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Steve noticed it the first time they were officially introduced at Fury’s office after the battle of New York.
He extended his hand for a handshake, a silent peace offer after their horrible first meeting at the helicarrier almost a week ago. Stark looked at it like it would bite him any second. Steve could see how his hands twitched where he’d buried them in his pockets. But instead of taking his hand, he stared into his eyes for a moment and nodded before turning back to Fury.
Only later would Steve learn that it wasn’t hatred or aversion.
The next time he saw it happen was another month later.
Steve had finally accepted the disgruntled invitation to move into the newly renovated Stark Tower. He’d wanted to refuse again, but after Bruce and Thor had decided to take the genius up on his offer, Steve felt better knowing he wasn’t going to be alone.
He was just exiting the elevator that had brought him up and was suddenly standing in the living room of the penthouse, right where the team had cornered Loki after the battle. Stark and his girlfriend, Ms Potts, were standing in front of the giant windows overlooking the city. The inventor had one hand in his pocket and his other clutched a tumbler filled with amber liquid. She had her hand on his shoulder and was closing the gap between them, presumably to kiss him, when Stark shrugged her hand off and stepped back. A pinched look was on Stark’s face but his eyes were still kind.
They hadn’t noticed he’d arrived and Steve felt like an intruder. He could feel the heat that crept up his cheeks and hurriedly turned around and back into the elevator.
Steve began to think he just had a really bad timing.
The surprise party for Steve was a bit over-the-top if he said so himself.
It was the fourth of July and Clint who’d gotten wind of Steve’s birthday had roped the other team members into organizing a small party for him. There was cake, alcohol, BBQ, balloons, and presents. He was overwhelmed at the attention. Thor had brought Asgardian mead, Natasha and Clint had invited some of the SHIELD agents, including a not-dead Coulson, Maria Hill and even Fury showed up for all of five minutes in which he ate a whole plate of canapes before vanishing again. Thor’s girlfriend and Dr Selvig were talking science with Bruce and his girlfriend Betty, a girl named Darcy was flirting with Colonel Rhodes, and Ms Potts, or rather Pepper nowadays, was mixing cocktails.
Laughing people, people he could safely call friends, were all around Steve and he couldn’t stop the giant smile that was pulling at his lips. The only thing that dampened his mood was the one person that he couldn’t see. Tony hadn’t shown up at all. It was getting late and his birthday would soon be over.
Steve couldn’t deny that he’d been surprised that Pepper had turned up without Tony, but Natasha had pulled him aside and told him that the two of them had ended things just a week ago and that it hadn’t been easy for them since the battle of New York.
His blue eyes found the laughing strawberry redhead at the bar, talking with some agents. She didn’t look sad. Steve wondered inwardly how Tony was doing. Admittedly he hadn’t seen their resident genius a lot lately, and now he knew why. It was an open secret that Tony prefered to lick his wounds in private. But he’d hoped that their slowly developing camaraderie and tentative friendship would get Tony to share some things with him and the team.
Not sooner had he finished the thought was a hesitating cough audible behind him. Steve turned around where he was standing at the buffet, canape in hand, and then there was Tony in front of him. He was looking at him through his ridiculously long and thick eyelashes and Steve found it hard to swallow at the view.
The engineer was wearing a pair of black denim jeans and a dark red shirt. The sleeves were casually rolled up to reveal his strong forearms and hands that were littered with tiny scars from years of working with heavy machinery. He had dark circles around his eyes, but his gaze was open and friendly. It took Steve a few seconds to notice that he was holding a small package out for him to take, too distracted by how the colorful fairylight around him painted rainbows on the exposed skin of Tony's throat.
The congratulations were almost lost in the mixture of sounds all around them, but he caught Tony’s voice nevertheless. Steve was about to reach out and pull him into an embrace in thanks, but stopped mid-motion, seeing the way Tony twitched when he raised his arms. Instead he thanked him with a smile to which the shorter man nodded and stared at the buffet behind him. Steve knew that he wanted a way out of the situation and stepped aside to grant him access to the food. Tony took the opportunity, visibly grateful and grabbed a random plate to take with him and vanish again.
