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No, there was no “reasonable explanation” for Tony’s hatred of dentistry.
Even the name was unlikable. Dent meant tooth, -istry meant study of. The study of teeth.
Awful.
It was not dentistry’s fault. Tony disliked all strangers. Tony did not carry a fistful of trust in his back pocket, waiting to be dispensed, like Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers would hand over his wallet to a Trusting Man if asked.
Not coincidentally, Steve had also been robbed blind four times. (Was it truly blind, Tony had to wonder, if Steve did it with such intention?)
No—Tony had a strong self-preservation instinct. (Perhaps that was the crux of the matter: when the ax fell, Tony leaped away, and Steve leaped towards. Idiot.) Tony did not like letting strangers hold his car keys, shake his hand, or sleep in his bed—in precisely that order. A stranger’s hands in proximity to his throat was an intimacy he detested. He barely let his harried, well-paid, steadfast general practitioner take his pulse. Too revealing.
Frankly, Tony had been spoiled by Allen—patient, funny, intelligent Allen, who was one of the only strangers on the planet allowed to listen to his lungs. (It was invasive, he scorned Steve, who arched an eyebrow at that item on the list of things I do not consent to in a medical setting.) He would sooner let them take his life force than perform a single menial “ahh” on command. Humiliating.
He would rather die, he told Steve, than endure the humiliation of a routine physical. A genial handshake, a grumbly admission that yes-he-still-had-the-metal-heart, a hearty chuckle over downhill skiing (a basic enough shared interest; one Tony had no issue revealing to a stranger), a ginger blood pressure cuff, a brief history of watchmaking, another hearty chuckle over the finer points of cattle wrangling, a cordial interlude to break out the stethoscope, and so on, in a whirlwind that lasted nine minutes before Tony presented the doctor a small box of his favorite mints, subtracting one for himself.
That was how a physical should be, Tony triumphed. A gentleman’s affair.
Yes, there was the indignity of the stethoscope, the discomfort of gloved hands, the humiliation of the tongue compressor. (Allen, wise man that he was, knew better than to press that point unless Tony actively complained of a vocal dissonance. Even then, Allen was always gentlemanly about it, never giving into the urge to exclaim: ha! Look at this stupid monkey! Letting me push on his tongue!)
One could begin to see Tony’s ire with the dentist, whose profession revolved around the tongue compressor.
And if one could not, become acquainted with the fact that human adults had thirty-two immovable teeth wedged into an improbably small cavity that required routine maintenance. The four articulated limbs, the huge eyes, the visible skin, all of these made for simple diagnostics and solutions. The teeth, though—they were hard to access, impossible to see for oneself without mirrors, and irreplaceable. Break a nail, it grew back; tear the skin, it healed.
Chip a tooth—wallow.
There was a reason a gentleman like Allen did not end up in dentistry, Tony thought grimly, looking in the mirror and prodding at his sore mouth.
Even Tony did not like to deal with it. His body was a machine and he maintained it, but there was nothing thrilling about the mouth. The strength of the four articulated limbs, that was remarkable, exciting. He loved to hit the gym and see what his body could do, scaling ropes, thwacking a tennis ball across the court. The resilience of the organs, the dexterity of the skin—it all had its place.
Teeth? Teeth were nightmarish. Even looking at them for an extended period made Tony uneasy.
Tony understood why society needed—and needed to revere—those who became morticians. He, himself, gagged at the sight of dead bodies. He dreaded with a chill like actual illness confronting his own existentialism. Visiting a funeral home had the capacity to shut him in in his lab for the next three days, feverishly composing his soliloquies for future generations.
No, the exact combination of traits required to produce a happy mortician did not exist in Tony Stark. Given that they were a societal necessity, Tony was glad someone possessed the necessary combination of traits. It was a win-win: Tony Stark did not have to compete with future morticians for the prized title of morticians and future morticians did not have to compete with him.
Now, imagine dentistry. Tony could understand the headspace of men and women who buried their kin more clearly than he could understand the men and women that decided to dedicate their lives to dental maintenance.
Sadism? Tony wondered, buttoning his jacket for the fifth time. Was it a form of sadism? He often felt demolition workers took pleasure in their craft. Maybe there was a connection between the overactive imaginations of dentists and their loathsome enemies in the big blue chair, awaiting the old root canal treatment.
Or maybe it was masochism, Tony thought, unbuttoning his jacket for the sixth time. Maybe dentists felt a discerning desire to atone for earthly vices in the restoration of the meek to the mighty. Probably closer to asceticism than masochism, Tony reflected, grimly buttoning his jacket for the sixth time. Those poor souls.
