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Tony was so used to being the last one awake every night that for a second he thought he must have left music playing in the largest common area of Avengers Tower when he’d gone down to the lab. Except, of course, Jarvis would have turned it off for him and anyway, old jazz standards weren’t really his style. And so, instead of continuing straight upstairs to bed, Tony paused and went to investigate.
Under the music was the sound of helpless late-at-night laughter; the kind where you have been laughing too hard and too long and now it hurts but you still can’t quite stop. There were bottles of whiskey out on the bar, and in the middle of the room, bathed only in the glow of the Christmas lights, the couches were occupied. On one sprawled the Secretary of State, Uncle Bucky, tie undone and loose around his neck, his head leant back on the couch cushions as he pinched the bridge of his nose, emitting sounds somewhere between a cough, a laugh and a groan, an almost empty whiskey glass held loosely in his other hand. On the other was Peggy, Captain Carter herself, giggling and snorting in a very undignified way and – yep, as Tony glanced her way he could see she was holding a drinking horn, confirming she had tapped into Thor’s barrel of Asgardian mead. Next to her, half on top of her, in fact, was Steve. He was red faced and smiling, hiccupping; his wheelchair abandoned next to the couch, murmuring quietly into Peggy’s ear and making them both laugh again and, ouch, no matter how much Tony told himself that shouldn’t hurt, it still did.
He knew Steve and Peggy’s love story. He’d known it before he’d ever known either of them, hearing the story from Uncle Bucky when he was growing up. He knew how Peggy and Steve had never quite managed to transition from feelings and almost to something, how they had been too shy, too unsure, too busy with the war, and then separated too soon by Peggy’s apparent death. Now, in a future neither of them had expected to see, they had another chance. It was fate, a miracle. Tony’s little crush couldn’t compare to that.
Dammit though, he couldn’t help it. He’d spent too much time with Steve not to have become infatuated. There had been weeks in the lab, scanning the Hydra Stomper armour, trying to work out how the hell to separate it from Steve. They’d had to disable the suit to remove the risk of his mind being taken over again, and Steve had been stuck lying there unable to move, and of course Tony had kept him talking as much as possible; distracting them both from the horror that was Steve’s current existence. The heavy battery Howard had installed on the back of the armour to replace the tesseract had long since stopped functioning, and the suit was being powered by Steve; his heart, his synapses, his neurons, his energy. The armour was fused to his skin in places, connected by cathodes and wires in others that had been attached so long his skin was growing over them. Veins and arteries had been made into part of the circuit. Steve had been kept alive, when he wasn’t shut down, through something like an IV of liquid nutrients poured into the armour like fuel. Worse, the whole thing was wired so that Steve felt every knock and shift in the plates as pain; incentive against allowing himself to be damaged. Steve seemed to accept, as time went on, that he wasn’t ever getting out of the armour, but Tony (and Peggy, and Uncle Bucky, and Bruce) had been determined. With Steve’s resigned consent, they’d kept going, and going, and going.
At first, Tony had thought of their chatter and conversation as a necessity, something to engage Steve when Steve literally couldn’t do anything else. Tony hadn’t been sure how much Steve had been taking in, given the physical and mental emotional turmoil he’d been in. Then, one day, Uncle Bucky had been visiting, and Tony had been working on a simulation of the scans at the other end of the lab to try and give them some privacy, when he couldn’t help but overhear them talking.
‘Who is Alphonse?’ Steve had asked.
‘One of my kids?’ Uncle Bucky had joked. That was always his joke. He and his wife definitely had some biological and adopted kids, Tony was nearly certain, but they also fostered a lot. They also had an open door policy to any neighbourhood kid who wanted to drop in for a safe place, some warmth, some food, to stay as long as or as little as they liked, no questions asked. Tony himself had been one of those kids more times than he could count growing up, arguing with Howard. There was always love and welcome, always a home, for anyone who wanted it. As Bucky’s political star had grown, so had his house, and so had the number of kids they could take in. It drove his security team nuts, but never stopped them. The official family portrait he’d had taken for his last campaign must have had about fifty kids and grandkids in, and wasn’t used. Bucky had a copy up in his office, though, and jokes aside, Tony knew he'd be able to name every single one of them and probably dozens more besides.
‘I don’t think so,’ Steve replied. ‘Tony keeps calling me it. I think it’s a nickname.’
Bucky laughed. ‘Okay, I get it. Alphonse Elric, right?’
