Work Text:
“Excuse me, Captain Rogers.”
Steve Rogers squeezes his eyes shut at the voice coming from somewhere behind him. He tries to focus instead on the disquieting classical music; on how uncomfortable he feels in his tight-fitting tuxedo. He’s never really understood the appeal of any sort of party, but formal parties have always far and away been the worst—he always feels obscenely out of place. Formal isn’t really something he’s had any practice in.
“Captain?”
He can’t believe this is happening again.
“May I have this dance, Captain?” The brown eyes he finds looking down at him when he begrudgingly opens his eyes are the same as they always are—that is to say, painfully familiar and looking at him with an aching intensity.
He wants so badly to be able to look away.
“Well?”
…………………….
Steve wakes in a cold sweat that morning, well before his alarm. Given the inevitability of his not being able to fall back to sleep, he props himself up in his bed, wiping the shaky sleep from his eyes.
Bringing his knees to his chest, he closes his eyes again and reflects.
…………………
In hindsight, Steve was pretty sure that no one he'd grown up with had figured it out. In spite of his paranoia on the subject, there were so many other reasons to beat on him that no one really seemed to pay much attention to his social life (or lack thereof). He didn’t have a whole lot to be grateful for, then, but that they never dug deeper was a piece of luck that he never took for granted.
He never told his parents, of course—it would have been impossible for his father to know, thankfully, having died when Steve was only 5, and given the fact that his mother spent most of his adolescent life trying to set him up with “suitable girls” to date, he figured it was better for her health that she never find out. Besides, back then he wasn’t sure if he really believed it himself. It was just a nagging thought, a terrifying ‘what if’ that he pushed to the peripherals of his mind whenever it popped up…he’d get over it, he had to. It wasn’t going to be lasting enough to be of concern to anyone.
His parents were both gone by his nineteenth birthday, but his…condition…still remained. Despairing, he went to the army recruiter for the first time exactly one month after his mother’s death, hoping that this, perhaps, would be his cure. They rejected him, of course. He spent three days staring at the papers stamped ‘4F’ before he finally allowed himself to destroy them. Fortunately, Bucky had had the good sense to check in on him two days after that, preventing him from doing anything more drastic.
Bucky didn’t know, either. Bucky couldn’t know. Bucky was a good man, but his upbringing and moral sense wouldn’t have allowed him to stay around Steve if he’d known what Steve was. Steve needed him to stay, needed the friendship so badly—so Bucky never found out. It was for the best, really.
And then…Peggy. His saving grace. He’d been totally and completely convinced that he loved her, then. She was the embodiment of everything he’d ever hoped for: strong, smart, unyielding. (Female.) Their love affair wasn’t meant to last, naturally. He clung on to it all the way through his (presumed) dying moments, but there was a pair of brown eyes that weren’t hers that had settled naggingly in the back of his mind, preventing him from being wholly at peace with the situation. It was frankly sort of frightening, actually, how much they seemed to know…
…but then, he shouldn’t have been surprised. Howard Stark had been a genius, after all.
……….
When they carve him out of the ice, he is halfway sure he sees those terrible eyes again. He chalks it up to a hallucinatory daydream and sleeps soundly for the last time.
……….
In the year 2012, nothing is the same. He sees two men walking down the street holding hands in the middle of New York, and can’t help but stare. No one else even really seems to notice. Bewildered and mildly overwhelmed, he goes back inside.
……….
In the year 2012, nothing is different. Another war is starting, and they are in need of his assistance. The circumstances aren’t quite like what they were the first time he was called to action, but in its essence, war is war. Steve prepares to fight again.
He is given case files on his teammates so that everyone can be on the same wavelength when the fighting begins. He flips through them when he isn’t training. It takes all of his energy not to concentrate on how much these new allies remind him of the people he left behind.
Agent Natasha Romanov. Assigned to countless spy and assassination missions for countless organizations. Unofficially referred to as the Black Widow. Cool, collected, dangerous. Peggy.
Dr. Bruce Banner. Brilliant scientist, generally good guy. Currently situated in India, attempting to help those that would not otherwise receive help. Struggling to combat effects of an experiment gone wrong. Dr. Erksine.
Agent Clint Barton. Expert marksman, occasional spy. Referred to by his coworkers as ‘The Hawk’ or ‘Hawkeye’. Generally more concerned with the welfare of others than with his own, as evidenced by his early encounters with Natasha Romanov. Bucky.
