Work Text:
It hits Tony in the workshop, when he’s playing around with the designs for a new bow, and he drops the torch, and the piece he’s working on. He stares straight ahead, trying to make sense of the numbers and their ridiculous play in his mind, and then he realizes what they’re trying to tell him and, oh, no. He breathes out, sharp, notes that isn’t helping. And stands up.
“Jarvis,” Tony calls, panic still kept at bay. “Calculate: how many times have I said ‘I love you’ in the course of my lifetime?”
“Variables, sir?” Jarvis asks.
Tony frowns, bats away his own equation. “Negating all food based I love you’s, near death experience I love you’s, and the occasional gratitude I love you’s. Just the ones that truly mean I love you.”
“I require a definition, sir,” Jarvis says. Tony closes one eye, sorting through his limited knowledge on the subject. He breathes out.
“What I felt about Peggy. What I feel about Steve.”
Jarvis clicks at him. “Never out loud, sir.”
“Thought so,” Tony laughs. “Well, this will be an experience. Ready the possible funeral pyre. I’m going to try.”
“Shall I tell Dummy the location of the fire extinguisher, sir?” Jarvis asks, amusement humming in his voice.
Tony waves a hand. “No, no, last time he doused the house plant Steve brought down here a week ago. Continue delaying him with other shiny objects. I’m going to go solidify a relationship.”
“Good luck, sir,” Jarvis calls as Tony rushes out of the lab.
--
Steve isn’t upstairs, and nor is he in the gym. The kitchen is filled with baking, Clint dashing back and forth as he tries out new recipes. Tony snags a few cookies before he gets shot at and wanders into the living room. Sure enough, Steve is fiddling with the television, turning it this way and that.
“And what are you doing messing around with my tech?” Tony asks, grinning when Steve startles.
Steve looks at him over his shoulder. “Clint lost the remote. I can’t change it from this weird show about nannies.”
It’s almost insane the amount of love he has for this man. “You could’ve asked Jarvis.” Tony moves up beside Steve, sliding a hand along his waist. “Or me. There aren’t any old fashioned buttons on the television, Steve. You need the remote or an amazingly intelligent AI that controls every electronic in the house.”
Steve huffs at him but does as he asks. “Jarvis, switch the television to channel ninety six and mute, thanks?” The television flickers in front of him, switching to a screen full of explosions, but is mute. Steve grins, leaning back against Tony for a short moment. “How are things in the workshop?”
“Yeah, that’s – well, I wanted to talk to you about something, actually, and it’s kind of. Well. You know when – no. That’s incorrect.” Tony flounders for a moment, stepping away from Steve. Steve raises an eyebrow and follows him, fingers light on Tony’s wrists.
“You’re usually much more articulate then this,” Steve says, grinning, and Tony bats at him.
“Just wait.” Tony chews the words around in his mouth, squints his eyes as the numbers flash big and red in warning, and decides, fuck it. “Steve, I love you.”
There’s a split second when Tony’s world fractures, numbers clinging to Steve’s face and hair and eyes like limpets, waiting, waiting, waiting, and then everything speeds up again and Tony thinks he knows Steve’s response by the quirk of his lips at a thirty seven degree angle and the smoothing of his brow to a nice sixteen degrees.
What he gets is: “Oh.”
It takes a few short beats for Tony’s hearing to actually understand the word that Steve utters. And in that instant, everything disappears: the numbers, the graphs, everything, and Tony feels that familiar slide of numbness crawl up his spine. It wasn’t like he was expecting a ‘me too’ or even an ‘I love you, Tony’. No, this makes sense. He saw this coming, in his own way, after everything. After what Tony is. Of course there wouldn’t be an ‘I love you’ back. Of course. He can deal with this. He can do this.
“Yes,” Tony says, and even his voice sounds mechanical. He throws on a grin. The numbers scream at him. “Not that that was life changing, no, never, I’m just going to – I’m sure you have important things to do. You were fiddling around with – I know Bruce introduced you to action thrillers. Inception is interesting, a little fantastical but good nonetheless, and I’ll just –”
He doesn’t even try for a smooth retreat. He jerks away from Steve and gets to the door, feet carrying him on autopilot, but has to turn. Steve’s face is a complicated jumble of messy numbers and he wants to scream, throw himself down at Steve’s feet and ask why.
And so he does. “Why?”
But he leaves before Steve can answer him.
--
It’s difficult, working on something as delicate as the Iron Man suit when everything keeps banging around in his head, collapsing and reforming, running around like sugar high teenagers and face planting from sheer exhaustion, one right after the other. After stabbing his hand twice, burning his thumb three times, and slitting his arm from pinkie to elbow, he gives up. The wound stings, bright and visceral against the bite of disappointment in the back of his throat and everything slows down to a syrupy crawl.
“What did I do wrong?” Tony asks. He leans against his workbench, staunching the flow of blood with a dirty rag, and he doesn’t even care that he might die from some unknown infection. Not right now. He’ll freak out later.
