FIC: Love You Hard And Let You Go
Title: Love You Hard And Let You Go
Author: _samalander
Fandom: Avengers
Rating: R
Wordcount: 8,310
Warnings: PTSD, violence, homophobia, break-up.
Characters/Pairings: Steve/Tony, with background Clint/Natasha and a helathy dose of Coulson.
Summary: Steve and Tony, getting together in high school, breaking up in college, and after - it's not a happy story, but it's the one they got.
(The story surrounding "Make Me Promise" - the rise and fall and aftermath of Steve and Tony in the 30 Seconds of Mindless Panic 'verse.)
Notes: I got a little weird with the style here, so if epistles throw you, please feel free to hit back - it was honestly the way this story wanted to be told, no gimmick intended.
This story owes everything to Pixy, who got me to write, and to Ama, who put up with my endless questions about the Army, and what rank would he be, and what's an NCO and go back, tell me about reintegration services again. Any mistakes remaining are mine, she is brilliant.
Title from "The Last Five Years"
Steve Rogers was pretty sure he was going to kill Tony Stark.
Well, to be fair, Steve felt that way nine days out of any ten because the other boy was such a giant pain in the ass, but the cast party had just topped things off.
Steve had known for ages, everyone knew, that Tony liked to have sex, and the popular rumor was that he wasn't too discerning about the gender of his partners - he was as likely to kiss Thor (if he could get to him) as he was to kiss Pepper, and it was never that fakey hand-between-our-mouths kissing, it was full-on lip-to-lip smooching. And, some said, more. A lot more.
Bucky had suggested that they play spin the bottle, and everyone else had been too drunk to think better of it. It was a Sunday, Pippin was closed, and they were all a little stupid, a little young, and a lot drunk; of course they said yes.
Thor was the first to go, his head covered by what was, to Steve's somewhat hazy recollection, Jane's bra. He'd spun Tony, they kissed, and everyone had hooted and hollered.
And then it was Tony's turn and the bottle had, due to the perversity of the universe and probable cheating, landed on Steve.
Steve liked Tony most of the time. Hell, he would say without much hesitation that they were friends. If both of them counted another person as their bestie, well, the two were still close. When Steve's mother had been ill and dying in the summer between freshman and sophomore year, Tony had traded time with Bucky to be there for him at her bedside. When Tony had to have an emergency operation on his heart last Christmas, Steve was the one helping Pepper collect signatures for his card and delivering balloons to the hospital. To the casual observer, it might seem like Tony and Steve were just close friends, but Steve was confused, more than confused, whatever the word for uber-confused would be, befuddled, maybe, by the affection he felt for Tony, the kind of warm pooling in his stomach he got when they brushed hands. He'd felt it before, when he was with Peggy, but he tried not to think about what it meant about his relationship with God that he was now having mushy warm-stomach feelings for a boy.
Steve stared at the bottle, stared down the long neck pointing him down. "Right,' he said, "Respin."
Tony laughed, a high thready noise that was probably more nerves than he wanted to admit. "What's the matter, Rogers? Scared you'll like it?"
"Scared of you, Stark. Not sure where that mouth's been."
Tony narrowed his eyes. "Wanna find out?"
Steve felt a wave of something simultaneously hot and cold wash through him - something like angry lust, but more - and he was never the type to turn down a challenge, even less so on three shots of vodka and a drink Bucky would only identify as "ectocooler". He and Tony leaned across the circle, inching closer until their lips brushed.
Steve thought he could feel time slow, knew that he had been wanting this almost as long as he had known Tony. And that was wrong, and it was right, and he liked girls but dammit, Tony.
They lingered a bit longer than was strictly necessary by the International Rules of Spin the Bottle, and when they had broken apart at Thor's indelicate cough, a flush was creeping across Tony's cheeks, and Steve felt a little shell-shocked.
"Um," he breathed. “Right. Bathroom."
Tash, the only freshman in the circle, giggled behind her hand and made a gesture that made Bruce, to her right, blush crimson, and Tony laugh a little too loudly. "Need some help?" Tony called after Steve, but he didn't turn back.
Steve felt a little cowardly, slightly weak, for running, but he also knew that if he stayed, he was likely to kiss Tony again, to do something he would regret, and that-- that just wasn't okay.
He snuck to the kitchen, where Jarvis had laid out a plethora of food for them, still choosing to believe that high school kids ate at parties, and liberated a bowl of marshmallows from next to the chocolate fountain - damn, but the Stark family was rich - and made his way upstairs, to a deserted hallway somewhere in the labyrinthine layout of Stark Manor.
He could still hear the noise of the party, the chorus of shouts what accompanied the ceremonial Stage Manager Dunk, wherein Gwen Stacy was deposited into the pool by a horde of laughing theatre kids. (And someday, yes, someday that would be Steve, tossed into the pool for bossing them around, and he couldn't wait.)
Steve waited; for what he didn't know. Maybe he was hoping that Tony would find him, that they could talk and work out this whole going-to-hell thing Steve was rocking. When the footsteps came, it was Tony, and he found Steve, sitting on the floor of the upstairs hallway, throwing marshmallows at the wall.
"Where did you get those?" Tony asked, eyeing the bowl in Steve's hand.
He shrugged, staring blankly at the one in his hand before cramming it into his mouth. "Chubby Bunny?" he asked, and Tony laughed, sinking to sit beside him.
"You freaked?"
Steve shrugged. "I guess."
"Because you liked it or because ew, boy cooties?"
Steve fished another marshmallow out of the bowl and flung it at the wall. "Dunno."
"Kissing people, man."
"Yeah."
They sat quietly, eating and throwing the white blobs of sugar until a game developed - if they could get the mallow to rebound off the wall and hit the other person, it was a point.
Steve was really good at it. Tony wasn't, but Steve ignored his cheating.
Finally, when the bowl empty and the floor around them was littered with discarded mallows, Steve gave a sigh and let his head fall back against the wall. "You like boys, right?"
Tony shrugged. "Sure, I guess. And girls. And robots. Robots are freaking awesome."
Tony laughed awkwardly, and Steve narrowed his eyes. "I thought you liked Tash."
Tony shook his head. "Tash is gorgeous but she's fourteen, and - yeah, no. I like someone else."
Steve nodded. "Someone I know?"
Tony shrugged. "I guess."
"Tony, is it Bruce?"
"Bruce? Bruce Banner? Anxious Bruce? Hulk?"
"You know any other Bruces? Brucii. Brucuses" Steve was laughing- he thought it was the sugar, maybe, or the aftershocks from kissing Tony, or the booze. "Holy shit, what's the plural of Bruce?"
Tony laughed. "What about you? You into any Breece?"
"I don't know," Steve said. "I've been kinda busy, taking care of Gram and such. Not a lot of time for crushes."
"But-- boys? Girls?"
Steve poked at a marshmallow at his foot, annoyed that the line of questioning had turned back on him - it didn't seem so funny now, not by half. "I don't know, I just-- you shouldn't kiss me again."
Tony furrowed his brow, a look of deep concentration on his face, like he was struggling to understand. "Why?"
"Because-- because it's wrong, Tony." Steve's voice cracked slightly, and he felt his face flush. He had to get out of there, just as urgently as he had needed to escape the game earlier.
Tony had opened him mouth to respond, probably to fight Steve on the point, but Steve struggled to his feet before his friend could respond, not even bothering to clean up the marshmallows, and if his Gram found out, she'd whoop him, but he couldn't have this conversation, he couldn't deal with this, not with Tony, not now, not while they were drunk.
Tony didn't say anything as he walked away, which Steve thought was just as well. He didn't have much left to say.
Steve breathed in the dust of the prop closet, the musty air that lived in the rickety blue cabinet at the back of the women's dressing room, as he knelt in front of the open doors, ticking swords off his list as he hung them on their hooks.
He loved props, loved being the person who catalogued them and kept them and handed them out. He loved being given jobs like "We need a chicken that lays an egg" and making it happen with nothing but a balloon, some newspaper, and a bag of feathers, he loved the grins C gave him when he really got it right.
Steve knew it was between him and Tony for SM next year, and that the one-act would be the decider, but in his gut he was still kinda sure - no matter how much Mr. Coulson loved Tony, no matter how charming he was - that Steve was the best prospect. Steve wanted it, so badly he could taste it. He had dreams of Gwen handing over the stopwatch, of her showing him her blocking notes, of teaching him to call shows.
"Hey."