But what did their penance have to do with him? he triumphed, firmly removing his jacket for the seventh time. Surely, he insisted, taking a seat on the bench, they could get their fix elsewhere.
Why should his pain occupy their thoughts? his inner Socrates agreed.
That made him the bearer of the most suffering, he thought morosely, which was far from ideal, as he was not a masochistic dentist.
He reached for his jacket. A gentle knock on the door thankfully interrupted him. He called back instinctively, “Room service?” and grimaced as his own witticism struck pain across the side of his jaw. It was astonishing how painful dental injuries were: a bad foot could be ignored, a sore stomach subdued, but a toothache. Oh, a toothache was a revolution, unable to be suppressed without violent and bloody intervention.
He grimaced deeply.
Dentopolitico: the rule of the teeth.
“I’d rip it out myself, if I didn’t want a gaping hole in my jaw,” he informed Steve.
Steve did not look upset at this revelation. Steve had also been up for three days, trying to convince Tony to go to a doctor.
In his defense, Tony had a doctor. Even kind, gentlemanly Allen would be disarmed at the state of his jaw after three days with a tooth hanging on for dear life. He could not drink; eating was not even an option. He was starving—quite literally—but given the choice between a rock and a hard place, he would gladly wait longer to see if he could not just break the rock with his incredible will power. It had worked for him before.
“Today,” Steve impressed upon him.
“Today,” Tony echoed grimly, trying not to let the word linger in his mouth too long. As long as he spoke carefully, he could get past the pain. Tony had suffered far worse—he was a hard shell to crack. He was no servant to dentopolitico.
He would prevail. He would.
“I am stronger than this,” he told Steve.
“You are,” Steve agreed.
Tony suspected they were not on the same page. “I am stronger than this,” Tony repeated, pointing at the bruised side of his jaw.
Steve looked at him solemnly.
Tony drew himself up to his full height. “I have decided—”
“No.”
That was the exasperating thing about Steve Rogers: he was a stubborn idiot. Did he care that he had had his wallet stolen four times? No, Steve did not. Because Steve was a stubborn idiot who trusted people.
“You don’t know what I’ve decided,” Tony grumbled as loosely as he could manage. All the talking was not helping. Tony was pretty sure his mouth was actively bleeding. “I’m gonna take a nap,” he announced. Normally, that alone would be cause for celebration.
Steve did not yield. “In the car, or after?” Steve prompted, faux-conversational.
“Now, actually,” Tony said. He stood. Mistake—Steve was noticeably bigger in every regard. While seated, Tony could pretend otherwise. At least the Iron Man suit was taller; it could overpower Steve. “I can move you,” Tony said aloud.
Steve looked him over. “I can take you.” Steve did not mean to the dentist.
Technically, he did. Tony sighed. It hurt. Tony's mouth hurt, his stomach was a bottomless pit, and he was, to make everything worse, thirsty. “I just want a drink,” Tony muttered.
“I know.” Steve did not touch him, did not rub his arms and encourage him to follow along with gentle promises. Tony was grateful. He did not like being handled, no matter how well-meaning. Touch was great; handling, not so much. “Come with me,” Steve offered, gentle, easy. Like it was his problem and Tony was welcome to come along, not the other way around.
It was not fair. Steve had no fear of the dentist. To be sure, Steve had perfect teeth, but he had grown up in the twenties. Tony shuddered to imagine both the hygiene and mal-affects of dentistry in the 1920s. Maybe they were all gentlemanly back then, he grumbled privately—without all the fancy tools, how could they perform better dental maintenance than no maintenance at all?
Then Tony reflected upon the popularity of lobotomies back when and decided maybe the modern era was good for one thing.
Improved-upon dentistry. Utter oxymoron that it was.
“I—don’t.” Tony let his jaw shut gently, holding onto his silence and his dignity with two closed fists. He knew there was absolutely no way around the tooth problem.
Tony also knew he was lucky Steve was not the type to drag him places he did not want to go. Perhaps it was done because Steve knew it would ruin his relationship with Tony, who would not appreciate being humbled. Or maybe it was just sympathy from someone who had been in the “humble mortal” category. As it was, Tony doubted many people had cared enough about Steve Rogers to drag him places for his own good. That revelation cast an odd tinge over his own affair.
Steve was not the first nor only person to try to get Tony to get checked out, but Steve was the most persistent. Whereas others risked little and stepped back, Steve pressed on, long after Tony had resigned himself to a miserable spiral into starvation. Eventually, Tony knew, his own self-preservation instinct would win out. Steve was wasting his time, pressing Tony without pushing him. It was almost a game, like putting on a jacket seven times in a row. It would end in exasperated defeat.
