<--it's still sort of a comic and um, there is a captain, so...close near enough
Sooooo. Remember how earlier I said I was going to write JGL/T-Hard?
...somehow I wrote almost a thousand words of Tony/Steve Avengers preslash/headcanon instead. ...Fuck. I don't even have an Avengers icon.
I don’t know why, but in my headcanon Tony never had any Captain America memorabilia as a kid. He didn’t idolize him, read the comics, or even think about Captain America if he could help it, and always ignored the other kids with their trashcan shields and blue ski masks because they made him angry.
So when he sees Captain America that’s exactly who he’s seeing-not Steve Rogers, not even a nifty biological experiment/war hero-and he’s hostile. Clipped, cutting sarcasm, all his walls up, and that’s what Steve responds to when he says, “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?” and Tony quips back, “A genius billionaire playboy philanthropist,” on autopilot, not even because he’s getting some enjoyment out of being the smartest mouth in the room.
Steve backs off and turns away, rebuffed and still reeling from culture shock and looking more like that scrawny kid from Brooklyn Tony’s seen in the files than Tony has seen from Captain America in any of the paraphernalia shoved in his face over the years. And Tony blurts, “My dad never stopped searching for you, you know.”
And Steve turns around, confused and wary and not sure if this is the truth.
Tony has his hands shoved in his pockets, but he shrugs anyway, and reaches up in a nervous tick to rub at his eyebrow before he can catch himself. “Pretty sure my sixth, eighth, and twelfth birthdays directly coincided with Captain America expeditions.”
“Oh,” Steve says, kind of quiet. Tony can see him try to rally and it’s sweet. “Well, I guess-not too many kids got to celebrate their birthdays in the Arctic?”
“Oh no, I was at home,” Tony corrects, easy enough. “With the nanny. When she could find me-I’ve been told I was a terror growing up, hard to believe, I know,” he adds before Steve can; he’s good at making deprecating remarks about himself so other people don’t have to just think it.
“My point is, staggering daddy issues aside,” Tony says, flippant because flippancy is the best way to say things he means without thinking about them at all, “I do want to be part of the Avengers, and that means I’d be willing to acknowledge that my resentment towards Captain America should not necessarily translate into harboring a giant grudge towards you, personally.”
See, it doesn’t hurt if he rips the bandaid off fast, and he can put off feeling the residual sting until later. He holds out his hand, offering to shake and Steve stares at a second too long; Tony starts to drop it, reactor core burning uncomfortably for some reason, and then Steve grabs it with both hands, more of a clasp than anything else. Tony feels the back of his neck get hot.
“I really-“ Steve starts, then stops, like he’s got a rotary file of responses and none of them are quite working. “Thank you,” he settles on, finally, and Jesus, Tony thinks about these blue eyes staring up at him from the skinny young man he used to be before the serum and his brain short circuits a little.
“I don’t want to fight with anyone,” Steve says, and then adds with a pretty little flush, “except, uh, you know. Evil-doers.”
“Likewise,” Tony says around the start of what feels like a genuine grin.
Steve matches it, then sobers a little. “I want you as my ally, Tony. I think you’d make a good addition to the team if you work on collaborating with people instead of shutting them down.”
Yeah, that’s one thing Tony has never learned how to do, but it’s what happens when you are literally the smartest person you know. “Do you mean Iron-Man-the-suit would make a good addition?” he asks, because Fury has taught him how to be careful in assuming these things. “Or me?”
Steve gives him a weird little look, and it shouldn’t have taken Tony this long to realize they’re still holding hands. “Tony,” Steve says-the first time he’s called him anything and it’s Tony’s first name-“I’m pretty sure you’re one and the same.”
He smacks Tony on the shoulder before he turns to leave, very buddy-buddy, sort of smiling now but kind of troubled, and Tony’s endlessly turning brain grins to a complete halt. Oh fuck.
