Work Text:
It's only been a few days since the whole of New York was turned upside down by aliens and a war hungry God from another realm. Honestly, Steve's head is still reeling over it, but at least things are starting to go back to normal. Or what normal is for America in 2012.
It's not taking too much to get used to things as they are now. People are still pretty easy to read. It's not hard to figure out what someone's motives are if you're trying, but then there are people who are a lot better at hiding it these days than they were back in the 30s and 40s. He imagines maybe he just never met the really clever ones back then.
Or maybe he did and he wasn't as good at reading people as he thought. Bucky did tell him he had a knack for getting his ass beat. Maybe part of that was misinterpreting a room.
The hardest part of all of it is things like Bucky. He can visit Peggy, though she's much older now and she doesn't have the best memory. He can even visit Bucky's sister, Becca, but her memory is even worse. He thinks it might be best to leave her be.
Knowing he's so far into the future without one of the sturdier pillars of his life from growing up is like a punch to the gut every morning. It was hard after he lost Bucky back then, but it's even harder now. Not only is there a chasm of snow between them, now there's decades. He couldn't go back and find Bucky's body if he wanted to.
He regrets never going back.
It hurts, knowing that everyone he ever knew and shared life experiences with is either gone or going. It also doesn't help that the ones he's now being forced to work with don't seem to know what empathy is.
Especially Stark.
For a kid who came from Howard Stark, Tony doesn't seem to have the same spark. He's nothing like the man Steve remembers his father to have been. He's rude and brash and just plain mean. It hurts to be in the same room with the guy, looking into the eyes of a man who upholds a legacy of such American pride with such disdain.
The way Tony seems to look down on his own name, as well as the world, makes Steve wonder how the guy functions. On a cocktail of alcohol and narcissism, he figures, but it just doesn't make sense.
Maybe it's this lack of understanding that brings him to Tony's door just a few days after the battle of New York. Steve had planned on going his own way, traveling the country and seeing how things had changed. He may still do that, but right now, he feels a need to check in on Stark.
Besides, if Banner is still around, he wants to make sure Stark isn't poking the bear.
When he gets to the mansion, the first thing he notices is that, for midday, the place seems pretty inactive. He rings the doorbell and a screen next to the door comes to life with a digital display. The British voice that Stark called JARVIS speaks up, and Steve has to admit, despite Stark being as rough as he is, he did invent some cool gadgets.
“Good afternoon, Captain Rogers. Mr. Stark is in, but he isn't accepting visitors at the moment. May I take a message?”
Steve frowns. “No offense, JARVIS, but I'd rather give him my message face to face.”
“Still struggling to accept technological advancements, or is it something about a personal touch that makes things feel more appropo?”
Steve blinks and stares at the screen. “I'm talking to you, aren't I? If I had trouble with the tech, I'd have punched your screen by now.”
“Well put, Sir. I imagine Mr. Stark could stand a visitor. He has been… quiet today.”
“Where's Dr. Banner?”
“The doctor left two days ago,” JARVIS admits as the door opens. “He had business in Ghana. Welcome in, Sir.”
Steve steps into the house, noting how dark it is at first. Though, almost as soon as the door shuts behind him, the foyer lights turn on, set at a dim glow. This eerie haze follows him into the house proper, lighting his path as he makes his way in, and guiding him through what feels like the most impersonal model home he's ever seen.
There's no life to this place, and it makes Steve's heart hurt. How anyone could live in a place so void of humanity is beyond him. There's really no decoration to be had, unless these seemingly priceless pieces of “art” are meaningful to anyone. It looks like a collection of things someone grabbed because he could afford them.
He wouldn't put it past Stark. He has the money and the ego.
“The place is in the middle of a sort of remodel,” Tony says quietly as he comes up a set of stairs near the back of the front room. “I'm building this one to look and feel… similar to the place in Malibu.”
