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“Tell me do you think it’d be all right
If I could just crash here tonight?
You can see I’m in no shape for driving
And anyway I’ve got no place to go.”
~Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy”
His apartment was ruined, and it only seemed fitting. Fitting that this temporary, impersonal “home” would be destroyed so soon after his real home – Avengers Mansion – had been reduced to a pile of haunted bricks and beams of bent steel. The mansion was gone, Scott was gone, the Vision was gone, Clint was gone, Wanda was as good as gone, and now his apartment had a gaping hole where the outside wall should be. Yes, it was fitting.
But he still needed a place to stay, and he wasn’t actually going to go to Rachel for that. He’d been friendly enough with her in the aftermath of the battle, but whatever they used to have… well, it wasn’t the same, anymore. And after spending days with her unsettlingly convincing LMD, it just didn’t feel right to try to start something with the real Rachel, no matter how many feelings had been stirred up on his side. The situation was too complicated. She didn’t deserve to be dragged into it.
He briefly considered going to Sam’s, but he was dealing with his own problems, and Steve had bothered him enough lately. Which left only one person he could imagine himself approaching – one person left who had the space, the security, and, more importantly, the ability to understand. The one person who, honestly, he should have thought to approach to begin with. And so, after a twenty-block jog at eight o’clock on a brisk, dusky New York evening, Steve Rogers found himself at the foot of the newly-built Stark Tower, wearing street clothes and carrying a paper sack and a duffel bag. One retinal scan and a phone call later he was riding a gleaming, marble-floored elevator to the forty-eighth story.
The doors slid open, and Steve found Tony waiting for him at the base of a spiral staircase, leaning against the banister with his arms crossed. His shirtsleeves were rolled up, and there were still goggles on top of his head – he’d obviously been working.
“Hi,” Steve said, only a little awkwardly. They hadn’t really talked since that night. All of them had gone their separate ways after everything had happened, too consumed by their own personal griefs. Hank was with Jan, but everyone else was alone – and Jennifer had fallen off the map entirely. In retrospect, Steve thought this might not have been the best plan. At a time like this, maybe everyone needed each other more than ever. But they all had too much pride to acknowledge that.
Steve lifted the paper bag he’d been carrying. “I brought food,” he said, taking in the grease tracks on Tony’s forearms. “I had a feeling you wouldn’t have eaten.”
Tony unfolded his arms and nodded, letting a bit of weariness show. “For three days, at least.”
“Jarvis hasn’t been force-feeding you?” Steve asked, surprised, as he dropped his duffel bag and stepped further into the room. It was barely furnished – a couch here, a small table there, but nothing on the walls or floors. Tony had been staying at the mansion when he wasn’t in his apartment in D.C.; he hadn’t intended to move in here for another few weeks, at least.
“I sent Jarvis on vacation. He deserves it,” Tony replied. Steve couldn’t disagree.
“Well, then, let’s go heat this up,” Steve said, glancing around for some clue to the kitchen’s location. Tony took the hint and led him, wordlessly, in the right direction.
In the kitchen, they worked in silence, Tony loading the containers of Chinese food into the twin microwaves while Steve rooted through the barely-stocked refrigerator for drinks and salad fixings. Ten minutes later, cartons heated and salad prepared, they moved to the couch in the room that would, eventually, be a living room. A giant plasma screen TV sat against the opposite wall, but neither made a motion to turn it on as they sank into the cushions with their cartons of lo mein.
After several more minutes of silence, Steve finally spoke. “Thank you. For letting me stay here. It’ll only be a few days; the repair crew is already working on my wall.”
Tony nodded through a mouthful of noodles, then swallowed. “Don’t mention it. Stay as long as you need to.” He paused, then added, a little quieter, “This place echoes too damn much with just one person.”
“What have you been working on?” Steve asked, to fill the awkward silence that followed that statement. He gestured to the goggles with one hand as the other placed his carton on the coffee table and grabbed for his water bottle.
“Armor tune-ups. I’m trying to come up with new failsafe procedures. I can’t take the chance that someone else will take over my mind and make me do something worse than embarrassing myself in front of the U.N.” Tony placed his own carton on the table, laying the chopsticks across the top, and reached up to remove the goggles.
