Work Text:
“It isn’t New York, but it sure as hell isn’t New Mexico either, you know what I mean?”
Tony rolled his eyes and turned his scotch to avoid the giant ice cube. Jane only needed him to grunt and hum at the appropriate times to get this whole lovey-dovey tale out of her system, neither of which required much attention. So Tony played along while mulling over the latest test results. Dum-E was learning, but he struggled with passive observational learning, so if Tony could only—
“Tony? You aren’t, right?”
The question clearly wasn’t a grunter or a hummer, and it caught Tony off-guard. He blinked back at her. “No?”
Jane long, silent stare made it clear just how unimpressive his lack of attention was.
“You aren’t going to die alone, are you?” she repeated. “Bruce found someone, I’m dating a doctor with the body of a god—”
“Yeah, not gonna believe anything you say about that guy until I see his dick myself,” Tony reminded her, which he said often enough that Jane either waved him off, or assured him it might even happen some day. Apparently, Thor loved saunas.
“I used to be like you, too: the science always came first, publications and figuring out - well, everything, but Thor isn’t getting in the way of that, it’s just different now. I promise, it only gets better when you have someone to share it with.”
“…you do realize you’ve only been dating him three months, right?”
“Time is relative,” Jane reminded him with hearts in her eyes. “Pepper’s engaged, James is dating an amazing woman… you’ll graduate in seven months and what will you have to show for it? A robot?”
“An award winning robot and my pick of any career in the Western Hemisphere,” Tony drawled, but evidently, Jane was impossible to impress anymore.
“You know, a friend of a friend told me about this guy, Justin, he sounded great for you. Why don’t you let me set you up? He’s interested in engineering, too, and he loves to dance—”
“I don’t need you or your friend of a friend to set me up with anyone, thank you,” Tony firmly pointed out. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I get plenty of dates on my own.”
“…no you don’t.”
“Uh, look at me?” Tony felt the need to point out, “I’ve got the skin and ass of an undergrad, with the brains, the grant funding, and career prospects any grad student would dream of, sooo yeah, why don’t you back off? It’s not exactly difficult for me to find someone. Or did you assume I tell you every detail of my life?”
“Sorry,” Jane giggled, snorting softly with every inhale. “But Tony, come on. Who are you trying to convince? I don’t know what’s more depressing: Sylvia Plath or your love-life. You don’t leave your workshop, you don’t let friends set you up, and when we do manage to trick you into it, you always fixate on some stupid problem so you don’t have to see them again. You didn’t like the last guy because his palms were sweaty, remember?”
“God, don’t remind me,” Tony shuddered involuntarily. “I’m never forgiving you for setting me up with him, I hope you know that. All I want is a regular guy, it’s not that complicated. Someone who’ll randomly bring me pizza and squeeze my ass now and then. Is that too much to ask for?”
As Jane listened, her exasperated look calmed into a gentle smile. Tony knew it was friendship and kindness, but a deeply insecure part of him still continued to whisper, she pities you…
“Maybe Justin can be that guy for you,” she said softly, “you won’t know unless you give him a chance. One date won’t hurt. We could even do a double—”
“No! No, no, and—absolutely not,” Tony insisted in a rush, because that wasn’t a mistake he was willing to make twice. “Your boyfriend is disgusting and has no boundaries. And,” he added quickly, “You can pocket all your single gay acquaintances, because I’m already seeing someone.”
Jane rolled her eyes and gave him a look. “No, you’re not.”
“Yeah, I am,” Tony shot back, a paragon of maturity. “He’s actually at the bar with his friends, we’re getting together later tonight. It’s really new still,” Tony added quickly, “or I’d introduce you.”
“…Tony Stark, are you lying to me?”
“Scout’s honor,” Tony promised, which wasn’t technically a lie since he’d never been a Boy Scout in the first place (right?). “He… he’s a good guy. If we get to a month, you’ll be the first to meet him - unless Rhodey’s in town, of course.”
Jane eyed him, and while she was clearly still skeptical, Tony could see that the idea had taken root. He smiled into his drink as he took another sip. Always trust a romantic to fall for genuine attempts at romance; in one impulsive sweep, Tony earned himself at least one month of peace before he and his ‘boyfriend’ parted amicably, at which point Jane would give him a week or two to grieve his loss —
“Who is he?”
Tony choked on his scotch - the alcohol wasn’t nearly as smooth coming back up, and Jane pounded Tony on his back to help him clear his throat enough to breathe.
With tears in his eyes, Tony croaked out a meek, “What?”
“I get it if you don’t want me to meet him yet,” Jane prefaced this time, “but I’m curious, Tony! Who is it? Point him out!”
“No! That’s what anon—”
Jane cut him off with a single, cool look. “Point him out.”
Shit shit shit. She wasn’t kidding around, and the last thing Tony needed was his only friend in town to be angry with him. Fuck fuck fuck. He took another minute to clear his throat, furtively casting around for any man who could plausibly pass for a man whom Tony would be interested in and —
Tony’s world stopped spinning the minute he laid eyes on him. Tall, broad-shouldered, and so damn hot Tony could feel himself salivating at the same time as his whole mouth ran dry.