But Steve saw the tiny glances he threw at him over his shoulder the whole evening long.
The evening was peaceful, and after hours on end, filled with food, laughter, fireworks, and stolen glances, Steve finally retreated to the quiet of his quarters. He sat down on his bed and gently opened the present he’d received from Tony. His was the only left to unwrap.
Two notebooks appeared, one old and tattered and the other new and shiny, together with a set of probably very expensive pencils. Steve marveled at the craftsmanship of the new utensils, but it was the tattered and ugly notebook that caught his interest. The moment his fingertips brushed over the surface of the worn leather he knew it.
This was his notebook. The notebook he’d received from his mother over a century ago and that he’d taken along with him to the war. Steve flipped through it. Everything was there. The little flower shop at the corner of the street, the sketch of the baker’s wife with her big baby bump, the empty faces of the soldiers Steve had lost in those long years of war… the dancing monkey dressed in stars and stripes.
His gaze fell upon the drawing of his mother's face and tears pricked his eyes. With shaking fingers he closed the notebook again and a piece of paper fell into his lap, that he hadn't noticed before. Tony's neat handwriting filled it.
Our past is a big part of us. But we are not defined by it. Maybe it's time to make new memories.
Happy birthday
Tony
The tears fell silently as Steve hugged the note to his chest and the clock struck midnight. All he wanted to do in that moment was to embrace the man who reunited him with his mother and let him know how thankful he truly was.
From then on the air between the two unofficial leaders of the team became warmer, their conversations longer and their arguments morphed into good natured bantering and bickering. Slowly Steve felt like he was finally warming up to the future, metaphorically speaking.
To show his gratitude for bringing back his mother, the soldier held Tony's words close to his heart. It was time to make new memories.
Steve asked Natasha for advice in fashion and she accompanied him to the mall. Clint sat him and Thor down in the communal living room to get both of them updated in modern pop culture and slang. Bruce kept mostly to himself but happily offered to teach him how to cook after he'd seen Steve almost burn down the kitchen trying to make scrambled eggs. Their interactions were balm for his soul, helping him adjust and learning new things every day.
And Tony?
Sometimes, more often than not, he would take Steve out, show him the MoMA, watch a baseball game with him, take him to Coney Island and introduce him to the wonders of street food. And Steve would sit in Tony’s workshop most days when he had free time. The worn but rather comfortable couch in the corner was now his private spot. The leather was soft to the touch and the cushion fluffy and smelled softly like machine oil, Tony and something that Steve had started affiliating with home . Weeks passed like this until the hot summer air was replaced by the first night frost and the leaves turned from green to yellow to brown.
At first Tony had been hesitant to let him in, his workshop was his safe haven, his sanctuary, the one place where he didn't have to act like the arrogant asshole the public already thought he was.
Yeah, it was an act. Most of it at least was. Tony could be infuriating, arrogant and egoistic, but he had the brains that allowed him to be one at times. He hid himself behind his walls of metal and sarcastic comments, but beneath the surface of the rich industrialist he was a soft hearted dork, who loved science fiction and craved hot cocoa in those long nights when he couldn't sleep because nightmares haunted him.
That was also the first time Tony came to Steve.
Steve was sitting on his couch, in the corner of his private living room that he'd re-organized to be an atelier. It was almost 3 am but he'd been awake the whole night. The sounds of dying men, the smell of blood and death, the pictures of empty eyes, the experiences of the war, they were burned into his memory, and from time to time they'd resurface. Those were the times Steve found himself clutching the note Tony had given him.
Our past is a big part of us. But we are not defined by it.
The paper was already thin and crinkly with how often he’d let his fingers trace the letters.
Steve’s gaze wandered over the city beneath him. He still wasn’t used to seeing New York City from above. Every time he looked outside he saw something new. The humans and cars on the ground looked tiny, and when he needed a distraction, just like tonight, he imagined what secrets those streets and people held. Modern fairytales, had Clint called his gedankenexperiment.
