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The fact is that the Avengers are a bunch of reckless, guilt-ridden, indisputably damaged malcontents whose ability to save the world hinges on a capricious brew of legitimate powers and sheer stubbornness.
It isn’t a pretty truth, but there it is. Tony’s never been under any illusions to the contrary, even back before they blew the whole thing to hell. Open and honest communication about emotions was a touchy thing during the old days, and now…
Well. It’s as though A-Day, and losing-then-finding Steve, and Kamala’s...everything -- broke down whatever nice safe emotional walls used to exist between them, and now nobody knows what to do about it. They all can’t seem to make up their minds between raw vulnerability and clinging to any scrap of normalcy like it’s the last thing between them and the abyss.
Which means that one minute Tony finds himself talking about feelings -- gross -- with Natasha goddamn Romanoff of all people, and the next they’re trading barbs like nothing ever happened. Like they’re not international fugitives and Tony hadn’t gone and had a mental breakdown for five years while Nat melted into the shadows and did her damn job.
So, jarring. But maybe also healthy? Tony’s not actually sure he’d know what that would look like. They’d gone from reluctant coworkers to bickering family a long time ago, just, not the kind of family that... talks about stuff. Not like this.
Even Thor’s been getting all mushy here and there, booming, “IT IS GOOD TO BE HOME, IS IT NOT?” at Tony entirely too early in the morning and with entirely too much affection considering that Tony had shamelessly stolen no less than five Asgardian rugs out of his room.
And then there’s Steve.
Recently-returned-from-the-dead, two-time-Capsicle-champion Steve.
The thing people don’t get about Steve Rogers is that he’s just as bad as the rest of them. Sure, his brand of recklessness tends to take the form of throwing himself into a hopeless fight against evil with nothing but grit and a giant frisbee to save him, and that looks nice and heroic once it’s over and he’s actually won said fight, but the thing people don’t get is -- he’s never sure he’s going to win. Not until he’s done it. Tony knows, he’s asked. (Specifically, he’s asked, “What in the ever-living fuck were you going to do if I hadn’t been able to catch you?” after Steve had launched himself out of a thirty-story window, and Steve had said, “I woulda figured something out,” which means he had no idea, and anyway after that Tony couldn’t sleep for three nights.)
Steve says things like We’ve done this before and I know we can do it again; and We’re fighting the good fight, and that’s always worth it in the end; and As long as you have my back, I’ll have yours. And the absurd, breathtaking thing is that he means all of them sincerely, from the bottom of his enormous supersoldier heart.
He also says things like I’ll take this one, you worry about the rest; and I heal fast, I’ll be all right; and Tony, I said I’m fine, stop asking.
For all his obsession with teams, he’s stubbornly, stupidly self-reliant. You give a guy super healing and all of the sudden he thinks he can throw himself off a building and refuse medical attention afterward. It’s frankly alarming.
So in retrospect, it was wildly optimistic to think Steve Rogers would actually pause to address the fact that he had been, you know. Kidnapped and put in a coma for five years so that evil scientists could steal his blood.
In space.
Tony prods as much as he can reasonably get away with -- Looking a little stiff there, Cap -- and gets summarily brushed off. Once or twice he hears Nat and Bruce make their own attempts to break through their stalwart captain’s impenetrable barrier of stoicism, and they get the same treatment: a couple of reassuring lines and absolutely no further exploration of the issue. He lets them in a little bit, tricks them into thinking they’re getting somewhere, and then he locks them out. It’s diabolical, actually.
The result is inevitably the same, too. They leave him alone.
The thing is, none of them really knows where to go from there. None of them really knows how to do this. They’re all just muddling their way through with various levels of stunted social skills, trying to manage this newly fierce protectiveness buzzing painfully at the back of every goddamn thought, every action.
Or, well. That’s what Tony’s doing.
So Steve disappears into the HARM room for longer and longer stretches, and Tony starts designing him tougher gloves. Steve spends an entire night awake in the common area reading old SHIELD files, and Tony works on making him a better helmet. It goes on like this, until Tony has about twelve new project designs sitting in his O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN folder.
(He looks up the rest of that poem after Steve tells him the next line, spends a while feeling vaguely sick to his stomach, and after some deliberation changes the name of the folder to FOSSIL FASHIONS.)
I don’t want you to worry about me, Steve says firmly, when Tony gets too close in his prodding at one point. Like Tony has any other option. Like any of them do. They’re all dancing around it, getting in their little admonitions disguised as jabs (You’re looking tired, old man), never facing the issue head on: that Steve’s not the same as he was. That there might be something wrong.
In the end it’s Kamala who brings it right out into the open, because of course it is. Kamala, who wears her heart on her sleeve, who never opts for easy cynicism and doesn’t know the meaning of passive aggression, asks the question they’ve all been dodging. Just says it, like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
"Hey, is Captain America okay?"
She’s sitting on the edge of Tony’s work desk and swinging her legs back and forth, eating a burger and fries while he puts the finishing touches on the design for her new suit. They’ve been working on their respective tasks in companionable silence for a while now, so Tony has to blink himself out of a whirlwind of ideas spinning through his head in order to focus on her.
"Is -- what?"
Kamala shrugs. "Captain America. He seems, I dunno. Tired?"
Tony squints at her. "You know you don't have to call him that, right?"
"Captain Rogers?" Kamala tries.
"Orrr. You know. Steve?"
Kamala winces. "Ooh, yeah, no. I couldn't. I could not do that."
"He likes people to call him Steve," Tony says absently, going back to his tablet, swiping through design ideas, trying to figure out if they’ve incorporated everything she wanted. Kamala slurps noisily at her milkshake. Thor had gone out and picked up a whole Burger King kids’ meal for her, and only for her, which. Vastly unfair.
“I just was thinking,” she says after a while, “if I got frozen in a coma for five years and experimented on. I wouldn’t be okay.”
Tony stares at the design blueprints without really seeing them. “That’s a power nap for Cap,” he says -- because hey, it’s still a good joke, and maybe it’ll make her laugh. Throw her off the scent, even. Because he’s not sure he can have this conversation right now. He’s not sure where this conversation goes.
But Kamala doesn’t laugh. “Doesn’t that make it worse? He already lost seventy years. And I mean, I only got kidnapped and knocked out for like five minutes, and I wasn’t okay after that.”
Tony looks up sharply to see her gazing back at him, earnest as ever. “Wasn’t?” he repeats. “That’s past tense?”
Kamala nods. “Yeah, I’ve been talking to a therapist. I’m okay now.”
