Chapter Text
Tony has a system of rules. He worked it out a decade ago.
First, no school reunions.
The only one worth meeting from school was a certain Steve Rogers, and as much of a masochist as Tony can sometimes be, he already sees Steve often enough each week to fulfil his pain quota.
Second, when Steve brings home a new date, don’t panic until they pass the six-month mark.
None of them have reached beyond four months, which – Tony thinks with no small amount of bittersweet pride – is two months less than how long Steve had been willing to bear with Tony. (And even if anyone managed to outlast Steve’s time with Tony, Tony has no right to deny Steve his happiness just because Tony never deserved that happily ever after).
Third, if Tony ever thinks of those six months when he had woken up in Steve’s arms, safe in the warmth of their home, then Tony plays Back in Black.
He drowns his thoughts out until all he can hear is the thundering drums that rattle against his heart, until he can forget, for even the slightest moments, that either of them existed.
Admittedly, that second rule was harder to follow than the others, but Tony has been getting better at it. Most days, sleeping starts to get easier, the world stops blurring away, he will be able to smile at Steve without the long shadows of their fights looming over them.
And yet, some days, when he sees Steve kissing another woman with all the gentleness that used to belong to Tony, the regret cloys thick in his lungs again, sending him reeling with all the weight of promises broken.
Those days, Tony will fly the armor, higher and higher until it strains its limits, no matter that the more he flies, the faster the poison crawls through his blood.
But he supposes that if he can survive with literal shrapnel clawing at his heart, he can survive the shrapnel of this love too.
Take deep breaths. Follow the rules.
Everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.
(Except, Tony’s never been quite good with rules.)
(Neither is Steve.)
“Is everything a joke to you?” Steve snaps.
The whirring of the helicarrier is a distant hum, barely noticeable beneath their tension. Tony takes out his packet of blueberries and offers it to Bruce first. It was vengefully childish, but if Steve apparently wanted to strike low blows, Tony wasn’t going to restrain himself.
“Funny things are,” Tony smiles.
And really, wasn’t his life the funniest joke there was? It kept pitting him back against Steve at the most inopportune moment, whether it was as fellow students or as a superhero and a former Army Captain.
Maybe this was how they were meant to fit, Steve on the other side of every argument.
“Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn’t funny,” he insists. Irritatingly polite as ever, Steve adds, “no offense, Bruce.”
“No, it’s fine. You know I wouldn’t have come here if I couldn’t handle Tony.”
Tony smirks, vindicated. “You need to strut, Bruce.”
“And you need to focus on the problem, Tony,” Steve doubles down on his orders.
“You think I’m not?” Tony hurls the words back at him. He had no right to tell Tony to do anything, not anymore, and not ever again. “Why did Fury call us and why now? I can’t do the equation unless I have all the variables.”
Something flickers in Steve’s eyes, hanging between reluctance and revelation, but the hard set to his jaw had loosened the tiniest bit, and Tony knew he had won this fight. Even if Steve didn’t always believe him, he had always had faith in Tony’s abilities.
That, at least, had never changed, no matter how hard they fought or how Tony felt about it.
Most days, he felt the bitter taste of possibilities lost. Now, he was grateful for it.
“You think Fury’s hiding something?” Steve rolls the words around, weighing them.
Tony nods sharply. “Aren’t we all?”
It was a petty jab at the web of lies Steve had built around them, the betrayal and shattered trust, but it was one that Tony knew would work in driving his point further home, tipping the scales in his favour.
Bruce glances uneasily between the two of them, the sudden silence jarring.
Then, Steve returns the nod, clearly reluctant.
“What’s your plan?”
“Blueberry?” Tony offers him instead, an olive branch to soften the blow.
But if Tony knew Steve, it was also true that Steve knew Tony, and he glared at him. “You hacked the mainframe, didn’t you?”
“And you’re planning to snoop in the armory,” Tony doesn’t miss a beat. “So take that frown away from me and aim it at someone else.”
Steve stares him down for another second before he heads to the door, not bothering to deny what they both know to be true.
“Don’t blow anything up before I come back.”
Tony glares at his retreating back. “Don’t give me a reason to!” he yells.
If Steve heard, he gave no indication, and Tony huffs unsatisfied, turning to Bruce. “Can you believe I nearly married that guy?”
Bruce shakes his head.
Then shrugs.
Then nods.
They meet because Steve receives a scholarship from the boarding school Howard banished Tony to. Tony thought it was the height of comedy: Howard wanted Tony to meet the higher ups of society, but a skinny little boy from Brooklyn comes along, with no money and no name and no fame.
Tony didn’t realise yet that the joke might actually be on him.
But Steve is fifteen and Tony is thirteen.
Steve is too angry for his own good and Tony is too smart for his own age, and when they meet in the autumn of 1983, they clash in the worst of ways.
“Stop making the gardener’s life harder,” Steve crosses his arms when he finds Tiberius, Sunset, and Tony pulling out flowers in the garden. This isn’t the first time he’s stood toe to toe against them.
If Tony were to be entirely honest, he enjoyed goading Steve into a fight because it felt nice to know that there was still someone who cared enough to be angry. Howard and Obie made sure that Tony stayed close to Ty and far away from Steve, so while picking fights wasn’t the best way to befriend somebody, it is the only way he can scout out whether Steve is worth the hassle of sneaking around.
It’s a burning curiosity that Tony can’t quell – the same fascination that he had when he poked a finger into the fireplace.
Except, now he doesn’t have Jarvis to quickly pull him away from the fire, and he stares wide-eyed as Steve crosses his arms stubbornly.
“Run along,” Ty tries to usher the smaller boy away. “This is none of your business.”
“Ruining other people’s lives just because you can shouldn’t be your business either,” Steve doesn’t budge an inch, standing between the flowerbeds and the trio.
The school’s ancient buildings tower over his scrawny form, making him look even smaller.
Tony wonders distantly whether normal people were as recklessly stubborn as Steve. At this point, Steve most likely believes that Tony is an ass, which Jarvis says is honestly true. Except, Jarvis calls Tony that fondly, and Steve would most likely mean it in the rudest sense of the word.
