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He hates this. He feels like a clumsy, overeager puppy, paws too big for him. He’s never even heard of molecular gastronomy, but it sounds like the kind of thing he should be wary of.
He feels itchy and stiff in his suit, out of place at the immaculately dressed table. The table is intimate, and he’s surrounded by his team, but he feels like he doesn’t belong. He doesn’t know which fork to use. He has never in his life eaten blue foam, and he doesn’t intend to start now.
He’s the only one who feels like a fish out of water, too. Clint and Bruce had both grown up poor, but Clint had been on enough undercover missions for SHIELD that he can adapt to anything. Bruce had spent years compelling rich people at fundraisers to donate to his research. Natasha can do anything and be anyone, and Thor is royalty. The only person who isn’t comfortable at this table is Steve.
They’re supposed to be celebrating. They’d won a battle against Dr. Doom where everything had miraculously gone right. They’d worked as a team, truly, and the forces of evil hadn’t stood a chance. It’s a huge win for them.
But Steve just wants to go home. He wants to eat food he recognizes and watch a movie with his team while Clint and Natasha throw popcorn into each others’ mouths.
“Excuse me,” he says, looking down at his dish of blue foam. He’s never eaten anything this colour, and he needs a breather already. “Be right back.”
Tony had used his considerable clout to get them last minute reservations. Steve isn’t stupid, he knows this restaurant is impossible to get into. But apparently, when you’re Tony Stark, they roll out the red carpet for you. Just like everywhere else.
In the washroom, Steve washes his hands, then leans over the sink and stares at himself. You can do this, he thinks to himself. You’re Captain America. You faced down HYDRA. You faced down the Red Skull. You faced down Loki. You can eat blue foam.
The door opens behind him, and he looks up in the mirror to meet Tony’s eyes. Tony is grinning, and he reaches out and grabs Steve by the sleeve of his suit.
“Let’s get out of here,” Tony says, dragging him out the back into the alley. Steve is shocked, he’s been hoping, wanting, wishing, and suddenly it’s all happening, and – Tony drags him out of the alley and into the street, where there’s a street vendor with a cart selling tacos. Oh. So, not dragging Steve into a back alley for sex.
Tony hands the vendor a $100 bill and stacks three recyclable containers on top of each other, takes a fourth and hands it to Steve.
“What are we doing?”
“Having tacos.”
“Right. But we were... We were in Areola...”
“Aureole,” Tony laughs.
“Whatever, the place with the… foam.”
“That look on your face right now? That’s the look you had on your face when they brought the first course. So, now we’re here, eating street tacos.”
“You planned a whole team dinner, Tony, we can’t just…”
“Sure we can. I’m an eccentric billionaire, I can do whatever I want.”
Steve’s heart beats hard in his chest. The mischievous grin on Tony’s face makes him want to kiss it from the man’s face, to crush his lips over Tony’s and kiss him until they’re both out of breath.
Tony holds out another taco container. “You really are starving, aren’t you?”
“What?” Steve asks, blinking away the fantasy.
“The look on your face now is entirely different from the Blue-Foam Face. You must be starving.”
“Yeah,” Steve says after a moment of self-scolding. “I am. Thanks, Tony.” He says this last with a grin, popping open the cardboard takeout container and taking the taco out. It smells delicious, like spices and beef and salsa and lime. He picks it up and takes a bite, trying not to blush as the shell cracks and a little bit of the beef slips down his bottom lip.
Tony reaches out with one hand, thumb swiping under Steve’s lip to wipe away the spill. He freezes, his hand inches away from Steve’s face, and his eyes go wide.
“Well, that was a little more into your personal space than I meant to go.”
Steve swallows his bite of taco, shaking his head. “It’s fine, I don’t mind, it’s –”
“Wow, I’m such a – seriously, Steve, sorry. That wasn’t appropriate.”
“It was fine. It was totally –” Tony shoves the boxes of tacos at Steve’s chest, and Steve drops his partially-eaten one back in the box so he can grab the boxes before they fall onto the sidewalk. Tony backs away, looking stricken. “Tony, stop,” Steve says, and he drops all the tacos and grabs Tony by the arms before he can turn and run, because Steve can see it in his eyes, the flight response that means he’s about to take off like a scared deer. But Steve had felt a moment, has had a realization about the clarity with which Tony can read the expressions on his face, and there’s no way he’s letting Tony run without a fight. He’s not going to let Tony run off to Japan or Germany or wherever for weeks of ‘meetings’ and then come back and act like nothing’s happened. Not this time.
“Tony, don’t go,” Steve says, and he stares into Tony’s eyes for a long moment. Fear, humiliation, and there, a flicker of hope.
And Steve does what he has wanted to do for months. He pulls Tony closer to him, wraps an arm around Tony’s back and cups the back of Tony’s head in his hand. He crushes his mouth over Tony’s, kissing him hard and fast and licking into his mouth with as much desire and passion as he can put into it.
Tony melts into his arms, clutching at Steve’s shoulders, biting a little at Steve’s lip as he kisses him back, kisses Steve back with fire and heat and desperation.
After a long moment, when Steve is short of breath and hard in his pants and his head is spinning, he pulls back, tipping his forehead forward to rest against Tony’s. Tony is panting, fingers clawing still into Steve’s shoulders.
“You never said,” Tony gasps, after a moment. “You never said anything.”
“You, either,” Steve says, low and heated. “God, Tony.”
“You still hungry?”
Steve snorts a half-laugh. “I’ve got leftover takeout in my fridge at the Tower. We can eat it after.”
“After?” Tony raises a cheeky eyebrow, leaning back to give Steve that same cocky, mischievous grin that Steve had wanted to kiss away earlier. He gives in to the urge, gives Tony another fast, heated kiss.
“After,” he confirms, pulling away.
“Okay, but I’m getting more tacos,” Tony says, turning away and jogging back over to the taco vendor. He hands him another bill, but this time Steve’s too far away to see how much it’s for. Certainly more than the tacos are priced at. The vendor grins and hands him a bag with half a dozen taco boxes in it, and Tony jogs back toward him.
“What about the rest of them?” Steve nods his chin down the street to the restaurant they’d snuck out of.
“Nat has my black card,” Tony tells him, stepping out into the street to flag down a cab. One stops immediately, because he’s Tony Stark and no cabbie in New York wouldn’t recognize him at a glance. “She’ll get the tab.”
At just that moment, as he’s sliding into the back seat of the Taxi behind Tony, Steve’s phone vibrates in his chest pocket. He pulls it out and glances at it. It’s from Clint.
Attaboy.
“They know we’ve gone,” Steve says, sliding his phone away and choosing to ignore the text – and its implications – in favour of pulling one of the taco containers out of the bag on Tony’s lap. The Taxi takes off toward the tower, and Steve takes a big bite.
He’s going to need his strength.