Work Text:
Ok, it’s a horrible idea. It’s probably the worst idea EVER!! And Tony’s the one who decided to make a flying pencil sharpener last week. (It was for STEVE!! Honest to god, he was trying to be helpful. Tony blames caffeine... And hot blonde super soldiers.)
The thing is though, he’s BORED. He has a broken femur and a fractured ankle, so he’s trapped in the bowels of SHIELD medical because he can’t walk out. Steve and Thor are terrible people and had both refused to carry him out. Tony’s will eventually come up with a way to bribe someone into bring him a wheelchair, but until then he’s stuck here with nothing but his tablet. Pepper’s has already locked him out of SI’s files and JARVIS, the traitor, has locked him out of his personal files. He’s got nothing else to do but browse the internet or watch Netflix and Netflix is boring when there’s no one around to listen to his never-ending commentary.
So the internet it is.
Tony has browsed his way into one of the scarier parts of the internet, not the part with porn, because Tony is VERY familiar with that part of the internet, but the part where night-blogging happens. Once upon a time, Tony had been very familiar with night-blogging, his caffeine and alcohol fulled college years are a testament to that, there are probably still a few videos from that time lurking around on the internet. But that’s not the point, the point is that it’s been a while and Tony is a little behind on the times. Which he resents, he's a billionaire, playboy who owns a Fortune 500 company and is a superhero on the best team EVER! He can’t be expected to keep up with everything on the internet. So he’s a little surprised by these starry things. OK, surprised is not the right word. Gleeful. Because if Tony had known about these before there is no question that he could have found some use for them.
There’s a dozen plans forming in his head even before he hits “Add to cart”.
***
There’s a package on Tony’s bed when he FINALLY gets released from medical. He wheel’s himself to the bed and grabs it, grinning.
“Hey, Tony?” Steve’s voice rings through the room before he even appears in Tony’s doorway. Tony stashes the package under his bedspread before Steve can see it.
“Yes Captain?” Tony rolls his eyes as he spins his chair around, and he is so going down to his workshop right now and building himself a repulsor powered wheel chair, there is no way he’s pushing this chair around for the next eight weeks. He probably sounds pretty exasperated, but who knew Captain America was such a mother hen.
“Are you hungry?” Steve leans against the door frame and folds his arms over his chest. Tony tries not to grin, because that would definitely give the game away.
“Steve, the only thing I want right now is to ditch this chair. Seriously, what were those doctors thinking? Did they think giving me a lame, arm powered chair was going to slow me down? Because they’re wrong and I’m going to prove it.” Steve huffs a laugh and crosses the room, Tony glares at him.
“Come on, if you eat something now I promise I’ll take you down to the workshop after.” Steve steps behind Tony’s chair and grabs the handles, pushing him out the door. Tony sighs and rolls his eyes again.
“I make no promises,” Tony tilts his head back to look at Steve. “Are you going to hand feed me, Nurse Rogers?” That makes Steve frown and it’s kind of adorable because it looks like Steve’s not sure if he should be embarrassed or not.
“I could always push you down the stairs.” Steve mutters.
“You wouldn’t do that to me.” Tony replies, pretending to be scandalized by the mere thought. “Not Captain America.” Steve grins and it’s kind of scary.
“Try me.” Tony doesn’t think he’ll actually do it, but he shuts up anyway.
***
In the end it goes much better than had Tony expected. Steve walks into the kitchen a week later wearing his normal running outfit, sweats, runners, and a t-shirt that is way too tight across his pecks. The only difference is the two small stars stuck to the front of his shirt. Tony nearly spits his coffee when he sees it. Clint actually does.
“What the hell?” Clint splutters and Tony’s trying really hard not to hyperventilate, his shoulders are shaking with the amount of laughter he’s trying to hold back. “Starting a new trend Cap?”
“I got up this morning and all my shirts were like this.” Steve is glaring daggers at Tony and it would be a lot more menacing if his face wasn’t a bright shade of pink. Tony can’t hold it anymore, he just starts laughing, so loud it echoes around the kitchen.
For a moment, Steve looks like he really is going to push Tony down the stairs. Luckily for Tony, Natasha takes that moment to walk into the kitchen. She stops beside Steve, looks him up and down the hums softly.
“Nice, I didn’t know you could get them with the American flag on them.” She reaches out and pinches the edge of one of the stars and tries to pull it off. Steve flinches and now both Tony and Clint are laughing, the colour of Steve’s cheeks darkens.
“I can’t get them off.” Steve says, and Natasha hums again before turning away and heading over to the coffee maker.
“What did you even use, Tony?” Steve still looks disgruntled as he picks at the edge of one star. Tony is gasping for breath around his laughter, it’s actually becoming quiet painful. He closes his eyes until he can take a deep breath, he nearly starts laughing again when he opens his eyes.
“I’m testing a new kind of glue based off the chemical formula found in spider-webs. Wash your shirts in hot water, the stars will come off.” Tony’s face hurts from smiling, Steve still looks flushed and unhappy.
“Just for this, I’m not making pancakes for breakfast.” Steve says seriously and Tony groans. “Also, I’m not taking you down to the workshop.” Steve looks positively vindictive as he turns away.
“Steeeeve...” Tony whines, chasing after him as fast as he can in his wheelchair as Steve heads out of the kitchen. “That’s not FAAAAIIIIR!”
“Should have thought of that before you gave me two weeks of washing to do.” Steve calls back as he vanishes down the hall, Tony lets out another groan and lets his head fall back over the edge of the chair.
“It was a pretty funny though,” Clint says, he’s got a new cup of coffee courtesy of Natasha and a bowl of cereal.
“True. I mean, it was worth it, but still...” Tony sighs and leaves it hanging. Maybe he should have mentioned the small modifications he’d made to Steve’s Cap suit.
Oh well, he’ll get around to it.
***
He doesn’t.
Tony is sitting in the living room watching the news on the large flat screen.
“Is this a new look for Captain America? We think it is. Today, New York was attacked by a new super villain, but that’s not what has everyone's attention. Instead, the people of New York have been fascinated by the new addition to Captain America’s uniform.” The pretty, blonde news anchors reads.
Two pictures flash on the screen, one of Steve mid-jump, arms thrown out for balance, and the second one is of the same picture, but a close up of Steve’s chest. And right there, attached evenly to suit right over where Steve’s nipples would be are two red, white, and blue, American flag nipple stars.
Tony’s not sure how Steve didn’t notice them when he put the suit on. Sure, it had been an emergency, but Steve was supposed to be observant.
“TONY!!” Tony snickers and figures he’d better make himself scarce, luckily he'd finally installed repulsors in the wheelchair while the Avengers were out.
Tony could hear Clint singing the National Anthem, the pledge of allegiance will probably be next. Probably best to flee.
“ANTHONY STARK! GET BACK HERE!”