “I thought you were Vision in his undercover human guise. I totally didn’t recognize you!”

“Now I feel safe in my anonymity,” Steve said with a chuckle.

Tony moved towards the bar and said, “Come on in. Take a load off. You want something to drink?”

“A soda, maybe?”

Steve took a seat by the bar, watching as Tony got Steve a soda and poured himself some coffee. By the time Tony leaned on the bar across from him, Steve was fidgeting and feeling tense again, working himself up by worrying over how easy this felt.

He tried an indirect icebreaker. “The spider-kid seems to be doing good.”

“Teeny-Spidey is learning the ropes pretty quickly,” Tony said. “There were some hiccups earlier on but we’ve all learned what works better now. We’re trying to start him slow on the superhero gig and his training wheels are still on, but he doesn’t always stay where we left him last.”

Steve smiled. “He can’t step aside, now that he knows he can do something about what’s wrong with the world.”

“You nailed it,” Tony said, sipping his coffee and then continued with forced flippancy, “Maria thought you would disapprove. Because of his age.”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “When I was his age, I wanted to enlist and defend my country. And I didn’t even have superpowers, just asthma and a long list of illnesses. I know what it’s like to want to do more. Especially when you can.”

Tony put his coffee down, a quirk to his lips like he was satisfied with that answer. Steve recognized that look, and would have guessed that Tony was mentally giving himself points over Maria for correctly predicting Steve’s reaction. It surprised Steve that he could still elicit such a response out of Tony, especially when they were toeing the lines of what caused their initial disagreement over the Accords.

Steve took the plunge. “T’Challa showed me the amendments for the Accords. I think I prefer this latest version.”

“I’ll be sure to tell Maria and the horde of lawyers who worked over it for months that you approve,” Tony said with an eye-roll.

He sounded exasperated, but there was no anger in his tone, so Steve relaxed a bit.

“How did you get Ross to agree to it? I didn’t think it aligned with his earlier vision.”

“Someone produced some blackmail material on him that was enough to keep him cooperative. You know how Harlem was flattened by big, green and jolly? Turned out, Ross had an involvement in that. And don’t ask me if I knew when I signed the Accords, I didn’t. Bruce had mentioned some military asshole, and he mentioned his girlfriend, but he was pretty tight-lipped about the whole thing. I never pressed about it,” Tony said.

Steve ran a finger through the condensed drops of water on his glass and shook his head. “I wasn’t going to ask that. I didn’t even know about it and I read SHIELD’s detailed files on every member of the Avengers.”

Tony sighed. “It wasn’t officially on record in any SHIELD files. Apparently, Fury played his cards close to his chest and he kept most of his blackmail material on the military in his head, not in any of SHIELD’s databases. So none of us knew, and Ross felt confident enough to make a move again once he thought Fury was out of the picture.”

“Fury gave you the blackmail material,” Steve guessed.

“With a solid dose of ‘you fucking idiots should have called’,” Tony said with some measure of grumpiness. “Next time, we should just assume he has dirt on every single person hounding our asses.”

“If you had known about Ross, would you still have signed?”

Tony looked up, dark eyes sharp and hard. “If I had known about Ross then, I would have used that information to twist him into a pretzel so that we could all reach some kind of compromise, instead of having to negotiate while he backed us into a corner. Then I would have signed, because I still believe in this.”

“But in the hands of superheroes, instead of government officials,” Steve said, almost gentle in tone.

Tony seemed to deflate a little, throwing back the rest of his coffee in a single gulp. Steve watched Tony’s stretched neck, the bobbing Adam’s apple, and quickly took a sip of his soda to wet his dry mouth.

“Yeah,” Tony said, a little subdued. “After a lot of back and forth, we realized that we can’t afford to wait for 114 government officials to make the call. We can’t afford to have a committee like the World Security Council, who have never stepped onto a battlefield like ours and have no real comprehension of what we can actually do, making decisions to nuke whole cities when they panic. The decision needs to stay in our hands. But we need to do it on an international level, as a collective, with rotating nominated Representatives.”

“I wondered why you changed your mind about keeping the decision in our hands,” Steve said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible.

To his surprise, Tony sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “You played a part in that as well. I was paying attention when you were talking, you know? I’ll admit, I’m not sure my mind is entirely changed on this. Some days, I believe what I’m selling. Some days, I’m not sure if what we’re doing is enough. But I’ve talked and listened to a lot of people, and statistically, this seems like the most likely approach for success.”

“The math won out,” Steve said, concluding for Tony, before offering his own muddy thoughts on the matter. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure about it either. I think superheroes self-governing through our own leaders makes a lot of sense, and I support that. But I’m still uncomfortable that the individual countries can decline our presence, that we can only enter countries who have agreed to it in the Accords. It seems too risky in the event of a group like Hydra infiltrating a government and stirring up trouble that we can’t deal with until it’s too late.”

Tony’s stare was hard and his lips were pressed tight together, and Steve knew he was giving the wrong impression. He held out his hands in an appeasing gesture. “But I’m going to sign the Accords. I’m unsure about it, but I’m willing to give it a shot.”

The tension in Tony’s expression eased. “So you’re not wholly convinced, but the math checked out for you too then.”

Steve shrugged, uncertain. “I have no idea what the probability is, but I’ve tried to do it my way and it didn’t work. The new Accords seem well thought out and addressed my worries, as much as they can be addressed in this political climate. So I’m putting my reservations aside and I’ve decided to trust in the people who worked on this.”

He held Tony’s gaze as he said it, trying to impart his meaning without words.

After a few seconds, Tony looked away, and Steve felt a pang of disappointment.

“I do have one caveat,” Steve said.

Tony leaned one elbow against the counter. “Out with it then.”

Steve said, “I don’t want to be one of the superhero Representatives.”

Tony looked taken aback, reflexively reaching for his cup before realizing it had been emptied earlier. “Your name came up during the nominations, yes, even though you haven’t signed the Accords. If you’re worried how it’ll look—”

Steve shook his head. “That’s not it. I just… I don’t think I’m in the right mental state for that right now. I don’t completely trust my own judgement.”

Tony straightened up. “Never thought I would hear you say that.”

“It’s the truth. Maybe in another year, when I’m more settled again…” Steve said, looking down at the half-empty glass he was rolling between his palms. “Get Natasha on it instead.”

“Oh, she’ll hate you for that.”

Steve looked up and raised his eyebrow. “Why? I know she prefers working behind the scenes, but she was taking a more active role leading the team before the Accords.”

“Because she hates meetings and there will be so many meetings,” Tony said, sounding gleeful.

“She’ll make sure there aren’t so many meetings then,” Steve said.

Tony considered that and then looked impressed. “That’s a good point.”

“What about you?” Steve asked. “What role are you going to take in this new world?”

Tony folded his arms on the counter. “I’m on the team again, but not as one of the Reps. I haven’t been so great at sticking to retirement. Yes, yes, laugh it up. You all saw it coming. I’ve also been volunteered for some mentorship thing.”

Steve said with a wry smile. “Oh yes, someone must have twisted your arm completely.”

“Natasha gave me no choice at all,” Tony said, almost defensive. “I was occasionally giving Spiderling advice, but then she just turned up one day with a list of names and told me that they were young superheroes who would be arriving in fifteen minutes for a quick talk. Then they arrived in five minutes, before I could make my getaway.”

Steve thought about the way Spider-Man talked about Tony, how he so obviously looked up to Tony and wanted to impress him. He was certain Tony wouldn’t recognize or acknowledge any of that even if Steve brought it up.

He tried anyway, because he felt it needed doing more around Tony, whether or not Tony appreciated it.

“I think you’ll be great as a mentor and I think Nat saw that too,” Steve said, completely earnest.

Tony looked taken aback. “Uh, being great is what I’m good at. But I’m sure Nat just wanted me to suffer the pain I put her through when she was my fake personal assistant.”

Steve smiled. “So you’re equivalent to a teenager?”

“My never-ending youth is well known, after all,” Tony said loftily. “What about you? Did you want to take a break from all this?”

Steve thought about how he had entered the city with the intention to keep his head down, how the moment crisis had struck, he had pulled on an ill-fitting, far-too-revealing outfit and ran out to fight.

“Nah, I don’t think I’m ready for that yet,” Steve said, shaking his head in silent amusement.

Tony’s tone was casual but his stiff shoulders were anything but when he next spoke. “Maybe you could do a little mentoring too.”

Steve was surprised. “You trust me with the younger superheroes?”

Once upon a time, Tony would have responded with some glib joke about how if the bastion of truth, justice and the American way couldn’t be trusted, then no one could. But time had taught all of them to look beyond the shiny veneer of legendary reputations.

“If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be including you as one of the superheroes who can sign onto the Accords. Whether you’re formally involved in mentoring anyone, you’re going to be around more people who are new to this whole song and dance, once you sign on. And there are still many young heroes who look up to you. You could be a good influence on them and it would help take some of the load off me too.”

“I see what this is about. You just want me to start going to your meetings now,” Steve said with a smile.

Tony smirked. “You’ve got me.”

Steve shook his head playfully. “No can do, Tony. I’ll join up for the mentorship, but we’re going to be in it together. If I have to sit through any progress updates, so do you.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” As he spoke, he was moving around the bar, “I have an early morning tomorrow for one of those progress updates, so I should probably look to get some work done before I call it a night.”

Steve recognized this for what it was. Tony was politely suggesting that it was time for Steve to go. It had been a cordial visit, and had gone a lot smoother than Steve anticipated. They had both avoided the elephant in the room, even though Steve felt the urge to bring it up before their meet up was done. He didn’t want to part ways without resolving their conflict in Siberia, but at the same time… He could see how Tony had carefully skirted the conversational landmines. They were both trying so hard.

Would it be so bad to just let their first conversation be an easy one? To tackle all their issues, and there were a hell lot of them, some other day? He just wanted this one good memory between them to stay untouched by what he was sure would descend into shouting and bitter argument once they brought up Siberia.

Steve nodded and stood up from the bar stool. The difficult conversations could wait for another day. 

“I should head off now anyway. You probably need some time to consider all the meetings Nat could drag you into if she’s one of the official Representatives,” Steve said, heading for the elevator and pressing the call button.

Tony paused at the end of the bar, staring wide-eyed at Steve. “That would be an abuse of her power.”

Steve raised an eyebrow at that.

Tony groaned. “Now I’ll have nightmares later tonight.”

“Sweet dreams, Tony,” Steve said with a grin, saluting him as he stepped into the elevator.

He could hear Tony’s muttering even as the door closed between them.

Steve tipped his head back to look up at the ceiling, eyes unseeing. He knew he was still grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t stop it.

Steve recognized the gulf still existed between the two of them, with how Tony kept his distance, restrained from all the usual back pats and touches Tony was prone to making. It hadn’t escaped Steve’s notice that Tony hadn’t met his gaze for more than a few seconds at a time, so different from Tony’s usual confrontational gaze.

But Steve was still grinning, because this was the first time in months that he had seen Tony in person as just Steve Rogers. Because while there was tension between them, the banter between them still came easily. Because Tony could have easily kept the conversation business only, could have been cold and formal, but he hadn’t been anything like that.

Whatever had happened, Steve felt for the first time that their friendship was still salvageable.

By the time he got to the basement where his bike was parked, Steve had his grinning under control. He knew there were still difficult conversations between them that had to happen. But for now, he would enjoy what he could get.

# # # # # #

Chapter Text

Tony’s awareness of Steve’s presence in the city immediately created some unexpected issues, namely the problem of how Tony wasn’t just interacting with Nomad face-to-face, he was interacting with Steve face-to-face as well. Which was a problem when Tony was expecting to find Steve, but Steve was currently Nomad.

This alter ego business was driving Steve insane.

Steve had given Tony his address without much thought; it was the kind of information he shared just in case Tony needed him. Any other time, Tony dropping by unannounced would have seemed like a step forward to Steve, considering how carefully they’d treaded around each other the last time they met. But this wasn’t just any other time. Steve stood there, frozen in horror, covered in ash and still in his grimy Nomad outfit. And Tony was on the other side of his front door, knocking again and shouting, “Room service!” Tony was here to see Steve, but all he would get was Nomad, fresh from a robbery involving a fire-breathing criminal that was probably making the news right now.

A third knock had Steve stumbling out of his bedroom, pulling on jeans and a gray long-sleeved shirt over his Nomad outfit. He balled up his cape and threw it into the bedroom, slamming the door behind him. He paused at the kitchen sink to splash water on his face to get rid of the worst of the soot. The slightly superior speed from the superserum was good for something as he used a kitchen towel to wipe his face, dust off his hair frantically, and threw the dirty cloth into the kitchen sink while racing towards the front door. He took a deep steadying breath, and opened the door.

Tony had one shoulder leaning against the doorframe, his body a slanted line of relaxation with a large package tucked under one arm. When he looked up into Steve’s eyes, it was from a surprisingly short distance. Steve suddenly felt breathless, like the air had been seized from his lungs at the unexpectedly close proximity to deep brown eyes.

Tony blinked, a slow hypnotizing dip of his eyelashes. Steve could only drink in the sight in front of him, feeling like he needed to re-memorize Tony’s face from this new angle, to examine every detail for any changes, study every lash, every wrinkle, every shade of brown in those irises. When Steve didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, Tony smiled and lifted his empty hands, palms up.   

“I lied. There’s no service,” Tony said, clearly unrepentant.

“Tony, I wasn’t expecting you,” Steve said, a lot stiffer than he intended to sound because he was still struggling to string some coherency together.

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I can come back another time.”

“No, I— It’s fine. Come on in,” Steve said as he stepped aside.

Tony walked right in and dropped his bulky package on the dining table. He tucked his hands into his pants’ pockets, and he looked around the apartment with undisguised curiosity. He was wearing a suit today, not the Iron Man suit, but one of those closely fitted, bespoke business suits that made him look sleek and sharp. It had the finest blue pinstripes against a dove grey cloth. But instead of a shirt and a tie, Tony was wearing another one of his rock band T-shirts and sneakers. Steve remembered how Tony dressed when he was negotiating the Accords, before Siberia, in his business suits and tie, in polished black shoes, completely untouchable. Now, Tony seemed more present, more approachable, despite what was probably still a very expensive outfit.

“Well, this is very… Spartan,” Tony said, eyeing up the place that was devoid of decoration or personal touches.

Steve could see how it would look to Tony. The used furniture came with the rental apartment and Steve had chosen the place from a listing while prioritising availability and relative liveability. Even though T’Challa had managed to transfer out money from Steve’s own bank accounts through some technological finagling that was impossible to trace and probably illegal, Steve wasn’t the sort who would spend unnecessarily even with the hefty backpay available to him. He just needed a place to stay and, right now, that place was a bare one bedroom apartment with plain brown curtains, a faded blue couch and an old television. The kitchen and tiny dining area looked a little more lived in, with drying plates on the dish rack and a basket of fruits that Steve kept stocked up. Steve had left a coat over a dining chair and a dog-eared copy of the Night Watch on the kitchen counter, the only signs of his personal belongings. Decorating hadn’t been high on Steve’s list, not in a place which he only considered a temporary stop.

He shrugged. “I haven’t been here long.”

“Longer than I expected,” Tony said, and at Steve’s confused look, he continued, “You’d been renting this place for a few weeks before you contacted me.”

Right. Of course Tony would find out about that once he knew where Steve lived. And of course Steve couldn’t just tell Tony that he had contacted Tony immediately after he arrived in New York, except he had done it as an inappropriately dressed masked crusader, not Steve Rogers.

“I needed time to think,” Steve said, keeping it simple. “Grab a seat. Do you want anything to drink?”

“Your choice of juice will do,” Tony said as he sat down on the couch with a little bit of a bounce, as if he was testing the feel of the couch. He looked disgruntled, and Steve had no idea what that meant. Too comfortable? Not comfortable enough? Or did he sense Steve’s earlier deflection?

Steve decided not to start obsessing about what Tony’s minute expressions meant now. He walked to the kitchen and quickly washed the cloth he had chucked in the sink, trying to get rid of ashy evidence from his Nomad adventure that day. Then he washed his hands and picked a clean glass. He only had orange juice with pulp in his fridge, so he poured that into the glass.

“Sorry, I don’t have any of your blended salad drinks,” Steve said with a smile as he walked back into the living room.

“You say that, but you drank them faster than I could make them,” Tony retorted. 

Steve was about to put the glass of orange juice in front of Tony on the low table by the couch, when Tony suddenly stood up and took the glass from his hand. Tony walked past him while taking a swig from his glass. Almost not daring to move, Steve turned slowly to track Tony wandering his living room now, trying to process what happened. It was a deliberate move from Tony. It had to be. Tony’s quirks when it came to being handed things eased up around the Avengers over time, but Tony taking the glass from Steve’s hand right at this point in time, when things were still fragile between them, seemed like a deliberate gesture.