Sunset cocks her head to one side. Most people would inch away at the sharpness of her smile.
Steve does not.
It’s a trend, a repeated experiment to confirm the consistency of the truth. Tony is, first and foremost, a scientist. He prods at things to figure out how they work. Sometimes, things blow up.
But he watches, he takes notes, lets the pieces of the puzzle fall together until he understands.
He stands aside as Sunset’s lips twist into a sneer. When she speaks, her tone is all prim and proper despite her words – their upbringing demands decorum, especially in hostility, and Sunset is nothing if not her parents’ perfect daughter.
“Steve, be a dear and get yourself a sandwich. I don’t know what your mother taught you about respect or feeding yourself.”
There are days that Tony wishes it were easier for him to be Howard’s perfect son. And there are days that his curiosity flares brighter than that. Today, as he sees something dangerous flash in Steve’s eyes, he finds that the curiosity wins.
“None of you know anything about feeding yourselves,” Steve snaps back without any polish, only pure rage and righteousness.
It’s fascinating as much as it’s infuriating, because it throws off the entirety of Tony’s findings on the other boy.
See, Tony’s notes go something like this:
- Steve is smart and talented. He must be to get a full ride scholarship to this school.
- Ridiculously stubborn. Has very loud opinions too.
- The school nurse who treated Tony’s scrapes after an unfortunate lab incident said Steve was the only other student as injury-prone as Tony. Tony takes that as a personal challenge to beat his record.
- Steve’s art must be amazing because the Headmaster had talked about it.
- Whenever Steve passes any of the staff in the halls, he will smile and greet them. Therefore, despite whatever upbringing kept Steve hopelessly skinny, he knew his manners and politeness.
- Tony has seen Steve carry a spider in a cup to release it into the wild. Steve must be kind. Or insane. Because spiders.
- Remember when Tony said Steve was smart? That needs revision. Because Steve is apparently a reckless idiot who has a death wish.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens next.
Ty throws another insult at Steve, and Steve throws one right back. Sunset manages to stop them before any punches fly.
The flowers are forgotten, Tony has to bear with Ty’s angry mutterings for the rest of the week, but he finds that it’s an educational experience.
Tony thinks he should stop pushing, now, but Tony’s never been one to leave well enough alone.
And he’s always been drawn to the forbidden.
Steve is in the arts program, Tony in the science program. That means, most days, they don’t cross paths unless they intend to. The one possible room for them to meet unintentionally is the art studio, where the school’s grand piano is located alongside various easels for painting, where all students can spend their spare time practicing the boring arts of high society.
Tony has no patience staking out the studio.
“Who are you writing to?”
“How the hell did you get in here?”
Steve scrambles to cover the papers on his desk. Tony steps closer to his chair.
Getting in wasn’t the hard part. Younger than everyone, Tony is small and growing thinner now that Jarvis can’t sneak pies onto his plate.
Besides, slipping through the hallways after curfew to get to Steve’s room is child’s play compared to sneaking into Howard’s workshop. Picking the lock is a little trickier, but nothing that can stop Tony, especially when he’s descended on a warpath for answers.
He adds two more lines to his list.
- Steve isn’t always polite. (He curses sometimes!)
- The room is boring. No décor. Nothing on the walls.
Then, Tony answers with his best attempt at innocence. “Through the door, of course.”
“Perfect,” Steve replies flatly. “Then you know the way out.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“Why are you here?”
Tony shrugs. He honestly doesn’t know.
Between Ty and Sunset being exhausting over their obsession about Teen Vogue’s latest issue – Tony doesn’t care if they’re featured on the covers or not – and Tony’s own abysmally lacking list about Steve’s behavioural anomalies, he supposes he’s here because he doesn’t know what Steve is up to, and the questions are slowly chipping away at his sanity.
Also, he’d like to clarify that he has no ill intentions. That’s the hard part. And the longer Steve glares at him, the harder it feels.
“I feel like we should start over.” Diplomatic. Obie says being approachable is good. “I’m Tony Stark.”
Steve looks supremely unimpressed. “Yes, you’re Tony Stark. And just because you’re younger, smarter, richer than everyone, it doesn’t excuse you from acting callously to the staff or from barging into my room.”
“Are you going to let me explain?”
“No.”
Well. Tony had been expecting that answer. He’s also noticed, however, that Steve isn’t forcefully removing him from the room, which means that Steve doesn’t wholly want Tony to leave.
“Okay,” Tony easily says.
He walks over to the window and perches at its sill, taking the time to notice the smaller details that had escaped him. There was a sketch of a woman pinned to the wall next to Steve’s bed, and beside it, a crude drawing of a grinning, long-haired boy.
Beneath the pictures was a small stack of three well-worn books.
The walls themselves are plain. Above the customary wardrobe installed in each room is a small suitcase. Tony frowns at it for a bit, wondering how Steve had climbed to put it up there, and whether all of Steve’s belongings really could fit in such a small space.
Sneaking a glance outside the window, Tony finds himself peering out onto the moonlit woods secluding the school from the rest of the world. If Steve wanted to play this game of stubbornness, Tony was more than ready to out-stubborn him.
“This is actually a pretty nice view here,” he amicably observes. “A bit quiet. I get a view of the front lawn. Do you think they’d let me switch rooms with you? It’d be a nice change.”
A few beats of silence pass. Steve breaks first, clearly disgruntled by his own impatience.
“Is everything a joke to you?”
His chin juts out defensively, growing more doubtful of Tony’s presence.
“Life’s easier when you’re laughing,” Tony says honestly.
He doesn’t understand why Howard or Obie frowned so much, but Ana and Jarvis were always happy. A bright side to everything, young sir, Jarvis liked to remind him, distracting him from the echoing hallways of the mansion.
That doesn’t seem to be an acceptable answer for Steve. “Why do you suddenly care so much?”