Steve looked up from his reverie, his pen still pressed to the paper, leaving a huge blot next to Kitty Pryde's name on the list, and smiled back at Mr. Coulson, who stood silhouetted in the doorway.
"Hey," he replied, trying not to show his surprise.
"Are you okay?" Coulson asked, taking a step into the room. "You've been quiet this week."
It was Wednesday; it had been three days since the cast party on Sunday night. Three days since Steve had kissed Tony and then tried to drown his sorrow in a bowl of marshmallows. Steve shrugged. "Lot on my mind."
Coulson nodded. "Anything you want to talk about?"
Steve took a shaky breath. "I've been- I don't know."
"Okay, well. If you change your mind, you know where I am," Coulson said, turning to leave. "All the swords accounted for?"
"I kissed Tony," Steve blurted, before he knew what he was saying.
Coulson paused, his hand on the doorjamb. "I see. Do you want to talk about that?"
"I don't know."
Coulson didn't move, but neither did Steve. He realized, after a moment, that his teacher was holding his breath.
"Can we?" Steve asked, softly, and Coulson nodded, turning back to the room.
"Yes."
Steve put his head in his hands, scrubbing at his eyes with his palms. "It was spin the bottle."
"Okay."
"And I kinda freaked."
"Okay."
"And I don't know what to do."
Coulson cast a look into the hallway, and then took a step into the room. "I'm going to close the door, is that alright?"
Steve nodded, and Coulson pushed the door closed behind him, and then stepped to one of the chairs tucked under the make-up mirrors, slouching into it, facing Steve.
"Are you questioning your sexuality, Steve?"
"Yes," Steve sighed, as quietly as he could.
"You want to tell me about it?"
Steve shrugged. "I don't have a problem with gay people," he sighed. "But I'm-- I'm a Christian, Coulson, and I don't know what this means in terms of sin and I'm only sixteen and what would my mother say?"
Coulson sighed heavily. "One at a time, okay?"
Steve nodded.
"You can be gay and a Christian, and you get to decide what that means to you," C said. "I'm a Catholic, and so is my partner."
Steve stared. "You're-- you, C?"
Coulson laughed gently. "Yup, me. Look, I can't answer your religious questions because I'm not your spiritual person. I'm your drama teacher. What I can do- Steve, it's okay not to know. It's okay to change your mind, and it's okay to be whatever you feel."
Steve shook his head. "But what about, you know, like, God Hates Fags and that stuff?"
"What about it? Do you think God hates you?"
"No," Steve sighed. "But I don't want people to hate me, either."
"You can't control that. Even if you figure out you're straight as an arrow, if you spend the rest of your life flagellating yourself and wearing a hair shirt, someone is gonna hate you. Better they hate you for being you, right?"
Steve shrugged.
"I-- I only met your mom the once," Coulson sighed. "But if she raised a son like you, I've got to imagine she would love you no matter what."
"I guess."
Coulson smiled. "Look, no matter what they're telling you on Glee or whatever, being sixteen sucks, okay? It always has and always will, and those kids are in their twenties anyway. The world is harsh and dangerous. But it's a lot less scary and a lot easier if you're just trying to be the best you. Just-- the you God made. And only you know what that means."
Steve sighed heavily. "I don't know what the best me is."
"And you might not know for a while yet. That's okay. It's the journey and all that, right? It's trying."
"I guess. I just. I don't know what I want."
Coulson nodded. "That's fine, really. You know that saying, that a wise man knows what he doesn't know?"
"Yeah, I guess?"
"Welcome to wisdom, Steve. It stinks."
"Hey, C?"
"Yeah?"
Steve rubbed at his eyes again. "God's like a father, right? And He sets up all these rules for us, and these expectations we can't meet. Why does He want us to fail?"
Coulson shook his head. "That's a question for your pastor," he said, and Steve nodded. "But the way I see it- God's like a father, and good fathers want the best for their kids. He doesn't get mad if you fail, He gets mad if you don't try. Aim for the moon, right, even if you miss, you'll land in the stars. And other clichés."
Steve laughed. "Thanks, C. I feel a little better, I think?"
"You-- can you talk to your friends about this?"
"I guess so, yeah. I don't know what Bucky'll say, but Tony is- bi, I guess? And no one seems to care."
"And you're safe at home?"
"Yeah, Gram-- I mean, she doesn't know but I can't imagine her being- well."
"Okay," Coulson shifted, wiping his palms on his slacks. "And you know you can come to me if you need me?"
"Yeah."
"I mean it. Door is always open."
Steve smiled. "Thanks, C. I got some swords--"
"Right, yeah." Coulson stood, a smile that Steve thought might be "shy" on his face. "Well."
"Yeah."
They stared at each other for a moment before Steve started to laugh. "I have no idea what to say."
"That's alright," Coulson said, moving to open the door. "Talk to you later."
"Yeah, thanks."
Steve decided not to think about it, the way he felt, the things he wanted. He turned down Tash's kind invitation to the Sadie Hawkins dance in January, (and she only asked because Tony was going with Pepper, and Thor with Jane, and she ended up with Bucky, so that worked out somehow) opting instead to stay home and watch reality TV with his Gram.
He didn't say a word when Tash and Bucky started dating after that, didn't point out that he was a senior and she was a freshman, didn't make any noises about being a little jealous of them, both of them, and not being sure if it was because they had each other, or because they had someone at all.
And so a week before the one-act opened, when Steve's beloved and much-maligned van, the Howling Commando, decided that having a working transmission was a stunt that only ritzy uptown cars could pull off and died on him, Steve called the only person he thought he could endure commuting with; not his best friend, because he was fully sick of the newly lovesick version of Bucky, Bucky who only wanted to talk about Tash, but insane, annoying, spoiled Tony, who made Steve mildly murderous.
"Get in loser," Tony laughed, pulling up to Steve's house a full fifteen minutes late on the first morning. "We're going shopping."
It was raining, the way it was always raining in February, not cold, exactly, but miserable, and Steve was a little sodden from waiting by the curb. He rolled his eyes as he got into the convertible, which, who drove a ragtop in the Pacific Northwest in February, really? Even with the top up, it was one of those mad, eccentric things that only Tony Stark would do. "Is this because of my giant lesbian crush on you?"
"Hey, my hair is insured for a million dollars."
"Yeah," Steve sighed, "I'll tell my father, the inventor of toaster strudel."
Tony laughed, and Steve did his honest best not to notice the column of his friend's throat, or how comforting the open sound really was to him.
They drove in relative ease, neither boy feeling exactly awkward, but the quips came fast and hard, and when they ran out of Mean Girls quotes, Tony was pulling into his space in the Junior lot.
"You know," he grinned, tossing the car into park. "You're gonna be a hell of a stage manager next year."
"Me?" Steve was a little flabbergasted, to be honest. He was sure that Tony wanted it, was at least as passionate as he was about the job.
Tony shrugged. "Yeah. I'd be awesome at it, don't get me wrong, but you-- You want it more."
Steve stared into Tony's face, trying to find the joke of the situation, trying - and failing - to figure out what the game was here. But Tony actually looked earnest, somehow, his face open, and Steve had to bite down the urge to lean forward and press their lips together. It would be dishonest to say that he never thought of that kiss, the one in Tony's basement, that there weren't nights when his fantasies revolved around it, but this was still not the time, nor the place, so Steve just nodded and fished his bag from the miniscule back of the car.
"You cool with taking me home tonight?" he asked, his hand on the door. Tony nodded.
"Sure thing," he said, and if his smile wasn't the 20 thousand watts it usually was, well, Steve thought maybe he knew why.
"Tony, I--"
"Look, Steve," Tony cut across him. "I gotta- I like you. Like, I'd like to take you to a movie kind of like you, but I really - where do you stand on all of that? Cause if the answer is no, then you should just tell me so I can move on."
Steve tried to breathe, but found it a little difficult to quell the panic in his chest. "The answer?"
"Yeah."
"What's the question?"
"Do you want to go out some time?"
Steve waited for Tony to laugh, to crack up, for Rhody to jump out of the trunk with a video camera, but it was just him, him and Tony, and this heartbreakingly earnest look on Tony's face, and Steve couldn't even stop himself - he didn't care about wrong or proper, for a moment in his life, he just reached out to touch Tony's cheek. And before he knew what was happening, they were kissing, actually kissing, not like spin the bottle, but like you kissed someone you were dating. And it was weird, for Steve, because Tony was a guy, and because Tony was Tony and because this didn't fix any of the problems he had or answer any of the questions that plagued him, but Tony's mouth was sweet, somehow, and he touched Steve almost reverently, one hand sliding to the back on his neck to pull him closer.