Grimly, Tony reached again for his jacket. “I’m driving,” Tony insisted. It would give him a choice. A chance to back down.
Steve said, “Can you?”
Tony buttoned his jacket silently. “Thin ice,” he warned. He felt sick with his choice already, but that may have been the blood he had swallowed over the days.
“All right,” Steve said. It was a small victory, but Tony would take it.
. o .
Tony had once had the integrity of his fingers threatened. He would never know if Raza had meant to break them or if he was simply making a painful point. Tony suspected the latter—Raza needed his working hands for his own project—but Tony's heart had not known that no harm would befall them. Tony had been absolutely sure that the pain would not stop until they snapped—
Whenever Tony became particularly anxious, he could still feel the overstretched guitar-string sensation of that shearing pain.
Hunched in Steve’s civilian shadow in his own chair, Tony reached out and gripped one of Steve’s hands as tightly as he could, pleading with his own mind to let it go. He was not in the cave anymore. Raza was dead. Nothing bad would happen to him.
The threat lingered. Tony's breath tightened, but Steve did not shake his hand loose or tell him to buck up. It was the strange dichotomy of Steve Rogers: at once stern and tolerant of gestures of weakness, compassionate, as if he expected them.
Steve was not weak for anything. That was probably the bitterest pill for Tony to swallow.
Nothing. Not cold water; Steve swam in unheated pools for leisure. Nor claustrophobic spaces, even spaces Tony skittered away from (gulping in animal terror, relying on information because he could not be brave enough to verify). Steve did not jump at loud noises. Steve seemed as comfortable in darkness as pure pandemonium, as if Steve had never met a thing to be scared of and was not about to start now.
It was difficult to share a space with someone as virtuous as Steve Rogers, yet it was also comforting. The roof could not come down with him around; Steve would hold it up on his own shoulders if he had to. Tony slept better knowing Steve patrolled. Steve kept up a strong front even Iron Man would be pressed to meet.
It made Tony's own weak points embarrassing. Tony thought about retracting his hand but the only thing holding it together was Steve’s, crushing it back. Tony had met enough future CEOs with bruising handshakes to appreciate the measured control of a firm handshake. There was no threat there, only promise.
Tony would be slightly ashamed to admit that holding Cap’s hand nearly took away his trepidation as they sat in the little side room, awaiting Tony's penance.
. o .
He probably deserved this, Tony thought, slinking after the assistant like a kid completing a successful cookie jar caper. If he moved fast enough, he would not feel trapped—not by narrow hallways or open doors or the breathless sensation that he was not the only victim in the tomb. There were even tiny windows to the outside world. The latter only made it worse, a tantalizing hint of every other place he could be, of the world he was missing, the life he was not living, because of one stupid mistake.
Tony did not balk like a stray on a chain at the sight of his own chair, but he stopped and could not be budged by the voice in his own head alerting him that he was acting out of character. His gaze strayed to the metal tray; cold washed over his back. His hands shook at his side. He had three layers on, but he needed his armor or he was nothing but another humble mortal awaiting his judgment day.
Tony did not even believe in Almighties, and he would rather face that than this.
A warm hand settled on his back. Tony did not turn and bury himself in Steve Rogers’ arms, but it was an impulse that crossed his petrified mind, like dig your way out with a spoon crossed his hysterical mind, short hours into his underground ordeal. He sucked in a breath that tasted like blood and forced his way into the room.
To his delight-relief-dread, the space was just large enough to accommodate a single visitor chair, which he took, giving himself the corner.
Two walls at his back. Not good enough—not damned good enough, but an improvement. To his eternal embarrassment, he had no idea what Steve said to their guide-captor-assistant. He only knew it was English. That kept him from hearing screams.
Gently, Steve shut the door behind himself.
Instantly, Tony’s panic skittered out of him, gasping, gasping, splattering tiny droplets of blood on the floor. At least his blood was not valuable, only his brains. He was grateful for his wits as much as he cursed them, knowing that his captors would keep him alive forever minus one day so long as he had the wits to entertain them.
Not like the dozens of others who passed through those tunnels, never to see the light of day again. They must have had a lot of enemies, he thought, huddling desperately in his chair. He tried to cover his chest, blocking both arms across it, hugging himself.
This did not happen with Allen, Tony had the wits to think, trying and failing not to clench his jaw. Pain ricocheted from tooth to nail. Tony tensed furiously when Steve’s shadow approached, but when Steve’s jacket slipped around his shoulders, Tony actually froze.
