Chapter Text
“You’re eating a salad?”
Steve jumped at his desk and looked up from his computer, wide-eyed, until he realized the unexpected interruption was Tony. Tony, who was standing in the open doorway of his classroom in a leather jacket and windswept hair. He wore the same sky blue tie he wore last time he visited them, the one decorated with countless colorful cartoon dinosaurs that the kids had saved up to buy for him as a class present after the best field trip ever.
From somewhere deep in his heart, deep in his bones, Steve could feel himself growing warm with the thrill of seeing Tony when he least expected it. “Sweetheart—Tony, what are you doing here?” he asked with a broad smile that he just couldn’t suppress.
Tony pulled the door closed behind him, giving them some privacy while the kids were still out for recess. “I thought you might ask that,” he confessed, sauntering to Steve’s desk with a self-satisfied smirk. “And I thought of three reasonable explanations on the way here. Would you like to hear them?”
“I know that look, Tony,” Steve warned him, biting his lip in an effort not to outright grin about it. “The kids’ll be back any minute—”
Tony pressed a hand over his heart in a caricature of scandalized virtue. “What look! I don’t have a look.”
“The look that always gets you—”
“Us.”
“—into trouble, and how dare you bring that look here, this is a classroom, with a shockingly sturdy desk—”
Tony’s charade dissolved in a delighted fit of laughter, and he made short work of the distance between them to loom over Steve in his chair and kiss him quiet. Steve grabbed Tony by his tie and tugged him closer, until Tony was dragged right into Steve’s lap and turned prisoner in the circle of his strong arms.
“Mine,” Steve murmured against Tony’s lips as they eventually slipped apart. Tony hummed softly in reply, chasing Steve’s lips with one more quick, but eager, kiss.
“Guess that means I’m down to only two reasonable explanations now,” Tony confessed, laughter still bright in his eyes.
“Start with the more outrageous one,” Steve suggested, gently squeezing Tony in his embrace.
“I thought I heard your voice,” Tony said as if recalling some wistful dream with an exaggerated air of nostalgia. “I couldn’t hear what you were saying, but I could tell that you missed me. So, naturally, I took the day, hopped in my car, and drove all the way to Brooklyn to surprise you and the kids.”
Steve scrunched up his nose, clearly unimpressed. “No,” he decided. “That’s kind of outrageous, but no, Tony. I know you. You can do better than that.”
“Alright, you got me. The truth is, your mom called today. She demanded that I find you, seduce you… she needs you to put a damn baby in me, stat.”
Steve was still laughing too hard to breathe when an excited group of ten-year-olds ran into the classroom and loudly cheered, “Mr. Tony!”
Tony stood up as if it had been his plan all along, and he came around the desk to kneel and hug the children that rushed up to see him.
“Hi everybody,” he said with a big smile. “Harvey, looking sharp, I like those shoes; Yuan, I’m loving those bangs on you, you look spectacular! Arlene,” he added, when the little girl shuffled to him in a hurry, shy but eager to hug him. He smiled and gently patted her back. “Always a pleasure. How’s your mother’s practice?”
“Great!” she said with a toothy smile, “because people are stupid and think that pulling out is as safe as pro-fil-acts.”
“Prophylactics,” Tony corrected mildly and with a straight face, reacting only by nodding in encouragement. “Your mother is a very intelligent woman, and so are you. Keep it up.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tony,” she said, and her smile, impossibly, grew bigger.
Steve walked away from his desk and his unfinished salad to help get the kids back on track. “Alright, everyone, yes, we have a surprise visitor. I know it’s exciting, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to get back to our multiplication tables again.”
The kids collectively moaned and pouted about going back to their lessons when Tony was there to visit, but out of the vague sounds of complaint, one voice piped up to ask,
“Mr. Tony, are you coming with us to the zoo?”
Tony smiled at Harvey with genuine surprise. “I don’t know, nobody’s asked me if—”
He hadn’t finished his question before the whole class roared with shrill excitement, demanding and begging in turn that he join them at the zoo the following week.