The kiss wasn't the chaste kind of kisses Steve and Peggy had shared in freshman year, but it wasn't exactly dirty either, it was just... it was Tony, for all the values of Tony that Steve knew.
"Yeah," he breathed, as they broke apart. "Yeah, I think we should go out."
Tony grinned, and Steve felt his heart skip a beat because he was the cause of that grin, and he resolved that he would always be the cause of that kind of happiness in Tony Stark.
The night before Steve left for college, a year and a half into dating Tony, Steve couldn't sleep.
It wasn't like he thought the world was ending, he was just excited; excited to go to school, to move across the country, to have the experiences that television and movies had promised him came with the raucous life of being a college student.
And he was scared; scared his Gram would have a hard time being alone, scared Clint wouldn't take good care of the Howling Commando, scared that Tony, who would be 400 miles north, would stop loving him or love him too much, one of those two or both maybe. Steve was having a lot of feelings and he wasn't quite up to understanding all of them.
He shouldn't have been surprised to get a text message, though. And he shouldn't have been surprised that, when he did, it was from Tony, or that it read come outside.
Steve was in pajama pants and not much else, since he was pretending to be asleep, but he tossed his hoodie over his shoulders and crept quietly though his darkened house, his Gram's light snores letting him know she was asleep, to the front door.
He stepped out into the night; brisk, but that was just Oregon at midnight in August, and grinned as he spotted Tony, his parents' Jag dramatically parked in the pool of light cast by the streetlamp, and the man himself, sitting on the hood.
"Hey," Steve said, the grass wet on his bare feet as he padded across to Tony, zipping his hoodie. "Couldn't sleep?"
Tony shrugged. "My boyfriend is leaving for college tomorrow. On a train."
"How very 1940s of him," Steve grinned. "Are you going to miss him?"
Tony gestured for Steve to join him on the hood of the car, and he did, letting Tony lean into him. "Like crazy."
"I guess-" Steve sighed, taking Tony's hands in his, "I guess this is the part where we break up, then?"
"I don't want to."
"We knew this day was coming."
And they had; they had known since April that they'd be going off to separate schools, and resolved to see the summer through, come what may. But now it was here and Steve was pretty sure he didn't want to break up, either, no matter how doomed they might be.
"Yeah, but," Tony squeezed Steve's hand. "I think we can make it work."
"Aren't we just putting off the inevitable?"
Tony shook his head. "Look, if this explodes a week from now, it's another week I get with you."
Steve pressed a kiss to the top of Tony's head. "But if we explode-- I want to know you for a long time. If we break up, we won't be friends."
"We'll always be friends," Tony sighed, slipping his hand out of Steve's grasp. "But here," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. "Take this."
"Anthony Stark, if you're proposing to me--"
"As if!" Tony laughed. "I-- just open it, okay?"
Steve took the box and opened it, revealing Tony's class ring. Steve stared for a long minute.
"Well?"
"I-- are you giving me your class ring because I'm leaving on a train and it's what people did in the forties?"
Tony grinned up at him. "No, not at all. I'm giving it to you because I want you to have it."
"I don't have anything to give you," Steve said, trying to decide if he was going to keep this insane present.
"Do you think that matters?" Tony asked.
Steve kissed him, one of the only times in their relationship where they had been openly affectionate in public - for all that a dark street at midnight was public - and slipped the ring onto his finger. Well halfway on, as it became immediately obvious that this was a ring built for Tony's smaller, slimmer fingers.
"I'll wear it on a chain," Steve said, and Tony nodded.
"But you'll wear it?"
"Every day."
Tony rested his head on Steve shoulder again, and they sat for a moment in the darkness.
"Wait," Steve said. "Wait. I do have - I have something you can have."
Tony grinned. "Go get it, I like presents!"
Steve slipped off the hood, grabbing Tony's hand, and dragged him up to the doorway of his house.
"Wait here," Steve told him, slipping inside the house.
He knew exactly what he wanted, and found it where it should be, tucked into the bag he would be taking on the train the next day.
He thrust the watch at Tony as he slipped back into the yard.
"My grandfather's pocket watch. Grandpa Rogers. It's been in the family forever. I want - you know, cause you're part of me."
Tony clutched the watch tightly - it wasn't expensive or valuable, it was probably just gilded brass, but it meant something more in the moment, it meant a promise. And so Tony kissed Steve again, trying to pour all that promise between them, trying to make something real, something they could both keep.
"Thank you," Tony said as they broke apart.
Steve just grabbed his hand and squeezed. "I love you," he said, and Tony kissed him again.
Facebook
Steve Rogers has changed his location to Baltimore, Maryland.
08/22/12
Sender: capnstevemerica@gmail.com
Recipient: ironstark@gmail.com
Subject: Maryland at Last!
Dear Tony,
We got to Maryland today, me and Gram. The train ride was long, but it was the best way to do it - I got to see so much of the country, and Gram doesn't have to drive back on her own. I still say we take that trip next summer, you and me. I still want to see the Grand Canyon, and I want to see it with you.
There are lightning bugs here; they're super strange, and apparently cicadas sing here, which is like a whole other world of weird. It'll take some getting used to.
I miss you like crazy already. Tomorrow we move me into the dorm (I move, Gram directs) and then we start freshman orientation and ROTC on Monday. I have to see if I can wear your ring during drills or what, but I want you to know I'm wearing it every day.
I'll send you a picture when I get the haircut.
All my love,
Steve
09/12/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: RE: 8===D
Tony,
I hate you and your emoticons.
Okay, I don't hate you. I love you and I miss you very much. And I would love to have your visit, but weekends are kinda crazy at the moment, so I'm not sure I can swing it - between studio classes and ROTC and trying to sleep three hours a night, I'm in a little over my head.
And man, I thought I was talented until I got here. Critiques are rough. Not as rough as whatever math genius crap you're taking, but damn.
I did get good feedback on the watercolor I did of you. I'll send you the scan when Joe gets back to the room so I can use his scanner.
No, the hair isn't growing out well, and yes, you'll still find something to hold onto.
All my love,
Steve
10/08/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: hi steve
Clint,
I'm sure you've heard by now that Tony's parents' plane went down. Tomorrow is the last day of the search. Tony is beside himself. If things look up, I won't need it, but if they don't, I'll be back for the funeral, and I might need to borrow the Commando from you, if I can.
That said:
1. Tash is right, Tash Barton sounds much stupider than Clint Romanoff, but they both sound terrible. Hyphenate, but not until you're way older.
2. There is nothing I can do about Thor, he was born that way. If you don't want hugs, you have to tell him so in plain language, he misses vague cues sometimes.
3. Please give Clara and James my love; I think the permanent foster home sounds perfect for you and them. Any thoughts on colleges? PSATs are any day now, you should think about what you want. (Hint: art school is awesome, but you'd better love art. Don't do a conservatory unless you're sure, Lord only knows what I'll do with a BFA after my service is done.)
4. Yes I have a dress uniform; no you may not see pictures.
Steve
10/10/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: hi steve
Clint,
Tony is flying me home this weekend.
Obie asked that I not sit with him at the funeral, so that there was no unrest among stockholders about the new owner being gay. I'd say he could fuck the hell off, but he has a point, and I'm sure Tony will understand.
So I'll see you at Wakeland's Funeral Home on Saturday at 10am, and then at Stark Manor for the whatever we call it where we eat egg salad and pretend we're not pretending.
Steve
Transcript of a phone call between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, 10/27/12, 2:19am.
Rogers: Hello?
Stark: Steve!
Rogers: Tony?
Stark: Hi!
Rogers: Tony, it's 2 am.
Stark: But I missed you.
Rogers: Are you drunk?
Stark: Maybe.
Rogers: You know I have to be up at 5, right?
Stark: I just wanted to say hi.
Rogers: Hi.
Stark: I miss you.
Rogers: I miss you, too.
Stark: What are you wearing?
Rogers: Goodnight, Tony.
Stark: Wait! Wait!
Rogers: What?
Stark: I wanna visit. For sex.
Rogers: Very romantic. Call me in the morning when you're sober.
Stark: But--
Rogers: Goodnight.
11/03/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: RE: Visit
Tony,
YES, that weekend is perfect. I cannot wait to see you.
How are you coping, by the way? Your email seemed a little... drunk. I mean, I get it. It's a shitty time right now, but please take care of yourself.
Plus, I get to see you in two weeks!
