Marvel Bang Fic: Part Two - Try, Try Again
Part One
"No."
"No what?" Steve asks but he knows perfectly well no what by Peggy's expression and he grimaces and tears his eyes away from-
"No to Tony Stark. A million times no."
"But-"
"I thought I was tortured by your protein shakes, endless chin-ups and five in the morning runs so you could kick sand in his face or something, not stare moonily at the back of his head."
"There's no sand. Why would there be sand?" Steve asks, turning back to Peggy and giving her a pout that usually has her handing over her pudding cup. She's not about to be swayed though when it comes to Tony.
"You missed out on precious time with me, I've been without you for a year so you could be beyond all this."
"He hasn't even noticed anyway," Steve grunts and Peggy's eyes narrow in a dangerous way.
"Do not tell me that Tony is what this has all been about all along," she says slowly.
"It's not," Steve says and he doesn't even believe himself so Peggy certainly doesn't.
"That guy made your misery his personal goal all through high school. He pantsed you in front of the entire student body. I humored your destructive crush because I thought someday you would see sense and grow out of it." She makes a frustrated gesture at the, admittedly, much larger entirety of Steve's being. "Not grow into it."
"This isn't high school," Steve says. "I'm not going to make the same mistake."
"You think Tony's going to be different, don't you?" Peggy demands.
"He might be," Steve manages to get out in a small voice. "People change and it's been a while." He watches Tony from across the food hall, the way he throws his head back and laughs at the stunning red haired girl he's sitting with while she shakes her head and looks fondly exasperated.
"Oh my god, I love you, I really do but you can be so dense. You think he's really going to be less of an ass at the place where there are buildings named after his family?" When Steve just stares at his hands, Peggy reaches across and takes one of them. "Hon, you're not shallow enough to be happy about it if he starts treating you differently now anyway, right?"
"Right," Steve finally huffs, although again, doesn't really believe himself.
"What up, losers?" Darcy asks, plopping into the seat next to Peggy. Darcy was someone Peggy had met at the beginning of the previous year during Steve's break and Steve tries not to feel petulantly territorial about his friend. Darcy's cool, quirky and seems to like him so he's going to give her a chance, if grudgingly.
After all, Peggy's allowed to have more than just him as a friend at school. She's not the giant loser who only has the one.
*
Steve had nearly laughed when he'd gotten his dorm assignment. Stark House had been written in black and white on the letter in his welcome packet, mocking him. It wasn't enough that Hamilton University was where Tony went but Steve had to also live in a building named after his family.
He wouldn't have any luck at all if it weren't for the bad kind.
It was the only college close enough to his Nana with a decent enough arts program to make it worthwhile even going. He'd thought about ranging further out, but his Nana, even though she'd rallied, was still pretty frail and he wanted to be able to get to her if she needed him in a decent amount of time.
He knows he doesn't have that much time left with her and he owes her after she and his grandfather took him in without question when his parents died. They gave up the precious few years they'd had left to spend alone together to make room in their lives for him.
Steve was pleasantly surprised to find he had a single. He was extremely lucky. There was a roommate that never showed and even though the housing office kept telling him not to get used to it, that someone else would be assigned, they hadn't appeared yet.
He wouldn't get used to it but he would enjoy it while it lasted. It also meant Peggy had somewhere to escape to when her roommate had her girlfriend over and hung a sock on the door to warn her off. "Do girls actually do that?" Steve had asked, surprised.
"Have girlfriends?" Peggy had asked with a raised eyebrow and Steve had rolled his eyes.
Peggy is in his room now, sprawled across the spare bed on her stomach, ridiculously large and imposing book open in front of her and feet waving in the air. "I met Pepper," she says, apropos of nothing.
"Who?" Steve asks, tucking a pencil into the side of his mouth so he can smudge some lines he's made. He's drawing Peggy, he loves the drape of her, how relaxed she is. She's forever scrunching up her nose when she looks at his sketches of her, says I don't look like that, you're idealizing me and he always huffs at her fondly.
She's someone who is actually, genuinely unaware of how beautiful she is and if Steve were straight he would be in trouble.
"Pepper," Peggy says, like repeating the name is going to magically enable Steve to know who she's talking about. Steve's Nana does that to him all the time, tells him long rambling stories about people he's never heard of. Half the time he finds out they're actually characters on one of the television shows she likes but she details their exploits like they're people she actually knows.
When Steve just stares at her blankly, Peggy huffs. "She's..." Peggy casts about for a moment, like she's unsure how to describe the woman. "She's me for Tony."
"What?"
"She's Tony's me," Peggy repeats, nonsensically. "She introduced herself because she had concerns. We've had a meeting of the minds."
"Should I be worried?"
"Not at all," Peggy says with a grin. "She's lovely, really. She works at the little gallery in town. I met her when I went to buy a frame for that picture you gave me."
"I didn't give you a picture," Steve says with a frown.
"Sorry, did I say give? I meant the picture I rescued from the trash that was breathtaking and you threw out because you're a crazy person with absolutely no taste."
"I tend to agree with you about the taste thing," Steve says dryly. "How else would I have ended up with a friend like you?"
"Meh, you love me and would be lost without me," Peggy scoffs and Steve's silent because the only other response he could have to that would be mushy agreement. He doesn't like rewarding her when she's in this kind of mood.
"So, Pepper's nice?" Steve says. He doesn't mean to be fishing for information about Tony's girlfriend but he can't help himself. Tony had dated indiscriminately through high school, whoever took his fancy for a week to a month, rarely more than that. The people he dated tended to be vapid and pretty but if the girl he was with now was more along the lines of someone that Peggy could see herself being friends with, then chances are it wasn't someone Tony would cast aside.
"Oh my god, you're so transparent," Peggy groans, rolling over and dropping a pillow on her face. "She's not his girlfriend, Jesus, Steve."
"Sorry, force of habit," Steve says, frowning. He knows how ridiculous it is to be infatuated with someone after all this time, especially someone who doesn't give a shit about him. Steve needs to meet someone else, someone not Tony Stark but he's yet to find anyone that measures up.
He needs to stop using Tony Stark as his barometer against whom all other men are measured.
"You're coming to the British Lion with me tonight," Peggy announces, swinging upright and off the bed. "You need a life Steve Rogers, even if I have to force it on you."
*
“Him? Ooh, how about that one?”
Steve sighs, grabs Darcy’s hand to stop her pointing across the crowded bar. “You can’t just pick one out for me.”
“Why not?” Darcy complains. “I have excellent taste in gay men. It’s the straight ones I can’t figure out.” Peggy’s laughing into her soda and Steve pinches her on the arm.
“Ow, dammit, Rogers,” Peggy snorts. “I need the bathroom.”
“That means according to girl-law, I also must go,” Darcy says very solemnly, leaving Steve blessedly alone for a few minutes to nurse his coke and lament his life choices.
He’s watching the crowd, wishing he’d brought a pad and pencil so he had something to do with his hands when a voice says behind him, “Steve? Steve Rogers?” When Steve turns around, he’s looking at Clint Barton. “Hey, it is you,” Clint says, grinning. He catches Steve by surprise by hooking an arm around him and clapping him firmly on the back. Steve returns the embrace awkwardly.
“Clint, hi,” he says as Clint steps back, smiling, looking genuinely pleased.
“I wasn’t sure it was you. Man, you been eating your spinach or what?” Clint gives him what Steve swears is an appreciative once-over and Steve feels his cheeks heat under Clint’s gaze.
“Something like that,” Steve says. “Got tired of all those stiff breezes pushing me over.”
Clint laughs, shaking his head. Steve can see Darcy and Peggy over Clint’s shoulder. Darcy’s giving Steve an enthusiastic thumbs up and Peggy’s trying to steer her to another table. She tosses Steve an eyebrow waggle over her shoulder though. “Do you go here?” Steve asks.
“Nah, just visiting,” Clint says. “I heard you dropped off the map.”
“I had to take a year. Family emergency,” Steve says and Clint nods, sympathetic but not pressing for details.
A guy slides up to them, hooks a possessive arm across Clint’s shoulder. “Who’s this then?” he asks and Steve blinks.
“Phil Coulson?” he says in surprise. He remembers Phil from school. Editor of the school paper, on the debate team, most likely to succeed . Phil squints at him, bristle replaced by confusion and then he’s patting at his pockets. Steve sees out of the corner of his eye Clint roll his eyes and pull a pair of glasses from his own jacket pocket, turn under Phil’s arm so he can slide them on Phil’s face.
“You left them on the side table again,” he says, sounding fond. “What do you do when I’m not here, eh?”
“Stumble around blindly and pretend I know who the hell I’m talking to,” Phil says, equally fond. He then switches his attention back to Steve and does a double-take. “Oh my god, Rogers?”
“I know, insane right?” Clint says. Phil still has his arm across Clint’s shoulders and Steve can’t help but stare at them. He could’ve sworn their paths would never have crossed back in high school and here they are, together.
Steve tries not to let the little stab of jealousy he feels show on his face.
Phil ignores Clint’s comment, offers the hand not holding Clint’s side and Steve shakes. “Good to see you. Are you going to Hamilton?”
“Yeah, I had a year off though,” Steve says. Darcy and Peggy bustle back over, obviously having figured out that they wouldn’t be interrupting anything and now curious. Clint and Phil greet Peggy warmly, Phil not as surprised to see her, must have spotted her on campus previously. Darcy and Clint hit it off immediately, abandoning the small group to play darts shortly after, Darcy dubious enough about Clint’s professed marksmanship that he has to demonstrate.
Peggy disappears when she spots someone she knows and then it’s Steve and Phil sharing a table. “It’s been a while,” Steve says. “You look good.” Phil does. He’s filled out some since school, not as much as Steve himself but there’s muscle definition going on. He also looks more... settled into himself. He’s got a quiet confidence and relaxed charm that Steve always liked.
“You too,” Phil says. “I got a little worried when from across the room it looked like my boyfriend was being chatted up by a Hilfiger model.”
“Please,” Steve huffs, dismissive.
“I just... sometimes I’m just waiting for him to realize...” Phil says, something far-off in his face as his eyes track to Clint. Steve follows his gaze, sees Clint say something to Darcy and then throw a dart, careless, easy grace in his movements. It hits, dead center of course and he holds his arms up in triumph, does a little victory bump and grind with his hips that has Darcy in hysterics.
“What?” Steve asks, gentle.
Phil kind of blinks, shakes his head. “What? Oh, nothing,” he says quickly, the moment broken when Peggy reappears with a heaped bowl of wings and a dish of cheese that she pushes onto the table. Clint appears at Phil’s side, eyes gleaming and Phil lets his knees fall open so Clint can push into the space between them, closer to the table, making grabby hands at the wings.
The night passes in a pleasant blur, Steve a little shocked when Clint insists they all get together again when he’s in town next and Phil putting his number into Steve’s phone after extracting a promise for lunch the following Wednesday. Clint and Phil hug him warmly when it’s time to separate and Steve watches them go, hands held loosely and Clint tipping his head towards Phil as they walk.
“Oh my god, they are the cutest ever,” Darcy gushes, dancing in front of them as he, Peggy and Darcy make their way back to the dorms. Peggy just hooks her arm through Steve’s, looks up at him with a sleepy smile and Steve smiles back.
*
Steve’s feeling pretty good the next morning, thinks maybe he’s finally stopped being truly pathetic and is getting on with his life. He has a duffel load of laundry over one shoulder, is headed to his Nana’s to put a load through before he’s reduced to recycling through his underwear.
He’s totally unprepared to bump into Tony fucking Stark is what it basically boils down to.
“Oh hello,” Tony says, blinking in surprise, but not the same kind that Clint had seeing Steve when he wasn’t expecting to. Tony looks... furtive is the best way to describe it. “Fancy seeing you here,” he adds, his face doing a funny, twitching thing.
“Hi,” Steve says after what he hopes isn’t a weirdly long pause. Tony’s kind of blocking his way, swaying side to side in the hall like he can’t stand still. “Did you... were you looking for someone?” Steve finally asks as Tony flicks his gaze around at anything except Steve.
