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Tony strode through the corridors of SHIELD medical with the most outrageous bouquet of flowers he’d been able to find. Did Rogers even like flowers? Didn’t matter, Tony thought as he bypassed the nursing staff who turned to gawp at the enormous bundle of Da Vanda orchids and Lavandula eucalyptus in his arms. Flowers were the sort of thing you bought for someone under the weather, and while a potentially life-changing injury for a normal person wasn’t being under the weather , it sort of was for Rogers. Wasn’t it?
Not entirely sure what he was doing, Tony skipped past the side wards and scanned the doors for his teammate’s name written in scrawling dry wipe. The whole incident kept unfolding in his memory. The lurch of the building just a microsecond before the sound of it collapsing, and then his stomach dropping as he hovered knowing Rogers was still in there. The desperate dig through the rubble, almost feeling the shattered stone through his gauntlets. And then. Tony skidded to a halt as he read ‘Steve Rogers’ on a door. Then the sickening twist to his teammate’s neck when they uncovered him from the maelstrom of brick and glass. For a moment everything was entirely still, and Tony was certain that Rogers was –
“Knock knock,” he said as he crossed the threshold into the medical room. He peered around the flower bouquet, around the strands of bear grass and green bell thlapsi and bouvardia. His steps were too fast, his voice too chipper, but if there was one thing Tony knew how to do, it was to push away his true feelings. Shove those things down real deep, lock ‘em in a box and throw away the key. He’d really thought that this time Cap had… Nope, not thinking about it!
Rogers was lying in the hospital bed, dressed in a gown and with a brace around his neck. Tony plonked the flowers on the wheeled bedside table, ignoring the sick lurch in his stomach when he realised that apart from his face, there was no movement from Rogers’ eerily still body.
“Stark, what the heck?” Rogers asked.
“Oh these?” Tony said, using his best blasé intonation and leaning jauntily against the table. It immediately jolted from his weight and he shot back, hands jumping to steady the ludicrous flowers from falling. Smooth , he thought. “I just thought you might want to add a little je ne sais quoi to your temporary quarters.”
Rogers’ eyes, glassy with medication, were blackened but already healing. A weak smile crept onto his battered face. “Can’t say I’ve ever been bought flowers before.”
“You don’t think the calla lilies are a bit too much?” Tony asked lightly, hooking his thumbs into his belt as his mouth ran away with itself. “Personally, the memory lane roses are my favourite touch.”
Rogers made to crane his neck upward and a fresh image of him lying in the rubble assaulted Tony.
“Don’t move!” The shout was out of Tony’s mouth before he knew what was happening.
To his credit, Rogers didn’t get mad, the little shit. He just laughed. “I’m not made of glass, Stark. Look, I already have some movement back in my toes.”
Tony’s eyes slid to the bottom of the bed and watched the minute wriggle of Rogers’ foot. His perfect Greecian foot. The pounding in Tony’s chest abated, though only slightly.
“How are you so calm about all this?” Tony asked. “You nearly–” His throat caught on the last word.
Continuing to be America’s paragon, Rogers looked like he wanted to shrug–but of course he couldn’t–and instead gave Tony another tired little smile. “But I didn’t, Stark. I’m just grateful for that. And for the flowers.” In lieu of nodding his head towards the riot on the table, he flicked his eyes to the bouquet. “You really didn’t need to.” He brought his eyes back to Tony. “But thank you.”
Tony edged closer to the side of the bed and rested one hand on one of the rails. “Does it hurt?”
“Not with whatever supersoldier strength medication they have me on,” Rogers said. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel…floaty.”
The laugh was out of Tony’s mouth before he could stop it. “Captain America is high .”
Normally such accusations would have elicited at least a scoff from the straight-laced Rogers, but this time all that happened was his glassy eyes slid closed. “Maybe I am.”
Heart no longer pounding, it betrayed Tony in that moment. There was something so soft and vulnerable in the younger man’s voice, usually so strong and commanding, that tenderness and desire and sympathy bloomed all at once in Tony’s chest.
Nope! Shove that shit down!
Doing his best to emotionally constipate himself, Tony coughed and gestured back to the pink and purple and green and white furore on the table.
“Well, at least these will keep you company,” he said, “although if they start talking to you, page the medics. They’re giving you too much of the good stuff.”
Rogers gave a little ‘hmm’, his face entirely soft despite the injuries, and it was all Tony could do to keep himself from leaning down and kissing his forehead.
I said shove that shit down!
He was just about composing himself, thankful that Rogers’ eyes remained shut, when it happened.
“Thanks again, Tony. Love you.”
