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Tony shows up on Steve’s doorstep because he’s almost run out of dumbass shit to do that month.
There are two other stupid things he can do. But the last time he got drunk — not by drinking, still drunk — he lost his post as Secretary of Defense, then watched three Avengers get killed, and it’s a pretty good dissuasion. It’s been a great six weeks.
The second from the bottom, well, he called Pepper, didn’t he? And she locked him out of all the suits, then activated the tracker that’ll dial the police if he lingers too long on any bridges or visits anywhere that sells firearms.
Steve’s most recent run-down apartment in the string of run-down apartments he refuses to stop renting is, at least, in Manhattan. It’s above a laundromat, across the street from a shop that sells jewelry, wholesale only. Frugal bastard.
Only about half the buttons on the buzzer are labeled with apartment numbers. Steve’s is marked 4R with a strip of that DIY-label-making tape, blue plastic rubbed almost-white by the press of many fingers. There’s grime ground into the raised letters.
He imagines Steve’s big hands turning the wheel of the label-maker, stubbornly focused on the little task.
Probably the last tenant did it.
Tony presses the button and is rewarded with Steve’s voice.
“Yeah?”
“Delivery,” Tony says, like a coward.
“C’mon up,” Steve grunts.
Steve must be used to letting delivery drivers in for his neighbors.
It’s three flights of stairs up. Tony counts the steps; twelve per floor means low ceilings.
The metallic clunks of Steve’s locks opening make Tony want the armor. That’s not special. The recently-cleaned red car outside made Tony want the armor. The smell of hot grease from a food vendor made Tony want the armor. The clank of footsteps over metal grates made Tony want the armor.
If he gets into armor he won’t come out for a week.
Steve’s wearing one of his ridiculous t-shirts with the same pattern as his uniform and black running tights.
“I need to crash on someone’s couch for a while. Your couch. I need to crash on your couch,” Tony says.
Steve’s mouth opens. If he asks why Tony’s going to bolt, he can feel the certainty of it under his sternum. He doesn’t have a sternum anymore, just a tangle of metal under his skin. Too many things have punched through it to get to his heart. There hasn’t been enough bone left to reconstruct anything made of flesh in a long time.
“There’s borscht on the stove,” Steve says.
***
“DVR’s broken,” Steve says.
“Sure.”
“Don’t trip on the extension cords in the hallway.”
“Got it.”
“I’m gonna watch baseball.”
Steve’s air conditioning unit is overclocking even in the post-sundown heat. Condensing water plinks from it, hitting the windowsill. With Tony’s shit circulation, the humid heat is almost welcome. The tower suites are crisply temperature-controlled, optimized for people wearing suit jackets or head-to-toe in four-way-stretch spandex.
Tony serves himself borscht straight out of the pot. Steve’s put out sour cream, which is good; Tony can stir that in and it turns pink instead of red.
“Not really a summer food,” Steve says by way of apology when Tony sits down next to him. “Beets were on sale.”
Tony’s not going to eat the stew, so it’s okay.
The crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd in time with the pipe organ aren’t anything like the sound of explosions. The green turf isn’t a manicured lawn.
Steve mutes the television.
Tony drums his fingertips against his thigh in time with the patter of drips from Steve’s straining air conditioner. “I need six days.”
“Six?”
“It’s a good number,” Tony says, still tapping. “Less than a week. A week is too much, unannounced. Well, okay, you’re right, overnight is too much unannounced, but it’s — broke the seal on that one, and the next benchmark is a week. Units are important.”
“Stop. You have the six days. Of course. Just ask for something once in a while, will you?”
“Don’t have to ask. I know you’ll say yes.”
“Okay. Yes.”
Tony tries to smile, the good one he uses for interviewers after the cameras finish flashing, the one that makes them think he’s being genuine just for them, sharing a joke, behind it all Mr. Stark is so real, you know? It goes sideways before he can get to the part where he makes his eyes crinkle.
Steve frowns at him. Tony drops the half-constructed expression.
Iron Man is enough of an asset to the Avengers to trade for six days of Tony Stark on Steve’s couch. That’s always the equation: how much can Tony borrow off the value of Iron Man before he overspends. Steve won’t tell him when he’s gone into debt, so it’s up to Tony to keep an eye on his tab.
