Chapter Text
Steve didn’t drive much before he and Tony split up.
Tony Stark loved handling his fast cars and made a point of playing chauffeur for himself and his associates, so Steve didn't get to spend much time getting acquainted with the newer roads and faster cars of the twenty-first century. That was him before. Since splitting custody of their three-year-old daughter, Lily, Steve’s had enough practice carting her between his place and Tony’s that he could probably drive with the best of them.
Steve watches his daughter through the rear-view mirror. Her black hair is pulled into two high pigtails, and the front of her shirt is messy with the yogurt she came out of Tony’s mansion eating. She’s perched in her car seat, fiddling with some toy Tony must’ve bought her during the week. “Did you have a good time with your dad, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” she says, focused on her toy and not paying Steve much mind. “Daddy took me to see the fishes.”
By the fishes, she means the aquarium. It’s been her and Tony’s go-to spot lately now that she’s fixated on the oceans and everything inside them.
“Really?” Steve subconsciously pitches his voice higher to match hers. “That sounds nice.”
“We had to wake up really, really early to see them.”
“You did?” Steve asks, even though years of knowing Tony means he can guess exactly why.
The conversation seems to interest Lily enough to pry her attention away from the toy, and it falls into the footwell. “Daddy had lots of meetings after.”
Of course he did, Steve thinks. By nature of being Iron Man, the CTO of Stark Industries and the Avengers’ unofficial chief engineer, a lot of Tony’s time is consumed by meetings, leaving very few hours edgeways. Steve bites his tongue because their golden rule is to not badmouth each other in front of Lily, and since their split, Tony has admittedly shelved many of his work responsibilities to leave room for the ardor of co-parenting. It’s hard to parent a child alone, even if only for a week at a time.
Steve nods thoughtfully. “Well, I’m happy you got to see the fishes, baby. Did you take pictures?”
“Yeah, daddy took lots and lots.” She punctuates her sentence by stretching her tiny arms out in both directions, trying to physically show Steve that Tony did, in fact, take lots of pictures.
A chuckle escapes Steve at Lily’s enthusiasm. He’s in a good mood, as he always is seeing Lily after so long. “I’ll have to ask him to send them over.”
Walking through the door with Lily in hand is a nice change after a week of returning to an empty, silent home. Tony had wanted to set them up in a ridiculously wealthy part of town occupied only by billionaires and their children, but Steve had protested until Tony settled on a nice neighborhood where they’d actually stand the chance of running into some normal and grounded people.
Steve has grown to love this place. It took some months but with help from Lily and Nat, he’s managed to turn the place into something more lived in than any of his previous homes. It helps that he’s actually home these days and that he has a toddler making messes, so anything new never stays looking that way for too long.
The first thing Steve does when they get home is take Lily to the toilet–she’s mostly potty trained now but Steve always makes sure to take her after they’ve been out, just in case. In the meantime he grabs a shirt for her to change into, and after he’s reminded her to use her stool to wash her hands, he leaves her in the living room with a coloring book while he prepares dinner. Usually, he’d let her watch some of her favorite show around now, but he feels like she probably watched enough TV at Tony’s even though she cutely denies it when he asks.
Pasta is Lily’s favorite meal by far, so he throws whatever he has in a pot to boil and fries some leftover chicken with garlic, onions and tomato puree. Steve likes to think that he’s become a pretty good cook, considering the fact that he’s from a time before the wonders of globalisation where everything was either boiled or roasted.
So, knowing that Steve is a decent cook and also that Lily would sacrifice both of her parents for a pasta dish, it puzzles Steve when she takes one bite and refuses to eat anymore. He stabs his fork into her bowl and tries the pasta again, but it isn’t too hot like he thought might be putting Lily off.
“What’s wrong, honey?” Steve asks. “You don’t like it?”
Lily shakes her head and her eyes are already watery. “I don’t want it.”
“You aren’t hungry?”
She shakes her head again and Steve sighs. No matter how hard he crossed his fingers and hoped Lily would magically skip this phase after hearing Clint’s stories, he supposes Lily’s reached the age where kids become ridiculously fussy with their food. As if raising a child couldn’t get any harder. “Well, you’re gonna have to eat if you want to grow and become big and strong like your daddy.”
Lily’s lip quivers in the way it does when she’s seconds from crying. “Don’t want to.”
“What, you don’t wanna be big and strong?” Steve jokes. Lily doesn’t even break a smile, so Steve schools his expression into something a little more sympathetic. “Can you eat just a little bit more for daddy?”