Tony has to work hard not to stare at her. It’s just that she says it so casually, like there’s nothing to it, like the rest of them wouldn’t rather fight a warbot alone surrounded by lava than admit they needed that kind of help.
Five years, he’d spent alone in a trailer, drowning in grief. Hadn’t thought of therapy once. Not once.
She’s the best of them, Tony thinks. It’s not the first time he’s thought that.
“Okay,” he says. “Okay, good. Because if you’re not -- if you’re not, you’re gonna tell someone, right?”
“’Course I will,” Kamala says, like it’s a no-brainer. “But Captain Rogers--”
“Steve.”
“St--” She stops with a visible shudder. “I can’t. I can not do that.”
“Cap,” Tony suggests. “Or, hey, go all-out. Captain Steven Grant Rogers, former US Army, current Avengers leader, Not-Mad-Just-Disappointed Dad--”
“He’s not gonna tell anyone,” Kamala cuts in. “If he’s not doing well. And I don’t think he is, I think he just wants us to think he is. And I think we need to find a way to help him, because he won’t do it himself. I think -- I think you should try.” She looks flushed, embarrassed, like it’s costing her something to get the words out -- but also deeply determined. Ever committed to standing up for The Cause, and doesn’t that remind him of someone. It even brings up the same painfully familiar mix of shame and admiration. The same desire to be better.
“You know,” Tony says finally, setting the tablet aside, “you may be right on that.”
*
It’s not the easiest mission he’s taken on.
Setting aside the fact that Tony has no idea what he’s doing -- Steve clearly does. Know what he’s doing. He evades concern with the ease of somebody who’s been doing it his whole life. Sometimes Tony forgets about the Steve who was deathly ill all the time, the scrawny guy in the old photos, thin-faced and sickly but with the same hard, I-don’t-like-bullies look in his eyes. Maybe there’s something about that, growing up that way, that makes a guy acutely allergic to concern.
Maybe if you’ve grown up constantly knocking on death’s door, you aren’t all that phased when the door swings open.
Maybe Tony’s developing his empathy a little too much. This is uncomfortable. He misses being rich and powerful and isolated and not having to think about other people’s feelings.
Still, the kid’s counting on him now, so he gives it his best shot. Between meetings with Hill and training sessions and missions, Cap’s hard to catch these days, but Tony finally manages to ambush him en route to the HARM room at eleven at night.
“Are you trying to out-insomnia me, Rogers?” he asks. “Because I’ll tell you right now, I’m gonna win.” He’s stepped directly into Steve’s path, so he either has to dodge awkwardly around Tony or -- yes, there we go, he’s planting his feet and giving Tony the full weight of his attention. Threat assessment, or something. Strategizing: ‘how do I get this obnoxious bastard out of my way,’ probably.
This close up, Tony can see the actual dark circles under his eyes. “Seriously, are you getting any sleep at all?”
“Slept for seventy-five years, Tony.”
Tony quirks a brow. “Cute line. Doesn’t mean you don’t still have to.”
“I am,” Steve answers steadily. “I will. What did you need?” He looks. Concerned. About Tony. Which is all backwards, all wrong, and Tony takes a step back and away, holding up his hands.
“Just wondering what our fearless leader is up to, running around past his bedtime.”
Steve’s lips twitch upward. “Fearless leader’s taking a walk, if that’s all right with you.”
“Huh.” Tony glances toward the HARM room a few yards away. “Taking a walk on over to beat up some robots? Didn’t you spend like, four hours doing that earlier today?”
“Just a walk, shellhead,” Steve says, calm and reassuring, and he’s so good at that, at that soothing all-is-well voice, that Tony’s backed off and retreated to his room before he entirely realizes what’s happened.
“Damn,” he mutters, staring at the door, and thinks about going back out there. Catching Steve in his lie, having JARVIS shut the HARM room down and nag their newly duplicitous captain back to bed.
Instead he just sits at his desk for hours, fiddling with designs that don’t need any further fiddling, listening for the sound of supersoldier footsteps heading for the door across the hall.
But they never come.
*
It’s the Hawkeyes, of all people, who bring it up next. Like Clint goddamn Barton is in any position to be commenting on anybody’s emotional wellbeing, but, whatever. They show up in Tony’s lab at precisely the moment he’s trying to do repairs on a finicky gauntlet, which is both very distracting and mildly life-threatening of them, because if he isn’t a.) patient and b.) focused, there is a non-zero chance something’s going to explode.
“What’s that?” Clint asks, leaning around Tony’s shoulder to point at the cardboard fast food box sitting on the desk.
Historically, Hawkeyes have tested his patience.
“Fried Oreos. State fair. Thor,” Tony answers, and hears an Ooooh from his other shoulder. Which would be Kate. Which is bad news. One Hawkeye in his lab is a minor hazard. Two Hawkeyes in his lab...does not bode well for the Chimera’s structural integrity.
“And what does the bird brigade need today?” he asks, trying to rush them along. “More exploding arrows? A long overdue upgrade to twenty-first century technology?”
“Nothing,” they say in unison. And then Kate says, “Have you seen Cap lately?”
Tony frowns at the gauntlet. “He was on the command deck, last I saw. Staring majestically out at the stars. Wearing the stripes. It was very patriotic.” He’d almost taken the opportunity to push forward with the whole Steve Rogers Take Care of Yourself Challenge, but there’d been something about Cap’s expression that gave Tony pause, and in the end he’d -- well, he’d chickened out. Resolved to try again later.
“Cool, cool, and have you talked to Cap lately?”
He looks up to see Kate inspecting her nails, innocent as can be.
“Where are you going with this?” he asks, setting down the gauntlet carefully.
“Nowhere,” she says, exchanging a quick glance with Clint, who nods almost imperceptibly. Real subtle, guys. “Just wondering. ’Cause he seems a little...less majestic than usual.”
“Fewer inspiring speeches,” Clint agrees.
“His patriotic gaze wavers ever so slightly, like a flag in the breeze,” Kate says solemnly.
“Wow, Katie, that was poetry,” Clint says, sounding impressed.
She gives a half-curtsy. “Thank you.”
Tony presses his fingertips to his temple. He needs coffee. When was the last time he’d had coffee? Twenty minutes ago? Too long. “If you two are done with the half-baked comedy routine--”
“Aw, Tony, you really think we’re funny?” Clint says, mock-bashful.
“Look, I’m already on the damn case, okay?” Tony says. “I’ve been trying to -- hang on, why’d you come to me about this?” Kamala he can understand, but since when is he the go-to guy for interpersonal concerns?