“I don’t know you well,” Tony shrugs, pretending. Steve doesn’t like him, but Tony’s attended enough parties and been taught how to get others to talk. Gaze darting to the blank canvases, he asks an easier question. “You draw much?”
“Look,” Steve scowls, “I’m not interested in joining you and your group. You don’t need to pretend to care. You never have.”
That hurts more than it should have. But at least Steve isn’t kicking Tony out or reporting him. Yet.
“You’re smart,” Tony decides to do this bluntly if Steve won’t react to more diplomatic approaches. “You know going to this school is an opportunity of a lifetime. Why are you trying to get yourself kicked out?”
“What?”
“We both know you heard me perfectly fine.”
He meets Steve’s eyes head on, refusing to be intimidated. He realises, belatedly, that if he had wanted to befriend Steve, he shouldn’t antagonize him, maybe start with an actual apology. But Tony’s mind had jumped ahead several steps, and it was too late to back down now.
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Tony huffs, annoyance returning to him. He didn’t keep Ty and Sunset away from Steve just to be belittled. “I’m a MENSA certified genius. Highest score ever. Why wouldn’t I understand?”
“Exactly because of what you just said.”
“Then enlighten me.”
“I don’t like bullies.”
Scoffing, Tony shakes his head. “There’re going to be bullies in any school you go to. Are you going to get yourself kicked out of all schools?”
“Doesn’t matter. Bullying is wrong.”
Jarvis and Aunt Peggy had said that too, Tony considered the answer, but it made no sense. The variables weren’t all there yet.
“Not why you’re trying to get yourself kicked out of here, though,” he tries to steer them back to the question at hand. “You have no friends here. Your books are barely unpacked. You’ve decided you’re not here to stay.”
“I have no friends because your friends made sure everyone stayed away from me,” Steve challenges, “and my books aren’t unpacked. Those are the only books I have.”
“Doesn’t the scholarship give you pocket money?”
“I’m saving it,” Steve defiantly replies, almost daring Tony to mock him.
The concept of saving money was foreign to Tony, but Tony did hoard the spare parts he could squirrel away from Howard’s lab. One day he would have enough to build himself a small robot to help Jarvis make the morning juice.
Did Steve have a Jarvis he wanted to give something to?
Tony wouldn’t mock anyone for that. “What are you saving up for?”
“Again, why do you suddenly care so much?”
He gives a non-committal shrug. “You seem nice. And less boring than Sunset’s magazines.”
“And that’s a perfectly sound reason to barge into a stranger’s room,” Steve dryly observes.
“You’re not a stranger. I know at least nine things about you.”
Steve sighs, but his lips twitch up in reluctant amusement. “Do I want to know what you know?”
It feels like a victory. A small nudge of progress that adds three more items to Tony’s list.
Giving Steve a self-satisfied grin, he shakes his head. No. Steve wouldn’t really want to befriend Tony if he knew that Tony thought he could be stupidly reckless.
And, Tony realises with a sudden excitement, he does want Steve to befriend him.
Steve has a system of rules.
Or several, to be exact. They’ve changed over the course of time, but at fifteen, in a school he loves to hate, he has three most important rules.
First, try his best not to punch anyone. We can’t afford the lawsuit, Stevie, his Ma had said, so make sure if you have to punch someone, they really needed the punch.
Second, try his best not to get attached. He’ll get out of the school soon enough, join the Army together with Bucky. The scholarship was only helpful to help lighten his Ma’s load. Becoming attached would only make his departure more difficult.
Besides, staying unattached wasn’t particularly hard to do. Nobody was interested in Steve’s non-existent networks or wealth, nor was Steve interested in wasting his money and time attempting to gain their favors. Steve prefers his life. An honest one, simple and warm, without any of the lies that seeped deep in the walls of this school.
Third, avoid Tony Stark at all costs.
It isn’t a rule born from spite, but from calculated caution. Steve was a year younger than everyone by virtue of his love for books. When his Ma spent long hours at the hospital, he’d go to the public library, do his homework there together with Bucky. It kept their costs low, and kept Steve out of backalleys where he was prone to picking fights.
But Tony, younger than even him, was the star of the school. Everyone flocked to the richest heir, even if Tony seemed to be content to stick with Tiberius Stone and Sunset Bain, uninterested in anyone else’s approaches.
If Steve so much as looked at Tony wrong, he could have an army of lawyers storming his Ma’s apartment.
Tony was dangerous, forbidden.
He considers the other boy from across the dining hall. He had piled Tony into the same boxes that he had put Tiberius and Sunset in, and yet, in the scant few months he had been in this hell of a place, Steve had found Tony to be simultaneously louder and quieter than all the rest.
And since their conversation last night, Steve wonders if any of them really knew the Tony to Tony Stark. He spots Tony barely eating, his hands busy with something. Sunset was prodding him about something, her smile turning sharp when Tony barely minded her.
Steve thinks that maybe, if Tony weren’t so forbidden, they might have become friends. Two people, uninterested in the wiles of the spoiled like her.
As it was, however, Steve looked away from him, turning back to his lonely plate. Seven more months, and he’d get to go back home for the summer holidays.
Bucky and his Ma, the busy streets of the city. No empty silences or other boys sneaking into his room.
That was something to hold onto.
Steve tried his best to hold tight.
“You didn’t answer me last week.”
“Jesus Christ,” Steve curses, nearly knocking some books over. “How did you even know I was here?”
The library was supposed to be his haven. Few people cared enough to spend their free afternoons here. They much preferred the swimming pool, or a trip to the nearby town.
“I go here when Ty is being stupid. I like the light,” Tony leans against one of the stone pillars, the roof arching above him. “Why are you still trying to get yourself kicked out?”
“Can’t you leave me to my own business?” Steve sighs. He really would like to keep his third rule intact. Confronting Tony about the flowers was a mistake – he had thought that it was only Tiberius and Sunset – and now he was paying for that mistake.
“Not really. The nurse told me you got into a scrape with Nancy.”
As if reminded, the bruise on Steve’s rib throbs again. “I didn’t do anything,” he scowls. “She punched me.”