Like a signal that he still trusted Steve.

Or Steve was reading too much into the simple gesture due to his own wild hopes. Instead of obsessing over every one of Tony’s facial expressions, maybe he was now obsessing over every one of Tony’s actions. Great.

Steve tried to gather his thoughts, and recall what they were just talking about. He stammered, “Well, uh, you know how it is. I was in the army, grass-flavored drinks are an improvement over the rations we ate.”

Tony was now walking the perimeter of the living room, looking out the window as he paused. “Did you just compare my vitamin-rich, perfectly balanced with fibre and protein, Pepper-approved smoothies to your army rations? I think I’ve just been insulted.”

“You think?” Steve teased.

“All that effort ordering the freshest of ingredients, measuring and blending gallons of those drinks, just completely unappreciated,” Tony said, holding a hand to his chest while he circled around to deposit the half-drunk glass on the dining table.

Steve smiled. “Not that I don’t appreciate the visit, but I’m guessing you didn’t come by to talk about my choice of refreshments?”

Tony was now eyeing the mostly empty spice rack. “I was just in the neighborhood. I thought I would come see how you’re living it up these days, and to tell you there’s an official signing of the Accords this weekend. And a major announcement.”

Steve ignored the first half of the dialogue, recognizing it for the distraction that it was, and asked, “Official signing? What announcement?”

Tony made a face. “You don’t necessarily have to be there, because you can sign whenever, as long as there’s a lawyer present to witness it. As for the announcement… T’Challa is probably going to call you about it soon, but the announcement of your pardon will be made during the official signing. He managed to negotiate for your pardon, something about Zemo’s machinations interfering with the past legal proceedings and resulting in questionable circumstances when the Accords were presented to you. All the countries that want the Accords to succeed were amenable to your pardon as long as everyone glossed over the debacle surrounding Ross’ and Zemo’s involvement in the Accords.”

Steve blinked, taken aback by the casually delivered news. “What about the others, Sam and Wanda?”

“It’s probably just a matter of time before they get their pardons too. Before you dig your heels in about wanting them to get their pardons along with yours, we’ll have more grounds to negotiate theirs once your pardon is pushed through. We focused on yours first because we wanted to revoke your fugitive status as soon as possible while you’re lurking around in New York right under Ross’ nose.”

“So that’s it? That’s all it took?” Steve asked in a slight daze, not meaning to be ungrateful, but surprised at how quickly the situation had changed.

“Several weeks of non-stop negotiation and thinly veiled threats about how the integrity of the Accords could be completely jeopardized if there were any more delays, that’s all it took,” Tony said with a flippant shrug. “But don’t go singing and dancing on the streets yet. You’re still a wanted man now, by the law, not just by teenage girls. Until the announcement and the signing, you should keep your head down.”

It was a little jarring to think that Steve’s status as a fugitive could be so easily resolved, that after everything, he didn’t have to hide and run anymore.

“I’ll be sure to hold off on the parades,” Steve said with a wry smile.

“At least until after the official signing. Everyone thought it was important to at least have one official event for the cameras, because you know the public won’t believe it happened unless it’s in the newspapers and someone is quoted making a gauche remark. A lot of other superheroes will be there, so if you want, you could attend too, not just for the announcement, but for the signing too.”

And it would be good publicity for the Accords if Captain America, one of the biggest opponents of the Accords, turned up to willingly get onboard as well. That was how politics and public relations worked, and Steve wasn’t a stranger to the whole dog and pony show.

Maybe that was one reason Steve was invited to the official signing, but he knew he was being unfair as well, because it wouldn't be the only reason. The Accords were happening whether Steve was onboard or not, and it had other big names signing on who were probably in better books to the rest of the world than the fugitive Captain America, at this point in time.

Tony was giving him an option to come back into the fold, possibly in a way that would prevent Ross from putting a negative spin to it. It was a chance for Steve to meet up with the other superheroes, and publicly sign on. But it was still Steve’s choice. It was obvious that Tony wasn’t going to push for his presence, with the way he had couched the words.

“Alright, tell me the time and place, and I’ll see you there,” Steve said.

“I’ll send you the details,” Tony said. “How have you been? You seem a bit… frazzled.”

Steve tried not to shake off any remaining ash or soot from his hair conspicuously. “I was just, uh, exercising. When you knocked.”

Tony frowned. “Really? But you don’t have anything in this apartment that could tire you out after a little exercise.”

“It was a lot of exercise,” Steve said, an automatic response.

Tony walked across the small area to stand in front of Steve with his hands tucked in his pockets. He looked at him closely, forcing Steve to meet his eyes. “Look, it pains me to be all soppy like this too, but I have to ask. Are you okay? You’re cut off from a lot of people right now. The king of cats would be really pissed off at me if I let his favorite grandpa get all mopey in this flea trap.”

Steve shook his head slightly, his chest tightening at Tony’s concern. “I’m fine. I’m still in contact with some of the others and I’m not cut off from everyone. There’s this thing, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s called a phone.”

He tried to lighten the mood with a smile as well. It seemed to work momentarily, because Tony rolled his eyes extravagantly.

“Yeah, I wasn’t sure if you knew how to work a modern day phone, since you’re still attached to the antique ones that flip. But don’t try to distract a master distractor, young Padawan. You might not be completely cut off, but you’re still here on your own, and it makes a difference,” Tony said, examining Steve’s expression again. “You seem different somehow. There’s a look in your eye now that has me worried. Are you getting restless?”

And Steve could tell him why. Could tell him that he wasn’t bogged down by inactivity, that he had been too busy to even think as Nomad. He could tell him maybe he seemed different because of the way Tony looked at Nomad, because of the thoughts that plagued Steve nowadays, the feelings that he was just starting to comprehend.

It was too much. Too much to say all at once.

“Are you worried I’m going to stir things up, cause trouble for you and your new team?” Steve said, aiming for light but knowing he had missed by a mile because he felt anything but light.

“My new team is your old team, in case you’ve forgotten,” Tony said, a little sharp. Then his eyes narrowed. “Unless you mean Spiderling. And Nomad.”

Suddenly, Steve realized he was on treacherous ground again, lulled into complacency by Tony’s presence in his little rundown apartment, like things weren’t broken and unstable between them. 

He wasn’t sure how to dig himself out of this one and his mouth was moving before he even realized that he had something else to say. “I didn’t know that Nomad was part of your new team already.”

“Is there something about Nomad that bothers you?” Tony asked suddenly.

“No, why should there be?” Steve said, sounding unconvincing even to himself.

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Is it his outfit?” Tony asked, his voice dipping low suddenly. “A lot of people like it, and that’s okay, you know. Is that what bothers you?” 

Steve stared at Tony with wide eyes. “I— I don’t know what you mean.”

What was Tony saying? He felt dazed, head spinning as he tried to decipher Tony’s words. It almost sounded like Tony was telling Steve that it was okay to like how Nomad looked, like he thought Steve liked how Nomad looked. But that was impossible. That… why would Tony think that?

Tony continued to hold his gaze, looking unusually serious. “If there’s something you need to tell me…”

Maybe this was the opening to tell Tony the truth, but Steve was seized by confusion and almost horror at this bizarre turn in the conversation. He could only stand there staring, his mouth clamped shut now to ensure that there was nothing else that was going to fall out and make this situation worse.

Tony’s lips turned down slightly, an unhappy purse of his mouth, and he shook his head. He glanced down at his watch on his wrist. “I should get going.”

“Oh,” Steve could only say dumbly, feeling like he had fucked up, but in a way he didn’t expect. What did Tony think Steve felt about Nomad?

“Whether you can make it to the signing or not, you’ll probably need that,” Tony said as he pointed a thumb at the large package he had left on the dining table.

“What is it?” Steve asked, although he had a hunch.

Tony shrugged, already heading out the door. “It’s yours. See you when I see you.”

When Steve opened up the oversized satchel, he was surprised to see a dress uniform, in the same style that they used to make military uniforms back in his day. Underneath that was a familiar blue, red and white outfit. When Steve unfolded it later, he’d be able tell it had been updated again, reinforced with newer material. The sizing looked like it would fit Steve exactly.

But underneath it all was the one thing he wasn’t surprised to see, his gleaming vibranium shield, perfectly smooth and unmarred, like it was brand new.

# # # # # #

It was a good thing that Steve had worn the Nomad outfit under his dress uniform, out of habit more than any foresight. He had contemplated wearing Captain America’s uniform again and carrying his shield that he missed like a lost limb. But that uniform was much bulkier, not something he could wear under civilian clothing. And as Tony had told him, he couldn’t go openly marching around as Captain America or Steve Rogers yet, not until his pardon was announced and after the official signing.

Returning immediately to Captain America also didn’t seem right, not when there were still secrets between him and Tony, and not when he still hadn’t figured out what to do with Nomad. Could Nomad just disappear without arousing suspicions when Captain America came back? Would Nomad’s disappearance result in people looking for him? Would Tony miss Nomad if he disappeared? It was a thought that sent a pang through Steve, accompanied by a twist of ugly envy.

God, he was fucked up.

Steve decided to postpone making the decision a little longer.

So he had settled for his dress uniform when he decided he would go to the signing after all. It was a reminder of his roots, where he got his superpowers from. A coat over the dress uniform and a cap over his hair was his disguise to last him the trip to the signing. He had worn Nomad’s outfit underneath it all without much thought, leaving the golden cape behind this time.

And now he was stuffing the beautifully tailored dress uniform into a garbage can and pulling on his black mask over his face as he emerged out of the alleyway as Nomad.

Gather a group of superheroes in one location to talk about how they were going to do better, and it was like a siren call to be attacked. Security looked like it had been beefed up around the high rise building on 1601 Broadway where the signing was being held, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop the multiple superhumans who didn’t look like they were interested to sign anything or to limit their activities to just talking.

Steve had been running late which was why he was still outside the building when the masked figures jumped out of several vans and tried to force their way in. It took no time at all for Steve to join the fray, to hold them off while security called in reinforcements.

The attackers seemed to consist mainly of people with budding powers who just didn’t want more people involved in the Accords. Steve could almost understand where they were coming from, considering his stance just a few months ago, but these people were also terrorizing the public and didn’t seem to care about collateral damage. Steve couldn’t let them continue like this. Most of them wore makeshift masks and costumes, but they weren’t any less dangerous for being amateurs. In fact, they were more reckless, not understanding their own limits yet or the damage they could cause to others or themselves.

Steve focused on herding the attackers away from the civilians. The supervillains didn’t seem inclined towards murder and maiming, just a little mayhem. Steve drew them away by making himself a target, engaging only to lure them onto the cleared road, away from the sidewalks where civilians were still fleeing. He dodged fireballs and illusions, ducked superstrong punches and icy projectiles. He used his electrified discs and knives interchangeably. It was chaos, but it was also easy. Fighting was the easy part these days.

By the time more superheroes emerged from the steel skyscraper, the troublemakers were in a convenient cluster which allowed them to be rounded up quickly. Natasha pinned down a guy twice her size with relative ease, sparing no glance towards Steve in his Nomad disguise. Meanwhile, T’Challa, who had flown in to witness the signing, gave Steve a discreet nod as he ran by. Steve struggled not to react at the realization that the Prince of Wakanda was seeing Steve in his unusually revealing outfit.

It was over in minutes, the superheroes taking on the challenge with enthusiasm, maybe too much enthusiasm even, probably relieved to stretch their legs after being cooped up inside with lawyers, diplomacy and paperwork.

Steve realized he had come to expect Tony to drop by for a chat after fights like this when he started scanning the sky once things calmed down. His search was not for nothing, because he could see the red and gold figure arc towards him, as if drawn downwards by Steve’s thoughts. Tony landed feet first, slowing down with easy grace for such a large and heavy metal suit.

The Iron Man mask flipped up, revealing Tony’s big grin and bright eyes. His hair was tousled when the helmet retracted completely, damp and curling at the ends like Tony had been sweating under the armor from exertion, or like Tony had gotten suited up before he had time to dry himself down after a shower. It was a stray idea, completely random and very unlikely. But what a thought that was. Steve tried to banish the idea of Tony only managing to pat his face dry with a towel, suiting up without drying off, maybe even without dressing up. What if Tony was completely naked under the suit? What if that was bare skin pressed against the protective padding inside the Iron Man armour…

What the hell was Steve thinking? Tony just came out from the official public signing of the Accords, he wasn’t naked under the armor. But even those rational thoughts didn’t stop Steve’s mind from generating a sudden reel of interesting images involving Tony, showers, and the Iron Man suit. Steve almost stumbled from the sudden flush of heat crawling up his cheeks as a result of his wandering mind, and he had to try to think calming and shrinking thoughts.

Blue skies, green grass, soaring skyscrapers with a giant A on the side which suddenly reminded Steve of…

That wasn’t helping at all.

Tony said, “Fancy meeting you here.”

Steve surreptitiously rubbed the side of his head, trying to clear his mind. “I wanted to see the signing.”

“Which is a shame, because I think that’s postponed now,” Tony sighed. “We sat through all the pompous speeches for nothing. The least they could have done was attack earlier.”

“You should lodge a complaint,” Steve said with a smile.

Tony tilted his head, eyes roaming over Nomad’s outfit. “So I see the reinforced material is holding up.”

Then he reached out and touched the gold-edged collar of Nomad’s neckline, tracing it down towards his navel with the metal fingers of his gauntlet. Even though Steve couldn’t actually feel the touch through the thick fabric, he still had to suppress a shiver. But he didn’t manage to suppress all his thoughts from earlier that flooded back in. His eyes were riveted on the red and gold metal lightly resting against his chest.

Tony continued, “I saw one of the attackers yank on your suit. It stretched so far off your shoulder, but it didn’t tear, which — I’m sure New York is already cursing my name over that fact. I swear, that guy was more interested in stripping you than fighting you.”

Steve pulled his gaze from where Tony’s wandering hand had stopped, and looked up into Tony’s lidded eyes. Between that low voice and what he had been doing, Steve didn’t think it was a leap to assume that Tony had just been flirting with him. Warmth pooled in the pit of his stomach at the thought, familiar and welcomed now in Tony’s presence.

“I hope he got the message after I left him tied up for the Iron Legion,” Steve said, his voice a little deeper than he expected.

“That you move pretty fast on a first date?” Tony asked, eyes alight with humor.

“That might be true, but he wouldn’t be my choice for a date,” Steve said.

The prolonged eye contact between them had Steve’s pulse racing and he could see that Tony’s cheeks were looking a little flushed as well.

Tony smiled. “Who would be your choice for a first date? The public needs to know.”

Not believing his own daring, Steve asked, “Just the public?”

Tony paused and then he let his hand fall, the gauntlet dragging down Steve’s side lightly and leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. “There might be more than one invested party.”

The way he looked at Steve through his thick lashes, Tony’s eyes were made of liquid warmth as they tried to convey some sort of message. It left Steve with no doubt that this was more than just playful flirting. Tony wanted him.

Steve paused. No, not him. Nomad. Because Tony still didn’t know the person behind the mask. Tony was flirting with Nomad, staring up at Nomad with an inviting smile and a familiar charm, and Steve could only think that Tony wasn’t smiling at him, not really. Tony was smiling at Nomad, who was barely even a real person. Outside of the suit, Nomad didn’t exist, he was just a bit of revealed chest and a few snappy come-backs, and Tony liked this two-dimensional character more than he liked Steve. And there was no one Steve could blame for this but himself. This was a situation of Steve’s own making, because he was hiding the truth from Tony, again.

Steve stepped back, breaking their intimate moment all of a sudden. Tony looked visibly disappointed, which registered like a kick to Steve’s gut, an echo of the same disappointment. But the source for the feeling was different. Why hadn’t Tony wanted Steve when he was Captain America? When they were working on the same team? When they were still on good terms? What was it about Nomad, who had the same body and same skillset and didn’t even really exist that made him so much better? The only real difference between the two of them was that, as far as Tony knew, it wasn’t Steve under the mask.

Steve turned. “I’ve got to go.”

“Nomad,” Tony said, his voice suddenly urgent. “Are you okay?”

Even the concern in Tony’s voice was too much for Steve to handle, especially after hearing the name Nomad fall from those lips.

So he walked away.

Tony didn’t call him a second time.