A single word, any word, needed to happen, but Tony could not shape them, could not voice them even if he could shape them. Tony could only sit in frozen uncertainty, heartbeat beginning to slow, the overwhelming smell of leather occluding the dreadful sterility of the cave. Tony gripped fistfuls of coat between his fingers, his breathing steadier but reedier, on the verge of crying out in anguish. He would not—he was not an animal, no matter how subject to engrained whims—but he wanted to.
Tony noticed Steve sitting on the blue chair with its crinkly white paper. His entire presence in the room seemed jarring, out of place, like a clown in a courtroom. A painful laugh bubbled out of Tony. “You look like a clown,” he told Steve. At Steve's unimpressed look, Tony asked, “And you expect me to sit there?”
The teasing felt more like himself, even if Tony felt battered, like the blood had a source other than a days’ old injury from a moment of stupid frivolity. It should not have been possible to self-injure himself, but Tony continued to surprise himself all the time. He was lucky he did not break his cheekbone, Steve had remarked. Tony had asked how it was lucky to knock a tooth loose, all because he had had a wrench in his mouth when he had smashed his face into the ceiling. Tony had not meant to hit boost, he had meant to land.
A mistake anyone could have made.
But a mistake only he had made. And now he had to eat it, he thought grimly, shuffling upright. He let Steve’s coat fall behind him. Steve traded places with him.
For a few minutes, the silence was loud. Tony resisted the urge to scramble at the walls. Tony kept his breathing as steady as he could make it, telling himself over and over that he wasn’t in a cave and he wasn’t in a dentist’s office. He was just in an innocent office building room, with the weirdest furniture he had ever seen.
Perfectly sensible.
Tony looked at the little window. Normally, he would be down in the lab or up in the air, in search of meaningful change. He was never still. It was surprising to realize he was in the present.
Then Steve Rogers said, “Sooner we do this, sooner it’s over.”
We. It was quaint for Steve to call it a joint endeavor. Tony looked at Steve, formulating a scathing response, but Tony had already gotten flecks of his own blood on the floor. Tony had a short horse to stand on.
Tony nodded in lieu of a verbal answer. Steve cracked the door open. Tony tensed, expecting screams, but there was only quiet, the reflections of mechanical noises. It was like a lab, he thought, panic transmuting briefly into amusement. Just tools at work, fixing machines. He would rather work on cars, but he could appreciate other mechanics.
As he turned to complain to Steve that his lab was more fun, a knock came on the door. Tony flinched. Embarrassingly hugely. But Steve did not roll his eyes. Tony did not crawl under the table. That was as close to a win-win as Tony could hope for.
Tony did not pay much attention to the conversation that ensued, offering only a few eloquent hand gestures at his jaw and his companion. He did not lean back against the chair comfortably; he frowned at the assistant for suggesting it. Shaking his head once, he forced himself to say, “I’m here under duress,” which earned an un-fond look from Steve and a mildly confused one from the assistant.
Idiots. Tony grimaced as he realized he would have to participate or walk out and repeat the procedure six-to-seven times, which appealed to him about as much as a root canal, a real procedure that real people were forced to undergo at the discretion of their clearly sadistic dentists.
Tony asked, point-blank, if the assistant was a sadist, receiving another confused look in return.
Without hope, Tony leaned back in the chair. Small children undergo this, he reminded himself. It was not merely a torture for the adults. If the weakest among them could survive it—
The assistant began to lower the chair.
With every quarter-inch, Tony found himself less present, more aware that he had made a mistake, staring at the white light overhead. All external noise seemed irrelevant; he could hear voices speaking in Dari, the faint clarity of clattering equipment, modern tools in unskilled hands.
There was an urgency and sluggishness behind every movement. Shadows dragged across his vision. Pain pierced his chest, deeper than the explosion, louder in his ears than anything he had ever felt. It was a pain so extreme there was no equivalency; the only reprieve was shock, total but not complete, letting him wrench against his bindings and scream himself hoarse against the bright, blinding agony carving its way deeper into his chest.
In his memory, it went on forever. In reality, it took three hours.
Tony passed in and out of consciousness, never deep enough to escape the pain completely. He remembered how cold it was, how strong the metallic taste to the air was, how blinding the light overhead was. Illuminating his body, a tableau of mortal agony, surviving only by a fluke, by a lucky stroke of the dice. No one would survive it twice.
He would not survive it twice.
Tony sucked in a breath that felt like his first in minutes, swallowing blood and slamming his eyes shut against the light. In the span of maybe ten seconds, ten minutes, surely not ten hours, he was there and back again, straining to place himself in space-time without erupting into violent hysteria. He knew he was not back in the cave, even if every cell in his body denied it. His eyes could lie, an insistent voice whispered.