***
Steve’s apartment is scrupulously clean. He tucks a crisp top sheet into the couch cushions with military corners, so tight and even that Tony can’t stand to sit on it. Instead he folds onto the floor, gazing unseeing into his phone while listening to Steve go through his evening rituals.
Nobody worries about him staring, slack and expressionless, as long as he does it in the direction of a screen. Bless the modern world.
Steve gathers a little bundle of toiletries and sets them on the couch next to Tony’s head without a word. There’s a toothbrush still in its vacu-form packaging.
Tony intends to fall asleep eventually, but he has to get up and wash his face first. That’s not happening, not yet.
The broken DVR blinks 00:00 at him.
The M47 bus wheezes to a halt outside; a recorded voice announces the stop. Someone outside swears about the heat, then yells at their companion about pinching his cigarettes.
Tony’s been nursing a nostalgic desire to learn morse code. Being around Steve kindles that again. A nice binary system, dits and dahs.
Tony’s phone provides a series of training exercises — how to tell a from k, strings of lone characters to divine. Counting. Simple, three-letter words.
He should brush his teeth and sleep.
The DVR blinks at him, slow and even. T, T, T, T, T is for Tony. 0, 0, 0, 0, 0.
When Steve wakes up at five, the sheets on the couch are just as crisp and even as before.
***
Steve makes coffee with an electric kettle and a French press.
“We used to do this with a percolator,” Steve offers. “Always came out burnt. What do you use, one of those fancy Keurig things? Or, hey, sure SI has something proprietary as an alternative. Didn’t mean to cast doubts on your technology, tech-man.”
“This is fine, Cap, your coffee is good.”
That doesn’t placate Steve as much as it should. He crosses his arms over his chest, face going soft and careful. It’s not even the Tony, no, expression, just — concerned.
“It’s fine,” Tony tries again. He’s fine.
“I want to go on a run before the pavement heats up,” Steve says, then waits like Tony should have a response.
“Mmmm,” Tony hums, hoping that’s enough. Steve is seeing too much of him. Last night he was too beaten-down to hide, but now it’s an uncomfortable gaping sensation, like floating in the ocean and realizing the bottom is a long, long way down.
Steve puts his mug down, settling it between stained rings on the wooden table, evidence of a routine where his coffee goes in the same corner every morning. Every morning when they aren’t out fighting something, trying not to die.
Steve’s going to be able to tell Tony didn’t sleep on the couch. Didn’t sleep at all.
A pair of running shorts hits Tony in the back of the head.
“Up, Avenger,” Steve says, and pitches a worn-down t-shirt at Tony’s head as well. Tony lets it bounce off his face and fall into his lap.
“Don’t — don’t call me — no.”
“I’ll go slow for you,” Steve says, sliding past Tony’s protest with a grin that falls on the false side of practiced. “You’re getting soft in that suit of yours.”
Tony can win against Steve on something like this, if he wants to sink his heels in. But — not today. It’ll be easier to just give up.
***
Manhattan in the early summer light is grey and beautiful. The traffic snarls around delivery trucks unloading for the day, pictures of vegetables and pretzels and soda splashed across their side panels. Steve dances with his long unhurried stride around delivery men carrying flats of sparkling water.
After their run, Steve showers while Tony stares at the wall.
Tony has blisters from his borrowed shoes. He wants to cut them open, see if draining out the fluid will feel the same as having a good messy breakdown. Maybe it’d give him some release.
He hasn’t cried yet.
Through the bedroom door, Steve is having a hushed conversation.
“Carol? Yeah. No, he’s fine, I’m watching him.”
A pause.
“I know what to do when he’s being a pain in the ass. This isn’t fights.”
Pause.
Steve laughs, low and humorless. “Yeah,” he whispers.
Tony doesn’t want to hear this.
He puts in his bluetooth earpiece and turns on another morse code practice audio clip. Tony itches to have something more substantial under his hands. Steve’s apartment doesn’t lack for things that need fixing — the kitchen light flickers, and from the extension cords running from room to room Tony surmises the wiring in the walls is faulty. He could stop the dripping air conditioner. He could fix the blinking DVR, which Steve pointed out because he thought it’d make Tony feel better if he had something broken that wasn’t himself.
Steve has a junk drawer beside the sink. It’s filled with takeout menus, a bundle of string, saved twist-ties and spent batteries. In the back, there’s a roll of blue painters tape.