“The one you gave out the address for and then immediately lost because your enemies blew it up?” Steve asks, looking Tony over. The man looks smaller than he did just a few days ago. Maybe it's because he's not peacocking right now. Tony's just standing. Existing.
He's leaning, actually, one shoulder against the wall and both hands in his pockets. He's also not making eye contact. That's decidedly un-Stark.
“That would be the one,” Tony admits softly. “Except this one's Upstate New York, about 3,000 square feet smaller in the upper floors, and only a trusted few know the address.” He pulls one hand free of his pocket and gestures with an open palm facing upward toward Steve.
“I'm part of the elite few,” Steve hums. “I should feel honored, I suppose.”
Tony pushes his hand back into his pocket, moving stiffly. “Feel how you like,” he murmurs. “I do trust you, though. You're a good man, Rogers. In a pinch.” He looks up then, finally locking eyes with Steve, and smirks.
As quick as the expression is there, it fades and Tony is turning away, toward the stairs. “It's depressing up here,” he adds. “Come down to the lab. Unless you were just stopping by to make sure I was breathing, in which case, don't worry. JARVIS has that locked.”
“Blood pressure is 132 over 79,” JARVIS adds. “Beats per minute: 97. Oxygen levels are steady at 97%.”
Tony points toward the ceiling and starts down the stairs. Steve follows.
“So he- It- JARVIS? Just keeps track of you like that?”
“I could tell you your vitals as well, Captain Rogers,” JARVIS offers.
“I'm- I'm good. Thanks.”
Tony snorts and taps a clear keypad next to a glass door at the bottom of the stairs. When it opens, soft rock can be heard. Lights come on in the room beyond and Tony steps in and to the side, offering Steve entry into the lab.
“This is what I'm really building this place for,” Tony says softly.
Steve can't help the exhale of surprise as he steps into the lab. Compared to the one at the Tower, this lab is massive. It's definitely much larger than the layout of the house above it.
“This must run for- I can't even imagine.” Steve whistles.
“Just under 20,000 square feet,” Tony hums. “A little bit bigger than a standard hockey rink. I needed the space. Things down here I wanted to keep safe.”
He glances aside at that, then sighs softly. “This is my sanctuary, Steve,” he whispers. “Up there- That's the world he taught me to exist in. This- This is the world I was born for.”
A small smile pulls at his lips as he looks up at Steve now, and Steve realizes something in a moment of sudden clarity. He's looking at a completely different man than the one Nick Fury introduced him to. This is the real Tony Stark. There's no man in the world that could fake a smile that soft and genuine.
It's the same smile Bucky used to get whenever he talked about the stars.
“When you say he taught you,” Steve starts.
“Howard,” Tony says, and the name comes out almost like a curse. It hits Steve in the side of the head like a hammer. He's never heard anyone talk about Howard Stark with such vehemence and all Tony's said is the man's name.
“Your father?” he asks quietly.
Tony rolls his eyes and moves farther into the lab, both hands back in his pants pockets, shoulders hunched. He's quiet again, closed off.
“That's right,” he says after a moment, back to Steve. “You were friends.” There's disdain in his voice.
“He did a lot for me,” Steve offers. “And our country.”
“And himself,” Tony adds. “But very little for his son.”
Steve looks up, watching Tony closely. He sees the way Tony's body shifts as he looks up at one of the nearby screens. The way Tony's shoulders shake with a breath and the way he seems to move with the utmost care in pulling his hands from his pockets and placing them flat on the table in front of himself. He's guarding himself again. Putting his walls back up.
In his own sanctuary, Steve's made Tony defensive.
“What happened?” Steve asks him.
Tony barks out a single sharp laugh and hangs his head. “You don't care.”
The silence that stretches between them after that is heavy. Does Steve care? He has to think about it, because if he's being honest with himself, he barely knows this man. And what he does know of him is a man who was pretty rude from the get go.
But they work well together, despite that, and Tony is still human. A human that's hurting. Steve can't just turn aside from that. He's never been able to. No matter what.