A warm hand settled on Tony's chest. Tony reached for it, unsure if he meant to hold it in place or rip it away. He held onto it long enough to wonder why it was not retracted. Then, with a start like a gunshot, he realized where he was.
Dentist.
Tony started to sit up, but the hand pushed down. His mind fuzzed out. Obadiah Stane, gripping his arc reactor with a weird device that pulled it out of his chest, cord and all. He heard his name, once, twice, then he focused in, not on Stane’s pitiless smile, but on Steve Rogers’ frown. “Tony?”
Can’t breathe. Tony wheezed. Steve let go, helping him up, carefully avoiding the blinding white light. His mouth hurt, his chest ached. Tony knew without asking there was more wrong with him than memory, but the blood was distracting. Tony felt painfully close to throwing up. Don’t.
It took him a while to notice his forehead resting against Steve’s shoulder. He was more aware of the absence of blinding bright light, then the soldier smell Rhodey carried around, even without his uniform. It was not gunpowder, not war or death or violence. It was . . . protection. This is protection.
Tony did not pull away, but he did say, “I got this.” It was thank you, you can go now with as much dignity as he could muster. Graciously, Steve let go. Tony felt cast adrift, but more like a bobber on a sea than a shipwrecked crewmate. He tried not to flinch from the light, focusing on being a bobber not far from safe harbor.
It was silly to lean on Steve’s presence so heavily, but there were nights where simply finding Steve sitting in the main room, quietly activating—drawing or reading or even typing—could pull Tony from even the darkest of moods. Tony did not dare rely on other people for safety, yet he . . . did.
I trusted people, once, Tony thought wistfully. Do you know what it got me?
Tony opened his mouth gingerly. It still hurt. He did not like the idea of anyone’s hands near it, but the pain would not improve. He had to be trusting.
All the money in the world could not fix what he, himself, had broken. Not unless he allowed it to be fixed.
. o .
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” Tony rasped, some time later.
Steve seemed to weigh a response. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Tony grimaced. He did not want to do the talking. Frankly, Tony had said his peace, done his due diligence. Steve should leave him alone. “I’m not worth keeping,” he seethed. He meant to add around, but the message resonated as it stood, abbreviated, bitter. He did not like what pain did to him.
Tony might have liked painkillers even less. They were nothing but reminders that he was one small moment away from salvation, from sanctuary lurking in his own broken skin. Maybe it was silly to hold such a thing against him, but he had read his father’s files about the super-soldier serum; he knew Steve never had a choice. It felt shameful to give in, when others could not—a weakness, an exploitable one. Here are my limits.
He was not in a world of survival, he reminded himself forcefully, one hand hovering near his bruised face.
Actually, he was free to go, but Tony could not move. His legs were not working, shaky and weak. He just needed a moment. It was pathetic, worse still that it was witnessed. So, he lanced the pain: “I’m not scared of you.”
“I never said you were.”
Seething, he insisted, “I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone. I didn’t—” He swallowed. At least the bleed was finally contained. His mouth still tasted like copper, metal. We’re all forged in iron, Cap. All of us. “I didn’t ask for this,” he whispered. Tony meant to be so accusing. Somehow, it came out small.
Steve waited him out. There was nothing to say, nothing to parry. You think your life is hard, Stark?
Tony grimaced, shutting one eye. Yinsen had beat him with the stick enough times to make the lesson stick. It was not fair that, of the two of them, he was the one who lived long enough to ruin his own life, over and over.
It would be days before he could even eat proper food. The great Tony Stark—rendered weak by a fluke lab accident.
Slowly but not cautiously, Tony pushed himself upright. If he fell, he would deal with the consequence of his own actions. He might even deserve it, one last reminder that he was going to pay for every crime he had ever committed against humanity.
Every single one.
. o .
That Steve took him home. It was a generosity Tony did not deserve nor even ask for. Tony would have shambled through the streets if he had to, but with a gentle arm on his elbow, Steve steered him down the right path.
Steve even let him struggle on his own with the door handle. Tony was not as coordinated as he would have liked to have been, but he would have bitten Steve’s head off for opening it for him. The guiding hand on his back was granted the thinnest of permissions.
Tony was awake when he stepped into the car but not by the time they arrived in an underground parking garage. It was an eerie place, cave-like despite the bright lights and well-marked spaces.
Tony's car door opened. Steve waited as he wrestled with the seat belt. The cool air motivated Tony to move indoors, but Tony did not want to move. Body starving and sore and stiff, he longed for sleep that was blissful and deep and unencumbered.