Chapter Text

Steve couldn’t stop thinking about it. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Tony touched his chest, lightly, how those metal fingers rested on Nomad’s low neckline. He woke up in the morning with disjointed memories of red and gold against black and yellow, how metal would have felt against skin if Tony had shifted his hand to the middle of his chest instead, where his skin was bared between dark cloth. There were flickers of dreams where Tony pushed down the black fabric with bare hands, where he spoke to Steve about reinforced fabric and bulletproof material protecting his flesh while tracing over skin-tight cloth and bared muscles with those deft fingers, repeatedly calling Steve by name…

Steve woke up feeling flushed, a confusing mixture of aroused and angry.

Because in his dreams, the name Tony said over and over again was “Nomad”.

The thoughts plagued him, and it made Steve bitterly envious, even as he knew it was illogical to be angry over this. Tony didn’t know Nomad was Steve and it was Steve’s own fault. But why did Tony want Nomad, and not Steve? Would Tony want Nomad if he knew it was Steve beneath the dark costume?

# # # # # #

Steve started adding an extra run into his day in hopes of exhausting his mind into silence, but to no avail. After three days of confusing dreams and simmering anger at the situation he’d created, Steve took a detour during his afternoon run and jogged over to the Avengers tower. He had no idea what he was doing, but he felt something needed doing anyway. He might still be torn about giving up Tony’s attention when he donned Nomad’s mask, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t deal with the original reason he came back to New York.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. let Steve in through the back entrance without question and let him up the elevators, with only a message that Tony was on his way back to the tower from a prior engagement, suggesting Steve wait in the Avengers’ common room until he got back.

When the elevator doors opened, he was surprised to come face to face with Rhodey, and from Rhodey’s expression, he hadn’t expected to see Steve there either. F.R.I.D.A.Y. must have a hell of a strange sense of humor, but what could Steve expect, considering who created her.

“Steve, I didn’t know you were visiting,” Rhodey said. 

The words were a little stiff, but his facial expression was cordial enough and he came towards Steve for a handshake.

“It’s good to see you, Rhodes,” Steve said, stepping out of the elevator and shaking the outstretched hand. Steve couldn’t stop his eyes from darting downwards. Rhodey was in baggy pants and there was no sign of the braces that he must be wearing to be able to walk without visible assistance.

Rhodey noticed and said with a trace of wryness, “Version 23 is so compact, you have to touch my legs to even know they’re there. If I hadn’t told him not to, I’m pretty sure the next version was going to go under my skin.”

“And shoot missiles, if you let him,” Steve said.

“I might actually like that,” Rhodey said with a smile.

Steve shook his head. “I should have known. You’re bad influences on each other.”

“That’s one thing most people never got. Tony pushes all his bad attitude into everyone’s faces, makes it so you can’t avoid it, so everyone thinks he’s the bad influence. But we’re best friends for a reason, you know, and it’s not because of my goody-two-shoes personality,” Rhodey said, a little wry.

Steve hesitated, and then said, “I know what you mean. It’s like how I am with Bucky. Everyone thought I was the one dragging Bucky into fights and scraps, but he got into as many fights as I did all on his own too.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me,” Rhodey said slowly. “On the topic of Bucky… I don’t blame you for fighting Tony to save your best friend’s life. But I hope you know that Tony did go to Siberia to help you, not to bring you in, even though it broke the Accords.”

The reminder struck a chord in Steve.

“Yeah, I know. I don’t blame him for coming. It was… He was trying to do something right, to help me, even though it went against what he believed,” Steve said, finally voicing a thought he had been having for months now, but never dared to air in front of anyone else.

“You always were his soft spot,” Rhodey said, almost under his breath.

 “Didn’t feel like it most days.”

“You’re just too close to the trees to see the massive forest right at your doorstep,” Rhodey said with a half-smile. “Anyway, I just wanted you to know that what went down was bad, the kind of bad outcomes that happen when both sides don’t talk and there’s someone behind the scenes pulling the strings for maximum damage, but I don’t blame you any more than I blame him.”

Steve nodded when Rhodey paused, but didn’t say anything.

Rhodey sighed but met Steve’s eyes. “To be honest, I think half of what happened could have been avoided if Tony had stuck to the principle of the Accords and tried to get official help instead of raring off to Siberia. I love the guy, but I don’t always agree with his decisions. And a lot of this definitely could have been avoided if you had both talked, earlier and honestly, so I hope that’s what you’re here to do.”

That was a hell of a thing to hear, because he had almost destroyed things with Tony by keeping secrets, and here he was harboring another one. He’d come back to New York to work things out with Tony, but things had spun out of control, and now he was essentially walking in the footsteps of his past mistakes. He wanted to regain Tony’s trust, but now he was lying to him again.

It took all his effort to keep meeting Rhodey’s frank gaze, not to wince at the reminder that he was still messing up now, even if Rhodey didn’t realize it.

“Can’t dispute that,” Steve said through a dry throat.

“I still believe in the Accords, especially this evolved version of it. I don’t regret my decision and I don’t blame anyone for what happened. I’ve talked to Sam and Vision about all this, months ago. Cleared the air. It’s about time you did the same with Tony, I think,” Rhodey said.

Steve would ask him how he knew they hadn’t already talked it out, but Rhodey could always read Tony. It must be obvious to Rhodey where they were at in their dialogue.  Steve rubbed the back of his neck, and then shook his head sheepishly.

He stood straighter and snapped off a sharp salute. “Orders received, Colonel.”

“Damn straight,” Rhodey said, saluting back lazily, not even bothering to straighten up. “Now I’m hustling before Tony gets here and makes me stay as some kind of buffer.”

That was probably an accurate prediction of what would happen, but Steve felt guilty that he was sending Rhodey packing just so Steve and Tony could talk. Before Steve could open his mouth to protest, Rhodey was walking quickly past him and into the elevator, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve seen way too much of Tony lately anyway. Tell him I’ve had to move up my training with Vision and the younger superheroes so I’ll need to get a raincheck with Tony Stank. It’s honestly why I swung by on my way to the training centre, I just wanted to let him know.”

“Tony Stank?” Steve said in confusion.

Rhodey only grinned. “He’ll get it.”

Then the elevator door slid close.

Steve turned towards the silent common area where the Avengers used to spend their free time together, feeling freer to reminisce without Tony’s presence distracting him. He could almost imagine them all here again, and he started to circle the airy, open room, trying not to let the memories drag him under. He tried to spot the differences, see what had changed. There was a painting against the far wall, a work by Escher, if Steve wasn’t mistaken. That was new. Steve knew it was a replica, to replace the replica of the Three Worlds lithograph painting that had been destroyed during the battle with Ultron. Pepper didn’t allow original paintings anywhere near the Avengers’ headquarters, knowing all too well the destruction that followed them around.

He thought back to how amazed he had been when he had found out that Tony, through the Stark inheritance and Pepper’s purchases, had a whole gamut of paintings by artists Steve had studied about before he became Captain America. Many of those originals hadn’t been in New York and he had only ever seen them before through prints or in books. He remembered the awe and wonder when Tony had heard that and taken him to the galleries that had the paintings on loan, amazed that he could see some of his favorite originals with his own eyes, instead of through prints or in a book.

It was one of many things that Tony casually did which amazed Steve. Tony would invite him to his workshop, and Steve would be amazed by the holograms and mindblowing inventions. Tony would casually hand him a new arm bracer, and Steve would be amazed by the amount of thought Tony had put into it, creating something that would help him in battles, to help secure his shield faster and easier.

Of course Steve had to put his foot down in some situations, like when Tony tried to casually give him an original Monet. He had told Tony that paintings were meant to be available to the public, not secreted in his bedroom, and at least that had stopped any other gifts of multimillion dollar paintings. He remembered how Tony had made some flippant comment at Steve’s explanation, but the next day, the Monet had been hanging in the café across from the Avengers tower, where there was seemingly endless foot traffic comprising mainly of Stark Industries’ employees. That café had become his favorite place to have a 15 minute break after his morning runs, drinking his coffee as he gazed on the painting. 

Steve was lost in thought, flitting from fond memories to anxious worry over how he was going to fix everything and then back to nostalgic reminiscing. He took almost no notice of the passing time and only blinked out of his daze after 45 minutes of inner conflict when the elevator opened again for Tony, who walked out while loosening his tie. His steps faltered as he noticed Steve, sitting on one of the long couches. Then he continued on, walking towards the cabinets behind the bar.

“You look a little different today, Rhodey. New haircut?” Tony asked, looking over his shoulder with a smile.

Steve chuckled. “Rhodey said he had to run. I think he had to push up his training with Vision and the younger superheroes. Seems like you got delayed as well. Oh, and Rhodey sends his regards to Tony Stank, not that I know what that means.”

Tony sighed as he dug through the contents of a cabinet, moving things around from what Steve could see. “Yeah, something came up at Stark Industries, and then Ross came up, as always. And you don’t need to know anything about Tony Stank. Old, unfunny, irrelevant references.”

Steve made a mental note to ask Rhodey about it as soon as he could. He was also thinking about relocating to the bar, but Tony found what he was looking for and shut the cabinet door. He walked over to the couches with an opened bag of dried cranberries and collapsed onto an armchair dramatically, putting his feet up on the coffee table.

“God, we might have Ross’ number now, but he’s still trying to make things as difficult as possible,” Tony complained.

Steve stiffened. “Is this something I should be worried about?”

“No, no,” Tony said, waving a hand in the air. “He’s like a gnat right now. An irritating, buzzing gnat, who makes life difficult by way of constantly buzzing in your ear, but having no real impact.”

“Be careful anyway. Ross is good at political leverage, and he might try to come at you through a third party if he knows he can’t come at you directly.”

Tony said, “Don’t worry, Steve. We’ve got him nailed to the wall, and he’s not going to be able to pull one over us again.”

Steve thought about what Rhodey had said, thought about his frustrations at Tony for flirting with Nomad, thought about the secrets he was still keeping. He said, with almost no conscious decision, “Maybe he wouldn’t have been able to pull anything over us if we had talked more.”

“This might be the first time anyone has ever said they wanted me to talk more,” Tony mused aloud.

“You know that’s not true.”

“Listen more, yes. Talk more? No, I’m pretty sure no one has ever said that before,” Tony said, flippant, and obviously ignoring Steve.

But Steve refused to be diverted and decided to get straight to the point. “Tony, we need to talk about what happened in Siberia.”

“You’ll find we don’t really ever need to talk about anything at all.”

“Are you really going to pretend nothing happened?”

“Captain America, always straight to the point. If you’re still hung up about what happened over the Accords, don’t worry about it,” Tony said, waving one hand in emphasis while he reached into his bag of dried cranberries. “It’s water under the bridge to me.”

Steve snorted, a distinctly non-Captain-America-ish sound. “That’s bullshit.”

Tony’s hand froze with a cranberry on the way to his mouth. “What?”

“I said, that’s bullshit,” Steve repeated. “You’re still angry about what happened.”

“Oh, so now you know better than I do how I actually feel? Your all-knowing self-righteous act is reaching new heights,” Tony said, biting down on his cranberry with a viciousness that the dried fruit definitely did not deserve. His relaxed posture and flippant tone had evaporated, replaced by tense shoulders and a deep, angry frown.

Steve decided not to take the bait. “You never used to hide how you really felt from me. Why start now?”

“Why? Maybe because the second-last time neither of us suppressed our feelings, we blew up an airport and my best friend got paralyzed from waist down. And the last time we decided to really let our feelings out, we were literally at each other’s throats and almost killed each other. That reason enough for you?”

Steve shook his head. “If we wanted each other dead, neither of us would be here.”

“You don’t know that,” Tony spat out, the sudden heat in his voice would have been startling, if Steve hadn’t provoked it on purpose. “I definitely wanted your best buddy dead.”

“You wanted him dead, but you weren’t going to kill me to see it happen.”

Tony’s glare was ablaze with emotion. “So you think.”

Steve glared back. “I know it. It was bad, but it could have been worse.”

“Sorry, are you going to rate me on how hard I tried to kill you and your BFF now?” Tony asked, voice dripping with sarcasm.

“Only if you rate me based on how hard I tried to stop you,” Steve said, before shaking his head, trying to stay on topic. “And I don’t think you get the full picture of why I did it.”

“Because it’s Bucky, why else?”

“Yes, because it’s Bucky. I couldn’t let you kill him, because he’s my best friend, and he’s innocent, and was used against his will. If something like that had happened to Rhodey, you would have protected him too. And when you’re not too angry to think straight, you get that. You’re too smart not to get that. If you had killed Bucky, you would have regretted it. I couldn’t let you do that to Bucky or to yourself.”

“Sounds noble, but you have no idea what I was thinking. I wouldn’t have regrets,” Tony said, eyes wide and more than a little wild.

Steve spoke, low and with as much sincerity as he could muster, “You know he was brainwashed, that he was just Hydra’s tool. If you had killed him, you would have his blood on your hands. Bucky doesn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t want you to become a murderer.”

“I wouldn’t have given a shit if I had killed your precious Bucky.”

“You would have cared.”

“You’re a sanctimonious know-it-all, you think you can tell me how I would have felt. You don’t know anything,” Tony said, his voice dropping to a low and dangerous snarl by the end of the sentence.

“I know you,” Steve said, voice rising in counterpoint. “I don’t know a hell lot of things, I don’t have near as much smarts as you do. But I know you. You were angry and vicious because of how you found out, because of what I did, because it was your mom. I know. I know how much it hurt you. I know I fucked up, that I’m the reason Zemo had this leverage on us, and what I did let him use it in the worst way possible.

“And I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that I didn’t tell you earlier, that I kept it from you because… because I was a coward. Because I didn’t want you to hate him. Or hate me.”

Steve felt raw, felt like he was being flayed alive as the words heaved out of him. He met Tony’s wide eyes with difficulty. Tony’s face was taut with what seemed like anger, jaw clenched, brows furrowed, but his eyes held a torrent of unreadable emotions.

Steve took in a ragged breath and forced himself to continue. “But if you had killed Bucky, you would have hated yourself. You would have still hated him, but you would have hated yourself more. Because that’s not who you are. You’re not a murderer, Tony. You’re a superhero. You put yourself in a metal suit every day and risk injury and death because you want to save the world, not destroy it.”

Then, all Steve could do was take a deep breath and let it go. He felt drained, like his chest had been punctured and he had poured out all he had inside until there was nothing left to give. Even his limbs felt leaden. He still kept his eyes on Tony.

Maybe this would be the last time Tony would want to see him. He drank in that tense expression, he hoped it wouldn’t be, but if this was the last bit of Tony he got, he wanted all of it. His fierce concentration was why he noticed when Tony finally, finally drew in a small, harsh breath of his own.

Tony rubbed an open palm over his face, as if to wipe away sweat and tears that weren’t there. Steve understood the feeling. He felt like he had just gone into battle for days without rest.

When Tony spoke, his voice was slightly hoarse, like he was the one who had been talking non-stop. “I was never close to Howard. We just… never got each other. He didn’t really know what to do with a kid, and he couldn’t see me as anything other than an heir to his legacy, so I pushed and pushed to make him treat me as anything but that. Maria was busy, and I didn’t see her much growing up to be honest, what with boarding school and early admission into M.I.T.. But my relationship with her was different. Mom did want a kid, she treated me like a son. She loved me, and I never doubted that she loved me.

“I thought… I thought all this time… I blamed Howard, did you know? For killing mom? I blamed him because I thought he was drunk and he had gotten behind the wheel and he had killed my mother. Just another thing I blamed on him. Turns out it was his fault, but not in the way I thought.”

Now, Tony’s anger flared up again, and he stood up to pace, movement jerky with emotion. “What the fuck was he doing with the super serum in the back of his car when he had mom with him as well? He knew, he should have fucking known about the dangers. He wasn’t drunk or tired. He knowingly put her life in danger, and she died for it. All these years I thought it was quick, an accident, but then when I was standing there, with Zemo’s voice in our ears, all I could see was my mom, in the car, scared and in pain as she waited for a goddamn assassin to kill her once he was done with my dad. And you knew. You might not have known all the details, but you knew all along it wasn’t an accident and you didn’t tell me. I had to find out from some black and white footage, I had to find out from a madman, because you didn’t tell me!”

Tony was roaring, his hands clenched as he stopped his pacing. Steve didn’t hesitate. He got up from the couch and walked up to Tony, knowing that he might just get punched, but knowing he had to face this, confront this head on instead of sitting there passively like a stone block.

He came to a stop in front of Tony, who was breathing heavily, who was glaring at Steve… except he didn’t look angry. Tony was glaring, deep lines between his eyebrows, but his eyes just looked wet and anguished. The sight was like a direct hit to Steve’s solar plexus.