“Because you had a very riveting discussion about her parents’ privilege?”
“She shouldn’t have insulted my upbringing or my Ma like that.”
“What’s your mother like?”
Steve crosses his arms. Tony should have a hundred better things to do than attempting to drive Steve into madness. “Why aren’t you outside?”
“My mother likes playing the piano. She taught me. Howard thinks it’s unfitting for a man, but Obie said something about the coordination skills being good.”
The slew of names pricks at all of Steve’s questions about Tony Stark. The way his voice hardened over his father’s name, softened at whoever Obie was.
“Are you going to stay here until I answer?”
The answer is simple. Determined. “Yes.”
Steve sighs. “Then let’s at least sit.”
It doesn’t take long for Tony to realise that Steve is as stubborn as him, and perhaps as smart too, in different ways. Tony starts making excuses to slip into the library, starts bringing his blueprints along when he sneaks into Steve’s room.
Sunset often tries to peek at Tony’s work. Steve only crooks a judgemental brow and returns to his own art. It almost grows familiar, the silence of it, and Tony will reach Steve’s door only to find it unlocked.
“You’re not going to stop coming over, are you?” he finally asks one night.
Tony isn’t sure what finally broke through Steve’s stubbornness, but he grins, victorious and wry. “Not until you answer my question.”
“Fine. If I answer your question, will you answer mine?”
A fair deal. “Sure.”
“I don’t like being this far from home,” Steve admits.
He thinks of baking with Jarvis, and gardening with Ana. Of taking apart the washing machine and putting it back together again before anyone comes home. He guesses Steve doesn’t do any that. “What’s it – what’s it like? At your house?”
“Nothing much. We don’t have any of this,” Steve waves at his bedroom. “But there’s my Ma and Bucky. We used to sneak to Coney Island together, hitch a ride on one of the rollercoasters. He’d scream and we’d try to win something to bring home for his sisters.”
Tony tries to imagine it. Ty would never agree to anything like that. “That actually sounds nice. Do you need my help kicking you out of this place?”
Steve laughs. “No. Ma wants me here, and I don’t want her to pay for my school on top of everything.”
The words hang between them, a chasm of differences Tony’s only beginning to realise. It should have been the first hint that they wouldn’t work, but they’re both young, and Tony leaps easily across the first cracks, eager, curious, innocent.
“That’s very kind of you.”
“Your turn,” Steve shrugs the compliment away. “Why are you friends with Tiberius and Sunset?”
It sends Tony reeling. He had readied himself for a harder question, an interrogation into every corner of his life, like the reporters with their cameras liked to do. This felt too simple. A trap.
“Their parents are my parents’ friends,” he answers warily.
“So?” Steve asks, cocking his head to one side, “I asked why, not who they are.”
“Well their parents are friends of my parents,” Tony parrots again, confused. He didn’t really have a choice, did he? They were meant to be allies, heirs to fortunes and businesses. It was only logical that they start their alliance now.
Steve gives that a long thought. In the end, he accepts it. “Will my Ma have to be friends with your parents?”
Tony tries to imagine it: the gentle woman in Steve’s sketches being handed a tumbler of whiskey from Howard. He can’t, and he shouldn’t. Because Tony is supposed to be mingling with anyone other than this scrawny boy from Brooklyn.
We’re new money, Tony. The old money, they have wealth to rule half the world, Obie had said, and you’ll meet them here.
But Tony never wanted the world. Tony wanted the stars above. Wanted to know what it felt like to ride a roller coaster, to fly, to soar.
“No,” Tony tells Steve, sealing this secret from the rest of the world, “no. She doesn’t have to.”
Howard doesn't need to know.
Tony starts spending two evenings a week tucked in Steve’s dorm room. Wednesdays and Saturdays are the usual schedule. If it happens to coincide with Sunset’s abysmal piano practice sessions, well. Nobody can blame Tony for wanting to escape the harsh tunelessness of her attempts at playing waltzes.
Most nights, Steve ignores him, staring hard at the blank canvases slowly filling up. The quiet of the room is a calming respite from the inane chatter of Sunset and her other friends. Tony had always liked being alone, tinkering with things quietly, away from the spotlight that Sunset craved and Ty hoarded.
The quiet also helps Tony talk, almost like he’s in the laundry room next to Jarvis, rambling on about his thoughts without any fear that he’d be told to be silent.
Steve says he finds the noise calming. He hadn’t been used to the eerie silence of the large halls, and Tony finds safe harbour in the echo of his own dislike for empty halls.
Slowly, Tony learns of Steve's inhaler, his arrhythmia and why he had been so spooked by Tony's arrival in the library. Tony took care to announce his presence louder, and if he whizzed through several bookshelves of medical books to spot the symptoms which meant he had to drag Steve off to the nurse, then, well. He was being a good friend.
"I'm fine," Steve liked to insist, "just let me lie down."
"The last time I said I was fine," Tony put his hands on his hip, equally adamant, "you forced me to get patched up too."
"You came in my room with soot still clinging in your hair!"
"You are wheezing right now, and if you died on me, I'd be a suspect. So let's keep me out of jail," Tony would push Steve out the door anyway.
And there are evenings where time will tick away quickly, slipping between their fingers until Steve finds Tony slumped asleep on the bed, surrounded by sketches of messy blueprints. Unlike Steve's cautious lines, erased and drawn and erased again, Tony's strokes have a boldness to them, a deep-seated surety, and Steve will spare a second to wonder at all the brilliance he doesn't understand before he collects the papers and moves them to his desk.
Then, he'll squeeze his small body into the bed next to Tony, pull the blankets over them and think of home, squished together beside Bucky, huddling for warmth in the winter.
Except now, the warmth he huddles for is against a different cold - the creeping chill of loneliness he'd never noticed until Tony had come along, firebright and determined.