(Then 20k later there is porn and a happy ending I’M NOT WRITING IT, I HAVE THINGS THAT NEED DOING. Lajdflkd)
...somehow I wrote almost a thousand words of Tony/Steve Avengers preslash/headcanon instead. ...Fuck. I don't even have an Avengers icon.
I don’t know why, but in my headcanon Tony never had any Captain America memorabilia as a kid. He didn’t idolize him, read the comics, or even think about Captain America if he could help it, and always ignored the other kids with their trashcan shields and blue ski masks because they made him angry.
So when he sees Captain America that’s exactly who he’s seeing-not Steve Rogers, not even a nifty biological experiment/war hero-and he’s hostile. Clipped, cutting sarcasm, all his walls up, and that’s what Steve responds to when he says, “Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?” and Tony quips back, “A genius billionaire playboy philanthropist,” on autopilot, not even because he’s getting some enjoyment out of being the smartest mouth in the room.
Steve backs off and turns away, rebuffed and still reeling from culture shock and looking more like that scrawny kid from Brooklyn Tony’s seen in the files than Tony has seen from Captain America in any of the paraphernalia shoved in his face over the years. And Tony blurts, “My dad never stopped searching for you, you know.”
And Steve turns around, confused and wary and not sure if this is the truth.
Tony has his hands shoved in his pockets, but he shrugs anyway, and reaches up in a nervous tick to rub at his eyebrow before he can catch himself. “Pretty sure my sixth, eighth, and twelfth birthdays directly coincided with Captain America expeditions.”
“Oh,” Steve says, kind of quiet. Tony can see him try to rally and it’s sweet. “Well, I guess-not too many kids got to celebrate their birthdays in the Arctic?”
“Oh no, I was at home,” Tony corrects, easy enough. “With the nanny. When she could find me-I’ve been told I was a terror growing up, hard to believe, I know,” he adds before Steve can; he’s good at making deprecating remarks about himself so other people don’t have to just think it.
“My point is, staggering daddy issues aside,” Tony says, flippant because flippancy is the best way to say things he means without thinking about them at all, “I do want to be part of the Avengers, and that means I’d be willing to acknowledge that my resentment towards Captain America should not necessarily translate into harboring a giant grudge towards you, personally.”
See, it doesn’t hurt if he rips the bandaid off fast, and he can put off feeling the residual sting until later. He holds out his hand, offering to shake and Steve stares at a second too long; Tony starts to drop it, reactor core burning uncomfortably for some reason, and then Steve grabs it with both hands, more of a clasp than anything else. Tony feels the back of his neck get hot.
“I really-“ Steve starts, then stops, like he’s got a rotary file of responses and none of them are quite working. “Thank you,” he settles on, finally, and Jesus, Tony thinks about these blue eyes staring up at him from the skinny young man he used to be before the serum and his brain short circuits a little.
“I don’t want to fight with anyone,” Steve says, and then adds with a pretty little flush, “except, uh, you know. Evil-doers.”
“Likewise,” Tony says around the start of what feels like a genuine grin.
Steve matches it, then sobers a little. “I want you as my ally, Tony. I think you’d make a good addition to the team if you work on collaborating with people instead of shutting them down.”
Yeah, that’s one thing Tony has never learned how to do, but it’s what happens when you are literally the smartest person you know. “Do you mean Iron-Man-the-suit would make a good addition?” he asks, because Fury has taught him how to be careful in assuming these things. “Or me?”
Steve gives him a weird little look, and it shouldn’t have taken Tony this long to realize they’re still holding hands. “Tony,” Steve says-the first time he’s called him anything and it’s Tony’s first name-“I’m pretty sure you’re one and the same.”
He smacks Tony on the shoulder before he turns to leave, very buddy-buddy, sort of smiling now but kind of troubled, and Tony’s endlessly turning brain grins to a complete halt. Oh fuck.
(Then 20k later there is porn and a happy ending I’M NOT WRITING IT, I HAVE THINGS THAT NEED DOING. Lajdflkd)