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When he arrived on Stark’s floor, the man was nowhere to be seen. He hesitated a bit before he stepped out of the elevator, aware that he was violating the man’s space and privacy to the extreme. This was something neither of them had done, just yet - as much as Stark went to great lengths to annoy him, he’d never trespassed onto his floor. Steve had returned the favor, figuring it was only fair.
But he gritted his teeth and caught the door just before it closed, stepping out. This was important. Stark had skipped the debrief after the battle again, coming up with some throwaway excuse that Steve couldn’t even remember. The man thought he was too good for the hum-drum parts of the job. As usual, he wanted to swoop in and do the superhero stuff and then leave before any of the clerical work started.
Well, too bad. Steve wasn’t going to let him get away with it this time. If he didn’t want to do the boring parts of their job, he’d be benched from the more exciting parts until he figured it out. Steve was going to tell him as much right now, while it was fresh.
Stark wasn’t in the living room, though Steve could tell he had been from the discarded suit that he wore under his armor. The shirt portion had been hastily stripped off and thrown to the ground. He sighed. Just like Stark to act like a teenager in that way. He probably had housekeepers that came to clean this sort of thing.
“Stark?” he called out. There was no answer. He frowned - maybe the man was asleep already. He took a deep breath and ventured farther into the floor, moving toward the man’s bedroom, not exactly sure why he was so dead set on this. He just wanted something to change.
He was halfway down the hall before he heard the man. He was swearing colorfully from inside a room Steve assumed was the bathroom. He crossed his arms, tapped his foot just outside the door. “Stark.”
A crash, followed by more cursing, was the only response. He rolled his eyes and opened the door, half expecting to find the man somehow plastered already –
But, wow. Okay. No. He wasn’t. Stark was on the ground, looking up at him with wide eyes, unguarded for just a split second – long enough for Steve to register that there was fear there. Real fear, something he didn’t think he’d ever seen on Stark’s face.
He had just enough time to take in the dark bruising and long cut on the man’s chest before the door was kicked closed in his face.
“What the fuck, Rogers?!” Stark’s voice was angry. Angrier than Steve had ever heard it. But it was also shaking violently. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Steve’s mouth opened. Closed. Opened again. “Stark? Are you-?”
“Get the fuck off my floor! Jesus!” He could hear the man struggle to get off the ground, his breath high and tight and pained. “Fucking shit.”
“I’m opening the door,” he warned, voice firm.
“No the fuck you aren’t - okay, yep. There you are. Fuck.”’
Stark was halfway propped up on the rim of the bathtub, his face ashen. He glared at Steve, gritting his teeth. “Cap, if you don’t mind. I’d really like some fucking privacy.”
Steve swallowed. Stark looked terrible. His chest was black and blue around the reactor, and the cut he’d seen earlier extended from his shoulder down to just under his opposite pectoral, the long line of it crossing the metal in his chest. One arm was hanging limply, the other shaking as it held his weight. The acrid smell of bile lingered in the room, though he’d obviously flushed the evidence.
He moved forward to help him up, and Stark flinched as he did so, eyes closing for a brief second. His breathing picked up, but Steve acted like he hadn’t noticed as he picked the man up from the ground and deposited him on the toilet seat like a sack of potatoes. Stark leaned up against the counter next to him with a groan.
“What is all that?”
Stark groaned again. He covered his face with one hand, rubbing his eyes. “It’s nothing. Jesus, Cap, would you just go? I’ve got this covered.”
Steve leaned against the back wall, crossing his arms. “You should be in medical.”
Stark shook his head, glaring at him. “No. I’m fine. I had everything under control till you scared the bejesus out of me and I-”
“Fell on the ground and couldn’t get up?”
That earned him the harshest glare yet. “I was already on the ground, and I was getting up fine.”
Steve looked at him skeptically. His eyes trailed to the man’s left arm, still hanging by his side. “Is your shoulder dislocated?” He kept his question carefully neutral.
Stark visibly struggled to come up with a lie, his face twitching. He couldn’t, which spoke to how tired he must have been. So he just looked up at the ceiling instead, his mouth pressed into a firm line. Steve could see the beginning of a nasty bruise on his cheek.
