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Tony had thought long and hard about what he wanted their third date to be like and with time he'd realised that he didn’t mean for it to be a date at all. This is how he found himself in bed with James one morning, they’d just woken up, kissed each other slow and sweet but too sleepy to consider anything more passionate.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Tony starts and James, who had been laying on his back, turns to face him and nods in acknowledgement.
“I know that we have our third date planned soon,” Tony says, “but I was hoping we could postpone it a little bit longer.”
Hurt flashes in James’s eyes at Tony’s words and Tony is quick to follow them up with an explanation.
“I just, I--,” he takes a deep breath, “I wanted to ask some important people to come over, my family if you will, to--, well, to meet you. But only if you don’t mind of course.” Tony finishes his stumbling sentence, he can’t look James in the eyes and his thoughts are running wild because this is ridiculous and what the fuck was I thinking bringing this up and God, James is definitely going to break up with me after this I’m such a fucking idiot and--
James interrupts Tony’s spiralling by cupping his chin and lifting his head up so they’re looking each other in the eyes. There’s something there, in his eyes, that Tony can’t decipher, something that is awfully reminiscent of love but Tony doubts the part of his brain that suggests that. Love isn’t for those like him, it is not something villains deserve.
“Doll,” James says and there’s a certain inflexion in the word that Tony is unfamiliar with. Tony wants to avert his gaze again but he can’t. James is holding him still, dragging him closer with his metal arm until they’re flush against each other.
“You want me to meet your family, correct?” he says and Tony nods carefully. James' eyes darken with something between lust and tenderness and he whispers and moans, “ Yes, thousand times yes, ” as they make love after.
Deep in Tony’s chest, in the ugliest parts of him, bit by bit scars start to heal.
That afternoon Tony makes some calls. He invites Pepper, Rhodey and Happy to come by and they set a date together. Then he calls Harley followed by May and Peter. With every phone number that Tony dials he feels an incredible surge of joy. Ask Tony Stark from a few months ago if he ever thought that he could have this, people who liked talking to him and would be willing to come and visit him, and he would have laughed in your face. Ask Tony Stark from right after Ultron or right after The Battle of New York and he would have looked at you in disbelieve. Ask Tony from before MIT, the one that had yet to meet Rhodey and Pepper and every other reason why he was alive still and he would have said, “ Oh, I thought I’d be dead long before twenty-five, never mind forty,” with eerie resignment coating his every word.
The Tony Stark of the present is feeling like happiness is within reach and the Tony Stark of the present wants to live . Wants, beyond anything else, to see the future unfold before his eyes.
With James and his family at his side.
The evening before Tony’s family --and happiness blooms in his chest when he says that, family-- Tony has a panic attack. He doesn't really know what triggers it but he's getting ready for bed, drowsy and a bit out of it, wondering where James might be and if he’s going to come up to Tony’s room tonight or opting to stay in his own. He’s almost under the covers, just about ready to collapse and immediately fall asleep when a clang resounds through the hallway followed by low cursing.
One moment he's fine and the next moment he's being choked. He's on his back in a Siberian bunker, his hands coming up up up and Rogers' shield coming down down down. He remembers how prepared he'd been to die. He remembers how sure he'd been that St- Rogers was going to use that shield to severe his head from his bruised and battered body. He had been sure that this would be the end. That Tony Stark would die by Captain America’s hands, that Iron Man would be defeated and this time successfully killed, once again, by someone he considered a close friend. He had thought he was going to die and would finally be able to rest. That the world would finally be free of him.
That's not what had happened.
Rogers hadn't given him the courtesy of death even after all he'd put Tony through. Instead, Rogers had brought the shield down on the arc reactor. Crushed Tony's metaphorical heart with no remorse in his eyes. Just cold-hearted calculation and resolution.
He can’t breathe.
It’s as if the artificial sternum in his chest becomes heavier, his lungs feel constricted and he keeps on seeing Rogers’s cold eyes. Keeps on seeing that unrelenting stubbornness in them, the knowledge that he’d planted himself like a tree and that he was going to go through Tony if it meant achieving his goal.