It was one of those moments that he imagined the group of night owls that vanished in one street being a modern version of Robin Hood’s merry men, that the elevator doors to his quarters opened. A tired looking Tony stumbled into the room, a blanket around his shoulders and two different socks on his feet. He staggered towards where Steve was sitting, and the soldier swallowed his surprise. Silently he shuffled sideways and made space next to him, where Tony promptly flopped down. He shivered and pulled the blanket tighter around himself. Now Steve noticed that he only wore a pair of well-worn sweatpants that constantly threatened to slip down.
In his other hand he held a steaming mug of cocoa. This was unexpected. Steve knew that Tony treasured coffee, it was ‘his fuel’ to quote the man himself. But he kept his mouth shut, unwilling to disturb this fragile moment.
Carefully he shuffled closer, held his arms on the backrest of the couch. When Tony leaned closer, their shoulder and thighs touched. It was almost electrifying. Gradually he lowered his arm and laid in around Tony’s shoulders. He felt the tremors that wracked the body beside him through the blanket. But the engineer didn’t flinch, didn’t shrug him off, no, instead he seemed to lean even closer.
There were no words needed between them.
Time passed too fast and too slow at the same time as the unlikely pair sat in the dark room, only illuminated by the street lights beneath them. The scent of the hot cocoa mixed with the lemongrass of Tony’s shampoo. Steve didn’t know when or how it happened, but he fell asleep with his face buried in Tony’s dark hair and it was the most peaceful dream that he’d dreamed in a long time.
It was a bit awkward in the morning. Apparently Tony’s fallen asleep as well, and they’d ended up in a heap on the couch, wrapped around each other. The golden morning sun was beautiful on Tony’s rosy cheeks and he had the most adorable bedhead he’d ever seen. Steve contemplated waking his friend, but Tony held onto him as if his life depended on it. Therefore the soldier smiled secretly to himself, embraced the man that was sleeping on top of him, and relaxed back into the cushions.
In the moment before he fell asleep again, the fraction of one second when you were neither awake or asleep, he realized that, yes, that was the moment he knew he’d fallen in love.
Opposite to his own expectations the revelations of his own feelings did not put a damper on his friendly relationship with Tony. Instead they grew even closer. Days and weeks passed, they spent their free time together in between the missions Fury kept sending him on to. Every single time he had to leave the tower for one of his missions he dreaded the moment of farewell. The crushed look in Tony’s chocolate colored eyes hurt him almost physically.
Since the night they’d fallen asleep together, he was allowed to hug Tony goodbye when they parted. Tentative at first, but with time their hugs became bone-crushing. After all, both of them knew that the next mission could be the last. There was no guarantee that Steve would make it back. They’d talked briefly about Steve leaving SHIELD, but both of them knew this wasn’t an option. He was born to fight. In the past he wasn’t able to and now it was his responsibility, and the thought of not using his strength to do something good was just not an option to him.
It was a week before Christmas that Fury sent him on a mission to South America. It was supposed to be easy and quick, a standard mission; surveillance, no intervention and no contact with the enemy. Fury had gotten wind of a Hydra splinter group and was appropriately keen on getting a read on them, hoping to gain intel that would help SHIELD to smash the group before they could become a more serious problem.
One would expect Hydra to choose a cave somewhere in the Andes, where no one would bother them and make the job easy for Steve and his small group of special agents. Reclusion was an advantage for both parties in those cases. But as if to prove them wrong, the Hydra splinter group had their base in one of the biggest skyscrapers in Sao Paulo.
Steve was going to give Fury a piece of his mind the second he was home. This complicated things a bit.
Or rather, all shit went to hell.