Anthony “Tony” Stark.
He blinks at the cover, reads it again.
Stark.
He tosses the files to the side and heads determinedly back to train. Some things, he decides, are better left in the past.
……….
They meet, eventually. Inevitably. “Mr. Stark,” Steve says simply. “Captain,” Tony replies.
............
He has Howard’s eyes, of course.
…………
Tony is not Howard. Steve is surprised to realize that how disappointing that is.
“Big man in a suit of armor,” he accuses, “take that away, and what are you?”
“Genius, billionare, playboy, philanthropist,” Tony lists smugly, and Steve seethes.
“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you,” he hisses, and barely manages to refrain from following it up with ‘your father, for one’.
He’s touched on a nerve, apparently. Tony steels up, and any traces of Howard that might have been left in his expression vanish. Something tightens in Steve’s chest.
They part ways on poor terms.
………..
Tony proves Steve’s initial judgment wrong once, twice, a hundred times. This doesn’t faze Steve at all, except that it does.
…………..
By the end of the Avengers’ four month teamversary (a term that Clint persistently insists is a word, to Coulson’s chagrin), Tony and Steve have become friends, sort of.
Tony, at least, seems to believe that this is true. He takes it upon himself to try and integrate Steve into the 21st century. This accomplishes one thing and one thing only: getting Steve addicted to ‘Draw Something’. He spends hours on it, to the point where Coulson winds up forced to play because nobody else is interested anymore. Even when they are interested, no one’s drawings are as detailed as Steve’s. He’s not sure whether that’s because he’s a decent artist or if his teammates just don’t put in the same effort. When he brings it up in his quarterly report, Fury writes back that it is probably a combination of the two. He wonders whether he shouldn’t do teambuilding based on that evaluation.
He is forced to take a brief break from computer doodles when the Fantastic Four call on the team for help on a humid Saturday afternoon. Steve has never met any of the members of the Fantastic Four personally, but his teammates all seem to have very strong opinions on their brothers in arms.
“Ugh, no, fuck them. Let them get it themselves.”
“You’re not seriously making me spend time with Reed Richards, are you?”
“You know they’re probably not going to take well to working with me given all the times they’ve worked against me, right…?”
“If we’re being recruited to fight Doombots, I’m taking out your other eye.”
“It’s not Doom this time,” grumbles Fury, impatient, “let me finish my goddamn debriefing, Natasha. It’s the Frightful Four.”
“Why is that even a thing?” asks Clint, throwing up his hands.
“You’re telling me. Just get them subdued please.” Fury makes to return to his office, Coulson hot on his heels.
“You can’t even send for fucking Spiderman for shit like this?” Clint continues, kicking what Steve assumes is a wad of dust in Fury’s general direction.
“Spiderman’s freelance,” Fury calls back, “not my division. Have fun, kids.”
“Frightful Four?” asks Steve once he’s sure Fury’s gone. There is a collective helpless shrug. Steve is pleased to see that at least Thor looks as confused as he is.
“You’ll see, I guess. Let’s get this done so I can hold this over Richards’ head later,” sighs Tony, leading the team out.
The Frightful Four turns out to be a mildly absurd collection of strangers with superpowers. After the stint with the crazy aliens, the fight is almost mundane. Steve manages to take down both Trapster and Medusa with Natasha running backup. That he accidentally knocks Reed Richards out in the process is an unfortunate mistake, nothing more. (He can’t bring himself to admonish Tony for laughing, though…the guy wasn’t exactly fun to work with.)
“We were at our engagement party,” Sue Storm exclaims mournfully when she sees Reed’s unconscious form, which only serves to make Tony laugh harder. A few streets away, the Hulk has lost interest in the Wizard and is chasing Johnny Storm around instead, but Coulson fails to address this issue over headset (according to Clint) so no one puts an end to it. Steve has a feeling that they won’t be working with the Fantastic Four again in the near future.
They are able to return home after several profuse apologies on Steve’s part and Thor’s triumphant capture of the ‘Man of Sand’ (which was technically Tony’s capture, given that he was the one that vacuumed him, but Thor had provoked the guy to the point of being vacuumed so, in the end, no one ends up complaining about his taking credit), and Steve realizes that he’s finally starting to feel good about the Avengers’ teamwork (especially in light of watching the Fantastic Four operate together, not that he would ever admit to that). He mentions this to Tony, who feigns offense.