“Oh, I live here,” Tony says. His tone is oddly formal, like he’s trying for light but missing. Steve’s more surprised at his words though.
“You live here? Don’t you have mansions or something?” he asks, because Tony Stark doesn’t exactly scream dorm-life.
Tony’s face makes another weird expression, then he’s agreeing and listing the mansions. Steve just watches him, struck with the suddenly uncomfortable thought that maybe Tony is being polite, that he knows Steve is familiar but has no idea who he actually is. Tony ends his rambling by saying something about not wanting to live somewhere that was his dad’s.
"Isn't this place pretty much your dad's though?" Steve asks, suddenly feeling the compulsion to be mean, to put a little distance between them. If this is the only interaction he’s going to have with Tony Stark in college, he doesn’t want Tony walking away thinking, oh yeah, he’s that weird, desperate kid that followed me around and he’s still the same. "Y'know, since it's Stark House. He would have paid for it if his name is on the building."
“Oh well, yeah I guess,” Tony says, looking a little deflated and Steve knows he needs to escape before he does something regrettable, say like apologize for being an ass and then beg for Tony to remember him, to please remember who the fuck he is.
“Anyway, I have to...” Steve suddenly remembers the duffle of washing, knows he’s got an excuse that doesn’t look like he’s just running away with his tail between his legs. They awkwardly shuffle around each other and then Steve can hear someone say, “Oh hey, Tony!” and Steve takes the opportunity to run.
*
“I in no way wish to get your hopes up about Tony Stark of all people, but he knows who you are, believe me,” Peggy says, poking him in the forehead with her pen. She’s trying to get him to move but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to again. His Nana had sent him back to the dorms with a plate full of her special cookies that he’d proceeded to eat all of. He was now in a sugar coma and couldn’t move to save his life. “I can’t believe you didn’t leave even one of your Nana’s cookies for me, that’s just cruel, Rogers,” she adds, huffily.
“I needed all of them to drown my sorrows. The little buggers are resilient,” Steve says, then what Peggy said filters through his sugar haze and he manages to roll over, his stomach gurgling unhappily. “Wait, what?”
“I said, you could have left me one eensy, weensy-“
“No, the other thing,” Steve says, impatiently.
Peggy rolls her eyes, sticks the pen she was poking him with behind her ear. “Tony thinks you hate him and he’s all... depressed about it.”
“Why would he...” Steve tugs at his lower lip, thinks back to their stilted conversation and how stiff he must have come off. “I just thought he didn’t recognize me.”
Peggy pulls a face, like what she’s about to say really pains her. “He’s... the way Pepper talks about him, I might’ve been wrong about his capacity to change, to become less of a douchebag.”
“Are you trying to give me some weird kind of blessing?” Steve asks, amused. Peggy punches him in the belly and he curls around himself, groaning. “Oh god, don’t, unless you really do want some of my Nana’s cookies.”
“Ew,” Peggy says, scurrying backwards, probably wary of any kind of blast zone. “And no, I still think he’s terrible for you.”
“I don’t think you have to worry,” Steve says. He’s been nursing his childhood crush for a long while, he’s starting to think maybe it is time to give it up. Seeing Clint and Phil, how comfortable and right they were together, he wants that, wants to find someone that’ll fit like pieces of a puzzle coming together. He rubs at his nose, gives Peggy a lopsided grin.
“Was just never meant to be, I guess.”
*
“It’s a party in your own dorm, you don’t even have to technically leave your house,” Darcy wheedles, gripping his hand and tugging it.
“I’m not really into parties,” Steve says.
“Haven’t you ever been to one of-“ Darcy cuts herself off, his expression obviously telling her something he doesn’t want her to know. Her hand is pressing against her chest like an old Hollywood starlet expressing shock. “Haven’t you ever been to a party?” she asks.
“When I was smaller. You know, the ones where the parents made the kids invite the whole class,” Steve says, kind of pulls another face that has Darcy’s eyes practically brimming with tears.
“That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Darcy whimpers. She wraps both arms around his waist, tries with her whole body to get him to shift. “Now you definitely have to come.”
“Really, it’s not my thing,” Steve says, prying her arms from around him, but giving her a squeeze before he does. She’s really grown on him, he’s surprised by how much.
“But going to the library instead? Ugh, it’s too depressing.”
“I can’t stay here, my furniture is practically vibrating across the room,” he says and it’s true. The party’s on the floor above and the music is so loud that Steve can feel it as well as hear it through the walls and floors. “Peggy’s already up there. Go have fun, young person.”
“You sure?” Darcy says, but Steve can tell she’s already mentally scurrying towards the party, even if her body is lingering.
“Yes, go. Be responsible, don’t let a stranger give you a drink and don’t take any candy with lettering on it.”
“You’re like the oldest twenty year old ever,” Darcy says. She’s dawdling out the door when she throws over her shoulder, like an afterthought. “Oh so, do you think that Bruce guy might be up there?”
Steve frowns at her for a moment, before the name clicks. She’s talking about the guy from his floor that looks like he’s in his thirties, doing some kind of insane multiple doctorate or something and still living in a dorm. “Bruce Banner, really?” he says, eyebrows rising.
“Hey, don’t judge. He’s just got a sexy professor thing going.”
“Ugh, don’t say stuff like that to me,” Steve protests. “I’ll be thinking about it when I pass him in the hall.” Darcy’s embarrassed, for the first time Steve’s ever seen so far as he knows so he takes pity on her. “I think I saw him head up about an hour ago.”
“Great, bye!” she says, disappearing in a swirl of dress and scarf and Steve shakes his head, chuckling. Darcy’s pretty great and that Bruce guy kind of deserves a break considering he’s stuck rooming with Thor who keeps putting up petitions about making the dorm nudist friendly.
*
Steve’s had time to get comfortable and have his sketch pad out when someone clears their throat and then promptly falls face-first over a table in front of him in the library.
It’s Tony.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, snapping his pad shut and rushing over to Tony to help him to his feet. Tony’s swaying, has to put a hand on a chair to stay steady when Steve tentatively lets his hands drop.
Tony mumbles something soddenly that sounds like, “Fine, how’re you?”
“You’re wasted,” Steve observes, winces a little when it sounds like he’s being judgemental. He looks around, expecting other drunken people to have been dragged along in Tony’s wake, but Tony’s alone. “What are you doing here?”
“Cametoseeyouwhydoyouhateme?” Tony says, words mushed together. He’s swaying, squinting at Steve and waiting for an answer, something soft and vulnerable in his expression.
Steve starts to say, “I don’t-” but Tony cuts him off with a long, loud and rather smelly burp right in his face. Tony looks hilariously mortified.
“Oh my god, I’m an ass. Just kick me under the table and forget you ever saw me,” Tony blathers, looking so adorably defeated that Steve can’t help the swell of affection that blooms within him. He knows where the night went the last time he helped a drunken Tony Stark out but he’s matured since then and besides, he’s getting over it, finally putting it behind him. What better way to prove it than to help Tony home like a good friend would.
He will definitely resist the urge to give him a blowjob on the way home unlike the last time.
“Let’s take you somewhere to sleep off whatever’s happening here,” Steve offers, gets an arm around Tony because he really looks like he’s about to keel over again. Tony immediately drops his head on Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s grateful that Tony smells terrible so he can’t enjoy it.
Much.
“My room’s full of drunk people,” Tony whines, warm breath puffing against Steve’s neck.
Great.
“We’ll figure something out,” Steve sighs, resigned. Tony goes to take one step, misses his footing and Steve has to catch him. He doesn’t really want to drag Tony all the way back to Stark House so he steels himself and then gets a shoulder under Tony, hefts upwards, Tony a limp rag doll of a man over his shoulder.
“Oh my god, this is very nice,” Tony says muzzily and before Steve can ask him what he’s talking about, Tony’s hands fit to Steve’s ass, patting it.
Steve shakes his head, amused despite himself. “Thanks, I work out.”
*
Steve thinks about taking Tony back to his own room, but the party is still going strong and besides, Steve wants to put Tony somewhere he can check he’s still breathing every hour or so. Tony chatters groggily the whole way to Steve’s room, his words running together so Steve can’t really make them out. He doesn’t want to when occasionally he hears, “You’re so.... even when you weren’t... I really... why do you have to be...”
Steve can imagine what words are missing from Tony’s diatribe. Boring, straight-laced, stiff.
He dumps Tony on his bed when he reaches his room, pulls his blanket over him after taking off his shoes and socks. Tony kind of burbles and protests, then relaxes. “This smells nice. Soooooft,” Tony sighs, rolling until he’s well and truly burritoed himself.
“Just don’t throw up on that,” Steve warns. “It’s my Nana’s blanket.”
Steve spends an uncomfortable night in his desk chair, listening to Tony snore wetly. Steve’s actually starting to doze, head held up by his hand, when the sounds of Tony coming awake start. Tony rustles around for a few minutes and Steve gives him that time to get his bearings, work out where he is before he says, “Do you need to throw up?”
There’s a pause like Tony’s thinking about it. “Nah, I think I’m good.” He’s sitting up and rubbing a hand through his hair which sets it sticking up in all different directions before he gets his feet on the floor. Steve tries not to stare at Tony so soft and vulnerable looking, squinting around the room. When his gaze finally settles back on Steve he says, “Hey, thanks for making sure I didn’t die in my own puke last night.”
“Any time,” Steve says before he thinks better of it, feels a stupid blush heat his cheeks and possibly the tips of his ears but Tony’s just smiling at him sleepily and Steve can’t help but smile back.
“So, how did I end up with you?” Tony asks and Steve feels his smile freeze on his face. A tiny, obviously delusional part of Steve had started wondering if maybe Tony had sought him out, even left his own party for the express purpose of finding Steve. Tony looking so confused about his current predicament puts paid to that. He’d obviously stumbled into the library at random, run into Steve by chance.
“You were drunk I guess,” Steve says stiffly.
Tony’s still messing around on the bed, rubs his face on Steve’s blanket that he’s still wrapped in. “Sorry if I said anything weird,” he says absently.
“S’fine,” Steve says, takes a deep breathe and decides that he’s not going to let all this bother him. He was doing well, Tony has no idea what he does to Steve so Steve can’t really blame him for it. He’s made a decision to move on and he’s got to do it. He just needs to treat this night like a setback, a little hiccup in his Get Over Tony Stark plan. He decides to be the bigger man, offers, “You want me to walk you back to your room so it doesn't look like you're doing a walk of shame?”
“I’m probably karmically due,” Tony huffs, rolling his eyes and gets up, kicks his socks aside and steps into his shoes without them before offering Steve a little salute and making for the door. Before he steps out, he pauses, says, “Mornin!” to someone brightly, then he’s gone.
Steve blinks, then groans when Peggy’s head appears around his door frame, her eyes wide and shocked.
*
It’s the kind of day that needs his Nana’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. He gathers a few assorted odds and ends to wash and heads over. He grabs Tony’s socks on impulse, it bothers him probably an unreasonable amount that they’re grey instead of white and have holes in the toes.
He blames his Nana for being so finicky.
“I know that look,” his Nana says when she greets him at the door, grabs him by the shirt and tugs him down so she can lay a big, smacking kiss on his forehead. “I haven’t seen it since you were mooning over that Stark boy.”
“Nana,” Steve grumbles, lets her put brittle arms around his middle to squeeze him.
“You’re wasting away to nothing in that school, do they not feed you?” she huffs, hands darting to his ribs and Steve curls away, laughing helplessly.
“Ugh, quit it,” he says but he lets her herd him over to the kitchen table and set a plate in front of him piled high. He demolishes the lot, rubs his stomach when it feels tight and uncomfortable. His Nana’s watching him from the other chair when he finishes, her eyes as bright and alert as ever. Steve makes his way to the laundry room, starts loading under his Nana’s ever watchful gaze.
“Is it another boy?” his Nana asks, obviously done trying to wait him out.
Steve leans fists on the washing machine, scowls at the cold-hot buttons. “Nah, same one.”