All my love,
Steve
11/18/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: why
Tony,
If you didn't want to be together you could have said so. Leaving my grandpa's watch behind is a cowardly move.
Steve
Facebook
Tony "Iron Man" Stark is no longer is a relationship.
Pepper Potts CALL ME IMMEDIATELY
11/22/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: What did I just fucking read?
Clint,
He came down, spent the weekend being miserable and picking fights with my friends - we went to Lim's for a party and he spent the entire time trashing the ROTC in general and cadets in specific and got in a few choice jabs at Liberal Arts students, all because Davis asked him if he was really Tony Stark.
We had a fight where he accused me of not supporting him and I tried to point out that I can barely support myself right now and remind him that he said he was fine with me not sitting with him at the funeral, but he's clearly still mad and when he left, my grandpa's watch was on my desk and he won't answer my emails.
I still have his ring. Is it petty to keep it?
I might not care about the answer to that.
Steve
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/17
Tony,
I know we haven't talked for years, but I'm in Kuwait now, and we just got this shipment of StarkTech and I thought, well, I guess I should write Tony, let him know we're doing good work over here and, you know, thanks for making the shit that keeps us safe. Also, well. Happy birthday, all that.
It sucks, by the way, being over here. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what I do, and morale and hooah, all that. But there's just - remember how you used to say I was the poor kid? How we used to joke that my Gram's house was a hovel, for being one story, two bedrooms? How Clint- even CLINT - was shocked when he found out I had one bathroom?
Oh, God. I wish some of these people had one bathroom.
It's good work, though. We're building schools - well, I'm mostly guarding stuff, but the engineers are building schools, and I'm sure we'll teach these people to forget their values and embrace ours in no time.
I was wrong, writing this letter didn't help at all.
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/18
Tony,
Another year, another letter I won't send. It's your birthday again, though I suppose you were expecting that, as it happens every year.
Three of my NCOs are getting divorced. I tell you this because I know it and I can't seem to escape knowing it. I guess I just have one of those faces. People want to tell me about their lives. They all come crying to me all the time and I'm trying but it's like, I'm 23 and the only person I ever loved dumped me with a pocket watch, exactly what are you looking for here?
(And you and I both know I've dated, so don't go pretending that I'm pining, I just never loved anyone else, deflate your stupid head.)
In the somewhat shocking realm; Clint is here. He's not in my unit, but he's just out of sniper training, and we ended up stationed in the same place, so that's pretty cool. He's gotten kinda quiet, but I guess he always was. I got used to his emails and letters - kid thinks a mile a minute, even if he doesn't say a damn thing. He and Tash are engaged, she gave him a ring and everything. I think we always knew it was gonna go that way, huh?
I saw you on the cover of Time from last year. (Mail is a little slow sometimes.) You look good. I miss you.
One of the men under my command died yesterday when he stepped on an IED that they think was made from your missiles. Maybe you should be making weapons that won't kill your
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/20
Tony,
Sorry I didn't write last year; I wasn't deployed and the day got away from me. It's easier to remember when I'm surrounded by your name.
Not that I send these idiotic things, just, I don't know, it seems like something that needs apologizing for.
I'm currently stationed in Saudi Arabia, which is super weird, but you know, we go where we're needed. I hear from Clint that you give a good wedding gift- I'm kinda amazed that he and Tash worked out and we didn't. (He calls her Nat now, did you know? She goes by Tasha, not Tash, but he calls her Nat. That boy has been smitten from day one, creeping around in the catwalks with her. Never had a chance. He's still a sniper, she still works at a job that sounds an awful lot like she's a spy in her free time, something about language and the state department, I think it's above my grade.)
I guess you didn't hear about Bucky, because if you had you would have at least sent me a condolence note, so for the record; Bucky is MIA. He was in Korea last I heard. I really, well, you know. I don't believe for a second that he's dead because fuck you, that's why, but I called his mom last week, and she's a little broken.
Will you be broken when I die?
I met a guy, but I don't suppose you want to hear about that. I hear you're dating a model of some kind. I wish I were surprised.
Anyway, happy birthday, I won't be sending this.
Steve Rogers had been home a few times in the last five years - they gave him months at home to recuperate between tours, but knowing that he was home for good, stepping off the bus into the crisp autumn air and seeing his Gram, still kicking and waiting for him, there was final about that, something that he couldn't quantify.
Maybe it was the discharge papers in his bag.
He moved slowly, now, since the accident. He'd lost his leg. The other 17 men in the plane had lost their lives. No reason for him to be alive, none at all. Except to come back to this godforsaken valley, where there weren't any fireflies at all, and try to make something of himself, something of a 27-year-old who had already lived one life.
He let his Gram hold him close, let her whisper the words she needed to give him into his ear, and then let her bundle him into his old van, the one he'd named in high school, the one that had no right running anymore except his Gram kept it running, for him. For when she knew he'd come back.
He managed to stave off the tears until he was back in the little back bedroom, still the monument to Steve the Stage Manager - scripts in binders on the bookshelf, covered in blocking notes and cues in his old, slanting handwriting, a photo of the crew his senior year tucked into the mirror, and, in the corner next to his desk, a disgusting two-by-four, riddled with nails.
why didn't they use screws?
because they're stupid.
well, we need this ply.
get steve, he has arms now.
hey, captain!
yeah?
get this board loose.
got it.
damn, steve, puberty hit you like a mac truck, huh? you got a neville longbottom thing going.
do i?
It was all memories. He knew if he opened the drawers there were more, because he stashed his photos of him and Tony there last time he was home, with the scrap of fabric he'd salvaged from the grey wool pants he'd worn on his 18th birthday, and the ring Tony had given him.
Too many memories.
Steve sat on the bed - he'd call it too narrow, being a twin, but it was more than he'd had some nights in the desert, and he ran his fingers along the new seam on his right leg, where the plastic of his prosthetic met his skin. The doctors had said he'd get used to it, that it was just a time and practice thing, but Steve wasn't sure if that would ever actually happen.
The ceiling of his room was, at the insistence of his 12-year-old self, bedecked with glow-in-the-dark stars, which had lost their glow years ago, but in the fading light of the afternoon, Steve laid back on his bed and he was able to pretend, for a brief moment, that he was back in the desert, with his brothers at arm's length, and not in a place that was allegedly home, more alone than he'd ever been.
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Bruce Banner Any Carver alums going to the show this weekend? C's finally retiring - Betty and I will be in town. Let me know if you want drinks.
Clinton Barton, Steve Rogers, Darcy Foster and 10 others like this.
Natasha Romanoff Yes! Clint is home and we will be there! (We might have timed our vacations to fit this, I'll never tell.)
Steve's shrink at the VA said he was suffering from PTSD and survivor's guilt, which were creating barriers to his reintegration into society. Steve thought his shrink was suffering from a crippling need to make the universe make sense, but he didn't say that, because his degree was in illustration and not psychology, and she outranked him, anyway.
When Steve brought up the spring show at Carver, Major Riggs thought it was a great idea - a chance to revisit his roots, to remember a time when drawing was easy for him, when things seemed to make sense.
He missed drawing, missed his sketchbooks, but even the act of holding a pencil felt alien to him, somehow, and the last six months had seen him sitting at his desk, the desk where he had sketched every night on the back of math worksheets and in physics books, now somehow the images he used to have weren't there, or wouldn't move out of his brain and onto the paper, he wasn't sure which.
But more than that, he longed for the closeness he had felt, not just in the Army, but before that, too, in theatre. Where that sense of family had started, with marshmallows thrown against a wall, with a transparent blue stopwatch, handed from class to class to class, and all the other trappings of home.
He knew some of the others were coming into town for the show, since C was finally retiring, but he was relatively sure that, if went to the Sunday matinee, he'd avoid them. (Well, Thor and Bruce and Tony, maybe, but Clint and Tash had been in touch constant over the past six months and yes, they were coming to see him and no he couldn't stop them and he didn't mind that as much.)
He snuck in a few minutes before curtain, reveling in the sameness of the theatre, the same stiff-backed wooden seats that he had run through in his newbie days, making sure they were all up; the same old, mustard-yellow Grande; and the same C, less a little hair, biting his nails in the back row. He smiled at Steve, who gave a half wave before sinking into his seat, the lights dimming around him.
Of course, for his final show, C had pulled out all the stops and done the one show he had never dared to attempt- not only was in Sondheim, with his impossible melodies, but it was Sweeny Todd, possibly the least appropriate musical to ever perform in a high school, what with all the blood and cannibalism and murder.