Steve said, so very quietly, like he didn’t have the breath to speak any louder, “I’m sorry. I don’t regret a lot of choices in my life, but that’s… that’s the biggest. I should have told you. Whatever fears I had, I never should have let you find out like that. I’m so sorry, Tony. I’m so sorry.”

Abruptly, Steve was surprised to find himself almost in tears, overwhelmed by his own despair at having inadvertently hurt Tony so badly. He tried to choke the feeling down but something must have given him away, because Tony looked taken aback. Steve knew he should stop talking, but he couldn’t help continuing.

“I have no right to ask you for forgiveness. But I came back because, because I wanted us to try again, to see if we could—”

He broke off, unable to make himself say anything further, to be so selfish in the face of Tony’s anger and pain, to ask for the friendship he was hoping to salvage when he was the one who had torn it apart by destroying the trust between them.

“You’re an idiot,” Tony said, voice rough and low.

Steve only looked down in a flash of embarrassment and misery. Tony stepped closer, and Steve looked back up instinctively. They were only a foot apart now. Tony’s cheeks looked a little flushed from anger, but the deep lines in his face had softened. There was a moment of silence where Tony just stood there, staring at him. Then Tony’s shoulders slumped, like all the tension was just drained out of him from one moment to the next, and he shook his head.

Tony said hoarsely, “I had already forgiven you before you even came back to New York. You think I would meet with you again if I hadn’t? I’m not that nice.”

Steve blinked at him, feeling wetness on his lashes even though no tears had escaped. His throat felt tight, like he had lost his voice along with his capacity to comprehend this turn of events.

“You weren’t the only one who fucked up, Steve. I’m angry at you for keeping secrets, but I kept things from you guys as well, thinking it was for your own good. Tried to implement a house arrest on Wanda to keep her safe, but not tell anyone at the same time. The whole messing with Loki’s sceptre thing. Working with Ross even though I knew, I fucking knew I would have to compromise on some moral principles to do that. I know I fucked up. I thought I had a handle on things, I thought I knew what to do for the best outcome, but I was wrong, really wrong about that. The fallout from the Accords and Siberia? It wasn’t just on you. You need to stop taking on everything as your responsibility.”

Tony stopped and looked at Steve. It took a moment of dumb staring before Steve realized that Tony was waiting for him to say something.

“But I hurt you,” Steve said, voice like metal scraping against rock.

 “Yeah, you did,” Tony said, barely audible, before wincing. “Oh damn, stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?” Steve asked, his voice equally as low.

“Like you’re some lost blue-eyed puppy waiting to be kicked,” Tony said, clearing his throat and looking away. “You hurt me and I hurt you back. I think I gave as good as I got. I— I don’t blame you anymore, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some residual anger. Which is why… the whole shouting and all. I read somewhere that it’s cathartic and we should get our feelings out. Maybe that’s what we need to do more. Both of us.”

Steve nodded slowly, processing the words at the speed of dripping molasses. “Yeah, maybe we should.”

Then he reached out and pulled Tony into a hug.

It was… awkward. It was awkward for the first few seconds, because Tony just froze up in Steve’s arms. Even before everything that happened in Siberia, they weren’t the hugging type of friends. They fought beside each other, spent some downtime together, joked around, talked, trained. Steve had no idea what Tony thought of him, but Steve liked Tony, maybe even more than liked, had always felt affection and admiration for this man who was impossibly smart and funny and brave.

But they had never, ever hugged.

And maybe they never would, because Tony had this thing about touching things and people sometimes, and Steve had just hugged Tony without asking him. Maybe this would stay a one-sided hug.

Steve was about to pull back in embarrassment when Tony’s arms came up suddenly and gripped Steve around the waist. Then he squeezed, almost too hard, like Tony didn’t have full control of his own limbs. But it was enough to make the awkwardness melt away, and Steve rested the side of his head against Tony’s, closing his eyes.

Tony had buried his face into Steve’s shoulder, so when he spoke, Steve could feel bursts of warm, wet air against his shirt.

“I thought you didn’t care. That you didn’t tell me about Bucky and what happened to my parents and you walked away because you just didn’t give a shit about what it did to me,” Tony said, voice muffled and only audible to Steve’s super hearing.

Steve tried to pull back to look at Tony, but Tony just gripped on harder and said, “No, I won’t be able to say this if I’m looking you in the face.” He dragged in a ragged breath, and continued, “When you left, I thought you just didn’t care that you lied, and what I had found out. But you do, don’t you? I wondered, when you came back. And then the look on your face earlier…”

Steve hugged Tony closer, hands clutching at his back, and said, “I do care. Tony, I do. If you believe anything from today, believe that. Don’t ever think I don’t care. I didn’t tell you because I was scared it would change things, and I had to leave Siberia because I didn’t know how else to diffuse the situation. I always meant to come back, to try to mend things.”

“Okay… okay,” Tony said, almost soothingly, like Steve was the one who needed to be soothed.

Then Tony continued, a hoarse whisper against Steve’s shoulder, “And… you’re right. About Bucky. I would have hated myself if I had managed to kill him. It wasn’t his fault and I’m sorry I tried to kill him. And I’m sorry I tried to bash your face. And for hiding things from you in the past.”

“I’m sorry for trying to bash your face in too. And for breaking the arc reactor.”

“Damn right you should be. Those cost a lot of money to make,” Tony said, aiming for flippant and missing. There was another short pause. “Are we okay, Steve?”

Steve took a deep breath and answered with heartfelt sincerity, “We’re okay, Tony.”

There was a stillness in the air after all the shouting and emotional confessions as they both fell silent. Steve felt his heart slowing down, calming, with the feel of Tony’s warm body in his arms and Tony’s soft hair against his cheek.

Then Tony loosened his grip around Steve’s waist, and Steve reluctantly did the same, stepping back when Tony did.

“Well, that got awkward,” Tony said, staring over Steve’s shoulder instead of meeting his gaze.

“It’s only awkward if you let it be awkward,” Steve said, putting on his most sage-sounding voice.

Tony rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Did I throw my cranberries somewhere? I need sustenance after all that.”

Steve picked up the packet from the floor, along with a few stray cranberries that had fallen out. “Yeah, you hurled them away like they were on fire.”

Steve passed the packet back to Tony, and popped the stray cranberries he picked up from the floor into his mouth.

Tony stared at him, and then made a face. “Ew… That’s gross, Steve.”

Steve shrugged. “Your place is cleaned constantly by little robots and I can’t get sick even if it was dirty.”

“Ugh, that is not a good reason for your life choices. Come on, let’s go get ice cream. We need some comfort food after all that and you can put food that wasn’t on the floor into your stomach.”

The invitation surprised Steve. The kind of surprise that warmed him from the inside, thawed the spiky ball of ice in him that had been building since Steve walked away in the cold of Siberia.

He looked at Tony, who was trying to project nonchalance at the invitation, eating his cranberries at an unusual speed while keeping his eyes fixed on Steve, obviously gauging Steve’s response.

“Yeah, that sounds pretty good,” Steve said with a grin, not even trying to hide his deep pleasure at this start to mended fences.

Tony visibly relaxed, like he had been expecting a rejection. Then he broke out in a pleased smile of his own, small but genuine in the way his eyes seemed to light up, the corners of his eyes crinkling.

“There’s this new place I heard, very fancy, apparently they blindfold you before they let you try their flavors — you’ll like their asparagus ice cream,” Tony said, with a wink to indicate he was teasing.

“Asparagus ice cream? So you’re moving on from salad drinks to salad ice creams?”

“I keep telling you, it’s not a salad drink. It’s too delicious to be a salad. And there are apples in it.”

“There are apples in some salads too.”

“Oh, who’s been introducing fancy salads in to Steve Rogers’ steaks-and-potatoes land?”

Steve liked that, liked the way Tony’s mouth shaped the name ‘Steve Rogers’ instead of ‘Captain America’ or ‘Nomad’. He knew he was beaming stupidly at Tony, but he couldn’t seem to stop. And after Tony brushed against his shoulder and gave him a pleased smile, Steve didn’t really care if he looked like an idiot.

Ice cream was had at Central Park, not in any fancy dessert place, and they talked for long enough that they ended up getting early dinner too. Steve had no idea if he ate anything asparagus-flavored. All he could recall of their meals was Tony’s laughter and that warm brown gaze on him.

He forced his mind to stay clear of any thoughts about Nomad and more secrets. For what it was worth, he would hold on to this for as long as he could and deal with Nomad another day.

Chapter Text

Steve had been out as Nomad, investigating reports about the sighting of a giant spider for an hour — with nothing to show for it— , when he received a call from Vision, who had been doing an aerial search. They discussed and agreed that it seemed likely to be a false alarm.

Instead of heading back, Steve rode on his bike to the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The cool rush of air against his chest and neck felt refreshing, had his blood singing along with the speed at which he took the corners. The growl of the bike vibrating through him was invigorating and he pushed it past the speed limits. He let his mind wander, thinking about all the events of the past few days. After the official signing of the Accords had been interrupted, most of the superheroes had just put their signatures on the paperwork right there on the streets, still bruised and bleeding from the fight, as they used cars as impromptu tables. Steve had watched a shaky video taken by a passing civilian where T’Challa announced, almost like it was just an additional aside he just remembered, Steve Rogers’ pardon and how he was no longer a fugitive.

In the immediate aftermath of that announcement, Steve had been too caught up in his anger and confusion about Tony flirting with Nomad to really think about it. But he was in a much better mood these days, a strange combination of optimism after that talk with Tony and fatalistic desperation to enjoy every single second before it all came crashing down. He tried to imagine the options he had now, with the pardon. He thought about donning the Captain America uniform again, but he wasn’t sure about the logistics involved in retiring Nomad while bringing back Captain America. He fantasized instead about staying on as Nomad, because Nomad came with a lot less baggage than Captain America did. On the other hand, Nomad also came with an outfit that a news caster had called “Superhero Stripper Chic” the other day.

If he wanted to stay on as Nomad, he would also have to tell Tony everything, about who Nomad really was beneath the mask. Even if he didn’t, he would have to tell Tony everything. If Nomad just disappeared without a word, it would hurt Tony and Steve shied away from that thought. He couldn’t imagine keeping this secret forever, although at this point it also felt like he had been Nomad forever.

Superhero Stripper Chic or not, the thought of staying on as Nomad had its attractions. There was something freeing about it, and it wasn’t just feeling free from the constraints of fabric, regardless of how some publications had put it. There was also the fact that Nomad was the one Tony flirted with. That was a big plus. He knew he was being selfish, for wanting to hold on to that flirtation he had with Tony while he was Nomad. He also knew he would lose all that the moment Tony found out about Nomad’s real identity, because Steve wasn’t who Tony wanted, not really. Tony wanted the daring superhero who flirted in public and exposed his muscles. He didn’t want Steve, not like that.

Steve’s mood had been held buoyant by the fairly good interaction he had with Tony since they had talked things out, but he wasn’t so deluded that he could ignore how he had tied himself into a new bind with the Nomad identity, that he had solved one problem but was still faced with another hurdle that seemed beyond his capability to clear.

He just wasn’t ready to give it up yet, and he didn’t want to think about it right now either. Instead, he indulged himself in a fantasy where he could be Nomad and still use his shield. Steve missed his shield and all the ways he could use it in a battle. He still felt strangely naked without it sometimes, even more so than his low-cut superhero outfit made him feel. Could he paint the shield black and pass it off as a new weapon? Well, that would probably stretch the limit of the public’s ability to ignore his real identity, let alone Tony’s.

He was still in the midst of contemplating his superhero identities when he felt his phone vibrate, indicating a text message. It was a busy road, so he weaved through the other cars until he could pull up by the side of the road, and pulled out his phone from the small pouch on his belt.

Tony:
- Send help -

Steve:
- Is everything okay? Aren’t you at the charity gala tonight? -

Tony:
- Yes, which is why I need you to send help. -
- This guy talking to me is so wrong about everything -

Steve:
- Are you using your phone while talking to someone? -

Tony:
- It’s only taking 2% of my brainpower to talk to this guy -
- And that 2% is mostly to restrain myself from laughing in his face -

Steve didn’t want to encourage Tony, but he couldn’t help being honest in his surprise.

Steve:
- I’m surprised at your restraint. -

Tony:
- I promised Pepper good behavior in exchange for no meetings next week. :( -

Steve:
- Now you gotta pay your dues -

Tony:
- Being responsible is hard -

Although it was a bad idea, Steve wondered about what he could do to cheer Tony up. He knew the venue for the charity ball since Tony had mentioned it earlier. He wasn’t that far away from it. And it could give Tony some distraction…

Steve:
- Good behavior doesn’t mean you have to talk to everyone forever. Make your apologies and pretend you need to talk to someone else -

Tony:
- You make a good point. -
- Man with the plan, and I’m following that plan -

Steve:
- Get yourself some fresh air. Just take a breather. -
- Stay strong! -

Tony:
- I’ll try to bolster my spirits with this fresh air you’re talking about -
- I’m doubtful about its existence in New York but I’ll see if I can find it -

With that, Steve tucked his phone back into his pouch and took off on his bike at an even more reckless speed, fast enough to push the upper limits of his bike.

In less than fifteen minutes, Steve was pacing the grounds at the Museum of the City of New York, cape fluttering behind him. From within the shadows, he looked up at the small balconies framed by the museum’s large pillars, until he finally found the balcony he wanted. It was empty except for one unmistakeable figure.

The wall wasn’t hard to scale when he used the carvings on the pillars as a foothold. Steve shimmied up with ease and swung himself onto the balcony with a swirl of his pale gold cape, his soft boots scuffing lightly on the tiled floor as he landed.

The man in the closely fitted suit swung around, and Steve looked into wide brown eyes.

“What the—” Tony paused, and then blinked. “Nomad? What are you doing here?”

The name Nomad falling from Tony’s lips was enough to give Steve a pause. Okay, so maybe Steve hadn’t thought this through. It was an impulse. Tony had been bored and frustrated, stuck with company he didn’t want to talk to, and Steve’s first idea was that since he was nearby, he could just come by and provide Tony with some distraction. It wasn’t anything that Steve didn’t used to do. Except back then, Steve would be attending this kind of functions as a guest as well, and all he had to do was wander up to Tony.

Now, he had swung up onto a balcony in Nomad’s full glory, cape and all.

Even though he had been texting with Tony as Steve, not Nomad.

He really hadn’t thought this through.

But Steve was here, and he wasn’t just going to leave. He did want to see Tony in person after that intense conversation they had just two days ago, and he did want to provide Tony with some company for this charity event. He wasn’t going to let some secret identity issue stop him.

“The police reported a potential sighting of a giant spider, and Vision and I were patrolling the area. I was nearby and thought I would swing by,” Steve said.

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Swing up, you mean. We’re on the second storey here.”

Steve only smiled slightly, as if to say that the second storey was hardly a challenge, which it really wasn’t. Tony only shook his head.

“Superheroes. You’re like a bunch of cats, can’t keep you out of anywhere.”

“That includes yourself?” Steve asked.

“Especially me,” Tony said wryly. “Vision did tell me about the sighting. He said that you guys didn’t find anything.”

Steve nodded in confirmation, stepping closer. He couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering over Tony, who always did wear his suits very well, be they made of armor or the finest fabrics. His current suit was almost jet black, with a midnight blue sheen, and they cut close to his body to emphasize his shoulders, powerful arms, and lean frame. The shirt was black, a stark background for the pale gold tie nestled at his throat. Tony’s hair was artfully ruffled, his facial hair precisely shaved. Steve wanted to trace the line of his goatee to that soft, parted mouth.

Then he realized how long he had been staring, how long they had been standing there in silence. Steve’s eyes flicked up and met a heated gaze, where Tony had obviously been watching him back, his eyes dark with open hunger.

It took Steve’s breath away.

Tony took a step closer, putting them almost toe-to-toe. Then he reached out, reached past Steve even as it brought him so close to Steve that their arms brushed, that Steve could feel Tony’s hot breath against his neck… Then Tony snagged the pale gold cape behind Steve’s back to pull it forward.

“I never figured out how Thor and Vision moved with their capes on without tripping over them. How do you like yours?” Tony asked, his voice so low that it almost sounded like he was saying something else entirely, asking if Steve liked something far more suitable for a bedroom than a public venue.

“It has its uses. Good for distracting the opponent in a fight,” Steve said, his voice equally low and quiet.

Tony said, “Makes sense. But what other uses could it have?”

Steve smiled. “Well, it would probably make a good picnic blanket in a jiffy.”

That earned him a low throated laugh. “I would love to see that.”

