Over You [PG13?] Steve/Tony
I AM NOT SURE I WOULD CALL THIS A FIC also i'm too lazy to do up a header. Super hastily written late last night, coming off an essay writing binge. Not entirely sure how much sense it makes. But anyway.
Tony/Steve (vague Steve/Bucky, Tony/Rhodey if you squint?) 1.5k, cuddles and angst, to the tune of Over You by David Francey.
It’s almost two a.m., and Tony is going to call him out.
Steve can’t even find it in himself to run anymore-there is nowhere to run except off the edge of this building, and Steve can’t bring himself to ruin one of Tony’s parties. Compared to some of them this is almost tasteful, with soft blue and purple lights reflecting off the pool onto Tony’s guests, Rhodey’s friends. They carry the bones of the military even without their uniforms, and Steve finds his eyes can’t stay on them for long, slipping off their edges like gloved fingers on warped metal bars.
“There you are!” Tony says, throwing himself down next to Steve so hard their hips collide-he isn’t drunk, though, despite the fruity concoction cradled in the palm of his hand. Steve knows because he…he just does, the way he knows Tony is pretending for his benefit, because maybe he thinks Steve will open up better if there’s a chance Tony won’t remember in the morning.
“I thought you would be-woo.” Tony makes a vague gesture at the assembled crowd, and Steve plays along, raises both his eyebrows. “Not ‘cause you’re, you know, usually the life of the party around here, because that’s me, but I thought with the gung-ho military types you would. Mesh.” He laces his fingers together around the shape of his glass.
Steve has to make himself look away, but finds he has nowhere else to look but Tony. “…Nah,” he says after a minute, then shakes his head when Tony leans in close and niggles, “Nah? Nah, Cap? Nada? Not one of those soldiers tickles your fancy even a little? Not even Corporal Higgins, with the legs up there? I saw her give you the thrice-over, Rogers, and there are, you know, there are other people here who’d trip over themselves to talk to you, just give you a little company, if you like.”
His tone isn’t even lascivious at the end, which is a true feat for Tony Stark. He just looks concerned, now, most pretenses of drunkenness dropped except for the unconscious swaying which keeps him brushing up against Steve’s side.
“Have you seen Rhodey tonight?” Tony asks, and Steve realizes he’s been quiet too long, too caught up in the smell of Tony’s skin where the night breezes keep drifting it his way-whiskey and metal and fruity something and sweat. Steve flinches. Hard.
“Yeah, he said he hadn’t seen you yet,” Tony drawls carefully, eyes too damn focused to be anything but mostly sober. “He do something to hurt your feelings? I know all sorts of dirty blackmail we can get him back with, seriously, don’t worry about it. One time in Madrid-“
“Tony,” Steve finally chokes out. “No, I. Rhodey’s fine. He’s fine by me. Don’t tell me about Madrid.”
Tony is quiet for a moment, in that way where he really isn’t-Steve can hear the wheels grinding in his noggin, or the computer chips whizzing or whatever it is these days.
“It’s not anything-it’s not Rhodey’s fault,” Steve says before Tony starts sparking like one of his suits when it takes a hit too hard. “I just.”
And oh. Shit. Maybe the buzzing wasn’t in Tony’s head at all, because something is painfully out of whack in Steve’s chest, like a hand punched through and gave his ribcage a shake. “I can’t,” Steve hears himself say, shocked and ashamed, “I can’t. Bucky.”
“Oh fuck,” he hears Tony say, and then there’s a clatter of glass being set on the concrete at their feet, and a hand on his arm, tentative at first then gripping tighter when Steve doesn’t throw him off. How could he? Tony is so touch-shy already, Steve isn’t going to give him a complex. Plus it, it feels kind of nice. “Fuck,” Tony says again, “Ah, Cap, Steve, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Steve points out, face scrunching up with either incredulity or distress, he can’t quite peel his emotions apart yet. “I don’t. Sometimes-“ He drags a hand over his face, just hard enough that it won’t seem like he’s pulling away. He’s trying not to. “I don’t know what to do. How to stop missing him, and Peggy, and everyone else. But Peggy’s almost easier,” he’s whispering now, cringing because he doesn’t want to listen to himself, he can’t forgive the things he’s saying, “because there’s no one like Peggy, is there? But…but Rhodey.”
