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“Alright,” Steve said, looking around at his team. “It’s a simple mission. In, take out the bad guys, grab the file, and out. Quick, straightforward, easy. You got it?”
Natasha smirked. “You know, you’d think that Hydra would give up by now,” she said, slouching back in her seat, somehow still elegant.
Sam frowned at her from where he was standing at the counter. “Nah, it’s all the ‘two heads’ thing. They somehow still believe they’re invincible.”
“Sam, what are you doing?” Steve asked, suddenly distracted.
Sam held up his knife. “I’m chopping peppers.”
Steve closed his eyes, counting to ten. “Can I ask why?”
“It’s for dinner! Bucky’s sorting the tomatoes and cucumber over there,” he said, gesturing over to where Bucky was standing with his back to them, a knife in each hand, a dangerous whirl of activity.
Steve sighed. “Why don’t you take these briefings seriously?” he wailed plaintively.
Natasha laughed, getting to her feet and patting Steve on the shoulder. “Because we’ve done this a hundred times before, because you hold these meetings in our living room, and also because you’re wearing an Iron Man t-shirt and it’s hard to take a man with such an obvious crush seriously.”
Steve groaned. “Fine,” he said, succumbing to the inevitable. “We move out at 10pm sharp. Do you need any help with dinner?”
As Bucky and Sam distributed tasks, Nat nudged Steve with her shoulder. “It’ll be fine, Steve. Don’t worry!”
*****
“Okay, so maybe I was wrong,” Nat shouted.
“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I really did,” Steve yelled back. The simple extraction mission had turned out to be not as simple as expected. The place had been swarming with Hydra soldiers, all highly trained and extremely determined to protect this file. Nat and Steve were holding off at least thirty in the main area of the compound. Bucky was up high, taking out the enemy’s communications and picking off anyone who tried to escape. And Sam was heading (hopefully stealthily) towards the room which (hopefully) contained the file.
“I think that your intel might be wrong, Steve,” Natasha said conversationally, as she knocked out one of the soldiers and used her limp body to hit another.
“Ya think?” Steve snarked, deflecting a spray of bullets with his shield and then punching the shooter away. They weren’t overwhelmed, they were handling it, but Steve hoped that Sam was on track. Their own communications had been shot too, some kind of dampening field around the area. Bucky was hacking it, but it was taking longer than anticipated, and until then they had no comms. These people had known that they were coming. Steve would definitely be taking a look at that file, considering they actually retrieved it...
His thought process was distracted by the strains of music coming from his pocket. He groaned, recognising the song. Star Spangled Man. He just couldn’t escape it.
“Nat, did you change my ringtone again?” he growled, fishing his phone out of one of the pockets on his belt. It was a fancy Starkphone (Stark tech had an odd way of working in damped fields when no other tech worked, and yet didn’t work on the middle ten floors of Avengers Tower), and as he touched the screen, it flashed up with the caller’s name.”It’s Tony,” he said, and if his voice squeaked, well, no-one would know.
“I heard that,” said a voice in his ear. “Comms are back online, and I heard that squeak, Stevie. You gonna answer it?”
Steve swung his shield in a smooth arc, clearing himself a little breathing space. The remaining soldiers were holding back, obviously trying to work out a more effective strategy. Natasha laughed as she easily dodged a wild punch and neatly sent the guy flying with her much more accurate return punch. “You really should answer it,” she said, grinning, and Steve growled, hitting the talk button.
“Hey Tony,” he said, trying to ignore his blush. His mask would cover it anyway, right?
“Hey, Cap,” said Tony, and Steve thought he sounded nervous, if that was even something that Tony felt. Steve heard Bucky swear in his ear.
“Damn, they found my hiding spot, only ten or so, should be fine.”
Nat muttered a brief acknowledgment.
“How are you, Tony?” Steve said, grunting as he ducked to avoid some kind of death Frisbee thing.
“I’m good,” Tony said, and then cleared his throat. “Listen, Steve. Would you. Would you like to go out for dinner with me?”
Steve held the phone to his ear with his shoulder, punching his way through the seemingly never ending stream of enemies to get to Natasha. “Yeah, Tony,” he said, out of breath. “Are we not all going out for dinner on Saturday?”
“Yeah, but I don’t mean with the team, I mean...”
Bucky burst through the door, silver arm a blur, surrounded by Hydra agents and apparently on fire.
“Sorry, what did you say, Tony? There’s some noise at my end.” Steve could hear Bucky swearing in his earpiece, could hear Nat barking a question, could hear Sam reporting that he’d reached the safe room.