Kate Bishop raises one unimpressed brow at him. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. I'm not the guy's keeper."
Clint and Kate exchange a long look, and then Clint points at Tony. "You're Mom," he says, then points up toward Cap’s room. "He's Dad."
Tony blinks, allowing this to sink in. "Wh-- wait, why am I the mom? He's the mom! I'm the cool uncle who’s in a rockband and only visits on holidays."
"'Seatbelts, everyone,'" Kate mimics.
“We were going to space,” Tony protests.
“Whatever, Mom,” Clint says, smirking, and swipes Tony’s last two fried Oreos, tossing one to Kate.
“What the fuck,” says Tony, with feeling.
“So you’ll look into it?” Kate asks, and stuffs the entire fried Oreo into her mouth.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just get out of here, no arrow-slinging Oreo-stealing miscreants allowed in the lab. Jesus. Those were six dollars.”
Kate and Clint high-five on their way out, because they’re disgusting.
*
When Thor comes and finds him, Tony’s lying flat on his back across the common room couch, three empty cups of coffee on the table beside him, none of them doing their damn jobs. He’d been up all night working on Kamala’s suit again, trying to figure out the best way to increase the armor’s durability without restricting the kid’s powers, because that was a close fucking call in the field the other night and he’s pretty sure he’s gonna have a heart attack if it happens ever again.
“Stark!” comes Thor’s voice, pounding straight through Tony’s aching head. “I would speak with you a moment!”
“You would, huh?” he mumbles, and doesn’t move, not until Thor comes down to sit across from him. Then he drags himself upward till he’s propped up at a reasonable enough angle to face the god of booming voices.
“Are you well, Stark?” Thor asks when he takes in the general scene, clearly holding back whatever it is he Would Speak with Tony about.
“Yeah, yeah,” Tony says, stifling a yawn. “Yeah, I’m. Great.”
Thor doesn’t look reassured. “You are not still angry about the Burger’s King? Kamala Khan is a growing child, and must be nourished with the finest of--”
“What? No, no, I’m not -- no.”
“Ah. Good. I had hoped that my offering of fair pastries would be satisfactory recompense.”
“Yep, yeah, highly satisfactory,” Tony confirms. “So what’s up?”
“I wish to discuss our shield-brother Steven,” Thor says, very seriously, and Tony does not groan. Does not flop back down and drape his arm dramatically across his face.
“You do?” he says instead, and picks up a coffee mug at random before remembering he’d drained all three.
“Aye. He seems... troubled.”
“Mm. Lot of that going around.”
“Yes, but our good captain…” Thor trails off, looking alarmingly contemplative. “I have never seen him troubled in this way. Surely you have noticed.”
“On the case,” Tony says tiredly, jabbing a thumb at the arc reactor. “That’s me. Tony Stark, the most emotionally intelligent Avenger, here to help with all your personal problems.”
Thor goes on as if Tony hasn’t spoken. “He asked me, yesterday, if I would remain with the Avengers, were he to perish. I assured him that I would, and he seemed mollified. But it is not the first time he has spoken to me recently of his mortal fragility.”
“He...” Tony pauses to take this in, scrubbing a hand over his face. “Huh. That’s. A lot.”
“Indeed. I found myself wondering what it is which causes our captain to dwell on such thoughts.”
“Well, he did die,” Tony mumbles. He’s slipping down further in his seat again. “Fake-die.”
“Yes, and does he blame himself for this, I wonder?”
“You could,” Tony says, rubbing at his eyes, “ask.”
“I thought it better to come from you,” Thor says. “As you are the closest of shield-brothers.”
Tony just nods wearily, because yes, of course, of course they were going to end up here.
“The two of you are the doting mother and dedicated father of this team,” Thor’s going on, and Tony’s still just nodding along before he really comprehends the words.
“Hey,” he says. “That’s -- No. Wait. Which one is the mother?”
“Why, you are, of course,” Thor says, looking like he’s surprised that Tony would even ask. “No one dotes upon the team as you do, crafting elegant costumes and providing us with fine weaponry. You are a most excellent mother, Stark.”
“Oh my god.” This time Tony does, in fact, groan, flop back across the couch, and drape his arm dramatically over his face. He is. Way too fucking tired to deal with this right now. “ Please never say any of this to Clint. Or Kate. Or Kamala. Or anyone.”
“As you wish,” Thor says, watching Tony in bemusement. “But you will speak with Steven?”
I’ve tried speaking with Steven, Tony doesn’t say. I’ve tried and I can’t get anywhere with it because I’m not the fucking guy for this.
“Yeah,” he says aloud. “Yeah, Thor, I’ll do that.”
*
Except he doesn’t. Do that. Because he doesn’t actually see Steve for a while after that. Isn’t sure if he’s being deliberately avoided or if they’re both really just that busy -- between missions and meetings, helping SHIELD pick up the pieces and Pym hold together his ragged little resistance, trying to figure out how to stretch their resources further than they ought, really, to safely be stretched... It’s nearly impossible to get a minute to breathe lately, let alone chat about anybody’s psychological well-being.
When they finally do go out on a mission together, Tony tries to keep an eye on Steve, tries to catch any sign of stiffness or slowing down (in between blasting AIMbots in the face, naturally). But all he sees is good ol’ Cap playing his well-worn role. Shouting out encouragement and direction the moment the rest of them start to falter, tossing his glorified metal frisbee around like a maniac and knocking down robots like it’s nothing.
So maybe he’s all right now, Tony thinks. Maybe he’s coming back to himself, shaking off whatever had him staring morosely at the stars and talking to Thor about death. Maybe Tony doesn’t have to figure out how to be -- how to be a person who talks about things. With other people.
Steve catches Tony watching him in the Quinjet on the way back -- how does he always know , even with the helmet? -- and smiles.
“Good job out there, Iron Man,” he says warmly, and Tony realizes it’s the first time in a while that he’s heard that tone of voice from Steve. Happy, he thinks. Content.
“Aye aye, Cap’n,” he answers with a two-fingered salute. Steve’s smile widens.
Okay then, Tony thinks, with a flood of relief. We’re okay.
*
So it’s a surprise, really, when Natasha shows up in his room and says, “We need to talk about Steve.”
It’s partly a surprise because of how she just appears out of goddamn nowhere as he’s heading back toward his desk from the common area.
Tony maybe flails a little. He maybe spills his newly acquired soda all down his shirt. It’s not important.