Steve takes a shaky breath and waits for Tony to withdraw, recoil with the words spilling out of Steve’s mouth. “The way Rhodey…looks at you, not-not, but just exactly like Bucky, like he doesn’t know how to do anything but keep you safe, try to protect you, even when it means-“
He feels like he’s shaking apart, pushes a hand over his mouth to stop it trembling, stop it making noise. He’s grateful for this dimly lit alcove, for the tables that lure the guests to the far side of the roof, so no one looks their way and sees Captain America losing his marbles at five-to-two in the morning at an Iron Man party. They won’t see Tony stalking away in an outrage, or if they do they won’t know what they’re looking at, Tony's brightest smiles are when he’s not happy at all.
Then there’s a hand at the back of his neck, awkward and unsure before it slides to his shoulder and hangs on, gripping him tight enough to pull him against the warmth of Tony’s side. It’s half an embrace, or, no, it’s more than just half, and Steve falls by increments into the strength Tony seems more than willing to provide.
“I know it sounds like a load of shit right now,” Tony says, almost against Steve’s ear, “but. It really will get better. And that’s going to hurt too, every inch. But then one day it won’t hurt so bad, or it’ll hurt in a different way, this kind of-bittersweet-god, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I really, really- You should talk to anyone else but me. Feelings…not my forte.” He winces apologetically, and Steve misses the effects of alcohol with a sharp longing that would have given him an excuse to reach up and touch Tony’s hair.
“It’s good,” Steve murmurs instead, “Makes two of us.” He chews on the inside of his lip for a moment, closing his eyes to just savor the moment. “What if I can’t? What if I just stay…not over it? Forever?” The words taste awful and ridiculous in his mouth, but he can’t think of a better way to put it.
“Fuck the rest of the world that says you have to,” Tony says immediately. “Of course, it might get a little awkward at times when you run screaming from the room every time my BFF walks in, but we’ll just tell him he’s wearing some sort of Captain-America-repellant cologne, or maybe Loki did it, that guy is the best scapegoat for anything. Last week when that bank blew up? That was some good times.”
“Tony,” Steve frowns, reluctant to draw back but incapable of not looking Tony in the eyes right now. “Are you saying-you blew up that bank?”
“Accidentally!” Tony cries, then looks like he wants to take it back. “There was just some temperamental equipment I had stored in their vault, I swear I didn’t know it was still sentient.”
“What’s this?” Rhodey’s voice cuts in, and there he is a second later, looking hopeful and cautious and carefully not at Steve. “What did Tony do this time?”
Tony still has an arm around his middle, braced like he thinks Steve might take a dive over the edge. But he doesn’t, and he breathes, and after a moment the feeling subsides a little, into something more bearable.
“It definitely, definitely wasn’t blow up that bank on 33rd, whatever you’re thinking,” Tony says with a soft affected hiccup, picking up his drink again.
Rhodey’s eyes get very big, and his mouth gets very small. “That was you? Jesus, Tony, it’s not like I had an account with that bank, my money’s been tied up all week in paperwork because they’ve had to do it on actual paper, they don’t trust that the computers won’t eat them-“
“They won’t-oh for crying out loud. I told them I debugged their system on Tuesday, they should’ve got the email-“
“How would they get the email-“ Rhodey cuts in, and Steve starts laughing, half-hysterical, but half something that feels a lot more real, a lot…good. Just good. Relieved. Tentatively happy, even.
Because Bucky would’ve given Tony a high five for moxie, then demand to see the ex-robot in question and shadow-box it into submission. Bucky was no model soldier, but he didn’t need to be, not with Steve acting the paradigm. Rhodey is Tony’s Bucky, but he isn’t-they aren’t the same. He doesn’t make Bucky more gone, or less Bucky, just by existing.
Bucky would sock him in the jaw for thinking that in the first place, and that makes Steve smile too, in a different kind of way.
Steve tells himself to repeat his thoughts on Rhodey until they feel settled better in his gut. Until then, he leans into Tony and lets Tony lean into him, lets the words fly by and blend into the moan of the city far below them as Tony smiles at Steve out of the corner of his mouth and the clock clicks over to two.