But still, it had C's fingerprints on it, and it was brilliant in every way, from the set to the singers, and Steve found himself actually lost in a story, in a way he hadn't been since college, or maybe before.
If intermission came too soon, it was no fault of the clock; Steve would have sat for another three hours of the show, because it was something, finally, that stopped his brain remembering ever damn unpleasant moment of the past 27 years.
He stepped into the daylight lobby, favoring his right leg - the prosthetic was more normal now, he could walk almost like an uninjured person, but he felt aware of it in crowds, like he might tip over at any moment, like any one of these people might shove him down and take it.
He stepped into the hallway, the concession table busy in front of him, and decided that, between the crowd and the show, what Steve really needed was air.
He wasn't exactly expecting company, but when it came, he couldn't say he was exactly surprised.
The man stepped out of the building, hands raking through his dark hair as he spoke briskly into a cell phone- it reminded Steve vaguely of Captain Rutledge, the way he had kept his cool, the way Steve imagined he had been on the plane that day, even as they were crashing.
It took a moment for the man to resolve into a person, the person he was, and by then he'd seen Steve and hung up the cell phone.
"Hi," he said, swallowing hard.
"Hi," Steve responded. "Hi, Tony. How are-- what are you doing here?"
Tony shrugged. "I mean, C's last hurrah. I owe it to him."
Steve nodded as Tony crossed the distance between them and extended his hand. Steve stared for a second before remembering what to do; to clasp and shake, right, that was what old friends did.
"You look like hell," Tony said.
"I'm six months out of Saudi Arabia, what do you want?"
Tony blinked hard, looking startled. "I thought you only owed three years."
Steve shrugged. "I did five. Four and a half." Unconsciously, he ran his hand down his calf, over the prosthetic under his pant leg. "I got sent home. Got a little - well." Steve pulled up his pants leg.
"Lieutenant Dan," Tony drawled, "you got new legs."
Steve felt his vision flash red for a moment, and concentrated all his energy on Major Riggs' advice; Don't punch civilians, Rogers. Even if they cut in line at the bank. Even if they're your high school ex and they're being a cock.
Tony's brow was furrowed. "Steve? I'm-- was that not okay? I just thought--"
"I'm not that kid, Tony, the one you knew!" Steve snapped, because if he couldn't punch he could be angry. "You can't just say shit like that, damn! You know I-- you know how many times your work almost killed me in the last 5 years?"
Tony's face flashed with sadness for a brief second, and Steve remembered a moment, a long time passed, that same sadness on that same face, in Tony's bed on Steve's birthday, but the look faded quickly, giving way to a cocky arrogance that Steve had seen on magazine covers. "Yeah, well, protecting the free world."
"You're never going to change, are you?"
Tony shook his head. "If what you did was change, then no thanks."
"I-- fucking hell, Tony, I just got back from a fucking war zone. You want candy and gumdrops?"
A small smile quirked Tony's lips. "No," he said. "Marshmallows."
"Marshmallows," Steve repeated. "The night you kissed me."
"It was spin the bottle, we kissed each other."
"You dared me."
"You took the dare."
Steve stared at his hands for a long moment. "Yeah, I guess I did," he offered, finally, as thje lights inside flickered, signaling the end of intermission. "Do you think-- do you think we should go back in?"
Tony shrugged. "I really don't think I'd be able to concentrate on the show right now."
"Yeah," Steve sighed. "Me neither."
They watched the people in the building through the doors and their thick glass panels, as they filed out of the hall, out of bathrooms and back into the theatre for the second act. Tony and Steve sat, immobilized on the bench like bookends, with nothing but history between them.
"I owe you-“ Tony took a deep breath after a few minutes of silence. "I shouldn't have just left the watch like that, back when we, you know. That was shitty."
"Yeah," Steve nodded, "it was."
"And you shouldn't have-- you promised."
Steve finally turned to look at Tony, taking in the worn creases around his eyes; he looked so much older, so much more tired than Steve remembered, like he had aged a hundred years.
"I promised?"
"You don't remember?"
Steve shook his head. "Do you mean-- you mean that I wanted to give you everything? That night? That I would never leave you?"
Tony nodded, and Steve felt his throat close. "I had to go to school--"
"My parents died, Steve. Where were you?"
"I was fucking 18 years old. I was keeping my own head above water!"
Tony sighed. "It was nine years ago. I'm over it."
"I'm not."
Steve heard Tony's inhalation. "What?"
"I'm not over it," Steve said. "I'm pissed at you, I'm fucking all broken up inside and I open any magazine I've got and there you are, dating a Victoria's Secret model and-- Did you ever miss me?"
"Every fucking day," Tony told him, his face earnest. "You have no idea."
"I-" Steve balled his fists up. He fought a war, he could fight this battle. "I never stopped, you know."
"I don't know."
"Don't make me say it," Steve frowned. "You know."
"You-- are you saying you still love me?"
"I guess."
"I want to, Steve, is it okay-- can I hold your hand?"
Steve looked at his hand, still balled into a fist, and relaxed his fingers to reach out for Tony, who took it, and ever so gently, like Thor used to do with Jane, lifted Steve's hand to his moth and kissed his fingers.
"Tony--"
"I never stopped thinking about you, Steve, not for a day. I just-- I figured you were pissed cause I was a little shit and you didn't want me."
"I wrote you letters."
"I never got any letters. Is this a Notebook thing? Are we going to have to go find a dock to kiss on?"
Steve actually felt a smile cross his face, for what might have been the first time since his Gram picked him up at the bus depot. "I never sent them, but I wrote them. On your birthday."
Tony stared for a moment. "Do you know what I want to do right now?"
"Kiss me?"
"No. Well, yes. But also, we should go get milkshakes. And calamari. At Bob's."
The smile was back, wider on Steve's face. "Yes. But first-“
Tony grinned back, and leaned in to kiss him, their lips pressing together for a moment before Tony pulled back and rested his forehead against Steve's. "Is that what you want?"
"No," Steve said, squeezing Tony's hand. "I want a fuckton more. But that," he pressed another sweet kiss to the corner of Tony's mouth. "Is a good start."
Author: _samalander
Fandom: Avengers
Rating: R
Wordcount: 8,310
Warnings: PTSD, violence, homophobia, break-up.
Characters/Pairings: Steve/Tony, with background Clint/Natasha and a helathy dose of Coulson.
Summary: Steve and Tony, getting together in high school, breaking up in college, and after - it's not a happy story, but it's the one they got.
(The story surrounding "Make Me Promise" - the rise and fall and aftermath of Steve and Tony in the 30 Seconds of Mindless Panic 'verse.)
Notes: I got a little weird with the style here, so if epistles throw you, please feel free to hit back - it was honestly the way this story wanted to be told, no gimmick intended.
This story owes everything to Pixy, who got me to write, and to Ama, who put up with my endless questions about the Army, and what rank would he be, and what's an NCO and go back, tell me about reintegration services again. Any mistakes remaining are mine, she is brilliant.
Title from "The Last Five Years"
Steve Rogers was pretty sure he was going to kill Tony Stark.
Well, to be fair, Steve felt that way nine days out of any ten because the other boy was such a giant pain in the ass, but the cast party had just topped things off.
Steve had known for ages, everyone knew, that Tony liked to have sex, and the popular rumor was that he wasn't too discerning about the gender of his partners - he was as likely to kiss Thor (if he could get to him) as he was to kiss Pepper, and it was never that fakey hand-between-our-mouths kissing, it was full-on lip-to-lip smooching. And, some said, more. A lot more.
Bucky had suggested that they play spin the bottle, and everyone else had been too drunk to think better of it. It was a Sunday, Pippin was closed, and they were all a little stupid, a little young, and a lot drunk; of course they said yes.
Thor was the first to go, his head covered by what was, to Steve's somewhat hazy recollection, Jane's bra. He'd spun Tony, they kissed, and everyone had hooted and hollered.
And then it was Tony's turn and the bottle had, due to the perversity of the universe and probable cheating, landed on Steve.
Steve liked Tony most of the time. Hell, he would say without much hesitation that they were friends. If both of them counted another person as their bestie, well, the two were still close. When Steve's mother had been ill and dying in the summer between freshman and sophomore year, Tony had traded time with Bucky to be there for him at her bedside. When Tony had to have an emergency operation on his heart last Christmas, Steve was the one helping Pepper collect signatures for his card and delivering balloons to the hospital. To the casual observer, it might seem like Tony and Steve were just close friends, but Steve was confused, more than confused, whatever the word for uber-confused would be, befuddled, maybe, by the affection he felt for Tony, the kind of warm pooling in his stomach he got when they brushed hands. He'd felt it before, when he was with Peggy, but he tried not to think about what it meant about his relationship with God that he was now having mushy warm-stomach feelings for a boy.
