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Steve and Tony are only gone for five seconds, but when they reappear on the quantum portal in a swirling pinprick of light, their hair is a bit longer, their clothes are rumpled, they’re gripping onto each other’s hands so hard their knuckles are white, and both of them, for the first time in as long as anyone has known them, look like they might be truly, wholly, blindingly happy.
They bring some odd habits back from their months trapped in 1970, like Steve isn’t so inclined to find a barbershop where they cut his hair the exact same way every time and Tony stops making appointments with his colourist in the city. No one else in the Compound is that particular about their hair except for Thor, but he coins Haircut Days and always requests Steve to “don’t cut it short, cut it long.”
“So, um, I know Mr. Rogers couldn’t go in public, but why did Mr. Stark have to get his hair cut at home?” Peter asks as Steve wraps a towel around his shoulders and examines his curls in the mirror.
“I looked too good,” Tony says from where he’s supervising Peter’s first Haircut Day. “He got jealous.”
Which, of course, means that Steve couldn’t care less but Tony felt bad about being the reason Steve Rogers sported a short-on-looks haircut, so he sat himself down in one of the creaky wooden chairs they scavenged and handed Steve a pair of kitchen shears and told him to do his worst. It didn’t turn out half bad though, and they’re both getting better because probably neither of them would be bad at anything they wanted to be good at.
-
Most of the Avengers roster has a history of being in the same room as Steve and Tony and not following what the hell they were on about because they had this tendency of turning American English into some secret language that only meant anything to the two of them, like 52 Blue found a partner, and they can be damn near incomprehensible these days.
Scott sits on one side of the kitchen island eating a bowl of oatmeal across from Steve. He never thought he could get used to being around him, but there they are, eating breakfast together like old buddies. Steve is doing the morning crossword, but still.
Tony joins them in the kitchen then and Steve tilts his cheek towards him to be kissed. Tony murmurs “morning, sweetheart” as he passes behind him, shuffling through the cabinets for something.
Scott waves. “Good morning.”
Tony looks at him like he’s seeing him for the first time since walking into the kitchen. “Hey, Lang.”
Scott goes back to his oatmeal. Or at least he tries to.
“Steve, where’s the—?”
Steve doesn’t look up from his crossword. “Cabinet next to the fridge.”
Tony opens the cabinet next to the fridge and pulls out a jar of coffee beans. “Can I use your thing? I left mine.”
Steve hands Tony the coffee mug he’d been using.
“Do we have any more of the—” Tony snaps his fingers.
“No, but I was going to get some today. Can you do without for today?”
“Yeah, yeah.” Tony opens the fridge. “Hey, I thought we had more.”
“We do.”
“This isn’t it.”
“It’s behind it.”
“Gotcha.” Tony moves a carton of whole milk aside and reaches for the almond milk behind it and Scott just stares, his spoon halfway to his mouth.
-
They have a fourth of July barbecue on the fifth of July because Tony insists on putting Steve first and America second, and Rhodey stands there with a beer in his hand, chatting with Steve and watching him flip burgers. Steve nails everyone’s burger orders and not a single one is lopsided. That man really does do everything with precision.
Steve hands Tony his plate with his burger on it and Tony flips up the top bun, picks off the mushrooms, and puts them on Steve’s burger.
“Tones. What are you doing?” Rhodey finally asks. “I heard you ask for mushrooms.”
“Steve likes extra mushrooms but won’t make extra for himself because he thinks it’s unfair, so I ask for them and then give them to him,” Tony explains. “I’m being helpful.”
Rhodey takes a long sip of beer and then walks away from him.
-
The holidays roll around and Clint tries to coordinate a Christmas dinner at his house with his wife and kids. It’s like herding cats. He manages to narrow it down to four days, but Tony is away on other business this afternoon, so who knows what kind of wrench he’ll throw in the plan later.
“So you bunch are free December twentieth through twenty third?” Clint asks, looking around the room for nods. “Alright. Let me talk to Laura. We have to see when Tony’s free anyway.”
Steve pipes up. “Tony has a meeting on the twentieth but he’s free on the twenty first and twenty second.”
“What about the twenty third?”
“He’s visiting the children’s hospital on Fifth.”
As if summoned, Tony walks in with his jacket on his arm.
“We were talking about you,” Clint says.
“Ask Steve,” Tony says, not looking even remotely in Clint’s direction as he leans down to kiss Steve on the head, and Steve tips towards him with a smile like a cat getting rubbed between the ears.
-
They go to a karaoke bar together and Steve queues Don McLean’s American Pie for Natasha and Vance Joy’s Riptide for himself. Thirty seconds after he takes the mic, Bruce leans over and shouts to Tony to be heard over the music, “Does he know he’s singing the words wrong?”
Tony can’t take his eyes off Steve, whose happiness makes him even more beautiful than his sadness had and he’s glowing like an angel in the low light of the bar and the karaoke screen, and Tony shouts back to Bruce, “He knows! We just couldn’t remember the lyrics while we were gone, so he made up his own.”
So they all sing the whole song together and it’s a mess because everyone else is singing the words on the screen and Steve is singing the version he and Tony made up in 1970, and Tony is smiling and watching him, thinking Steve’s lyrics make more sense to him anyway and he wouldn’t have it any other way.