Tony/Steve (vague Steve/Bucky, Tony/Rhodey if you squint?) 1.5k, cuddles and angst, to the tune of Over You by David Francey.
It’s almost two a.m., and Tony is going to call him out.
Steve can’t even find it in himself to run anymore-there is nowhere to run except off the edge of this building, and Steve can’t bring himself to ruin one of Tony’s parties. Compared to some of them this is almost tasteful, with soft blue and purple lights reflecting off the pool onto Tony’s guests, Rhodey’s friends. They carry the bones of the military even without their uniforms, and Steve finds his eyes can’t stay on them for long, slipping off their edges like gloved fingers on warped metal bars.
“There you are!” Tony says, throwing himself down next to Steve so hard their hips collide-he isn’t drunk, though, despite the fruity concoction cradled in the palm of his hand. Steve knows because he…he just does, the way he knows Tony is pretending for his benefit, because maybe he thinks Steve will open up better if there’s a chance Tony won’t remember in the morning.
“I thought you would be-woo.” Tony makes a vague gesture at the assembled crowd, and Steve plays along, raises both his eyebrows. “Not ‘cause you’re, you know, usually the life of the party around here, because that’s me, but I thought with the gung-ho military types you would. Mesh.” He laces his fingers together around the shape of his glass.
Steve has to make himself look away, but finds he has nowhere else to look but Tony. “…Nah,” he says after a minute, then shakes his head when Tony leans in close and niggles, “Nah? Nah, Cap? Nada? Not one of those soldiers tickles your fancy even a little? Not even Corporal Higgins, with the legs up there? I saw her give you the thrice-over, Rogers, and there are, you know, there are other people here who’d trip over themselves to talk to you, just give you a little company, if you like.”
His tone isn’t even lascivious at the end, which is a true feat for Tony Stark. He just looks concerned, now, most pretenses of drunkenness dropped except for the unconscious swaying which keeps him brushing up against Steve’s side.
“Have you seen Rhodey tonight?” Tony asks, and Steve realizes he’s been quiet too long, too caught up in the smell of Tony’s skin where the night breezes keep drifting it his way-whiskey and metal and fruity something and sweat. Steve flinches. Hard.
“Yeah, he said he hadn’t seen you yet,” Tony drawls carefully, eyes too damn focused to be anything but mostly sober. “He do something to hurt your feelings? I know all sorts of dirty blackmail we can get him back with, seriously, don’t worry about it. One time in Madrid-“
“Tony,” Steve finally chokes out. “No, I. Rhodey’s fine. He’s fine by me. Don’t tell me about Madrid.”
Tony is quiet for a moment, in that way where he really isn’t-Steve can hear the wheels grinding in his noggin, or the computer chips whizzing or whatever it is these days.
“It’s not anything-it’s not Rhodey’s fault,” Steve says before Tony starts sparking like one of his suits when it takes a hit too hard. “I just.”
And oh. Shit. Maybe the buzzing wasn’t in Tony’s head at all, because something is painfully out of whack in Steve’s chest, like a hand punched through and gave his ribcage a shake. “I can’t,” Steve hears himself say, shocked and ashamed, “I can’t. Bucky.”
“Oh fuck,” he hears Tony say, and then there’s a clatter of glass being set on the concrete at their feet, and a hand on his arm, tentative at first then gripping tighter when Steve doesn’t throw him off. How could he? Tony is so touch-shy already, Steve isn’t going to give him a complex. Plus it, it feels kind of nice. “Fuck,” Tony says again, “Ah, Cap, Steve, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Steve points out, face scrunching up with either incredulity or distress, he can’t quite peel his emotions apart yet. “I don’t. Sometimes-“ He drags a hand over his face, just hard enough that it won’t seem like he’s pulling away. He’s trying not to. “I don’t know what to do. How to stop missing him, and Peggy, and everyone else. But Peggy’s almost easier,” he’s whispering now, cringing because he doesn’t want to listen to himself, he can’t forgive the things he’s saying, “because there’s no one like Peggy, is there? But…but Rhodey.”