“I hope you’ve at least been sleeping,” Steve said, with the concerned look that Clint had once claimed made him look less like someone’s stern military father and more like someone’s clucking, overbearing mother. Clint had always had an irreverent honesty about him.
“I get about two hours a night. When I can,” Tony replied, dismissive.
“Tony!” Steve exclaimed. “You can’t do this to yourself.”
“And what should I do instead? Sleep long nights? Let the nightmares come? Come on, Steve. Lie to me and tell me you’ve been getting any more sleep than I have.”
Steve stayed silent.
“I thought so.” Tony leaned back against the couch, eyes to the ceiling.
“You sent Jarvis on vacation.” It sounded like a change of subject, but Tony would know it wasn’t.
“Yes. For a few weeks, at least.”
“Then you really don’t think we’re coming back from this.” It wasn’t a question.
“What am I supposed to do, Steve? My company’s this close to going under – my stock fell to rock bottom after the fracas at the UN. I can’t even imagine funding the team anymore. And with Jan and Kelsey still in the hospital and the others gone… it’s the end, Steve. You know it as well as I do.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
“You think I don’t?” Tony sighed, taking a sip of his own water. “In a few weeks we’ll announce it officially, after I’ve gotten this business with the Cabinet and my secret identity sorted out and everyone’s on the mend.”
Steve couldn’t help it. His anger surged, and he pounded his fist into Tony’s new coffee table with an unintelligible roar, cracking the glass. “God damn it!” Breathing heavily, he looked up, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I’ll pay for it.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m not that poor yet.” Tony kicked the broken table away with one foot, then moved closer to Steve on the couch, placing a hand on his shoulder and squeezing gently.
“I just want something to make sense.” Steve cast his gaze downwards, toward the hands clasped tightly between his knees. “This… none of this makes any sense, Tony. Wanda…” He couldn’t even bring himself to say it. And he couldn’t even begin to think about what had gone on between the two of them in the days leading up to that night. Steve couldn’t even be sure it was real at all; it could easily have been nothing more than Wanda’s magics. But why had she chosen that as her punishment for him? The others had gotten so much worse…
But Steve knew the answer. If Wanda had killed him, it would have been what he wanted – a sacrifice for others’ sake. No, to punish him, she had to make him feel guilty – guilty for taking advantage of a damaged woman, guilty for letting this all get out of hand because he was too busy concentrating on his past and his personal feelings, guilty for not being able to stop his friends – his family – from falling apart. Even if it had been subconscious, Wanda had hit her mark.
In just over two weeks, Steve had watched four friends die and entered two false relationships. And now, as he sat on Tony Stark’s couch, staring at his hands, the full weight of all of that finally hit, like a dozen punches to the chest. “I just want something good to be real,” he whispered, more to himself than to Tony.
“I know,” Tony whispered back. “Believe me, I know.” And suddenly strong arms were around Steve’s shoulders, and he and Tony were sitting side-by-side on the couch, holding each other like shaking children, tearless torrents of emotion thrusting for release.
He wasn’t sure who made the first move. Maybe it was Tony’s palm on Steve’s cheek, stroking the stubble in gentle circles; maybe it was Steve’s hands on the back of Tony’s head, pulling their foreheads together. But the next thing Steve knew they were kissing, desperately, mouths open and wet and hungry for comfort. He felt the scrape of a moustache against his lip and the pressure of large hands grabbing at his biceps, pushing him down on the couch and fumbling at the buttons on his shirt, and he let himself fall into the need of it all, the clinging need for emotional relief channeled through the physical.
The next morning, Steve woke up on the silk sheets of Tony’s bed, after the longest sleep he’d had in a very long time. The pillow next to him was empty, but on the otherwise-vacant bedside table he found a sesame seed bagel with butter, and a note on Stark Enterprises stationery:
“Steve-
I’m down in the workshop. Feel free to join me. I took the liberty of bringing your bag up to our room.
-Tony
P.S. Last night was real. And good.”
For the first time in weeks, Steve Rogers smiled.