Other nights, Steve will tell stories about how he and Bucky had pranked a particularly unpleasant schoolteacher with a mix of grease and feathers, Tony's muffled laughs filling up the room. They never meet anywhere else, Tony had admitted quietly that Ty and Sunset wouldn't take too kindly to seeing Tony with Steve, and when Steve had offered to punch them for him, he had smiled wide, shaking his head. They're not worth your future, Steve.
Steve had wanted to say that they were bullies and it was damn well worth Tony's happiness, but he swallows down the words, uneasy at how they jolted him out of his trance. Because he's broken two of his own rules already. He had those rules for a reason.
If Tony knew, he would laugh at Steve. Rules are meant to be tested and broken, he'd grin even as he broke another law of physics.
If Buck knew, he would laugh at Steve, too. You never could do things by halves, Stevie.
And if his Ma knew, she'd invite Tony in the house.
Tony doesn't know what changed that he finds himself trusting Steve. Maybe it's the winter snows that have finally come, blanketing the landscape in white. Everything seems stopped in time, a stillness hanging in the background as everyone rushes to study for their exams. Steve goes studiously through his books despite never missing a question when Tony quizzes him, and it's one of those nights, surrounded by textbooks about the long history of art, that Tony finds his courage.
“The flowers were, uh, Ty and Sunset don’t know, but I was weeding out the bad stalks,” he confesses. “They thought I was ruining the garden so they wanted to help.”
All he gets is a strange look from Steve. He knows he isn’t supposed to do that. Howard had said it was far below his station. Even Obie agreed. But he had always loved tending to the flowers with Ana, watching something bloom into life under his care.
He thought Steve would understand.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tony asks, ready to strike back against whatever mockery might come.
When Steve answers, his words are more question than statement. “I caught you trying to help out in the kitchens during our first week here.”
Tony freezes. He hadn’t thought he’d been noticed. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Why not?”
“My parents wouldn’t be too happy.”
“Well, your parents are wrong.”
“You should tell them that,” Tony mutters.
“I will, when I get to meet them.”
He should have known that Steve would rise up to that challenge. It wouldn’t end well in any universe. He can imagine Steve standing firm against Howard, achieving nothing except making him angrier at Tony, and likely ruining Steve’s life for the audacity.
And yet, it was nice to know that he had someone in his corner, who would do that for him.
He revises his list. Maybe it wasn’t reckless foolishness, after all. There were other words to describe Steve now, swirling carefully at the edge of his thoughts: courage, loyalty, honor.
“That would definitely work in kicking you out of here,” Tony points out, half joking, half worried. He doesn’t want Steve to leave, not when Tony’s only just found him.
Steve laughs. “If I have to hear one more person talk about the latest Versace, I might burn this place down.”
Tony can't help the laugh that bubbles out of him too.
“I do love explosions.”
“I heard you’re staying over for Christmas,” Tony says accusingly as he flings open Steve’s door. “Didn’t you want to get out of this place?”
“Ma can’t afford to send me home for Christmas,” Steve replies, eyes fixed on his books, studiously avoiding Tony.
“But you live in Brooklyn.”
“And we’re miles away from there.”
Rolling his eyes, Tony explains. “I go back to Manhattan. You can come with us. Meet Jarvis.”
Only then does Steve look up. “I couldn’t possibly.”
“Jarvis wants to meet you,” Tony adds, hoping to change his mind.
“I wouldn’t want to impose.”
Tony scoffs. “You’ve never been scared of imposing.”
“You must be Tony,” Sarah pulls him into a hug when they drop Steve off at the stairs of an old Brooklyn building, “thank you for your kindness, Mr. Jarvis. It means a lot to have Steve home for Christmas.”
“It was the least I could do,” Jarvis answers. “My young sir writes often of how your son makes him smile.”
Tony sneaks a glance at Steve, unsure how he would take it knowing that Tony wrote home so much about him.
“Ah, but I feel I know Tony well from Steve’s letters home, too. You must stay for a bite of biscuit.”
Softly, Steve clears his throat, nudging Tony’s ribs until Tony ignores the adults talking and turns around. That isn’t proper decorum, but he doubts that Sarah cares.
“What?” Tony asks.
Steve smiles. “Do you think you can come over some time? Bucky wants to meet you, too.”
“Bucky knows about me?”
“You’re both my friends. Of course he knows about you.”
The words settle in Tony, bright and warm. Friends. He had never felt this easy with Ty and Sunset.
“I’ll try my best,” Tony promises. There’s barely any chance he’ll actually be able to come. Christmas means parties at the mansion, Obie asking about his latest designs, and Tony standing perfectly poised in a suit.
Spending time with Steve was much less boring. Already, he was thinking of ways to get around them all.
“Thank you for the ride home,” Steve says again
“You’re welcome.”
“Come on, you’ll love Ma’s cookies,” Steve tugs at Tony’s hand.
Tony lets himself be pulled away.
The holidays are boring without Steve, but he's missed Jarvis long enough that the days pass by quickly enough. He bakes a cake with Jarvis and plucks some of Ana's flowers to send over to the Rogers' household - after Jarvis had kindly reminded Tony that buying them a new house without a discussion wouldn't be a very acceptable gift.
He gets a letter in return, although the more correct term would be a short diary. Thin, looping handwriting scrawled on pages and pages of old, yellowed paper, sending Tony cackling about Steve's latest adventures.
“You shouldn’t be so distracted,” Obie chides him when he stays in his room all week, trying to come up with a fitting reply to the letter. Then, Obie presents him with an early Christmas gift: new tools that Howard had forbidden, tools that Obie had persuaded to be allowed.
“Obie! How'd you know I wanted - ”
"You can thank me by putting that brain of yours to use. Who's writing to you?"
Tony quickly smothers his smile. "No one. A professor from MIT," he lies smoothly. He doesn't like lying to Obie, doesn't usually have to, but he knows this sort of thing would get back to Howard.
"Good," Obie nods slowly, "good. You're going to surpass us all one day, my boy, and you need to keep your eye on the focus."
"Yes, Obie," Tony says, guilt roiling with pride. He didn't want to disappoint Obie, not when the man had placed so much faith on him. "Thank you for the tools."