“Team is something we’re good at, Cap, funnily enough. Granted, we can’t stand to be in the same room as each other half the time, but give us a ring and I’ll be damned if we can’t toss it into the fires of Mount Doom somehow.” Steve doesn’t understand the reference, but supposes he’s right.
That night, Tony takes a turn on Draw Something for the first time in months. He’s doodled what appears to be a stick figure Captain America, smiling goofily with his oversized shield. Steve guesses the word ‘suit’, because that’s the part of the drawing that Tony appears to have spent the most time on.
He is incorrect.
The word is ‘hero’.
Steve considers this, realizes how ridiculously screwed he is, and tries with all his might to bury the warm feeling in his chest back down.
…………
Pepper Potts breaks up with Tony Stark at 10:30 a.m. on April 13th, and even considering the fact that this is probably going to affect the team for a while, Steve does not care at all, not one bit.
………
Upon having to put Tony to bed at 1:30 a.m. on April 14th after one too many drinks, Steve amends his statement. He does care. A little.
………
Upon going to bed himself at 3:30 a.m. on April 14th after looking after Tony for two hours, it becomes very apparent that he cares a lot.
………
Most of the troubles plaguing the Avengers have calmed down for the most part since Loki’s expulsion and their unsuccessful bout with the Fantastic Four, so they settle back into their respective normal routines.
It is, of course, short lived. Fury gives them two weeks of relative calm before he calls them to a 6am briefing session. No one is amused.
“Could we have not have waited to hear about Magneto or whatever the fuck until we woke up on our own time?” Clint is incoherent around mouthfuls of hastily grabbed poptart. He is the only one that had the foresight to bring food, unfortunately—Fury’s set out some standard issue military base coffee, but there are a select few of them in the group that would stoop to drinking it, namely he, Bruce, and Thor (who had been discovered to be capable of consuming pretty much anything). Tony, Natasha, and Clint, on the other hand, were left to suffer—and (Clint and Natasha aside) suffer Tony does, as obviously as possible so as to highlight his discontent. Steve tries and fails not to smile into his coffee.
“On the contrary, Barton, this is immediately important. We’ve got to get you all on the move against Magneto today.” Fury’s good eye examines Clint coldly. Clint looks down, uncomfortable, and in doing so discovers that Thor has taken his other poptart. The entire team quickly fights to stifle a laugh at Clint's look of outrage. Thor smiles, oblivious.
“Why can’t the X-Men take care of this?” Natasha wonders aloud, somehow managing to pull herself back together.
“The X-Men have called for reinforcements.” Fury answers matter-of-factly. “When the X-Men call in saying they need reinforcements, you pay attention to the problem.”
“Wonderful. Well. As long as I don’t have to put up with Scott fucking Summers again,” offers Tony, massaging his temples, “we’ll figure something out. Good talk, everyone. Meeting adjourned, Avengers disassemble, wake me up in a few hours when this actually becomes relevant…”
“Is there a token ‘guy that Tony hates’ on every team we work with?” asks Bruce mildly, sipping at his coffee.
“Well, actually…”
“Shut up, Stark.” Tony scowls and slumps in his chair. Fury continues. “Rogers, I’m going to send you to talk to Xavier…he’ll have information you’ll probably need. The rest of you I’m keeping here for further briefing.” Fury starts passing out intel packets. Clint all but collapses on to the table. Steve gets up and makes to leave, but a knowing look from Tony stops him short.
“What.”
“Nothing.” The dark haired man raises his eyebrows. “Better bury down those dirty thoughts, golden boy. Xavier reads minds, you know.”
Tony’s not playing fair, now. Steve’s eyes narrow.
“You don’t,” he reminds Tony, and walks out without another word.
……………
“Captain Rogers, if I’m not mistaken?”
Steve can’t figure out anything to do but blink bewilderedly at the quiet older man wheeling towards him. In spite of reading over all information pertinent to the reported leader of the X-Men, there is still a sort of mystery in the dignified lines of Charles Xavier’s face
"Honored to meet you, Dr. Xavier.”
“Please, call me Charles.” Xavier smiles, beckoning. “Accompany me to my office?”
“Of course.” He follows along through the impressive hallways of the Xavier mansion, feeling more and more out of place with every step. That the children aren’t anywhere to be seen is odd, to him. He’d thought this place was a school?