Steve stared at the bottle, stared down the long neck pointing him down. "Right,' he said, "Respin."
Tony laughed, a high thready noise that was probably more nerves than he wanted to admit. "What's the matter, Rogers? Scared you'll like it?"
"Scared of you, Stark. Not sure where that mouth's been."
Tony narrowed his eyes. "Wanna find out?"
Steve felt a wave of something simultaneously hot and cold wash through him - something like angry lust, but more - and he was never the type to turn down a challenge, even less so on three shots of vodka and a drink Bucky would only identify as "ectocooler". He and Tony leaned across the circle, inching closer until their lips brushed.
Steve thought he could feel time slow, knew that he had been wanting this almost as long as he had known Tony. And that was wrong, and it was right, and he liked girls but dammit, Tony.
They lingered a bit longer than was strictly necessary by the International Rules of Spin the Bottle, and when they had broken apart at Thor's indelicate cough, a flush was creeping across Tony's cheeks, and Steve felt a little shell-shocked.
"Um," he breathed. “Right. Bathroom."
Tash, the only freshman in the circle, giggled behind her hand and made a gesture that made Bruce, to her right, blush crimson, and Tony laugh a little too loudly. "Need some help?" Tony called after Steve, but he didn't turn back.
Steve felt a little cowardly, slightly weak, for running, but he also knew that if he stayed, he was likely to kiss Tony again, to do something he would regret, and that-- that just wasn't okay.
He snuck to the kitchen, where Jarvis had laid out a plethora of food for them, still choosing to believe that high school kids ate at parties, and liberated a bowl of marshmallows from next to the chocolate fountain - damn, but the Stark family was rich - and made his way upstairs, to a deserted hallway somewhere in the labyrinthine layout of Stark Manor.
He could still hear the noise of the party, the chorus of shouts what accompanied the ceremonial Stage Manager Dunk, wherein Gwen Stacy was deposited into the pool by a horde of laughing theatre kids. (And someday, yes, someday that would be Steve, tossed into the pool for bossing them around, and he couldn't wait.)
Steve waited; for what he didn't know. Maybe he was hoping that Tony would find him, that they could talk and work out this whole going-to-hell thing Steve was rocking. When the footsteps came, it was Tony, and he found Steve, sitting on the floor of the upstairs hallway, throwing marshmallows at the wall.
"Where did you get those?" Tony asked, eyeing the bowl in Steve's hand.
He shrugged, staring blankly at the one in his hand before cramming it into his mouth. "Chubby Bunny?" he asked, and Tony laughed, sinking to sit beside him.
"You freaked?"
Steve shrugged. "I guess."
"Because you liked it or because ew, boy cooties?"
Steve fished another marshmallow out of the bowl and flung it at the wall. "Dunno."
"Kissing people, man."
"Yeah."
They sat quietly, eating and throwing the white blobs of sugar until a game developed - if they could get the mallow to rebound off the wall and hit the other person, it was a point.
Steve was really good at it. Tony wasn't, but Steve ignored his cheating.
Finally, when the bowl empty and the floor around them was littered with discarded mallows, Steve gave a sigh and let his head fall back against the wall. "You like boys, right?"
Tony shrugged. "Sure, I guess. And girls. And robots. Robots are freaking awesome."
Tony laughed awkwardly, and Steve narrowed his eyes. "I thought you liked Tash."
Tony shook his head. "Tash is gorgeous but she's fourteen, and - yeah, no. I like someone else."
Steve nodded. "Someone I know?"
Tony shrugged. "I guess."
"Tony, is it Bruce?"
"Bruce? Bruce Banner? Anxious Bruce? Hulk?"
"You know any other Bruces? Brucii. Brucuses" Steve was laughing- he thought it was the sugar, maybe, or the aftershocks from kissing Tony, or the booze. "Holy shit, what's the plural of Bruce?"
Tony laughed. "What about you? You into any Breece?"
"I don't know," Steve said. "I've been kinda busy, taking care of Gram and such. Not a lot of time for crushes."
"But-- boys? Girls?"
Steve poked at a marshmallow at his foot, annoyed that the line of questioning had turned back on him - it didn't seem so funny now, not by half. "I don't know, I just-- you shouldn't kiss me again."
Tony furrowed his brow, a look of deep concentration on his face, like he was struggling to understand. "Why?"
"Because-- because it's wrong, Tony." Steve's voice cracked slightly, and he felt his face flush. He had to get out of there, just as urgently as he had needed to escape the game earlier.
Tony had opened him mouth to respond, probably to fight Steve on the point, but Steve struggled to his feet before his friend could respond, not even bothering to clean up the marshmallows, and if his Gram found out, she'd whoop him, but he couldn't have this conversation, he couldn't deal with this, not with Tony, not now, not while they were drunk.
Tony didn't say anything as he walked away, which Steve thought was just as well. He didn't have much left to say.
Steve breathed in the dust of the prop closet, the musty air that lived in the rickety blue cabinet at the back of the women's dressing room, as he knelt in front of the open doors, ticking swords off his list as he hung them on their hooks.
He loved props, loved being the person who catalogued them and kept them and handed them out. He loved being given jobs like "We need a chicken that lays an egg" and making it happen with nothing but a balloon, some newspaper, and a bag of feathers, he loved the grins C gave him when he really got it right.
Steve knew it was between him and Tony for SM next year, and that the one-act would be the decider, but in his gut he was still kinda sure - no matter how much Mr. Coulson loved Tony, no matter how charming he was - that Steve was the best prospect. Steve wanted it, so badly he could taste it. He had dreams of Gwen handing over the stopwatch, of her showing him her blocking notes, of teaching him to call shows.
"Hey."
Steve looked up from his reverie, his pen still pressed to the paper, leaving a huge blot next to Kitty Pryde's name on the list, and smiled back at Mr. Coulson, who stood silhouetted in the doorway.
"Hey," he replied, trying not to show his surprise.
"Are you okay?" Coulson asked, taking a step into the room. "You've been quiet this week."
It was Wednesday; it had been three days since the cast party on Sunday night. Three days since Steve had kissed Tony and then tried to drown his sorrow in a bowl of marshmallows. Steve shrugged. "Lot on my mind."
Coulson nodded. "Anything you want to talk about?"
Steve took a shaky breath. "I've been- I don't know."
"Okay, well. If you change your mind, you know where I am," Coulson said, turning to leave. "All the swords accounted for?"
"I kissed Tony," Steve blurted, before he knew what he was saying.
Coulson paused, his hand on the doorjamb. "I see. Do you want to talk about that?"
"I don't know."
Coulson didn't move, but neither did Steve. He realized, after a moment, that his teacher was holding his breath.
"Can we?" Steve asked, softly, and Coulson nodded, turning back to the room.
"Yes."
Steve put his head in his hands, scrubbing at his eyes with his palms. "It was spin the bottle."
"Okay."
"And I kinda freaked."
"Okay."
"And I don't know what to do."
Coulson cast a look into the hallway, and then took a step into the room. "I'm going to close the door, is that alright?"
Steve nodded, and Coulson pushed the door closed behind him, and then stepped to one of the chairs tucked under the make-up mirrors, slouching into it, facing Steve.
"Are you questioning your sexuality, Steve?"
"Yes," Steve sighed, as quietly as he could.
"You want to tell me about it?"
Steve shrugged. "I don't have a problem with gay people," he sighed. "But I'm-- I'm a Christian, Coulson, and I don't know what this means in terms of sin and I'm only sixteen and what would my mother say?"
Coulson sighed heavily. "One at a time, okay?"
Steve nodded.
"You can be gay and a Christian, and you get to decide what that means to you," C said. "I'm a Catholic, and so is my partner."
Steve stared. "You're-- you, C?"
Coulson laughed gently. "Yup, me. Look, I can't answer your religious questions because I'm not your spiritual person. I'm your drama teacher. What I can do- Steve, it's okay not to know. It's okay to change your mind, and it's okay to be whatever you feel."
Steve shook his head. "But what about, you know, like, God Hates Fags and that stuff?"
"What about it? Do you think God hates you?"
"No," Steve sighed. "But I don't want people to hate me, either."