When Christmas rolls around, Tony smiles at all the right times for Howard and the business partners. He meets Ty and Sunset at the party and pointedly shows everyone how close they've become since starting school together. His mother presses a kiss on his cheek. He dances with her, relishing the small smile she gives him at the end of it when he bows. All the while, he holds his breath, counting how many glasses have passed through Howard's hands, only sighing in relief when the night ends without incident.
The next morning, Jarvis makes him his favorite pie as a gift, and sneaks him a burger for lunch.
It's a good Christmas. Better than the last. And if Tony feels upset at not being given the slightest acknowledgement from Howard, then he locks his bedroom and opens up the pages Steve sent. I wish you were here, Steve had written, Ma won't stop asking about you.
Tony tries to work on a phone for Steve, but Obie finds him again and hands him some of Howard's blueprints. "Your father doesn't know about this. He's getting old, and we need someone new. Now, look, I know you're young. I also know you're smart enough for this."
"They're rockets," Tony pieces the shapes together, taking them apart, putting them back together. "You're letting me design for the company?"
Obie smiles wide. "You've always been smart, my boy. You can make them better?"
The holidays pass faster after he throws himself into work. Obie asks whether Tony made any improvements to the rockets, Tony comes up with rockets stronger than Howard could ever make them.
Better, faster, cheaper. Tony forces himself to the brink, until all he can see is the sprawling, curving lines of his designs, looping around itself, again and again, a circle no one can break.
Inevitably, the winter holiday ends, and Tony rushes to finish the phone in the car as they pick Steve up from Brooklyn. It's lucky that he does, because after Sarah Rogers smothers Tony with warm tight hugs and hands them a fresh bag of cookies, Steve slips into the car with red ears and a drawing.
The lines are rough, imperfect, the artist still learning how to capture light, but Tony knows it must have taken hours, and he doesn't think his photographs could compare to it. You always liked my drawings, Steve had blushed an even deeper crimson, I thought you'd like this.
They settle into a new friendship afterwards. This time, Tony isn’t the only one to seek Steve out. Steve will find Tony in the library, or the piano room. And they’ll sit with each other, Steve’s hands streaked with paint, Tony's with grease.
It becomes harder to keep his other friends away from Steve, and yet, the extra hours of companionship are more than worth it.
Tony turns fourteen and he doesn’t tell anyone. Ty and Sunset forget. Steve doesn’t know. Jarvis sends him a letter and a bag of cookies.
He shares the cookies with Steve, and he’s grateful for the quiet acceptance.
Next year, maybe, he’ll tell Steve.
The summer, however, brings change. Howard is a whirlwind of chaos beside Maria's thin-lipped silence and Obie's jittery uneasiness. The military was shifting, the public opinion shifted here and there until the company's stocks took a hit. Howard wants more but cannot think of better. A young man enters the mansion, calling himself Fury, and Aunt Peggy makes a rare appearance.
"There will never be an end to fighting," she explains in that roundabout way of hers, pushing Tony's mind to work, "men, always dissatisfied," she tutts. "Food and cheer and good company, that's the real treasure, not the gold they keep trying to win."
He mulls her words over in his head, thinking of Sunset's frown as she tries on her hundredth dress and the warmth of Sarah Rogers' hug. Thinks of how much easier the world would be if - if there was truly an end to all the fighting.
“I have an idea for a cleaner source of energy,” Tony confides to Obie one afternoon. He has other ideas, too: medical technology, crop farming, space exploration.
“Can it power the rockets?”
“I don’t want to make weapons," Tony tilts his chin up, trying to figure out how Steve summoned his reckless courage. "That isn’t – we can do more. End the war for fuel. Make it cheap for anyone to make anything.”
It’s a dream that feels real. Tony is buzzing with it. A new world without bloodshed, without hunger, without death. Nobody needed to suffer like Steve did everyday, he could finally make something meaningful. Everything laid out at the tips of the fingers, the vision tantalisingly close, waiting only for the right tools. He can do it, he knows he can –
“We don’t do energy,” Obie says with a harsh finality. “We make weapons. Protect Americans by having the bigger stick.”
“Yes, but – ”
“No. Tony, your father wouldn’t be happy to know that you’re wasting your time on the hippies. You’re young and impressionable. When you’re older, you’ll understand that this is how we’ve always done business, how we’ll always do it.”
Tony is fourteen and a half. He isn’t stupid.
“Obie, this will change the world,” he tries again, because surely Obie would understand. “This could save lives, not end them.”
“You think our weapons don’t save lives?” Obie’s tone turns dark despite his smile. “Tony, all those American soldiers, they come home because of you. If you waste your time on some hippie project, they stop coming home.”
What about the soldiers on the other end of the weapons? Tony wants to push, disappointment mingled with desperation and stubbornness. But he doesn’t want to anger Howard or Obie. Things were hard enough without them being unhappy about Tony, too.
And if he wants to keep tinkering, he has to keep them happy.
“I have some other ideas,” Tony begins slowly.
“Good, good. I’m proud. You’re way ahead of everyone already, Tony, but you can’t let yourself settle for less. You need to push for more, stay on top of the game. It’s a vicious world, and your father says Stark men are iron.”
It doesn’t have to be vicious, Tony wants to say, and iron is brittle.
But he’s said enough already.
Tony doesn’t spend the summer meeting Steve.
“I’m sorry I can’t meet Bucky,” Tony mumbles into the phone. Someday soon, Tony was going to invent a better, slimmer, smarter phone that could be snuck around anywhere, so he could call Steve any time without worrying that anyone else would discover this. Someday soon, he'd make a better phone for Steve.
“That’s alright,” Steve says, unable to quite hide his disappointment. “Ma sends her love.”
Tony wonders if his life will always be a choice between disappointing Steve and disappointing his family.
Stark men are made of iron, Tony tries to repeat to himself, hollow and false. On the other end of the line, Steve is talking again, asking questions about what new flowers Tony planted in the garden.
He thinks of his weapons firing away, gunshots ringing loud with death, and he pushes against the bile that rises up.