Morse code is still beeping in Tony’s ear. The cadence hovers just below understanding for him, like a familiar song played at low volume that will resolve into a tune as soon as he can find his place in it.
Tony’s phone beeps with an incoming call. He has forty-seven voicemail messages. He tears the earpiece out and shoves it all, phone, earpiece, Avengers Identicard, the entire contents of his pockets, into Steve’s bread box. The phone keeps beeping; Tony buries it under a loaf of rye.
He puts a strip of tape over the flashing numbers on the DVR.
***
It’s three days before Tony realizes that Steve is making him come along on his morning runs not to punish him with cardio but to make sure Tony isn’t left in the apartment alone.
He’s annoyed — hey, there’s an emotion, Tony’s been missing those lately.
“Where’s the nearest bodega?” Tony asks Steve, testing his hypothesis.
Steve puts down his crossword. It’s half-filled in with Steve’s smooth hand, the solved clues checked off. “It’s a couple blocks north of here. I’ll walk you.”
“I can go alone,” Tony says lightly. “I need an aspirin, and I bet they have those little two-packs by the register.”
Steve ducks his head. “Sorry I don’t have any painkillers around. They don’t work so good on me,” he explains, gesturing ruefully at himself. “Not anymore.”
Tony bends to put on shoes and Steve’s right there beside him, hovering, waiting to escort him a few hundred yards down the street. “Seriously?” Tony snaps.
“It’s not a big deal.”
“Yeah, it is. I’m a big boy, Cap, I can walk two blocks by myself. I’m not going to throw myself into traffic.”
“I’m worried about you.”
Tony kicks his shoe back off, sending it thudding into the baseboards. “Leave it, Steve! I have protocols for this, and I don’t need you to babysit me. That’s not why I came. I needed somewhere to be, that’s it. Plus, no worries, I’m fine without aspirin. I just wanted to know how much of a mother hen you were going to be.”
Steve picks up Tony’s shoe, then fishes his other shoe out from under the couch. Tony slept the night before, but he put the sheets back over the couch cushions as neatly as Steve did, just for the appearance. He’s not falling apart as much as Steve thinks he is. That feels satisfying, in a self-destructive sort of way.
Tony’s shoes go side-by-side on the mat beside Steve’s front door.
“If I lose you, I won’t come back from it,” Steve says, with all the intolerable certainty of Captain America.
“Yes you will. You have Sharon.”
“Sharon and I aren’t a thing right now.”
“Fine, whatever! You have friends. There are plenty of people in your life who aren’t suicidal alcoholics with dubiously calibrated moral compasses. You’re Steve, you bounce back.”
“Tony!” Steve says, and, oh, Tony hasn’t used the s word before. Even the protocol he programmed to monitor himself was called stupidity_prophylactic.exe.
“I can go to the fucking store.”
“Tony,” Steve says again, unbearably, awfully gentle.
“What!” Tony says, spitting acid.
“Stop acting like you’re replaceable! You’re not — you — you’re brilliant. Everything you have you build yourself; someone could drop you in the middle of the desert and you’d come out of it on rollerblades with victory under your belt.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Tony’s taken IQ tests. He has quantitative evidence that he’s brilliant; Captain America’s off-the-cuff assessment isn’t necessary. Intelligence didn’t keep the Avengers together. It didn’t make Clint believe him when he swore he hadn’t had a drink, Clint who he’s still angry with despite — well. Tony has a long history with harboring fury against the dead.
Steve rolls his jaw back and forth, finally visibly frustrated. “I don’t know why I —“
Yeah, Tony doesn’t know why Steve bothers either. “Buck up, Cap, you only have to do your civic duty for two more days.”
“That isn’t — Tony!”
Steve puts his hand on Tony’s shoulder and Tony swats it away. “Stop saying my name,” he snaps.
Steve’s mouth works, and then he swallows. He reaches out again and puts his hand back on Tony’s shoulder, but closer to his neck. The calloused pad of his thumb scrapes along the hollow of Tony’s throat, warm against his skin.
Tony freezes, his whole body suffused with static.
Steve’s face doesn’t look familiar this close up; Tony’s visual processing power is collapsing under duress. It’s Steve, it’s his Cap, he’s so close. Tony can’t breathe, he can’t close his eyes, his neck is tacky with sweat under Steve’s fingers.
