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It happens when Tony least expects it.
They’re in a mission, just as they usually are, and Tony is in the air, flying around as he tries to blast a few drones down and the rest of the Avengers battle on the ground, grunting and screaming and focused. So much so, no one notices the extra robot that’s appeared out of nowhere.
So much so, that the only thing Tony can think about as he falls to the ground, is what did just happen.
Then, everything goes black.
***
He wakes up to a constant, annoying beeping by his side. He frowns, eyes still closed, as he takes in everything he can, not opening his eyes just yet. He moves his hand ever so slightly, noticing the warm, rough sheets under his skin, far from the comfortable Egyptian ones he always sleeps in.
He realizes he’s not in his bed, in his room, just as he finally identifies the constant beeping, associating it with the sticky feeling over his chest, pulling at his hair ever so slightly when he breathes in. He’s being monitored. His constants are being monitored.
Then, he hears it. They’re mere whispers, so low and so far from his bed he can barely make out the words.
When he dares open one eye, it’s only to see a blur of blond hair leaving the room.
***
The room is in silence, which is weird in itself, even more as Tony observes his five teammates sitting on the sofas that cover the living room. Whenever there are even just two members in that room, silence becomes something impossible to achieve.
That day, however, Tony feels as if, instead of battling for silence, he’s going to have to beg for just a single word.
In the end, Clint’s the first one to talk. “So,” he says, ever so slowly, and every single gaze is suddenly focused on him. Meanwhile, he’s looking at Tony with a small frown. “It’s always been you?”
Tony gulps. “Yeah,” he says, battling against himself and his instincts, those that are begging him to look down, to run to his workshop, to hide behind his armor as he’s been doing for the last year. He redoubles his efforts to keep making eye contact despite it. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you before.”
“You haven’t,” Nat says, serious. “Told us, I mean. If you hadn’t had that accident, we wouldn’t have found out at all.”
And well, what’s Tony supposed to say to that? What are they expecting him to do? Everything he can do is apologize, and he’s already done that.
So what now?
Finally, when he realizes no one else is going to say anything, Thor stands up from the chair he had been sitting on and approaches him. He isn’t smiling, but neither does he seem angry. He stands before Tony, who’s sitting alone on the biggest sofa they have, and palms his arm, “I’m just glad you’re all right, friend.”
Tony gulps and nods, not knowing what to say.
“I’m glad too,” Bruce says, giving him a small smile.
Clint sighs and stands up too, imitating Thor. “Sure, me too. Just… no more secrets, please.”
Tony nods. “There isn’t anything else, I swear.”
Clint nods, content with Tony’s word. It baffles Tony, to see that both Thor, Bruce and Clint still trust him. It baffles him and fills his chest with something warm, something he holds on to with something akin to desperation.
The next one to stand up is Nat. Tony watches her, wearily, as she approaches him and tilts her head. He can’t read her expression, and she doesn’t smile as she talks, but her words fill Tony with relief all the same. “I’ve never judged anyone for having secrets and I’m not going to start now,” she says. “I’m just glad you’re all right.”
Tony sighs, giving her a thankful look. Then, he turns to look at Steve.
He’s sitting on a small chair, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. His gaze is fixed on the floor, and there’s a deep frown on his forehead, one that has been there from the beginning.
“Steve?” Tony asks, voice weak and trembling.
Steve’s silence is heavier, but not as heavy as the weight that settles in Tony’s chest when he sighs and says, “sorry” before standing up and leaving the room.
Tony looks at the door with wide open eyes, unable to process what’s just happened.
A hand settles on his shoulder.
“Give him time,” Nat says. “He’ll come to his senses.”
***
By the next time they get an alert and suit up, Steve hasn’t talked to Tony yet. It’s been almost a week, and Tony is almost certain Steve’s been avoiding him. Somehow, he’s managed to have breakfast, lunch and dinner at different times than usual, managing to avoid Tony in the process. Tony’s been tempted more times than he’d care to admit asking JARVIS whether Steve’s been asking him where he was, so he could avoid him.
He hasn’t done it. Not yet anyway.
He’s in his workshop when the alarm goes off, and barely three minutes later all the Avengers are suited up and boarding the Quinjet. Tony doesn’t miss the way Steve pointedtly avoids looking at him.
He’s glad he has the mask on at that moment: the last thing he wants is for Steve to see how much that hurts. He refuses to allow Steve to see just how much all this is affecting him.
“Where’s the emergency?” Steve asks Nat, who’s already sitting in the pilot seat, with Clint as his co-pilot.
“Mexico,” she says, as she keeps introducing the coordinates.
“Okay, let’s go,” Steve says, going for his seat.
No one in the plane misses how, instead of sitting beside Tony, as he’s always done since they started working together, he chooses to seat beside Thor.
***
Thankfully, Steve can’t avoid him forever. Not when he’s their leader, and certainly not when everyone already has their orders except for Tony.
That’s why the only time Steve looks at him is to tell him, “get into the system and buy us time.”
Tony gulps and nods and tries not to think about the sadness he sees in Steve’s eyes as he flies away.
***
Things get bad fast, so much so Tony almost doesn’t have time to deactivate the cameras of the building the hostages are in before he gets ambushed.
“Fuck!” he says as he tries to get rid of the five men that have appeared out of nowhere.
“Is there anything wrong?” Steve asks over the comms, and he sounds worked up, with ragged breath. If Tony didn’t know better, he would have said he sounded terrified.