“How? ” he demands, dumping the empty soda can unceremoniously into his overflowing recycling bin. (It topples onto the floor next to two others. Eventually he’s gotta do something about that.)
Natasha just watches him, one eyebrow raised. “With our voices,” she says. “Using words.”
“No, not -- how did you -- I was right here,” Tony says, gesturing at the desk. “I left for ten seconds.”
Natasha gives him a deeply unimpressed look. “Do you really think I can’t infiltrate a room in less than ten seconds?”
Well, no, but. “Were you under the bed? Were you waiting under the bed to do that? Is this some kind of competition with Barton to see who can be the best living shadow? Because I’ll tell you right now, I don’t think he stands a--”
“Tony. Did you hear what I said?”
Tony sinks down into his desk chair, twisting it back and forth restlessly, kicking at the empty soda can nearest his foot. “Steve. Yeah.”
Natasha’s watching him in that deeply unsettling way she has sometimes, like he’s a mark she’s analyzing. “Have you talked to him lately?”
“I talk to Steve all the time.” In fact he’d just been working on those gloves for Steve. His Fossil Fashions folder is still open on his laptop. Probably he shouldn’t leave folders open on his laptop with super spies running around the place, but, you know.
“What do you talk to him about?” Nat says carefully, and Tony sighs, turning the desk chair fully toward her.
“Look, not for nothing, but you are the fourth -- fifth? Are the Hawkeyes one person or two? Don’t answer that -- you are the fourth or fifth person to come to me with Steve Rogers concerns. You are the fourth or fifth person to think, for reasons passing understanding, that I’m the guy for this, and frankly--”
“Tony, he almost got himself killed tonight.”
“Frankly, I -- I --” Tony falters, his brain catching up with his mouth. “What? Is he -- he’s not--?”
“He’s fine,” Natasha says, her eyes softening a little. “He’s unfocused, and his reflexes are slow, and he threw himself in front of a dreadbot without his shield about an hour ago, but physically he’s all in one piece.”
“Physically,” Tony repeats. Then, “Hang on, he what? ”
Natasha crosses her arms, leaning back against the window. “I was surprised too.”
“But he -- I was just with him,” Tony says helplessly. “The other day. He--” Smiled at me, Tony does not say, because of how that would be a goddamn goofy thing to say. “He seemed good. Better.”
“Because the mission went well,” Natasha says, giving him an almost pitying look. “He’s always good when the mission goes well.”
Tony lets out a long exhale. “So this is worse. This is worse than we thought.”
He knows he doesn’t have to define this for her, doesn’t have to elaborate on who we is. It’s one of the perks of having a super spy running around the place -- they don’t tend to need catching up.
Sure enough, Natasha just inclines her head. “I think so.”
“The kid knew first,” Tony says distractedly, standing up and starting to pace. “She’s -- I mean, she was the first one to say something.”
“I know,” Natasha says. “She talked to me too.”
“I should’ve -- I mean, I tried to --” Tony stops, turns back toward Natasha. “Nat, what do we do? ”
“We talk to him,” she says readily. “Gather information.”
Tony frowns. “Spy stuff?”
“Friend stuff.” Nat tilts her head to the side with a half-shrug. “And spy stuff. You go to him tonight, I’ll check in with him tomorrow, we’ll compare notes and go from there.”
Tony doesn’t ask what exactly that looks like, ‘going from there.’ He can’t think about that, because -- “Sure, but why me ? Why does everyone keep -- you do all understand that I’m the least qualified person on the planet for this, right?” Probably on several planets, but he’d have to ask Carol about that.
Natasha blinks slowly at him, like he’s said something unimaginably stupid. “You’re his friend,” she says, “and he considers you an equal.”
“But not you?”
“Well, you’re also an expert in self-destructive spirals,” Natasha says flatly, “but I was trying to be polite.”
“I -- oh. Hm.” Tony pauses, allowing that to sink in. “I am. A little bit wounded.”
Natasha appears unmoved. “Don’t be,” she says. “It gives you valuable expertise.” She pushes up off the window. “He was headed for his room last I saw. Better catch him before he takes over the HARM room for the night.”
“Right. Okay. Yes. I will. Do that. Pencil in an intervention for Captain America, just before my nightly reading. No problem.”
“Just talk to him, Tony,” Natasha says, heading for the door. “Just listen.”
“Wait, which one is it?” he calls after her. “It can’t be both!”
But she’s already disappeared.
*
The mad scientist’s lair is not, strictly speaking, on the way to Steve’s room, but it is strangely soothing to even Tony’s scattered brain, and anyway he figures it can’t hurt to get in a real quick pre-intervention chat with their resident expert on pathos. He finds Bruce at one of the work tables, hunched over a notebook, scrawling away.
“So,” Tony says, drumming his fingers on the table. “Did they have therapy in the thirties?”
“Um,” says Bruce, pushing his glasses up his nose with one hand, clutching the notebook in the other. “I’m sorry?”
“Forties. Thirties. Both. Did they have therapy? Freud was born in, what, the 1800s, so they must’ve, but I bet it was the bad kind. The --” Tony waves a hand. “Zappy kind.”
“Electroconvulsive therapy?” Bruce says, frowning at him.
“That. Yes,” Tony says, pointing at Bruce. “We do not want to do that.”
“ECT can be very effective in some cases...”
“Yeah, but not this one.”
Bruce sighs, setting down his notebook. “Tony, what are we talking about?”
“Nothing. Nobody. Just wondering.”
Bruce studies him for a moment. “Oh,” he says abruptly, as though he’s somehow divined the true nature of things from the expression on Tony’s face. “You’ve noticed.” He sounds impressed.
“ You’ve noticed,” Tony retorts. “I mean, what? What have I noticed?”
“That Cap seems a little depressed?” Bruce picks the notebook back up and flips through it, like this conversation somehow isn’t worth his undivided attention anymore, like it’s not an absurd thing to accuse Captain goddamn America of being depressed. Off his game, sure. Occasional self-destructive spirals, well, those happen, but depressed?
Tony feels, for some reason, an irrational urge to protect Steve from that kind of accusation.
“Uh, I’m sorry, do you mean Captain Sunshine? Captain Inspirational Speeches?”
“Captain Stoicism and Self-Isolation,” Bruce says lightly, tapping his pen on the page.
“Mine were better.”
“Uh-huh. Look, Tony, I’m a little busy here, so was there something you wanted, or…?”
“Nope,” Tony says. Then, “You really think he’s...”