Tony is a man who, despite where he started and what he used to be, is trying to fight for the little guy now. Steve's read his file. He read everyone's files. Tony has a complex history, but that doesn't change that he is trying. He may be an ass, but he's on the right track. Steve has to give him credit for that.
“I do care,” Steve says finally. “We're- Or we were a team, Stark. And I care about you. As much as one man can care about another man he just met a few days ago and then saved the world with.”
Tony chuckles softly at that.
“You're an ass,” Steve offers, which gets another chuckle from Tony, “but something in there stung. In regards to Howard. Do you want to talk about it?”
“No,” comes the immediate, sharp reply. Then, Tony takes a breath and his voice softens. “I don't want to talk about him,” he adds. “I don't think you'd believe me anyway. You were friends.”
The repetition of that sentence strikes something in Steve's chest and he has to take a moment, catch his breath.
—
“You gotta tell someone, Buck,” Steve whispers into the space between their cushions. It's 1927 and Steve and Bucky are curled up on the floor in Steve's living room, buried under blankets. “He shouldn't get away with that.”
“Yeah, and who'm I gonna tell, Stevie?” Bucky shoots back, rubbing gently at his left eye, which is already swollen and turning purple. “All his friends? Who are they gonna believe? Him or me?”
—
“You're worried I'll side with him,” Steve offers. “Since we were friends, you think I'll say there's no way my old pal Howard could be the way you're about to describe him. Do I have that right?”
Tony's shoulders sink and he turns around, leaning his hips back against the table and crossing his arms over himself. “You should go,” he says quietly. “I really don't want to talk about him. Not with you.”
Steve frowns. “It's not healthy to hold that in, Stark, and you know that.”
He's not sure what caused the sudden switch in Tony's mood, but it's almost like the Hulk steps into the room, the way Tony moves so quickly, grabbing up a clear paperweight from the table next to him and throwing it across the room, toward Steve. It hits a wall, but Steve feels maybe Tony has better aim than that and he was meaning for it to miss.
“Just go!”
It's childish, to say the absolute least, but Steve doesn't have time to think of that before Tony's sinking to his knees and gripping the shoulder of the arm he just used to throw with, cursing under his breath. Steve moves over to where Tony is quickly, only to catch him slamming his fist down into the concrete floor with a muffled shout of pain.
“Hey, Stark?” Steve steps closer, then crouches next to Tony. “Hey, hold still. Let me-” He reaches out to gently hold Tony's arm, but Tony slaps him away, only to shout in pain again and lean back against the front of the cabinet nearby.
“Fuck,” Tony gasps, hand shakily falling away from his shoulder. He looks at Steve, pain readable in his eyes. There's also a hint of trepidation. He's a wounded animal facing a poacher.
“I'm not going to hurt you, Tony,” Steve says softly. “But you look like you've got that part down. Let me look?”
—
Tony gasps in pain and struggles, trying to get away from Steve's touch. He feels embarrassed, honestly. He shouldn't have acted out. He definitely shouldn't have thrown anything at Steve. And now his arm is killing him again. But there's nothing left in him after that outburst, so he lets his body collapse against the cabinet behind himself and turns his head away from Steve, away from the other man's judging gaze, and nods softly, giving in to being examined.
Steve moves closer and gently starts to unbutton Tony's shirt, pulling it aside and down from the offending shoulder. It burns even to move that much, but Tony grits his teeth through it and waits. He knows how bad it looks. It's purple and yellow. There's a hard line right across the shoulder and collarbone that's almost black it's so deep, and that's where it hurts the worst.
He can feel Steve's thumb lightly brush over that exact spot, never once applying enough pressure to sting.
“Is this the point of impact?” Steve asks.
“The suit took the brunt of the impact,” Tony says, catching his breath. “But the integrity went to shit. The interior wall collapsed and kept pushing inward on that spot. More I moved during the battle, the more it compressed and pinched.”
Steve hums and takes a moment to think. “Did you see a doctor?”