“Tell me what you did today,” Tony demands instead.
The cheer in Steve’s voice helps, but the bile lingers.
It’s a cloudy night when Tony finally admits it to Steve, the churning pit in his stomach. The pool of horror slowly growing larger in him.
He’s trying to play the piano, but the notes slip and slide away from him until Steve puts down his paintbrush to sit next to him on the piano bench.
“I’m pretty sure Beethoven shouldn’t sound like a dying cat,” Steve prods carefully.
“This isn’t even Beethoven.”
Steve shrugs. Their shoulders bump against each other. “Still. You can talk to me if you want to. Or we could just sit here and I could find ear plugs.”
Tony’s lips twitch up reluctantly. “That did sound like a dying cat.”
“Are you admitting I’m right?” Steve teases gently. He doesn’t expect an answer, so Tony doesn’t give one.
The paint splatters on Steve’s hands are bright. A spot of green, a splash of yellow, drying up as Steve twists his hands together. Tony wonders what colors his own hands would be – drenched with red or covered with grey ash?
“I don’t want to make weapons,” he admits softly. He’s fourteen, and he just created a missile that Obie said would kill people better.
Steve’s blue eyes find his, piercing and searching. “Then do something else. You like playing the piano. Be a musician. Or an astronaut,” he pauses, considering. “Or a florist.”
Scoffing, Tony presses hard on a random note. It rings loud, lonely.
“Howard would never let me.”
“You can be anything you want.”
“And if I don’t want to be anything?” Tony asks, the precipice looming. If he wasn’t born a Stark, how different would his life have been? He could be running with Steve through the city, trying to win teddy bears and relishing the thrill of rollercoasters, or staying late in libraries, dreaming up stories of other lands better than this. “I want to do normal things.”
It must sound childish, entitled. All his money, his fame, his genius, couldn’t Tony be happy with what he had?
He waits for Steve to lecture him in righteous anger. To talk about gratefulness.
Nothing.
Until Steve takes Tony’s hands gently off the piano, wrapping his paint-splattered hands around the new calluses on Tony’s fingers.
“Come on, then,” Steve stands up.
“What?”
The blue of Steve’s eyes shine brighter in mischief. “We’re going climb the roof.”
“What if we fall?”
“Consider it a trust exercise.”
In Tony’s very informed opinion, Steve was far too calm about this.
“Steve,” he tries to reason. “I can’t, we can’t, what if we get caught – ”
“There’s nothing you can’t do,” Steve repeats, “and no one – not your father, not this school’s stupid rules, not the reporter’s camera – can stop you.”
The conviction, the utter faith laced deep in each word should terrify Tony. He’s had people believe in him before, but never like this. Steve saw him as Tony first before Stark. His mind drifts to Ty and Sunset, who was in his room, their heads bent over the latest magazines.
Then, his gaze lands back on his hands, still securely held between Steve’s.
“Stop that,” Tony forces the words past the sudden tightness of his throat, “I’ll start to think you really mean it.”
Steve’s smile grows wider. “We’ll drop by the kitchens, steal a pie or two.”
“I think you’re just hungry.”
“And I think you’re going to enjoy this.”
Their last year together at the school, Tony feels the time ticking away faster than ever. He wants to go to MIT, meet professors who might actually have a hope of understanding him, and yet, he doesn’t want this to end.
Fear flashes bright. Come with me to Boston, Tony wants to tell Steve. We can be friends there, too.
It’s selfish, though, and Tony tries to stay silent, relishing the stolen moments of freedom he gets.
On Tony’s fifteenth birthday, Tony takes them back to the roof of the highest tower. The slanted red tiles are warm even in the darkness, sun-kissed from the early summer.
Ty doesn’t know, neither does Howard or Obie. Steve is Tony’s, and whatever else they might say about him, Tony doesn’t want to hear what they might say about his friendship.
So he tucks the two of them away where nobody can see them, this secret he wraps carefully in his heart. No one will ever be able to use it against them, Tony promises.
No one, that is, except for themselves.
It goes like this: Tony is sprawled on Steve’s bed, his blueprints scattered across the sheets, and Steve sits at his table, not reading his book.
“I’m going to enlist,” he confesses.
“You’re what?”
The cogs of Tony’s mind scramble to understand. Enlist and Steve weren’t two words that Tony ever expected to go together. Steve was righteous, yes, but holding a weapon was different from punching a bully.
“Bucky’s applying to the Army. I can’t let him go alone.”
“Tell Bucky not to go, then,” Tony pleads, already half begging. The blueprints in his hands have never felt more useless, meaningless, and he sits up on the bed, back tense with panic.
“There are men laying down their lives. We have no right to do anything less.”
Let them, is Tony’s first thought, let them. As long as it isn’t you. That would do no good to convince Steve, though, and Tony turns to something else.
“What about your Ma?” he tries desperately, because Steve was going to war. Didn’t he know how much Tony hated the war? The bloodshed, the injuries, the death. “Steve, you’re a skinny artist from Brooklyn. You can’t paint others into submission.”
He hopes the words sting as much as the thought of Steve leaving stings Tony.
A flash in Steve’s eyes, dangerous and hurt. And suddenly, Tony regrets his words. Pushing Steve away wouldn’t help. Challenging Steve wouldn’t either. He would only grow more resolved.
“There’s an experimental division of the Army.” Steve’s chin juts out stubbornly, endearing and infuriating all at once. “They’ve accepted me.”
Each word comes as a blow, a finality feeding the gnawing pit of Tony’s fears, turning them to anger. “When did you know?” he demands.
“The letter came last week.”
“Damn you,” Tony curses him. The anger only serves to make the hurt burn fiercer. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Steve’s eyes dart down, no longer meeting Tony’s gaze. “It wouldn’t have mattered to you.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered to me?”
“We’re both young,” Steve shakes his head. “And you have the entire world. You’ll forget about me soon enough.”
