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Tony’s clothes are full of dust when he finds the box.
It’s hidden under a forgotten table in their basement, blanketed in so much dust it takes Tony several passes with the mop to see its blue tones. Once the box is decently clean, Tony holds it between his hands, curious.
It must be the first time he’s seen it, and that’s saying a lot, given he and Steve have been living in this house for the past twenty-something years; until that instant, he thought he knew everything they stored there, but now he realizes that’s not true.
Throwing the mop to the table, he sits on the floor with the box between his spread legs and opens it.
He’s not sure what he was expecting to find in there, but a stack of letters certainly isn’t it. They’re not just any kind of letters, and that’s something he realizes instantly: as soon as his fingers brush the paper, he realizes it’s good quality paper, the kind that doesn’t bend easily. The expensive kind.
When he sees the date of the first one, two things come to his mind almost simultaneously:
First, it really is good quality paper if it’s survived thirty years without a single scratch.
Second, the first letter is dated in the year Steve and he met for the first time.
He’s supposed to finish cleaning the basement before Steve arrives to take them to dinner for their anniversary, he knows that. Steve’s asked him to do it, as weird as that is, since Steve seems to always enjoy cleaning for some reason.
Now that Tony thinks about it, this must be the first time he’s cleaning this room, too. He should get back to it.
And still, Tony spends the next two hours sitting on the basement floor, the mop forgotten on the table, reading a stack of letters of which existence he never knew about.
The first one is dated in 2012, the year Steve was unfrozen. Not only that: it’s dated May 4th. The calligraphy is everything one would expect from Captain America: neat, a bit stylized, just like they made it back in the 40s. And still… Still, there’s some kind of sloppiness there, something that, paired with the wording itself, makes Tony think of Steve writing it in a rush, sitting on the small desk he had in his small SHIELD-issued apartment.
I’m not supposed to feel anything like this, Tony reads, wondering if that last word is blurred because of how much Steve’s hand trembled at the time he wrote it or if it’s just his imagination. After everything I told you when I met you, I have no right to say this. But I can’t not say it in some way: when I saw your silhouette heading towards the sky, I felt my heart stop. It can’t be, I told myself as I watched you head towards certain death and not hesitate in the slightest.
But when I saw your body emerging from that hole, returning from a trip that was supposed to be without return? When I saw you open your eyes and look at me with that cocky grin of yours?
Then, my heart came back to life, beating the fastest I’ve ever felt before.
And then I knew I was doomed.
Tony blinks a couple of times, incredulous, as he rereads that letter. He and Steve have talked lots of times about the Battle Of New York and still, this is the first time he’s read something as raw about it.
Quickly, he leaves that letter aside and takes the next one, and the next one. And he reads letter after letter, immersed in a frenzy he’s never felt before, not even back in his MIT days, when he pulled all-nighter after all-nighter, scrambling to reach deadline after deadline.
This is different.
There are many letters there, more than Tony would have thought. And together, they tell a story Tony thought he knew right up until then: he’s the first one to be surprised while reading about Steve already having developed a crush for him when the Avengers moved to the Tower, just as he’s surprised to find out Steve’s written many letters about feeling clumsy around him, especially during their sparring sessions.
He asked me to spar with him again, Steve begins another letter a couple of months later. Is he really that clueless about what our proximity does to us, or is he trying to torture me?
Tony huffs a laugh, incredulous, before passing to the next letter.
A small, pleased smile grows on his lips when he finds the letter Steve wrote after their first date.
His kisses taste like coffee, Steve begins that letter with that. Not the kind of coffee I drink —black and bitter— but the kind of coffee he drinks: it’s sweet and rich. It’s the kind of taste I could grow addicted to.
He keeps reading, and finds out that these letters, more than actual letters meant to be sent to him, ended up being more like a diary of sorts, one Steve would resort to after every single milestone in their relationship: their first date, their first kiss, their engagement.
Their wedding.
He’s sleeping right by my side and it feels like a dream, just like the first time, Steve started the letter of their wedding night. He sleeps on his stomach, one hand under the pillow, the other on the top. I can see his ring —my ring— shining on his annular finger, and I could cry out of happiness.
He’s reading the letter he wrote when they adopted Dodger when he hears a hum behind him. Startled, he turns around to find Steve leaning on the wall by the stairs, looking at him with an arched eyebrow and an amused smile.
“So I take it you’ve found them, hm?” Steve says.
Tony hugs the box to his chest, chin high as he says, “They’re for me. You wrote them for me.”
Steve nods, uncrossing his arms and walking towards him. “That they are.”
Tony squints in his direction as he takes the hand Steve’s offering and gets up. “Why didn’t you give them to me then?”
Steve looks at them thoughtfully. “They seemed too over the top at the time, I think. At some point, I started writing them even knowing I’d never send them.”
“Well,” Tony says, closing the box and hugging it tighter as they walk upstairs. “Now I’ve found them, so they’re mine.”
Steve’s laugh makes Tony laugh too. Tony finds he likes this game, where they pretend Steve hasn’t just given them to him, closing a circle Tony didn’t even know was open to begin with.
“Well,” Steve says, leaving a soft kiss on Tony’s lips. “I guess we can count that as my anniversary gift.”