“They’ve discovered me,” Tony says. “I can manage it, though! Go get the hostages, I’ll entertain them.”
When Steve doesn’t answer, he guesses his words have been listened to, just as every other time, and focuses on the battle at hand. He blasts and flies and swears and he’s winning— he is, really— when a shield flies around and hits the last man that remained standing just when he was about to reduce him. He already had his arm lifted; the order ready in his screen. And all for nothing because, yes, Steve’s there, gaze cold as he catches his shield back and hangs it off his back.
“I had that under control,” Tony says, hoping the robotic voice filter manages to conceal just how angry he is at the moment.
Steve, of course, doesn’t say anything before turning around and running in another direction.
Tony swears under his breath before following him.
***
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Tony demands to know as he exits the elevator and enters Steve’s penthouse.
Just as JARVIS had told him, there he is, sitting on a stool in his kitchen with a pack of ice against his abdomen. When he lifts his gaze from it to look at Tony, Tony is left speechless for a couple of seconds by how utterly exhausted he seems. It lasts barely a few seconds, before Steve frowns and looks down again.
"Not now, Tony."
And well, that is enough to piss him off once again.
"Don't try that with me now," Tony sneers, approaching him with tight fists by his side. "I'm not leaving here until you explain what the hell was that about."
"You needed help," Steve says, refusing to look at him. His voice is low, weak even.
"The hell I needed help!" Tony says. "I had it under control, just as every fucking time before! You've always trusted me when I told you I was fine, so why the hell didn't you now?"
Just as Tony is asking the question —as the words are leaving his mouth— realization settles in his chest, tightening its invisible fist around his heart and squeezing until he's left breathless.
Steve isn't talking. He isn't even looking at him, choosing instead to focus his gaze on the granite counter before him. The hand he's using to hold the ice pack has turned white.
"Steve," Tony says, fighting to not allow his voice to carry the disappointment he suddenly feels and failing like never before. "Don’t tell me all this is because now you know it’s me inside the armor.”
Steve’s silence speaks for itself.
"You said you trusted Iron Man" Tony says, tears making his eyes look brighter than ever. "So why is Tony so different?"
"It's not a matter of me not trusting you," Steve says, voice tense and raw, while he looks down, hands clenched into tight fists around the ice pack.
"Then what's the problem?!" Tony demands to know, chin high.
"It's me, okay?!" Steve says, voice high for the first time in the whole conversation. When he finally lifts his gaze, there’s no longer exhaustion in those bottomless blue eyes, but rather something that Tony can’t describe as anything else than pure anguish. "I don't trust myself when I'm around you!"
"That," Tony says, voice low, eyes wide. Hands trembling. "That doesn't make any sense."
"It does!" Steve says, standing up from the stool and towering over Tony, who can only look up, speechless, and take his words in. "I can't stand the thought of you hurting in any way, so how am I supposed to focus on the battles now that I know it's you under that armor?"
By the time Steve finishes talking, Tony can almost feel his ragged breath against his skin, the faint fragrance of the soap he knows he uses reaching his nose.
“What are you trying to say?” Tony finally asks, voice weaker than ever before as he battles to suffocate the sudden burst of hope that’s blossoming in his chest. He fails, for he starts to feel the faint tugging of his lips upwards as he takes in Steve’s flushing.
“You know what I’m trying to say,” Steve says.
Tony takes a step forward, tilting his head. “I think I do,” he admits. “Still, I’d like you to use your words for once.”
For a couple of seconds, as Steve looks at him in silence, eyes moving frantically as if he were searching for something in his expression, Tony fears Steve might choose not to say anything else and go back to ignoring him.
Then, Steve says, in a low, slow voice, “I… might like you.”
“As a friend,” Tony drawls.
He does it only to get a rise out of Steve, who groans and says, “would it hurt you to stop laughing at me for once?”
Tony shrugs, “It’s the less I’m owed after you spent a fucking week avoiding me.”
“I didn’t—” Steve stops mid-sentence when Tony arches an eyebrow, daring him to finish it. He sighs, “okay, I might have.”
“Really mature of you,” Tony says, enjoying Steve’s flush. “So that was all? You like me and you don’t like seeing me in danger? That’s why suddenly you don’t trust me to take care of myself?”
“I do trust you,” Steve says, earnestly.
“Then prove it,” Tony demands. “Iron Man’s been doing his work just fine for a whole year. You now knowing we’re the same person shouldn’t change anything.”
“I know,” Steve grumbles. “It’s hard, though.”
“Then work harder,” Tony says, fighting to keep the smile out of his face. Steve looks honestly like a kicked puppy at the moment. A really cute one. “I won’t stand to have a teammate not trusting me because we’ve been mutually pining for a whole year.”
Steve opens his mouth to say something, only to close it the next instant and frown slightly. “Mutually? You… you like me too?“
“I like you when you don’t behave like I’m suddenly a damsel in distress, yes,” Tony says, tilting his head. “Do you think you can work on that?”
Steve breathes in and nods, grumbling, “I can try.”
“I’ll have to settle with that for now,” Tony says, appreciating the fact that Steve is willing to work on it. “Now, let’s go back to the moment you confessed you love me.”
“I didn’t—!” Steve starts to say, flushing even more violently. He stops when Tony arches an eyebrow, again. Then, he rolls his eyes and reaches for Tony’s waist, bringing him closer while he says, fondly, “you’re a troll.”
“And you love me,” Tony laughs, closing the distance and kissing him.
This time, Steve doesn't bother denying it.