“Oh sweetheart,” she says. “That boy has brought you nothing but heartache.” She looks thoughtful for a second. “You still never explained how he turned you green that one time.”
“I’m moving on. There’s a point where it all becomes pathetic.” Steve wishes he sounded more convincing to his own ears.
“You’ve got your daddy’s heart. He decided he wanted your mother and nothing would dissuade him, not even her.” His Nana looks at him for a minute more before she smiles, lines carving deep in her face. “Besides, your Grandpa and I didn’t raise a quitter.”
*
Steve knows he should toss Tony’s socks into the nearest garbage can but Tony had left his room clad in his Nana’s blanket, the last thing she’d been able to knit before the arthritis really set into her hands and he’s determined to get it back. He clutches the socks, thinks it’s a good enough excuse as any.
Steve has to knock for about ten minutes before there’s the sound of movement. He only persists because the white board tacked to Tony’s door has a message that says, yes, he’s inside and please feel free to wake him. It’s the kind of thing that Peggy would do to him so Steve figures Pepper is to blame.
Tony looks about as bad as Steve was expecting when he finally cracks the door open and looks distrustfully out. His hair is flattened down and his eyes are red-rimmed. It’s kind of... nice to see Tony so human, so bleary. Tony opens the door, in obvious invitation but Steve hesitates, mostly because he sees from his position that there is an actual mirror above Tony’s bed which is so terrible and cliche that it makes Steve’s resolve to just get the hell over himself and Tony Stark a little firmer.
“Don’t you go to class?” Steve asks, amused by the idea that Tony has just buried himself for the day without emerging.
“Rarely.” Tony seems equally amused by the idea that he would. Steve feels a thread of annoyance at that. Tony’s obviously someone that skates through life, never having to try.
“Yet, perfect grades I’m assuming?”
“Of course.” Tony fusses with the shirt he’s wearing for a moment, overlong sleeves hiding his hands. “I’m one of those rare people that can actually give one hundred and ten percent.” Tony crosses to the desk in his room, lowers himself into his chair like an old man. The silence stretches, becomes a little awkward and Steve reflexively closes his fist, feels the socks in his grip and remembers one of the reasons for his errand. He can see his blanket tossed across the end of Tony’s bed carelessly and it pisses him off a little.
He holds the socks out, decides he’s going to offer a trade and then beat a dignified retreat. “Um, anyway, I have...” Steve waggles the socks, watches Tony squint at his hand before levering himself back up off the chair with a groan. Tony takes the bundle, goes to toss them aside but pauses, blinking.
“Hey, weren’t these gray?”
Steve wonders if maybe Tony’s socks were discoloured long enough that he didn’t even remember the original color. “They weren’t supposed to be.”
“Did you actually wash these?” he asks, and there’s something in Tony’s tone that makes Steve’s hackles rise. He’s smirking, the way he used to in high school. “Did you do laundry for me?”
Steve feels like he’s time-travelled back to when he was sixteen, awkward and eternally humiliated when faced with Tony and his special brand of rough and rude charm. He feels off-kilter and so very, very stupid. "I didn't do laundry for you. I was doing laundry and I tossed your socks in too because they were about to get up and walk out of my room by themselves, probably flipping me off for good measure considering who they belong to."
The problem is, Steve can hear what he’s saying and it sounds completely lame.
"Didn't these have holes in them? Oh my god, Steve, you darned my socks?"
Scratch that. When Tony says it out loud is when Steve wants the world to open up and swallow him down. "It would've driven me crazy, alright?" Steve sounds annoyingly shrill to his own ears and Tony is just staring at him, kind of the same way he did right before he knocked Steve’s sketch book out of his hands and into the mud. "Look, sorry, I thought you were done being a jerk to me, but obviously not.”
Steve retreats to the sound of Tony’s damning silence.
*
Steve decides to try and burn off some of the nervous energy he's been functioning on for the past few days when he gets back to his room, so pulls on running shorts and a shirt, unearths his iPod from a pile of papers and swings his door back open.
He's not expecting Tony to be standing on the other side, hand raised like he was just going to knock and bottom lip tucked between his teeth.
"What is it now?" Steve asks, weary. He's not strong enough to resist Tony's stupid face, his stupid goatee, his stupid everything.
"Um, here." Tony pretty much shoves Steve's blanket into his arms, then looks a little bereft when he doesn't have anything to occupy his hands anymore. He reaches up and tugs at the lip he was chewing, straightens his shirt, checks his nails. Steve watches this all in tired fascination because Tony is obviously working up to something but Steve just isn't in the mood for a carefully phrased let down.
"Thanks, now-" he starts before Tony can say anything but Tony barrels through his words like Steve speaking unlocked his voice.
"Can I take you to dinner? And yes, I'm asking you out on a date so there's no confusion."
For a second, Steve's hopes soar. He'd actually pictured this very thing thousands of times when back in high school, Tony realizing the error of his ways, the folly in dating everyone but him. He can believe for just the barest moment that stuff like this really happens, that his impossibly handsome, rich and ridiculously charming crush will turn up at his door, metaphorical hat in hand and ask for a chance.
Just as quickly, one word occurs to Steve that derails these thoughts.
Sympathy.
Tony feels sorry for him, feels bad for Steve jumping through the hoops he didn't even realize he was holding. Steve wonders if it was Peggy or Pepper that kicked Tony in the ass, marched him to Steve's door and glared at him until he knocked.
Before Steve can politely decline, Tony adds, "Anywhere you want, you don't even have to tell me where before. You can even come pick me up so you're not left waiting around like some teenage girl."
Tony's standing with his fists clenched, face expectant. There's something open and vulnerable in his expression, so much so that Steve decided that even if Tony was put up to this by well-meaning girls, he deserves to be given a break.
"Okay," Steve says, then inspiration hits. "If you come running with me first."
Tony had been Captain of the lacrosse team, but Steve remembered him complaining bitterly about having to run laps of the high school sports field, that he was only built for short bursts of speed and any sustained running was like torture.
If Tony really, genuinely wants to take Steve out, then he's going to have to work for it.
"I don't run," Tony says flatly. "It's..." Something in Steve's expression must tell Tony he's on dangerous ground because he adds quickly, "Okay, alright. Just let me get changed."
"Cool," Steve says. "See you out front in five."
*
Steve feels bad enough about Tony nearly dying halfway through his normal route that he agrees to dinner. The fact that Tony claimed to be having a stroke really sealed the deal because Steve might've had some issues to work out but he hadn't meant to kill Tony.
That would totally be against his own interests.
He calls Peggy for help in what he should wear because she's always telling him that left to his own devices, he'll die a sad lonely figure mostly because of his sartorial choices, immediately regrets it when Peggy hangs up on him because she's heading over and apparently dragging Darcy along.
"I just wish you had a better dressed roommate whose wardrobe we could raid," Darcy laments, eying the entire contents of Steve's closet that she'd tossed out onto his bed like it's personally offending her. "Even Bruce dresses better than this and... it's Bruce. He always looks like he's wearing whatever stuck to him when he rolled around on his floor."
"It's nice you guys are far enough along in your relationship that you can insult his clothes."
"I know, right?" Darcy says, ignoring Steve's sarcasm and beaming at him.
"Where's your date jeans?" Peggy demands, shouldering Darcy aside.
"I don't have date jeans, do I?" Steve asks, scrunching up his face.
"I bought you date jeans," Peggy says and digs down into the pile of clothing until she does indeed pry free jeans that Steve doesn't ever remember seeing. They're black and they look way too small for him.
"You've been holding out," Darcy accuses, eyes narrowed. "These might actually do your ass the justice it deserves."
"Did you really buy me date jeans and sneak them into my closet?" Steve groans, a hand clamped over his eyes.
"What can I say? I'm an optimist," Peggy says, unrepentant.
"You're incorrigible."
"To-may-to, to-mah-to."
"Just put these on, Rogers. Do the world a favor."
"I don't have a shirt to go with... no, right, of course you bought me a date shirt too," Steve says when Peggy throws a button-down that's also unfamiliar at his head.
For all his grumbling, Steve is ridiculously glad that Peggy did what she did when Tony turns up at his door an hour later and his eyes roam from Steve's head to his toes and then twice more, a salacious grin on his face. If anything, he's only nervous that he might be underdressed because Tony looks about as GQ as he normally does.
Tony surprises him by steering him towards the Student Union building on campus. It's a Wednesday and they show old movies for a dollar. Steve had been meaning to go, always intrigued but hadn't gotten around to it. The movie quality is pretty bad, the sound is in turns ear splitting and too low and the popcorn is stale but Steve has a great time.
"I thought you might take me somewhere they'd need to lend me a jacket," Steve confesses as they sprawl on the large cushions that are provided by the group running the movies.
"Nah," Tony huffs, then ducks his head and even though it's dark Steve would like to think that Tony's smiling when their hands meet in the terrible popcorn.
*
Steve is uncharacteristically bold when Tony walks him back to his room, making a crack about seeing a lady home that Steve socks Tony in the arm for. Steve tugs Tony inside his room and pushes him up against the door, kissing hesitantly but becoming more urgent when Tony makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat that has nothing at all to do with sympathy.
Tony herds Steve backwards to the bed, Steve tugging Tony after him when Tony nudges him down. Steve can feel himself blushing but forgets to be embarrassed about it because Tony is smiling at him in this fascinated, dopey way that Steve could get very used to.
Steve reminds himself to buy Peggy loads of thank you flowers and procure for her all the Nana cookies she could eat when Tony's hands find their way to Steve's date jeans clad ass and he makes another pleased, burring noise that vibrates through the skin of Steve's throat where his lips are pressed.
"I haven't done this... much," Steve admits, because Tony is nipping at and sucking all these places that make Steve's toes curl and he knows that he won't be as skillful.
"Are we... we can slow down... if you need?" Tony offers, although his roaming hands and mouth show no signs of slowing.
"No, it's just, I mean... just that once," Steve says, hates how bare and vulnerable he's making himself with that admission, that Tony will know just how much power he has over Steve.
"You've only been with one guy?" Tony asks and for a blessed few moments, Steve thinks he's joking, that he's playing dumb to lighten the mood. "Hey, what's...?"
"Yeah, just the one guy," Steve says.
"Someone I know?" Tony asks.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not... what's happening here?" Tony asks and suddenly Steve gets it, like a punch to the gut.
Tony has no idea what he's talking about.
"Oh my god, you don't remember," Steve moans, mortified.
"Remember what?" Tony says, frowning and Steve's suddenly thrown back to high school, all the times Tony went out of his way to shove him around, how much worse it was when he didn't, when he just plain ignored Steve. He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter, that the past is the past and they have a chance for a fresh start here but he just can't let it go.
He's that kid standing underneath the bleachers, sketchbook in the mud and heart in his throat all over again.
"I just thought it was... I thought you were... oh my god, all this time you didn't even-" Steve can't blame Tony for not remembering, but what happened had meant so much to him, the aftermath where Tony just started ignoring him meaning even more and he'd always thought that Tony had just been embarrassed or worse, completely bored but to not remember at all, to have simply stopped acknowledging Steve as a human being for no good reason...
"Steve, help me out here. Complete sentences, c'mon, you can do it." Tony's rising from the bed right after Steve scrambles out from underneath him.
"I'm such an idiot," Steve hisses, appalled at himself, having put so much stock in something that meant so little. He herds Tony out of his room, Tony taken by such surprise that he just goes, doesn't even argue until Steve has closed the door in his face.
"Steve, what the hell?" Tony yells at the closed door, thumping it from the other side when Steve turns the lock. Steve knows if he can still hear Tony then he'll just open that door right up again, will be the same insecure boy begging for any scrap of attention so he boots his computer up, hits play on his running music mix which is loud and thumping and just what he needs to drown Tony out.
Despite the music, Steve still hears Tony's parting shot. "You're a crazy person, I hope you and your right hand have a nice life together!"
*
The next morning, Steve feels completely stupid. He's got his phone in his hand, ready to ring Tony and apologize, maybe even explain why he freaked out, but the phone startles him by ringing in his hand. Steve's heart jackhammers, thinking maybe it's Tony but the caller ID says that it's a private number so he answers with a tentative, "Hello?"