The Brazilian metropolis was one huge Christmas market, the place was swarming with people, citizens and tourists, and it was nearly impossible to not stick out like a sore thumb in the crowd of happy families and Christmas-y people with a group of heavily armed agents and one comic book character. Furthermore the skyscraper Hydra called their own was the headquarters of one of the biggest toy makers of the country, at least on the outside. The normal customer who bought dolls, Legos and plush toys did not know that in the level above them a group of batshit crazy maniacs built weapons, probably for mass destruction, and sold them to the highest bidder who shared their sick ideologies.
Not willing to risk the lives of any civilians, Steve and his group of agents kept their distance. The first few days nothing happened, but in turn they also didn’t get any intel on what exactly Hydra was working on. The computer specialist in their team managed to hack some of their frequencies. Alas, he was neither a Tony Stark or a Bruce Banner and within two hours Hydra knew where they were and how much they’d heard.
The following hours could be described as disaster.
The families and customers that had been in the building were held hostage, in the fight that followed Steve lost half of his team and nearly got shot in the head by a stray bullet. It was sheer luck that none of the hostages were killed. Some of them were wounded, but nothing life-threatening. They were outnumbered, injured and without a better idea how to save his remaining men, Steve surrendered.
They took his shield, his cowl and every electronic gadget on his belt. Not that it’d used him a lot. The god-forsaken toy factory they brought him to was completely off the grid. Grudgingly he admitted to himself that they’d learned from past mistakes.
The hours were long and the nights were cold where he was chained to the ceiling and counted the seconds until SHIELD or the means for escape appeared.
Steve thought about the way he’d hugged Tony before they’d said their goodbyes. The sad look in his dark eyes and the hope that lingered there. The tentative touch of his hand on his forearm. Tony’s fingers on his skin was what he tried to remember when he finally managed to escape and two bullets embedded themselves in his side. The world around him was red and swirling.
In the back of his mind he thought he could hear the distinctive sound of repulsors but all he saw was the blue light from the lamps above him when he fell down the ladder and landed in what could only be the dirty water of the sewer tunnels.
Coldness engulfed him. It was hard and unforgiving, and Steve longed for the gentle touch of Tony’s hands in his, wished nothing more than to touch him one last time, because Tony allowed it. It was a privilege.
He never asked him why he hated being touched. At first it had made him curious, then suspicious and then sad. He knew how important physical contact and comfort were, had experienced the lack of it in his youth when he'd been an orphan and alone. Bucky, his best friend in his former life, had been the one to rescue him from that specific depth.
And rescuing Tony was what Steve longed to do, even though he knew that Tony didn't need a savior. Tony Stark was a survivor and one of the strongest people he'd ever met in his life. Those rare moments when he let his guard down to show Steve his true colors, how he trusted him enough to expose his weak spots, when he reached out to lay his hand on his shoulder… Those were the moments he wanted to remember. He wanted to believe he'd made a difference in his friend's life, a life that he wanted to be part of.
Dirty water stung in his nose and he closed his eyes tightly while holding his bleeding side. Steve's movements became sluggish, he could feel how his strength left him and how his body refused to oblige.
The warmth of Tony's hand on his as he showed him how to use chopsticks, when their shoulders bumped together as they walked down the sidewalk to Central Park, the way their knees and thighs were pressed together as they watched a movie late at night when none of them could find sleep. Yeah, those were the moments he wanted to remember.
Private little things that outsiders might have considered trivial but meant the world to both of them. They didn't need words. In the beginning they maybe did, but their relationship developed. Now a single glance was enough to convey what they really thought.
All those glances and all those gentle touches, moments in eternity, it was as if Steve had found something in Tony that he hadn't known he'd craved his whole life, but now that he'd found it he wanted to never let go.
If he'd been physically capable he'd chuckled at his own selfishness. Yes, he, Steve Rogers, was a selfish man. The truth was cruel, it took from you what you wished for most.
Maybe, if he'd been a braver man he'd have told Tony how he truly felt. Maybe then he could have kissed Tony goodbye.
Steve could no longer feel his legs, with the utmost effort he'd managed to pull himself out of the dirty water and onto the concrete path in the sewer tunnels. Dead rats and garbage lay next to his face. It became difficult to open his eyes.