Steve was entranced, hypnotized by the dark lashes that dipped and then lifted, by the creases around Tony’s expressive mouth as he smiled, by the warmth in his voice. Steve hardly knew what he was saying and just responded on autopilot.

“Just tell me the time and place. I’ll bring the picnic blanket.”

Tony dropped his hold on the cape and then laid a hand on Steve’s chest, against black fabric. “I’m not usually one for a picnic date, but I might just make an exception for you.”

Then Tony shifted his hand a little and his fingers brushed against Steve’s bare skin where his neckline gaped. It was like a jolt of electricity sparking beneath his skin, heating the area beneath Tony’s light fingers until they pulsed. Steve drew in a sharp breath. For a moment, he was back in his dream, mired in images where cold metal brushed up against his, replaced by warm skin, as Tony whispered in his ear and touched lips against bared flesh.

Instead of warming his cheeks, the memory of the dream washed over him like he was plummeting into ice cold water all over again.

Because that was a dream of Tony, Tony in the Iron Man suit, with Nomad. And here Tony was, his hand on Steve’s chest, except he thought that he was with Nomad, and he was talking about picnic dates with Nomad.

Tony had no idea who Nomad really was, and Steve… Steve could no longer ignore how he felt about Tony; he had these feelings kindling inside of him for a very long time, and they were only fanned by the time he’d spent with Tony in recent days, either as Nomad or Steve. He couldn’t ignore how the little spark had grown into a blaze now, especially after they had yelled things through, when Tony finally, finally, allowed himself to be totally vulnerable and honest with Steve.

Except yet again, Steve still had one last secret.

And he was here, on a balcony, flirting with Tony and agreeing to a date.

What was he doing?

He had to tell Tony. Even if it put an end to the flirtation and renewed closeness with Tony, he had to tell Tony now.

“Tony, I need to tell you something,” Steve said, almost desperately, even though he had no idea what words would come out next from his mouth.

Tony’s gaze sharpened and he met Steve’s eyes. “You can tell me anything.”

Tell him, tell him everything, even if it meant that he would no longer have this, the easy conversation they had as Steve and Tony, the flirty banter as Nomad and Tony. He was going to lose everything. The idea that he had a taste of how things could be, only to lose it forever due to his own messy feelings, was like being gutted slowly, inch by inch. But he had to do it. He just couldn’t continue like this anymore, on the tantalizing edge of having everything he wanted but knowing it was all a lie.

As with all hard things Steve had to do in life, he squared his shoulders to face it head on.

“I… I’m…”

The door to the balcony opened.

“Tony, it’s almost time for— Oh!” Pepper’s voice floated out from behind Steve.

Steve was flooded with conflicting emotions, adrenaline crashing with a confused rush of relief and frustration. He stepped back quickly, and his feet seemed to tangle together. He tripped, stumbled, and he tried to recover, until he felt a sharp yank on his shoulders, realizing in sudden shock that he had stepped on his own cape. With a flail of his arms, hopelessly trying to catch the balustrade and failing completely, he tumbled backwards onto the ground, landing hard on his ass. There was a moment of shocked silence on the balcony, Pepper and Tony staring at him with their mouths slightly open.

Tony’s mouth started to turn up, and even though he quickly pressed his lips together tightly, it was clear that he was trying very hard not to burst into laughter. Steve let out a small groan of pure mortification.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to surprise you,” Pepper said, a hand over her mouth, probably to hide her own laugh.

“Are you okay?” Tony asked, coming forward as if to help Steve up.

Steve’s cheeks were burning, flushed from the unexpected clumsy moment with his cape after he had already spent hours fighting in it without any issue. Of course this had to happen now. He tried to get up and almost tangled in his cape again until he wrenched it up and away from his legs. Then he leapt up to his feet with great speed, if not grace.

Tony stepped back and cleared his throat. “Okay, all good again, I think. Pepper, Nomad was just in the neighbourhood and thought to swing by to tell me about his patrol with Vision. It was a false alarm.”

“Well, that’s good to hear,” Pepper said, sounding a little uncertain, which made sense considering that they had phones and communicators for such things. Her eyes also seemed drawn down to Steve’s chest, before they snapped up again.

Steve manfully tried not to blush any harder; he didn’t think his capillaries could take it. “I— I need to go. Have a nice night, Miss Potts, Mister Stark.”

There was no in point remaining. He couldn’t do this in front of Pepper, especially after that embarrassing scene. He still couldn’t believe that he had stepped on his own cape and then fallen on his ass, in front of both Tony and Pepper. He wished the superserum had given him actually useful abilities, like turning invisible on command or going back in time.

“Yes, thank you, same to you,” Pepper said automatically.

Tony said, eyes boring into Steve’s. “We can catch up later… about further uses of your cape.”

“Sure,” Steve said, voice hoarse, before he turned around and leapt over the balcony rail. His cape billowed behind him, a stretch of shimmering gold against the dark, before he landed nimbly in a crouch and launched himself away into the night. So apparently he still had no trouble jumping over railings and leaping off high places with his cape on, but taking a step backwards was hazardous. Now he really was rethinking the cape, no matter how cool he looked when the wind was blowing in the right direction.

He was moving stealthily in the shadows beneath the balconies, moving briskly, not running away, when he heard Pepper and Tony speaking faintly.

“That seemed like an unnecessarily dramatic exit.”

“He’s a dramatic kind of guy sometimes. The way that cape swirled when he leapt off was pretty impressive, don’t you think?”

“No, you can’t attach a cape to Iron Man, Tony. Absolutely not. You just saw the guy trip all over it, and you want to get one? Are you insane?”

“I’ll be in my Iron Man suit, and Iron Man doesn’t trip.”

“You would set it on fire.”

“Not if I make the cape fireproof.”

“Tony…”

Even the idea of a red cape hanging off the Iron Man suit, flapping as he flew around, wasn’t enough to break Steve’s roil of emotions about the events that had unfolded tonight. How could someone feel so much embarrassment and longing and dread all at the same time?

Later, at home, Steve stared in dismay at his phone, at the new messages from Tony.

Tony:
- I think I scored myself a date with an elusive, nomadic superhero tonight -

Steve:
- Do you think that’s a good idea? -

There was no answer from Tony.

Steve wanted to pretend that he didn’t know why he wrote that to Tony, but he knew full well why he had said that.

Because he was scared. Scared that the situation was spinning out of his control and terrified about what would come next.

And no small part of him was jealous. Jealous of his own alter ego, which must be a new type of insanity that came with superheroes in the modern world. He had been feeling it for a while, but he was only now willing to confront the emotion head on. He was jealous of Nomad, of how easily he had caught Tony’s attention and kept it, of how easily they  flirted together and even now, of how easily they had agreed on a date. Steve, with all his insecurities, had never come close to this side of Tony for all the time they had spent in each other’s company. Nomad, for all that he wasn’t real and was nothing more than a particularly scandalous outfit paired with reckless daring when it came to flirting, had gotten Tony’s attention where Steve had failed completely.

So yes, Steve was jealous of Nomad, of himself. It was a sad and ridiculous situation.

Hours later, Tony still hadn’t responded to Steve. He was probably angry at Steve for questioning his interaction with Nomad. For Tony to tell Steve about the date, to get angry over Steve’s response, angry enough that he didn’t say anything when Tony always had something to say… It was a sign that this was serious for Tony.

It was at that point, as Steve lay in bed, that he realized with sinking feelings that this was it. He couldn’t delay it any further.

No matter how much he wanted this to continue, to have the best of both worlds, he knew it wasn’t real. His friendship with Tony was just recently mended on the premise that they would be honest with each other, except Steve still had one last lie, and it was a big one. Nomad’s interactions with Tony were all a lie because Tony had no idea who lay behind the mask. Now that Tony was stepping up the flirting while Steve-as-Nomad had responded in kind, because he was hapless to do anything else… Now that Tony was actually invested, Steve knew there was no more hiding it. He couldn’t even pretend to contemplate letting Nomad disappear one day without telling Tony the truth. It would hurt him. And Steve was done doing that. Maybe Tony would be furious at Steve, furious enough never to want to talk to him again, but at the very least, Tony would have the whole truth. Steve owed him that much at least.

He would call up Tony in the morning and ask if they could meet. As Steve Rogers, not Captain America or Nomad. Then he would tell Tony everything, face-to-face, and deal with whatever happened next. Steve wasn’t giving up. Not by a long shot. He knew he had messed things up, but he was going to come clean and do what needed to be done to fix things with Tony or face the results if it wasn’t something that could be fixed.

Maybe Tony would get a good laugh out of this.

Maybe.

Whatever happened next, Steve was coming clean in the morning.

Chapter Text

There was no time to talk to Tony, because giant spiders attacked again in the morning.

“I thought we got them all! I can’t believe we still have spiders invading!” shouted Spider-Man as he swung by.

“They’ve been busy. There’s even more of them,” said Steve, still in Nomad outfit as he threw a couple of stun discs at a spider’s legs and caught the discs on rebound. The spider went down in a heap.

By the time Steve got to Madison Avenue after Iron Man had called them all in, the spiders were everywhere, more than they had ever swarmed out before. Spider-Man was webbing as many as he could, slowing them down enough for Tony to blow them into smithereens en masse with each missile blast. Tony was a blur of multitasking attacks, hitting spiders with repulsors while using little directed missiles to go after the webbed spiders. Vision was taking down dozens at a time with lasers blazing from his eyes.

The numbers were daunting. They would be more daunting if they didn’t have so many other superheroes helping. This time, more than just the Avengers were answering the distress signal. Steve saw the huge difference it made when they were all brought together.

The sparks of flaring gold light signalled the arrival of Doctor Strange and the other sorcerers they could spare. A sleek flying plane deposited the Fantastic Four into the midst of scuttling spiders. He could see Ms. Marvel on the ground, loose dark hair flying as she ran, while above, Captain Marvel soared, a blue and gold streak against the cloudy sky.

Then, a familiar repulsor blast came from behind Steve to take out one of the spiders that was trying to outflank him. It was perplexing because Steve could see the red and gold suit in front of him attacking another group of spiders. He jumped and used the momentum to smash another spider to the ground before jabbing one of his knives at the place where its head met its body. The spider spasmed violently before falling still.

Steve got up, flipping his cape back, and turned around to see the bulkier, gunmetal gray of an updated War Machine. Was there someone else in the suit or could it be…

“Rhodey?” he asked.

“In the metal and flesh,” Rhodey responded.

Then Iron Man was there as well, swooping to a stop beside War Machine. The smooth gold faceplate retracted to reveal Tony’s angry expression. Rhodey’ faceplate retracted as well, and his jaw was set. It was a bad time for them to withdraw their armors over their faces, but Steve suspected they wouldn’t appreciate him pointing that out right now.

“What the hell, Rhodey? You’re not ready yet. We talked about this.”

“No, you talked about this, and I tuned out,” Rhodey said with an impressive eye-roll. “I’ve been ready for weeks and you know it from the dozens of test runs you’ve performed. If I waited for your say-so, I would never be out here.”

Steve could see genuine fear in Tony’s wide eyes and he knew what Rhodey said was true.

“Guys, is this the time for this argument?” Steve asked, risking their wrath and trying to head off a protracted argument in the middle of a fight.

“Good call, Nomad. Let’s talk about this later, Tones.”

Before Tony could respond, the War Machine helmet closed up and Rhodey was lifting off, angling towards where the spiders were swarming up a building. Tony swore under his breath, put down his faceplate as well before going after him.

Steve knew it was a problem.

He had seen the way Tony had looked at Rhodey in the War Machine armor, seen that unshakeable fear. The way Tony was now on Rhodey’s’ trail just emphasized the issue. Whatever worry Rhodey had about being back in a suit that functioned as a metal coffin when he plunged to the ground and towards his paralysis, Rhodey was dealing with it. But Tony wasn’t dealing with it anywhere near as well.

Damn. Maybe Captain America could make a call now, send Rhodey or Tony off the field, or at least try to get Tony’s mind back in the battle. But Nomad wasn’t a leader. He was the newcomer.

Steve was realizing more and more that he should have spoken to Tony earlier.

But he didn’t have time to think over it, there were more spiders coming, and every pair of hands was needed. They would have to deal with it later.

As more superheroes turned up, the tide of spiders were stopped from scattering further to other parts of the city. Slowly but surely, the line of defence firmed up and the spiders were being pushed back.

“I have been running scans and I believe the source of the spiders is this building,” said Vision’s voice, coming over the communicator.

Steve looked up and could see Vision hovering above a dull concrete building that looked more like a small prison block than something that belonged at Madison Avenue. That the spiders were coming from it was worrying, but with unspoken consent, the superheroes started herding the spiders back in that direction. Through a combination of teamwork and brute force, they had the building encircled and were keeping the spider infestation contained.

Steve ran shoulder first into the side of a spider trying to scuttle past him on the street and make it up a building behind him. When it crashed down, he zapped it with his discs until it stayed down.

He had barely straightened when he was thrown down from the force of a thunderous boom, an almost physical soundwave smashing out from the warehouse that sent him down to the ground. He scrambled to his feet quickly, mindful not to trip over his cape and then finally, ripping his torn cape off his back. It was almost in tatters from the spider attacks anyway. In the back of his mind, he wondered if Tony would make him a replacement. Check that, it was Tony. Of course he would. 

One of the walls of the grey building looked like it had been completely smashed down. The entire wall was gone, with jagged edges around the hole, and the roof looked to be sagging downwards as well.

Emerging from the hole was what looked like…

…Hulk?

Except it couldn’t be the Hulk, because this one was red. There wasn’t the familiar bright green that was Hulk’s skin. This one was the same size, with the same rippling muscles, but he was red in colour, a dark red the colour of rust and blood.

“What the hell?” Tony said, voice coming over the Avengers’ channel.

Then there was no time for consideration because the red thing leapt straight into the air, with the same kind of range and distance that Hulk had, and grabbed hold of Vision in his gigantic fists. Maybe Vision was too shocked to turn himself immaterial or defend himself, because he was flung straight down into the grey building, causing the roof to finally crash in.

Then the red Hulk landed on the ground again with enough force to smash the street into rubble, sending several nearby spiders and people flying. Before they could regroup, the red Hulk was on them. He grabbed and punched superheroes and spiders indiscriminately, roaring with ear shattering volume. Cars and buildings took the brunt of his anger as he charged through them with little care.

It was terrifying.

Steve had never realized how strongly he had trusted Bruce all this time. For all that the Hulk went berserk on the field, he had always known that the Hulk was still in control, was still cognizant of what was going on when he wasn’t under the influence of Wanda’s hallucinations.

But whatever this thing was, this red Hulk, there was none of that restraint, none of that humanity behind the rage. It was just mindless animalistic anger and destruction.

The line of defence broke quickly under that fury and unstoppable strength. The spiders started scuttling away again, and the superheroes were hard pressed to stop both the spiders and the red Hulk. Steve realized if they didn’t contain the red Hulk to this vicinity, the damage and loss of life could be catastrophic, just based on the last time the Hulk lost control.

Steve shouted, trusting his communicator to pick it up, “Spider-Man, we need to contain this. Use your webs!”

“Webs? Do you see the size of that thing? My webs aren’t going to cut it!”

“You don’t have to cover him in webs or stop his whole body to slow him down,” Steve said, trying to keep his voice level so as to calm Spider-Man down by example.

It was vague, but he knew that the kid would come up with something. Someone that flung himself from building to building across the city, throwing webs with precision, Spider-Man had to be smart, had to know how to use his own strengths best against something bigger and meaner.

“How are we going to slow him down if we don’t cover him in webs, I don’t get it?! We’re going to need all the webs, truck-loads of—” Spider-Man spluttered back before pausing. “Wait, I have an idea.”

Steve smiled.

He ducked as a spider was thrown over his head, and grabbed a large piece of stone debris from the ground. He came back up and chucked it with all his strength at the red Hulk. It connected solidly, throwing the red Hulk’s head back. He didn’t wait to attack, running up and jabbing his electrified discs into the red Hulk’s side. He needed to buy some time for Spider-Man.

For all his size, the red Hulk was fast. Those inhumanly large fists were grabbing for Steve. But Steve was faster. He spun, kicked off the ground to give him enough momentum to jab his discs into the red Hulk’s shoulder. He could see electricity sparked across the tough red skin, but it seemed to only enrage him further. Steve landed on his feet and had to backflip out of the way to avoid the red Hulk spinning around with a kick of his own.

Then suddenly, Spider-Man was there, shooting web after web at the red Hulk’s raised foot, creating almost a cocoon of webs. Then Spider-Man launched away towards another building, and Steve could see that he was attaching all the other ends of the web to three other buildings, in a zig-zagged formation to give it the most strength.