“When?”
Stark’s jaw was working. “... Right at the tail end of it all,” he finally admitted. “Fucking bot blew up and caught me, knocked one of my thrusters into overdrive, and bashed in my chest plate with the shrapnel on top of that. I grabbed something to stabilize and… yeah.”
Steve licked his lips. Stared at Stark’s carefully blank face, still turned away from him. “Want me to set it?”
The man looked at him suspiciously. “Thought you wanted me to go to medical?”
“Yeah, well. You’re not gonna do that,” Steve said, shrugging. He tried to sound nonchalant, well aware that Stark felt backed into a corner right now. His anger at the man had faded to nothing, for better or worse. Right now he just wanted to fix what was hurting his teammate.
But Stark wasn’t answering. He was just staring at him, calculations jumping back and forth behind his eyes – probably trying to figure out if Steve was being genuine.
“So…?”
Stark wrestled with himself for another few seconds, then sighed. He closed his eyes for a moment. “Uh. Yeah. Please.”
The man’s arm was hot and fragile under his hands, abruptly reminding him of how very human Tony was. He didn’t look up at his face, respecting his privacy as best he could.
“On three. One-”
Stark let out a sharp hiss that morphed into a curse at the last second as his shoulder returned to its proper place. “Goddammit.” He massaged the offending limb with his other hand, mouth pressed tight, water collecting in the corners of his eyes at the pain. He swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he said automatically. “What were you going to do if I hadn’t shown up?”
Stark scoffed. “Relocate it myself. I just -” he faltered for a second. “I was working up to it, okay?” he said defensively. “Wasn’t my top priority,” he added, quieter. He sounded tired.
Steve tried not to wince at the thought of doing something like that on your own. He’d done it once or twice, and it was incredibly painful. Difficult, because everything in your head was screaming at you to stop hurting yourself. He wondered how many times Stark had done that, if he was familiar with the process.
And he wondered what else he’d been dealing with, if that screaming agony hadn’t been his “top priority.”
“And that cut?” He squinted at it, and it was impossible to miss how Tony’s hand twitched up like he wanted to cover the bruised area around the reactor. He didn't, though.
Instead, he made an attempt at a nonchalant noise, waving his hand in a shoo motion. “Not deep. I’ve got it, Rogers. You can go now.”
It was probably meant to come out as dismissive, but it just sounded exhausted. A little more vulnerable than he’d undoubtedly intended. Steve took in the bags under the man’s eyes, the way his hand trembled as he folded his injured arm to his chest and held it there.
“If it’s all the same to you,” he said quietly, “I’d like to help.”
There was a long moment of silence where he thought that Stark would refuse. But then the man just slumped a bit, frowning, and nodded once. He wouldn’t meet Steve’s eyes, his face turned firmly away.
At the first dab of antiseptic, he jumped. “Jesus. Warn a guy,” he said, but it was a little strangled, not his normal brand of sarcasm and self-protective banter. Steve pressed his lips together and cleaned the length of the cut. Stark was right - it wasn’t deep. But it had to be painful. The longer he worked – and the closer he got to the reactor – the stiffer Stark got, till he was breathing fast and shallow, his hands gripping the seat of the toilet beneath him until they were as white as bone.
Steve wasn’t dumb enough to think it was only the pain that was causing that.
He closed the worst bits with some butterfly bandages that were scattered all over the counter, noting the way that Stark’s skin jumped under his touch, and moved back to give him some space. The man was overtired. They were all tired, after battles like that one, but this was exhaustion that ran bone-deep. Something that made Stark’s hands shake and his mouth shake too.
“I’m gonna go get you a shirt,” he said quietly, just an excuse to give the man some time to pull himself away from whatever dark place he was in. Stark didn’t respond. There was something blank in his gaze that Steve didn’t like – a thousand-yard stare, they used to call it.
It wasn’t hard to find the man’s bedroom. It was neater than Steve had anticipated – not much to look at, really. It was all clean lines and open space, windows making up an entire wall. His bed was large and plush and comfortable.