Despite himself, Tony planted his hand on the seat and leveraged himself out of the car. Steve shut the door for him, then offered him a hand on the elbow. Tony shrugged it off. Although weak with hunger and sick from the blood in his stomach, he still had his pride. Just enough of it to get him to the elevator.
Tony did not need Steve Rogers. He had made the whole journey under his own power.
He limped over to the nearest soft surface. Sat down. Collapsed onto one shoulder. And then he shut his eyes.
. o .
Tony awoke in a compromising position.
No, nothing scandalous—if anything, his decency had been further preserved by the blanket draped around him. There were pillows stacked under his head that he hadn’t put there. Even his shoes had been removed.
Granting himself time to process his vulnerable status, Tony listened to someone—oh, he knew it was Steve—lean back and forth with heavy, restful movements in a nearby rocking chair. Like the old man he secretly was. Did not matter that he looked like a Greek god; Steve had seen some stuff. Dressed the part, too, with his plaid shirts and high waisted pants. Tony could not be seen in public with him, for many reasons, but mostly his fashion sense.
Obviously, Tony sniffled, dragging himself upright. Sore and cranky from his involuntary nap, Tony refused to let it show as he rasped, “What the hell’re you doin’?”
Steve paused, then rocked forward. “How do you feel?”
I asked you first, Tony thought. He scowled at Steve, which hurt his face. Stupid Steve. Always causing problems.
Leveraging himself to his feet was a mistake. Tony’s world tilted vertiginously; his knees gave way. But he did not hit the concrete floor with an emphatic thump; instead, he landed in Steve’s arms. It was a horribly embarrassing alternative. “Lemme down,” Tony grunted, intending to accept his original fate.
Steve misinterpreted him—Stupid Steve—and deposited him, gently and neatly, onto his little nesting pile. Oh, he was never going to live this down, he thought mournfully. He would have to find a way to get Steve drunk, just so he could make fun of his hungover self the next morning. That might work. That might work, he braced himself, blinking mutely at Steve, who had waved a hand in front of his face.
Honestly. “I’m right here,” he enunciated, but half of the consonant sounds were not available to him. That Steve responded unintelligibly—I hear you—made sense. “Get me a glass of water,” Tony rasped. If you must. Knave.
Steve did not hear the last part—probably because Tony did not verbalize it—but he did comply. Tony took the glass from him and sipped. The first sip was full of blood. He did not whimper, but he made a small, pathetic sound that he wanted struck from the record immediately. Steve offered consolingly, “I can bring you an ice pack?”
Tony did not recall nodding. He recalled not sleeping or eating for three days, but the rest was a blur. He tried the water again and let out the same, not-whimpering sound at the taste. Steve traded him the glass of water for an ice pack. It burned straight through skin and teeth; Tony lifted it gingerly away. “Ice cream,” Tony enunciated.
“Okay,” Steve responded. Steve did not even ask what flavor before passing Tony the glass—two hands, both occupied; this was why Tony did not like being handed things—and vanished again. Tony moodily stared at his preoccupations, dropping the ice pack to the floor in favor of holding the glass to his cheek, sighing in contentment. It helped. Not much—but a little.
He needed to get some painkillers, but the thought of standing up a second time made him patient. Finally, Steve returned, holding a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Tony’s expression must have looked as woeful as he felt, because Steve said, “I can get you more, if you want.”
Tony shook his head, traded him the glass, and muttered, “Vanilla.” Who ate plain vanilla ice cream? It was a lovely vanilla bean, fresh and flavorful, but with exotics like butter pecan and mint chocolate chip to choose from—he preferred to mix as many flavors as possible in a single bowl, for optimal sensory overload—he could only dock Steve points for lack of originality.
The first cold, tiny spoonful—Tony was hesitant to even bring it to his mouth, wondering what atrocities it might commit against his healing jaw—was heaven. He was not even a religious man, but there was not an earthly sensation equivalent to that first bite of ice cream after three days dry and hurting.
Tony sheared off another tiny bite and tucked it into the side of his mouth that was not all messed up and closed his eyes in honest, radiant happiness.
Tony was afraid he was going to cry—sleeplessness and pain tended to unmask him—but he managed to hold it together. Steve offered him the water, but he kept at his ice cream until it was well and truly soupy. Even then, Tony could not help himself. He loved it, so much that he told Steve, “Thank you,” like Steve and not the ice cream had somehow facilitated his joy. The drink was too cold; Tony merely touched the lip of the glass before deciding he did not want it.
“Gotta stay hydrated,” Steve warned, sounding more than a little concerned.
Tony requested, “Coffee,” but Steve said, with an unreasonable amount of reasonableness:
“Absolutely not.”
