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Tony didn’t need to ask JARVIS what time it was. His fuzzy peripheral vision dimly illuminated by the blue holo-screens in front of him told him enough. Too early to sleep through the next 18 hours. Too late for work to be a sufficient distraction. He rolled back in his chair and flopped his head onto the keyboard in front of him with a sigh, staring wistfully at the 18 hundred whiskey perched in the oak-paneled cabinets on the far side of his workshop. Tony wasn’t that desperate…yet. With a groan, he raised his eyes upward.
“JARVIS, recalibrate the thrust now that I’ve adjusted for the blasting potential.”
He squinted at the results and ran a hand over his face, before picking up the mag-wrench once more. Sliding over to the unassembled shell of his right gauntlet, he carefully tightened the screws.
“Fuck,” he cried, grabbing his hand back, smoke rising from the wires, “son of a bitch shocked me.”
“Sir, I highly recommend that you take a—” “Again, JARVIS. Halve the output this time.”
Two more hours and he could fitfully sleep through every forced human interaction tomorrow. The condolences, the platitudes, the team walking on eggshells.
Nat’s reassuring hand on his shoulder.
Bruce’s offers to order Thai.
Cap’s normally cold stare softening every time he walked into the room.
He didn’t want any of it. He didn’t need any of it.
“Sir—”
“God damn it JARVIS, I thought I told you—” Tony started, spinning around to come nose to crotch with Captain America.
“Hello there,” Tony smirked and looked up, “third base already Rogers? We haven’t even hit first.”
“Tony…” Steve said gently, staring at him, searching for something that wasn’t there.
“Nope.”
Tony swiveled back around, running his fingers over the specs on-screen.
“Tony!”
That was more like it.
“If you’re here to ask me out, Cap, I’ve already disappointed someone else,” he said, not turning his gaze.
“Not quite,” Steve says, rubbing the back of his neck with his hand.
“Look, I know tomorrow—today actually, is difficult for you. You stay cooped up in here alone too often,” he swept his gaze across the unpacked crates and strewn suit parts, interspersed here and there with a stray coffee cup or forgotten shirt. “But the team is here for you…and, and I am too. I know what grief—”
“Don’t tell me anything about what I feel,” Tony growls, his hands stilled in mid-air, gaze fixed on a point between everything and nothing.
“I’ve lost people too,” Steve says, exasperated, like he can’t believe this basic premise is what Tony chose to disagree on.
Tony chuckles once under his breath, and stands up to meet Steve’s gaze, still a foot shorter than him, fucking super soldier serum.
“The difference between you and me, Rogers, is that you cared.”
Tony pushes past Steve’s shoulder; the Mark VII isn’t that damaged, a little joyride, a little buzz, to forget this whole conversation ever happened.
A hand grabs his wrist.
Tony clenches his jaw.
“Let go, Cap.”
“I’m not leaving, Tony, not until you tell me what’s going on.”
Tony is hyper-aware of Steve’s fingers encircling his wrist. It’s the lightest of touches, Steve would never press harder. He’d thought it necessary, for Tony’s own good. In all honesty, he was probably right. And yet, once again, Tony was trapped by someone who always controls the room.
He slowly drags his eyes back to Steve’s face, haloed by the glowing screens behind him. Even in the dark, Tony could see the crook of his brow, confusion etched across the planes of his face. Tony really didn’t want to do this.
“Let me go, Captain.”
He doesn’t listen. “Fury mentioned a complicated relationship with your father, but still—”
“If you think I didn’t build a ‘Cap-joins-the-Dark-Side’ suit, you would be sorely mistaken.”
Steve's gaze hardens, and he throws Tony’s hand back. Tony doesn’t walk away. This will be so much better. “God, I would never betray you Tony. I would never betray the team.”
“Bullshit,” Tony pokes Steve’s chest, “Those are two entirely separate promises. You would hand me over in a second to save the others.”
“I would never leave anyone behind,” Steve says, jutting out his chin.
“Then you’re either naive or stupid, Rogers. Pick one.”
Steve hesitates. Tony’s nostrils flare.
“Because you’ve thought about it, right? The contingency plan. Which one of us you can afford to lose.”
Tony’s eyes flash, anger white-hot in his stomach, his veins burning. Hating himself is second nature, but he’s almost disappointed Steve agrees with him.
“Why would I ever be at the top of your fucking list?”
He’s lost in those blue, blue eyes. Staring at him like what? Like something he said mattered? But before Tony can break away, Steve reaches down and kisses him softly. Just for a second. Just long enough to inhale his woodsy scent. Just long enough to feel his teeth graze Tony’s lips. Just long enough to wonder when fighting with Steve became easier than being apart.
Steve rests his forehead against Tony’s.
“Your name is the only one on that list.”
He’s destroyed. Every bridge, every wall, every lock Tony ever put up swept away in the flood of Steve’s words. His heart dashed upon the shore, and yet hoping the waves drag him under once more so he can drown in Steve’s embrace.
Steve runs his hands down Tony’s arms and rests his fingertips on Tony’s palms. Then, gently, he takes Tony’s fingers and closes them around his own wrist. He smiles sadly.
“You can let go.”
Tony looks down, brushing his thumb along Steve’s wrist. He tightens his grip just slightly. Imperceptible, maybe, to a super soldier.
“You don’t want me. I can’t…I don’t care about people the way I should.”
Steve frowns, raising his other hand to cup Tony’s face.
It’s a small thing, the flinch. A crinkle of the eyes, a tensed cheek, perhaps. Tony’s hidden it well over the years.
But Steve stills at the sight. Recognition spawns behind his eyes, deep and dark and deadly. Swirling currents beneath the ice of his carefully constructed mask. So reminiscent of Tony’s own past.
“Don’t,” Tony says, grabbing Steve’s face in both hands, “he’s gone. Revenge doesn’t suit you Rogers.”
Steve closes his eyes. He leans into Tony’s warm touch.
“Your father,” he says, and it’s no longer an apology. “That's why today…?”
Tony’s breath catches.
But then he grabs Steve’s collar, and yanks him down to kiss him.
“Is the best day of my life.”