His daughter’s always been a deeply conscious and considerate person, so when she sees the look on Steve’s face, she relents and picks up her spork again. She manages a few more bites before she clamps her jaws shut again and Steve can tell she’s becoming agitated, so judging that she’s eaten enough, he takes the bowl away and resolves to try again tomorrow.
For now, he helps Lily wash up and change into her pajamas. She cheers up pretty quickly, smiling and giggling by the time he’s sitting by the edge of her bed and opening her favorite bedtime story to the first page. Lily can’t really read yet, but she likes looking at the pictures and naming all the animals and colors she recognises. After twenty minutes, Steve gives her a big kiss on the cheek and gets up to switch off the light.
Lily sits up immediately. “Where are you going, Daddy?”
“You know the drill, honey,” Steve says. “It’s sleepy-time now.”
Once again, Lily’s lip starts quivering and Steve wonders what has her so upset this evening.
“I want Bobo.”
Bobo is a stuffed falcon that Sam bought Lily for her second birthday, and she hasn’t slept without him since. It’s both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because Bobo is an easy hack to get Lily to fall asleep peacefully, but also a curse because she won’t settle without the plushie.
“Oh.” Steve frowns. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t remember seeing Bobo in any of Lily’s bags. “Let me go check in your pack.”
All four of Lily’s bags are sitting on the coffee table as Steve left them. Exactly a week ago he sent Lily away with just two bags, but having a generous, obscenely wealthy father means that she always seems to return from Tony’s with more than she left with. He intended to unpack her things tomorrow morning, but while he’s here searching he might as well sort her toiletries and toys. When he’s done and still can’t find Bobo, he returns to Lily’s room.
She’s still awake, as Steve expected, and perks up when she hears her dad enter.
“Sorry, Lils, I think we might have left him at Dad’s house.”
For what it’s worth, Lily doesn’t immediately burst into tears when Steve turns the light of and leaves. He even manages to complete an entire crossword before he first hears her. On occasion, Lilly struggles to settle down, but she usually calms down pretty quickly once Steve settles next to her and rocks her for a few minutes. Today, however, she cries until she’s hoarse, no matter how Steve tries to soothe her. After fifteen minutes, Steve considers taking advice he’d learned from Laura Barton—sometimes, toddlers get overwhelmed and overstimulated, and as long as they’re fed, dry and watered, it’s okay to let them cry it out on their own. So he returns to the living room and starts his next crossword puzzle, but he only manages ten minutes before he feels too guilty.
“Daddy,” Lily wails as soon as Steve enters. “I want Bobo.”
Steve sits beside her and strokes the top of her head. “I’ve told you, Lily, he’s at your dad’s place. It’s bedtime now.”
Normally, Lily doesn’t fuss like this. She had her terrible twos stage early and as she’s gotten older, she’s also gotten better at following Steve’s instructions and especially at accepting when Steve says no. Steve knows he should use this moment as a lesson to teach Lily how to move on when things don’t go her way, but he’s always more forgiving after missing her for a whole week. Just this once, he’s willing to do whatever gets her to stop crying quickest.
“Okay,” Steve says. “Let me see what I can do.”
In the living room, Steve grabs his phone off the couch and dials Tony. It rings twice before his estranged husband picks up and Steve is greeted by the sound of whirring machinery. Tony must be in the shop tinkering with his suits. When they were together, Steve would often end up spending hours watching Tony work after only going down there with the intention of dragging Tony out of his workshop hibernation. Tony’s passion and finesse was captivating and in the beginning, he only ever wanted to share it with Steve.
“Is everything okay?” Tony immediately asks, which is understandable because they rarely call each other outside of pick-up and drop-off arrangements.
“Hi, Tony,” Steve says. “Is there any chance Lily might have left her plushie at your place?”
“What, Bobo? Fat chance,” Tony snickers. “Sorry, I’m just finding it very hard to believe that Lily would leave here without him.”
“Can you just check for me, please?” Steve’s already a little exasperated in the way Tony always seems to make him. “I need to put her to sleep but she won’t settle without the toy.”
“Already checking. There’s lots of hiding spots in this house, you know.”
Steve knows. Losing the TV remotes a million times a day taught him that much, as well as there being so many floors that they needed an elevator to get around the house efficiently. The complexity of Tony’s house had its merits though, allowing Steve and Tony much needed time alone with each other in nooks and crannies where Lily or any visitors would never find them.