Steve listens as the kindly-voiced woman on the other end of the phone tells him about how his Nana had a fall, how the neighbour who regularly checks on her found her. Steve doesn't really hear anything else as he struggles into pants and jams his feet into his boots, only demands to know where she is, which hospital before he hangs up and heads out of the door.
*
Steve's still at his Nana's place a week later when his Aunt Cathy arrives. She's only a few years older than he is, a definite surprise birth for his mother's parents who'd thought their child-rearing days were well and truly over.
They sit down to coffee, make small talk and Steve tells her how his Nana's iron levels were dangerously low because she hadn't been eating properly. It had affected her balance and altered her mental state to such a degree that she'd fallen out of bed and hadn't been able to get back up again.
Cathy worries at a chain around her neck, fingers toying with the crucifix before she blurts, "We want her to come and live with us, in Florida."
Steve's first instinct is to say no, that his Nana loves her house and won't want to leave it. "She's getting better. I'm making sure she's eating properly and she's almost-"
"She had a cold that turned into a flu and because she felt sick she stopped eating. There was no one here when she fell." Cathy's face softens when Steve flinches. "Honey, I'm not blaming you. This is long overdue."
"I can stay here. I can look after her."
"It's just me and Darryl and I'm not working. You have school."
"I've already started the paperwork to drop the semester. I can drop out completely and go back-"
"No. Steve, I've already talked to Nana. She's agreed."
"Of course she would agree," Steve snaps. "She agreed because you told her otherwise I wouldn't go to school, right?"
"Steve, I know you're always going to see her as invincible but she's scared to live on her own now."
"I said I could stay here. Her and Grandpa gave up a lot to look after me. It's my turn."
"You gave up a lot too," Cathy says, something fierce in her eyes. "I should've taken you. I wish I had."
"You were nineteen. From the stories Darryl tells, you could hardly look after yourself," Steve says and Cathy snorts, rolls her eyes.
"Let me do this," Cathy says. "You might feel like it's your turn but it's not, it's mine."
"I don't..." Steve worries his lip between his teeth, torn. He feels selfish to be thinking about going back to school. He gave up a year and it was hard to go back, but he could do it again.
"You said you've already started working on dropping the semester. You could do that, you and Nana could stay here till next semester, spend some quality time. We'll come down and pack everything up after and you can go back to school." Cathy reaches for his hand, squeezes it hard. "Let me do this, please."
*
Steve's mowing the front lawn when Tony just appears practically in front of him.
"Christ, warn a guy!" Steve blurts. He reaches down to turn off the mower and then mops his brow with the shirt he'd tucked into his pocket before slinging it over his shoulder. "Wasn't expecting to see you."
Steve hadn't heard a word from Tony at all since he'd left school. He'd been planning to ring Tony but after the first few days, he'd started thinking that maybe this was the universe's way of telling him to finally get a clue. He hadn't expected Tony to just turn up at his Nana's and planned to have a very stern talk with Peggy about just how Tony managed to turn up without warning.
"I aim to be unpredictable," Tony says and he's so infuriatingly endearing that Steve almost smiles at him, catches it just in time.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asks, because it's a long way to travel for Tony to tell him that he's a crazy person again or perhaps make fun of him for being an inexperienced loser.
"When a guy throws me out of his room when I think we're having a perfectly nice time, I tend to want to know why." From the words, Steve thinks Tony is angry but his tone is mostly confused.
"Happen to you a lot?" Steve can't help but ask, finds himself smiling despite his best intentions.
"Stevie! Are you finished dear?" his Nana calls from the porch, almost rolls his eyes at the way she's looking pointedly between Tony and himself. His Nana is many things but subtle has never been one of them.
"Not quite, Nana," he says because he's obviously only half-done and his Nana's eyesight is perfectly fine.
"Who's your friend?" she asks, now just being plain blatant.
"This is Tony. He was just leaving," Steve says as he pulls his shirt back on.
"Nonsense. Bring him inside. I made roast beef sandwiches."
"Nana, I don’t think-"
"Roast beef is my favorite," Tony says in this completely ingratiating way and slides past Steve, waggling his eyebrows.
"Eloise," his Nana tells Tony and Tony smiles, big and charming. Steve follows them into the house, feeling well and truly ganged up on and not liking it one bit.
*
"What are you doing here?" Steve asks again around his own sandwich. He might've been peeved but he wasn't going to say no to roast beef with thick-cut tomatoes and the bread his Nana had only made that morning, snapping at him that she was perfectly capable when he told her she shouldn't be on her feet so much.
“I wanted to try and offer a blanket apology," Tony says.
"If you don’t know what you’re apologizing for-" Steve starts to say but cuts himself off when Tony just throws his hands up and slumps back in his chair.
"I don’t know what I’m apologizing for! That’s the whole problem. If I knew what happened that night-"
Steve feels his face heat, knows he's going to have to have a very different kind of chat with Peggy if Tony knows that his problem was about the night he'd given Tony's drunk ass a ride home. Peggy knew something had happened that night but Steve had never told her specifics, not embarrassed exactly but more tentative, the whole night a fragile thing in his memory that, if handled too roughly, might collapse.
"No, you don’t have to apologize for what happened that night," Steve finally decides on as a response because Tony doesn't. He might not remember it but Steve does and it's a night he's dwelled on often, sometimes with a hand wrapped around himself when he was alone. "That’s... you don’t have to for that."
"Now I really need to know," Tony says, plaintive. "Can we... do you want to go for a drive?" Tony asks after he's watched Steve polish off his entire glass of lemonade while trying to think of something to say.
Steve nods, leads Tony outside and heads for Tony's car but Tony catches his shirt, tugs until Steve is turned around and facing his old junker. "That... does it drive still?"
"Um, sure?" Steve says because that car would probably become a resting place for wildlife, have a tree grow up through the center of it and still start. When they're both in the car, Steve looks at Tony. "Where to?"
"Just... somewhere else. You know this area better than me."
*
Steve takes Tony to the part of Woodlawn that his Nana calls the seedy side. It’s mostly abandoned houses and stores with boarded over windows. It’s barren but quiet and Steve turns the engine off, swivels in the seat so he can see Tony, watch his profile. “Look, you don’t have to apologise for high school stuff. That’s my own stupid hang up.”
Steve’s waiting for Tony to say something, anything but instead Tony just reaches for him, has this strange little wry twist to his mouth before he reels Steve to him. In between awkward as hell kisses, because this might be a monster of a car but it’s still a car with inconveniently placed steering wheel and gear shift, Tony is mumbling apologies but not about the past, or not about that part of their past.
Instead keeps mumbling over and over again, I should’ve done this sooner.
Steve’s brain offlines for a little while because the hot press of Tony’s mouth makes it hard to form coherent thought, but when he’s able to gather his wits enough, he reaches behind and to the side where the seat release lever is. He yanks it and Tony lets out a bark of startled laughter as the bench seat sags backwards and clicks into place resting against the back seat.
“Jesus, what kind of car is this.” Tony is still chuckling, arms looped around Steve in a warm way.
“I think you called it the Losermobile,” Steve says and when Tony groans and smacks a hand to his face, Steve pokes him in the belly. “No, it’s... I’m not going to make you apologise for the rest of our lives, sorry.”
Steve feels his cheeks heat when he realizes what he’s just said, how casually rest of our lives slipped out of him like it’s a forgone conclusion. Before he can be too mortified, try to find a way to backpedal, Tony is grinning again, affectionate and a little dopey. “Good, because I plan to make so much amends that you’ll forget you were ever mad at me, that I ever mistreated you,” he says against Steve’s mouth, biting at his lips, licking at his teeth.
Steve breaks free of Tony’s mouth and ignores the sounds of protest Tony makes at the loss of contact because he has other ideas, likes the way Tony’s noises devolve into something baser when he works his way down Tony’s body. When he reaches Tony’s jeans and pulls them open, reaches inside, he meets nothing but skin, has to talk because otherwise he might really embarrass himself with how hot that is. “Commando, really? You’re so classy.”
“Laundry service was late,” Tony says, the last word a bitten off moan as Steve wastes no more time, slips his mouth over the tips of Tony’s cock, rubs his tongue on the underside and puts an arm over Tony’s hips when Tony abortively tries to thrust before his fingers are skating across Steve’s forehead and up into his hair, patting in apology.
Steve would make fun of how fast he gets Tony off with his mouth if Tony didn’t just immediately turn the tables and seem to make it his mission to bring Steve off even faster, Steve not able to even get his pants undone the whole way, Tony’s grin infectious and devious.
“If you’re trying to blot my horrible high school memories out of my brain with orgasms then... well done, keep going," Steve says, trying not to laugh.
"Don’t worry, that’s part of the plan," Tony says. "There’ll also be ridiculous gifts and swish dinners and me calling you honey banana in front of our friends."
"Um, yay?" Steve says uncertainly and then they’re both dissolving into giggles, the car warm and close and their bodies slung around each other in a way that Steve could get very used to, hopes he never has to do without.
*
"This one?"
"I'm starting to get the feeling that Phil will be angry at me for watching this," Clint says, sitting with his knees folded under him on Steve's bed. Steve's been trying on different shirts, he and Tony giving the date thing another go, hopefully with a better outcome.
Steve huffs a laugh as he pulls the shirt off that he'd just put on. Clint kind of dry swallows and says, "Really angry."
"Don't front," Steve says and when Clint pulls a smirky, amused face at him he rolls his eyes. "I really can't use phrases like that, right? Tony keeps telling me."
"You're more of a oh gosh and darn kinda guy," Clint agrees.
"Anyway, Phil knows you're devoted. It's kinda sickening actually."
"You're one to talk," Clint huffs.
"Well, all relationships need at least one person head over heels, right?" Steve says, then blinks at Clint when a pair of rolled up socks bounces off his forehead.
"Dude, c'mon. I know thinly veiled insecurity when I hear it."
"Clint," Steve groans but Clint stands up, sorting through the growing pile of discarded shirts on Steve's desk chair until he comes up with the very first one Steve tried on and then rejected. Clint tosses it to Steve and raises his eyebrows.
"Tony Stark is stupid over you. I thought you would have figured that out by now."
"It's not... I know Tony likes me okay? I don't doubt that." Steve can feel his cheeks heat faintly at the memory of the previous days activities. The car, the lingering kisses on his Nana's porch and Tony refusing to leave until Steve had agreed to a do-over date the next night.
"You do though. Man, no matter how many times I tell Phil, he gets that same look sometimes, like he's waiting for me to realize I've made a mistake or something but it's not going to happen."
"That's you guys," Steve says, pulling the shirt on.
"We're uncomfortably similar," Clint says. "It's like looking at a playback of mine and Phil's relationship, including the whole thing where Phil didn't realize that I'd had a massive crush on him in high school too."
"Tony didn't-"
"Uh, yeah, trust me, he did," Clint says and Steve's mouth unhinges, a little shocked.
"What?" he splutters.
"You remember that conversation we had, about unrequited love?" When Steve nods, Clint says, "I wasn't talking about you having a crush on Tony, dummy. I was talking about Tony having a crush on you. I was trying to explain his dickish behaviour without breaking a bro confidence."
"Oh, well, um?" Steve's a little, no, a lot lost for words.
"Don't ruin this by thinking your relationship is one-sided because it isn't," Clint says, smiles when his phone bleeps, the smile getting warm and a little secret when he takes a look, no doubt something from Phil. He tucks his phone back in his pocket, straightens Steve's shirt on his shoulders and pats him. "Don't let Tony push you away because he's a dumbass and will try when he gets scared about how much he cares."
"You're scaring me with this Dear Abby stuff," Steve says and Clint cuffs him on the back of his head when Steve turns at the sound of the doorbell.
His Nana pops her head in and grins at Steve. "Your young man is here."
"Thanks, Nana," he says.
His.
He likes the sound of that.
"No."