‘Yeah, that’s it. Who is that?’
‘It’s an anime, one of those Japanese cartoons. My kids were into it a few years ago. We’ll add it to the watch list.’
Steve sighed. ‘I should really get Tony to install a TV on the ceiling. From the sounds of it, by the time I’ve seen everything I ‘have’ to watch, I’ll be as old as you.’
‘You are as old as me, punk.’
‘Sure I am, grampa.’
‘Shut up.’
‘What about Optimus Prime?’
Tony had swallowed a laugh as Steve continued to quiz Uncle Bucky on the dozens of nicknames Tony had given him. He’d obviously been too proud to ask Tony himself, but remembered every single one. It had made Tony’s heart warm, and that was the start of it. He started to realise that talking to Steve was the best part of his day. He started having to work on the projections and simulations and plans for removal outside of the lab, just to make any progress without getting distracted. He would step out whenever Peggy came to visit, and tried not to look too hard at why.
Finally, the day had come when he and Bruce and the best of the med team were going to surgically pry the armour off Steve’s body. They didn’t dare use anaesthetic while the suit was still wired into his system, not knowing how it, or Steve’s wrecked body, would react if they put it in through the nutrient fuel tank. For the first fourteen hours of the fifty it would take to complete the process, Steve was completely conscious.
It definitely hurt like hell, but at first Steve bit off his curses and exclamations of pain. When he bit his lip so hard it bled, Tony mopped his chin and said ‘You know, Steve, in this situation you are definitely allowed to swear.’
‘Can’t,’ Steve ground out, giving a shaky smile with blood-smeared teeth. ‘Bad manners, when there are ladies present.’ There were women in the med team, but they both knew he really meant Peggy, up in the viewing gallery with Uncle Bucky. It was Peggy’s voice that answered him over the tannoy.
‘Steve, you bastard fucking idiot, forget your cocking manners and curse!’
And Steve had laughed, and when they shifted the next plate another millimetre, had cursed an elaborate blue streak with the worst and most creative language Tony had ever heard. That was it, that was all it took. Tony was in love.
No, Tony reminded himself now, not in love. Infatuation. A crush. In like.
After those awful few days of power naps, power bars, coffee and concentration and stress, the armour was finally off and Tony’s part had been over. The med team were taking care of Steve’s ruined health and slow rehabilitation, as he rebuilt atrophied muscles, woke his digestive system, learned to breathe and move again with nothing impeding him. Tony didn’t need to be there as Steve tried to drink a thin vegetable stock for the first time, or for his agonising first stumbling step supported by the balance bars and a nurse, but he was. He didn’t need to go by every day, even when Steve was too tired to talk, and watch TV with him and Uncle Bucky and Peggy, but he did. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. As the weeks turned into months, he’d been starting to think they were friends, a group of four. That maybe he and Steve could be something more than friends.
But no. Here were Steve and Peggy whispering and giggling on the couch, a few days after Christmas and a few days before New Year, like there was no-one else in the room. Because that was how this story went. He went to the bar and poured himself a drink, tried not to let his selfish jealousy show on his face.
‘I see we’re still feeling festive,’ he commented, finally drawing their attention. ‘So tell me, are we drunk?’
‘We,’ Bucky said, gesturing to himself and Steve, ‘Are absolutely wankered, because Steve is a light weight and I’m an old man.’ Steve let out a surprisingly high pitched, burbling giggle. Bucky pointed at Peggy, somewhat accusingly. ‘She is ‘just a bit taddly’, somehow.’
‘Tiddly!’ Peggy laughed, speaking too loudly. ‘It’s tiddly. What’s taddly?’
‘It’s what you get after you’re tiddly,’ Steve said. ‘Before you get wankered.’
‘It is not!’ Peggy protested, and started ticking off on her fingers. ‘You’re tiddly, then you’re tipsy, blotto, pissed, steamed, bladdered, and then wankered, twatted, absolutely wankered, absolutely twatted, three sheets to the wind and then…’
‘Then?’ Steve prompted.
‘Usually unconscious,’ Peggy giggle-snorted, and set them all off again.
‘I love the English language,’ Bucky said, shaking his head. ‘The English!’
‘The English!’ The other two roared, and the three of them toasted, drank, and fell about laughing again. Tony had clearly missed quite the evening. He tried to smooth his smile and look stern.