And it didn’t look slept in.
Steve cleared his throat. “Jarvis?”
“You should be able to find a suitable shirt in the closet directly to your right, Captain,” the AI replied immediately. “One of the ones on the far left should suffice.”
Steve picked a shirt at random, something soft and dark with a logo from a band he hadn’t gotten around to listening to yet. “Thanks.”
“Of course,” the AI said pleasantly. “Sir would probably appreciate a warm beverage of some sort as well,” he added cryptically, his tone giving away nothing. Steve just nodded. If there was anyone on earth who knew what Stark needed, it would be Jarvis. Even when Tony isolated himself from everyone, he confided in the AI – they all knew that.
Clint had cracked more than one joke about how Tony had to engineer a friend for himself in order to have any, and the memory made his stomach twist guiltily. If Stark felt like he couldn’t trust them, that was their fault. Not his.
By the time he returned to the bathroom, Stark had dropped his head down on the counter next to him, his eyes closed, his hand wrapped protectively over his injured upper arm.
“Stark?”
He blinked a few times blankly, pupils tiny pinpricks in the harsh bathroom light as he focused on Steve. “Did you just fall asleep?”
Stark laughed at that, then winced and held his hand over his chest, palm down. He touched the reactor gingerly. “No. Don’t think so. Don’t think I can.”
Steve frowned and Stark closed his eyes again, twisting his mouth. “Didn’t mean to say that. Didn’t mean to say that either. Shit,” his voice got lower. Dropped to a whisper. He rubbed his eyes again.
Steve handed him the shirt. Stark stared at it blankly, blinking owlishly. “What’s that?”
“Your shirt, Stark,” he said, concern creeping into his tone despite his best efforts. He decided not to remind Tony that he’d told him he was going to get it in the first place. It was clear he hadn’t heard.
Stark averted his gaze, his eyes darting away, but the rest of his expression was carefully flat. Steve sighed, setting it down on the counter when he still didn’t grab it – and Tony snatched it up immediately, wriggling into it with a grunt of pain. His shoulders dropped when it was on.
Right. He didn’t like to be handed things. Steve had figured that was just a rich man’s toddler-like preference, but now he wasn’t so sure. Tony was vulnerable right now, hardly in the state of mind to be petty – and he hadn’t even reminded Steve not to give it to him directly.
Steve crossed his arms, quiet for a moment. “What happened?” He wasn’t talking about his injuries, and they both knew it.
Stark shook his head minutely. “It’s just been a long day, Rogers.”
“It’s more than that.”
“I really don’t want to fight again,” he said, and it was honest and plaintive and tired, and Steve tried not to wince as Stark dropped his eyes to the ground. Ashamed to ask for that. To ask for peace. His defenses were so damn high that the second they weren’t at each other’s throats, he felt vulnerable. Exposed.
He swallowed. Sat down on the edge of the tub, careful not to let their legs touch. Still, they were so close that he could feel the warmth of his teammate through the material of his clothes. The man was still in his undersuit from the waist down, still dirt-smeared from battle. “Do you want to shower?”
“No.” The question was hardly out of his mouth before Tony was speaking, shaking his head. “Fuck no. That’s the last thing I need right now.”
He didn’t really understand what the man meant, but the rawness of his voice and the way his hands had clenched into fists were enough to tell him that he shouldn’t push. “Okay. Can you walk?”
He tried to keep the question light, but Stark scowled at him anyway, pushing himself off the toilet and into a credible standing position. He swayed but caught himself, hissing as he put pressure on his left arm.
“Let me-”
“Don’t touch me,” the man snapped, and Steve put his hands up and backed up a step, eyebrows raised. Stark’s chest was heaving, arm shaking as it held his weight. “Just – fuck, would you go?”
“Can’t,” he said simply, shaking his head. “I’m not going to leave a teammate in trouble. And we need to talk.”
Stark stared at him for a half-moment, mouth open. “I’m not - trouble? Fuck, Rogers, I’m just tired, okay? You can go. If you want to chew me out, it can wait till morning. I really don’t have it in me right now.”