Bruce shrugs. “It would be a reasonable response to his circumstances.”
“What, you mean getting kidnapped by an evil scientist and put into a space coma for five years so that AIM could steal his blood?”
“Well, that ,” Bruce says dryly, “and...other things. It’s the second time he’s woken up to find all the rules of his world rewritten, and he -- you know him, he never really stopped to process it the first time. Eventually these things have a way of...” He makes a circular gesture over the paper. “...catching up.”
“So,” Tony says, “hang on. You noticed this, and you didn’t tell anyone? What, you were just going to let him -- spiral?”
Bruce’s eyes flicker toward Tony’s and away again, like he’s deciding whether or not to rise to the bait. “I talked to Nat,” he says, to his notebook.
“But not me,” Tony points out. “Why not me?”
Bruce glances at him incredulously. “Are you...really going to make me answer that?”
“No, no, I understand. You were intimidated by my incredible interpersonal skills.”
Bruce sighs again. “Look, Tony, if you’re going to talk to him, just…” He pauses to rub at his forehead. “...make sure you listen to him?”
“I always listen to him,” Tony says, affronted. “I am an excellent listener. Some might even say I’m a parental figure on this team.”
“You think so?” Bruce says vaguely, clearly lost again in whatever it was he was scribbling down earlier, some set of numbers and figures Tony can’t figure out from here.
“Know so. Anyway, good talk, but I have an intervention to get to.”
“Uh huh. Wait, you -- what?”
*
“JARVIS, am I a good listener?” Tony asks abruptly, three steps away from Steve’s room.
There’s a beat of silence from the AI. Then, “Certainly, sir. When you find a conversation engaging, you demonstrate remarkable attention to detail.”
“Thanks for the specificity, buddy.” He lingers for just a moment, hand wavering above the scanner, then lets it fall.
And there’s Steve in his undershirt and pajama pants, pummeling the hell out of a punching bag like it’d personally insulted truth, justice, and the American way. His fists are wrapped haphazardly, the actual boxing gloves sitting at his feet, and he doesn’t look up when Tony steps in the room.
For just a moment he looks more tired than Tony’s ever seen him. Hellbent on teaching that dastardly punching bag a lesson, sure, but pale and drawn, exhausted down to his core. Worse than post-defrosting. Worse than post- press conference, and that’s saying something.
And then he actually sees Tony. And it all just...goes away.
It’s startling to watch. The way that bone-weariness disappears under a mask of calm, present now only at the corners of Steve’s eyes and as a tension in his jaw. He lowers his wrapped fists, unclenching them slowly, and says, “Hi, Tony,” with only the barest hint of an edge to his voice.
“Hey, soldier,” Tony answers, eyeing the punching bag. “Somebody piss you off?”
Steve shakes his head, taking a step back. “Just tryin’ to catch up.”
“Oh, sure, sure. To, uh, who exactly?”
“To me,” Steve says, lips lifting in a humorless smile. “Five years ago.” He sits down on the bench, unwrapping his hands carefully. “Did you need something?”
Tony paces further into the room. “What, I can’t just come by and visit you for no reason?”
“You can,” Steve acknowledges, “you just don’t, usually.”
“Yeah, well,” Tony says, “I -- people change, sometimes.” He widens his pacing, poking around the room at Steve’s paltry amount of personal items. It’s not that there’s no personality to the place. It’s just personality quieted down, hiding behind austerity. The same way Steve Rogers slips behind Captain America, seems to disappear entirely into the role some days.
“Is that right,” Steve says now, and Tony glances over to see him watching Tony’s meddling with preternatural patience. Just a little of that weariness has worked its way back into his expression.
“Also,” says Tony, “I am a conscientious teammate, and I am checking in on you.” He trails his hand along the makeshift bookshelf and finds a sketchpad and pencil case tucked carefully behind an encyclopedia set, as though Steve’s afraid someone will take them away. Tony leaves them be, because he is both conscientious and mature, and absolutely not tempted to flip through the sketchbook and find out exactly what it is that Steve Rogers is drawing in his spare time.
He can do that later. When Steve’s not here.
Steve, whose eyebrows are climbing toward his hairline. “Okay, Tony, what is this actually about?”
“This is about,” Tony starts, turning toward him, and then stops short. “Jesus, Cap, what the hell is that?”
Because Steve’s hands are covered in blood, vivid red and dripping right onto his stupid, incredibly on-brand pajama pants. (They’re dark blue with white stars, and Tony’s pretty sure they were part of Nat’s sorry-we-donated-all-your-stuff-to-museums gift package, and that would be adorable and all if not for the blood staining the stars scattered over Steve’s knees.)
“What? Oh.” Steve looks down at his hands as though just noticing their existence. He blots hastily at the back of his left hand with one of the unwound wraps. “It’s nothing, it’ll be fine. Ran into a little trouble earlier, but it turned out all right.”
Tony folds his arms. “So I heard. Didn’t hear the part where you, what, beat the shit out of broken glass?”
“Gloves are worn out,” Steve says, with a shrug, like this doesn’t particularly matter to him. Like he’s happy to shred his hands for the cause. He stands up and walks past Tony, toward the bathroom sink. There’s the sound of the tap running, and Tony thinks of blood swirling darkly down the drain, of water running pink.
“I’m making you new ones,” he says, a little more aggressively than he’d meant to. “I mean, I was already making you new ones, but now I’m double-making you new ones.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” Steve says gravely, reappearing with a towel gripped in both hands, wound tight over the backs of his knuckles.
Tony scowls. “What are you -- at least put a damn Band-Aid on or something, where’s your first aid kit? You’re a goddamn superhero, why don’t you have a first aid kit?”
“I have the serum,” Steve answers, glancing at Tony with what looks like amusement, which is -- which is entirely unacceptable.
“Yeah, well, I have a personal policy of no blood spatters on the Chimera,” Tony snaps. “Rusts the metal. Looks highly gruesome. Zero out of ten, avoid. Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get this thing up and running again?”
“I do,” Steve says seriously, though there’s a hint of humor still in his eyes when he looks at Tony. “You pulled off a hell of a thing.” He searches Tony’s face, and adds, in a gentler voice, “Tony, it turned out all right. Everybody came home safe.”
And -- and how does he know? That this is what Tony’s getting at, in some convoluted way. That this is what he lies awake thinking about, planning for: how to bring them home safe. All of them, every time.
“Heard you lost your shield in front of a dreadbot,” Tony presses anyway, because he can’t leave that one alone. “Embarrassing. Definite faux pas.”