"You can't control that. Even if you figure out you're straight as an arrow, if you spend the rest of your life flagellating yourself and wearing a hair shirt, someone is gonna hate you. Better they hate you for being you, right?"
Steve shrugged.
"I-- I only met your mom the once," Coulson sighed. "But if she raised a son like you, I've got to imagine she would love you no matter what."
"I guess."
Coulson smiled. "Look, no matter what they're telling you on Glee or whatever, being sixteen sucks, okay? It always has and always will, and those kids are in their twenties anyway. The world is harsh and dangerous. But it's a lot less scary and a lot easier if you're just trying to be the best you. Just-- the you God made. And only you know what that means."
Steve sighed heavily. "I don't know what the best me is."
"And you might not know for a while yet. That's okay. It's the journey and all that, right? It's trying."
"I guess. I just. I don't know what I want."
Coulson nodded. "That's fine, really. You know that saying, that a wise man knows what he doesn't know?"
"Yeah, I guess?"
"Welcome to wisdom, Steve. It stinks."
"Hey, C?"
"Yeah?"
Steve rubbed at his eyes again. "God's like a father, right? And He sets up all these rules for us, and these expectations we can't meet. Why does He want us to fail?"
Coulson shook his head. "That's a question for your pastor," he said, and Steve nodded. "But the way I see it- God's like a father, and good fathers want the best for their kids. He doesn't get mad if you fail, He gets mad if you don't try. Aim for the moon, right, even if you miss, you'll land in the stars. And other clichés."
Steve laughed. "Thanks, C. I feel a little better, I think?"
"You-- can you talk to your friends about this?"
"I guess so, yeah. I don't know what Bucky'll say, but Tony is- bi, I guess? And no one seems to care."
"And you're safe at home?"
"Yeah, Gram-- I mean, she doesn't know but I can't imagine her being- well."
"Okay," Coulson shifted, wiping his palms on his slacks. "And you know you can come to me if you need me?"
"Yeah."
"I mean it. Door is always open."
Steve smiled. "Thanks, C. I got some swords--"
"Right, yeah." Coulson stood, a smile that Steve thought might be "shy" on his face. "Well."
"Yeah."
They stared at each other for a moment before Steve started to laugh. "I have no idea what to say."
"That's alright," Coulson said, moving to open the door. "Talk to you later."
"Yeah, thanks."
Steve decided not to think about it, the way he felt, the things he wanted. He turned down Tash's kind invitation to the Sadie Hawkins dance in January, (and she only asked because Tony was going with Pepper, and Thor with Jane, and she ended up with Bucky, so that worked out somehow) opting instead to stay home and watch reality TV with his Gram.
He didn't say a word when Tash and Bucky started dating after that, didn't point out that he was a senior and she was a freshman, didn't make any noises about being a little jealous of them, both of them, and not being sure if it was because they had each other, or because they had someone at all.
And so a week before the one-act opened, when Steve's beloved and much-maligned van, the Howling Commando, decided that having a working transmission was a stunt that only ritzy uptown cars could pull off and died on him, Steve called the only person he thought he could endure commuting with; not his best friend, because he was fully sick of the newly lovesick version of Bucky, Bucky who only wanted to talk about Tash, but insane, annoying, spoiled Tony, who made Steve mildly murderous.
"Get in loser," Tony laughed, pulling up to Steve's house a full fifteen minutes late on the first morning. "We're going shopping."
It was raining, the way it was always raining in February, not cold, exactly, but miserable, and Steve was a little sodden from waiting by the curb. He rolled his eyes as he got into the convertible, which, who drove a ragtop in the Pacific Northwest in February, really? Even with the top up, it was one of those mad, eccentric things that only Tony Stark would do. "Is this because of my giant lesbian crush on you?"
"Hey, my hair is insured for a million dollars."
"Yeah," Steve sighed, "I'll tell my father, the inventor of toaster strudel."
Tony laughed, and Steve did his honest best not to notice the column of his friend's throat, or how comforting the open sound really was to him.
They drove in relative ease, neither boy feeling exactly awkward, but the quips came fast and hard, and when they ran out of Mean Girls quotes, Tony was pulling into his space in the Junior lot.
"You know," he grinned, tossing the car into park. "You're gonna be a hell of a stage manager next year."
"Me?" Steve was a little flabbergasted, to be honest. He was sure that Tony wanted it, was at least as passionate as he was about the job.
Tony shrugged. "Yeah. I'd be awesome at it, don't get me wrong, but you-- You want it more."
Steve stared into Tony's face, trying to find the joke of the situation, trying - and failing - to figure out what the game was here. But Tony actually looked earnest, somehow, his face open, and Steve had to bite down the urge to lean forward and press their lips together. It would be dishonest to say that he never thought of that kiss, the one in Tony's basement, that there weren't nights when his fantasies revolved around it, but this was still not the time, nor the place, so Steve just nodded and fished his bag from the miniscule back of the car.
"You cool with taking me home tonight?" he asked, his hand on the door. Tony nodded.
"Sure thing," he said, and if his smile wasn't the 20 thousand watts it usually was, well, Steve thought maybe he knew why.
"Tony, I--"
"Look, Steve," Tony cut across him. "I gotta- I like you. Like, I'd like to take you to a movie kind of like you, but I really - where do you stand on all of that? Cause if the answer is no, then you should just tell me so I can move on."
Steve tried to breathe, but found it a little difficult to quell the panic in his chest. "The answer?"
"Yeah."
"What's the question?"
"Do you want to go out some time?"
Steve waited for Tony to laugh, to crack up, for Rhody to jump out of the trunk with a video camera, but it was just him, him and Tony, and this heartbreakingly earnest look on Tony's face, and Steve couldn't even stop himself - he didn't care about wrong or proper, for a moment in his life, he just reached out to touch Tony's cheek. And before he knew what was happening, they were kissing, actually kissing, not like spin the bottle, but like you kissed someone you were dating. And it was weird, for Steve, because Tony was a guy, and because Tony was Tony and because this didn't fix any of the problems he had or answer any of the questions that plagued him, but Tony's mouth was sweet, somehow, and he touched Steve almost reverently, one hand sliding to the back on his neck to pull him closer.
The kiss wasn't the chaste kind of kisses Steve and Peggy had shared in freshman year, but it wasn't exactly dirty either, it was just... it was Tony, for all the values of Tony that Steve knew.
"Yeah," he breathed, as they broke apart. "Yeah, I think we should go out."
Tony grinned, and Steve felt his heart skip a beat because he was the cause of that grin, and he resolved that he would always be the cause of that kind of happiness in Tony Stark.
The night before Steve left for college, a year and a half into dating Tony, Steve couldn't sleep.
It wasn't like he thought the world was ending, he was just excited; excited to go to school, to move across the country, to have the experiences that television and movies had promised him came with the raucous life of being a college student.
And he was scared; scared his Gram would have a hard time being alone, scared Clint wouldn't take good care of the Howling Commando, scared that Tony, who would be 400 miles north, would stop loving him or love him too much, one of those two or both maybe. Steve was having a lot of feelings and he wasn't quite up to understanding all of them.
He shouldn't have been surprised to get a text message, though. And he shouldn't have been surprised that, when he did, it was from Tony, or that it read come outside.
Steve was in pajama pants and not much else, since he was pretending to be asleep, but he tossed his hoodie over his shoulders and crept quietly though his darkened house, his Gram's light snores letting him know she was asleep, to the front door.
He stepped out into the night; brisk, but that was just Oregon at midnight in August, and grinned as he spotted Tony, his parents' Jag dramatically parked in the pool of light cast by the streetlamp, and the man himself, sitting on the hood.
"Hey," Steve said, the grass wet on his bare feet as he padded across to Tony, zipping his hoodie. "Couldn't sleep?"
Tony shrugged. "My boyfriend is leaving for college tomorrow. On a train."
"How very 1940s of him," Steve grinned. "Are you going to miss him?"
Tony gestured for Steve to join him on the hood of the car, and he did, letting Tony lean into him. "Like crazy."
"I guess-" Steve sighed, taking Tony's hands in his, "I guess this is the part where we break up, then?"
"I don't want to."
"We knew this day was coming."
And they had; they had known since April that they'd be going off to separate schools, and resolved to see the summer through, come what may. But now it was here and Steve was pretty sure he didn't want to break up, either, no matter how doomed they might be.
"Yeah, but," Tony squeezed Steve's hand. "I think we can make it work."
"Aren't we just putting off the inevitable?"