“Coffee,” Tony repeated, enunciating the word.
Steve shook his head. “No.”
Tony’s elation with the ice cream was fading into annoyance. “Fine,” Tony announced, although he was cold and shivery from the ice cream and the last thing he wanted to do was get up and do work. Really, if Steve was not so insistent about Tony staying hydrated, then Tony would not be in this predicament, Tony thought, proud of himself for dancing around the issue so well.
As soon as Tony tried to stand up, Steve parked him back on the couch. To be fair, Tony's legs were not holding him up. Tony could not tell if it was from the shock of treatment or the lack of proper care for one too many days. Steve tucked him in, reiterating, “Decaf coffee.”
Tony heard coffee and pulled the blanket tighter around himself, even though decaf set off alarm bells that needed to be heeded. He was droopy-eyed with fatigue when, at long last, Steve returned, cup in hand.
“Be careful,” Steve told Tony, who reached for the mug with a disgruntled I know how to drink coffee noise. “Don’t burn yourself,” Steve insisted. I won’t, Tony replied, burning himself with a loud yelp. “Tony.”
Coffee, Tony insisted, blowing on it—ow—and then letting it sit between his cupped, shaky palms. He hated feeling shaky—hated everything about his predicament and especially Steve bearing witness to it. The perks of being alone were many and included never having to justify his less-than-perfect appearance to others. Knowing that Steve bore witness to his failure was nearly as devastating as the failure itself.
Tony sipped at his coffee, careful not to burn himself again, and was working up a real appetite when Bruce walked in. Normally, it was cause for some celebration, but Tony was too busy managing his most recent sip of coffee to join in the immediate conversation. As a result, Bruce prodded Steve for answers. The jerk—they were supposed to be friends! Tony was going to say so, but then Bruce offered him painkillers. Tony could have kissed the man on the mouth for his genius.
Instead, Tony took the pills and gulped them down carefully. Tony did not expect much, but as the sluggish ache in his jaw receded, his will to stay awake drew out to sea. He was aware of requesting more coffee, but then he was out for the count, bruised face smushed against a pillow.
How utterly professional, some part of him reserved the judgment to say.
. o .
Hunger once more drew Tony from an otherwise perfect rest. Hunger—and pain. He moaned thinly, an involuntary sound, as the ache lanced from jaw to the back of his skull. A hand from outer space offered him an ice pack. Tony took it without opening his eyes, pressing it gingerly to the more painful side of his face.
For a long time, he stayed like that, refusing to budge. Then he peered at Steve, who had brought the whole bottle, this time. Tony was about to triumph and ask for as much as he could haggle when Steve shook out just four pills.
Steve did earn extra credit for curling an arm around Tony’s shoulders and leveraging him upright against more couch cushions before passing along the lukewarm glass of water. Tony took the pills without complaint, silently filling in the mental gap, How long was I out?
A while.
Tony did not mind, so much—he was too tired and woozy to care about anything beyond. He looked pitifully up at Steve, who offered, “Ice cream?”
He nodded gingerly. Steve brought more ice cream. The law of diminishing returns stated it would not taste as good as the first bowl.
It tasted just as good.
Suck on that, Tony thought, holding the spoon in his mouth and contemplating how to convey his desires without coming across as needy. Up until the present, Steve’s work had all been purely voluntary servitude. Tony had no part in it—he simply made choices when offered and accepted them with a grace befitting a man of his station. But asking Steve to hand him the remote seemed like crossing a sort of line.
Getting it himself was probably not an option, though, so he released the spoon and asked carefully, “Don’t you watch TV?”
Steve said, “You don’t have a TV.”
With a deep sigh, Tony pointed at the nearest coffee table and the remote clearly stationed on it. “Try it,” he rasped.
Steve did, picking up the remote with the sort of gung-ho what’s this doohickey do attitude that had carried him through stage one of using cell phones and microwaves and might just make him a modern man, yet. In the spirit of making him into a modern man—and not for anything resembling selfish reasons; Tony would have chosen a more cerebral film, surely—he coached Steve, in halts and starts, on how to access his library, including his collection of animated films.
His favorite animated feature was Wall-E. He would never admit it—he was reasonably sure he would eat a bullet before he said aloud, I do happen to like that Wall-E movie—but he was quick to guide Steve through the sea of opportunities straight to the prize. There was just something so delightful about it, so utterly inane and amusing, that he could not help but let go of his own thoughts for a while to watch.
Yes, it was silly. Yes, it made him feel things. Yes, Tony wished he could explain it to Steve, who clearly could not appreciate a film of its caliber without certain critical foreknowledge. But Steve did not ask questions. Steve just—watched. Steve was oddly patient about it, given that he could be doing anything else in the world than watching a children’s movie.
