Marvel: Steve/Tony
Title: Hyper Heart
Series: Marvel: The Avengers (Movie; 2012)
Author: camesawconquerd
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: not too long -- uh?
Spoilers: Lol what?
Warnings: Maybe some abuse (past), mental anguish, angst, blah blah
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing. Ever. At all. I just throw words on a text document and hope it comes out okay. Marvel and whatever are copyright to other people and not me.
Summary: Tony finds out that three words can cripple a grown man.
Notes: Title and cut tag are from the song "Sorrow" by The National. We don't talk about it.
The distance coalesces into some kind of insane event horizon, maybe he's not making progress, maybe he is, maybe he's trapped in some kind of time loop, watching the end of the world again and again and again - never able to escape. So he does the one thing that becomes rational - he accelerates. Better to know the unknown up close than to keep fearing it from afar.
His phone rings, the careful bars of 'America the Beautiful' humming at him with a kind of intensity that the phone isn't producing. It's burning a hole through his defenses but not enough to make an impact.
The running tally goes something like 13 missed calls and 7 unanswered voicemails.
The road curves with the land and Tony thinks of rustling curtains and crinkled bedsheets. Maybe because it's all the same color at sunset. It spreads like a bruise over the sky, light at the edge and darkening just behind him. There's a matching set on his hips from a soft touch and another on his ribs from a fight. Different circumstances, different people; both intimate.
Hilariously it all hurts the same.
"I love you."
He'd stayed long enough for it to sink in and then did what he does best, he ran. He was still running, actually, hadn't stopped for days. He feigned busy, looked for fights to pick, ran himself into the ground because six feet down was better than breathing right now.
So Tony pulls over, puts it in park and waits for the dust to settle. It's figurative, metaphorical, maybe literal - and the phone in his hand weighs more than his own heart, or what's left of it.
"I didn't -- I didn't mean to scare you off I-"
Message deleted.
"Tony, I'm sorry I-"
Message deleted.
"Anthony Edward Stark, I don't care what happened, if you don't get your-"
Message deleted.
"Tony? I-"
Message deleted.
"Just tell me you're okay. It's-"
Message deleted.
"Stark, you're on my last goddamn-"
Message deleted.
"I saw you on the news, you look -- Tony, come home-"
Message deleted. There are no more messages.
Home? Really? He laughs, bitter even to his own ears. What was home? What did that word even mean? Wasn't that where the heart was? So where did you go when you didn't have one? What did you do when you ran on technology and disassociation? When you tricked anatomy into believing it could keep going just because you'd shoved metal into your chest and coerced engineering into a different field; then what?
He remembers feeling cold, remembers the high pitched whine just before Obie had reached into his chest and carefully killed him. What was it he'd read? 'All men kill the thing they love? The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!' Maybe Obie had loved him then, maybe in the end he'd done him proud after all and proved himself worthy even if for just long enough to fall down a flight of stairs and have cold hard steel lick his wounds.
He assumes he was probably supposed to die then. Almost feels disappointed with himself that he didn't. If he'd stayed dead, someone would've loved him for who he was. But he even managed to fuck that up. He thinks he'd fuck Steve up too.
The road sprawls in two directions and the sounds this far outside the city make him ache. He's in a lull between stretches of strip malls. A strange calm that laps at his heels and says 'stop' and 'keep going' in equal turns. Always escaping the last, always advancing to the next.
Like an itch under his skin, he watches suburbia spreads over the landscape, a rash. It makes him irrational and nervous, like he can't quite figure out if it's a waste of money or space or time or all of it. Wonders how they survive out here, not a city, not a wasteland, a strange in between that makes no sense. Who even goes to these places? How do they stay afloat?
His mind curls around the idea like a safety. He thinks about it like a business man, numbers rolling across his eyes, things like profit and sustainability; percentages and desperate attempts at reconciliation. He hates to think that it's an extended metaphor for who he is and his relationships but the words 'glaringly obvious' blaze like neon behind his eyelids.
"Mister Stark?"
Jarvis breaks Tony out of his thoughts and he leans back in the seat, staring at the stars that begin to wink into existence.
"Yeah?"
"Captain America wishes to contact you. He... deciphered.. your access codes and wished authorization to speak with you directly."
Tony realizes he should have chosen something less obvious. Or maybe he knew and wanted to be found, maybe it was something in his unconscious mind. Not that he was all that great with psychology and analysis, but he knows a few bare bones facts that he patently ignores.
