Chapter Text
After.
After they defeat Thanos and reverse the snap, rebuilding continues. Life, such as it is, goes on. This, then, this going on and on and on, in spite of the suffocating embrace of ice in his lungs; in spite of the heft of every choice, of every mistake he’s ever made, it’s all Steve knows.
He’s supposed to be happy.
He should be happy.
Why isn’t he happy?
(Bucky. Sam. Tony. Wanda. Fury. Maria Hill. Vision. Alive again.)
And yet.
And yet.
Once something breaks, even if the pieces are glued back together, phantom fissures remain along the original fractures. You can feel them with your fingertips if you’re slow and careful.
Steve wanders the long, echoing compound hallways like a ghost. Most mornings he looks in the mirror after he’s pissed; washed his hands; brushed his teeth―done the things that going on entails―and doesn’t see his reflection. Just a Vaseline-like smear in the silvered glass. That should worry him, probably, more than it does. It would worry Sam if he knew.
This is what he’s become, then: soundless footsteps well past midnight and his fists kissing heavy bags Tony designed to take his strength, as though there’s an answer to be found in their weighted centers.
(There are never any answers.)
After the gym, tonight he’s in the kitchen. Cold chrome and fine-veined marble counters. Stools and chairs enough for all the Avengers. His family. But it’s sometime after 3:00 am, and the other chairs and stools sit empty.
The chair’s solidity under his ass tells him he’s rooted somewhere, not tumbling out of the sky with the ocean’s gaping, indigo maw rushing up to meet him.
He still feels like he’s falling.
Sweat makes his t-shirt stick to his back, and he’s brushing damp strands of hair off his forehead, gaze tipped down to the dog-eared mega book of crossword puzzles flopped open on the kitchen table in front of him, when he smells Tony. Motor oil and metal cut through with faded soap―something woodsy and citrus. Warm. Bright. Sharp. Like the man.
He’s not for Steve, though. Not anymore. Before Siberia, maybe. But this is after.
Steve doesn’t think Tony will linger in the kitchen. Not while he’s in there, too. This is who they are now, strangers who avoid each other when possible and make stilted, overly polite conversation when that’s not possible.
Steve swallows hard against the Sahara in his throat and lets his pencil scratch a squiggly line in the margin of the thin page in front of him. He needs more sleep than he’s getting, but sleep doesn’t come easily. “Four-letter word for delicate handling,” he says in a murmur, blinking dry, tired eyes. “Hm.”
“―ct, Rogers,” and just the sound of those three syllables uttered in Tony’s voice and directed at only Steve ripples down his shoulders and coils, hot, at the base of his spine.
He was Cap once. Steve, even. Not anymore. Now he’s Rogers.
Tony’s voice distracts him so thoroughly Steve can’t make sense of what Tony’s said. “What?” he asks, putting down his pencil and glancing up at Tony, who’s halfway across the kitchen, cradling a mug between two hands, stroking his thumbs over the white stoneware. Jealousy, overwhelming and irrational, sweeps over Steve, settling in his cheeks.
“The word you’re looking for is tact.”
He’d laugh, Steve would, but all he can do is stare at Tony, slack-jawed. He’s talking to Steve. Actually talking to Steve for the first time since before , with a glint of that old humor gleaming in his voice, and the only thing Steve wants to do is look at him. Soak in his presence.
His hair’s grown a little long, tipping up and out at the ends. Under the overhead lights, threads of silver that weren’t there before shine, nested amongst all that warm brown. Salt peppers his goatee. Thanos and what Tony survived after carved new hollows into his face, deepened the life around his eyes and mouth. He’s thinner and harder now―like a surgeon’s scalpel sheared away everything unnecessary and left behind only the essence of Tony Stark.
Tony’s forty-nine and he looks it, and if there was any mercy left in this terrible world that costs everything to live in, Steve would curl around his smaller body, in his arms, and make a home for himself there.
After all this time? Still. Always.
“Thanks,” Steve says, penciling in the word and then leaning back in his chair. He doesn’t want Tony to leave. “Do you want something to eat? I was going to make some eggs.” That’s not, strictly speaking, true. He wasn’t going to eat anything, but for the chance to keep Tony around for even a few more precious minutes, he’ll gladly make two dozen.
Tony props himself against the kitchen island, and Steve can’t help but notice that his time-worn jeans hang just a touch too loose from his hips. He’s lost weight and clearly isn’t eating enough to replace what he lost. Once upon a time, Steve would’ve frowned at him and started in with lecture number two thousand on the importance of eating enough and eating regularly. Now the words crawl up Steve’s throat only to die on his tongue. That’s not who they are to each other now; it was never his place, to begin with, but he had cared enough about Tony to not care that it wasn’t.