Tony sounded uncharacteristically awkward as he spoke again. “I was saying, I don’t mean go out with the team. I mean, just me and you.” Steve blinked in surprise, and received a punch in the face for his distraction. He floored the attacker easily.
“Are you asking me on a date?” Steve asked incredulously.
“Umm, yes.” Tony said. “Was that not clear?”
Steve swallowed. “Can you just give me one minute please?” And then he hung up before Tony could say anything.
“Oh shit shit shit,” he muttered, mind blank. “Oh shit. BUCKY?” he yelled. “I need your help!”
“I’M A BIT BUSY AT THE MOMENT!” bellowed Bucky, two people on his back forcing him down and more approaching.
“Tony just asked me out!” Steve shouted back, and then froze as it hit him. “Oh my god. Tony asked me out. Tony asked me out and then I hung up on him.”
“You did what?” came a voice, and Steve watched as Natasha back-flipped over someone creeping up behind her and slammed her to the ground. “You hung up on him?” she said, voice quiet and deadly, audible even over the moans of the wounded and the yells of the fighters.
There was a flash of light from Bucky’s corner and they turned, Steve automatically raising his shield. When he lowered it, Bucky was glaring at him, in the middle of a circle of Hydra agents lying on the floor. He slipped something into his pocket and then walked over to Steve.
“What was that?!” Steve exclaimed, momentarily distracted from his Tony-related anguish.
“Just a little something I’ve been working on,” Bucky said smugly, the handful of remaining Hydra agents retreating, clearly wary of any other new gadgets that Bucky had hidden away. “But that’s not the issue right now.”
Natasha punched Steve hard in the shoulder and he winced, turning to face her. “Again, you hung up on him?! Why would you do that? He’s probably second guessing himself and thinking you don’t like him, you idiot.”
“I know,” Steve said desperately. “I just panicked, okay?” He looked at Bucky, a pleading look in his eyes. “Did you know he was gonna ask me? Is this a joke?”
Bucky glared at him. “Really, Steve? You think that I would lie to you? About this?”
Steve blushed, looking sheepishly down at the ground. “Sorry, Buck,” he said, and Bucky grunted, reloading his guns and stowing them in various parts of his outfit.
Natasha was cleaning her knives, and the three them had formed a loose triangle, facing away from each other, unconsciously falling into their positions even as Steve had a small meltdown.
“You’ve had a ridiculous crush on the man for months, Steve,” Nat sniped, “what are you waiting for?”
Steve groaned. “Confirmation that this is real and I’m not dreaming right now?” he said, then yelped in pain as both Natasha and Bucky punched him. “Fuck,” he gasped, rolling his shoulders to try and get the feeling back into his arms. “Was that necessary?”
“Yes,” they said in unison, and then over the comms, Sam repeated, “yes, come on, Steve, phone him back already!”
“But what if he doesn’t mean it,” Steve said desperately, “what if it’s pity?”
Sam sighed, the sound gravelly over the comms. “Okay, I was sworn to secrecy on this, but I guess in this situation it’s forgivable and maybe Pepper won’t chop off my hands... Steve, Tony’s had a major crush on you for ages.”
Steve almost choked, and was gratified to hear similar noises from Bucky and Natasha. “What?” he croaked.
“Yeah, Pepper and I talked about it at our last coffee meet-up, but Pepper made me promise not to tell because Tony hadn’t realised it himself yet,” Sam said, and Bucky scoffed under his breath, something about five-year-olds and pinky promises, while Natasha made a satisfied noise.
“I knew it!” she said smugly. “I knew you went for coffee and gossiped about our lives.”
Sam sighed again, sounding increasingly exasperated. “We don’t gossip, Natasha. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that Steve needs to phone Tony up and tell him that he’d love to go out with him some time. Oh, also, I have the file and I’m making my way to you guys and I triggered some kind of alert and I’m not sure what’s going to happen but I doubt we want to be around for it. Phone him, now, Steve!”
Steve looked around. Natasha and Bucky were glaring at him, and he smiled, knowing he was beaten, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay,” he said, trying to ignore the pounding of his heart. “I can do this.” He slung his shield on to his back, trusting that his friends would have his back if something happened, and fished his phone out of his belt.
“Still can’t believe you have a special pocket for your Stark phone,” Sam said, voice breathless as he ran through the compound.