"Sir?"
"Tell him I'm in a meeting."
"I have put him off with that the last three tries, sir, he appears to no longer be accepting this as a viable excuse for your absence and lack of communication."
"Well that's too bad. I'm in a meeting."
"Sir if I may-"
"You may not. Not this time."
"Ms. Potts has also threatened your continued existence on eight separate occasions."
"I don't expect anything different."
"Perhaps not, but expectation is hardly reality in every case."
It's a sad day when the AI calls you out on your own bullshit. Then again, that was part of the beauty in having an AI with independent thought process algorithms running. They could do that, for better or worse.
He thinks about what his father would say now. Probably that Tony was just as disappointing and didn't know how to take responsibility. Not that he was wrong, he isn't.
Tony lets the keys swing from his fingertips and believes everything. The part where he fails, the part where he's a disappointment, even the part where Steve loves him. But that doesn't make anything okay, it doesn't make anything work. In fact, it really just makes it worse.
The stars come out and Tony counts them like the gravestones they are. One should be his, then he would've meant something. Would've been someone people look up to.
***
He wakes up next to All American three days later and he can't tell who is more surprised.
"You're okay."
Strong fingers curve along the base of his skull and their noses bump in the exchange. Tony doesn't say anything, just kisses at the corner of Steve's mouth and eats up the lie.
"I didn't hear you come in last night."
"Didn't want to wake you up."
"I wouldn't have minded."
"I know."
Steve curls an arm around Tony's back, fingertips finding each and every vertebrae as he hauls him close. "I still love you."
Tony looks down, hand resting on Steve's hip.
"I'm sorry."
Steve just nods, pulls Tony closer and kisses into his neck. Tony wants to say it back, wants to tell Steve how he feels, that he had to run away for a week and sleep under strange skies to find that answer, but he's afraid. He doesn't want Steve to die, doesn't want to be a coward, and can't find it in himself to be brave this time.
"What made you come home?"
The eyes looking at him are so blue it hurts and he wants to tell Steve he's seen that color shine in the Pacific off a hidden Hawaiian bay. Instead he looks away in shame, running a hand back up Steve's chest.
"The bruises started to fade."
Series: Marvel: The Avengers (Movie; 2012)
Author: camesawconquerd
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: not too long -- uh?
Spoilers: Lol what?
Warnings: Maybe some abuse (past), mental anguish, angst, blah blah
Disclaimer: I don't own a damn thing. Ever. At all. I just throw words on a text document and hope it comes out okay. Marvel and whatever are copyright to other people and not me.
Summary: Tony finds out that three words can cripple a grown man.
Notes: Title and cut tag are from the song "Sorrow" by The National. We don't talk about it.
The distance coalesces into some kind of insane event horizon, maybe he's not making progress, maybe he is, maybe he's trapped in some kind of time loop, watching the end of the world again and again and again - never able to escape. So he does the one thing that becomes rational - he accelerates. Better to know the unknown up close than to keep fearing it from afar.
His phone rings, the careful bars of 'America the Beautiful' humming at him with a kind of intensity that the phone isn't producing. It's burning a hole through his defenses but not enough to make an impact.
The running tally goes something like 13 missed calls and 7 unanswered voicemails.
The road curves with the land and Tony thinks of rustling curtains and crinkled bedsheets. Maybe because it's all the same color at sunset. It spreads like a bruise over the sky, light at the edge and darkening just behind him. There's a matching set on his hips from a soft touch and another on his ribs from a fight. Different circumstances, different people; both intimate.
Hilariously it all hurts the same.
"I love you."
He'd stayed long enough for it to sink in and then did what he does best, he ran. He was still running, actually, hadn't stopped for days. He feigned busy, looked for fights to pick, ran himself into the ground because six feet down was better than breathing right now.
So Tony pulls over, puts it in park and waits for the dust to settle. It's figurative, metaphorical, maybe literal - and the phone in his hand weighs more than his own heart, or what's left of it.
"I didn't -- I didn't mean to scare you off I-"
Message deleted.
"Tony, I'm sorry I-"
Message deleted.
"Anthony Edward Stark, I don't care what happened, if you don't get your-"
Message deleted.
"Tony? I-"
Message deleted.
"Just tell me you're okay. It's-"
Message deleted.
"Stark, you're on my last goddamn-"
Message deleted.