“It was on its way back,” Steve says. He gives Tony a shrewd look. “You were talking to Nat?”
“She was talking to me,” Tony replies. “I think you freaked her out. Which? By the way? Not easy, so congrats on that one.”
And to his surprise, Steve doesn’t deny it, doesn’t downplay, just sighs. “I wasn’t trying to.” He sits back down on the bench, that world-weary look coming over him again, towel still gripped tight. There are dark stains appearing on it now, two thick lines across the backs of his hands where he must’ve split open his knuckles.
He’d split open his knuckles hitting robots, and then come home to whale on a punching bag. No wonder the serum hasn’t taken care of that one yet.
“Why’d you come here, Tony?” Steve asks. He looks strangely young right now, sitting there in his pajamas, his hair shower-damp and mussed, his hands all wound up in the towel.
All at once Tony remembers the first time it’d occurred to him how young Steve was, back when he was still having trouble seeing Steve Rogers behind Captain America. It hadn’t been that long after Cap’s first stint in the ice, and they’d come to verbal blows over something or another. Something he can’t remember now; it must not have mattered as much as he’d thought it had at the time.
But there had been a moment, just a moment, when the steadfast Captain facade had cracked, and beyond that Tony could see -- could see Steve . Some scrawny kid from Brooklyn who’d signed up to fight the Nazis just like thousands of other kids, who couldn’t have known where that choice would take him. Couldn’t have known what the world would come to ask of him, but here he was doing his level best to deliver, to keep up with a slew of ever-changing demands amidst a landscape he hardly understood.
And here he is doing it again. Turning himself into what he thinks they want out of him: a leader unburdened by trouble or trauma, ready for the fight.
Tony could let him have that. He could walk away. Could make up some bland excuse for being here, could do Steve the kindness of letting him uphold whatever illusion of control he’s trying to maintain.
Except -- Kamala. Kamala wanted him to try.
“Because we’re worried about you, Cap,” Tony says at last, meeting Steve’s gaze. He knows there’s a risk to saying it that plainly, knows Natasha or even Bruce might not agree with that choice. Knows there’s a chance Steve will take it as an indication of failed leadership and dig himself deeper into this hole.
But that’s always the risk with these things. When you talk about it, it hurts. When you don’t talk about it, it gets worse.
Huh. Maybe he really is an expert in self-destructive spirals.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” Steve says, unbothered, as though he’s been expecting this sort of thing. “I’m a little stiff, but I’m getting back into the swing of things. Tonight was bad luck.”
And, okay, Tony definitely recognizes this particular twist of the spiral. Denial, obfuscation. He’s been on the other side of this conversation enough times with Pepper, with Rhodey. Hiding bottles, explaining away his shaking hands with lousy excuses. It’s not the same road here, exactly, but -- he knows the general shape of it.
“Didn’t mean about that part,” he says, and comes over to sit down on the bench beside Steve, keeping a cautious distance between them. Because that guarded look is already coming over Steve’s face again. That mask.
How did Rhodey and Pepper ever get through to him? Deeply uncomfortable bouts of honesty, mostly, if he’s remembering right. Which, ugh , but -- but that’s how Kamala manages these things, too, isn’t it? She’s honest, and she gets embarrassed about it, but she doesn’t give any ground. Stands by what she says. Doesn’t deflect or prevaricate, and it works for her. She always breaks through.
Well, okay. Time to get deeply uncomfortable.
Tony clears his throat. “You know,” he says, “I --” He stops, his courage flagging abruptly, but Steve’s watching him expectantly, so he soldiers on. “I, uh. I used to dream you were back. And then I’d wake up and you -- weren’t. Obviously. And it would just -- hit me all over again.”
Steve’s face softens, but he doesn’t say anything, just keeps watching Tony.
“And now. Now that you are back. I keep thinking I’m gonna wake up and you’ll be gone.” He lets out a little laugh. “Just can’t seem to win.”
“Tony,” Steve says quietly.
Tony waves a dismissive hand. “Anyway, I had a lot of time. Is my point. To get used to you being gone. And the world going to hell and all. But you -- for you it’s been, what, a month or so?”
“Just about,” Steve answers. He’s studying Tony now, and it’s unnerving, to have the full force of his attention.
“Yeah,” Tony says, and clears his throat. “Yeah, so, you know we’re all thrilled to have you restored to your rightful throne and all, but nobody expects you to -- to bounce right back into action.” Steve gives him a dubious look at that, and Tony backtracks. “I mean, I know we, uh, literally did expect that of you, and I know Hill has you in eighteen meetings a day, but look, Tarleton’s gone and the team’s semi-stable, so if you ever wanted to -- to take a step back --”
Steve smiles faintly. “You tryin’ to bench me, Stark?”
“What? No! Maybe? If you want to be benched?”
The smile twists into something a lot less amused. “Tony--”
“I know, I know, that’s a no,” Tony says, waving a hand. “I’m just, I’m saying you’ve got options here, okay? You don’t have to run yourself into the ground for us, Cap. Believe it or not, nobody actually wants that from you. We, uh. We already lost you once, you know?”
Tony thinks, probably, that he should receive an award for this conversation. Most Emotionally Mature Conversation Ever Had By a Stark. He feels as though he’s earned that kind of recognition.
Maybe Steve feels that way too, because he’s looking at Tony with something approaching amazement. “You’re really trying here, huh?” he says, and Tony sighs heavily.
“Yeah,” he admits. “I think I pulled a muscle.”
Steve lets out a low laugh, then looks down at his towel-covered hands. “Maybe I could stand to slow down a little,” he says, after a beat. “I just -- I missed so much. I was -- angry, about that. Maybe I let that distract me.”
And this, this is interesting, because those conversations with Rhodey and Pepper -- Tony’s pretty sure those lasted days, if not weeks, before he’d come around to any sort of equivalent confession. Granted, that was Tony Stark, inveterate liar and evader of good intentions, but still. It shouldn’t be this easy.
“You’re still angry,” Tony says, and Steve glances up toward him with a flicker of surprise. “Don’t act like you’ve got this one all resolved, pal, I’m the world’s foremost expert in weaseling out of emotional confrontation. You’re pissed, and you should be. You got five years stolen from you. But you don’t get to work that out by throwing yourself into the line of fire and beating your knuckles bloody. That’s not gonna cut it, Cap.”
There’s that hard look surfacing in Steve’s eyes, now. That no, you move spark of defiance. Good. Give me something real, Rogers.