Steve kisses him with what feels like mostly breath. Steve’s eyes are closed; his lashes fall against his face in dusky crescents. His mouth is feather-dry, less a press of lips and more a delicate symbol.
Captain America is always good at iconography.
Tony hadn’t even thought to put this onto the list of things he can’t deal with right now, but now that it’s here he is promoting it to the very top. Item one: whatever’s happening right now, this intimate declaration, this thing beyond Tony’s ability to cope.
He eels away. Steve stands still and lets him do it.
The door jingles when Tony opens it, so cheerful and loud it makes Tony jump. On the outside doorknob Steve’s hung a Christmas decoration festooned with small golden bells.
Of course the door is booby trapped so Tony can’t leave unnoticed, without an escort. Tony slams it behind him, hard enough that the tiny wreath bounces down onto the floor with a cacophony of tinny chimes.
It’s easier to be angry with Steve than to have any reaction to being kissed like something precious, so Tony does that.
***
The city smells like asphalt and hot garbage. Tony could keep walking for about forty-five minutes and get to the tower, out of Steve’s hair and back to his responsibilities.
Instead he watches the pigeons. There’s a mottled white and brown bird among the standard grey and iridescent flock. Pigeons owe their multiple color morphs to humans. Wild animals don’t tend to come in fashionable variations — it has to be bred into them on purpose. Nobody wants pet pigeons anymore, but their history still shows. The past doesn’t go away, it just etches its way under the surface.
Tony ducks out of bright sunlight into the relative dimness of the bodega. The air conditioning hits his sweaty skin hard enough to make him shiver.
He dithers over-long looking at the drinks cooler. The glass is lit from the inside, so he can’t see his reflection.
Top down, left to right: glass bottles of cold-pressed juice mixes, superfood smoothies enriched with wheatgrass, sparkling water in lemon, watermelon and peach flavors, the same sparkling water flavors in a different brand, Arizona Iced Teas in colorful cans, and water ranging in price from two to seven dollars.
In the adjacent cooler there are Coca-Cola products branded with the Avengers logo and the slogan Be Your Own Hero.
Tony focuses on choosing between mango-guava or pineapple-orange juice.
He tries to imagine what each will taste like and can only come up with the vague tang of citric acid.
By chance, Tony had been the first person to introduce Steve to a mango. There’d been a basket of mangoes in the kitchen of the mansion — Tony carefully imagines a nondescript counter, placing the memory in a safe, white cube — and he’d walked in on Steve holding a paring knife, brow furrowed.
“These smell wonderful!” Steve had said. “I have no idea what they are.”
So Tony had gotten to show Steve now to run the tip of the knife around the circumference of the mango. He remembers the tearing-cloth sound of slicing in close to the pit, and the light in Steve’s face as he tasted a new fruit.
Tony chooses the pineapple-orange juice.
The man behind the counter scowls when Tony presents a card instead of cash. He points to a handwritten sign on the counter that says “$5 minimum on all credit cards.” Tony doesn’t carry cash. He hasn’t in years. He wants to snap at the inconvenience.
The flash of annoyance reminds Tony that he’s irritated with Steve, which means thinking about Steve and Steve’s awful pity. Suddenly Tony can’t handle disappointing someone else, not even the sour-faced bodega owner, so he grabs a handful of candy bars — Mr. Goodbar, great, a kind he doesn’t even like — and slaps them on the glass counter.
“Need a bag?”
Tony doesn’t care either way. Where is he going to go after this? The open question feels like a yawning void. Tony Stark, at loose ends. Useless, he thinks savagely. Don’t you have anything genius to go do? The answer is no. He doesn’t.
“Bag?”
“Sure, whatever,” Tony says dully, then takes his juice and sack of unwanted king-sized chocolates.
Tony takes one thin mouthful of the juice before realizing he doesn’t want that either. He upends it into the gutter. The plastic bottle judders unevenly as the juice passes through the narrow neck, alternating liquid and air. It smells cloyingly of pineapple.
Across the street Tony spots a broad-shouldered figure in a hoodie. It’s ninety-five degrees and there’s no breeze. Tony’s wearing one of Steve’s undershirts and the same linen slacks he’s been in all week and he’s still sticky and miserable.