“I’m not going to lecture you.”
The look on Stark’s face told him that the man very much doubted that, but he rolled his eyes with a forced bit of nonchalance and staggered out of the bathroom. He made it about as far as the opposite wall before he started to go down again, whatever strength he’d mustered gone.
Steve swooped under him and propped him up with his shoulder, eyes forward, mouth set in a firm line. Tony tried to wrench away from him, but he was trapped between the captain and the wall and couldn’t wriggle free. His voice was tight with panic “Cap-”
“You’re going to fall if I don’t help you.”
He tried to say it gently, but it came out gruff. Stark swallowed and looked away, and from this close Steve could see the way his pulse strained in his neck, the way sweat was breaking out on his forehead.
He maneuvered the man to the couch in the living room as quickly as possible, lowering him down carefully. As soon as he could, Stark shrank away from him, curling into the opposite side of the couch. He avoided meeting Steve’s eyes, and rather than offend him, it scared him. Tony wasn’t one to back down from a fight. Not like this.
He searched for something to say. He’d come up with the intention of chewing Stark out for missing another debriefing, for running off as soon as the battle was through. For the gruff way he’d pushed past Steve a few hours ago when the captain had tried to stand in his way, his eyes narrowed in anger as he hurled verbal abuse like Molotov cocktails. He’d pushed Steve into a shouting match in about 30 seconds flat and he’d been too pissed to think rationally afterward - no doubt Stark’s intention, since it let him slip away to his floor without being followed.
Now Steve was wondering how many other times Tony had played him like that. He felt a little stupid.
“You can stop babying me.” Stark still wasn’t looking at him. Instead, his eyes were fixed firmly on his hands. “I know it must be fun to have a look-see at me when I’m all… all dizzy and shit, but…”
He trailed off, the venom fading from his voice as Steve didn’t rise to the bait. “What do you want, Steve?” he sounded tired. Like he was expecting to be kicked while he was down.
Steve popped his knuckles, considering his words. “Do you want some coffee?”
The flicker of vulnerable surprise on Stark’s face was almost painful to look at. He stared at Steve for a moment, as if waiting for him to take it back.
“Um. Sure.”
He used his time in the kitchen to think about what he’d seen. Stark looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and the troubling thing was that Steve couldn’t remember if he’d looked like that before the battle as well. He had no way of knowing whether this was Tony’s general weariness after a battle, or if there had been something specific that had pushed him over the edge. Hesitantly, he settled on the latter - The man was jumpy. More averse to human contact than he already tended to be.
When he returned with two cups of coffee, Tony had obviously made an attempt to put himself back together. A blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, his hair a little smoother than it had been. His mask was back and Steve held back a sigh as he took a seat on the coffee table.
He set Stark’s cup down on the table, and the man eyed him. He hoped Stark wasn’t offended - he wasn’t going to mess up by trying to hand him the cup again, but he also didn’t want to look like he was wearing kiddie gloves.
“...Thanks,” he said suspiciously, hand snaking out to grab the mug and bring it close to his chest. The mask relaxed a fraction as he took a long gulp.
They sat there in silence until Stark couldn’t take it anymore - not a long time, predictably. “Still want to give me a speech?” He sounded almost hopeful. Clearly, he was ready to get back to their usual dynamic. Ready to stop being seen.
Steve’s mouth twisted. “No.”
Stark scowled at him. “Don’t think you have to hold back just ‘cause I’m…” he didn’t quite know how to finish, but his mouth twisted as he waved a hand at his body dismissively.
“You could have just told me you were injured,” he finally pointed out, the coffee warm between his palms. Stark rolled his eyes.
“It’s not that bad. I could have stayed if I wanted to, but I didn’t,” he jabbed, and it was so obvious now what he was trying to do. If he could get Steve yelling, there would be no chance of anything personal being discovered, no chance that he could make the man feel vulnerable.
Steve kept his face impassive, his tone carefully neutral and non-judgmental. “Do you want me to call Rhodes?”
He looked at Steve through narrowed eyes. “Why would you do that?”