In all his years as Howard’s son, Tony had never felt as unimportant as then.
He can’t breathe .
“Tony, Tony, love, sweetheart, lyubimiy, dragul meu. Breathe doll, come on, breathe with me, please.”
Everything around him comes back into focus soon after, he’s wrapped up in James’s arms, held close to his chest and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat grounds him. His head clears slowly and from the salt he tastes on his lips he realises that he must be crying.
God, I’m a disaster , he thinks and there must have been some sort of physical reaction that went with the thought because James moves the two of them under the covers and holds Tony close.
“I’m okay,” Tony mumbles into James’s chest but they both know he’s lying.
“D’ya wanna talk about it?” James asks and Tony is suited by the Brooklyn drawl that becomes more prominent when it’s late at night or when Tony needs comforting.
“Siberia.” Is all Tony utters and James breathes in a bit sharper than he had before.
“Do you want to cancel tomorrow?” James asks and Tony’s already shaking his head before he’s even finished his sentence.
“I want to see them and they want to meet you. They’re not coming over until later in the day, it’ll be fine.”
“If you say so, dragul meu , you can change your mind at any moment though. Your family won’t mind and we can reschedule with minimal effort. Be a bit selfish if you need to be, okay?”
Tony says makes some sort of affirmative noise and a part of his brain is more than willing to latch onto the word ‘selfish’ and tell Tony exactly how awful he is but he’s exhausted and snuggled up in James’s arms under the blankets.
He sleeps.
The following morning Tony wakes up first, James still wrapped around him. The cold has receded and he no longer feels on the edge of death.
He breathes James in and focuses on each inhale. Holding it before exhaling slow. He thinks about the day ahead. The first guests would arrive somewhere around four and most of them were staying the night. Tony had set up guests rooms for everyone and made sure to order in all the ingredients he’d need for the meal they are going to eat.
Tony carefully shakes James awake. They kiss and he says, "Come on Snowflake, if you hurry up we can shower together."
James sits up in bed right away, Tony laughs.
On certain mornings, after strenuous activities (or nightmares) -- so almost every morning -- Tony and James make breakfast together. This morning isn’t very different from all the others, the only abnormality in their routine is James being adequately surprised when he sees the kitchen cabinets and fridge stocked with food.
“Are we feeding a legion of Hulks tonight?” he asks Tony who laughs. It feels nice to laugh after last night and whatever dredges of his panic attack that might have still clung to him have disappeared without a trace.
“Something like that, we’ve got some enhanced coming tonight and also quite a few ravenous teenagers and,” he pokes James in the stomach, “we can’t forget you and your super soldier appetite, now can we?”
James laughs good-naturedly.
“Alright, alright forget I asked. Let’s eat some breakfast and then figure out how much of this we have to start preparing now and how much we can leave till after lunch.”
“Sounds like a plan Jamie.”
The first to arrive, at exactly four o’clock, are Pepper and Happy. Happy is in a suit and Pepper is in a dress, one of the few that she doesn’t wear strictly during business hours. They’re holding hands and where Tony might have been upset to see their entwined fingers not too long ago he was beyond delighted to see them now. Rhodey arrives right behind them and Tony feels utterly delighted to see that Rhodey is walking around, folded up wheelchair under his arm in case he wears himself out.
Tony leads the three of them inside. Exchanging pleasantries and telling Pepper to stop straightening out his collar whilst also making sure that Rhodey doesn’t walk into the living room before him.
“I’m among friends here Pep, there is no image for me to maintain.” She snorts at that but leaves him alone.
James is in the living room, placing the last of the bowls of snacks on the coffee table. Tony walks over to him and kisses him on the cheek before grabbing his hand.
“There are some people I want you to meet,” Tony says and James goes without an inch of reluctance as Tony pulls him along towards his three oldest and best friends.
“Everyone this is James Barnes, my boyfriend . James these lovely people are Virginia ‘Pepper’ Potts, James Rhodes also known as Platypus, Honeybear and Rhodey and Harold ‘Happy’ Hogan. My closest friends.”
James goes very still next to him as he introduces his friends and Tony can hear his slow intake of breath as he looks at them.