"No what?" Steve asks but he knows perfectly well no what by Peggy's expression and he grimaces and tears his eyes away from-
"No to Tony Stark. A million times no."
"But-"
"I thought I was tortured by your protein shakes, endless chin-ups and five in the morning runs so you could kick sand in his face or something, not stare moonily at the back of his head."
"There's no sand. Why would there be sand?" Steve asks, turning back to Peggy and giving her a pout that usually has her handing over her pudding cup. She's not about to be swayed though when it comes to Tony.
"You missed out on precious time with me, I've been without you for a year so you could be beyond all this."
"He hasn't even noticed anyway," Steve grunts and Peggy's eyes narrow in a dangerous way.
"Do not tell me that Tony is what this has all been about all along," she says slowly.
"It's not," Steve says and he doesn't even believe himself so Peggy certainly doesn't.
"That guy made your misery his personal goal all through high school. He pantsed you in front of the entire student body. I humored your destructive crush because I thought someday you would see sense and grow out of it." She makes a frustrated gesture at the, admittedly, much larger entirety of Steve's being. "Not grow into it."
"This isn't high school," Steve says. "I'm not going to make the same mistake."
"You think Tony's going to be different, don't you?" Peggy demands.
"He might be," Steve manages to get out in a small voice. "People change and it's been a while." He watches Tony from across the food hall, the way he throws his head back and laughs at the stunning red haired girl he's sitting with while she shakes her head and looks fondly exasperated.
"Oh my god, I love you, I really do but you can be so dense. You think he's really going to be less of an ass at the place where there are buildings named after his family?" When Steve just stares at his hands, Peggy reaches across and takes one of them. "Hon, you're not shallow enough to be happy about it if he starts treating you differently now anyway, right?"
"Right," Steve finally huffs, although again, doesn't really believe himself.
"What up, losers?" Darcy asks, plopping into the seat next to Peggy. Darcy was someone Peggy had met at the beginning of the previous year during Steve's break and Steve tries not to feel petulantly territorial about his friend. Darcy's cool, quirky and seems to like him so he's going to give her a chance, if grudgingly.
After all, Peggy's allowed to have more than just him as a friend at school. She's not the giant loser who only has the one.
*
Steve had nearly laughed when he'd gotten his dorm assignment. Stark House had been written in black and white on the letter in his welcome packet, mocking him. It wasn't enough that Hamilton University was where Tony went but Steve had to also live in a building named after his family.
He wouldn't have any luck at all if it weren't for the bad kind.
It was the only college close enough to his Nana with a decent enough arts program to make it worthwhile even going. He'd thought about ranging further out, but his Nana, even though she'd rallied, was still pretty frail and he wanted to be able to get to her if she needed him in a decent amount of time.
He knows he doesn't have that much time left with her and he owes her after she and his grandfather took him in without question when his parents died. They gave up the precious few years they'd had left to spend alone together to make room in their lives for him.
Steve was pleasantly surprised to find he had a single. He was extremely lucky. There was a roommate that never showed and even though the housing office kept telling him not to get used to it, that someone else would be assigned, they hadn't appeared yet.
He wouldn't get used to it but he would enjoy it while it lasted. It also meant Peggy had somewhere to escape to when her roommate had her girlfriend over and hung a sock on the door to warn her off. "Do girls actually do that?" Steve had asked, surprised.
"Have girlfriends?" Peggy had asked with a raised eyebrow and Steve had rolled his eyes.
Peggy is in his room now, sprawled across the spare bed on her stomach, ridiculously large and imposing book open in front of her and feet waving in the air. "I met Pepper," she says, apropos of nothing.
"Who?" Steve asks, tucking a pencil into the side of his mouth so he can smudge some lines he's made. He's drawing Peggy, he loves the drape of her, how relaxed she is. She's forever scrunching up her nose when she looks at his sketches of her, says I don't look like that, you're idealizing me and he always huffs at her fondly.
She's someone who is actually, genuinely unaware of how beautiful she is and if Steve were straight he would be in trouble.
"Pepper," Peggy says, like repeating the name is going to magically enable Steve to know who she's talking about. Steve's Nana does that to him all the time, tells him long rambling stories about people he's never heard of. Half the time he finds out they're actually characters on one of the television shows she likes but she details their exploits like they're people she actually knows.
When Steve just stares at her blankly, Peggy huffs. "She's..." Peggy casts about for a moment, like she's unsure how to describe the woman. "She's me for Tony."
"What?"
"She's Tony's me," Peggy repeats, nonsensically. "She introduced herself because she had concerns. We've had a meeting of the minds."
"Should I be worried?"
"Not at all," Peggy says with a grin. "She's lovely, really. She works at the little gallery in town. I met her when I went to buy a frame for that picture you gave me."
"I didn't give you a picture," Steve says with a frown.
"Sorry, did I say give? I meant the picture I rescued from the trash that was breathtaking and you threw out because you're a crazy person with absolutely no taste."
"I tend to agree with you about the taste thing," Steve says dryly. "How else would I have ended up with a friend like you?"
"Meh, you love me and would be lost without me," Peggy scoffs and Steve's silent because the only other response he could have to that would be mushy agreement. He doesn't like rewarding her when she's in this kind of mood.
"So, Pepper's nice?" Steve says. He doesn't mean to be fishing for information about Tony's girlfriend but he can't help himself. Tony had dated indiscriminately through high school, whoever took his fancy for a week to a month, rarely more than that. The people he dated tended to be vapid and pretty but if the girl he was with now was more along the lines of someone that Peggy could see herself being friends with, then chances are it wasn't someone Tony would cast aside.
"Oh my god, you're so transparent," Peggy groans, rolling over and dropping a pillow on her face. "She's not his girlfriend, Jesus, Steve."
"Sorry, force of habit," Steve says, frowning. He knows how ridiculous it is to be infatuated with someone after all this time, especially someone who doesn't give a shit about him. Steve needs to meet someone else, someone not Tony Stark but he's yet to find anyone that measures up.
He needs to stop using Tony Stark as his barometer against whom all other men are measured.
"You're coming to the British Lion with me tonight," Peggy announces, swinging upright and off the bed. "You need a life Steve Rogers, even if I have to force it on you."
*
“Him? Ooh, how about that one?”
Steve sighs, grabs Darcy’s hand to stop her pointing across the crowded bar. “You can’t just pick one out for me.”
“Why not?” Darcy complains. “I have excellent taste in gay men. It’s the straight ones I can’t figure out.” Peggy’s laughing into her soda and Steve pinches her on the arm.
“Ow, dammit, Rogers,” Peggy snorts. “I need the bathroom.”
“That means according to girl-law, I also must go,” Darcy says very solemnly, leaving Steve blessedly alone for a few minutes to nurse his coke and lament his life choices.
He’s watching the crowd, wishing he’d brought a pad and pencil so he had something to do with his hands when a voice says behind him, “Steve? Steve Rogers?” When Steve turns around, he’s looking at Clint Barton. “Hey, it is you,” Clint says, grinning. He catches Steve by surprise by hooking an arm around him and clapping him firmly on the back. Steve returns the embrace awkwardly.
“Clint, hi,” he says as Clint steps back, smiling, looking genuinely pleased.
“I wasn’t sure it was you. Man, you been eating your spinach or what?” Clint gives him what Steve swears is an appreciative once-over and Steve feels his cheeks heat under Clint’s gaze.
“Something like that,” Steve says. “Got tired of all those stiff breezes pushing me over.”
Clint laughs, shaking his head. Steve can see Darcy and Peggy over Clint’s shoulder. Darcy’s giving Steve an enthusiastic thumbs up and Peggy’s trying to steer her to another table. She tosses Steve an eyebrow waggle over her shoulder though. “Do you go here?” Steve asks.
“Nah, just visiting,” Clint says. “I heard you dropped off the map.”
“I had to take a year. Family emergency,” Steve says and Clint nods, sympathetic but not pressing for details.
A guy slides up to them, hooks a possessive arm across Clint’s shoulder. “Who’s this then?” he asks and Steve blinks.
“Phil Coulson?” he says in surprise. He remembers Phil from school. Editor of the school paper, on the debate team, most likely to succeed . Phil squints at him, bristle replaced by confusion and then he’s patting at his pockets. Steve sees out of the corner of his eye Clint roll his eyes and pull a pair of glasses from his own jacket pocket, turn under Phil’s arm so he can slide them on Phil’s face.
“You left them on the side table again,” he says, sounding fond. “What do you do when I’m not here, eh?”
“Stumble around blindly and pretend I know who the hell I’m talking to,” Phil says, equally fond. He then switches his attention back to Steve and does a double-take. “Oh my god, Rogers?”
“I know, insane right?” Clint says. Phil still has his arm across Clint’s shoulders and Steve can’t help but stare at them. He could’ve sworn their paths would never have crossed back in high school and here they are, together.
Steve tries not to let the little stab of jealousy he feels show on his face.
Phil ignores Clint’s comment, offers the hand not holding Clint’s side and Steve shakes. “Good to see you. Are you going to Hamilton?”
“Yeah, I had a year off though,” Steve says. Darcy and Peggy bustle back over, obviously having figured out that they wouldn’t be interrupting anything and now curious. Clint and Phil greet Peggy warmly, Phil not as surprised to see her, must have spotted her on campus previously. Darcy and Clint hit it off immediately, abandoning the small group to play darts shortly after, Darcy dubious enough about Clint’s professed marksmanship that he has to demonstrate.
Peggy disappears when she spots someone she knows and then it’s Steve and Phil sharing a table. “It’s been a while,” Steve says. “You look good.” Phil does. He’s filled out some since school, not as much as Steve himself but there’s muscle definition going on. He also looks more... settled into himself. He’s got a quiet confidence and relaxed charm that Steve always liked.
“You too,” Phil says. “I got a little worried when from across the room it looked like my boyfriend was being chatted up by a Hilfiger model.”
“Please,” Steve huffs, dismissive.
“I just... sometimes I’m just waiting for him to realize...” Phil says, something far-off in his face as his eyes track to Clint. Steve follows his gaze, sees Clint say something to Darcy and then throw a dart, careless, easy grace in his movements. It hits, dead center of course and he holds his arms up in triumph, does a little victory bump and grind with his hips that has Darcy in hysterics.
“What?” Steve asks, gentle.
Phil kind of blinks, shakes his head. “What? Oh, nothing,” he says quickly, the moment broken when Peggy reappears with a heaped bowl of wings and a dish of cheese that she pushes onto the table. Clint appears at Phil’s side, eyes gleaming and Phil lets his knees fall open so Clint can push into the space between them, closer to the table, making grabby hands at the wings.
The night passes in a pleasant blur, Steve a little shocked when Clint insists they all get together again when he’s in town next and Phil putting his number into Steve’s phone after extracting a promise for lunch the following Wednesday. Clint and Phil hug him warmly when it’s time to separate and Steve watches them go, hands held loosely and Clint tipping his head towards Phil as they walk.
“Oh my god, they are the cutest ever,” Darcy gushes, dancing in front of them as he, Peggy and Darcy make their way back to the dorms. Peggy just hooks her arm through Steve’s, looks up at him with a sleepy smile and Steve smiles back.
*
Steve’s feeling pretty good the next morning, thinks maybe he’s finally stopped being truly pathetic and is getting on with his life. He has a duffel load of laundry over one shoulder, is headed to his Nana’s to put a load through before he’s reduced to recycling through his underwear.
He’s totally unprepared to bump into Tony fucking Stark is what it basically boils down to.
“Oh hello,” Tony says, blinking in surprise, but not the same kind that Clint had seeing Steve when he wasn’t expecting to. Tony looks... furtive is the best way to describe it. “Fancy seeing you here,” he adds, his face doing a funny, twitching thing.
“Hi,” Steve says after what he hopes isn’t a weirdly long pause. Tony’s kind of blocking his way, swaying side to side in the hall like he can’t stand still. “Did you... were you looking for someone?” Steve finally asks as Tony flicks his gaze around at anything except Steve.
“Oh, I live here,” Tony says. His tone is oddly formal, like he’s trying for light but missing. Steve’s more surprised at his words though.