“You think I did that on purpose?” he asks. His voice is flat, but edged with something dangerous. “You think I’d do that to the team?”
“No,” Tony says, “but I think you’ve got a bad habit of trying to punch your way out of things.”
“Tony--”
“Tell me I’m wrong, Cap. You spend all night in the HARM room because then you don’t have to feel it so much, right? You wear yourself down till you’re out there taking dumbass risks, getting yourself hurt, all because you can’t stand to just let yourself be angry about what happened to you.”
Steve says nothing, just watches him with a shuttered expression, so Tony lifts his chin and meets his eyes. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he repeats.
“You’re wrong,” Steve says shortly, and then he stands up, and for a wild, irrational moment Tony thinks he’s about to get punched with one bloody supersoldier fist. But Steve just paces over to the window. You can’t see much more than cloud cover from here, but he stares fixedly out into the darkness like he can see a million stars.
“We’re lucky to be here,” Steve says after a pause, his face still turned away from Tony, his tone unreadable. “To have another chance.”
“Sure, yeah,” Tony says, feeling a surge of irritation. “We’ve also been supremely fucking unlucky -- some of us in this room moreso than others -- and I can personally promise we won’t kick you off the team if you admit that once in a while.”
“I wasn’t finished,” Steve says, turning back toward Tony, his eyes far away. “I wasn’t ever supposed to have a second chance. And I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to have a third one. When I destroyed the reactor -- I thought it was over.” He pauses. “I keep wondering, if I’d known, if I’d had a little more time, if I’d noticed more, maybe I would have...Maybe I could have stopped it.”
“You and me both, pal,” Tony says wearily, and Steve offers him a wry smile.
“Anyway, it’s the second time. The second time I woke up, after I thought I was --”
“Dying for the greater good?” Tony says. “Yeah, listen, you really have to stop pulling that shit, okay? I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“So, I’m lucky,” Steve says, like Tony hasn’t spoken. “But I don’t feel grateful.”
“Jesus, Steve, nobody expects you to be grateful. You got your blood stolen.”
Steve doesn’t answer, looking back toward the window again.
“But you’re not angry about that, are you?” Tony says slowly. He’s running over everything Steve just said, rewinding the tape in his head, combing through for clues. He stares at Steve’s stupid bloody towel-bandage for a second, and then it clicks. “You’re not pissed at AIM, or Monica, or -- or fate, or whatever,” he realizes. “You’re just pissed at yourself. You’re not trying to punch your way through the anger, you’re just -- punishing yourself.”
Steve glances quickly, almost guiltily, at him. “I’m not --” he begins, but Tony cuts him off.
“You are . That’s exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it? For fuck’s sake, Rogers, you were frozen in a goddamn coma and you still think it was all your fault. You know, it’s really too bad you alone were personally chosen to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, if only you had some sort of team to help you with that, maybe you could --”
“I’m not punishing myself,” Steve says, louder, and Tony just stares at him incredulously.
“Steve, you sliced up your hands on a dreadbot and then you came home and beat them against a punching bag.”
“I -- did do that,” Steve admits, shifting from one foot to the other. “But I was tired, I wasn’t thinking, I was --”
“Pissed off at yourself,” Tony finishes. “Because you messed up, you had to be rescued, and you’re not supposed to do that, right? You’re supposed to be the rescuer around here. Wow, I’m actually really good at this psychoanalysis stuff. Did you ever think I’d be good at psychoanalysis? I would’ve thought I’d be too self-centered, but actually I’m pretty--”
“Tony,” Steve says tiredly, and brings a hand up toward his forehead, then drops it again when he seems to remember about the sliced-up part. But Tony can see the blood’s dried, at least.
He can also see the mask coming back up over Steve’s face.
“What do you draw?” he asks suddenly.
Steve blinks. Mask successfully disintegrated. “What?”
“In your sketchbook. What do you draw?”
Steve just stares at him for a second, and then something like resignation crosses his face. (It is, Tony reflects, a very familiar expression.) “New York, mostly,” he says. “The way it...the way I remember it.”
“In the thirties, or five years ago?”
“Both, I guess. Look, were you going to keep psychoanalyzing me, or --”
“No, no, we’re getting you a therapist for that.”
“Uh,” says Steve. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”
“All the cool kids are doing therapy,” Tony insists. “I have it on good authority from the coolest kid we know.”
“Kamala?” Steve says, frowning. “Is she okay?”
“She is, Cap, because she went to therapy. Which you are going to also do. To set a good example for the rest of us, who, let’s be honest, also probably need therapy.”
“Well, no argument there,” Steve mutters, quirking a brow at Tony when he gives him a mock-offended look. “I -- listen, Tony, it was bad luck tonight. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not -- punishing, or trying to punch my way out of anything, I’m just, I’m tired. It’s been a long night.”
“You’re so good at that,” Tony says wonderingly.
“What?”
“The reassuring voice. The don’t-worry-I’ve-got-this-covered voice. Is that why they made you a captain?”
“Could be,” Steve says neutrally.
“Anyway, you’re full of shit and we both know it.”
Steve eyes him for a moment like he’s sizing up a threat. “You said ‘we’ before,” he says finally. “‘We’re worried about you.’”
“I did. I did say that. Good listening comprehension.”
“Who --”
“Everybody with a brain, Steve. Plus Clint.”
Steve sinks down onto the edge of his perfectly-made bed, looking like he wants to hide his face in his hands. Instead he stares straight ahead, and says, “There’d be logistical concerns.”
“Sure,” Tony says, catching on after a split-second of confusion. “You can’t exactly step into just anybody’s office. Also, you definitely don’t have health insurance. But you’re a tactical genius and I’m an everything genius. We can figure this out.”
“I don’t…” Steve trails off, then seems to rally. “I’m not agreeing to anything. But if the team’s worried.”
“Then this would help get the bastards off your back,” Tony agrees.
Steve shoots him an exasperated look. “That’s not -- it’s important that we all trust each other. If the team doesn’t trust me--”
“Nobody said that.” Tony’s not sure why he feels so irritated all of the sudden, except that Steve is so -- is so Steve , and it’s mildly infuriating. “Nobody doesn’t trust you. We’re worried about you, because you’re our friend and our teammate and you went through hell and you’re pretending like you didn’t.”
“ I went through hell?” Steve says, but he doesn’t push any further, and Tony decides to let him have that one, because -- listening. Right. He’s supposed to be listening. At least a little bit.
And he’s rewarded, for his listening, because after a moment Steve says, “You don’t have to worry about me. I always get back safe.”