‘Not to be a party pooper,’ Tony said, shaking his head at them. ‘But I’m pretty sure Steve shouldn’t be drinking, given that he’s only just managing soup.’
‘And I usually throw that up,’ Steve observed, apparently unclear on what side he was on.
‘We know, buddy, believe me,’ Tony patted his shoulder. ‘I’m going to get you all some water.’
‘Boooo!’ Peggy and Steve chorused, but affectionately. Tony raised an eyebrow at them and headed for the sink behind the bar. Bucky followed him, hobbling with his stick and sliding onto one of the bar stools.
‘I tried to tell them it was a bad idea,’ Bucky said in his best impression of sobriety, nodding his thanks as Tony slid him a glass of water and started adding ice to a pitcher. ‘But you know what they’re like. Especially as Christmas was… tricky.’
Tony winced. That had been his fault. First, the med team had advised against Steve leaving the med bay to join in the festivities. Steve had been planning on risking it anyway, but Tony had panicked and moved the party downstairs. It had been fine, Steve had even seemed to enjoy it, but it had made him more the centre of attention than he liked to be. Then there had been Tony’s stupid, stupid, stupid gift. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking – no, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d offered Steve some implants for his legs, top of the range, that would pick up on his brain activity and help him walk again without the need for months or years of physiotherapy that might not even work. Steve had gone quiet, and pale, and his hands had tightened on the hospital blankets until his knuckles were white and Bucky had been the one who had had to take a baffled Tony out of the room and explain, his tone laced with resignation, that given what Steve had been through with being made into a machine, maybe wiring him up in a new way wasn’t the most sensitive idea. Tony had wanted to shrivel, waste away into dust with the shame. He’d been such an idiot. He’d apologised, and Steve had thanked him for the thought and the work, but still. He flinched away from the reminder.
‘He knows you meant well,’ Bucky tried. It was far from the first time he’d said that in the last few days.
‘I did,’ Tony acknowledged, because dammit, he hadn’t had years of therapy for nothing. ‘But I wish I’d done better.’
‘You have time, kid,’ Bucky said, in exactly the same way he used to try and stop a five year old Tony from rushing his food. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’
‘Mm,’ Tony hummed, looking over at where Peggy and Steve were still laughing together. He wasn’t so sure about that. Thinking he shouldn’t interrupt them just yet, he poured himself a glass of water and set the pitcher down on the bar.
‘You know he’s queer, right?’ Uncle Bucky said, abruptly. Tony, who had chosen the wrong moment to sip, practically did a spit take. ‘Bi, I think. Maybe – what’s that all gender one? Pan?’
Tony frantically wiped his mouth, trying not to choke. ‘Uncle Bucky! You can’t just say that!’
Bucky snorted, sipping his own water. ‘We both know you’re no prude. And it’s all fine these days; least ways it should be. I was speaking to the Senator for-’
‘Not that!’ Tony interrupted hastily, before his honorary Uncle could go into his latest political exploits. He was a ‘trouble maker’ on the side of justice, controversial in the best way, stubborn and insistent and Tony loved him for it; but just now it was not foremost in his mind. ‘You can’t – you shouldn’t out people.’
Bucky shrugged. ‘I’m just a drunk old man who doesn’t know any better.’
‘Okay, that is not-’
‘Anyway,’ Bucky said, sipping his water. ‘Fair’s fair. He asked me about you weeks ago.’
Tony blinked. ‘He did?’
Bucky nodded. ‘Right after we got him up to speed on the legalisation of gay marriage. Wonder where his brain was going.’ He rolled his eyes.
Trying to tamp down on the hope growing in his chest, Tony gestured over to where Peggy and Steve sat together, now talking more seriously. ‘What about that? That’s Steve’s love story.’
Bucky shrugged again. ‘Back in 45, when we thought we’d lost Peggy, I watched Steve mourn for the best part of ten years. Then, when Peg came back, I watched her mourn him. Thing is, neither of them are the same people they were back then. They’d both already started moving on. I think it’s maybe time for a new story.’
Tony didn’t know what to say about that, so, typically, he deflected. ‘And you mourned them both,’ he said.
‘Yep, and your dad, when the time came,’ Bucky nodded.
‘Asshole,’ they said together, clinking glasses, as they did whenever his dad came up.
‘The worst part is,’ Bucky continued. ‘I got into politics in their memory, you know? Thinking about them, how they wanted to change the world, what they would have done. And now they’re back, those little shits over there keep mocking me for it.’