That wasn’t fair. Did Steve really think so little of Tony? Was all this just a fun game for Steve, meant to be forgotten? The questions pile up until all Tony can think of is: “How can you say that?”
“How can I not?” Steve shrugs. “You told me you came here because you were bored. Your parents don’t know that I exist.”
“Because they’d ruin you if they knew,” Tony defends himself. It was true that Tony had come here because he was curious and bored, but he stayed because they were supposed to be friends.
“You’ve never needed me,” Steve cuts him with the truth.
"I never needed you?" his voice rises higher. Of all the things Steve could have said, of all - Tony wants to slam something, to throw something at him. Because how dare he say that? How dare -
Steve stands, walking towards the bed. Carefully, he shifts the blueprints around, making space for himself beside Tony. A kindness bordering on cruelty.
“We’re both young,” he tries to comfort Tony, “you’ll find other people.”
“And you’ll find other people,” Tony spits back.
“I promise I’ll write to you.”
Tony didn’t want letters. He wanted Steve, but Steve didn’t want him. Hadn't wanted him in the first place.
Didn't Steve tell Tony that he barely liked anyone in the school? In the end, Tony was a friend Steve never needed either.
“Don’t bother," he bites out. "You didn’t bother telling me about this.”
“I’m telling you now.”
The tone he used – ridiculously reasonable – was too much to bear, and Tony snaps.
“Did you even care about me?”
“You know I do,” Steve whispers softly. “You’re my closest friend.”
“Not close enough to deserve the truth,” Tony scoffs, standing up and walking to the door. He doesn’t care about the blueprints left behind, he just needs to scream, to run, to break. “You must have planned this a long time ago, and you thought it wouldn’t matter? My friend is going off to war, of course it matters!”
“Tony – ”
“But apparently you think I’m heartless.” Tony thinks back on how Steve liked to dislike all the students of the school, thinks of Steve calling them dull and vain, thinks of how Steve must have talked about Tony like that too. “If you want me out of your life, there’s no need to lie to me. I’ll go.”
He wrenches the door open, not daring to look back. He doesn’t think he can bear seeing Steve for a second longer. Why hadn’t he just stayed with Ty and Sunset? At least he knew that they cared only for his money, at least he wouldn’t have been tricked to give away his secrets.
“Wait.”
He keeps walking, ignoring Steve.
“Please. Tony.”
To-ny.
In the end, it was those two syllables that stopped him, leaving him with an aching emptiness.
He might never get to hear Steve say his name again, that gentle dip between the syllables, as if Steve cared enough to say them right. It’s stupid, utterly foolish to clutch at the last bits of their friendship, but even in anger and hurt, he knew he’d regret it if he walked away.
Because he can already picture the weapons that will be used against Steve - and he feels sick to the core at the thought of Steve's thin arms holding up something larger than him, designed to injure, to kill.
“When will you be leaving?”
The question comes as fearful as it was bitter.
Part of Tony doesn’t want to know the answer, doesn’t want to know how much time Steve had decided to spare for Tony. A larger part needs to know. The deadline to everything – his mind already ticking, searching for ways to fix, to solve.
While Steve might not have cared, Tony cared too much. It was one of the many things Howard found disappointing in Tony, the lack of ruthless salesmanship, and for once, Tony understands fully why it was easier, less hurtful to not care. And yet, it was too late.
Even if Tony did his best to forget about Steve, to cut all their ties in anger, there would always be the looming spectre of their friendship. That thought would haunt him too much, especially when every new weapon he created for the government's arsenal could be the difference between life and death.
Stopping Steve from going apparently wasn’t an option, but protecting him?
All those American soldiers, Obie had said, they come home because of you.
“After graduation,” Steve confesses. In a month. “I'm sorry.”
There wasn’t time to spare, then. This was Tony's responsibility. Crude designs shape themselves in his head. Armored protection, shielding, weapons to fire from afar, better targeting systems, a phone to call. He doesn't know what he's doing.
He's never - he never wanted to make weapons, and yet, here he was, thinking of rockets that could power missiles. With a body as scrawny as Steve's, the only chance he would make it out through war was a miracle, or by having the bigger stick. It wasn't Steve's strength of resolve which sent Tony sick with worry - that had never been in question - but Tony had spent one too many visits to the nurse's office over the stutter of Steve's heart and the wheezing of his lungs.
“You’ll still be stateside for a while?” Tony confirms.
“Yeah. It's the scientific research division. They want me for testing,” Steve lets out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. You hate war.”
"I thought you hated bullying," he argues quietly, attempting to reconcile acceptance and betrayal and fear. He had known that their friendship couldn't last long, it was only logical, but he didn't want it to end like this.
Steve nods. "I do. But if there's a chance I can save lives by making this end faster, I'll take it."
Always righteous. Tony could never be as sure as Steve, could never shake off the largeness of Obie's hand on his shoulder or the doubts that lingered even after everyone tried to convince him otherwise.
"And what if we were wrong to go to war in the first place?"
"Then I can change things from inside."
"You can't punch an entire army of bullies, Steve."
"Watch me."
Tony laughs. Only Steve Rogers would dare. "I just might."
"I'll write to you," Steve promises again. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
"I wish you did. I wish - "
He trails off, and they stand silently across each other in the dim hallway. I wish we could stay.
Steve nods, stepping closer. "I know. But you're going to the campus of your dreams, Tony. One day, I'll get to say I told you so when you've changed the world and retired to be a florist."
He holds on to what little hope he can. "You wouldn't be able to stand the pollen, Rogers, much less reach me inside my flower palace."
"I'm sure I'll find a way."
"I don't doubt that. You're as bull-headed as they come."
"Says the genius who insisted on badgering me for three years."
"Don't act like you didn't enjoy it."
Steve grins in reply. Tony shakes his head. "You should go back to your rooms, Steve."
"Are you staying longer?"
He needs time to think, to process. "No. Ty and Sunset are waiting for me," he lies.
A shadow falls across Steve's eyes at the names. Nonetheless, he tries his best at giving Tony a smile. "Take care."
"You too."
Tony walks away.