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Steve wipes his hands against the leg of his pants, absently thinking that if he keeps nervously sweating like this, then he is going to have wet patches on his thighs. That is something he doesn’t want to have to explain.
JARVIS let him know when Tony had emerged from his workshop and he is currently heading to the common area kitchen to catch him there. Steve is finally, after months of mental avoidance, going to tell Tony how he feels about him. He braces himself before stepping into the kitchen—good or bad, he can’t spend another minute without Tony knowing.
Tony had found some food on his forage if his chipmunk cheeks are anything to go by. He looks up when Steve enters the room and visibly brightens, though he can’t smile due to how full his mouth is. He waves his fork in greeting.
Steve decides to just go for it while Tony’s mouth is full, if only to stave off the inevitable rejection for a few seconds.
“Tony, there is something we need to talk about.”
Tony noticeably tenses and makes an inquisitive noise, even as his chewing speeds up to try and clear his mouth.
Steve quickly says, “You don’t need to say anything yet, I just need you to know-”
The Assemble alarm blares over the tower’s sound system, cutting Steve off. They both simultaneously glare at the ceiling speakers, then look at each other, but the moment is lost.
Tony swallows the last of his food and says, “Looks like we’ve got trouble. I guess we’ll have to find some other time for our little chat.”
Steve sighs and nods, feeling himself shifting into Captain America mode. “Suit up. I’ll see you at the landing pad.”
“Not if I see you first,” Tony quips before the Bleeding Edge armour seeps out from the housing unit on his chest. Steve is mesmerised by the armour slinking down over Tony’s ass as he strides away.
Steve shakes his head to clear it of that dazzling image, before dashing out of the room to get ready himself.
True to his word, Tony bolts as soon as he spots Steve on the landing pad. There is no way he is letting Steve try to initiate another “talk” with him. He has half a dozen guesses on what it could be about, from the comment he let slip about Ross in that recent interview, to Steve finally noticing the crush Tony has been nursing on him and telling him to cut it out. No -- it’s best to just stay out of range of that for as long as possible.
Data on the alarm streams across the HUD and Tony curses. It turns out to be a young man with untrained magical abilities, meaning Sam won the bet about which of THE BIG THREE - aliens, androids or wizards they are facing today. Tony doesn’t mind shelling out the money so much as taking a third consecutive loss.
Beams of sickly yellow light are bouncing around Yankee Stadium, causing untold (and strange) property damage, but somehow missing all the evacuating fans. Sorcerer’s Apprentice obviously has some sort of vendetta or grievance that needs a better outlet than destroying a sports stadium, but Tony doesn’t really care what it is. His only concern is working with Sam to clear a space for the quinjet to land so the rest of the team can join them.
Steve, as it turns out, doesn’t even wait for that. He dives right out of the quinjet’s open hatch to engage with the enemy. Leaping over giant mushrooms and other pieces of magically altered landscape, Steve begins to draw the magician’s attention. The beams of light start to gain focus, getting too close to Steve as he turtles behind his shield for Tony’s comfort.
Tony immediately pivots, throwing everything he has at the magician before the worst can happen, but it’s a miscalculation. As soon as the magician goes down, the light balloons outwards in slow motion, engulfing Steve and then collapsing in on itself.
All that remains is a large crater and a plume of dust covering the field. Steve is gone. All his tracking and biometric data has been cut off--like he’d been wiped from the face of the earth. With a burst of his repulsors, Tony rushes over, looking for some sign that Steve was still there, that he was alive .
As the dust settles, Tony spots something at the bottom of the crater. If it wasn’t so small and misshapen, Tony would think it was Steve’s shield; it has the distinctive star in the center surrounded by concentric circles of red, white, and blue. Tony picks it up and realizes it looks awfully like the shell of a turtle.
“Cap?” Tony gasps as he stares into the little face withdrawn deep into the shell.
A nose appears slowly from beneath the carapace, followed by a head and a neck. Four limbs emerge from the sides and search for nonexistent footing. The turtle looks down at his front feet with a quizzical tilt to his head.
Tony retracts his helmet and tries again, “Cap… Steve, is that you?” The turtle looks up at Tony and appears to nod his head. Tony lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in.
Experiencing the world as a turtle leaves Steve a little shell shocked, so to speak. While Tony focuses on getting them home, Steve withdraws back into his shell. Everything just feels a little safer tucked away from the world.
Once they are back at the tower, Tony raises Steve to his face and asks, “Are you ok, aside from Harry Potter Lite™’s Turtilfication?”
Steve looks down at his flippers and claws, considering the question. His current body and instincts are completely unfamiliar to him. It’s strange and disorienting and he doesn’t know how long this will last, if he’ll ever be himself again, if he’ll ever have a chance to tell Tony about his feelings. It’s terrifying, but ultimately there’s nothing wrong with him aside from the obvious so he nods his head.
Tony sighs, bringing Steve a little closer to his face. “What are we going to do with you, huh?”
Steve, who has been basking in the warmth of Tonys hands, and the brush of his thumbs over his shell, doesn’t quite know what comes over him. It’s like watching it happen to someone else, his flippers reach out and connect with the sides of Tony’s face, slapping him rapidly and repeatedly.
Tony’s grip around Steve’s shell nearly slips as a look of shock forms on his face. “What the hell, Steve?”
Just as surprised, Steve attempts a turtle shrug and waves his flippers around to express his confusion. He doesn’t want Tony to think he’s doing this on purpose.
“I’m gonna pretend that didn’t happen,” Tony says with a frown. “Now, let’s see if we can’t make this place a bit more turtle friendly.”
By the time the others come back with news, Tony set up a temporary turtle tank in the living room. Steve sits under his new basking lamp as the others assure him that the magic will wear off eventually, they just need to wait it out. It’s good news, but not the quick fix he was hoping for, so he slides into the water to cool his head a bit.
Days pass and before Steve knows it, there are little ramps and travelators and mini elevators all over the common areas, and the tank has been converted into a spacious pond with a basking platform in the corner. All the creature comforts that a 21st century turtle needs.
The fact that Tony had created for Steve so quickly, that he cares so much about Steve's comfort, makes Steve's little turtle heart beat faster.
If only Steve's flippers would stop having a mind of their own. Whenever he had ridden his little travelator up to a level that was near Tony's face, they would reach out, and repeatedly tap on the sides of Tony’s face.
Tony had been so shocked the first time it had happened, but after J.A.R.V.I.S had relayed some information that Steve couldn’t hear completely, something about “rituals” and “form defining instinctive behaviour”, Tony had seemed a lot happier about having flippers on his face, and often looked at Steve with an expression that Steve could only define as at least fondness. Maybe there was hope after all?
A week or so into this thing, Steve is perched on the dining table with Tony rabbiting on about something in a chair next to him, and Steve reaches up and lets his flippers do the talking for him. He has figured out himself now, that his flipper thing happens whenever he thinks about how cute Tony is, or how amazing Tony is or anything of that nature, so he makes no effort to stop himself. As always now, Tony allows it, and even leans into with a small smile.
God Steve loves him. Steve hasn’t allowed himself to think those particular words before, but they must be the correct Magic Words, as before he knows it, he is looking down on Tony instead of up, with his hands … and wow how amazing it is to have hands again!... cupping Tony’s cheeks.
Tony is looking up at him, and Steve can see the love reflected in his eyes, mingling with the shock of his recovery, and Steve has to make the most of this opportunity.
“Tony,” he says with utmost seriousness, “I am turtley in love with you.” And before Tony can even groan about how bad the pun is, he swoops down and kisses him, his hands doing little pats on Tony’s cheeks all the while.