The question was a dare. Steve took it. “You trust him. You obviously don’t trust me. You need someone to help you through… whatever this is,” he finished lamely.
“Wait,” Stark said, a question in his voice that told Steve his avoidance of the topic was due to genuine confusion and not manipulation, “you think I don’t trust you?”
Steve laughed humorlessly. “On the battlefield, sure. But with personal stuff?”
Stark looked away, his mask crumbling a little more. “You’re a good guy, Steve. I trust you just fine.” His mouth twitched. “Wouldn’t have let you, uh. Touch me at all just now, if I didn’t.” He squinted up at the ceiling as if there was something interesting there. “You wouldn’t even have been able to access my floor if I didn’t.”
He admitted it like it was something shameful, like he was sure he’d be mocked for it, but something warm sparked to life in Steve’s chest. “Then would you tell me what happened?”
Hands fiddling with the blanket around his shoulders, Tony pressed his lips together like he was afraid secrets would start spilling out if he didn’t.
“Can I guess?” Steve offered after a moment. “You just… tell me if I’m right or wrong.”
Tony snorted, but he still relaxed a bit. “Ooh, games. I like games. Okay Cap, you’re on. Hit me with your best shot.”
Steve felt a flicker of a smile on his face, to his surprise, but he pushed it down. Now was not the time for levity. “I think you had a panic attack.”
The ease that had settled over the man vanished like a tablecloth ripped from underneath dishes and he leaned away. He looked angry, but under that was something more raw. “I think your chest got injured in the blast and that brought up some bad memories. I think you picked a fight on purpose so you could deal with it on your own, up here.”
Tony bit his cheek nervously. He didn’t confirm anything, but he didn’t deny it either.
“And I think you’re afraid that I’m going to judge you for all of that. That I’m going to think you’re weak, or not capable of doing Avengers business.”
The older man closed his eyes. His mouth was shaking a bit, and the uncharacteristic silence made something heavy twist in Steve’s gut. He gave him some time to pull himself together.
When he opened his eyes something blank and hard had taken the place of his vulnerability. He pulled his hands into his lap with a slow, measured movement. “You can’t stop me from being Iron Man.”
The words were cold. Matter of fact. He’d already come to the conclusion that Steve was going to try and bench him, to kick him from the team. And he hated that he’d not really given Tony a reason to think otherwise.
“I’m not going to try.”
Tony deflated like he’d popped him with a pin, the bravado hissing out of him. “You’re not?”
“No. None of that makes you weak, Tony. It just makes you human.”
He covered his face with his hand, a short, painful laugh bubbling out of him. “That’s not… really what I expected you to say.”
“That’s pretty obvious.”
He rubbed his chin with his hand, guilt squirming insistently in his stomach. How long had Stark been dealing with this on his own? “You’re not the only one who has baggage, you know. You don’t have to keep it a secret. We all deal with things like this.”
“Yeah, but none of you freak out over a papercut.” The words were bitter, and even though they were hardly apt to describe Stark’s injury the man obviously believed them. “What was I supposed to say?” He grimaced, mocking his own voice in a dismissive way – “Hey guys, not to freak you out or anything, but I’m about to have one hell of a gasping-crying-breakdown! So if you wouldn’t mind, I’m gonna go up to my room for a little privacy. Oh, and don’t worry, there’s nothing actually wrong, I’m just freaking out over something that happened almost a decade ago.” His voice cracked at the end.
His eyes were wet.
Steve shook his head slowly. “Would you judge Banner for panicking at the sight of a needle in his skin? Or Barton, for flashbacks of Loki?” He sighed. “Would you judge me for breaking down over falling in the snow?”
Tony pressed his hands to his eyes, hiding them. He huffed out a self-deprecating laugh. “No. Of course I wouldn’t. But it’s not the same-”
“Yeah it is, Tony,” he insisted gently. “We’re all a little screwed up, okay? We’ve all had a rough go of it. You’ve dealt with things that I can’t even imagine,” he said softly, eyeing the glowing reactor pulsing in the man’s chest under his shirt, “and it’s okay to lose it, every once in a while.”