“The children are presently either in classes or on the battlefield.” Xavier says, jerking Steve out of his reverie. “We hadn’t wanted to send any of them to fight yet, but desperate times…and Logan’s insistence. That’s why I asked Nick Fury to call upon you. It’s for the safety of my students.”
“How old…?” Steve begins. “No one under eighteen is ever assigned to go into battle, and even for those that are of age, it is voluntary.” Xavier shakes his head, clearly unsettled. “Still…I worry.”
Steve remembers himself at the army recruiter’s at nineteen and agrees that yes, there is reason to worry.
Xavier pauses at a particularly daunting looking door. “I’m afraid that my attempting to open this right now would be more trouble than not…if you would perhaps be so kind?” Steve obliges, of course, and opens the door into Xavier’s sparsely decorated office. Xavier immediately wheels himself to settle behind the desk, and Steve lingers behind the office chairs tentatively.
“Sit and tell me what’s on your mind,” Xavier says, and it is not a request.
“How much do you know about me?” Steve asks before he can help himself, awkwardly sinking into one of the ornate leather chairs.
“Enough,” Xavier responds simply. “You remind me a little bit of myself, actually. How I was, anyway. Our skill sets are quite different, but the mindset is there.”
“Mindset?”
“Working for the greater good.” Smiling softly, Xavier takes a coin from the corner of his desk and begins fiddling with it idly. Steve watches the coin flip through Xavier’s fingers. Recognition flares up in the pit of his stomach.
“I beg your pardon, but the Nazi currency you’re holding sort of undermines what you’re saying, Dr. Xavier.”
“Nazi…?” Xavier looks back at the coin, brow wrinkling. “Oh, this. Yes. Not mine, you see. It belonged to a friend. Nowadays it’s not much more than a token of remembrance.”
“From the good old days, huh,” Steve can’t help but mutter to himself, still distrusting.
Xavier’s smile is sad, now. “A Jewish friend,” he says by way of explanation, and Steve is immediately overwhelmed by guilt. He’d had no idea the extent to which the Germans had been torturing their Jewish population at the time, and reading about it in hindsight had been one of the most horrific experiences he’d had this century, ridiculous space alien attacks included.
“I…”
“It’s all right.” The look Xavier gives him is not dissimilar to the look that Tony gives him when he’s about to deviate from Steve’s orders. Steve shrinks back a bit. “It’s all all right, Steve, as strange as that sounds. It’s hardly the 1940’s anymore.” The older man looks back down at the coin, rubbing his thumb over the surface. “Seize your opportunities.”
There is a silence.
“Magneto’s given name is Erik Lenshirr,” Xavier finally begins, and Steve wonders, wonders, wonders.
………..
Scott Summers shows up at SHIELD headquarters at 12:15 p.m. exactly. Incidentally, Tony decides that 12:15 p.m. exactly is the most appropriate time to retreat to the lab to test the plastic prototype suit he’s been working on. Steve takes a deep breath, gives Clint orders not to shoot at Scott under any circumstances, and follows Tony through to the facility he shares with Bruce.
Upon entering, he is immediately showered with foam from what he’s pretty sure is a rogue fire extinguisher.
“Who...? Fuck,” Tony calls from amidst the fray, “stop it, you idiot machine, stop, STOP, NOTHING IS ON FIRE.” It stops abruptly, and Tony emerges from the sea of white bubbles, brushing carelessly at his beard so as not to be left with soapy residue in it. The sight has a profound effect on Steve for a reason he cannot place.
“Sorry, Cap. Dummy here gets excited at the slightest whiff of melting plastic.” The robot in question slouches over, looking as close to ashamed as a robot might feasibly look.
“It’s…okay?” Steve realizes for the first time that he, too, has an absurd amount of foam on him, and laughter seizes him unexpectedly. He is overcome by it, leaning backwards against the wall for support as the laughter pours out of him. Tony, of course, has no idea what to make of this, but eventually finds himself infected by Steve’s happiness and joins him in laughing, sinking to the floor wildly in an admission of defeat. When it tapers out, Steve cannot for the life of him remember what he’d come down to say. Fortunately, JARVIS has his back.
“If I may, have you come to discuss the team assignments for the mission, Mr. Rogers?”
“JARVIS, just call him Steve. Mr. Rogers is a television show,” Tony mutters, looking skyward.