“Hey! Hey, everyone: use your indoor voices, please,” Steve called over the ruckus, just barely managing to lower their collective volume by an increment or two. It wasn’t until Tony had stopped laughing and spoke up that the mass of children clinging to his legs finally quieted to hear his answer.
“Could I ever say no to you?” he asked them through his laughter, “but, you know, it would help if I knew when you were going, and where—”
“Next Tuesday!” a little girl shouted, her excitement so infectious Tony started laughing again. “We’re going to the Bronx Zoo next Tuesday.”
“Thank you, Flora,” he said sincerely. “Let me talk to Mr. Rogers, and we’ll see if it’s possible, alright?”
The full force of the children’s pleading little puppy-dog faces turned on Steve, and he almost crumbled right then and there like a complete amateur.
“If you show Mr. Tony how good you can be today, and how well you have learned your multiplications tables,” Steve said in a steady, patient voice, “I will talk to the principal and see if we can’t make room for Mr. Tony on the trip next week.”
As one, the pint-sized stampede took off, each pair of little feet running to their designated seats. With minimal groaning and complaining, the students dug out their workbooks and their pencils, eager to show just how well-behaved they could all be.
Steve couldn’t believe his eyes. “You should visit more often,” he said to Tony under his breath. “This is a miracle.”
“I can watch them, you know,” Tony replied just as quietly. “Your salad’s getting cold.”
“Ha ha,” Steve muttered dryly. “Joke all you like, but you wish your lunch was that tasty.”
“Then why don’t you go eat your tasty lunch, and I’ll help the kids if they have any questions. And Friday night, I’ll toss your salad and we’ll see how good it really can be,” Tony murmured quietly and so matter-of-factly that Steve nearly choked on air.
***
Later that night, Steve had only just kicked off his running shoes and made his way into the kitchen for a snack when his phone rang.
“Son, when are you bringing that man of yours over for dinner?”
Steve frowned into his chocolate milk and narrowed his eyes at his own reflection in the kitchen window. “Not until you tell me why you want to see him so badly,” Steve replied coolly. “You’ve already met him, haven’t you? You and Aunt Jackie both met him months ago.”
“I met him as Tony Stark, single museum curator with a heart of gold! I want to meet Tony Stark, my son’s steady boyfriend.”
In the safety of his own home, Steve dared to roll his eyes. “Mom, we had a pretty crazy start. When things have calmed down, when we know where we stand, I’ll bring him for dinner.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line before she spoke again. “Son, I know that sounds reasonable,” she confessed in a suspiciously gentle tone. “But some things we need to know early on—”
“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Steve blurted out, but his input was either ignored or unheard.
“I mean, how does he feel about children, and how many will he want to have? How did his parents raise him? Are they in the picture, would he expect you to move if you have a family?”
“Mom, I’m pretty sure that won’t—” Steve tried to explain, but again his response was ignored. While she continued her stream of questioning, Steve sat down at his kitchen table with a quiet sigh, resigned to the realization that this was a monologue and not a conversation. He set the phone down on the table on speakerphone, and just tried to enjoy his drink.
“—and does he have the kind of job that allows for a family? Or does he expect that you’ll drop everything if the kids need you? What if there’s an issue with religion? What if he believes in spanking, or corporal punishment?”
Steve perked up at the question, grinning wickedly at the thought. “Oh, I sure hope so, that would be so hot—”
“Does he lean toward private or public schooling? Would he consider starting a college fund—”
“Aaaand let me stop you right there,” Steve finally said loudly enough to block out the sound of his mother’s voice. It was all fun and games until money came into the picture. “Mom! Mom, can’t you hear yourself? These are not appropriate questions for a new relationship.”
“Steven Grant Rogers. Is that how you speak to your own mother?” she complained before Steve managed to hang up, and really, he should have just done it anyway. He should hang up on her right now, before she started her trademark guilt trip—or worse: before she started to cry.
Before she won.