His first reaction to someone is tailing him is fear. He doesn’t need super villains right now. Then the figure shifts from one foot to the other, and Tony knows who it is. He hasn’t even bothered to alter his posture or put a stone in his shoe.
Steve isn’t even trying. Tony crosses against the light — serve Steve right if Tony gets hit by a car right under his nose — and knocks Steve deliberately with his shoulder as he passes, hard enough that Steve almost drops the cell phone he was using as a half-baked pretense for standing and staring.
“I can’t believe you,” Tony says, without looking to see if Steve has fallen into step behind him.
“You were in there a while,” Steve says. “I thought you’d given me the slip.”
Tony doesn’t say anything.
“I’d never forgive myself,” Steve says.
Tony steps over a section of metal grate on the sidewalk. The wind of a passing subway train curls up his pants leg.
“I’m willing to ruin our friendship if it keeps you safe. I’m sorry.”
“I want to go home,” Tony says.
“I don’t know if you should go back to the tower,” Steve says, and Tony realizes his slip but it’s too late, he’s bared himself again.
“Your apartment,” Tony clarifies, and he doesn’t look back to see if Steve is surprised, or gratified, or if he’s noticed at all.
***
They watch baseball again, on mute.
Tony traces the negative space between them on the sofa: Steve’s stretched out, one big leg stuck out straight to rest his heel on the ottoman. Tony’s sitting upright on the other side of the couch. If he extrapolates out the angles, their legs make a right triangle.
The batter silently cracks a hit deep into the outfield. Steve makes a pleased sound deep in his chest. The camera tilts and flies dizzyingly to track the path of the ball.
Steve’s working his way through Tony’s Mr. Goodbars. The man doesn’t waste food. He breaks the last two squares of his current candy bar apart, then hands one bit of chocolate to Tony.
Tony takes it, lets the taste of chocolate coat his tongue, and it’s not so bad. Steve breathes out another pleased noise. Tony checks the television to see who made a good play, but all it shows is the pitcher’s face as he chews on nothing and winds up.
The next chocolate bar, Steve shares it all. He alternates, taking one square for himself, one square for Tony.
Eventually the candy runs out, and there’s only a small pile of yellow wrappers on the couch cushion between them.
Steve always says yes when Tony asks for something, even when he doesn’t ask.
“Could you do something for me?”
“Of course,” Steve says, without pausing for breath, like Tony’s not in debt to him already.
Tony decides to max out his accounts.
“Lie to me. Tell me again — tell me I’m good, and none of the things that have happened are my fault. Like you mean it, like it’s just something you want to say and not a bargaining chip to keep me on the team, or give me the confidence to defuse a bomb, or to stop me from eating a bullet.”
Steve’s face goes slack with horror and, damn, it’s too much, even asking for the lie was too much.
“Please,” Tony tries, but that makes it worse, begging for something Steve doesn’t want to give.
“I won’t — I wouldn’t — why do you want me to lie to you?”
If Tony unfocuses his eyes, the baseball diamond is only green, green, green. Behind the tape Tony used to cover it, the DVR is still blinking, light muted but still there. He wanted to know what it would sound like. He wanted to file it away in his memory to play pretend with, like a child imagining himself friends made of code and tiny electric motors.
“I just want to hear it.”
Steve closes one hand into a fist and pounds it into the arm of the couch, just once, not hard enough to break anything. Steve’s beautiful when he’s in control. “So,” he says slowly, “if I say something to you that’s kind, it’s a lie to manipulate you. You’d only believe me if I said something cruel.”
Tony grits his teeth, shaking his head. He’s not interested in Steve trying to trap him in logic when his brain has been saying they died because of you on repeat for a month and nothing will make it stop.
But Steve doesn’t stop. He hasn’t moved but he’s filling up more of the room, somehow larger in a way that isn’t directed at Tony. “Look at the evidence! Tony I — I kissed you, I wouldn’t do that if it was a trick. What would the point of it even be? How would that — I wouldn’t.”
Steve’s head thuds back against the couch cushions. The ceiling above them has a pair of nails driven into it; the landlord has painted over them in between tenants, so they almost blend in. Some of that big anger in Steve’s body turns inward, and his face draws closed in regret.
“I’m sorry,” Tony says.