“It is?” Steve has a lot of television to catch up on, apparently.
“My apologies, Mr. Steve.”
“Thanks, JARVIS.” Steve combs a hand through his hair, pretending not to be perturbed by all of the foam still up there. “Right. I came here to warn you that Xavier’s requested that each of us accompany a specific platoon of X-Men when we go into the field against Magneto.”
“You’re worried I won’t cooperate if I’m assigned to Summers,” Tony sighs, getting up to return to his work in progress.
“I’m trying to get it so that you’re not assigned to Summers, but I don’t know how much say I’m going to have in the matter.” Steve joins the other man at the workbench, examining his blueprints with interest. “What do you have against him, anyway?”
“He’s arrogant—don’t call me a hypocrite, you were totally going to call me a hypocrite, I’m still listing here—he’s woefully lacking in the leadership skills necessary to pull together a team, his sense of style is bordering on offensive, if his brother’s any indication he’s probably not all that great in the sack…” Tony waves a hand nonchalantly, sifting through plastic pieces as he goes. “…the list continues, you get the picture…”
Well.
“You slept with Alex Summers?!” Steve tries, tries to keep his voice in a normal octave, tries to process this information without having a minor meltdown. Fails.
“Yeah. Does not come recommended. Calm down, Cap,” Tony admonishes, not looking up, “your 1940’s is showing.”
“I just thought…I don’t…Pepper,” Steve offers weakly. Tony scoffs.
“I’m not going to settle for half the playing field when I could have a monopoly on the whole thing, Cap, you ought to know that by now. Pass me the drill.”
“Which one is that?” Steve looks over the table full of weird gadgets helplessly. Tony turns to look at him and fixes him with a terrible determined gaze that Steve knows will follow him through the rest of the week (if not the rest of his life).
“You’ve still got a lot of catching up to do, don’t you.” Tony folds his arms. Steve wishes desperately to melt into the floor.
“I…”
He is cut off by the crackle of an intercom, followed by a terrifying inhuman roar.
“ROGERS. I KNOW YOU’RE DOWN THERE. THIS IS BARTON.”
“The good Captain is currently indisposed, please leave a message at the—“
“SHUT UP, STARK. WHILE YOU’VE BEEN GONE, ROGERS, SUMMERS HAS BEEN SO KIND AS TO ANNOY BRUCE INTO HULKING OUT. BRUCE IS CURRENTLY DESTROYING EXPENSIVE GOVERNMENT PROPERTY. REQUESTING PERMISSION TO SHOOT SUMMERS NOW.”
“You’re going to shoot him anyway, aren’t you.”
“SHUT UP, STARK. PLEASE LET ME SHOOT HIM, ROGERS.”
“Clint…”
“PLEASE.”
There is a shout in the background that is unmistakably a battle cry from Thor.
“I’ll be up in five, Clint. Permission to shoot to wound, not to kill.” Steve turns off the intercom and turns to Tony. “Tony, I’m…”
“Go,” is the response that he gets, and that’s going to have to work for the time being.
………
Clint doesn’t kill Scott. Clint doesn’t even end up wounding him.
Natasha gets there first.
That being the unfortunate (?) case, Scott being hurried away to the hospital so they can fish the bullet out of his right buttock means that he’s incapable of leading a platoon into battle that afternoon, so Tony is spared at least that much. Instead, he is assigned to work with Wolverine, a partnership that he pretends to be disgruntled by but is actually delighted with. The X-Men are pretty sure that Wolverine feels similarly enthusiastic about his assignment, but as his only acknowledgement of it is a muttered “Suit up, asshole,” in Tony’s direction, no one can really know for sure.
Steve, meanwhile, is partnered up with the one they call Colossus. They shake hands, and Colossus re-introduces himself as Piotr (which Steve assumes to be his real name, because even in the 21st century he doubts anyone would choose to name their child Colossus). Colossus/Piotr doesn’t say anything more for the rest of the mission, which is only mildly unnerving. Still, Steve is determined to make it work.
In good time, they’re all partnered up and causing chaos. Lab incident aside, Steve’s never seen Tony laugh as hard as he does when Logan jokes with him, and it’s none of Steve’s business except that it’s triggered an anger he wasn’t even aware he was capable of. At any rate, it is definitely not productive in terms of leading the team. He clenches his jaw and orders the team onward as Bruce and Hank McCoy share a bemused look that they think he doesn’t see. (He will claim until his dying day that the fact that he gives the two of them incorrect coordinates later in the mission has nothing to do with this moment. Whether or not it does is inconsequential, anyway.)