“Aha!” Steve can hear Tony’s smile. “Turns out poor mister Bobo was stuck between the couch cushions. I don’t know why she likes this thing so much. It’s kinda scary-looking.”
Steve sighs. This is going to be a headache. “I guess she’ll have to do without him tonight, then.”
Tony scoffs. “Yeah, there’s no way you’re getting her to sleep.”
“At least let me dream of my eight hours, Tony.”
“That’s ironic. Anyway, I don’t mind dropping him off.”
No matter how suave Tony is, the request crosses so many lines that he can’t quite pull it off and it hangs in the air awkwardly. Kids are unpredictable, so it’s not the first time they’ve had to make impromptu trips to the other parent’s house, but they make a point of not overstaying their welcome and trying to keep their visits limited to pick-up, drop-off, and midweek dinners.
Tony seems to sense Steve’s hesitation because he’s putting on that voice he does when he’s trying to convince Steve to do something they shouldn’t, like mess around with mind stones and dangerous AI on the off-chance that they might create a miracle. Or meet up at nine pm over a stuffed toy when it’d be more appropriate to have this exchange tomorrow morning. “Look, I can be there in half an hour. It’ll save you the trouble of having to use chloroform to put our three-year-old daughter to sleep.”
The words bring an amused huff out of Steve. “You really shouldn’t joke like that.”
“And you should lighten up. Be there in thirty.”
Steve uses those thirty minutes to clean up a little. He washes his face, feels stupid as he brushes his teeth – he’s not trying to impress Tony, for Christ’s sake – and tidies the living room. The intercom sounds its jingle just as Steve returns his crossword book to its rightful place on the coffee table and then Steve’s opening the door to a casually-dressed Tony. Steve’s eyes land on the stuffed toy in his hand and an odd image of Tony driving with the toy in the passenger seat pops up in Steve’s head and then an even more ridiculous one of him with Bobo perched in his lap.
“I’ll remember to pack him next time,” Tony says as he hands the toy to Steve.
“Thanks. I’ll get this to her.” An awkwardness lies in the atmosphere, a common occurrence as of late. If you told Steve a year ago that he’d be having awkward silences with Tony Stark, he’d have laughed in your face. “Do you wanna come inside and have a drink?”
Tony smiles, a courteous thing. Steve can’t help but wonder when Tony started caring enough to be courteous in front of him. He can’t help thinking that such courtesy doesn’t suit someone so headstrong and unapologetic. “I’m driving, Steve, and also not very eager to be arrested.”
“Nothing alcoholic. You drove all the way here, I don’t want to just send you on your way.”
Neither of them mention that that’s all they ever really do with each other. They have their brief exchanges, before they get in their cars and drive away. It’s like they spend their lives constantly in transit.
“It’s fine.” Tony waves dismissively. “I don’t want to impose.”
Steve shrugs; he’s not gonna push it. He bids Tony goodbye and is about to shut the door when he hears tiny footsteps behind him. Turning, he finds Lily out of bed and lingering in the hallway, trying to see what her dad’s doing. Her eyes are red and she’s still sniffling from earlier, but a toothy grin is plastered on her face now that she’s figured out who’s at the door.
“Is that Daddy?” Lily asks, coming up behind Steve and grabbing onto one of his legs.
Steve moves out of the way so she can see Tony properly, and she squeals in excitement at the novelty of seeing her dad so soon after a switch-over. “Yeah, sweetheart, he was very kind and dropped Bobo off for us.”
Tony crouches to Lily’s level and wraps her in a big hug, pressing an obnoxious kiss to her cheek, then another and another as she bursts into peals of laughter, trying to escape Tony’s grip.
“Hi, Lily-bear,” Tony says when he finally ceases his assault on their three-year-old, picking her up as he stands. “I heard you were giving your Daddy a hard time.”
Jutting her bottom lip out, Lily frowns and meets Tony’s gaze defiantly. Like her fathers, Lily does not back down from confrontation easily. Steve hasn’t yet decided whether that’s a good thing or not.
“Not true,” she says. “Daddy was giving me a hard time.”
Even though it’s nice to hear Tony defending his honor for once, Steve decides that Lily has evaded sleep for long enough. “Alright, missy, I think it’s well past your bedtime.”
The pout disappears and she looks at Steve imploringly, bottom lip jutted out. It’s exceedingly cute. “Can Dad stay?”
Steve and Tony meet eyes. “Daddy said he’s got to get going now, didn’t he?”
“Well, if my favorite girl in the world’s asking, I guess I can stay a little longer.” Tony shoots furtive glances at Steve as he talks, like a kid gauging both parents' reactions as he asks to stay up past bedtime. “As long as it’s okay with her other dad.”