With one foot pulled off the ground, the red Hulk didn’t have any balance or leverage to detach the webs. He roared again, trying to stomp his foot to beak the connecting webs. It only served to unbalance him, and suddenly, the red Hulk was crashing to the ground, left shoulder first. He landed with a deafening crack, enough to make the ground tremble. His right foot was still in the air, held in place by all the webs.

“Yes!” whooped Spider-Man.

But Steve knew it wasn’t over yet. He noticed that most of the spiders had scattered, taking the opportunity to run while the superheroes were either down or occupied. The red Hulk wasn’t out of the count either. He was already getting up again, pulling at his foot.

The situation seemed hopeless. How would they take down the red Hulk for real and round up all the spiders when the numbers against them were so huge? There had to be a better way. Steve’s mind churned through and discarded plan after plan.

At that moment, the red Hulk rolled to his side and kicked at the webs with his free leg before yanking his webbed foot free through brute force.

Steve felt a creeping despair.

“Heads up!”

That voice…

A red and silver streak arced over their heads, dropping something from the sky. The something turned out to be a girl, a girl with red sparks shooting from her hands that slowed her descent to the ground.

Steve whispered, “Wanda.”

She couldn’t possibly have heard him over all the commotion, and she didn’t have any communicators on, but she turned her head anyway and grinned at him. He was close enough to read her lips as she said, “Nice outfit.” Then she winked.

Steve wanted to bury his face in his hands, but now wasn’t the time. He craned his head back up again and saw the wide silver wings, gliding towards a running spider.

“Falcon,” Steve said, almost unbelieving. “I guess our back-up’s here.”

Tony flew up, calling over to Wanda, “Can you hold the red Hulk back? We need to stall for time!”

Steve ran up. “Who is it? It’s not…”

He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t know what he would do if he found out it was Bruce, that something had happened to him to turn him into that.

“From my scans, I think that’s General Ross,” Tony said, sounding a little bleak. “And from the giant spiders, I’m going to guess that General Ross has been running some experiments of his own before he lost his marbles completely and decided he would make a good human test subject. We were wrong about that archway being a portal.”

It was the kind of insanity that Steve would have never attributed to General Ross, but then the evidence was right in front of them, red and mean, pounding the ground. Wanda’s red streaks wrapped around the red Hulk, who was formerly General Ross, holding him in place.

“I can’t hold him for long!” she shouted. “He’s too strong!”

“Just a few more minutes!” Tony responded.

Steve asked, feeling his hopes rise with the sight of Wanda and Sam, “What happens after a few more minutes?”

“More back up,” Tony said, blasting at the red Hulk with repulsors in hopes to distract it from fighting Wanda’s bonds.

Sam swooped by. “We just got here and you’re already looking for more back-up? Not feeling the love, Stark.”

“In a situation like this one, I think sharing is caring,” Tony said.

Steve watched as sweat beaded down Wanda’s forehead. He looked to Tony, about to tell him that she wasn’t going to be able to hold out for longer, but then he realized Tony was turned away, looking up towards the sky.

Steve turned his head as well.

“Friends!” shouted a very welcomed voice that breached a great distance as Steve watched a tiny speck grow into a shape of a man.

Thor hurtled to the ground with alarming speed, his hair and cape whipping behind him. In one arm, there was what looked to be another man. From his trajectory, they would land a distance away, which was good because their impact might injure someone instead.

Then Thor dropped the man. Steve didn’t even have time to panic when he realized that the man was growing larger. Not just because he was coming closer, Steve realized, but because he was actually increasing in size at a shocking speed. Green exploded out of a shirt, muscles rippling, mouth opened in a silent roar, and then an angry giant dropped to the ground with an ear-shattering impact that was felt even from where Steve stood, two hundred feet away.

The Hulk.

Steve knew they could do this then. The Hulk could handle Ross’ red Hulk and everyone else could corral up the spiders. The tide of the fight had changed completely, and suddenly, Steve thought that maybe, they would be okay.

That was when things went to hell.

Wanda shouted, but it was too late, the red Hulk broke out of her control. He launched into the air towards War Machine just as he was flying by, chasing a spider. Rhodey propelled sideways, avoiding the red Hulk, but the close encounter was enough to make Iron Man blast forward even as he sent all his armaments flying at the red Hulk. The red Hulk roared in pain but was not visibly injured by the attacks, and with shocking agility, twisted in the air and grabbed hold of Tony instead. He flung Iron Man to the ground, hard enough that the red and gold armor caused a crater with its thunderous impact. Then the red Hulk was back on the ground and lifting one gigantic foot to stomp down on the prone figure.

The Hulk was here but he wasn’t close enough to stop what was going to happen.

“Tony!” Steve screamed, and without thinking about it, he was on the red Hulk.

He threw himself into a full body kick at the red Hulk’s raised leg, hitting the calf with both feet. It was enough force to send the red Hulk staggering backward. Steve crashed to the ground, rolled, and was on his feet in a blink. He darted forward, stabbing at a knee with his electrified disk, twirling to jab at the other knee. The red Hulk’s fists swung out, trying to grab him, but Steve ducked under the swing and pushed closer instead. He kicked up, propelled himself up into the air with a foot to the red Hulk’s thigh, then his chest, then Steve flipped sideways in midair and delivered a hard kick to the red Hulk’s face.

Steve was coming back to the ground when a massive fist struck out again. He tried to twist, but it wasn’t enough, and the red Hulk landed a glancing blow off his side. Steve crashed to the ground on his back instead of his feet, but he was rolling sideways quickly, just managing to avoid a huge foot that stomped down where his torso was a second ago. He flipped to his feet and tried to dart behind the red Hulk. This close, he could see Ross’ features behind the distorted red skin, the seething anger in his red eyes.

There was red sparks dragging across the red Hulk, Wanda obviously trying to help. And repulsor blasts from above, from War Machine, was hitting the red Hulk in the back. But Steve didn’t see anything from Tony, which meant Tony was still down for the count, which filled Steve with an unspeakable terror…

Despite the distractions, the red Hulk was fixated on Steve now. He was attacking with greater speed, with greater fury. Steve couldn’t get out of his reach, there was just no time for that. He wasn’t fast enough at this proximity. Any second now, the Hulk would arrive, that’s all Steve needed. He just needed to stall.

Maybe it was the rubble, maybe it was the jagged pain in his side from the red Hulk’s glancing blow, maybe it was because he couldn’t drag some of his attention from the prone red and gold form still on the ground… But when Steve dodged a kick from the red Hulk, he didn’t realize until too late that it was a feint. Then a massive hand folded around Steve’s torso and lifted him into the air.

He looked into dark crimson eyes and watched as the red Hulk grinned at him with teeth the size of dinner plates.

Then the red Hulk squeezed.

Steve screamed, even as he tried to move, tried to pull his arms out, to stab at the red Hulk. But he couldn’t feel his arms beyond the crushing pain. He couldn’t give up, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything either as he felt the agony of his bones breaking beneath that splintering force. He heard another scream, not his own, an agonized terror-stricken scream, and opened his eyes to see Iron Man in the air again, red and gold armor dented and damaged, but not broken.

Good. At least… at least Tony was okay.

Then he saw a red fist rushing towards his face before everything went white. 

Chapter Text

Consciousness came back in pieces.

The sound of machines beeping. Voices talking. Something about bones. Internal damage. Healing factor.

It went quiet again.

Then the smell of chemicals, of disinfectant.

It faded.

Voices again. Saying his name, repeatedly.

Dying off.

Aching. Everything aching. But the thing that hurt most was trying to open his eyes.

He didn’t remember when it all faded away again.

It all seeped back in, the beeps of the machines in time with his own heartbeat, the rustle of people nearby. The pain that permeated his whole body was no longer the sharp stabbing sensation that took his breath away, no longer the agony that filled his whole mind and turned him into a mindless hurting animal. All that remained now was a deep ache that sapped his strength.

But he needed to know.

Slowly, he peeled open his eyes, an act that seemed to take an indescribable amount of strength. His sight was blurry and he blinked slowly, trying to focus. It didn’t take long to recognize the high ceilings; the curtains, drawn for privacy, that only went halfway up the glass walls; the sleek hi-tech machinery you wouldn’t find in a regular hospital. There, hung in direct line of sight to the bed, was a print of The Great Wave off Kanagawa, the blue and white colors among stark lines instantly recognizable even through a foggy vision.

He was in the Stark tower infirmary. He didn’t know it still existed, let alone that it remained exactly the same. Hadn’t it been moved to the facility downtown?

It took a moment of hazy blinking before he realized he could turn his head a little. He did, and saw Sam sitting by his bed. Steve was experiencing a strong case of déjà vu.

The movement caught Sam’s attention and he looked up from the book he was reading.

“Cap, we have to stop meeting like this,” Sam said, the faintest of smiles on his face.

 “Is everyone— is everyone okay?”

Sam leaned forward. “Yeah, we’re all fine. A few dings, scratches and bruises. But you got the worst of it, Steve. Several broken bones in your upper torso, and there were organ failures as well.”

The description should have terrified Steve, but instead, he only felt strong relief sweeping through him and taking the last of his energy with it.

Steve’s eyes fluttered close again. “That’s okay then.”

The next time he opened his eyes again, Natasha and Wanda were there too. He had no idea how much time had passed, but he wasn’t sure it mattered. He remembered slowly that Sam had said everyone was okay and the one hit the hardest was Steve. Steve had his super serum to fall back on, so that was good news. Even now, he felt better than he had last time he’d regained consciousness. Everything still hurt, but it was the hurt of his body knitting back together, a clean kind of ache.

Now, he could only think of one thing. That Sam was sitting by his side, calling him Cap and Steve. That Nat and Wanda were standing by his bed, talking in low voices. That his face felt free of any masks.

“So everyone knows?”

He didn’t realize he was going to ask it until the words were out of his mouth. Nat and Wanda turned to him. Wanda’s face was open with relief while Natasha looked a little more reserved, either from his recklessness or the secrets he’d kept.

Sam was the one who answered. “No, not everyone. You were transported almost immediately to the tower’s infirmary, and you were only fully unmasked here.”

Steve felt almost faint with the relief. So maybe, maybe Tony didn’t know yet…

As if reading his mind, Natasha sighed and stepped forward. She curled a hand around his own, her fingers strong against his limp, tired grip.

She looked almost pitying. “Tony was the one who flew you here. He stuck around, definitely long enough to know who is under the mask.”

And there it was. The dread was back.

He didn’t pretend not to know what Natasha was talking about.

“I guess it had to happen some time.”

Natasha shook her head at him. “You’re an idiot. You should have told him. And me. Although I would have probably guessed if I wasn’t mostly away, dealing with the Accords.”

Now it was Steve’s turn to sigh. That was pretty much what he had been struggling with since the first day. “I know.”

Sam said, “Didn’t you come back to talk to him?”

“I did. But we didn’t talk about… Nomad,” Steve said, although it wasn’t technically true. They did sometimes talk about Nomad. Argue about Nomad. That was about all he had ever managed to edge out with Tony, some ill-concealed jealousy towards Nomad. What must Tony be thinking now, knowing that Steve flirted with him under disguise, and that Steve had displayed jealousy towards his alter ego while not in disguise. He must think that Steve was not only lying, but unstable as well. Steve wished vaguely that he could just go back to being unconscious now.

“I think it’ll be alright. I’m sure Tony appreciated the Nomad outfit, and he’ll have something to laugh about when he realizes that Captain America dressed like a, what did they call it, superhero stripper, I believe,” Wanda said, maybe trying to be helpful. The little smile curled on her lips and the far too innocent gaze were all unconvincing.

Steve groaned and closed his eyes briefly.

Natasha said with a warning tone, “If you get off the hook that lightly, you should count yourself lucky. After everything that happened, more secrets was not the way to kick things off again.”

He could always trust Natasha not to pull her punches.

Wanda said, “Well, he is badly injured, that could get him some leeway.”

Sam agreed. “Yeah, maybe play the injury card, lean on Tony’s sympathies a bit. After all, you did throw yourself headlong into a giant red Hulk to save his life. I think that’ll count for something.”

Natasha’s sceptical expression matched how Steve was feeling. But he didn’t want to think about it for now, and there were other things he wanted to find out too.

“What happened to the red Hulk?” Steve asked, changing the subject desperately.

The others allowed the blatant change of topic, even if Natasha let out a little sigh of exasperation.

Sam explained, “Between Hulk and Thor, they pretty much squashed the red Ross version of Hulk. Which by the way, if we thought Hulk had anger issues, the red Hulk had it far, far worse.”

“Knowing Ross, I don’t think anyone is surprised by that,” Natasha agreed. “All the other superheroes focussed on rounding up the spiders and destroying them. We had to pull out another batch of the pesticides Tony created to handle the spiders at the park that first time.”

“Tony flew you back here immediately after the red Hulk let you go, which by the way, the red Hulk only released you after Banner gave him a few vicious whacks to the head. So you were both off the field by that point. Good thing we came back to American soil when we did, what with the major players abandoning the field like that,” Sam said with a grin.

“Thanks for the assist,” Steve said, lifting his hand for a weak fist bump, which Sam obliged him with one while grinning, probably delighted that Steve remembered Sam’s lessons in fist bumps. “How did that happen? You guys coming back, I mean.”

Wanda answered this one. “Natasha, Rhodey, T’Challa and Tony have been negotiating to have us be let back in, fugitive status rescinded, on grounds of how far the Accords have changed and the circumstances at that time. Once Sam and I signed the new Accords, we were on our way back. With good timing too.”

The ice cold block in his chest thawed a little at her warm smile. “Yeah, there would have been a lot more destruction and casualties if you guys weren’t there. You were all amazing.”

Wanda ducked her head but Steve could see that she was wearing a pleased smile.

“Once Scott and Clint were allowed back, we knew it was only a matter of time,” Natasha said.

“We were going to surprise you, man,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Instead, you had a fight all lined up for us.”

Steve smiled a little. “Makes for good publicity. Returning heroes save New York.”

“Glad you had it all planned out then,” Natasha said wryly.

“What happened to Ross?”

Sam said, “After he was pummelled into the ground by Hulk and Thor, he changed back to the regular evil human Ross. He’s locked up at the Accords’ prison facility, with Bruce helping to strengthen his prison.”

Natasha elaborated, “Turns out, he took it quite hard when he was forced to shut down the Raft and when so much of the Accords was changed. When it looked like he was losing control of the whole thing, he decided to experiment with past attempts to recreate the super serum, using them on insects and small creatures. He was the one who hired those small time superhuman criminals to attack the official Accords signing too.”

“He had a couple scientists working for him, and they were experimenting on spiders first. That’s how you got the giant spiders attacking New York,” Sam picked up, making a face. “When they had success with the spiders, one of his scientists, who was probably always on the batty train, took some of the serum from the spiders’ innards, and injected himself with it. He turned into Man-Spider.”

“You just wanted to say Man-Spider,” Natasha accused with an eye-roll before continuing the explanation. “Ross decided to create more souped up spiders to cause trouble for the superheroes, maybe set them up to take the fall. That’s why he set up that archway on the Baxter Building. It wasn’t a portal as originally guessed, but some transformation device similar to what was used in Project Rebirth. He wanted the public to blame the Fantastic Four for the spider situation. It all got away from him towards the end, though.”

“The super serum seems to have a bad effect on some,” Wanda observed. “He was quite unhinged when I went to see him to try to determine the state of his mind.”

“That does seem to be one possible side effect of the serum,” Steve said, thinking about the Red Skull. Huh. Red as well. There might be some connection.

Steve lapsed into momentary silence, his thoughts drawn once again to Tony and how Tony obviously wasn’t there, wasn’t in the infirmary checking on Steve. He must be so angry.

Some of his thoughts must be obvious to the others, because Natasha sighed again. She leaned down and kissed him on his cheek.

“Get some rest. And when you’re feeling better, talk to him. Properly,” Natasha said, firmly.

She gave him a good long stare, and Steve could only nod weakly. They all took their leave at that point to let him rest up, but it also meant leaving Steve to his churning thoughts.

# # # # # #

It had been two days, and Tony had not stepped foot in the infirmary. Steve spent a good amount of time sleeping, and he got visits from Sam and Wanda mainly. A few of the newer superheroes dropped by to say hello as well. Natasha had to go back to working on the Accords and hadn’t returned since.

Steve was officially wallowing.