Everything stopped. Tony was as still as Rogers, his emotional paralysis emulating the predicament of the younger man in the bed. He didn’t just… He couldn’t have just said…
And then it was clear from the soft parting of Rogers’ lips that he was unconscious, and Tony just about ran from the room.
***
“ Love you. ”
No, no, no. Those words were not a thing said to Tony Stark, and those words were not a thing said to Tony Stark by Captain America .
Tony flopped down into the plush chair beside his bed and palmed his face.
“The universe is cruel,” he declared to no one.
Of all the drug-addled nonsense that could have come out of Rogers’ mouth, that was what he came up with? The one thing he would never in his right mind say? Tony kicked off his Berluti shoes and didn't bother to straighten them up by the bed. Instead he curled his legs under him and buried his face in his hands again.
It was a daily struggle to see the other man, because there was one thing for certain: while Cap and Iron Man worked seamlessly, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark did not. Hell, the other man wouldn't even call him by his first name. Until he did.
“ Thanks again, Tony .”
Tony shuddered. How many times had he wanted that name to come from those lips. But no. They were Stark and Rogers to one another and nothing more.
Nothing more. Tony huffed out a long, low breath and jammed his knuckles into his mouth. There was no way they would ever be more than friends, if friends was a stage they managed to get to. While Tony was easy with regard to the gender of his partner–anything, essentially–it was incredibly unlikely that Steve Rogers was anything but straight. No offence to his father’s time– or maybe full offence , he thought–but if it had been known that Rogers was involved with men, he would never have been chosen for the serum. In the 40s, it would’ve been enough to blacklist him, no matter how good and noble he was.
Biting down on his own hand, Tony summed things up. Steve was straight, and it didn’t matter what he said in a drug-induced stupor. No matter how much Tony wanted it to be true. His feelings floated too close to the surface again and Tony jumped up.
Striding from his bedroom suite towards the bar, he seemed to think two thoughts simultaneously.
a) It doesn’t even have to be love right away ;
And b) s hut that shit right down right now!
Head spinning, he reached for the gin.
***
Despite himself, Tony found his way back to the hospital a few days later. He found Steve not lying in his hospital bed, but sitting upright in a wheelchair and wearing a softer neck brace.
“Well this is an improvement,” he said, keeping his hands behind his back to hide what they contained.
Rogers turned from the window he had been looking out and gave a small, almost shy smile.
“Stark,” he said. Then his shy smile turned a shade mischievous. “What, no flowers this time?”
Unable to stop his own smile, Tony unveiled what he was holding with a flourish.
“You can only say it with flowers once, them’s the rules,” he quipped. “But I did bring you this.”
At the sight of the other man’s eyes widening, Tony grinned. Just seeing that made the pain of inevitable rejection all the sweeter.
“Chocolate!” Rogers said, turning all the way around in his wheelchair.
Tony stepped further into the room and proffered the large Hershey’s bar to the other man.
“I thought you could use a little pick me up.”
Rogers accepted the bar in gentle hands, his movements awkward from the injury that hadn’t fully healed.
“Thanks, Stark,” he said. “You really don’t need to bring me gifts, you know.”
Was that a trace of a blush creeping onto the great captain’s face? Absolutely not , Tony thought. But it sure did look like it.
“What are friends for,” he replied, even though they weren’t really friends, but how did one convey a relationship like ‘workmates who hate each other in real life even though one has a secret crush on the other’? A small silence filled the room as Rogers fingered the silver edge of the wrapper, and Tony was unable to abide it. “Are they still giving you the good stuff?” he asked.
Rogers looked up, and there was a definite pinkness to his cheeks that hadn’t been there before.
“Not as often, but yes,” he replied. “I’m tapering off as the days go on. Honestly, I can understand why some people chase getting high, because that stuff makes everything seem just fine, despite the obvious reality.”
Tony gave a laugh that was just a shade too high-pitched. Now was not the time to have a conversation about drug use and his own dabbling of the past. Rogers barely approved of him as it was.
There was a rustling and then a click as Rogers’ long fingers broke the chocolate bar’s seal and snapped off a few pieces. He offered it to Tony.
“Please,” he said as Tony went to give a negative, “I’d like to share it with you since you brought it.”
And god damn it but if the man wasn’t doing unintentional puppy dog eyes. Tony’s insides flipped as he took a piece of offered chocolate and shoved it into his mouth to stop the words from forming.
I have feelings for you, Steve. I’m so deep in the shit over this that I brought you flowers and came back with chocolate because really, what I want is for you to say what you said again .
The two men enjoyed a morsel together for a moment, and when he finished Tony went to make some wise cracking remark about whatever the hell would stop him from telling the truth, when Rogers spoke, his eyes still closed as he finished his piece.