“Bruce looked at it,” Tony offers, though he knows that's not enough. “He said I probably should be seen. I told him I'd think about it. I was doing fine, until I used it.” He gives Steve a pointed look.
“I didn't make you throw that thing at me,” Steve scolds. And Tony knows that's true. He's the one that did it, not Steve. “Do you have any ice packs?”
Tony gestures with his good arm. “There's a freezer over there with about 200 of them. Mostly for experiments, but I've found it helps with other things.”
Steve steps away for a few moments, returning with one of the packs and settling it against the roughest looking part of Tony's shoulder, holding it gently against the bruising.
“You don't have to do that,” Tony says after a few moments. “But thank you.”
Steve chuckles. “A thank you? From you?”
“Keep laughing,” Tony growls “I'll have Fury put you back in the ice.”
Steve clears his throat and looks away. Tony sighs, falling quiet. He looks at Steve for a few moments, the quiet between them growing tense.
“Too far,” he whispers finally. It's not a question. He knows the answer, but Steve nods anyway. “I have a terrible habit of letting nearly every thought get through the mouth before it passes the filters,” he admits softly. “That's no excuse. Just-” He looks down. “I can't imagine waking up decades after you thought you were about to die was an enlightening experience. Then to have some idiot making jokes about it, what? Days? Weeks later?”
Steve looks up at him. He can feel the eyes settling, watching, but he can't meet them. Tony knows when he's been an ass. He's self-aware enough for that. He keeps his own eyes focused on his knee.
“I didn't think you gave a shit,” Steve says quietly. “About anyone but yourself, honestly.”
Tony nods slowly. “Then I'm playing the part well.”
“Is it all a game to you?” Steve asks suddenly. “This is just an act? Do you even care about how you affect people?”
Tony stays quiet. What can he say anyway? Nothing against Steve's irritation. He knows he deserves this. He's been an ass to the man almost nonstop and they just met. Yet, here Steve is, checking in on him and holding an ice pack to his injured shoulder even as he lays into him.
“Does it work?” Steve continues. “Do people actually fall for your crap? Or are you trapped in this loop of being alone with the people you pay to stick near you? Would your driver or secretary even give you the time of day if you weren't signing their paychecks?”
That stings, and Tony has to blink quickly to stave off the burning in his eyes. The problem is, it feels very true. And he can't just shake that one off. He has absolutely no idea if Pepper or Happy would still be by his side if the money ran dry. To be honest, if he had a boss that acted the way he did-
“The truth is,” Steve adds, “you're a sad, lonely man with money and power, and not much else. Your father was a great man who did amazing things for this country and left you a legacy, and you trample all over his name, and yours, by treating the opportunities he left you like they're dirt.”
“Stop,” Tony growls. He reaches up with his good hand, shoving Steve's hand and the ice pack away from his shoulder. “Stop talking and get out.”
“It's the truth,” Steve says. “You might as well face it, Tony. If you want to make something of yourself with Iron Man, prove yourself to your father's memory, then you've got to knock off the rest of this, because it's not helping your case any-”
“Do you know what it's like growing up with a father who doesn't even remember your goddamn name for the first eight years of your life?” Tony snaps, finally meeting Steve's eyes. “A man whose entire focus in life is his fucking business and his legacy and when you come into the room, he immediately tells the nanny to ‘come get the kid outta here’? Or a mother who's absent pretty much all the time because, whenever she's awake, she's barely sober? Because she's lost the will to face the world without something to boost the day along?”
Steve sits back, dropping from his crouch to properly sit. He draws his legs up, arms wrapping around his knees and hands clasping lightly in front of himself, silent. Watching.
“Fine,” Tony sighs. “I grew up the little rich boy. Had everything handed to me I could ever need. Except one thing, Rogers. I didn't have a family.” He wipes at his face, looking away for a moment. “I had a mother who was sometimes there and when she was she was… so loving and wonderful. And I had a man named Howard. Who eventually recognized that I lived there. And every time I needed a father, I got a wall. I got stock advice and told how to be a cutthroat businessman and warned away from emotions. I was taught how to lie with a smile and cut a deal for pennies off the dollar and how to drink Scotch at 15 years old.”