Steve drifted on the edge of consciousness and thought he could feel fingertips stroking his cheeks when it was only his own wet hair. Welcoming unconsciousness because it took away the pain he closed his eyes again and imagined what it would feel like to hold Tony's hand, to embrace him, to kiss him, to feel the warmth of his skin.
The next time he opened his eyes he thought he was dead. There was white all around him, it was blinding and Steve closed his eyes again. It hurt. There was an annoying beeping to his left, and subconsciously he noticed that's what had woken him from his pain induced slumber. Carefully he tried to get a read on his surroundings without revealing that he was awake.
If he was captured by Hydra he needed to-
“Steve.”
Steve opened his eyes in surprise and winced when the brightness around him hurt his high strung senses.
“Hey, calm down, soldier. It's okay, you're safe, you're home. Steve, you're home. Home. Steve.”
This was impossible.
Through his closed lids he could see how the lights were dimmed enough that he could open his eyes again. He was in a hospital room, hooked up to countless machines with blinking lights which were probably responsible for the beeping. A needle was in his arm. It itched. The walls around him were blank, safe for the sad excuse of a TV that was hanging from the ceiling. There was a window to his left. Behind the thin curtains he saw that it was dawning outside, but as confused he still was he couldn’t tell whether it was evening or morning. On his bedside table was a glass vase with a single white rose.
Tony didn’t like red roses, his mind supplied unhelpfully.
Tony…
“Steve? Are you with me?” The voice to his right said.
Steve blinked. He followed the sound and there was Tony. He was sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair next to him. He held onto Steve’s hand with both of his, brushing his thumb over the back of it, gently and carefully but steady. Steve looked at their intertwined fingers for a long while, not understanding the meaning. His brain was slow and his thoughts were stumbling over itself as he tried to wrap his head around what was happening.
“Tony…” Steve’s voice sounded like sandpaper and he suppressed a cough.
“Steve, yeah, hey, it’s me. How are you feeling? Sorry, that’s probably a stupid question. You’re full of holes, nearly drowned and your lungs almost collapsed. Don’t you dare do something stupid like that ever again, you hear me?” Tony’s voice sounded strained. There were dark circles under his eyes and he had a stubble. Now that Steve was looking he also noticed that the engineer was wearing an old pair of jeans and a sweater that Steve could swear belonged to him.
“Tony…” Steve repeated. His brain was still so slow. All he could focus on was the fact that he was alive and somehow Tony was holding his hand. This was what he’d wished for, what he’d longed for, what he’d imagined for so long, that he lost count of the days. “Tony, you’re here. Where’s here?”
“You’re in New York, dummy.” Tony explained. He’d lowered his voice until it was bearable for Steve. “SHIELD, those assholes, had no idea where you were for days until they finally told the team that you were missing. I still want to rip Fury a new one, but rescuing you was more important. It was a close call. For a few moments we thought we’d lose you. You lost so much blood… And, you were weak, really weak. When I arrived you were already wrecking havoc in the factory, the whole building was collapsing and you were still in there. I thought I- I, I thought I was too late. But- But Jarvis detected you under all the rubble. We found you in the sewer tunnels.”
His voice had become shaky at the end, unsteady, as if he had to force the words to come out. And he held onto Steve’s hand tightly, so tightly that it nearly hurt, but on the other hand not tightly enough. He returned the squeeze tiredly and Tony’s breath hitched.
Long moments nothing happened. Then their eyes met. A tentative smile grazed Steve’s chapped lips, shy and innocent, pure like the first snow. “We’re holding hands.”
The statement almost sounded like a question, Steve didn’t want to prompt Tony to pull his hand back. It felt right, correct, as if all his hand was ever meant to do was holding the engineer’s. Tony chuckled wetly.
“Yeah, we are. If you wanted to hold my hand that badly all you had to do was ask. There was no need to pull a stunt like that, you adorable idiot.” Tony sniveled and blinked away the stray tears from the corners of his eyes.