“After we lost your father, God rest his soul, I had to work two nursing jobs to put food on the table, and to get you through college. To bring you up to the man you are today. You’re my son, my only child. I want you to be happy; I want you to have a family! Can you blame me for wanting to be introduced to a man who is so dear to you?”
It was a trap. Steve knew it was a trap; he was intimately familiar with these traps.
He always fell for them.
“No, mom, of course not,” Steve eventually said with a tired sigh. “Just, no money talk, and—please, mom. No questions about family planning. We’ve only been dating four months. But I’ll talk to Tony tomorrow, okay? We’ll see if we can’t find time for dinner sometime soon.”
“Sure, honey, I’ll try to remember that,” she said with her usual cheer, and none of the touching heartache she’d spouted seconds ago. “You just make sure you’re both here for dinner next Thursday at 5:30pm. He doesn’t have to bring a side-dish, but remind him that mama prefer reds to whites.”
***
“Natasha can smell presents, Steve, you’ve got to help me.”
Steve still had his phone pinched between his shoulder and his ear when he gestured for his best friend to come in out of the rain. “Hang on, my friend’s here at ten o’clock at night for no good reason,” Steve told Tony before taking the phone in hand and turning his attention to Bucky and his three bulging black and white shopping bags. “What’s this, Bucky? Did you rob Sephora?”
“First of all, they robbed me,” Bucky glowered. “36 dollars for fucking nail polish? What the actual fuck?”
Steve stared at his friend for a long moment, then calmly raised the phone to his ear again. “I take that back, sweetheart, it looks like Bucky’s having a meltdown. I’ll call you back.”
“Or you could put the phone down on speakerphone and let me eavesdrop,” Tony suggested in a conspiratorial whisper, making no effort to hide how amused he was. Steve snorted quietly and rolled his eyes to himself, but said nothing. Instead, he thumbed speakerphone on and put the phone down on the island counter to help Bucky unload his loot on the table.
“People go through the roof when gas prices get close to three dollars per gallon, meanwhile, this shit is—is, what, 90—no, 88 dollars per gallon! Who does that!”
Steve frowned down at the small bundle of Tom Ford nail polish bottles. “So why did you buy sixteen of them?”
“Well,” Bucky said quietly after a beat, “it’s. I mean, it’s for a surprise birthday present, you know? I didn’t know which one she’d like, just that she likes Tom Ford, so I had no choice, Steve. I bought them all.”
“Natasha?” Steve said, dumbfounded. “Red and black. Those are her colors, red and black. Why did—what’s this, African Violet? What’s she going to do with purple?”
“First of all, that’s violet, not purple,” Bucky corrected, and he quickly reclaimed the once-offending nail polishes as if they need rescuing from Steve’s judgmental reach. “And… alright, sometimes, she likes to get creative with her toes, okay? Like, wearing unicorn print underwear, or Power Puff Girls socks. But you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Natasha wears unicorn print underwear—oh, shit,” Steve mumbled in surprise, digging through a bag until he got to a little cardboard box that smelled incredible. He pressed it to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Shit, this is good. What is it?”
“Right?” Bucky agreed, then added a deadpan, “that’s the smell of 65 dollars.”
“Bullshit. For a candle?”
“I wish,” Bucky grumbled, but he still reached and took it out of Steve’s hands just like he had with the nail polish. “It’s her birthday, and she likes bubble baths with candles, which is fine, whatever. Once a fucking year. So, is it cool if I hide these with you for two weeks?”
“Yeah, sure. You need any wrapping paper?” Steve agreed easily, and when Bucky nodded, he walked out to his little laundry room where he kept all the odds and ends that were important but didn’t belong anywhere else. He brought out a handful of colorful rolls and bows, scissors and tape, and helped Bucky set up in the living room.
“You’re helping me do this, right?” Bucky called as Steve turned to leave the living room, not asking for his help as much as he was asking for support in this vulnerable moment of realizing how expensive it was to be a woman.