He still cares even if he doesn’t have the right to.
Tony clicks his nails along the outer rim of his mug. His eyes narrow, and he sucks on his upper lip, appearing to consider Steve’s question. “Scrambled?” he finally asks.
“Sure. Anything you want,” Steve answers quickly―too quickly, if the narrow-eyed glance Tony aims at him is anything to go by―before Tony can change his mind, run away, and leave Steve alone with his crosswords and his insomnia and whatever else lurks in his head.
Thankfully, Tony doesn’t push, and that, too, is different. That, too, is who they are now, after, but not who they were before. Polite strangers who are so concerned about overstepping boundaries that they’re barely in each other’s orbit.
Grief washes over Steve, cold and final, and hot with shame, he feels his eyes dampen. He doesn’t have the right to do to this. Before his face can crumble, though, Tony asks, “Can I help?”
Steve clears his throat and pushes himself out of his chair. “Yeah. Um, plates and silverware. Please. That’s all.”
“You got it.” Tony moves to do as asked but stumbles.
Steve reaches Tony and catches him before he falls, hands firm at his arms. The black band tee Tony’s wearing is too loose around his chest and stomach, and they’re standing too close to each other, and his biceps are too warm under Steve’s palms. Let go , his brain screams. Let him go now.
But Steve can’t let go―at least, not without brushing his thumbs over Tony’s skin. “You okay?” Two words are all he can manage around the ache blooming in his chest and twining around his throat.
“Yeah,” Tony says. “Yes. I’m just― Just tired, is all.”
“You don’t sleep enough.” Steve releases his grip on Tony and lets his arms drop to his sides, but Tony doesn’t move away. Purple bruises are painted around his eyes, but his eyes, his eyes are soft, brown, and thick-lashed as Steve looks down at him.
Tony snorts a laugh, rolling his eyes. “Neither do you.”
“I can’t,” Steve says, and he knows it’s too honest as soon as he says it.
“Can’t what?”
“I can’t sleep. I try, but I have these dreams. And I”―Steve pauses and shakes his head, fists clenching and releasing, eyes shut tightly―”I can’t breathe.”
When Steve opens his eyes, Tony returns his gaze, a wrinkle knit between his brows. “You should talk to someone about that,” he says, voice so gentle that Steve almost can’t breathe.
“I am. I’m talking to you.”
“That’s not what I meant, Cap,” Tony says, shaking his head.
It’s the Cap that must do it. He hasn’t heard it from Tony in so long. Since before, and―
“Sleep with me,” Steve blurts out.
This time Tony jerks back, putting several feet of space between them.
“Whoa, Rogers.” He raises his hands as if to ward off Steve. “At least buy me dinner first.”
“Sorry,” Steve says, heat punching him in the face and climbing the back of his neck, and oh, now might be a good time for another apocalyptic event. “That came out badly.” He sighs and scrubs both hands over his face. “I meant just sleep with me. Share a bed.”
Tony doesn’t immediately say no, which makes Steve feel better―not much, though. “Why?”
“I’m tired, Tony. So tired,” he says, sounding hoarse. As embarrassing as this is, given how far he’s come already, he may as well finish this exercise in abject humiliation. It’ll be one more mistake to ponder when Tony shoots him down and Steve finds himself lying awake for hours in a cold bed empty of everything but himself and his racing thoughts. “But I can’t sleep, and maybe if someone was there...If you were there, maybe it would help. I won’t”―he has to inhale deeply to get the rest out―”I won’t touch you.” He won’t because he’s certain Tony wouldn’t want that, but he’d want to all the same. The yearning to touch Tony has been present for so long now that Steve can scarce imagine himself without it. “Just platonic sleeping. Or trying to sleep.”
Steve dips his head and fixes his gaze on a swirling knot that looks unsettlingly like an eye in one of the floor's wood boards while he waits for Tony to laugh and tell him what an idiot he is for thinking Tony would ever sleep, just sleep, with him. But the laughter doesn’t come. When Steve dares to glance up again, Tony’s watching him, one hand rubbing at his chest, and head canted to the side, eyes keen and intelligent, likely seeing far more than Steve wants him to. As always. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yes, fine. What? Why are you looking at me like that? I said okay. Do you want it in writing, signed in blood?”
“No. Tony, no. Okay. Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I may give you worse nightmares. Can we eat first, though? I actually am kinda hungry now.”
“Yeah, of course. Yes, scrambled eggs.”