‘You got into politics so you wouldn’t get arrested protesting for civil rights and against Vietnam.’
Uncle Bucky shook his head and drained his glass, climbing with some difficulty to his feet. ‘Okay if I crash here? I am not sober enough to remember where I live.’
‘Go ahead,’ Tony said, waving his hand. ‘Usual room.’
‘Thanks.’ Bucky nodded, then turned to yell across the room. ‘Steve! Time for bed.’
‘I’m flattered but I’m pretty sure that would be elder abuse,’ Steve answered innocently.
Bucky rolled his eyes. ‘I’m going to beat you with my walking stick, I swear.’
‘Kinky,’ Peggy muttered, setting them all off laughing. Bucky shook his head and headed for the lifts.
‘Forget it. Peg, Tony, I don’t care what you do to yourselves, but make sure hot wheels over there drinks some water and goes to bed; he isn’t well enough for all this debauchery.’
‘You want me and Tony to take him to bed and think we can avoid debauchery?’ Peggy said.
‘Put him to bed, not take him to bed! Put him to bed!’
‘Kinky,’ Steve said, and they were all laughing as the lift door closed behind Bucky. Tony less than the others, it had to be said. Partly because he was sober, and partly because he couldn’t help thinking about him and Peggy and Steve in bed and debauchery… No, nope, enough of that. He carried the pitcher of water over to the couches, to make them drink and go, each of them separately, to bed.
*
By New Year’s Eve, Steve had been officially discharged from the sick bay, though he would be going back daily for some time yet for physiotherapy, psychotherapy, and medical treatment. He had been offered and accepted a room in the Tower for an indeterminate length of time, at least until he was recovered enough to work out what to do next. Tony sort of hoped that it might involve something like an Iron Man suit, as it was the Stomper’s grandson, but that would very much depend on Steve’s mental health, and what would trigger his PTSD. Tony wasn’t going to suggest it, or make the mistake of pushing, ever again.
The New Years Eve party was not a networking opportunity, or an official Avengers event. The only guests were them, SI employees, their friends and families; but they still numbered in the hundreds, scattered through the public floors of the tower. Tony, however, was only interested in one guest. He’d spotted Steve, sitting in his wheelchair in the corner of one of the lobbies, looking suspiciously like he was trying to manoeuvre himself to hide behind a column. Tony took a deep breath, and stepped towards him.
Then he saw Peggy, also heading in Steve’s direction. Steve reversed more; a mistake, if Peggy was the one he was hiding from, because the movement drew her attention. However, she quickly looked away, acted very poorly as if she hadn’t seen him, and turned to hurry back the way she came. Weird.
‘What’s going on there?’ Tony asked, trying to sound casual. ‘You guys okay?’
Steve winced. ‘We, uh… had a long talk.’
‘And now you’re hiding from each other?’
‘Yeah, it was a bit awkward,’ Steve admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘We’ll be fine in a while, but just for now…’ he trailed off.
‘You know, if it’s a bedroom problem, that’s only to be expected. It’s like everything else, you have to be patient-’
‘No,’ Steve said, and he was so used to Tony’s teasing by now that he only blushed a little. ‘It’s… well, we – Peg and I - always thought we’d be something. Maybe we would have been, if things had been different. But now, all these months since you guys rescued me…’
‘It’s not the same?’
Around them, the countdown to midnight started, people excitedly picking up the chant.
Ten… Nine… Eight…
‘It’s not,’ Steve agreed, bright blue eyes staring right into Tony’s. ‘I’ll always love her, she’ll always be in my life, but not in the way I thought.’
Seven… Six… Five…
‘I’m sorry,’ Tony said, unsure what else to say. ‘Are you alright?’
‘Yeah,’ Steve said. ‘Everything with us was a long time ago. And it’s a New Year, right? Time to start over.’
Four… Three… Two…
‘New year, new you,’ Tony agreed, grabbing a couple of last second alcohol-free champagne glasses from a passing server, and passing one to Steve.
One…
Happy New Year!
They clinked glasses, smiled, and drank. Around them, people were locking lips, but here, in a little bubble of them, they didn’t need to. They had time.
‘Happy new year, Steve,’ Tony said.
Instead of saying it back, Steve nodded, raising his glass again in a salute. ‘I have a feeling it’s going to be a good one,’ he said, and his eyes were full of promise.