Steve takes a shaky breath and waits for Tony to withdraw, recoil with the words spilling out of Steve’s mouth. “The way Rhodey…looks at you, not-not, but just exactly like Bucky, like he doesn’t know how to do anything but keep you safe, try to protect you, even when it means-“
He feels like he’s shaking apart, pushes a hand over his mouth to stop it trembling, stop it making noise. He’s grateful for this dimly lit alcove, for the tables that lure the guests to the far side of the roof, so no one looks their way and sees Captain America losing his marbles at five-to-two in the morning at an Iron Man party. They won’t see Tony stalking away in an outrage, or if they do they won’t know what they’re looking at, Tony's brightest smiles are when he’s not happy at all.
Then there’s a hand at the back of his neck, awkward and unsure before it slides to his shoulder and hangs on, gripping him tight enough to pull him against the warmth of Tony’s side. It’s half an embrace, or, no, it’s more than just half, and Steve falls by increments into the strength Tony seems more than willing to provide.
“I know it sounds like a load of shit right now,” Tony says, almost against Steve’s ear, “but. It really will get better. And that’s going to hurt too, every inch. But then one day it won’t hurt so bad, or it’ll hurt in a different way, this kind of-bittersweet-god, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I really, really- You should talk to anyone else but me. Feelings…not my forte.” He winces apologetically, and Steve misses the effects of alcohol with a sharp longing that would have given him an excuse to reach up and touch Tony’s hair.
“It’s good,” Steve murmurs instead, “Makes two of us.” He chews on the inside of his lip for a moment, closing his eyes to just savor the moment. “What if I can’t? What if I just stay…not over it? Forever?” The words taste awful and ridiculous in his mouth, but he can’t think of a better way to put it.
“Fuck the rest of the world that says you have to,” Tony says immediately. “Of course, it might get a little awkward at times when you run screaming from the room every time my BFF walks in, but we’ll just tell him he’s wearing some sort of Captain-America-repellant cologne, or maybe Loki did it, that guy is the best scapegoat for anything. Last week when that bank blew up? That was some good times.”
“Tony,” Steve frowns, reluctant to draw back but incapable of not looking Tony in the eyes right now. “Are you saying-you blew up that bank?”
“Accidentally!” Tony cries, then looks like he wants to take it back. “There was just some temperamental equipment I had stored in their vault, I swear I didn’t know it was still sentient.”
“What’s this?” Rhodey’s voice cuts in, and there he is a second later, looking hopeful and cautious and carefully not at Steve. “What did Tony do this time?”
Tony still has an arm around his middle, braced like he thinks Steve might take a dive over the edge. But he doesn’t, and he breathes, and after a moment the feeling subsides a little, into something more bearable.
“It definitely, definitely wasn’t blow up that bank on 33rd, whatever you’re thinking,” Tony says with a soft affected hiccup, picking up his drink again.
Rhodey’s eyes get very big, and his mouth gets very small. “That was you? Jesus, Tony, it’s not like I had an account with that bank, my money’s been tied up all week in paperwork because they’ve had to do it on actual paper, they don’t trust that the computers won’t eat them-“
“They won’t-oh for crying out loud. I told them I debugged their system on Tuesday, they should’ve got the email-“
“How would they get the email-“ Rhodey cuts in, and Steve starts laughing, half-hysterical, but half something that feels a lot more real, a lot…good. Just good. Relieved. Tentatively happy, even.
Because Bucky would’ve given Tony a high five for moxie, then demand to see the ex-robot in question and shadow-box it into submission. Bucky was no model soldier, but he didn’t need to be, not with Steve acting the paradigm. Rhodey is Tony’s Bucky, but he isn’t-they aren’t the same. He doesn’t make Bucky more gone, or less Bucky, just by existing.
Bucky would sock him in the jaw for thinking that in the first place, and that makes Steve smile too, in a different kind of way.
Steve tells himself to repeat his thoughts on Rhodey until they feel settled better in his gut. Until then, he leans into Tony and lets Tony lean into him, lets the words fly by and blend into the moan of the city far below them as Tony smiles at Steve out of the corner of his mouth and the clock clicks over to two.