He reaches out his hand to Happy first, puts as much charm into it as he can, which brings out the Brooklyn a lot . Which does things to Tony.
“James Barnes,” he says, shaking Happy’s hand, “Nice to make your acquaintance.” They’re moving towards the sofa’s as James shakes Pepper’s hand and sitting down by the time he shakes Rhodey’s. Tony hopes that his best friend will behave himself instead of trying to intimidate James. Rhodey does behave, as do Pepper and Happy. They converse with James pleasantly. Ask him questions about how he feels about being back on American soil, steering clear of the Roger’s shaped hole that James still carries with him.
There’s nothing to be worried about, nothing that could ever go wrong and then Rhodey asks James if he was nervous to meet them and James -- God, Tony loves him so so much but he’s never going to say it -- says the unfathomable. He smiles and his voice is soft and sweet as he says, “Tony wanted me to meet his family y’know, and I might have been nervous about meeting you but he’s happier when he talks about you guys. Anyone that can get him to smile like that and become all soft-eyed is beyond perfect in my book. So meeting you was the obvious choice.”
Tony’s already out of the room before James has finished talking. He’s tossing between unimaginable joy and deepest despair. He doesn’t get to keep good things and if it’s so incredible unimaginable fantastically good now then he doesn’t want to think about what the inevitable end will feel like. His heart is going to be crushed into a million little pieces and stomped all over once James walks away from him but Tony can resign himself to that faith. If it means he gets to keep James’s soft smiles and whispered words, his sweet caresses and his plush lips pressed to Tony’s own. If it means he gets to keep waking up together in each other’s arms and lazy morning sex, if it means he gets to keep every unimaginable good second for the foreseeable future then he’ll take it.
Tony Stark is a selfish person at heart and reminding himself of this is something he does on the regular. This time hurts more than most of the others though. He doesn’t want to examine too closely as to why.
Harley, Peter and Peter’s aunt May arrive together about fifteen minutes after Rhodey, Happy and Pepper had. Tony’s the one to open the door and he immediately gets his arms full of Spider-kid and Mechanic in the making.
“Mr Stark!” Peter squeaks before going bright red at the pitch of his voice. Tony smiles at him good-naturedly and ruffles his hair.
“Hey kid, you can call me Tony y’know?”
Peter sputters something in reply to this that makes Tony crack another smile. He greets May as well before turning to Harley who looks kind of impatient.
“Hey Spud,” he says and Harley rolls his eyes at him.
“Really?” he says, “Spud? I thought we’d have moved on from that by now.”
“Well then, what’d you prefer: Mini Mechanic, Little Keener, Kid, --” Tony is interrupted by Harley shoving him playfully.
“Okay fine, whatever.” Harley hugs him and Tony ruffles the boy’s hair before sending him off towards the living room.
Once Tony enters the living room a certain amount of commotion has seemingly occurred. Peter and Harley are both standing in front of James, who’s seated on the couch. Peter is holding James’s metal arm and Harley seems to be holding something sharp near James’s throat. All Tony catches from Harley’s words before he loudly proclaims his presences and walks (read: runs) to his boyfriend’s aid is, “If you make him upset I will know because we’re connected.”
Tony frees James without too much struggle and scolds the teens for harassing him. After that they decide to do their introductions again and everything seems to have settled down.
The oven beeps sometime later which is Tony’s cue to get the food and James’s cue to herd everyone into the kitchen. Dinner itself is loud and messy and Tony notes James’s astonishment when Peter inhales twice his body weight in food and smiles. There’s small talk and teasing and all in all nothing could ruin this moment, nothing at all.
It’s good knowing that he can have good things too sometimes.
Later that evening when the others have all retreated to their rooms or homes Tony and James are laying in bed. Spooning, Tony’s back pressed to James' chest, their hands entwined on Tony’s hip. They’ve already talked about today, exchanged slow, loving kisses and now they’re content to stay here like this, in each other’s arms.
“I love you,” James whispers next to Tony’s ear, his breath making the back of Tony’s neck warm. Tony smiles and squeezes James’s hand.
“I love you too.”