Tony worked his jaw like he was searching for more ways to tear himself down. But then his mouth twisted to the side in a bitter little smile as he looked down at his hands, loose and open in his lap. “You know, you’re nothing like what my old man described. The lying bastard.”
Steve blinked. Howard had been his friend, one of the closest ones – what had he told Tony that didn’t match up? “And what did he tell you about me?”
Stark shook his head. “Oh, he got some things right. Annoying boy scout attitude, check. Hero complex? Check.” His voice was flat, and for whatever reason Steve didn’t take offense like he normally would have. Maybe it was because it was clear that Tony was trying to get control of the situation again, get control of himself.
“But, man. He sure got the ‘real men don’t talk about their feelings’ shtick wrong. He’s probably rolling in his grave right now, knowing he missed you coming back. Knowing that, instead, his ain’t-shit son just spent the last hour having a fucking panic attack right in front of you.” He shook his head. “He always said that if he found you, he wouldn’t have let you near me. He’d be too embarrassed of his pansy ass son for that – he probably wanted a kid who… I don’t know. Ate roofing nails or caught bullets with their teeth or whatever the fuck it was real men did back in the day.”
He’d never given much thought to what kind of father Howard might have been, preferring instead to remember him as he’d been in Steve's time. Eager, intelligent, patriotic to a fault. Perhaps a little single-minded, sometimes. Perhaps a little… cold.
Steve stared at him, and Stark laughed at his silence, the sound a little strangled. “You know, when I first met you, I was so down to hate you it wasn’t even funny. ‘Cause if you were anything like my dad had said, you’d have been a real asshole.”
“... And then?”
Stark laughed again. “And then, you were nothing like that. But in three seconds flat, I pushed your buttons so hard that you hated my fucking guts. Score one for pops,” he added, snorting.
Steve blinked, taken aback. “I never hated you, Tony.”
Tony waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, of course you did. I gave you every reason to.” His mouth twisted to the side. It was obvious he was leaving things unsaid, but he added, “Still giving you plenty of reasons to.”
It sounded like he was giving Steve an out. A reason to leave, to forget this conversation had happened.
Steve looked at the man in front of him carefully. His shoulders were hunched, his head still in his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Tony’s head jerked up. He stared at Steve, his mouth slightly open. “You’re… huh?”
“I said I’m sorry,” he repeated slowly. “I haven’t been a very good teammate to you. Haven’t been a very good friend.”
Tony’s eyebrows drew together, confusion all over him. “That’s not what I’m saying, Steve–”
“I know.” Steve’s mouth twisted guiltily. “I know you aren’t. But if you really think I hate you after all this time, Tony, then I’ve really fucked up.”
Tony blinked at the expletive. He opened his mouth, closed it. “I annoy the everloving shit out of you,” he said blankly.
“Yes,” Steve agreed evenly. “But you also always have my back. You always look out for the team, you work your ass off to keep us safe and healthy. You’ve given us all a place to call home.” As he spoke, the truth of his words washed over him. “And, in return, we’ve made you feel alone. Made you feel like you had to come upstairs and be by yourself and in pain when you should have been able to ask for support.”
Tony’s face twisted with some emotion he was trying to hold down. “I got trust issues that could sink a helicarrier, Cap,” he said, something a little rough in his voice. “Believe me, that wasn’t all you.”
“But at least some of it was.” Steve sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “So, yeah. I’m sorry.”
When he finally made himself look over at Tony, he could see that the man was processing what he’d said - tellingly slowly, for someone as smart as Tony was. His face was a little blank, like he couldn’t wrap his mind around someone apologizing to him. Couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that they weren’t fighting right now, that Steve wasn’t chewing him out over some breach in decorum or throwaway sarcastic comment.
“This… is not how I expected this to go,” he finally said, laughing a little. He sounded almost relieved, if a little bewildered. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for being such an ass.”
“Apology accepted,” Steve said diplomatically, though he didn’t feel that Tony had much to apologize for.
He stood up and brushed off his pants, extending a hand. “Now, let’s go to medical, okay? You need a sling for that arm.”
Tony snorted.
But he put his hand in Steve’s anyway.