One of Steve’s arms is outstretched, laid neatly across the back of the sofa. He’s stripped off the ridiculous hoodie he wore to tail Tony to the corner store, and what he has on now is thin and short-sleeved.
Tony reaches out and touches the inside of Steve’s bicep. He runs one finger from the crook of Steve’s elbow up to the hem of his sleeve near his armpit, then back down again. Steve’s skin is pale and vulnerable, blue veins showing through. God, it’s so soft.
Steve shudders like he’s trying very hard to stay still.
Tony flees to the kitchen.
***
Steve delicately avoids him until Tony stays too long in the bathroom. He’s exhibiting alarming behavior. It’s too easy to imagine blood, vivid on porcelain. Tony hasn’t looked to see if Steve has a straight razor hidden away in one of the drawers under the sink. It’s better if he doesn’t check.
“Tony?”
Tony has the sink running as cold as it will go, holding his fingertips underneath the water until they’re numb.
“Tony, I’m coming in.”
When Steve lays eyes on Tony he looks so relieved it’s like staring into an open wound.
Tony hisses through clenched teeth. “I should see a fucking shrink, shouldn’t I?”
“Probably.”
“I won’t, you know.”
“I’d scold you,” Steve says, “but I’m not going either, so it would be a bit hypocritical.”
Tony almost jolts out of his skin because — what — Steve —
“Cap, you’re not, what, that’s —“
Steve’s stronger than him. He can’t have the same goddamn problem, this clawing black weakness inside of Tony, that’s impossible.
“Look at our job. Nobody gets out of this happy.”
“Jesus.” In the mirror, Tony’s accumulated a scruffy, uneven beard. There’s definitely some acne under the stubble, too; Tony hasn’t been up for his usual skin care routine. Steve doesn’t still get blackheads and ingrown hairs at thirty because the world isn’t fair.
There’s not enough space in the bathroom for the two of them. Tony turns off the sink, flexes his cold fingers, and then lets Steve pull one of his freezing hands into his own.
The heat of Steve’s palms almost burns. Tony tilts his head toward Steve, lets his lips part, not certain if he wants Steve to take him up on the silent invitation or not.
Steve kisses him like it’s walking barefoot over broken glass. He stutters close, touches Tony’s mouth once, then draws away. When he comes back, it’s more, cutting and dirty for a single breathless moment.
Then Steve’s gone again. Tony reaches up, unbearably alone, and pulls Steve’s face to him until he can press against Steve cheek-to-cheek.
“This won’t be the last time,” Tony says, gripping the back of Steve’s neck with bloodless fingers. “It’s not…it doesn’t get fixed.”
“I expect it doesn’t,” Steve says, sad.
***
The next evening, while Steve takes a long shower, Tony walks into Steve’s empty bedroom because the consequences won’t hit for at least fifteen more minutes.
He means to snoop, but instead he lays down on Steve’s bed by inches. The mattress creaks once under him. It smells like Steve’s laundry detergent.
Tony’s going to get up after just a moment, really. The mattress is so firm it’s practically wooden, just like he expected of Steve, but the quilt on top of it is worn and soft, hand-pieced in a traditional pattern. The shapes of blocky stars are picked out in delicate prints; pinks, greens, blue and cream.
Tony’s going to get up before Steve gets out of the shower. The seams of Steve’s quilt are a faint texture under his face.
Tony’s going to get up or else Steve will find him.
Tony’s going to get up.
He’ll get up.
“When other people imagine infamous playboy Tony Stark in their bed, I think it goes a little differently,” Steve says from the doorway.
His voice is quiet and so fond Tony can’t even turn it as a blade against himself.
“I exaggerate for the papers.”
“Privately very boring, you are.”
Tony turns his head to mock-glare at Steve. “Filtered through a journalistic lens, me lying here flat on my face is verifiably saucy.”
Wrong thing to say. Steve kissed him to pass along a message and Tony hasn’t dared to think about what it could be. He shouldn’t be in Steve’s bed, too pathetic and sad to stand, flirting like it’s a game.
Steve sits down on the bed, and Tony rolls over until the small of his back presses against the small of Steve’s, their bodies orthogonal to each other.
Steve leans into it. If Tony was very quiet and kept his breathing steady, he could cry like this and nobody would know. The warmth of Steve at his back is almost as good as being held.