“It tastes just the same as it did in our ration packs,” he said. “If I concentrate hard enough, I can almost imagine myself back with my buddies, someone dolling out pieces in our dirty hands.”
That revelation shut down Tony’s nonsense. Instead, he cocked his head to one side. “I hope that’s not a bad memory. I guess it could go either way.”
Rogers opened his eyes again and nodded, and good god if he didn’t look like the sweetest, softest thing Tony had ever seen .
“Bittersweet, I guess,” he said. “I mean, it was war. It was hell. But they were my friends. Especially Buck.” A sadness passed across his face that Tony wanted to kiss away. “But they’re all gone now. And I’m still here. Just gotta get used to living in the present.” A definite flush crept across his face this time. “Sorry. I’m rambling.”
Tony’s fingers twitched, wanting to reach out and lay a hand on the other man’s shoulder. But they weren’t close like that.
“Don’t worry, I tend to ramble at all times. Can you imagine the things I’d say on pain meds? Sheesh.”
The softness was back in the captain’s face.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Stark. Granted you can be a real pain in the rear sometimes–”
“Rude,” Tony interrupted, but with a wry smile on his lips.
“--but you’re not so bad,” Rogers finished, rolling his eyes at the interruption.
“I aim to be bad at all times.”
“You brought me flowers and chocolate,” Rogers said pointedly. “You’re not so bad.”
Am I good ? Tony wanted to ask. Am I anything close to what you want ?
But instead he said, “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to pretend that never happened.”
Rogers looked at him with eyes that seemed to rip straight into his soul. “I wouldn’t trade a good friend for any amount of money.”
Tony jammed his hands into his coat pockets and tried to stop the self-destruct protocol that those words had initiated in his brain, but he couldn’t. There was just something in him that needed to ruin things , just like he’d ruined things with Pepper.
“You’ve got bad taste in friends, Rogers.”
For a moment, Rogers’ face crumpled like a tossed idea. Good, Tony thought. I’ve fucked it up. Now back to our regularly scheduled dislike . But instead of coming back at him with an acerbic remark, Rogers wheeled himself closer to Tony and did his best to look upward. Those eyes again, so blue and soft and beautiful.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Stark,” he said again.
And Christ if he didn’t reach out and take one of Tony’s hands in his own. Tony burned at the touch, feeling the strong grip in his calloused palm. It’s the drugs again. It’s just the drugs!
“I know we haven’t got off to the greatest of starts, but that’s something I’ve decided I want to rectify.” Still looking up and holding one of Tony’s hands, he sighed. “I’ve been through a lot, you could say,” he gave a little huff at that, “and going down in the Valkyrie, I thought that was it for me. Then I woke up in an entirely new world, and it hasn’t been easy. I’ve still lost so much. Bucky, the rest of the Howling Commandos, my gal.” He closed his eyes for a moment as a flash of pain passed through, but he kept holding Tony’s hand. “And then this happened.” He gestured at his braced neck with his other hand. “And I thought I was gonna die again. I didn’t think even the serum could save me this time. And I had a lot of time to think when I was under all that rubble. And one of the things I thought about was you. Was us. And how things went south between us so quickly, and how much I wish they hadn’t. And I guess what I’m trying to say is, I want to start again, if you’re willing.” He flicked his eyes down at their hands and immediately let go, as if only realising what he had done. “Sorry! It’s–I guess. I dunno.”
Tony, bereft at the lack of touch, reached his hand out and snagged Rogers’ fingers again.
“No, I get it. I do,” he said. He shifted their hands until they were clasped together in a handshake. “Let’s start again. I’m Tony Stark.” He could have added the ‘billionaire extraordinaire playboy, not to mention Iron Man’ to the end of it. But he left it simple, and somehow it seemed a lot more genuine.
Rogers glanced at their entwined hands and shook back. “I’m Steve. Steve Rogers, Mr Stark.”
“Please call me Tony.”
“Alright. Only if you call me Steve.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
***
This time when Tony eventually made his way back to his bedroom, he sat in the plush chair, pulled off his Berlutis and placed them carefully beside one another at the side of the bed. He sat for a moment, reflecting on the day and staring down at his right hand. It was the hand Rogers–no, Steve –had taken and held for longer than Tony could ever have hoped for. Images of the other man’s eyes, so blue, so gentle, came back to him in waves. He recalled his words, said with such conviction and care.
“ I want to start again, if you’re willing .”
So they were friends now. Great , a nasty voice in Tony’s mind said. And that’s all you’ll ever be .
“The universe is cruel,” he declared to no one.
But.
Tony sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair, recalling the words Steve had said, drug-induced or not.
“ Love you, Tony .”
A small smile crept overt Tony’s face. Maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t quite as cruel as it had once seemed.
And who said he ever baulked from a challenge?