“Yeah, just—” Steve held up his phone again, “Tony, laundry; I’ll be right there.”
“Girlfriend?” Tony asked when Steve picked up the phone again.
“Wife. He goes a little overboard sometimes. He’s a great guy, he just… all or nothing, you know?” Steve answered quietly, closing the door to the laundry room behind him so they could have some privacy. “Anyway, where were we?”
“Something about dinner with your mom?”
“Which is not an obligation, Tony, despite what she likes to think,” Steve reminded him (and himself) while he busied himself pulling the freshly dried laundry out of the dryer. “She invited you to dinner this Thursday at 5:30pm. How would that work for you?”
“You’ll be there, too, won’t you?” Tony asked with a smile in his voice, and a moment later he asked, “I’m guessing she lives out in Brooklyn? That might be too tight for me.”
Steve had barely had a chance to agree when Bucky suddenly hollered from the living room.
“Steve! What the hell, man, get out here!” Bucky called out in complaint. “How do you even do this?”
“Patiently!” Steve called back over his shoulder. “What grown man can’t wrap a birthday present?” he muttered to Tony, who snickered quietly in his amusement. “Anyway, sweetheart, just—if it’s not a good time, we can reschedule. Or, you really don’t have to do this. Not the field trip, not the mother.”
“I know, babe. I want to,” Tony assured him with an easy smile in his voice, and Steve pressed his face into a warm towel so Tony wouldn’t possibly hear his blush. “My schedule is flexible on Tuesday, the zoo trip is no problem. But, for Thursday,” he continued, a little less enthusiastic, “could we maybe do it on the weekend? I have a big meeting Friday morning.”
“Mom’s got brunch with her work friends on Saturdays,” Steve replied thoughtfully, “but I’ll ask about Sunday.”
“I have to be in Harlem Sunday afternoon,” Tony told him, “and if she isn’t available Sunday morning, why don’t you let me take you to brunch?”
Steve pouted down at the clean load of laundry he’d just thrown into the dryer, as if it would somehow yield answers to life’s craziest riddles. What level of Hell did sons who wished their mothers butted out of their lives end up in, for example?
“Then I hope she’s busy,” he mumbled mutinously, toeing the line between resignation and petulance. “If you only knew how nosey she can be—”
“You mean, like staking out a museum for eight days looking for a leggy brunet with a, and I quote, ‘plump ass’?”
Tony glittering peel of laughter drowned out Steve’s low, embarrassed whine. “I’m hanging up on you right now!” Steve cried in a half-hearted threat. “School is cancelled, tell the principal I’ll be hiding under my couch for the rest of the year—”
“Steve!” Tony wheezed down the line.
“Nope, no: it’s too late to ask forgiveness, you have officially mortified me beyond repair.”
“Oh, I’m not asking for forgiveness,” Tony answered with a soft giggle in his voice, “but do you really think you can fit under the couch with those pecs?”
Steve growled softly into the phone. “Flattery will get you nowhere, Stark.”
Tony’s laughter quieted with a softly inhaled gasp. “Tomorrow,” he murmured, his voice suddenly deep with interest, “we will finish this when I see you, and that noise you just made, tomorrow.”
***
Tony was at Steve’s doorstep an hour after work that Friday. They had had many dates out in restaurants and museums and late-night shows, but in the last few weeks, their dates had been less about going out for an event, and more about each other.
Sometimes they met up at Tony’s place, a one-bedroom in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It was smaller and noisier than Steve’s place, but Steve secretly coveted those mornings when he would wake up in Tony’s bed, surrounded by the spicy, clean scent that was so quintessentially Tony. He never felt as lazy or as spoiled as he did those mornings, watching Tony puttering around his kitchen in the nude through the French doors.
More often than not, they were at Steve’s place. Steve lived in a two-bedroom out in Bushwick, eight stops down from Tony’s apartment on the J line. With the two-bedroom came a bay window, a real kitchen, and a living room. There was enough counter space for them to cook together, a coffee table virtually made for puzzles and board games, and cable TV, so they could both watch the Knicks lose from the comfort of Steve’s very big, and very comfortable, couch.