“That’s him,” he whispered, jerking his chin in the direction of a blond Adonis who stood around a tall table with his friends, laughing and having a great time. God, even his smile was breath-taking.
“…Steve Rogers?”
Tony stared at her. He couldn’t tell what was worse: that he was about to be caught out in his own lie, or that she had known of such a specimen and failed to hook him up. And she called herself his friend??
“You know him?”
“Sort of,” Jane said quietly, watching him carefully as if trying to decide if it was really him. Ironically, it wasn’t until Steve turned his back fully that she smiled knowingly. “Yeah, that’s him alright. He works with Thor at the hospital.”
“He’s a doctor?” Tony asked, miserably. The competition for high-income, high-status men was cutthroat business, and given his tantalizing attributes, the chances that this Steve Rogers was on the market were slim to none.
“No, he’s in admin,” Jane explained, too busy taking in the perfectly decadent view to notice the kaleidoscope of emotions flickering across Tony’s face. “Higher up in management; Thor said he’s basically the guy who makes the pediatric department go.”
“Oh,” Tony managed, as astute as ever. Even better: high-pay, high-status gorgeous man who didn’t even bend over to the stress and crazy work hours doctors had to deal with. He was probably already married to some equally stunning trophy wife who spent all her time with personal trainers at Equinox or eating sashimi for breakfast or swimming in lemon peels to maintain her glossy coat (skin).
“I didn’t know he was gay,” Jane admitted, audibly miffed. Before Tony had any reason to feel jealous or angry at her for wanting to hog all the beefy blonds, she quickly clarified, “if I’d known, I’d gotten you his number months ago. But I’m glad you met him!” she added with a bright smile, both relieved and excited. “Was he nice?”
“A real gentleman,” Tony promised, or at least that’s what he guessed judging by the way Steve laughed and listened attentively to his friends, didn’t shy away from eye-contact, and exuded a relaxed confidence with every delectable, well-defined muscle in his body. (Or, what of it Tony could see through his fitted Henley anyway.) “Great listener, even better story-teller.”
“…no,” Jane said when no more information was forthcoming. She gave him a meaningful look. “Was he nice?”
It was embarrassing how long Tony took to realize what she meant.
“First of all, none of your business: I don’t kiss and tell,” Tony told her, scandalized by the mere suggestion that he’d ever share such information.
The act lasted all of five seconds.
“Fantastic kisser,” Tony guessed, hypnotized from across the room by the tempting curve of Steve’s smile, his full bottom lip, and the sly mischief revealed in his smirk. His wife was a lucky woman and Tony implicitly hated her, just a little.
“Incredible body. A great dick, solid John Legend.”
Jane didn’t even try to interpret what that meant. “A what?”
“A John Legend?” Tony repeated in case she’d misheard, but when she didn’t look any less confused, he cast around for a way to explain. “Impressive in every way, but never threatening.”
Tony watched as Jane processed the metaphor with the same care as when she came across a new finding in astrophysics.
“Then Thor’s a Jason Mamoa,” Jane informed him, not without pride. “Big and intimidating, but it only makes you want him more.”
“Again: Not believing a word until I see it myself,” Tony reminded his impish friend. His damn lucky friend.
“Speaking of: I miss my Jason Mamoa,” Jane decided, finishing the last of her beer and sliding off her stool. “Let’s get out of here - I’m just gonna run to the ladies room.”
She didn’t need to finish the sentence, Tony simply nodded and promised he’d keep an eye on her bag until she got back. For a second, he wondered if he could make it over to Steve Rogers and test the waters before Jane got back - if nothing else, to confirm that he was straight so Tony wouldn’t lose sleep imagining that broad, powerful back bearing down on him, or those beautiful, expressive lips wrapped around his cock. Tony’s measly string of exes may have been passable in bed, but none of them had the natural charisma Steve casually exuded with his friends, with the brave women approaching him (and his not unattractive friends), or with Jane. Steve had a friendly smile to spare for everyone, and Tony was so caught up in his fantasies that his eventual double-take when he realized Steve was talking to Jane left him reeling with vertigo.
Sweat broke out across Tony’s forehead. He watched as Steve Rogers scanned the people sitting at the bar over Jane’s shoulder until Tony caught his eye.
With his heart lodged in his throat, Tony stared back, unblinking, as Steve grinned at him and winked. Winked. The tackiest form of communication, and yet Tony felt it all through his body, fluttering in his poor heart and curling his toes.
Tony couldn’t make out what they were saying and (tragically) he couldn’t read lips, but it didn’t escape him that Steve never frowned or shook his head no. He was smiling and laughing with Jane, and at one point even pulled out his phone as if to confirm the time.
An eternity passed before Jane made any effort to extricate herself from the handsome band of young men. Slowly, Tony dared to breathe again; there was only so long a man could maintain a look of ‘casual sexy apathy’ for a stranger’s passive study before an itchy nose ruined the whole image.
Except Jane wasn’t leaving alone. Steve was grabbing his leather jacket off the chair he hadn’t bothered to sit in once and followed Jane through the crowd - back to Tony!