Tony takes a breath, feeling his chest and shoulders shake, pain jolting through his injured one. “You can come in here and tell me all your glory days stories of wartime Howie, but that's not the man that raised me. The man you knew must have gone down in that ice with you because by the time he got me, he was a cold, cynical, cruel, bastard of a man who should have been shot multiple times over, but somehow made it through a pretty decently long life.” He laughs, an empty sound that fills his chest with pain.
“And he died in a car crash before I ever got the chance to tell him how much I resented the way he treated me as a child,” he finishes in a whisper. “Or the chance to tell him that despite all of his bullshit… he was still my father. And I still loved him. For some stupid reason.”
He takes another breath, slower and more calculated, then looks up. Steve is still watching him, but his gaze is softer now, less irritated. Tony sniffs and wipes at his eyes, feeling wetness on his face.
“I'm working on finding a therapist,” Tony adds, looking away again and swallowing heavily. He can't look into those eyes. He can't take someone else being able to see inside him like this. Especially someone like Steve Rogers. He barely knows the guy, but now Steve knows more about Tony than even Pepper does. Almost more than Rhodey does.
“Working on?” Steve asks softly.
Tony's quiet for a moment, then sighs. “I have a list of names. I haven't called anyone yet.”
Steve hums and adjusts his weight, letting his knees drop and tucking one foot under the other leg. “Do you need help with that part?” he offers after a moment. “I don't know a lot about making those kinds of calls, but sometimes all you need is a little help? Someone nearby to read the numbers, or help write out a script to keep to.”
Tony blinks and looks up at Steve, brow furrowed. “Why are you offering?”
“Because, despite your nastier qualities, Tony Stark, you are still a decent man,” Steve tells him. “I've read everyone's files. Yours included.”
“Narcissist. Doesn't play well with others.” Tony raises an eyebrow at the other.
Steve chuckles and nods. “Shut down your father's weapons manufacturing and created a cleaner energy department, created thousands of new jobs, single-handedly eradicated over 85% of your own weapons from the world, including 60% of the known black market supply. Plus, you created Iron Man and have taken down several nefarious criminals as him.”
“Nefarious,” Tony snorts. “Who are you, Bullwinkle Moose*?”
Steve stares at him for a moment and Tony takes a breath, letting it out in a sigh. “Never mind. I- Look, I appreciate it. I really do. You're not wrong, though. I haven't been the best person in my life. I'm trying to be better. Thank you for helping with the arm. I should probably try to get back to work.”
Tony pushes himself carefully to his feet and moves back to his table, gripping the ice pack in his hand. He tosses it onto the table and sinks into his chair, sniffing and running a hand through his hair.
Behind him, it's silent for several moments. Then, slowly, Steve stands up and Tony can hear the sound of his shoes as he makes his way toward the door.
“Hey, Rogers?” Tony calls, right as the door opens.
“Yeah?”
“Is it normal to be afraid?” he asks quietly. “To make that call, I mean. I know talking to someone about my past and my problems is the best thing. It's better than the bottle. But I'm- I'm honestly afraid to pick up the phone.”
The door slides closed again, and for a moment Tony thinks maybe Steve walked out. Then, footsteps come back his way and a warm hand curls around his good shoulder from behind.
“The most terrifying part of dealing with your inner demons is admitting that they're something you have to deal with, Stark,” Steve whispers. “It's a battle, but you'll never win it if you don't get on the field.”
Tony nods slowly. He bites at his bottom lip for a moment, then looks up at the ceiling. “Can you stay?” he asks. “While I make a few calls? I'll buy you lunch.”
Steve chuckles. “I know you're rich, Stark, but if you make these phone calls, I'll buy you lunch.” He pulls a stool over and sits next to Tony, smiling at him. “As congrats.”