They encounter Magneto on the edge of the city. Somehow, in spite of a million reasons why this shouldn’t be the case, they manage to surprise him. Nevertheless, his gaze is level as he assesses his opponents.
“Avengers,” he greets, voice dripping with disdain, “a pleasure to finally meet your acquaintance.”
The German lilt in his speech has not quite faded with time, and Steve understands, finally.
“Charles sends his regards, Erik,” he responds quietly, and Magneto’s eyes narrow.
………...
It is a victory in spite of the fact that Magneto is in possession of Steve’s shield for almost the entire fight. No one is quite sure what Steve said to Magneto to provoke him so violently, but then, no one really wants to know.
Professor Xavier phones the next day to thank the team. Steve lets Tony take the call.
………..
They don’t talk much, for awhile. Steve pretends it’s because he doesn’t have anything to say.
There is one isolated incident where Steve walks in on Tony flipping through what looks like a book of old photos, but Tony doesn’t look up, and Clint pulls Steve away quickly, hastily making excuses about planned movie nights and promises that Steve doesn’t remember agreeing to.
He asks Natasha about it later, but she merely gestures to the vase of fresh flowers on the kitchen table, shrugs, and says, “We all have our secrets.”
Fleetingly, he wonders whether they wouldn’t get more accomplished as a team if they stopped being so damn cryptic and just told each other the truth.
………….
The next morning, he catches Clint bringing in new flowers. There’s a card attached, but before he can see what it says someone else has snatched it away. Presumably, it was for her anyway. Steve has a lot of catching up to do.
………
It gets to the point where even Thor has noticed that Steve and Tony aren’t interacting, so the rest of the team does the sensible thing and stages an intervention. This would be clever, except that Tony figures it out first and escapes before they can drag him out.
Steve is not so lucky, except that then Bruce hands him a photograph, and he sort of is.
He finds himself staring down at Howard Stark, smiling at the camera with weary eyes. He has his arm around a girl that it takes Steve far too long to recognize as Peggy. Something about her entire countenance is different, somehow, in a way that makes Steve’s throat tighten. This is not the Peggy he’d known.
It’s a well-preserved picture regardless, with ‘August 18th, 1950’ scrawled across the bottom in green ink, and Steve realizes with a jolt that it was taken a few short years after his “death”. Bruce must have taken it from the album that Tony had been looking at a few nights ago. Howard is smiling, and Peggy is looking over at Howard with an expression that can only be described as…resigned.
There is a ring on her finger.
“How did you…?” he begins, but in seeing his friends’ faces he knows. They’ve known for a long time. It must have been in Tony’s file, he realizes.
“She died in childbirth,” murmurs Coulson, finally, “and Howard remarried a year or so later.”
“But she’s not…the new wife, I mean, Tony’s not…”
“No.” It’s the first time he’s ever really seen Coulson look sad. “No, Maria’s not his mother.”
Steve gapes listlessly, attempting to process everything.
“Steve Rogers,” Thor begins, clearly uncomfortable.
“Yeah…yeah.” It occurs to him that the grip he has the photograph in is probably damaging the photograph permanently, but he can’t bring himself to let it go. “Could you tell me where Tony went? I think…I think I…”
Four hands gesture in unison towards the lab, and Steve leaves without finishing his thought.
…………
“They showed it to you.”
Tony is, predictably, working. This time, he appears to be welding…something. Steve’s not going to pretend to understand what it is.
“Yeah.” Steve leans up against the wall, just out of Tony’s line of sight. “How’d you know I hadn’t read it in your file?”
The blowtorch drops to the ground with an intrusive thunk, and Tony examines his handiwork, pointedly not looking at Steve. “Things would have been different if you had. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“God help us the day that someone tells you you’re wrong.”
“Exactly.”
“Tony.” Tony turns around, shuffles his feet. Steve could almost laugh if the subject weren’t so entirely serious. “It makes sense, you know.”
“Which one?”
“Pardon?” Tony looks at him, finally, but to Steve’s surprise there is accusation in his eyes instead of apology.