“Except when you don’t, and I have to rescue you from space,” Tony points out, and Steve’s lips curve in a half-smile.
“Well, I don’t plan to make that a habit.”
“Good, ’cause I’m still having nightmares about that first space jaunt.”
Steve’s smile slips, and he gives Tony a considering look for a second, then says, “I’ll go if you do.”
“To, uh. To space? Because I wasn’t joking, I really--”
“To therapy,” Steve says. His eyes are serious.
“I’m -- I -- sure? Sure,” Tony says, blinking. “Sure, therapy, no problem. Overdue for it probably, if we’re being entirely honest with ourselves -- which we should be, you should always be honest in therapy, I assume, from what I’ve seen on TV, I mean it seems like--” He stops short, catching sight of Steve’s raised eyebrows. “...I mean. Sure. Yes. Let’s get therapized.”
“Like you said,” Steve says, “it’d set a good example for the team. Especially if both of us went.”
“Right,” Tony agrees. “Since I’m Mom and you’re Dad.”
Steve tilts his head, eyes brightening with amusement.
“You know,” he says thoughtfully, “I always figured I was the mom.”
*
It doesn’t happen right away. Steve’s right, after all -- there are logistical concerns. SHIELD used to have a full roster of mental health professionals (as Tony figures probably befits an organization which demands that you regularly risk life and limb). But they’re still operating with a skeleton crew right now, and from Tony’s mildly invasive hacking adventures, it looks like they’re booked up for the next four months. The resistance, he knows, has exactly one trauma counselor volunteering with them, and she’s a little busy with recently rescued Inhuman clients.
(“If we told them who it was for,” Tony says, “you know we’d jump to the head of the line.”
But Steve just shakes his stupid, noble head. “I’m not doing that, Tony,” he says calmly, and that’s that.)
Still, “I’m proud of you, Tony,” Natasha says in the common room a couple of days after the Great Captain America Intervention, and Tony actually chokes on his coffee. And not just because she’d appeared behind him out of nowhere.
“I’m -- I’m sorry, you’re what? Say that again? JARVIS, record her saying that again, please?”
“I was going to praise your uncharacteristic emotional maturity,” Nat says dryly, “but nevermind.” She sits across from him, her own cup of coffee in hand.
“No, no, wait, I can be emotionally mature! Can we talk more about why you’re proud of me?”
“No.” Natasha takes a long sip of her coffee, then sets the mug down and reaches across the table to shamelessly steal the napkin out from under his croissant.
“Hey--”
“Shut up.” She slips a pen from her pocket and jots down a number, sliding the napkin back across to him. “Memorize that number and then burn this.”
Tony stares at her. “What?”
Natasha rolls her eyes. “I’m kidding.” She nods toward the napkin. “Call that number, tell them Dr. Natalie referred you, you’ll have an appointment within the next month.”
“Oh. Oh. This is--”
“A couples counselor,” Natasha says. “For Mom and Dad.”
Tony squints at her. She’s entirely straight-faced. “I really cannot tell if--”
“Kidding,” Natasha sighs. “Honestly, Tony, you need to practice identifying signals of deception.”
“Is...is that a thing?”
Natasha waves a hand. “Call that number,” she says, and stands up, presumably to disappear into the shadows again with her coffee. “And Tony?” she says, pausing beside the table for just a moment. “I actually am proud of you.”
Tony waits until she’s gone before he says, “JARVIS?”
“Recorded, sir.”
“Thank you.”
*
So they make the appointments.
Natasha, it turns out, had given Steve an entirely separate number, which Tony has to admit is kind of a relief. He doesn’t know if he wants to spill all his deepest darkest thoughts to -- anyone , actually, but specifically probably not the same person who’s sorting through all of Steve Rogers’s deep-dark thoughts. It just feels -- weird. Extra weird. Weirder than it already is.
“This is weird,” Tony says, and Steve nods slowly. They’re in the old, empty crew quarters, which Kamala has somehow fashioned into the shabbiest home theater Tony’s ever seen in his life. The screen is like, three inches long and sitting on top of a stack of books and random crates stolen from maintenance. The seats are just a sad combo of pillows and a couple of beanbags stolen from everyone’s rooms. The movie is on DVD, which, how do they even have a DVD player? How does anyone still have a DVD player? Kate and Clint are at the front of the room arguing about god knows what; Bruce is quietly distributing microwave popcorn bags; Natasha is standing by the Hawkeyes with her arms folded, giving Kamala a conspiratorial look; Thor is loudly praising the many fine qualities of Popped Corn; and Steve and Tony --
Steve and Tony are sitting on some pillows in the back row, observing the chaos, sharing a bag of popcorn between themselves.
“I mean,” Tony says, “I’ve never...”
“Me either,” Steve says. “They just talk to you, right?”
He sounds a little nervous, Tony realizes, and he feels an inexplicable surge of affection. “Yeah, Cap, they just talk.”
“Which is weird,” Steve decides.
“Extremely weird. But. Necessary?”
“Maybe,” Steve says dubiously.
“You’re not backing out on me, are you?” Tony says, elbowing him, and Steve shakes his head, taking another handful of popcorn.
“Not if you’re not.”
“Okay, then. We’re going.”
“We’re going,” Steve confirms.
“Which we agree is kind of weir--”
“EVERYBODY BE QUIET,” Kamala shouts, and silence falls so abruptly that she blushes. “I mean, uh, sorry, but. The movie is going to start, so if we want to -- watch it -- we should probably --”
“Shut the hell up,” Clint finishes cheerfully, and Kamala winces.
“I didn’t say --”
“Next time that’s what you say,” Clint says, clapping her on the shoulder, and he ambles off to find a seat toward the middle of the pillow-rows, Kate tagging along after him and snatching the popcorn right from his hands.
Natasha leans over to murmur something to Kamala, who giggles, and they both sit down in the front row beside Thor, who is absolutely blocking half the screen, but Tony can’t bring himself to gripe about it.
Because they’re all here. Reasonably safe, in one room, about to watch some probably highly corny movie the kid picked out. Nobody’s bleeding, nobody’s broken anything (yet), nobody’s missing or in danger or presumed-dead.
They’re here. Bickering and uncertain and damaged, but here.
He feels more than sees Steve smiling beside him. Sees his hands whole and healed as he offers the popcorn to Tony, just before Bruce flicks off the lights and the kid hits play on the DVD player.
They’ll be okay, Tony thinks, or they won’t be. But right now, at least, they’re here.