“You live here? Don’t you have mansions or something?” he asks, because Tony Stark doesn’t exactly scream dorm-life.
Tony’s face makes another weird expression, then he’s agreeing and listing the mansions. Steve just watches him, struck with the suddenly uncomfortable thought that maybe Tony is being polite, that he knows Steve is familiar but has no idea who he actually is. Tony ends his rambling by saying something about not wanting to live somewhere that was his dad’s.
"Isn't this place pretty much your dad's though?" Steve asks, suddenly feeling the compulsion to be mean, to put a little distance between them. If this is the only interaction he’s going to have with Tony Stark in college, he doesn’t want Tony walking away thinking, oh yeah, he’s that weird, desperate kid that followed me around and he’s still the same. "Y'know, since it's Stark House. He would have paid for it if his name is on the building."
“Oh well, yeah I guess,” Tony says, looking a little deflated and Steve knows he needs to escape before he does something regrettable, say like apologize for being an ass and then beg for Tony to remember him, to please remember who the fuck he is.
“Anyway, I have to...” Steve suddenly remembers the duffle of washing, knows he’s got an excuse that doesn’t look like he’s just running away with his tail between his legs. They awkwardly shuffle around each other and then Steve can hear someone say, “Oh hey, Tony!” and Steve takes the opportunity to run.
*
“I in no way wish to get your hopes up about Tony Stark of all people, but he knows who you are, believe me,” Peggy says, poking him in the forehead with her pen. She’s trying to get him to move but he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to again. His Nana had sent him back to the dorms with a plate full of her special cookies that he’d proceeded to eat all of. He was now in a sugar coma and couldn’t move to save his life. “I can’t believe you didn’t leave even one of your Nana’s cookies for me, that’s just cruel, Rogers,” she adds, huffily.
“I needed all of them to drown my sorrows. The little buggers are resilient,” Steve says, then what Peggy said filters through his sugar haze and he manages to roll over, his stomach gurgling unhappily. “Wait, what?”
“I said, you could have left me one eensy, weensy-“
“No, the other thing,” Steve says, impatiently.
Peggy rolls her eyes, sticks the pen she was poking him with behind her ear. “Tony thinks you hate him and he’s all... depressed about it.”
“Why would he...” Steve tugs at his lower lip, thinks back to their stilted conversation and how stiff he must have come off. “I just thought he didn’t recognize me.”
Peggy pulls a face, like what she’s about to say really pains her. “He’s... the way Pepper talks about him, I might’ve been wrong about his capacity to change, to become less of a douchebag.”
“Are you trying to give me some weird kind of blessing?” Steve asks, amused. Peggy punches him in the belly and he curls around himself, groaning. “Oh god, don’t, unless you really do want some of my Nana’s cookies.”
“Ew,” Peggy says, scurrying backwards, probably wary of any kind of blast zone. “And no, I still think he’s terrible for you.”
“I don’t think you have to worry,” Steve says. He’s been nursing his childhood crush for a long while, he’s starting to think maybe it is time to give it up. Seeing Clint and Phil, how comfortable and right they were together, he wants that, wants to find someone that’ll fit like pieces of a puzzle coming together. He rubs at his nose, gives Peggy a lopsided grin.
“Was just never meant to be, I guess.”
*
“It’s a party in your own dorm, you don’t even have to technically leave your house,” Darcy wheedles, gripping his hand and tugging it.
“I’m not really into parties,” Steve says.
“Haven’t you ever been to one of-“ Darcy cuts herself off, his expression obviously telling her something he doesn’t want her to know. Her hand is pressing against her chest like an old Hollywood starlet expressing shock. “Haven’t you ever been to a party?” she asks.
“When I was smaller. You know, the ones where the parents made the kids invite the whole class,” Steve says, kind of pulls another face that has Darcy’s eyes practically brimming with tears.
“That is the saddest thing I’ve ever heard,” Darcy whimpers. She wraps both arms around his waist, tries with her whole body to get him to shift. “Now you definitely have to come.”
“Really, it’s not my thing,” Steve says, prying her arms from around him, but giving her a squeeze before he does. She’s really grown on him, he’s surprised by how much.
“But going to the library instead? Ugh, it’s too depressing.”
“I can’t stay here, my furniture is practically vibrating across the room,” he says and it’s true. The party’s on the floor above and the music is so loud that Steve can feel it as well as hear it through the walls and floors. “Peggy’s already up there. Go have fun, young person.”
“You sure?” Darcy says, but Steve can tell she’s already mentally scurrying towards the party, even if her body is lingering.
“Yes, go. Be responsible, don’t let a stranger give you a drink and don’t take any candy with lettering on it.”
“You’re like the oldest twenty year old ever,” Darcy says. She’s dawdling out the door when she throws over her shoulder, like an afterthought. “Oh so, do you think that Bruce guy might be up there?”
Steve frowns at her for a moment, before the name clicks. She’s talking about the guy from his floor that looks like he’s in his thirties, doing some kind of insane multiple doctorate or something and still living in a dorm. “Bruce Banner, really?” he says, eyebrows rising.
“Hey, don’t judge. He’s just got a sexy professor thing going.”
“Ugh, don’t say stuff like that to me,” Steve protests. “I’ll be thinking about it when I pass him in the hall.” Darcy’s embarrassed, for the first time Steve’s ever seen so far as he knows so he takes pity on her. “I think I saw him head up about an hour ago.”
“Great, bye!” she says, disappearing in a swirl of dress and scarf and Steve shakes his head, chuckling. Darcy’s pretty great and that Bruce guy kind of deserves a break considering he’s stuck rooming with Thor who keeps putting up petitions about making the dorm nudist friendly.
*
Steve’s had time to get comfortable and have his sketch pad out when someone clears their throat and then promptly falls face-first over a table in front of him in the library.
It’s Tony.
“Are you okay?” Steve asks, snapping his pad shut and rushing over to Tony to help him to his feet. Tony’s swaying, has to put a hand on a chair to stay steady when Steve tentatively lets his hands drop.
Tony mumbles something soddenly that sounds like, “Fine, how’re you?”
“You’re wasted,” Steve observes, winces a little when it sounds like he’s being judgemental. He looks around, expecting other drunken people to have been dragged along in Tony’s wake, but Tony’s alone. “What are you doing here?”
“Cametoseeyouwhydoyouhateme?” Tony says, words mushed together. He’s swaying, squinting at Steve and waiting for an answer, something soft and vulnerable in his expression.
Steve starts to say, “I don’t-” but Tony cuts him off with a long, loud and rather smelly burp right in his face. Tony looks hilariously mortified.
“Oh my god, I’m an ass. Just kick me under the table and forget you ever saw me,” Tony blathers, looking so adorably defeated that Steve can’t help the swell of affection that blooms within him. He knows where the night went the last time he helped a drunken Tony Stark out but he’s matured since then and besides, he’s getting over it, finally putting it behind him. What better way to prove it than to help Tony home like a good friend would.
He will definitely resist the urge to give him a blowjob on the way home unlike the last time.
“Let’s take you somewhere to sleep off whatever’s happening here,” Steve offers, gets an arm around Tony because he really looks like he’s about to keel over again. Tony immediately drops his head on Steve’s shoulder and Steve’s grateful that Tony smells terrible so he can’t enjoy it.
Much.
“My room’s full of drunk people,” Tony whines, warm breath puffing against Steve’s neck.
Great.
“We’ll figure something out,” Steve sighs, resigned. Tony goes to take one step, misses his footing and Steve has to catch him. He doesn’t really want to drag Tony all the way back to Stark House so he steels himself and then gets a shoulder under Tony, hefts upwards, Tony a limp rag doll of a man over his shoulder.
“Oh my god, this is very nice,” Tony says muzzily and before Steve can ask him what he’s talking about, Tony’s hands fit to Steve’s ass, patting it.
Steve shakes his head, amused despite himself. “Thanks, I work out.”
*
Steve thinks about taking Tony back to his own room, but the party is still going strong and besides, Steve wants to put Tony somewhere he can check he’s still breathing every hour or so. Tony chatters groggily the whole way to Steve’s room, his words running together so Steve can’t really make them out. He doesn’t want to when occasionally he hears, “You’re so.... even when you weren’t... I really... why do you have to be...”
Steve can imagine what words are missing from Tony’s diatribe. Boring, straight-laced, stiff.
He dumps Tony on his bed when he reaches his room, pulls his blanket over him after taking off his shoes and socks. Tony kind of burbles and protests, then relaxes. “This smells nice. Soooooft,” Tony sighs, rolling until he’s well and truly burritoed himself.
“Just don’t throw up on that,” Steve warns. “It’s my Nana’s blanket.”
Steve spends an uncomfortable night in his desk chair, listening to Tony snore wetly. Steve’s actually starting to doze, head held up by his hand, when the sounds of Tony coming awake start. Tony rustles around for a few minutes and Steve gives him that time to get his bearings, work out where he is before he says, “Do you need to throw up?”
There’s a pause like Tony’s thinking about it. “Nah, I think I’m good.” He’s sitting up and rubbing a hand through his hair which sets it sticking up in all different directions before he gets his feet on the floor. Steve tries not to stare at Tony so soft and vulnerable looking, squinting around the room. When his gaze finally settles back on Steve he says, “Hey, thanks for making sure I didn’t die in my own puke last night.”
“Any time,” Steve says before he thinks better of it, feels a stupid blush heat his cheeks and possibly the tips of his ears but Tony’s just smiling at him sleepily and Steve can’t help but smile back.
“So, how did I end up with you?” Tony asks and Steve feels his smile freeze on his face. A tiny, obviously delusional part of Steve had started wondering if maybe Tony had sought him out, even left his own party for the express purpose of finding Steve. Tony looking so confused about his current predicament puts paid to that. He’d obviously stumbled into the library at random, run into Steve by chance.
“You were drunk I guess,” Steve says stiffly.
Tony’s still messing around on the bed, rubs his face on Steve’s blanket that he’s still wrapped in. “Sorry if I said anything weird,” he says absently.
“S’fine,” Steve says, takes a deep breathe and decides that he’s not going to let all this bother him. He was doing well, Tony has no idea what he does to Steve so Steve can’t really blame him for it. He’s made a decision to move on and he’s got to do it. He just needs to treat this night like a setback, a little hiccup in his Get Over Tony Stark plan. He decides to be the bigger man, offers, “You want me to walk you back to your room so it doesn't look like you're doing a walk of shame?”
“I’m probably karmically due,” Tony huffs, rolling his eyes and gets up, kicks his socks aside and steps into his shoes without them before offering Steve a little salute and making for the door. Before he steps out, he pauses, says, “Mornin!” to someone brightly, then he’s gone.
Steve blinks, then groans when Peggy’s head appears around his door frame, her eyes wide and shocked.
*
It’s the kind of day that needs his Nana’s meatloaf and mashed potatoes. He gathers a few assorted odds and ends to wash and heads over. He grabs Tony’s socks on impulse, it bothers him probably an unreasonable amount that they’re grey instead of white and have holes in the toes.
He blames his Nana for being so finicky.
“I know that look,” his Nana says when she greets him at the door, grabs him by the shirt and tugs him down so she can lay a big, smacking kiss on his forehead. “I haven’t seen it since you were mooning over that Stark boy.”
“Nana,” Steve grumbles, lets her put brittle arms around his middle to squeeze him.
“You’re wasting away to nothing in that school, do they not feed you?” she huffs, hands darting to his ribs and Steve curls away, laughing helplessly.
“Ugh, quit it,” he says but he lets her herd him over to the kitchen table and set a plate in front of him piled high. He demolishes the lot, rubs his stomach when it feels tight and uncomfortable. His Nana’s watching him from the other chair when he finishes, her eyes as bright and alert as ever. Steve makes his way to the laundry room, starts loading under his Nana’s ever watchful gaze.
“Is it another boy?” his Nana asks, obviously done trying to wait him out.
Steve leans fists on the washing machine, scowls at the cold-hot buttons. “Nah, same one.”