“Well,” Steve says, “I’m no news writer, so I’ll take this as a sign you’re fed up with the couch.”
“It’s a terrible couch,” Tony says. Steve has a painting of the American flag on the wall, one that Tony gave him. Tony never told Steve the little encaustic-on-panel was an original, or how much it cost.
“Buy me a new one, billionaire,” Steve teases.
“Can’t, I’m broke. Company’s in shambles, board of directors is dead, tragedies abound, et cetera. Go to Ikea yourself.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, yeah, absolutely. Fire away, big shoots.” It’s going to hurt if Steve asks something that means he has to lie, but Tony’s good at absorbing pain. That’s how to make an antidote: take the venom and put it in the bloodstream of something alive, and the body makes something to neutralize the poison.
The problem is when it’s not the same venom every time.
Steve’s back is warm against his.
“Did you come here because it was me? Or was it random, just, whoever was closest? Could it have been anyone?”
Tony could quip back — that’s three questions, Cap, pick one.
He should tell a lie close enough to reality that Steve would believe it; say that Captain America was the last man Tony couldn’t stand to disappoint again, that Steve would force him to be better.
But — the truth, the honest thing, is that of course it was Steve, it’s always Steve for him, it’s only ever been Steve. Steve is the one place that’s always safe.
“You,” Tony says, glad Steve can’t see his face. It’s like being in the armor, almost.
One of the patches on the quilt is coming apart, the thread starting to unravel. Tony folds it back with his fingertip, rubbing against the rough batting underneath. Steve bends down, taking the warmth of his skin away, and Tony folds tighter into himself, miserable.
But Steve is just taking his socks off, and then he swings his legs up behind Tony and scoots in close.
“Is this okay?” Steve has perfect control of his body, but his hand hovers over Tony’s shoulder like he’s petrified he’ll crush him.
Tony’s voice is clotted up in his throat. He’s having a aneurism of language. Steve is perfect.
Steve takes a thick breath and begins to draw away.
“Please,” Tony says, tearing the word out of himself.
“Gonna need a few more words there,” Steve says quietly, frozen in place. “Is this what you wanted? Is it why you came?”
Tony hadn’t even dared to think about wanting this. If Steve takes it away as soon as Tony’s safe to be alone again, it’ll tear his poor wretched heart in two.
He knows what that feels like, actually.
“You — you have to tell me if it’s just pity,” Tony says.
Steve is close again, all in a rush, touching him from neck to ankle like he has something to prove. “I don’t pity you,” he says. “It’d be like pitying a star because a cloud passed over it.”
“Now, see, you’re being ridiculous. I’m absolutely pathetic. I’m wearing your sweatpants and I haven’t showered in two days. I can’t bring myself to answer my phone. I hid it in your bread box. Must have over a hundred missed calls. I can’t believe you have a bread box. With bread in it. Honestly, Cap.”
Steve kisses the back of his neck, warm and dry. “What else am I supposed to put in it?”
“Intolerable cell phones, obviously. Keep up.”
Steve’s hand splays, broad, over Tony’s chest, anchoring him. Steve’s breath tickles the hair behind his ear. “Mmmm. Of course.”
“I can’t — ah — do anything tonight,” Tony says. “I might cry, actually, that feels likely. I haven’t yet. Couldn’t. Too dead inside.”
“That’s okay. I saw an anthill a few weeks ago and suddenly I couldn’t breathe,” Steve says. “Would have been easier with you there.”
“Scott,” Tony says, and, God, it had gone to shit so quickly.
“Clint, Viz,” Steve says, like he’s making a toast to their dead.
“Wanda, Ru,” Tony finishes, and he’s crying, huge wet shaking sobs, but at least Steve is there.
***
“So,” Tony says, “day six.”
“Oh.”
The view outside of Steve’s kitchen window is about ten feet of daylight interrupted by a cinderblock wall. It’s up to fire code and not much else. The refrigerator overlaps with the window by about four inches on the left side. Despite this, Steve’s cleaned both the inside and the outside until they sparkle. It’s a perfectly clear view of nothing special.
The tower has floor-to-ceiling vistas of New York City. Once every three months Tony has the window-washers come up to maintain the glass.
“Back to the tower for me.” It sounds awfully cold.
“Last night doesn’t count,” Steve says.