Honestly, Lily’s tantrum tired Steve out more than he thought and he’d really prefer to get her in bed as soon as possible so he can get back to his crossword and unwind. At the same time, Tony did make an inconvenient and admittedly unnecessary trip for Steve’s sake, and as much as he’d like to deny it, there is a part of him that doesn’t want to see Tony leave so soon.
He smiles, only ten percent forced. “I’m the one who offered, aren’t I?”
Steve’s not even finished speaking before Lily squirms out of Tony’s grip, dragging him into the house as soon as her little feet touch the floor. Steve follows the sound of laughter to the living room where he finds Lily cuddled up in Tony’s lap. She begs for a story while Tony acts like he doesn’t love the sound of his own voice for a valiant two minutes before he acquiesces, so Steve retires to the kitchen to brew some tea and give them some privacy.
He makes a mug for himself and then one for Tony, exactly how he likes it. Before, Tony drank enough coffee a day to incapacitate a horse and while he was never able to fully appreciate herbal teas no matter how much Steve tried — soggy leaf water, as he liked to call them – he joined Steve for his morning run at least twice a week and let Steve substitute his morning coffee for a morning English tea.
He has the two mugs in one hand and two saucers in the other when he walks into the living room. Tony seems to be telling Lily her favorite story–the first time Iron Man met Captain America. The story is entertaining and action-filled, but not very romantic, which Steve is grateful for. It would be excruciatingly awkward if Lily was fixated on their first date, or when Tony proposed, or their wedding. Those sorts of things don’t seem to excite three-year-olds as much as an epic battle between their parents and an alien god hell-bent on enslaving the world.
“You can ask your dad later, he’ll remember,” Tony says.
Steve places the mugs on the table and sits in the armchair. “Remember what?”
Tony gestures towards his body. “You know, my suit from back then, the chunky one before all the nanotech.”
There are so many iterations of the Iron Man armor with most of the changes being internal and technical that Tony must know that this is an unfair question. Steve still doesn’t know what nanotechnology is, even though most of his equipment is made with it. “All your suits look the same to me, Tony.”
“And that, Lily,” Tony sighs dramatically. “Is why I’m in charge of making the team look good. Not everyone has the eye for these things.”
The technical back-and-forth between Steve and Tony seems not to have interested Lily very much, and she’s now absorbed with the late-night news channel Steve flicked on before Tony arrived. She’s staring unblinkingly at the tv like she’s bewitched by the presenter’s drawl but Steve knows she only gets quiet and staring when she’s ready to turn in.
Lily blinks herself back to the present as Steve comes to stand in front of her and Tony, hands on his hips. “Alright, time to sleep now, sweetheart.”
Mistake number one: mentioning sleep to an already tired toddler. All it does is trigger their instinct to fight any form of rest. Mistake number two: trying to separate Lily from Tony. It’s already hard to separate the two during pickup, and she’s used to that. Steve doesn’t blame her; their family therapist advised that young children flourish in consistent environments and that exchanges were bound to be particularly difficult, especially as she gets to an age where she realises that pickup means she won't get to see the other parent properly for an entire week. Disrupting the schedule further with an unplanned visit means that Lily’s clingier than normal. “But Dad’s here.”
“I know, sunshine, I’m sorry. You’ll see him very soon, okay? It’s time for you to go to bed now.” Steve says not unkindly, extending his arms out for Lily to climb into, but she just retreats further into Tony’s embrace and pouts.
Three years in this parenting business has taught both Steve and Tony the warning signs of a tantrum and Tony rushes to soothe her before the tears start again. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Look, we have to listen to the boss because sleep is very good for us. And when you wake up tomorrow I’ll facetime you guys while I’m at work and show you all my new toys.”
She looks like she’s considering being stubborn but the promise of being allowed, however vicariously, into Tony’s forbidden lab seems to satisfy Lily enough for her to give Tony a wet kiss on the cheek goodnight and allow Steve to carry her to bed. As soon as she’s cuddled up with Bobo, she’s out before Steve can hit the light.
On his way back to the living room, Steve stops to make sure the bathroom light is off and that he remembered to close the kitchen tap and doubles back to make sure the door to Lily’s room is closed tight, all to avoid being alone with Tony. It’s always easier to act normally with Lily acting as a mediator but as soon as she’s gone they forget how to talk to each other and the awkwardness comes rushing in. When he runs out of menial excuses and finally re-enters the living room, Tony is still sitting scrolling on his phone where Steve left him.