“This is what I get for trusting you, is it?” Tony heard himself say to Jane, mostly because it was easier to be mad at her than to acknowledge how close Steve was now. How could a man be that sexy without exploding? Dollars to donuts, a man like that would turn out to be an asshole, a bore, or both.
“You did say you had plans to hook up later, and since I’m leaving,” Jane explained, shrugging off the rest of the sentence.
“You lasted longer than I did,” Steve told Tony before he took his palpable embarrassment out on his soon-to-be-ex-friend. “I couldn’t help it, I told my friends about our date an hour ago. I had a really great time with you, Tony.”
He looked right at Tony when he spouted the most sincere, kind-hearted, bullshit known to man—he sounded so earnest, too, that Tony nearly believed him! Jane swooned vicariously, then beamed at Tony with a smile to rival the brightest stars.
“Do you have any plans for the weekend?” Jane asked, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her excitement. “Because if you don’t, we could do a double date! Maybe go bowling?”
She was no better than the child who pitted one parent against the other, but Steve didn’t miss a step.
“I actually did have some plans in mind,” he told her apologetically. “We haven’t had a chance to talk about it yet, but the Gardner Museum is celebrating 25 years of Artist-in-Residence with music, dance, food, and an art class.”
“Oh, wow—no, hey, another time, that sounds amazing. I’m so relieved,” she admitted to Steve with a smile, “Tony has a tendency to put his work before everything else, and I was worried you were just going along with it for the sex or taking advantage of him—”
“Never,” Steve promised, but Jane continued without so much as acknowledging his answer.
“Because he’s one of my best friends and I just hate to see him hurt. And you know how much Thor hates it when I’m upset,” she told him with a childlike innocence that did nothing to conceal her very real and very serious threat to his person.
“Not that it’s anyone’s business besides mine and Tony's,” Steve replied, cooler than any man threatened with Thor’s vengeance had any right to be. “But everything I’ve learned about Tony only makes me want to know him better. And maybe someday we can find the time to go out, the four of us?”
“Absolutely!” Jane smiled back in triumph and quickly gathered her things. “Your secret is safe with me,” she told them both quickly, “even James. I’ll see you later—have a good night!”
Tony watched her go, but the moment she was out of earshot, all of his attention turned to Steve.
“I can’t believe… you,” he tried to say, staggering over multiple thoughts and feelings at the same time - to Steve’s obvious delight. “She wouldn’t stop trying to set me up, I didn’t know she knew you, I swear.”
“I thought it was something like that,” Steve admitted, and Tony could have basked in his twinkling smile and irrepressible amusement for hours. “I’ve never seen color drain from someone’s face so quickly before in my life.”
Tony’s stomach dropped and he cringed with his whole body. If only the world would open up and swallow him whole so he wouldn’t have to continue the world’s most embarrassing conversation with the world’s most handsome man!
In lieu of being absorbed into the earth’s crust of fellow half-wits, Tony gave himself two seconds to freak out by curling in on himself and rubbing his hands over his face, but then he took a deep breath and quickly sat up in his seat.
“Let me get you the rest of your drinks tonight,” Tony begged, “let me make this up to you.”
Steve’s grin gentled into a thoughtful smile as he considered Tony. “How about a beer and your company? Here, I mean,” he quickly clarified, lest Tony think he wanted sex to make up for any perceived slights.
“…really?”
“If you’re interested,” Steve said more carefully. “I’m happy to tell her we didn’t work out—”
“Wait, no—let’s not jump to conclusions!” Tony decided quickly before Steve finished his offer to play the failed boyfriend. He pulled out what had been Jane’s chair recently, indicating for Steve to get comfortable. “Please. Order anything you like, it’s on me. And hi, my name is Tony Stark.”
“Hi, Tony,” Steve said with a smile, leaning back comfortably in his seat. “I’m Steve. Before anything else, I gotta ask: is this a typical night out for you?”
Tony didn’t know whether to laugh or crawl under the bar and hide. “Typical? I just pretended to be seeing a complete stranger in a bar to avoid telling my friend how pathetic my dating life has been the last six months, and just so happened to pick the only person in a sea of people whom she knew, and you want to know if this is typical?”
“You have to admit, it would be a pretty smooth pick-up move,” Steve said with an impish grin. “It’s not every day the sexiest man in the bar randomly picks me out of a sea of people to be fake dating.”
“Then you’re clearly not going to the right places,” Tony teased him with a deadpan delivery despite the blush warming his cheeks. “What’s more your speed, anyway? Are you a one-night stand guy or a real dating guy?”
“Honestly? I prefer the dating,” Steve said without having to think twice. “You?”
“Same,” Tony admitted, dropping the poker face to smile at Steve. The whole situation still felt insane, but Steve smiled back in a way that left Tony feeling buoyant and excited in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. “I’m looking for a guy who’ll stick around, bring me pizza every once in a while, and lovingly squeeze my ass.”
Steve threw back his head with a laugh, and Tony found himself wishing it would go on forever. As his laughter quieted into tickled chuckles and a delighted smile, Steve settled more comfortably, watching Tony as if they were the only two people in the crowded bar.
“I think that’s a very good place to start.”