“Fuck off,” Steve said distractedly, as he hit call next to Tony’s face, heart in his mouth as he heard the ringing. Tony picked up immediately, sounding incredibly worried, and started gabbling away without a pause.
“I’m so sorry, Steve, I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, I’m so sorry, I’d hate to fuck up our friendship, and I shouldn’t have done it over the phone-”
“No, Tony, stop, it’s okay, in fact, that’s why I’m phoning,” Steve interrupted.
“What?” Tony said carefully, but Steve could hear the note of hope in his voice.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Natasha hissed, and Bucky shrugged, looking concerned. “Maybe we scared them off?”
“Oh, fuck,” Sam said, and Natasha and Bucky straightened, hands on their weapons.
“I’m sorry for hanging up,” Steve said, trying to ignore them, “I just panicked.”
“I’m so sorry Steve! I didn’t mean to freak you out. Honestly, Pepper’s always saying I need to not say things without thinking about it, even though I did think about this, but that’s not the point,” Tony babbled, his voice getting higher and higher.
“No, honestly, it’s fine, that’s what I wanted to say-“
“Status, Sam, what’s your status,” barked Nat, and Sam swore again.
“The alert I triggered. It’s a self-destruct. All the agents have evacuated. We need to leave. Now.”
Nat and Bucky glanced at each other and then at Steve, who stared at them, phone clutched to his ear.
“Run,” Bucky snapped, and the three of them ran, Sam barking directions in their ears.
“I just panicked,” Steve said carefully, breath coming faster, “because I’ve had a bit of a crush on you for a while now.”
There was silence on the other end of the line, at odds with the sounds of their feet thudding on the concrete floor and Sam shouting over the comms and their laboured breathing (Steve, not for the first time, thanked Erskine for his wonderful stamina).
“For the purposes of full disclosure,” Tony said, every word slow and careful, “how long is a while, and how big is a bit?”
Steve could hear muted explosions behind them, and he picked up his pace, heart thudding even as he smiled at Tony’s question.
“A while is several months? And a bit is pretty damn big, Tony,” he said, feeling his cheeks turn red even as the ground shook beneath his feet and Sam was in his earpiece yelling at him to hurry. “I just really like you, Tony,” he said softly. “I didn’t want to mess it up.”
Tony’s next words sounded slightly strangled. “How long? Fuck, Steve, I didn’t know-”
Steve laughed self-depreciatingly. “I don’t know how you didn’t know, everyone else did,” he said, sprinting along a long corridor as there was a huge explosion uncomfortably close behind. He felt the heat on his back and put on a burst of speed, phone held tight to his ear.
“Wait, what’s that noise?” Tony said suspiciously, as Steve took a corner at speed and crashed into the wall, tearing down the corridor as Bucky and Nat disappeared out of his view and Sam yelled at him to hurry the fuck up Steve, how will you ever go on a date if you DIE?
“It’s nothing, don’t worry,” Steve gasped, legs burning, “don’t worry, I’m fine, and yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I’ll go out to dinner with you,” he said, just as the building finally blew up, walls and ceiling falling down around him as he saw the patch of daylight up ahead and he launched himself out through the door, curling in on himself as the force of the explosion threw him forward... And then Sam was there, wings engaged, swooping down and snatching him up and then they were spiralling up, higher and higher, using the heat to push them up. Sam was screaming at him, and he could hear it from above him and through the comms, where Bucky was swearing at him and Natasha was yelling in Spanish, which she only did when she was worried, and Steve just hung limply from Sam’s arms, breathing deeply, as Tony’s voice came through the phone he still had clutched to his ear, frantic and fast.
“Steve for fuck’s sake talk to me because that was definitely an explosion and you’d better not be dead because you said you’d go out with me you said it and Clint will never believe me Steve please come back please say something-”
“I’m here, Tony, I’m here,” Steve gasped, and Tony’s words trailed off into a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry,” he said, as he watched the remains of the base collapse in on itself.
“No that’s okay,” Tony said, clearly trying to keep his voice steady and light, “people always almost die when they’re on the phone to me...”
Steve felt a rush of guilt flood through him. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, and Tony laughed shakily.
“Honestly, it’s fine. Besides,” he said, sounding almost nervous, “you can make it up to me on our date?”
Steve beamed. “Of course. I’m looking forward to it.” And as Sam flew down towards where Natasha and Bucky were standing, to where Steve would inevitably get yelled at and then Natasha would punch him and Bucky would hug him, like they always did when he almost died, Steve looked at the burning building and the beautiful clear sky and listened to Tony and couldn’t get the smile off his face.