“Thanks for that,” Steve begins and Tony looks up from his phone. If there’s one thing to be known about Tony, it’s that his attention is something earned. He’s never been the type to put his phone away just because someone’s entered the room, but Steve earned his attention a long time ago and he knows the only reason Tony hasn’t already tucked his phone into his pocket is because he’s trying to avoid this tension as much as Steve is. “She always gets excited when you come over.”
Tony finally pockets his phone and shrugs. “She’s just happy to spend time with us. Both of us.”
Steve lets out a dry laugh. “Well, she also needs her sleep.”
“I think we should try to spend more family time with her. It’s good for her.”
“I know.” Steve sighs and runs a hand over his face. “Things have just been hectic.”
And they have. It’s not like Steve is actively avoiding Tony or anything, but with the recent PR storm surrounding their separation, the general increase in violent crime in New York, and mandatory meetings upon meetings upon meetings eating up all of his time, he hasn’t been in the correct headspace to devote his energy to anything outside of Lily.
“Well, I just think we should prioritise this. It’s the least she deserves,” Tony says, eyebrows furrowed, but Steve knows him well, and he can see Tony doing that thing he does where he knows he’ll offend if he says what he really wants to say, so he makes out like he’s saying a difficult thing for the greater good, wraps his words in metaphorical gift wrap and says what he wants to say anyways.
“You know Lily’s my top priority,” Steve sighs. He bends over backwards for his kid and he doesn’t like the insinuation that his priorities are out of order.
“I know.” Tony has his arms crossed now. “Look, I don’t mean to start an argument. I just think we should consider it.” He places his empty mug back on the coaster and Steve watches a brown drop of tea slide down the rim and soak into the wood. “Thanks for this. I’ll get out of your hair now. Don’t worry, I’ll show myself out.”
Even though Tony insists Steve remains where he is, Steve follows him to the door and wishes him a safe journey home. He watches as Tony drives off, much too fast for the quiet road outside Steve’s apartment, and thinks back to being in cars with Tony with the windows down and the force of the wind ruining his hair and making terrible expressions out of his face. When he gets back inside, Steve rinses their mugs and finds himself leaning against the counter when he’s finished.
Tony was right; he and Steve don’t spend any time together outside of pick up and drop off, especially now that they’ve been advised to limit time spent in the public eye amid the recent attention their separation has picked up, even though they’ve been living separately for almost a year now. They don’t argue much anymore, but like today, every time they’re together alone for longer than ten minutes someone says the wrong thing and then the atmosphere turns icy. He wishes he knew how to fix it, for Lily’s sake, but something about Tony triggers an irritable, easily hurt part of Steve he never knew existed before they met.
Their conversation stays on the forefront of Steve’s mind until he’s switching off the lights and climbing into his empty king-sized bed. For someone who grew up sleeping curled up on a small single in the 40’s, then got used to curling up tight with someone else on a needlessly huge bed, this one has felt too big and too lonely ever since Steve moved into this apartment. He’s considered both downsizing and opening up his prospects but he’s never gotten around to bed-hunting and frankly he doesn’t have the time or desire to start anything serious. At first, seeing other people was the last thing on Steve’s mind, when he wasn’t even sure of the parameters of their separation and whether they could start dating again, but rumors of petite redheads and blondes sneaking out of Tony’s mansion swept through the team during month six and by month nine, Steve had worked himself up to asking Sharon out on a date like he had meant to all those years ago.
Sharon is nice and cute and funny and thoughtful. She’d been hesitant at the beginning, worried that she was getting in the middle of a messy, superhero divorce, but she’d warmed up when Steve was honest with her, saying “it’s messy, sure. Everything going on with Tony. But I’d like to get to know you better, since you’ve already risked your life and career for me. I think you’d be good company, and I’m in desperate need of that.”
They’re friends, mainly. They’ll go for coffee whenever their schedules line up, and a few times, he’s gone back to her place or she’s come back here when Lily isn’t around. Steve can count on his fingers how many times it’s happened and it hasn’t in a long while, so long that Steve thinks that part of their relationship has died. So here he is, back to sleeping alone every night. He has Lily, but he and Tony have been working on building Lily’s confidence when it comes to solo sleeping, so it’s counterproductive to let her sleep in here when he’s feeling lonely. Which is every night, these days.
Tonight, Steve closes his eyes and tries to not to think about how sleeping alone never seemed to bother him in Brooklyn.