Chapter Text
The air was still charged—electric with anger; grief; loss. Clint, Bruce, and Thor left first, heading back toward the Compound, a slow, heavy-hearted procession of walking wounded. Tony could almost see a cluster of illustrated clouds from one of the cartoons Morgan loved to watch hanging over their heads, gunmetal grey and pregnant with rain, and it would be funny, maybe, except it wasn’t fucking funny because Natasha was the reason for the clouds, and she was...She was—
Tony watched them go, hands stuffed in his pockets, fingers crunched into fists that made his joints ache. He made it all of twenty steps before his traitorous feet stopped, refusing to move an inch further no matter how much he silently begged them to, and Tony’s head craned so he could peek behind him, over his shoulder, at the only other person still there: Steve.
Sitting motionless at the far end of the pier with his broad-shouldered back to Tony, he seemed hewn from rock—as if you could throw anything at his bulk and have it bounce right off without leaving so much as a tiny chip or mark, let alone a dent—carved by a master sculptor wielding the finest tools and even finer vision. But he wasn’t made of stone, Tony reminded himself. Just blood, guts, sinew, same as Tony himself.
When Tony returned Steve’s shield, sliding it home onto his forearm, Steve’s eyes, his smile, and his body radiated vital, living warmth. When Tony asked him about trust in 2012 Manhattan, Steve’s wide palm and long fingers enveloped his, skin smooth and hot.
After Project Insight’s Helicarriers went down, tossing Steve out of the sky like an eagle with clipped wings and plunging him into the Potomac’s watery embrace, Tony visited him in the hospital. There’d been no other choice he could make. Without seeing him Tony couldn’t rest; he couldn’t get his lungs to expand enough for a full inhale. Not until his own body cast long shadows over Steve, who lay in a shitty mechanical bed raised at an incline, sleeping an unnatural sleep, wearing a shitty hospital gown that laid bare and vulnerable the twin twigs of his collar bones sheeted beneath paper-pale skin. Not until he held his twitching hand above Steve’s mouth and nose and felt the humid wash of his breath confirm that Steve was still breathing. Still alive.
He’d stared and stared, at the unexpectedly delicate curve of his ears and the fragile fan of his lashes, at the crisp slope of his nose, wanting so much to touch. Wanting to shelter him in the circle of his arms even though he hadn't been able to keep him safe when it mattered. But Tony had settled for laying his hand on the bed, on top of the too-rough sheet, by Steve’s hip. He’d left the hospital while Steve was unconscious, before Steve could even know he’d been there, but Tony had never forgotten the fresh stitches jabbed into his cloud-pale cheek, next to his mouth that looked like something crumpled and soft.
Tony’d been wholly unprepared for the shock and anger that had rocked through him and quickened his pulse then, tectonic plates shifting and clashing under his thin skin when he’d tracked the savage watercolor bouquet of purple-black bruises that bloomed under Steve’s closed eyelids. That anyone would or could hurt Steve like that had made Tony’s hands shake with something he had desperately tried to forget—and never, ever had.
Not when Wanda Maximoff had shown him his legacy, his dead friends scattered around him in a macabre, captive audience and Steve’s final pulsebeats memorized under his fingertips. Not when he’d drifted alone in space, expecting death, and found unexpected kinship instead. Not when he had returned to Earth and Steve, Steve had been the first person to reach him, racing across the Compound grounds to help him off the ship, and Tony had thought maybe, maybe there was something; maybe it was finally their time, but no. Not when he and Pepper had married, either, two battered, bruised people trying to live, however imperfectly, both aware they were compromising—sacrificing what hypothetically could be with someone else in favor of what they were certain they could have with each other. In the shadows of Thanos’ decimation, he and Pepper loved each other: in their own way, in convenience and compromise. And then there was Morgan. Morgan, who became Tony’s universe long before he’d first cradled her slight weight in his unworthy hands.
But Tony had never forgotten Steve and what he made him feel, even if the entirety of it was something so enormous and terrifying that he’d yet to shape his mouth around the words that encompassed the emotions.