“Oh sweetheart,” she says. “That boy has brought you nothing but heartache.” She looks thoughtful for a second. “You still never explained how he turned you green that one time.”
“I’m moving on. There’s a point where it all becomes pathetic.” Steve wishes he sounded more convincing to his own ears.
“You’ve got your daddy’s heart. He decided he wanted your mother and nothing would dissuade him, not even her.” His Nana looks at him for a minute more before she smiles, lines carving deep in her face. “Besides, your Grandpa and I didn’t raise a quitter.”
*
Steve knows he should toss Tony’s socks into the nearest garbage can but Tony had left his room clad in his Nana’s blanket, the last thing she’d been able to knit before the arthritis really set into her hands and he’s determined to get it back. He clutches the socks, thinks it’s a good enough excuse as any.
Steve has to knock for about ten minutes before there’s the sound of movement. He only persists because the white board tacked to Tony’s door has a message that says, yes, he’s inside and please feel free to wake him. It’s the kind of thing that Peggy would do to him so Steve figures Pepper is to blame.
Tony looks about as bad as Steve was expecting when he finally cracks the door open and looks distrustfully out. His hair is flattened down and his eyes are red-rimmed. It’s kind of... nice to see Tony so human, so bleary. Tony opens the door, in obvious invitation but Steve hesitates, mostly because he sees from his position that there is an actual mirror above Tony’s bed which is so terrible and cliche that it makes Steve’s resolve to just get the hell over himself and Tony Stark a little firmer.
“Don’t you go to class?” Steve asks, amused by the idea that Tony has just buried himself for the day without emerging.
“Rarely.” Tony seems equally amused by the idea that he would. Steve feels a thread of annoyance at that. Tony’s obviously someone that skates through life, never having to try.
“Yet, perfect grades I’m assuming?”
“Of course.” Tony fusses with the shirt he’s wearing for a moment, overlong sleeves hiding his hands. “I’m one of those rare people that can actually give one hundred and ten percent.” Tony crosses to the desk in his room, lowers himself into his chair like an old man. The silence stretches, becomes a little awkward and Steve reflexively closes his fist, feels the socks in his grip and remembers one of the reasons for his errand. He can see his blanket tossed across the end of Tony’s bed carelessly and it pisses him off a little.
He holds the socks out, decides he’s going to offer a trade and then beat a dignified retreat. “Um, anyway, I have...” Steve waggles the socks, watches Tony squint at his hand before levering himself back up off the chair with a groan. Tony takes the bundle, goes to toss them aside but pauses, blinking.
“Hey, weren’t these gray?”
Steve wonders if maybe Tony’s socks were discoloured long enough that he didn’t even remember the original color. “They weren’t supposed to be.”
“Did you actually wash these?” he asks, and there’s something in Tony’s tone that makes Steve’s hackles rise. He’s smirking, the way he used to in high school. “Did you do laundry for me?”
Steve feels like he’s time-travelled back to when he was sixteen, awkward and eternally humiliated when faced with Tony and his special brand of rough and rude charm. He feels off-kilter and so very, very stupid. "I didn't do laundry for you. I was doing laundry and I tossed your socks in too because they were about to get up and walk out of my room by themselves, probably flipping me off for good measure considering who they belong to."
The problem is, Steve can hear what he’s saying and it sounds completely lame.
"Didn't these have holes in them? Oh my god, Steve, you darned my socks?"
Scratch that. When Tony says it out loud is when Steve wants the world to open up and swallow him down. "It would've driven me crazy, alright?" Steve sounds annoyingly shrill to his own ears and Tony is just staring at him, kind of the same way he did right before he knocked Steve’s sketch book out of his hands and into the mud. "Look, sorry, I thought you were done being a jerk to me, but obviously not.”
Steve retreats to the sound of Tony’s damning silence.
*
Steve decides to try and burn off some of the nervous energy he's been functioning on for the past few days when he gets back to his room, so pulls on running shorts and a shirt, unearths his iPod from a pile of papers and swings his door back open.
He's not expecting Tony to be standing on the other side, hand raised like he was just going to knock and bottom lip tucked between his teeth.
"What is it now?" Steve asks, weary. He's not strong enough to resist Tony's stupid face, his stupid goatee, his stupid everything.
"Um, here." Tony pretty much shoves Steve's blanket into his arms, then looks a little bereft when he doesn't have anything to occupy his hands anymore. He reaches up and tugs at the lip he was chewing, straightens his shirt, checks his nails. Steve watches this all in tired fascination because Tony is obviously working up to something but Steve just isn't in the mood for a carefully phrased let down.
"Thanks, now-" he starts before Tony can say anything but Tony barrels through his words like Steve speaking unlocked his voice.
"Can I take you to dinner? And yes, I'm asking you out on a date so there's no confusion."
For a second, Steve's hopes soar. He'd actually pictured this very thing thousands of times when back in high school, Tony realizing the error of his ways, the folly in dating everyone but him. He can believe for just the barest moment that stuff like this really happens, that his impossibly handsome, rich and ridiculously charming crush will turn up at his door, metaphorical hat in hand and ask for a chance.
Just as quickly, one word occurs to Steve that derails these thoughts.
Sympathy.
Tony feels sorry for him, feels bad for Steve jumping through the hoops he didn't even realize he was holding. Steve wonders if it was Peggy or Pepper that kicked Tony in the ass, marched him to Steve's door and glared at him until he knocked.
Before Steve can politely decline, Tony adds, "Anywhere you want, you don't even have to tell me where before. You can even come pick me up so you're not left waiting around like some teenage girl."
Tony's standing with his fists clenched, face expectant. There's something open and vulnerable in his expression, so much so that Steve decided that even if Tony was put up to this by well-meaning girls, he deserves to be given a break.
"Okay," Steve says, then inspiration hits. "If you come running with me first."
Tony had been Captain of the lacrosse team, but Steve remembered him complaining bitterly about having to run laps of the high school sports field, that he was only built for short bursts of speed and any sustained running was like torture.
If Tony really, genuinely wants to take Steve out, then he's going to have to work for it.
"I don't run," Tony says flatly. "It's..." Something in Steve's expression must tell Tony he's on dangerous ground because he adds quickly, "Okay, alright. Just let me get changed."
"Cool," Steve says. "See you out front in five."
*
Steve feels bad enough about Tony nearly dying halfway through his normal route that he agrees to dinner. The fact that Tony claimed to be having a stroke really sealed the deal because Steve might've had some issues to work out but he hadn't meant to kill Tony.
That would totally be against his own interests.
He calls Peggy for help in what he should wear because she's always telling him that left to his own devices, he'll die a sad lonely figure mostly because of his sartorial choices, immediately regrets it when Peggy hangs up on him because she's heading over and apparently dragging Darcy along.
"I just wish you had a better dressed roommate whose wardrobe we could raid," Darcy laments, eying the entire contents of Steve's closet that she'd tossed out onto his bed like it's personally offending her. "Even Bruce dresses better than this and... it's Bruce. He always looks like he's wearing whatever stuck to him when he rolled around on his floor."
"It's nice you guys are far enough along in your relationship that you can insult his clothes."
"I know, right?" Darcy says, ignoring Steve's sarcasm and beaming at him.
"Where's your date jeans?" Peggy demands, shouldering Darcy aside.
"I don't have date jeans, do I?" Steve asks, scrunching up his face.
"I bought you date jeans," Peggy says and digs down into the pile of clothing until she does indeed pry free jeans that Steve doesn't ever remember seeing. They're black and they look way too small for him.
"You've been holding out," Darcy accuses, eyes narrowed. "These might actually do your ass the justice it deserves."
"Did you really buy me date jeans and sneak them into my closet?" Steve groans, a hand clamped over his eyes.
"What can I say? I'm an optimist," Peggy says, unrepentant.
"You're incorrigible."
"To-may-to, to-mah-to."
"Just put these on, Rogers. Do the world a favor."
"I don't have a shirt to go with... no, right, of course you bought me a date shirt too," Steve says when Peggy throws a button-down that's also unfamiliar at his head.
For all his grumbling, Steve is ridiculously glad that Peggy did what she did when Tony turns up at his door an hour later and his eyes roam from Steve's head to his toes and then twice more, a salacious grin on his face. If anything, he's only nervous that he might be underdressed because Tony looks about as GQ as he normally does.
Tony surprises him by steering him towards the Student Union building on campus. It's a Wednesday and they show old movies for a dollar. Steve had been meaning to go, always intrigued but hadn't gotten around to it. The movie quality is pretty bad, the sound is in turns ear splitting and too low and the popcorn is stale but Steve has a great time.
"I thought you might take me somewhere they'd need to lend me a jacket," Steve confesses as they sprawl on the large cushions that are provided by the group running the movies.
"Nah," Tony huffs, then ducks his head and even though it's dark Steve would like to think that Tony's smiling when their hands meet in the terrible popcorn.
*
Steve is uncharacteristically bold when Tony walks him back to his room, making a crack about seeing a lady home that Steve socks Tony in the arm for. Steve tugs Tony inside his room and pushes him up against the door, kissing hesitantly but becoming more urgent when Tony makes a pleased noise in the back of his throat that has nothing at all to do with sympathy.
Tony herds Steve backwards to the bed, Steve tugging Tony after him when Tony nudges him down. Steve can feel himself blushing but forgets to be embarrassed about it because Tony is smiling at him in this fascinated, dopey way that Steve could get very used to.
Steve reminds himself to buy Peggy loads of thank you flowers and procure for her all the Nana cookies she could eat when Tony's hands find their way to Steve's date jeans clad ass and he makes another pleased, burring noise that vibrates through the skin of Steve's throat where his lips are pressed.
"I haven't done this... much," Steve admits, because Tony is nipping at and sucking all these places that make Steve's toes curl and he knows that he won't be as skillful.
"Are we... we can slow down... if you need?" Tony offers, although his roaming hands and mouth show no signs of slowing.
"No, it's just, I mean... just that once," Steve says, hates how bare and vulnerable he's making himself with that admission, that Tony will know just how much power he has over Steve.
"You've only been with one guy?" Tony asks and for a blessed few moments, Steve thinks he's joking, that he's playing dumb to lighten the mood. "Hey, what's...?"
"Yeah, just the one guy," Steve says.
"Someone I know?" Tony asks.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not... what's happening here?" Tony asks and suddenly Steve gets it, like a punch to the gut.
Tony has no idea what he's talking about.
"Oh my god, you don't remember," Steve moans, mortified.
"Remember what?" Tony says, frowning and Steve's suddenly thrown back to high school, all the times Tony went out of his way to shove him around, how much worse it was when he didn't, when he just plain ignored Steve. He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter, that the past is the past and they have a chance for a fresh start here but he just can't let it go.
He's that kid standing underneath the bleachers, sketchbook in the mud and heart in his throat all over again.
"I just thought it was... I thought you were... oh my god, all this time you didn't even-" Steve can't blame Tony for not remembering, but what happened had meant so much to him, the aftermath where Tony just started ignoring him meaning even more and he'd always thought that Tony had just been embarrassed or worse, completely bored but to not remember at all, to have simply stopped acknowledging Steve as a human being for no good reason...
"Steve, help me out here. Complete sentences, c'mon, you can do it." Tony's rising from the bed right after Steve scrambles out from underneath him.
"I'm such an idiot," Steve hisses, appalled at himself, having put so much stock in something that meant so little. He herds Tony out of his room, Tony taken by such surprise that he just goes, doesn't even argue until Steve has closed the door in his face.
"Steve, what the hell?" Tony yells at the closed door, thumping it from the other side when Steve turns the lock. Steve knows if he can still hear Tony then he'll just open that door right up again, will be the same insecure boy begging for any scrap of attention so he boots his computer up, hits play on his running music mix which is loud and thumping and just what he needs to drown Tony out.
Despite the music, Steve still hears Tony's parting shot. "You're a crazy person, I hope you and your right hand have a nice life together!"
