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The color blue, Tony had learned some years ago in school, rarely occurred in nature. And the things that were blue had a tendency to not really be blue; see, what made something blue was the presence of a pigment, and if it was lacking in this pigment, people often said it was devoid of color, that any blue one could see was an illusion. Tony had fought back a little bit on the wording-- it's the pigment, after all, the lack of blue pigment, not the lack of the color, necessarily, if you think of color as what we see and sound as what we hear and touch as what we feel when the bits that make us up get ever-nearer to those of the bits that make everything else up--
And he hadn't gotten much farther than that before the teacher interrupted, said "It's more complicated than that," and left it there. Tony-- young as he was and curious, bright, more lively than he'd turn out to be after a few more years of that same school-- wasn't off-put by the correction at all. It's more complicated, the teacher said, and Tony's brain responded, Is it? How is it? Could you tell me?
He'd forgotten the question. Blue was blue was blue; it was the color of the navy blazer his father gifted him on his 14th birthday when he'd come home for Christmas. It was the color of the Jays he'd watch in the after-school birding club, and often the color of the pen he'd use to check those Jays off the list year after year after year. It was the color of the sky, the color of ties and pocket squares hung up in his closet, the color of sapphire cufflinks and curacao and fire, even, if you fixed it the right way.
Blue faded into the background. It just was, no more complicated than that. It wasn't as if Tony's curiosity had been stamped down completely-- quite the contrary, in fact, as his relentless drive to learn more, learn better, learn quicker overtook him. It just happened to be... put to better things, in the end. He could certainly put a twist on his projects, just to keep them interesting, but they were ultimately for people more deserving than him of the freedom required to ask trivial questions and treat their answers with the utmost importance, day after day after day.
He still asked. He still wondered. But instead of researching, he simply hypothesized. He'd ask a friend if it was convenient-- Reed, what do you think is the most popular ingredient? Why do you think people like it so much? It has to be oil or salt or something, something cheap and easy and common-- but for the most part, his little curiosities lay where they began. Unanswered. Neglected.
He cared for the color blue. It was his favorite, he thought, as it reminded him of better things, better people, better days. It reminded him of warm days and cold drinks, of the heroes he wished would come to save him, of the hero that ultimately did. The arrival of Captain America-- the hero in question-- only made Tony's love for the color more concrete. It was safe, then. It was really, truly safe, and not just in theory anymore. There was no need to sit by and hope desperately for someone like Captain America to save him, to pick him up when he fell. Not when Steve did, every single day, hand outstretched for Tony to grab with a grin on his face and his eyes twinkling.
He had the most gorgeous eyes.
Tony wondered if Steve thought the same of him. They'd locked eyes so many times-- in battle, in meetings, both face-to-face and through the slits of the suit. Every time, every time, their gazes lingered, moments longer than Tony thought was normal. Whether or not it was reality or just a figment of his imagination-- his brain longing to stretch those moments out into infinity-- he couldn't say for certain.
But he could say that he memorized the color of Steve's eyes. He could pick it out on a color wheel. He could tell you that Steve's eyes were more deep blue than teal, ever so slightly more purple than green, with a dark ring around his pupils and light flecks like a Jackson Pollock stretching from the center of his eye to the outer circle. There were more shades in Steve's eyes than there were in crashing waves and nebulas. There was more complexity to his irises than there was to all the stars in the sky, pushing and pulling and falling and turning.
Tony thought he could drown in them. It felt like it, truly, as Steve's gaze on him took his breath away every time.
And Tony thought to himself one night, as he lay in bed with the vision of Steve's irises practically painted on the insides of his eyelids, if there was any meaningful difference between eyes that were blue because they were made to be and eyes that were blue because they simply couldn't be anything else.
They're still blue, he would have said at 8, at 10, at 13-- he may have said it more quietly with each passing year, but if nothing else, it would have crossed his mind. He was ever the pedant, at times to a fault, but a pedant with the brain of a child was often little more than a tiny person saying "Gotcha!" every so often, convinced they'd picked something apart when they had far more to learn.
Laying there, with the memory of his back against the sparring mat and Steve's hand outstretched for him, with the memory of Steve's eyes on his, he thought there was something poetic about all that not quite blue nonsense he'd dismissed before. He'd always appreciated the thought behind it, the nuance behind it, the understanding behind it. He always cared for the science and the natural ways of the world. It was interesting.
He'd never quite felt it, though.
He knew he cared. But it had been so long, and he'd spent so many years being told not to concern himself with trivial things like this that to return to the questions he'd had so long ago felt strange, almost forbidden. Don't dig too deep. Don't look too hard. Let it be what it is.
But like he thought before, Steve's eyes were something he could drown in, and drowning happened slowly; at some point, there was no more fighting it.
It's more complicated than that, his teacher had said all those years ago, when Tony was adamant (so adamant it was laughable, looking back) that there was some genius answer he could come up with on the spot to solve the whole 'what's blue?' conundrum.
It's more complicated than that.
And it was.
Tony's intelligence, his drive, his up-played hubris couldn't pull him back from it, then. His brain had been set alight with wonder and awe at the thought of Steve, the reality of the electric blue sparks that seemed to buzz off him in droves. There was no level of genius that could keep him from wondering; how blue are Steve's eyes? How are they so deep, so dark? How are they structured? What do they look like up close? If Steve could just get closer, lean in closer, put a hand on Tony's shoulder and take one more step toward him, get close enough so Tony could look, so he could investigate (harmlessly, of course-- don't dig too deep, don't look too hard, let it be what it is). If only Tony could get a closer look-- at Steve's eyes, at Steve's body, at Steve's heart, at Steve's everything-- then he'd start to understand.
Or maybe he could investigate recklessly; maybe he could dig a little deeper, look a little harder, question what the it was to begin with.
Blue wasn't just blue; curiosity wasn't just curiosity. Not always.
Tony figured he had quite a bit to untangle.