“What’s life without a bit of drama?” Steve tried to joke weakly until Tony’s words reached his brain that was working in energy-saving mode. “Wait, but… I didn’t want to- I mean… I thought, I thought you hated being touched?”
Not sooner did the words leave his mouth, did he want to take them back. He had a horrible brain-to-mouth filter, especially when he was high on pain meds. Steve stared at Tony’s gobsmacked expression and wanted to punch himself. What if he’d just ruined everything? What if Tony would pull back now? Lock him out of his life for good?
Steve could no longer bear those cold nights alone, the nightmares, the trauma, the memories. Tony was his anchor, the only steadiness in his life, like a fire in the dark. His bright eyes were his landmark, his voice what guided him through the darkness, his warmth what he craved.
“I- I’m sorry, I thought you… Tony, I’m sorry, please don’t- I can, I want to… uh, I- I need you in my life. Please don’t lock me out, don’t push me away…” His voice died and subconsciously he felt a single tear run down his cheek. Steve closed his eyes tightly against it. His face hurt. Distantly he remembered getting hit by debris and wondered if he looked as horrible as he felt.
“Steve. Open your eyes, please.” Tony’s voice was gentle, gentle, oh so gentle.
Steve complied, ready to be let down just as gently, but Tony smiled at him. His smile was tired, sad, exasperated and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Steve loved his smile, the small laughter lines around his mouth and in the corners of his eyes, how his eyes would sparkle with mirth, the way his lips would reveal his perfect teeth.
Why was he smiling. Why was he smiling?
“I don’t hate being touched. I never hated it. My life made me wary, cautious, maybe a bit distrusting. But I never hated being touched, especially not when it’s you.” Tony’s voice was small, just as cautious as he’d just described himself.
And all those moments he’d thought he’d seen Tony being uncomfortable came back to him.
A week after the battle in Fury’s office… Tony hadn’t taken his hand, but not because he hated being touched, but because Steve was a stranger to him, a stranger he’d only ever met when the world had been ending. A stranger who’d verbally attacked him the first time they’d ever met.
The day he’d moved into the tower… A month after the battle when he’d avoided Pepper. Their constant fighting had put a big strain on their relationship and Tony was suffering from PTSD. Later, much later, he’d confided in Steve that he still saw the wormhole and the nuke in his dreams.
His birthday… Tony had seen a laughing and joking Pepper, happily mixing cocktails and laughing when he’d been still hurting from their breakup and had no one to tell them how he suffered.
“Steve. Can you see it now? I never hated being touched. Especially when it’s you. Quite the contrary. Because every time we touch I get this feeling. I want you in my life. Steve... “ Tony took a deep breath and he was so breathtakingly beautiful that Steve couldn’t look away. “If I’m not completely misinterpreting everything that’s just happened then, please, go out with me, go steady with me, whatever you want to call it. But I want to touch you. I want to be able to touch you. Not just your body, I want to be able to touch your soul. And I want you to touch me. Make it count.”
Steve was a weak man.
He took hold of Tony’s hand and pulled it towards him. Holding Tony’s brown gaze he kissed the back of his hand. His lips lingered on his knuckles, kissing every single one, and smiling while doing so. It was crooked because his face hurt like he’d run into a wall, and the machines around him beeped faster. Steve’s hammering heart wanted to burst.
His voice was rough with emotions when he opened his mouth. “Yes, Tony, yes to everything.”
The nurses found them hours later, sleeping peacefully. Tony had climbed into the hospital bed next to Steve. His head was laying on Steve’s chest and he had his arm slung around his waist, always careful of his injuries. In turn the soldier held onto his shoulder and his nose was buried in those unruly brown hair.
It was late at night, small snowflakes fell from the sky, dancing like pixies in the wind. Steve Rogers had missed Christmas and New Years’ Day, but he didn’t mind.
Everything he wanted, everything he needed, everything he loved did he hold tightly in his arms.