Perched at the end of the pier as if he was at the very edge of the known world, Steve cut a still, solitary figure. Maybe even lonely. Was he lonely? Tony watched him, unblinking, until his dry eyes ached. Tony knew loneliness. He knew it before he was forced into a cave in Afghanistan and exited his chrysalis as Iron Man first and an Avenger later; he knew it after the Accords and Siberia.
After Thanos, and before Nebula had found him, Tony had only his thoughts and his failures and the vast, indifferent expanse of space to keep him company. He still had nightmares, sometimes, and woke choking on cold ash and feeling the inexorable, phantom grip of Peter’s hands biting into his shoulders with razor teeth. I don't want to go... When Thanos had won, Steve had been on Earth, and he’d lost just like they all had, but he’d had Natasha, hadn’t he, Natasha, who was now—
Tony had glimpsed the sheen of tears glaze Steve’s eyes when he said they, the Avengers, were Natasha’s family. No. However tempting it was to think otherwise, Steve wasn’t made of stone. Beneath the uniform of Tony's childhood hero, under that broad chest and those massive, sculpted shoulders, there were several truths.
If you stabbed Steve, he bled. If you beat him, he bruised. If he loved you and you left him...If you left...
Eyes closed and shoulders slumped, Tony breathed out a single harsh breath through his mouth. He shook his head. When his eyes opened and focused on the emerald carpet of grass rolled out ahead of him, he scuffed at the bristles on his chin and rolled his shoulders back. Turned.
This time it wasn’t just Tony’s head but his entire body that swung in Steve’s direction, a compass needle pivoting unerringly toward true north.
And perhaps it was inevitable.
Tony deliberately let his shoes hit the wood planks with more force than they needed to. Even with Steve’s super-soldier senses, he wanted to be certain to give Steve the courtesy of plenty of warning that he wasn’t alone. With every step that brought Tony closer to Steve, the more aware he became of his own heartbeat, a war drum thudding bass in a shadowy cavern in his chest.
Tony squinted and briefly considered putting back on the sunglasses he’d hung from the collar of his shirt when Clint and Thor had argued. “Your eyes, man,” Rhodey had told him years ago back at MIT, “they give away everything.” Wearing his sunglasses would be the safer choice. Tony left them off.
The early spring sun teased shades of burnished mahogany and harvest gold from Steve’s hair, and Tony bit down, driving his top teeth into his bottom lip until pain zinged along his nerves, an echo of the pressure in his chest that never left when he was in Steve’s presence—never left when he thought about him. Which he did. Often. Tony was used to pain; his pain didn't matter.
Feeling a little lightheaded when he reached Steve, Tony took a long, slow breath of air that was clean and sweet, letting his stomach and chest expand with it. Clearing his throat loudly, Tony lowered himself to the pier and sat next to Steve. He mirrored his posture, folding his legs criss-cross and shifting on his sit bones until he was comfortable—and gave silent thanks that yoga kept him reasonably stretchy and flexible, even if he’d tiptoed past fifty a few years ago.
Nearby, perhaps from a tree across the glittering stretch of the lake, a bird sang, full-throated and pure. Thanos had stolen a lot from them and from the world. Too much. But there was still this. The birdsong rolled over Tony in a gentle wave; coaxed goosebumps from his skin. Another bird trilled back an answering melody—call and response—that penetrated the quiet but teeming pocket of space between Tony and Steve.
Shoving his hand into one of his front pockets, Tony rummaged around until his fingers snagged on something. He pulled out a small bag—reusable, of course, not plastic—stamped with multicolored butterflies and filled with goldfish crackers.
One of the many, many lessons he’d learned as the parent of a young child was that you never went anywhere without snacks; a hungry kid was often an angry one, and a hangry kid made for a miserable dad or mom. Tony shook a small mound of the orange crackers into his hand and held out his cupped palm toward Steve, leaning in until his knee grazed Steve’s thigh, an old tree tilting toward sunlight. “Goldfish?” he asked, chin angled as he slanted Steve a sidelong glance.