Dummy crawls over to him, beeping forlornly and brushing haphazardly at his hair. Tony doesn’t want to, would never admit it, but he almost wishes he had built Dummy with two arms. He pats Dummy on the head instead, sighing at the floor.
“Sir,” Jarvis says and Tony looks up. “Captain Rogers has tried thirty eight times to access the workshop. I fear he will soon use his adaptable skills to hack your network. What do you wish me to do?”
Tony laughs, can’t stop laughing, curling around the cut in his arm and the cut in his heart. Jarvis stays silent and Dummy beeps at him in worry, but he can’t stop shaking. Everything is falling apart around him; like with Pepper, which he screwed up within a matter of weeks, trying so hard to be everything she wanted, to be the perfect boyfriend, and in the end she had taken his heart and carefully, oh so carefully, ground her heel in it. She didn’t mean to, he knows this, but he should’ve learned. He should’ve known, after the nth time he ended up stumbling into bed after too many hours in the workshop and she wouldn’t look at him. After he had been to party after party and had been too numb with false smiles and false hopes and Pepper wouldn’t give him anything because of the persona he had armed himself with. He should’ve known, from how good Pepper is that he had no fucking chance with Captain goddamn America.
And, oh, that pain is new, as the numbers jumble at the sides of his vision, so black, so stark, and he giggles again, can’t stop for fear of crying, and the arc reactor hums, heavy in his chest. He should’ve known, because a false heart can’t really be loved, now can it?
There’s a click-whir of the door and if Tony wasn’t laughing so hard, he would chastise Jarvis for allowing Steve access on only the thirty ninth try. Dummy screeches, charging Steve without hesitation and Tony watches from the floor as Steve tries to dodge around him, surprise on his features. Tony breathes in, grabs all the shattered fragments of his usual persona, and gathers them to him.
He can do this.
“Dummy, stand down. You’re not a goddamn guard dog. Go over there,” Tony barks, standing up. He slips back into his billionaire self with just a few creaks, smiling at Rogers. “Can I help you with something, Cap? I’m a little tied up.”
“Tony –”
“If it’s anything to do with the new Quinjet, tell Fury I fixed the output fractures that occur when we fire the repulsors. I’m sure he’s been dying to know,” Tony says, moving further away from Rogers. It’s getting harder. His arm throbs. “If not, I’m sure we can discuss it later. I’m busy.”
“Tony, no, I need to talk –”
“Then talk!” Tony screams, breaking apart so easily. “It’s not like I haven’t experienced this before, Rogers. I’m good at this. I’m good at giving, at wanting, and then hiding it all under the rug. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t easy for me, no, but then it never has been. Explain to me, Steve, because I’m dying to know your thoughts on the matter!”
Steve’s face crumbles, and then he’s moving, faster than Tony can backtrack, and gathers Tony up without a word. Tony wants to bite him. Steve breathes out, pressing his lips against Tony’s ear and Tony closes his eyes tight, waits for the inevitable.
“I love you too.”
His eyes snap open, mind rebooting with a speed that leaves him light headed. He grabs Steve’s arms, and says, “Pardon?”
“I said I love you too,” Steve says. “I love you and I should’ve said it upstairs but you surprised me. You didn’t – you never showed the possibility and when I asked Pepper, she told me you had never said those words, never in the long time she had known you, so I wasn’t expecting it. I’m sorry.”
Tony doesn’t quite know how to react. Everything is softer, now, the usual pain in his head lessened by the words that play in his ears. He isn’t even trying to dissect them.
“I thought,” Tony begins, stops, tries again. “I thought it was another thing that would just happen.”
“I’m sorry,” Steve repeats. “I panicked.”
Tony breathes. “Rightfully so. It’s not something I’ve ever done. Or thought. Save once. And that ended just as poorly.”
“This isn’t ending,” Steve says, vicious, and pulls back to look Tony in the eyes. “I spent so many nights trying to figure out how to approach you with this, and each scenario ended with you in the workshop, avoiding me for weeks.”
“That happens on a monthly basis,” Tony points out, giddy joy settling behind his breastbone. Oh, this is exquisite. “Usually at least three times.”
“You are infuriating,” Steve says, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead. “Can we just – that entire conversation upstairs, can we restart? From the beginning?”
“And when I’m not bleeding?” He can’t help it, has to poke holes in Steve’s wants because he can do that now and Steve won’t leave him, won’t hold back his affections. Steve will allow for it.
And watching Steve panic is always adorable. “Oh, Christ, I didn’t see – is that rag dirty? Tony!”
Tony laughs, this time for an entirely different reason, grabbing Steve by the collar of his ridiculous shirt and hauling him forward, kissing him easy and soft. Steve smiles against his lips, fingers curling gentle around his wrist, and Tony can feel the prod of numbers at the edge of his awareness, ready to get back to work. He lets everything trickle back to awareness, but in this moment, he lets relief and Steve and that strange sense of being carry him forward.