“I mean, it’s obvious that you were in love with one of them," and Steve winces at that, but Tony continues as if he doesn't see, "because even though you never mentioned having anyone back then, I see the way you get when you talk about them, and the way you looked at me the first time, like, oh, you know, like I was all you had in the entire world…and I was, I know. You don’t have to confirm that for the sake of my ego, really, although you know how my self esteem gets with stuff like this—”
“Both,” Steve replies simply. Honestly. It is something of a relief.
“Fucking fantastic.” Tony appears to deflate, collapsing quietly onto his workbench. “I’ve really hit the masochism jackpot this time, haven’t I, could have taken this shit to a therapist but instead it manifests itself in this ridiculous—“
Seize your opportunities.
“I don’t think you understand, actually.” Steve stands upright from where he’s been leaning against the wall.
Something breaks in Tony’s expression at that. He looks over at Steve, eyes burning. “I understand. I always understand. You should try it sometime, understanding. Illuminating stuff."
Steve blinks.
“Great, great.” Tony collects himself, moves back to his table of tools. “Thanks, Cap, you’ve been marvelous, tremendous audience, let me just pick up the pieces of my heart and put them all back in—oh, wait, no heart—“
Without saying a word, Steve moves towards Tony and punches him in the stomach. Tony flies back and hits the far wall.
“Shut up, Tony.”
Tony shuts up.
“I understand, Tony. I do. I know those feelings. I've been having them for 90 years." Tony blinks, still somewhat in shock from the hit. Encouraged, Steve keeps talking. "I repressed them, ignored them, and pushed them away—I tried every trick in the book—until I met your parents.” He pauses, suddenly nervous. “You already know. I loved them both.”
“And they loved you,” Tony retorts, voice achingly bitter.
“And then you chipped me out of the ice in 2012,” Steve continues, taking a few steps forward. “I thought you were a hallucination, at first. Howard’s eyes, after all that sleep? Had to have been still dreaming. But no…I showed up for the first day of Avengers Initiative briefing, and there you were.”
“There I was,” echoes Tony, looking up for the first time since Steve began talking. Steve ignores the malice in his eyes.
“There you were. A combination of two of the people I’d loved best in the world.” And Steve almost can’t make himself say this next part, except that Charles Xavier is in his head without actually being in his head, and he knows he has to. “So, as fate would have it…”
Tony understands before the sentence is over. “Cap—Steve.”
The expression in Tony’s eyes has softened, at least.
“I believe you.” The darker man gets up and runs a hand through his hair, looking startlingly like the Howard from the picture. “I believe you, and I..." Steve’s stomach seizes up involuntarily. "...yeah. Me too. But.”
"But?" It is hands-down the most terrifying word Steve's ever heard.
"Not yet. Still too weird. I'm not ready for--just...not yet." It's the most vulnerable he thinks he's ever heard Tony sound.
Steve lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he’d been holding in. “Yeah. Yeah…I think that'll be good.” “
"Oh? Okay…okay. So. I. Well. Let me know?” Tony’s mouth is still a hard line, but the tension has left the rest of his body. He stands with practiced nonchalance, still attempting to mask the hope in his eyes with indifference.
“I will,” promises Steve. They hold each other’s gaze for a moment. Finally, Tony smiles—tired, but genuine.
“Thank you.”
They part ways on good terms.
……..
Steve doesn’t dream that night, and not even Thor’s “ceremonial” breaking of the toaster is enough to rouse him in the morning.
…….
Formal events aren’t so bad, really. Steve finds he’s more partial to them when they play music that he recognizes, and this particular officer’s ball is 1940’s themed, so it’s been a tremendous night all things considered.
“We looked at each other in the same way then,” he sings to Coulson, who, to his credit, manages to keep a straight face, “but I can’t remember where…”
“Or when?”
Steve all but spills his drink.
“What, were you expecting me amidst a sea of camera flashes?” Tony pushes his way up to sit with Steve and Coulson, watching the couples sway with practiced indifference. “Nice to see you, too.”
“You look nice,” Steve replies, almost as an aside. Coulson excuses himself at that.
“Yeah.” Tony moves a little closer. “You too, Captain.”
They both know, now, what comes next.
“Yes,” Steve responds preemptively. Tony laughs aloud at that.
“Then what are we waiting for.”
Steve finds that he’s always known how to dance, really. It’s instinctive. He’d just, like he’d always claimed, needed the right partner.