Flummoxed but satisfied, Tony worked his way through a second bowl of vanilla ice cream—unbelievable; truly, the most wasted opportunity of his life, eating plain vanilla ice cream twice—while Steve sat on a different couch and watched the movie.
Tony thought about saying something cheeky, but his eyes were heavy. It was easier to rest his head on the pillows and maybe shut his eyes while Wall-E screeched at the top of his little robot lungs about an incoming spaceship.
Bless his heart, really.
. o .
And to think, Tony mused, some abundant time later, when his jaw felt cracked open for how sore it was and evening had settled in—he was only half-talking about the robot.
Steve thankfully presented him with painkillers before taking other requests. Tony appreciated the lukewarm water to slug them down and wait, resisting the urge to twitch and writhe pathetically in place. It only half-worked—he still twisted into a half-pretzel in a desperate attempt to get away from the pain—and Steve noticed, squeezing his hand gently at first, then more strongly, reminding him that he was there.
Tony knew he should be more alarmed at how accommodating Steve was—everyone, absolutely everyone, had ulterior motives; the most altruistic people on Earth still enjoyed how generous and kind they were—but he could not help but be absorbed, like a snake before the charmer.
Steve helped him upright and got him moving again, sticking close by to ensure no catastrophic spills. He made chicken broth—Tony looked morosely at it for so long it was cool enough to eat by the time he attempted the first bite—and talked about old-timey movies, for some reason. Tony could not recall if he asked about Steve’s opinion or if it was simply offered, but he sat slumped at the island and listened, anyway.
It was not altogether unpleasant.
. o .
Steve even chauffeured him to his room, pill bottle in hand. Tony expected him to wave goodbye at the door and part ways forever, but it was Captain America, speaking. Tony underestimated just how sincerely Steve . . . well, cared.
Steve was not satisfied until Tony was, going so far as to helping him remove his jacket and button-down top and shimmy down his pants before replacing them with more comfortable lounge wear.
He even adjusted the thermostat to Tony’s thin, barely-voiced suggestions. It heartened Tony in a way he could not adequately express, to have his simple requests be turned into reality without fuss or expectation.
At last, Steve turned down the bed so it would be easy for Tony to slide into it. Tony refused to be tucked in twice, but he did blink in genuine bewilderment as Steve sat on the bed next to him, sitting up against the headboard.
In a more conscious state, Tony may have argued the point. As it was, Tony sighed and, deciding to take something for himself rather than submitting to being acted on, Tony leaned over, curled an arm around a robust knee, and hugged Steve’s thigh. Steve cushioned his head with a pillow, which was a tragedy, but Tony did fall asleep immediately, so Steve might have had the right idea, after all.
Tony drifted in and out, awakening to whine for the painkillers before slinking back under the cover of darkness. He rarely enjoyed sleep—nightmares were a constant companion in his home—but it seemed easy with Steve around. Tony took advantage of the opportunity, drowsing while Steve turned pages in a substantial book, occasionally brushing a hand over Tony's shoulder.
Tony had no idea why Steve did it, but it was comforting. It seemed to ground the ache and pains in reality, taking away their mind-shattering intensity. It was all part of the process—a healing process Tony rarely succumbed to. Even after the Chitauri, Tony had picked himself up with a buoyancy that surprised himself, plowing through the aftermath like it could not touch him if he moved fast enough.
Maybe, Tony thought, now was simply the time it caught up to him.
If so—he had nothing to fear. Steve was there. That made it all almost easy.
. o .
“Let me take you to lunch,” Tony offered Steve, excited to break out of his soft-food-only mold.
Steve lowered his book and looked at Tony, weighing the offer.
“Lot you haven’t seen in this city,” Tony enticed. “Lot I haven’t eaten.” He curved a hand over his belly, eager for his next culinary adventure. “C’mon. Where’s the harm?”
Steve shut his book. “You sure you’re up to it?” he pressed, but Tony shrugged him off.
“If it doesn’t work, there’s always ice cream.”
And they—shared a smile. It was silly, but it reminded Tony of lying on the concrete and looking up into a face that seemed younger than the stories would have him believing, radiant with joy. That pure joy had been there and gone so quickly that Tony had not been sure it was not a dream. Tony was willing to bargain that it was real, to play the game, to see if he could not—
Maybe, just maybe, earn that smile again.
“I’d like that,” Steve said.
It was not everything—his jaw was still weeks away from total recovery; their lives were still hectic, even around the margins—but Tony was proud to say it was a start, and a welcome one.