It was pouring rain outside, and it took Steve all of two seconds of staring at his drenched boyfriend to hustle him into the apartment.
“Don’t you own an umbrella?” he complained while taking the take-out bags out of Tony’s hands, and before Tony knew what had happened, he’d been divested of his jacket, his scarf, and his sweater that was sopping wet at the sleeves.
“Why’d you stop there?” he wondered when Steve let him keep his t-shirt on. He kicked off his boots and trailed Steve into the kitchen, where he accepted the cup of hot tea Steve pressed into his hand without question.
Steve chuckled quietly despite his attempt to look upset by Tony’s nonchalant march through a downpour. “Warm up first,” he tried to say without returning Tony’s smile, “and maybe later you’ll get lucky.”
Tony sipped his tea with a quiet hum. He could agree to those terms …for all of five seconds.
“It’s been a long week,” he whispered, weaseling his way into Steve’s personal space to slip his long, mischievous fingers under Steve’s soft flannel. Steve’s response was immediate. The sensation of Tony’s calloused fingertips drawing absent patterns over his skin teased a full body shudder from him, and he leaned in close, his dark eyes intent on Tony’s lips.
“Warm me up in your bed,” Tony whispered, reaching to brush the pad of his thumb over Steve’s full bottom lip. “I’ve been waiting all week, Steve. It’s baby-making time, are you really going to make me wait any longer?”
From somewhere deep in his mortified soul, Steve whined, loud and plaintive, and face-planted in the crook of Tony’s neck, seeking comfort in his warmth. Privately, he indulged in the buoyant affection in Tony’s laugh, and the way Tony wound both arms around Steve’s neck and held him close.
There, in Tony’s protective embrace, Steve dared to voice his fears. “I’m never leaving you and my mom alone together, ever.”
***
That following Tuesday, Tony was the first to arrive at the Bronx Zoo. Between Steve, his student teachers, Tony, and parent volunteers, the kids were separated into six groups for the excursion.
Peter and MJ took off with their groups in the same direction, and Steve had no doubt they would be sticking together the whole time. A part of him wanted to do the same with Tony; the kids were going to spend most of their time staring into animal enclosures and scribbling in sketchbooks, why shouldn’t he have someone to talk to today, too? Would it be worth the obvious bias with respect to the other volunteering adults?
Before he could think of a diplomatic way to raise the suggestion, however, Tony’s little group was already swarming him with questions.
“Mr. Tony, Mr. Tony, do they have dinosaurs here?”
“Mr. Tony! Please can we go see the tigers?”
Steve watched as Tony only responded to the children’s overexcitement with a warm, patient smile and thoughtful replies while he led them away in the direction of the park map. He gave them his full attention, spoke calmly and addressed every kid in turn, making it clear that he had heard every one of their little voices.
There was no way Steve would be able to merge his group with Tony’s. The way Tony interacted with his students was already making Steve hot under the collar, and distantly he could feel an abstract realization cementing into something very real and tangible.
This man would make a good father. This man could be it for Steve.
Watching Tony interacting with the children made Steve’s heart skip a beat, and he didn’t want it to end. Maybe Steve should practice self-restraint and suggest they merge their groups so that he could ask Tony if he ever considered becoming a parent. After all, just because he was good with kids didn’t mean he wanted to be a dad.
Oh, god, no. What were these thoughts? What was happening?
Steve was becoming his mother.
“We’ll see you back here at three, Mr. Rogers,” he heard Tony call his way, before Steve could make his mind up about combining groups or not. “My phone is on if anything changes.”
“You got it,” he replied with a smile and a wave to his students, as if he wasn't experiencing massively contradictory epiphanies at the same time.
Steve wanted Tony in a way he had never imagined wanting someone else. He felt like he could fly. He was in love, he was so happy in love, but dear god. His mother had been right.
Damn it all. He would never live this down.