He understood what the silence meant. Nomad had been unmasked and Tony hadn’t been happy with what lay behind the mask, despite their earlier flirtation. Maybe it was just because he was angry that Steve had kept yet another secret from him. Or maybe he was disappointed that it was Steve. Boring old-fashioned Steve, who couldn’t keep up with this modern world and still felt lost some days, who kept secrets and had flaws unlike Captain America’s perfection. Repairing a friendship wasn’t the same as wanting something more with that person and maybe Tony felt cheated, tricked into flirting with Steve when he didn’t even like Steve that way.

The thought hurt Steve, cut Steve deep in a place where he couldn’t heal as easily, where he was forever the weak and skinny overlooked guy. It preyed on his mind, how Tony must have felt, deceived again and then ultimately disappointed when the mask came off and all he got was… Steve. He didn’t want Steve, he never had. It would have been a double blow that Steve had delivered to him. Steve ached in his chest at the thought, like his broken collarbone would never really heal right even as his bones knit together.

Tony’s absence spoke louder than words.

At the end of the second day, Steve decided he had had enough of wallowing. Time to face the music. He wasn’t completely healed, with his internal organs bruised and several of his ribs were still cracked. But he was in a far better state than he had been before, and he knew his quick healing would get him there. What couldn’t be healed while he lay here in this bed was his sore heart.

So he checked himself out of the infirmary that night. There was only the night nurse around, and she protested strenuously, but he put on a charming smile and insisted he could rest just as well in one of the spare bedrooms in the tower. And he would definitely come back for a check-up with the doctor in the morning.

He didn’t limp, but he did walk slowly, more careful with how he put one foot in front of the other. When he got into the lift and asked for F.R.I.D.A.Y. to take him up to Tony’s penthouse, F.R.I.D.A.Y. agreed amiably and proceeded to do just that. At least he hadn’t been locked out of Tony’s space. He figured that at this hour, Tony was either up in his rooms or in his workshop. If he wasn’t in the building, then Steve would wait until Tony came back.

He didn’t have the heart to ask F.R.I.D.A.Y. if Tony was in.

Maybe he should have, because then he would have known to hurry. The lift doors opened, and he walked in to see Iron Man in front of the open doors leading outside into the open air, to the large and long external platform which Tony used to land on or take off from.

Damnit, if Tony left now, then who knew when Steve would see him again. Especially if Tony knew that Steve was looking for him.

The red and gold suit stepped outside the doors and the repulsors fired up as he started to lift into the air. Not letting himself think on it, Steve ran at full tilt towards Iron Man and threw himself bodily at Tony. Steve crashed into Tony shoulder first, the shock of the impact jarring his bones with sharp agony, and the momentum was enough to send the two of them careening forward before smashing onto the floor, Steve on top of Tony.

Steve felt winded, questioning his choices now that he could feel his various bruises and healing bones protesting his rough treatment of his own body. Everything hurt with a jagged edge. The Iron Man suit did not exactly make for a soft landing.

Steve said urgently, grabbing onto gleaming shoulders. “Tony, can we talk please? I know you’ve been avoiding me, but— I— I really need to talk to you.”

He stared at the smooth gold faceplate, at the glowing eyes of the Iron Man suit, willing it to open to show him Tony’s frowning countenance. But there was no response, and he was left staring at the expressionless metal face.

“Tony?” he said, voice soft and uncertain.

“What the hell is going on?”

And that was Tony. Except, it wasn’t coming from the Iron Man suit Steve had pinned to the ground. The voice came from behind him.

Steve turned his head in confusion and saw Tony standing in front of the door that led to his bathroom. He was in a shirt and a waistcoat, but his tie was undone and his hair was rumpled. He looked very confused.

Which meant Tony wasn’t in the Iron Man suit that Steve had just tackled to the ground. It meant that the Iron Man suit was probably empty. How could he forget that Tony did this all the time? He often landed on the penthouse level and then sent the suit back out on autopilot so that it would go down to the workshop to stand down, rather than personally clomping all the way down through the lifts.

It wasn’t that Steve had forgotten. He had panicked.

Feeling the burn of embarrassment on his cheeks, Steve got up to his feet, a little slowly as he minded the ache in his sides. The Iron Man suit got up as well, moving smoother than the human that had landed on it. Obeying its last orders, the Iron Man suit took off and flew downwards.

“Mind telling me why you decided to tackle my armor?” Tony asked, hands on his hips. “Or why you’re even out of the infirmary?”

“I needed to see you. To explain,” Steve said.

He gathered up his courage, and stepped closer, finally looking Tony in the eye. Tony looked wary, his back straight with stiff tension. Tony’s closed off expression filled Steve with despair. It was a marked difference compared to the easy conversation they had at Central park over ice-cream and then later over dinner. That felt like it happened years ago, not just a few nights past. Steve drew closer and took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest with you from the start. It was just— I didn’t mean to. Which isn’t an excuse, but it’s the truth.”

Steve scrubbed a hand through his hair, feeling the grit and dirt from the fight —he hadn’t even had a shower yet. God, he was a mess. But no time to worry about that now; he knew he was only procrastinating, looking at Tony’s withdrawn stiffness.

He fortified his courage with another deep breath and continued, “The first time it happened, it was a mistake. I had come back to New York to talk to you, and I was on my way when the spiders attacked. I couldn’t just stand by, but I couldn’t be caught openly fighting on the streets of New York as well, since I was still a wanted fugitive. I didn’t want to get you in trouble too. So I put on a mask, but I thought it was just temporary, just to help keep the people safe.”

“Wait, wait, what? Am I getting this right?” Tony interjected, looking utterly shocked. “You were just carrying the Nomad costume around with you? You had already decided your new look would be something that wouldn’t look out of place at a male strip club?”

“No, I— That wasn’t what happened. It’s a long story. There was a spider, I was thrown into this store, my own clothes were torn, a lady almost recognized me and there were all this black leather clothing and masks in the shop. Anyway, I just pulled on what was closest.”

“Oh my god, Nomad’s outfit came from a dress-up costume store? Or a BDSM outfit store?” Tony muttered under his breath, but Steve ignored him. If he let Tony distract him, he would never get the whole apology out.  

“It was meant to be a once-off but it just kept happening. And I knew I should have told you earlier, but it seemed… it wasn’t meant to go on for so long.”

Tony frowned, crossing his arms. “Really? That’s what you’re going with? That it just wasn’t meant to go on for so long?”

Steve felt his heart sink at Tony’s hard stare. He wanted to fold his arms as well, to protect himself, but he didn’t want to come across as defensive. He didn’t deserve to be defensive. He deserved every bit of Tony’s ire.

“The longer things went on, the harder it was just to admit what was going on,” Steve said, his voice sounding weak even to himself.

“After everything we went through, after all our issues with the team splitting up and the secrets, that’s your reason? More secrets because it was just too hard to tell me?” Tony pressed a knuckle to the deep frown between his brows before looking at Steve with hurt in his eyes. “Maybe you didn’t mean to lie at first, but you just kept on doing it anyway. Why? Were you afraid… Didn’t you trust me?”

“No! I mean, yes, I trust you. It wasn’t about not trusting you. It was never about that. I’m sorry, Tony. I don’t even know why— It got so out of hand,” Steve said, trying to tamp down on his panic when he realized how badly he was explaining this. “We hadn’t talked yet at that point, and it just felt good to be able to talk to you again without all that had happened between us. I could talk to you like I was someone else, not Captain America or Steve Rogers who made all those mistakes. I know it’s just an excuse, and I should have told you by the second encounter. Once I missed that opportunity, it felt harder and harder to tell you the truth. Then we did talk, you and me, as Steve I mean, and things were better, and I didn’t want to ruin everything again—”

Suddenly, Tony was right in front of Steve. He had his hands on Steve’s shoulders and was talking. “Okay, breathe, Steve. Just breathe. In, and out. In, and out. That’s good. You’re not usually the babbling type so I know you haven’t figured out the rhythms of breathing and babbling at the same time yet, it takes a certain kind of skill, there we go…”

Steve took a deep breath and let it out, relaxing a little under Tony’s warm palms and his steady gaze.

“Okay, I think I might be getting a better idea of what happened now and maybe it’s my turn to talk,” Tony said, waiting for Steve to nod before continuing. “First off, I’m guessing you tackled the Iron Man armor like that because you thought I wouldn’t give you a chance to explain and I was flying off to god knows where. Am I right?”

Steve nodded again.

“Where do you think I was for the past two days?” Tony asked, but his tone was just curious rather than accusatory.

Steve had no idea where this line of questioning was leading to, but he answered, “Somewhere else. I don’t know. I thought— I thought maybe you didn’t want to see me.”

It was excruciating to bare himself like that, but he thought Tony deserved to know the truth, even if it was too late to make a difference. The personal embarrassment was the least that Steve deserved.

Tony sighed. “I’m guessing you didn’t ask anyone and not everyone knew anyway. But this is the first time I managed to get back to the tower in two days. We didn’t have any good way to contain a Hulk-sized problem long term, so Bruce and I have been working overtime to get something ready. He had to keep knocking Red Hulk out because Ross kept transforming into Red Hulk to try to breakout. And yes, we’re calling Ross’ other half Red Hulk, because it’s going to be too confusing to come up with something else.

“Then after we found a way to keep the Red Hulk contained, and convinced everyone that it was Ross rampaging around and the villain behind all the spiders, I worked with Rhodey and Nat to fast-track Thor and Bruce’s signing of the Accords. They both had questions, and we had to tweak some clauses, so it didn’t go as quickly as I would like, but they’re onboard now. It’s pretty good timing because currently, the Hulk and Thor have a lot of public approval for their role in stopping Red Hulk, which is why we had to do it right now.”

“Oh…” Steve said, feeling a little silly as the truth of Tony’s absence dawned on him. All that time he had been moping in the infirmary over Tony’s absence…

Tony said as he met Steve’s eyes, “I wasn’t avoiding you. I couldn’t get out of all that, but I was getting updates on how you were doing from your doctor. I was going to look for you after a shower, because I haven’t showered for two days. Although I apparently missed the memo that you have checked yourself out from the tender and loving care of some of the best doctors in this world.”

“There’s nothing else they can do for me, and all I need to do is rest up,” Steve said, as if by rote, the same spiel he had been saying to try to get out of the infirmary earlier.

“Alright, we’ll discuss where you’ll be resting up, but on to your apology and why you didn’t tell me you were Nomad.”

“I’m really sorry,” Steve said, even as he registered that Tony didn’t seem as angry anymore, not so closed off either. He seemed a little annoyed, at the very most.

Tony let go of Steve’s shoulders, taking a step back. Now it was Tony’s turn to take a deep breath.

“The most irritating thing about your whole confession here is that I really can’t believe you thought I didn’t know it was you,” Tony said with a frown.

“I thought— I— You didn’t know— What?” Steve stuttered.

Tony rolled his eyes. “The only thing I didn’t know for sure this whole time was whether you knew that I knew.”

Steve opened his mouth and then shut it. He tried to say something again, but couldn’t get anything out.

“What?” he repeated, faintly.

His mind was struggling to process what Tony had just said, and he felt like he couldn’t have understood correctly. He must have misheard, although he couldn’t think of what that something else could be that he was supposed to have heard.

“You didn’t know that I knew that you knew… what?” Steve asked, tentative.

“I can’t believe you’re making me say this. I didn’t know if you knew that I knew you were Nomad. That you were the one rocking a stripper outfit.”

“You… knew. If you knew, why didn’t you say anything?” Steve asked in a daze.

All this time, and Tony knew? How could Tony have known? And why hadn’t he said anything? Was this some big joke to Tony, laughing at Steve’s attempts to keep his secret, flirting with Nomad just to stir him up?

Tony dropped his annoyed stance and sighed. He shrugged with clear discomfort. “At first, I was sure that you knew I knew and that we were in some mutual unspoken secret. Then you started texting me, and I thought ‘oh, he meant it to be a secret from me as well,’ which really, Steve? More secrets? You really thought that was a good idea? It’s why I gave you a hard time earlier, because I really was genuinely annoyed that you were trying to keep your identity a secret from me, and I was stuck not being able to say anything, or even make any cracks like Captain Leather or Sexymerica, because I wasn’t supposed to know. I can’t believe you thought that was a great idea! But okay, after your little ramble, I can kind of see how you backed yourself into a corner there. You’re really just as bad as I am when it comes to handling your emotions.”

Steve just blinked at Tony, unable to think of anything to say.

Tony rubbed his forehead and said, “Right, getting back on track. So I was a little annoyed, but I thought I would wait until you were ready to talk about it. That you had to have a good reason for keeping your identity secret. Then I went over to your apartment, and you had ash in your hair, there were these familiar black boots sitting by the front door looking a little burnt and covered in ash too after Nomad was just in the news for fighting a guy who could breathe fire, and you were so casual about everything. I thought that was maybe your way of letting me know you were Nomad, without actually talking about it, and even though it didn’t seem like something you would do, it made me wonder again if I was meant to know you were Nomad. I wasn’t sure! There were so many moments I was sure you knew I knew, then something would happen and I would be unsure again. It was very confusing.”

Steve stared at Tony, who was fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat, looking agitated but earnest. He didn’t look like he was lying. So it hadn’t been a joke at Steve’s expense, and it wasn’t like Steve could be angry at Tony when Steve was the one who had been keeping the secret.

Steve still felt a little stunned by this revelation. He had been geared up for a fight, for anger and accusations, bracing himself for the attempt to win Tony’s trust back again. He hadn’t been prepared for this torrent of words from Tony, and how he seemed almost unsure of himself.

“I can’t believe you knew all along,” Steve said, shaking his head.

Now it was Tony’s turn to stare at Steve. “Nomad was carrying a flip phone, you sent me a flip phone, am I not supposed to make a connection here? And you seemed so shirty about it… Then you message me as Steve, but you turn up at that charity event as Nomad. I thought for sure you thought I knew and you weren’t even trying to pretend anymore. But when I messaged you about the picnic date, you questioned whether it was a good idea to go on a picnic date with Nomad. So, what? You changed your mind? You weren’t trying to hide that you were also Nomad, but then you were writing all these messages questioning Nomad being part of the team, questioning Nomad’s outfit, saying he was attention-seeking. I was getting really worried that you were going through some sort of existential crisis.”

Steve was beginning to get an inkling of how confusing Steve-as-Steve and Steve-as-Nomad’s actions must have come across to Tony. “You might have been on the right track about that existential crisis. I wasn’t… I really had no idea that you knew.”

“That’s becoming clear to me now. And it’s probably the most insulting part, even more annoying than you hiding the truth in the first place, that you think you could hide your identity from me. You really thought I couldn’t recognize you? You had a mask that covered your nose and the area around your eyes and cheeks. That was it.” Tony held his hands up to cover the same area on his face, and okay, Steve could kind of see how that hardly hid Tony’s essential… Tony-ness. Tony kept talking. “You think that was an actual disguise that would work on me? I could recognize you if you had a sack over your head. I designed your uniform and got so many scans of your body that I could recognize you by your little toe. In a non-creepy way, I mean. Let’s just backtrack here and forget I said that.”

Steve felt a smile creeping on to his face. Another realization was dawning on him as his mind churned through everything Tony had said. Tony could recognize Steve by his little toe. Tony knew Nomad was Steve all along and Steve had been jealous of Nomad because he thought Tony liked Nomad better.

“No, tell me more about my distinctive little toe.”

“It’s weirdly long, that’s what it is,” Tony said, rolling his eyes at the same time. “Look, mock me for my excellent observational skills, but you really weren’t trying hard enough. You tried to rein in your fancy moves a little bit in the beginning, but I would have recognized your fighting style anywhere. I recognized it even before F.R.I.D.A.Y. piped up thirty minutes into Nomad’s first appearance to say that the way you fought had a ninety-nine percent match to Captain America.”

“Oh,” Steve said, realizing that it really had been pretty silly to think that a little mask and a new outfit would fool both Tony Stark and his A.I.s.

“And your voice! Did you think I couldn’t recognize your voice just because you made it go a little gruffer and lower than it usually was? Come on, you just sounded like you, but with a sore throat.”

“It fooled everyone else,” Steve pointed out.

Tony said, a little miffed, “I’m not everyone else. And they didn’t spend as much time around you. Other than your disappearing act every time Nomad came onto the scene, I’m offended you think I wouldn’t have recognized the way you talked and walked and moved and fought—”

Steve suddenly cut in with what he thought was the most salient point right now, “So you were flirting with me.”

Tony stream of words stuttered to a stop. “Uh, I, um, what?”

“You were flirting with me when I was Nomad. You were flirting with me a lot,” Steve pointed out, fascinated by the way Tony suddenly swallowed and how the side of his cheeks flushed a little. Tony flushing was such a rare sight that Steve had to savor the moment.

“Well, I mean, I thought I could help your disguise along the way,” Tony said weakly.