*
The next morning, Steve feels completely stupid. He's got his phone in his hand, ready to ring Tony and apologize, maybe even explain why he freaked out, but the phone startles him by ringing in his hand. Steve's heart jackhammers, thinking maybe it's Tony but the caller ID says that it's a private number so he answers with a tentative, "Hello?"
Steve listens as the kindly-voiced woman on the other end of the phone tells him about how his Nana had a fall, how the neighbour who regularly checks on her found her. Steve doesn't really hear anything else as he struggles into pants and jams his feet into his boots, only demands to know where she is, which hospital before he hangs up and heads out of the door.
*
Steve's still at his Nana's place a week later when his Aunt Cathy arrives. She's only a few years older than he is, a definite surprise birth for his mother's parents who'd thought their child-rearing days were well and truly over.
They sit down to coffee, make small talk and Steve tells her how his Nana's iron levels were dangerously low because she hadn't been eating properly. It had affected her balance and altered her mental state to such a degree that she'd fallen out of bed and hadn't been able to get back up again.
Cathy worries at a chain around her neck, fingers toying with the crucifix before she blurts, "We want her to come and live with us, in Florida."
Steve's first instinct is to say no, that his Nana loves her house and won't want to leave it. "She's getting better. I'm making sure she's eating properly and she's almost-"
"She had a cold that turned into a flu and because she felt sick she stopped eating. There was no one here when she fell." Cathy's face softens when Steve flinches. "Honey, I'm not blaming you. This is long overdue."
"I can stay here. I can look after her."
"It's just me and Darryl and I'm not working. You have school."
"I've already started the paperwork to drop the semester. I can drop out completely and go back-"
"No. Steve, I've already talked to Nana. She's agreed."
"Of course she would agree," Steve snaps. "She agreed because you told her otherwise I wouldn't go to school, right?"
"Steve, I know you're always going to see her as invincible but she's scared to live on her own now."
"I said I could stay here. Her and Grandpa gave up a lot to look after me. It's my turn."
"You gave up a lot too," Cathy says, something fierce in her eyes. "I should've taken you. I wish I had."
"You were nineteen. From the stories Darryl tells, you could hardly look after yourself," Steve says and Cathy snorts, rolls her eyes.
"Let me do this," Cathy says. "You might feel like it's your turn but it's not, it's mine."
"I don't..." Steve worries his lip between his teeth, torn. He feels selfish to be thinking about going back to school. He gave up a year and it was hard to go back, but he could do it again.
"You said you've already started working on dropping the semester. You could do that, you and Nana could stay here till next semester, spend some quality time. We'll come down and pack everything up after and you can go back to school." Cathy reaches for his hand, squeezes it hard. "Let me do this, please."
*
Steve's mowing the front lawn when Tony just appears practically in front of him.
"Christ, warn a guy!" Steve blurts. He reaches down to turn off the mower and then mops his brow with the shirt he'd tucked into his pocket before slinging it over his shoulder. "Wasn't expecting to see you."
Steve hadn't heard a word from Tony at all since he'd left school. He'd been planning to ring Tony but after the first few days, he'd started thinking that maybe this was the universe's way of telling him to finally get a clue. He hadn't expected Tony to just turn up at his Nana's and planned to have a very stern talk with Peggy about just how Tony managed to turn up without warning.
"I aim to be unpredictable," Tony says and he's so infuriatingly endearing that Steve almost smiles at him, catches it just in time.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asks, because it's a long way to travel for Tony to tell him that he's a crazy person again or perhaps make fun of him for being an inexperienced loser.
"When a guy throws me out of his room when I think we're having a perfectly nice time, I tend to want to know why." From the words, Steve thinks Tony is angry but his tone is mostly confused.
"Happen to you a lot?" Steve can't help but ask, finds himself smiling despite his best intentions.
"Stevie! Are you finished dear?" his Nana calls from the porch, almost rolls his eyes at the way she's looking pointedly between Tony and himself. His Nana is many things but subtle has never been one of them.
"Not quite, Nana," he says because he's obviously only half-done and his Nana's eyesight is perfectly fine.
"Who's your friend?" she asks, now just being plain blatant.
"This is Tony. He was just leaving," Steve says as he pulls his shirt back on.
"Nonsense. Bring him inside. I made roast beef sandwiches."
"Nana, I don’t think-"
"Roast beef is my favorite," Tony says in this completely ingratiating way and slides past Steve, waggling his eyebrows.
"Eloise," his Nana tells Tony and Tony smiles, big and charming. Steve follows them into the house, feeling well and truly ganged up on and not liking it one bit.
*
"What are you doing here?" Steve asks again around his own sandwich. He might've been peeved but he wasn't going to say no to roast beef with thick-cut tomatoes and the bread his Nana had only made that morning, snapping at him that she was perfectly capable when he told her she shouldn't be on her feet so much.
“I wanted to try and offer a blanket apology," Tony says.
"If you don’t know what you’re apologizing for-" Steve starts to say but cuts himself off when Tony just throws his hands up and slumps back in his chair.
"I don’t know what I’m apologizing for! That’s the whole problem. If I knew what happened that night-"
Steve feels his face heat, knows he's going to have to have a very different kind of chat with Peggy if Tony knows that his problem was about the night he'd given Tony's drunk ass a ride home. Peggy knew something had happened that night but Steve had never told her specifics, not embarrassed exactly but more tentative, the whole night a fragile thing in his memory that, if handled too roughly, might collapse.
"No, you don’t have to apologize for what happened that night," Steve finally decides on as a response because Tony doesn't. He might not remember it but Steve does and it's a night he's dwelled on often, sometimes with a hand wrapped around himself when he was alone. "That’s... you don’t have to for that."
"Now I really need to know," Tony says, plaintive. "Can we... do you want to go for a drive?" Tony asks after he's watched Steve polish off his entire glass of lemonade while trying to think of something to say.
Steve nods, leads Tony outside and heads for Tony's car but Tony catches his shirt, tugs until Steve is turned around and facing his old junker. "That... does it drive still?"
"Um, sure?" Steve says because that car would probably become a resting place for wildlife, have a tree grow up through the center of it and still start. When they're both in the car, Steve looks at Tony. "Where to?"
"Just... somewhere else. You know this area better than me."
*
Steve takes Tony to the part of Woodlawn that his Nana calls the seedy side. It’s mostly abandoned houses and stores with boarded over windows. It’s barren but quiet and Steve turns the engine off, swivels in the seat so he can see Tony, watch his profile. “Look, you don’t have to apologise for high school stuff. That’s my own stupid hang up.”
Steve’s waiting for Tony to say something, anything but instead Tony just reaches for him, has this strange little wry twist to his mouth before he reels Steve to him. In between awkward as hell kisses, because this might be a monster of a car but it’s still a car with inconveniently placed steering wheel and gear shift, Tony is mumbling apologies but not about the past, or not about that part of their past.
Instead keeps mumbling over and over again, I should’ve done this sooner.
Steve’s brain offlines for a little while because the hot press of Tony’s mouth makes it hard to form coherent thought, but when he’s able to gather his wits enough, he reaches behind and to the side where the seat release lever is. He yanks it and Tony lets out a bark of startled laughter as the bench seat sags backwards and clicks into place resting against the back seat.
“Jesus, what kind of car is this.” Tony is still chuckling, arms looped around Steve in a warm way.
“I think you called it the Losermobile,” Steve says and when Tony groans and smacks a hand to his face, Steve pokes him in the belly. “No, it’s... I’m not going to make you apologise for the rest of our lives, sorry.”
Steve feels his cheeks heat when he realizes what he’s just said, how casually rest of our lives slipped out of him like it’s a forgone conclusion. Before he can be too mortified, try to find a way to backpedal, Tony is grinning again, affectionate and a little dopey. “Good, because I plan to make so much amends that you’ll forget you were ever mad at me, that I ever mistreated you,” he says against Steve’s mouth, biting at his lips, licking at his teeth.
Steve breaks free of Tony’s mouth and ignores the sounds of protest Tony makes at the loss of contact because he has other ideas, likes the way Tony’s noises devolve into something baser when he works his way down Tony’s body. When he reaches Tony’s jeans and pulls them open, reaches inside, he meets nothing but skin, has to talk because otherwise he might really embarrass himself with how hot that is. “Commando, really? You’re so classy.”
“Laundry service was late,” Tony says, the last word a bitten off moan as Steve wastes no more time, slips his mouth over the tips of Tony’s cock, rubs his tongue on the underside and puts an arm over Tony’s hips when Tony abortively tries to thrust before his fingers are skating across Steve’s forehead and up into his hair, patting in apology.
Steve would make fun of how fast he gets Tony off with his mouth if Tony didn’t just immediately turn the tables and seem to make it his mission to bring Steve off even faster, Steve not able to even get his pants undone the whole way, Tony’s grin infectious and devious.
“If you’re trying to blot my horrible high school memories out of my brain with orgasms then... well done, keep going," Steve says, trying not to laugh.
"Don’t worry, that’s part of the plan," Tony says. "There’ll also be ridiculous gifts and swish dinners and me calling you honey banana in front of our friends."
"Um, yay?" Steve says uncertainly and then they’re both dissolving into giggles, the car warm and close and their bodies slung around each other in a way that Steve could get very used to, hopes he never has to do without.
*
"This one?"
"I'm starting to get the feeling that Phil will be angry at me for watching this," Clint says, sitting with his knees folded under him on Steve's bed. Steve's been trying on different shirts, he and Tony giving the date thing another go, hopefully with a better outcome.
Steve huffs a laugh as he pulls the shirt off that he'd just put on. Clint kind of dry swallows and says, "Really angry."
"Don't front," Steve says and when Clint pulls a smirky, amused face at him he rolls his eyes. "I really can't use phrases like that, right? Tony keeps telling me."
"You're more of a oh gosh and darn kinda guy," Clint agrees.
"Anyway, Phil knows you're devoted. It's kinda sickening actually."
"You're one to talk," Clint huffs.
"Well, all relationships need at least one person head over heels, right?" Steve says, then blinks at Clint when a pair of rolled up socks bounces off his forehead.
"Dude, c'mon. I know thinly veiled insecurity when I hear it."
"Clint," Steve groans but Clint stands up, sorting through the growing pile of discarded shirts on Steve's desk chair until he comes up with the very first one Steve tried on and then rejected. Clint tosses it to Steve and raises his eyebrows.
"Tony Stark is stupid over you. I thought you would have figured that out by now."
"It's not... I know Tony likes me okay? I don't doubt that." Steve can feel his cheeks heat faintly at the memory of the previous days activities. The car, the lingering kisses on his Nana's porch and Tony refusing to leave until Steve had agreed to a do-over date the next night.
"You do though. Man, no matter how many times I tell Phil, he gets that same look sometimes, like he's waiting for me to realize I've made a mistake or something but it's not going to happen."
"That's you guys," Steve says, pulling the shirt on.
"We're uncomfortably similar," Clint says. "It's like looking at a playback of mine and Phil's relationship, including the whole thing where Phil didn't realize that I'd had a massive crush on him in high school too."
"Tony didn't-"
"Uh, yeah, trust me, he did," Clint says and Steve's mouth unhinges, a little shocked.
"What?" he splutters.
"You remember that conversation we had, about unrequited love?" When Steve nods, Clint says, "I wasn't talking about you having a crush on Tony, dummy. I was talking about Tony having a crush on you. I was trying to explain his dickish behaviour without breaking a bro confidence."
"Oh, well, um?" Steve's a little, no, a lot lost for words.
"Don't ruin this by thinking your relationship is one-sided because it isn't," Clint says, smiles when his phone bleeps, the smile getting warm and a little secret when he takes a look, no doubt something from Phil. He tucks his phone back in his pocket, straightens Steve's shirt on his shoulders and pats him. "Don't let Tony push you away because he's a dumbass and will try when he gets scared about how much he cares."
"You're scaring me with this Dear Abby stuff," Steve says and Clint cuffs him on the back of his head when Steve turns at the sound of the doorbell.
His Nana pops her head in and grins at Steve. "Your young man is here."
"Thanks, Nana," he says.
His.
He likes the sound of that.