"I saw you on the news, you look -- Tony, come home-"
Message deleted. There are no more messages.
Home? Really? He laughs, bitter even to his own ears. What was home? What did that word even mean? Wasn't that where the heart was? So where did you go when you didn't have one? What did you do when you ran on technology and disassociation? When you tricked anatomy into believing it could keep going just because you'd shoved metal into your chest and coerced engineering into a different field; then what?
He remembers feeling cold, remembers the high pitched whine just before Obie had reached into his chest and carefully killed him. What was it he'd read? 'All men kill the thing they love? The coward does it with a kiss, the brave man with a sword!' Maybe Obie had loved him then, maybe in the end he'd done him proud after all and proved himself worthy even if for just long enough to fall down a flight of stairs and have cold hard steel lick his wounds.
He assumes he was probably supposed to die then. Almost feels disappointed with himself that he didn't. If he'd stayed dead, someone would've loved him for who he was. But he even managed to fuck that up. He thinks he'd fuck Steve up too.
The road sprawls in two directions and the sounds this far outside the city make him ache. He's in a lull between stretches of strip malls. A strange calm that laps at his heels and says 'stop' and 'keep going' in equal turns. Always escaping the last, always advancing to the next.
Like an itch under his skin, he watches suburbia spreads over the landscape, a rash. It makes him irrational and nervous, like he can't quite figure out if it's a waste of money or space or time or all of it. Wonders how they survive out here, not a city, not a wasteland, a strange in between that makes no sense. Who even goes to these places? How do they stay afloat?
His mind curls around the idea like a safety. He thinks about it like a business man, numbers rolling across his eyes, things like profit and sustainability; percentages and desperate attempts at reconciliation. He hates to think that it's an extended metaphor for who he is and his relationships but the words 'glaringly obvious' blaze like neon behind his eyelids.
"Mister Stark?"
Jarvis breaks Tony out of his thoughts and he leans back in the seat, staring at the stars that begin to wink into existence.
"Yeah?"
"Captain America wishes to contact you. He... deciphered.. your access codes and wished authorization to speak with you directly."
Tony realizes he should have chosen something less obvious. Or maybe he knew and wanted to be found, maybe it was something in his unconscious mind. Not that he was all that great with psychology and analysis, but he knows a few bare bones facts that he patently ignores.
"Sir?"
"Tell him I'm in a meeting."
"I have put him off with that the last three tries, sir, he appears to no longer be accepting this as a viable excuse for your absence and lack of communication."
"Well that's too bad. I'm in a meeting."
"Sir if I may-"
"You may not. Not this time."
"Ms. Potts has also threatened your continued existence on eight separate occasions."
"I don't expect anything different."
"Perhaps not, but expectation is hardly reality in every case."
It's a sad day when the AI calls you out on your own bullshit. Then again, that was part of the beauty in having an AI with independent thought process algorithms running. They could do that, for better or worse.
He thinks about what his father would say now. Probably that Tony was just as disappointing and didn't know how to take responsibility. Not that he was wrong, he isn't.
Tony lets the keys swing from his fingertips and believes everything. The part where he fails, the part where he's a disappointment, even the part where Steve loves him. But that doesn't make anything okay, it doesn't make anything work. In fact, it really just makes it worse.
The stars come out and Tony counts them like the gravestones they are. One should be his, then he would've meant something. Would've been someone people look up to.
***
He wakes up next to All American three days later and he can't tell who is more surprised.
"You're okay."
Strong fingers curve along the base of his skull and their noses bump in the exchange. Tony doesn't say anything, just kisses at the corner of Steve's mouth and eats up the lie.
"I didn't hear you come in last night."
"Didn't want to wake you up."
"I wouldn't have minded."
"I know."
Steve curls an arm around Tony's back, fingertips finding each and every vertebrae as he hauls him close. "I still love you."
Tony looks down, hand resting on Steve's hip.
"I'm sorry."
Steve just nods, pulls Tony closer and kisses into his neck. Tony wants to say it back, wants to tell Steve how he feels, that he had to run away for a week and sleep under strange skies to find that answer, but he's afraid. He doesn't want Steve to die, doesn't want to be a coward, and can't find it in himself to be brave this time.
"What made you come home?"
The eyes looking at him are so blue it hurts and he wants to tell Steve he's seen that color shine in the Pacific off a hidden Hawaiian bay. Instead he looks away in shame, running a hand back up Steve's chest.
"The bruises started to fade."