Chapter Text
jezi-belle asked: Steve and Tony, #35. Difficulty level: not shippy OR sad
35. “You look like a monkey who’s been strategically shaved.”
For all intents and purposes, Steve hadn’t had the best day. Quite frankly, this whole week had been one for the books in terms of record setting bad days, so now he wanted to have some time to relax.
There were too many things to list what all had gone wrong - robberies, false leads leading to almost comical traps, aggressively fussy aliens, and a fire or two to name a couple - and it’d left Steve throwing his hands up in defeat. He may have been stubborn as a mule, but he knew when to back down.
Now, he’d settled in at the Avengers compound, comfortable on his favorite of the couches, a book in hand that he’d been meaning to pick up for the last few months but never seemed to have the time for. This week was going to go out with a nice, quiet moment even if it killed him.
That frame of mind should have really been his first clue.
“Whoa, whoa, who’s turn was it to take out the trash this week? Because they are on probation until further notice.” Tony had just sauntered in, voice booming like always, immediately shattering Steve’s moment of peace.
“You smell that, Cap?” His chin tilted up and he even made a show of going up onto his toes, sniffing the air all around the room. “It reeks in here. Someone must’a lit another fire while I was gone. Smells like burning hair.”
If he didn’t acknowledge his existence, perhaps Tony Stark would completely cease to exist. One could hope.
“No, no, really. Rogers. C’mon, work with me here.” Even as Tony sat down hard next to him on the couch, Steve refused to look up from the line in his book. The one he’d read at least five times now. “You look like a monkey who’s been strategically shaved.”
As if his vocal jabs weren’t enough, Tony reached up and waved his hand over where Steve’s hair had been. Yes, most of it had been singed, so yes, he had to buzz it again. Not something he had wanted to do, not a look that was particularly flattering on him, but he could live with it. So long as he didn’t have to hear this until it finally grew out again.
“Did you piss off Romanoff again? Or Barton? I know he’s got a thing about petty revenge, right?” Tony tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Or did Barnes black out and go all Soldier on ya? Didja get scolded for not having regulation length?”
The book in Steve’s hands slammed shut, the sudden noise making Tony’s shoulders jerk in the slightest show of how he’d jumped from being startled. Without even looking at him, Steve pushed himself up off of the couch and tucked the book under his arm, hands shoving deep into his pockets to fish his phone out.
Tony sat statuesque as Steve unlocked his phone and tapped a few rythmic times before turning the screen and holding it about a foot away from Tony’s face.
“You might wanna work on getting some better fire hazard equipment around here. It’d be a shame if this happened again sometime soon.”
Steve walked away, a grin tugging mercilessly at his lips as Tony made a choking noise in his throat. The picture, which was now Steve’s lock screen background, was a selfie of Steve and Bucky together, surrounded by the flaming wreckage that was left of quite a number of Tony’s cars that he’d foolishly kept at the compound. In the background were Clint and Kate, the perpetrators of the crime, looking just as singed and, miraculously, more proud of themselves than the supersoldiers even though this clearly meant that Kate needed more practice before she got her driver’s license.