“You thought flirting with Nomad would help preserve my disguise?” Steve said, sounding very sceptical.

Tony said, holding his hands up, “At first, it just happened and I don’t think you can hold that against me when you had that distracting plunging neckline. The shock of the outfit on my hind brain and all that, I couldn’t hold back from flirting this time. Then, Nomad started flirting back and I thought it would help convince people Captain America wasn’t the same person as Nomad. It’s not like Captain America would flirt with Iron Man.”

Couldn’t hold back from flirting this time, which meant Tony had been holding himself back from flirting before Nomad, a tiny part of Steve’s subconscious cheered in glee.

Steve said, not even trying to hide his smile now, “Except they are the same person.”

Steve stepped forward, and Tony was staring at him, wide-eyed.

“So both Captain America and Nomad were flirting with Iron Man,” Steve pointed out, now standing toe-to-toe with Tony.

Tony swallowed, and Steve watched the way his throat bobbed, before looking up into his startled brown eyes again.

Steve said, “I want you to think this through. This isn’t Captain America or Nomad standing in front of you now. It’s only me, Steve Rogers.”

Steve leaned closer, close enough to count Tony’s long, dark lashes.

Tony asked, voice a little hoarse, “And what does Steve Rogers want?”

It was like Steve was drawn forward by a giant magnet that only worked on supersoldiers. He couldn’t stop leaning forward, close enough now that he could feel Tony’s breath against his, drawn to the way it caught in Tony’s throat.

“Maybe you wanna go on that picnic some day?” Steve whispered.

“Oh, fuck yes,” Tony said, before throwing his arms around Steve’s neck and kissing Steve hard.

It was warm. Firm.

It should have just been two bodies pressing together.

But it wasn’t.

Steve felt hyperaware of every point they were touching. Lips, chest, shoulders. He didn’t remember when he threw his arms around Tony as well, but he had. Arms, stomach, fingers.

The hair on the back of his neck prickled, like the rest of his body was awakening to beg for more, more body contact with Tony.

Then he slipped a hand upwards, pressing over one of Tony’s shoulders, before curling around the back of Tony’s neck.

It earned him a groan.

It earned him Tony opening his mouth, allowing Steve to draw a tender lip between his own.

The sensation, the knowledge and feeling that he had Tony held gently between his own lips, that he could run his tongue across Tony and taste him, it was enough to liquefy his spine, to make him feel unsteady with desperate want. He stumbled backwards until he felt the wall behind him, then he turned and pushed Tony against the wall, hand cupped behind Tony’s precious head as a line of defence against the hard, unforgiving surface.

He pressed forward, leaned until he entirely covered Tony’s body. It was partly the selfish desire to feel Tony pressed against him from his toes to his hair, and partly because he didn’t think his legs could support him anymore. This supersoldier was being undone by one kiss.

By one moan.

Because Tony groaned against him, voice vibrating against Steve’s teeth, and Steve felt a shock of electric, felt his body surge against Tony in response. He ran his free hand up and over Tony’s cheek, thumb tracing sightlessly against the line of Tony’s cheekbone.

He moaned as well, deepened the kiss as he felt Tony meet him halfway, push back up against him. Tony’s hands tangled in Steve’s hair, curled over Steve’s neck and shoulder.

They parted with a gasp, but stayed close enough to feel each other’s ragged breath. 

Steve blurted out in a desperate whisper, “I was so jealous every time you praised Nomad or flirted with Nomad.”

Tony’s hand squeezed Steve’s shoulder, as he whispered, “But you are Nomad!”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know you knew that. So it just felt like you were trusting someone else immediately. Flirting with someone else.”

Tony said, laughing but painfully earnest, “Steve, everything I said about Nomad… It was about you. I was talking about you.”

Steve remembered every compliment, every flirty comment Tony had made.

Well, how else could he respond to that?

Steve kissed Tony again.

He kissed Tony again and again, until they were gasping for breath, and smiling with happiness, until his lips felt numb but he didn’t let up, just peppered kisses onto lips and cheeks. He felt his heart raced as Tony kissed him back again and again, as Tony caressed Steve’s lips and licked into his mouth, traced Steve’s jaws and cheeks obsessively with calloused fingers. Steve pulled back and touched the corners of Tony’s smiling eyes with wonder, marveling that Tony was here with him, that they were both here, together.

Then he kissed Tony again.

Chapter Text

Epilogue

“I can’t believe— I can’t believe you—”

Bucky’s face was out of view on Steve’s tablet, only the top of his head and shoulders visible. Steve could see Bucky’s shoulders trembling.

Steve said in a warning tone, “Bucky…”

Bucky ducked his head lower, and then he howled with laughter. Even though Steve couldn’t see his face, it was unmistakeable. Steve’s lips twitched at the sound as Bucky continued to laugh uproariously, keeling over until he was out of the video’s frame altogether. It was at Steve’s expense, but it was still damn good to hear Bucky laugh again.

T’Challa came into frame, putting a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Is there a reason why Barnes is in hysterics?”

Okay, Bucky laughing would be one thing, but Steve didn’t need to see royalty laughing at him too. T’Challa knew it all of course, since he wasn’t the one who had been in cryogenics this whole time, but that didn’t mean Steve needed to watch T’Challa actually laughing at him.

“It’s nothing, just his lousy sense of humor,” Steve said quickly.

Bucky choked out, “He showed me what he wore. Nomad.”

“Ah,” T’Challa said knowingly. “That outfit did serve its purpose during difficult moments when negotiating the Accords.”

Bucky laughed again, wiping the tears from the corner of his eyes. “I’m sure it did.”

Steve grimaced. “I didn’t choose that on purpose.”

“Nonetheless, it served multiple useful purposes,” T’Challa said.

Steve said, wryly, “Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re most welcomed,” T’Challa said with a straight face, before he gave in to a small, sincere smile. “I have to take my leave, but I wanted a chance to greet you, Captain Rogers, as I knew Barnes was having a conversation with you today.”

“Thank you, T’Challa. And thank you for everything you’ve done for us,” Steve said. “Thank Shuri for me too please. She’s a genius and she’s going to change the world.”

T’Challa’s smile broadened. “She will take it by storm.”

Ever busy, T’Challa nodded at him again before squeezing Bucky’s shoulder, and leaving the room. Steve knew it was also to grant Bucky a modicum of privacy with Steve.

“How are you doing, Bucky? Other than the fit of laughter,” Steve asked.

Bucky was still grinning when he answered, “It’s been okay. Tough. Pretty shitty. Reversing the effects of brainwashing was pretty bad, and the ongoing therapy isn’t all great either. But pictures like the ones you showed me just now help. Now I only need to think about the sacrifices you made wearing that outfit, and I know I can be strong.”

Steve sighed. “I was doing it to save lives.”

“And to entertain the rest of us,” Bucky said, before winking slyly. “And I’m sure it helped you bag Stark too.”

Steve hoped he wasn’t blushing, even though his ears felt warm. Bucky had been awake for two weeks now, and Steve had been honest about his new relationship with Tony right from the start. It hadn’t bothered Bucky at all, and was just more ammunition for Bucky’s teasing.

“Maybe,” Steve said, aiming to sound nonchalant and probably landing a mile away from that.

Bucky said, “Oh, so that’s how it is. Very kinky.”

“Bucky…”

They continued like that for awhile. Bucky rarely ever wanted to talk about his therapy. He always told Steve that’s what the psychiatrists were for, and that he didn’t want to waste time going over all that again. He touched lightly on how the treatment was going, talked about the latest good memory he recovered, and mostly, they bantered and talked about nothing of consequence at all.

It felt good. It felt like having a part of his best friend back and getting to know the changed parts of him too.

Half an hour into the call, as they were wrapping it up, Tony wandered into the common room and walked behind the couch where Steve was seated, obviously aiming for the kitchenette. He ran a hand through Steve’s hair as he walked by before glancing at the tablet and coming to a stop.

Tony nodded at the tablet. “Barnes.”

Bucky nodded back. “Stark.”

“How’s the sessions with B.A.R.F. going?”

“It seems to be working as part of my therapy. The doc agrees too and we all have a good talk about how stupid the name is before every session starts. Although Shuri’s trigger removing doodad isn’t much better.”

“Doodad,” Tony repeated with raised eyebrows, before asking, “What did she decide to call it?”

Bucky’s face was a picture of bland amusement. “Ventrolateral Oscillating Multivariable for Inoculating Triggers. She said your naming convention inspired her, and that since it had the same side-effects…”

“V.O.M.I.T.? I love that kid,” Tony said with a snort. “She’s right, we gotta make sure everyone is clear about their potential side effects.”

Bucky winces. “Oh yeah, that works as advertised.”

Tony made a face and then seemed to rally, going for obvious faux nonchalance as he said, “Maybe slow down if you can’t handle a little puking…”

Steve tried not to tense up, knowing that this was just Tony’s way of idle banter but unsure if Bucky would get that.

Bucky grinned. “Oh, I can handle anything Iron Man can.”

“Oh really, maybe we might have to put it to a test.”

Steve held up a hand. “Please don’t tell me that you guys are going to be competitive about vomiting.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I was being genuinely concerned,” Tony said, widening his eyes at Steve and blinking slowly, like he had no idea what effect that produced.

“Yeah, Steve, we were just talking about the side effects of my therapy. What were you thinking?” Bucky said with mock shock.

Steve sighed. “I see how this is going to be.”

“Nope. No idea what you’re saying here. See you, Barnes.”

Tony gave a lazy wave as he continued on his way to the kitchen. Steve watched out of the corner of his eyes, admiring the way those sweatpants hung loosely at his hips.

“I wish I was there so I could thump you over the head for that look,” Bucky said, but he was still smiling as he said it.

Steve rolled his eyes. “As if as I haven’t sat through my fair share of you gazing starry-eyed after some dame.”

“There you go again, talking nonsense. I never gazed at anything starry-eyed.”

“Yeah, sure, you keep telling yourself that. In fact, I thought T’Challa told me you were getting friendly with one of his Dora Milaje, called M’yra maybe?”

Bucky said, sticking a finger in his ear, “What’s that? I can’t hear you? Must be a bad connection or something.”

Steve ignored that obvious bit of fakery, especially when a connection between T’Challa’s and Tony’s far advanced households meant crystal clear video calls. “I expect you to tell me more about her next time.”

“Oh god, don’t get started already. We’re not even stepping out yet,” Bucky said. “I’m gonna go now before this gets any stupider.”

“Too late for that, you’re hoarding all the stupid on your side of the ocean.”

“Hah, smart ass. Bye, Steve.”

“See you, Bucky.”

They ended the call, and Steve laid the almost paper thin tablet on the coffee table. He wandered into the kitchen after Tony.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. could have projected the video call onto a wall, you know,” Tony said as Steve walked in, like they were in the middle of a conversation. “She could have projected a life-size version of Bucky so that it looked like he was here.”

“I know, but I like having something to hold in my hand,” Steve said as he watched Tony put together a tall, overambitious sandwich, filled with almost everything he could find in the fridge. “Make me one of those too?”

Tony pointed a butter knife at Steve. “One of the things I love about you is that you’ll eat my sandwiches. Even Rhodey doesn’t eat my sandwiches.”

“You don’t even eat your own sandwiches. You eat about half of its filling and then give up. You don’t commit to your sandwiches, Tony.”

“Another thing I love about you. Your brutal honesty, totally uncaring about my feelings.”

Steve felt a comfortable warmth deep in his chest. He walked around the counter and slid an arm around Tony’s waist. “I care about how you feel.”

Tony turned, grinning from up-close. “Want to check how I feel in my pants?”

“All the time,” Steve said, grinning back, and tucking his hand into Tony’s back pocket, feeling him through his pants.

“Mmm, that feels nice,” Tony said.

Steve squeezed. “It does feel pretty good.”

There was a huff of amused laughter against his lips. “You’re a dork.”

Steve countered, “Your dork.”

“Damn right.”

Tony kissed him, slow and affectionate. The prickle of Tony’s facial hair, the curl of his smile, the taste of the ham Tony had obviously snuck in the middle of his sandwich-building, it was all enough to make Steve’s breath catch. He drew Tony closer, deepened the kiss until Tony dropped all pretense of focus on his sandwich to press his hands against Steve’s cheeks, to moan against his lips.

“I remember the days when the kitchen used to be safe haven.”

They broke apart slowly, lingering. By the time they turned around, Rhodey had pulled out a carton of leftovers from the fridge.

“You want a sandwich?” Tony asked, only a little breathless.

Rhodey made a face. “Only Steve eats your monster bread constructions.”

The comment made Steve grin, happy that they had spent enough time together that their habits were known to someone else. He hadn’t stepped away from Tony, and Tony didn’t seem inclined to put any distance between them either.

Tony said, “He’s got good taste, that’s what it is.”

Rhodey gave them both a sideways glance, obviously meant to encompass their close contact. “He’s got warped taste, that’s what it is.”

“You don’t have to be jealous, porcupine. You’re still my number one armored BFF.”

“I’m your only armored BFF. The only one who would take you,” Rhodey said with a lopsided smile.

“Do you want a flying armored suit too, Sparkplug?” Tony asked, leaning heavily against Steve and looking up at him through his lashes.

“Engineering nicknames, huh? That’s a new one,” Rhodey commented, putting his takeaway in the microwave which automatically started heating up based on the contents detected by the microwave.

Steve bit down on a smile, and said seriously, “He called me a Palomino the other day. I had to look it up.”

Rhodes stared at him before laughing, slapping his thighs in amusement. “He called you a horse?”

“Shut up, I was going for variety,” Tony said, not even a little bit repentant. “They’re beautiful golden horses—”

“Tall, skinny blonde horses,” Steve cut in, knowing he was misrepresenting the breed a little but doing it to earn that huff of annoyance from Tony and more laughter from Rhodes.

Rhodes wiped a tear from his eye. “Horses. That’s a good one.”

“That’s it. I take back all offers of armored suits for Captain America. You get to wear a towel onto the field for all I care.”

“You’d like that,” murmured Steve.

Rhodey said loudly, “Didn’t you already make him a new Captain America uniform anyway?”

Tony had indeed upgraded the Cap suit. Even more reinforced than ever and with the same technology as Spider-Man’s that would allow Steve to wear his uniform quickly, and included a hidden parachute. And his helmet had an underwater breathing apparatus in it too.

“It’s so tricked out, I’m surprised the uniform doesn’t shoot repulsors as well,” Rhodey continued over Tony’s idle thoughts on the uniform.

“He vetoed the repulsors,” Tony sighed. “He’s so particular about what I’m allowed to do with his uniforms.”

A sly sideway glance from Tony made it clear that he wasn’t just talking about the Captain America outfit. After all, Steve remembered the night Tony had offered to modify the Nomad outfit, make it even more… risqué than it already was, with easy access in places. Steve knew he had no hopes of keeping the blush off his face.

Rhodey frowned at them, giving them suspicious looks. “It makes sense. Steve needs to be able to maintain his agility. If you make it too bulky, he won’t be able to fight in them in the style he prefers.”

“My upgrades don’t have to be bulky. I can make them streamlined too, with a close fit to the body.”

How did Tony make that sound dirty?

Rhodey rolled his eyes and got up, removing his box of heated takeaway from the microwave. “I’m just going to finish my lunch in the living room. When you’ve settled down, come out and have a talk with me about your training schedules with the baby superheroes.”

Steve said softly, “My uniform is fine as it is, Tony. Both of them.”

“I’m just saying, there’s always room for upgrades. Stronger material, closer to the skin for a more aerodynamic feel. Covers less while doing more,” Tony said, his brown eyes bright with mischief.

Steve didn’t actually want Tony to mess around with either the Captain America or Nomad uniforms too much. After all, now that he was back as Captain America, even signed on to the Accords, he needed his outfit to be recognizable and serviceable. As for the Nomad outfit…

He might not need to be Nomad anymore. But who knew, there might be situations in the future where it could be useful to have a known superhero identity not tied to Steve Rogers.

“I think one my uniforms already covers quite a bit less than normal,” Steve said. “Maybe I can wear it again to jog your memory.”

Then he squeezed with the hand that was still in Tony’s back pocket. He watched as Tony’s cheeks darkened, and he couldn’t help but brush a kiss against the flushed skin.

“I’ll schedule some time in tonight for a fitting,” Steve whispered against Tony’s ear, then he pulled his hand free of Tony’s lovely behind, and strolled out of the kitchen.

“You’re a cruel, cruel man, Steve!” Tony called out after him.

Steve smiled.

The Nomad outfit might be temporarily retired, but that didn’t mean it had to stay in the closet every day. Or night.