Steve’s leaning back in one of the rickety kitchen chairs, one ankle crossed over his knee. He’s spread out over the table: newspaper, cup of coffee, glass of orange juice, and a large bowl of muesli topped with plain yoghurt and fruit. Tony had leaned on the counter and watched as Steve cut up fresh peaches, knife flashing as he pulled it across the fruit and towards his thumb, hands sticky and sure.
“Why not?” Tony asks.
“You weren’t on the couch. So your six days crashing on my sofa aren’t up yet.” Steve folds his newspaper up into eighths, then taps it against the side of the table. “And I missed the Yankees game last night.”
“You don’t watch Yankees games.”
“I do when they lose 9-2.”
“Touché. Is this your way of subtly telling me that I can’t leave until I fix your DVR? Because they don’t work like that. The recording has to be set up ahead of time, tootsie-pop, and you know it.”
Steve shrugs, one big shoulder up then down. He’s hiding a smile, poorly. “That used to work. I could get you to explain things for hours.”
“Nine years ago, maybe! Now I’m onto you. You’re a sarcastic fucker, not a luddite.”
Steve breaks into the smile he’d been holding back. He looks more worn than usual, holding a little tightness around his eyes that isn’t usually there, but the golden warmth of him still shows through. He’s like a bronze statue in a public square, edges shined by the touch of passers-by. Steve glows from the inside.
Tony drains his coffee and relents. “I need your identicard and some rabbit ears.”
***
“There, local channel 7 is now an all-you-can-eat buffet of visual media, past and present. Free Pay-Per-View, too. You’re welcome. Don’t watch too much porn.”
“I’ll just have the Yankees game, thank you.”
Steve makes Tony stand up and collect the bits and pieces of stripped wire he’s left behind, then strips the sheets off the couch and folds them. Steve can, apparently, fold a fitted sheet perfectly.
“So…we watch sports together now, and cuddle,” Tony says. “And sometimes you kiss me.”
Steve clicks the game on. The old CRT TV whines as it powers up. “I thought, maybe, I could do those things.”
“For you, I’ve already sat through more baseball this past week than I’ve watched in the past five years put together.”
“That’s true love, right there,” Steve says, then looks wide-eyed at Tony, like maybe it’s less a joke and more an accidental declaration.
“Might be,” Tony says, catching Steve’s gaze.
Tony feels stretched taut like a sail running before the wind. Something in him must tear from the strain, because he falls gracelessly into Steve. Steve holds him, and Tony kisses his brow, his cheekbones, his jaw, his mouth.
“I want you to believe me, you’re so good,” Steve whispers to him, every moment his lips are free. “Let me tell you that, let me prove to you you’re the best of us, please, Tony, please.”
Steve’s left the baseball game on low volume, just enough for Tony to hear the murmur of the announcers. It’s not so bad. “Did you put tape over my DVR?” Steve asks abruptly, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Shhh,” Tony says, and kisses him again. “I thought it was talking to me in morse code and I didn’t like it.”
“That’s very —“
“Eccentric,” Tony finishes for him. “I”m charmingly eccentric.”
Steve lets him keep up the pretense. Tony’s grateful.
The arm of Steve’s horrible, uncomfortable couch eventually digs far enough into Tony’s back that he can’t ignore it anymore. Tony untangles himself, then stands and cracks his spine. When he straightens again Steve is smiling.
“What?”
“It’s obscene for you to look like that before lunchtime.”
Tony touches his lips and checks to make sure his fly is zipped up. Steve laughs, open-chested, and pats his own hair down flat.
“Lunch,” Tony repeats. “We should do lunch.”
“You’re hungry?” Steve asks, pleased, because of course he’s been watching, counting the meals Tony eats in a day and coming up with a scanty total.
“Yeah. I want pancakes. Big stack.” Tony holds his hands apart to demonstrate the magnitude of pancakes he’s describing.
“Stack ‘em that tall and they’ll fall right over.”
“I’m a structural engineer, Cap, please, things do not fall over on my watch. I can have all the pancakes I want.”
“‘Course.”
“Just,” Tony says, then pauses, because this still feels hard, piercing the bubble back into a world where he’s expected to be Iron Man and Tony Stark, genius businessman and invincible superhero. “Give me a second to get my phone out of the kitchen.”