Tony shook his head. "Look, if this explodes a week from now, it's another week I get with you."
Steve pressed a kiss to the top of Tony's head. "But if we explode-- I want to know you for a long time. If we break up, we won't be friends."
"We'll always be friends," Tony sighed, slipping his hand out of Steve's grasp. "But here," he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. "Take this."
"Anthony Stark, if you're proposing to me--"
"As if!" Tony laughed. "I-- just open it, okay?"
Steve took the box and opened it, revealing Tony's class ring. Steve stared for a long minute.
"Well?"
"I-- are you giving me your class ring because I'm leaving on a train and it's what people did in the forties?"
Tony grinned up at him. "No, not at all. I'm giving it to you because I want you to have it."
"I don't have anything to give you," Steve said, trying to decide if he was going to keep this insane present.
"Do you think that matters?" Tony asked.
Steve kissed him, one of the only times in their relationship where they had been openly affectionate in public - for all that a dark street at midnight was public - and slipped the ring onto his finger. Well halfway on, as it became immediately obvious that this was a ring built for Tony's smaller, slimmer fingers.
"I'll wear it on a chain," Steve said, and Tony nodded.
"But you'll wear it?"
"Every day."
Tony rested his head on Steve shoulder again, and they sat for a moment in the darkness.
"Wait," Steve said. "Wait. I do have - I have something you can have."
Tony grinned. "Go get it, I like presents!"
Steve slipped off the hood, grabbing Tony's hand, and dragged him up to the doorway of his house.
"Wait here," Steve told him, slipping inside the house.
He knew exactly what he wanted, and found it where it should be, tucked into the bag he would be taking on the train the next day.
He thrust the watch at Tony as he slipped back into the yard.
"My grandfather's pocket watch. Grandpa Rogers. It's been in the family forever. I want - you know, cause you're part of me."
Tony clutched the watch tightly - it wasn't expensive or valuable, it was probably just gilded brass, but it meant something more in the moment, it meant a promise. And so Tony kissed Steve again, trying to pour all that promise between them, trying to make something real, something they could both keep.
"Thank you," Tony said as they broke apart.
Steve just grabbed his hand and squeezed. "I love you," he said, and Tony kissed him again.
Steve Rogers has changed his location to Baltimore, Maryland.
08/22/12
Sender: capnstevemerica@gmail.com
Recipient: ironstark@gmail.com
Subject: Maryland at Last!
Dear Tony,
We got to Maryland today, me and Gram. The train ride was long, but it was the best way to do it - I got to see so much of the country, and Gram doesn't have to drive back on her own. I still say we take that trip next summer, you and me. I still want to see the Grand Canyon, and I want to see it with you.
There are lightning bugs here; they're super strange, and apparently cicadas sing here, which is like a whole other world of weird. It'll take some getting used to.
I miss you like crazy already. Tomorrow we move me into the dorm (I move, Gram directs) and then we start freshman orientation and ROTC on Monday. I have to see if I can wear your ring during drills or what, but I want you to know I'm wearing it every day.
I'll send you a picture when I get the haircut.
All my love,
Steve
09/12/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: RE: 8===D
Tony,
I hate you and your emoticons.
Okay, I don't hate you. I love you and I miss you very much. And I would love to have your visit, but weekends are kinda crazy at the moment, so I'm not sure I can swing it - between studio classes and ROTC and trying to sleep three hours a night, I'm in a little over my head.
And man, I thought I was talented until I got here. Critiques are rough. Not as rough as whatever math genius crap you're taking, but damn.
I did get good feedback on the watercolor I did of you. I'll send you the scan when Joe gets back to the room so I can use his scanner.
No, the hair isn't growing out well, and yes, you'll still find something to hold onto.
All my love,
Steve
10/08/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: hi steve
Clint,
I'm sure you've heard by now that Tony's parents' plane went down. Tomorrow is the last day of the search. Tony is beside himself. If things look up, I won't need it, but if they don't, I'll be back for the funeral, and I might need to borrow the Commando from you, if I can.
That said:
1. Tash is right, Tash Barton sounds much stupider than Clint Romanoff, but they both sound terrible. Hyphenate, but not until you're way older.
2. There is nothing I can do about Thor, he was born that way. If you don't want hugs, you have to tell him so in plain language, he misses vague cues sometimes.
3. Please give Clara and James my love; I think the permanent foster home sounds perfect for you and them. Any thoughts on colleges? PSATs are any day now, you should think about what you want. (Hint: art school is awesome, but you'd better love art. Don't do a conservatory unless you're sure, Lord only knows what I'll do with a BFA after my service is done.)
4. Yes I have a dress uniform; no you may not see pictures.
Steve
10/10/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: RE: re: hi steve
Clint,
Tony is flying me home this weekend.
Obie asked that I not sit with him at the funeral, so that there was no unrest among stockholders about the new owner being gay. I'd say he could fuck the hell off, but he has a point, and I'm sure Tony will understand.
So I'll see you at Wakeland's Funeral Home on Saturday at 10am, and then at Stark Manor for the whatever we call it where we eat egg salad and pretend we're not pretending.
Steve
Transcript of a phone call between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, 10/27/12, 2:19am.
Rogers: Hello?
Stark: Steve!
Rogers: Tony?
Stark: Hi!
Rogers: Tony, it's 2 am.
Stark: But I missed you.
Rogers: Are you drunk?
Stark: Maybe.
Rogers: You know I have to be up at 5, right?
Stark: I just wanted to say hi.
Rogers: Hi.
Stark: I miss you.
Rogers: I miss you, too.
Stark: What are you wearing?
Rogers: Goodnight, Tony.
Stark: Wait! Wait!
Rogers: What?
Stark: I wanna visit. For sex.
Rogers: Very romantic. Call me in the morning when you're sober.
Stark: But--
Rogers: Goodnight.
11/03/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: RE: Visit
Tony,
YES, that weekend is perfect. I cannot wait to see you.
How are you coping, by the way? Your email seemed a little... drunk. I mean, I get it. It's a shitty time right now, but please take care of yourself.
Plus, I get to see you in two weeks!
All my love,
Steve
11/18/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: tstark@mit.edu
Subject: why
Tony,
If you didn't want to be together you could have said so. Leaving my grandpa's watch behind is a cowardly move.
Steve
Tony "Iron Man" Stark is no longer is a relationship.
Pepper Potts CALL ME IMMEDIATELY
11/22/12
Sender: sroge23@mica.edu
Recipient: bartonizeme@gmail.com
Subject: RE: What did I just fucking read?
Clint,
He came down, spent the weekend being miserable and picking fights with my friends - we went to Lim's for a party and he spent the entire time trashing the ROTC in general and cadets in specific and got in a few choice jabs at Liberal Arts students, all because Davis asked him if he was really Tony Stark.
We had a fight where he accused me of not supporting him and I tried to point out that I can barely support myself right now and remind him that he said he was fine with me not sitting with him at the funeral, but he's clearly still mad and when he left, my grandpa's watch was on my desk and he won't answer my emails.
I still have his ring. Is it petty to keep it?
I might not care about the answer to that.
Steve
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/17
Tony,
I know we haven't talked for years, but I'm in Kuwait now, and we just got this shipment of StarkTech and I thought, well, I guess I should write Tony, let him know we're doing good work over here and, you know, thanks for making the shit that keeps us safe. Also, well. Happy birthday, all that.
It sucks, by the way, being over here. Don't get me wrong, I'm proud of what I do, and morale and hooah, all that. But there's just - remember how you used to say I was the poor kid? How we used to joke that my Gram's house was a hovel, for being one story, two bedrooms? How Clint- even CLINT - was shocked when he found out I had one bathroom?
Oh, God. I wish some of these people had one bathroom.
It's good work, though. We're building schools - well, I'm mostly guarding stuff, but the engineers are building schools, and I'm sure we'll teach these people to forget their values and embrace ours in no time.
I was wrong, writing this letter didn't help at all.
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/18
Tony,
Another year, another letter I won't send. It's your birthday again, though I suppose you were expecting that, as it happens every year.
Three of my NCOs are getting divorced. I tell you this because I know it and I can't seem to escape knowing it. I guess I just have one of those faces. People want to tell me about their lives. They all come crying to me all the time and I'm trying but it's like, I'm 23 and the only person I ever loved dumped me with a pocket watch, exactly what are you looking for here?
(And you and I both know I've dated, so don't go pretending that I'm pining, I just never loved anyone else, deflate your stupid head.)
In the somewhat shocking realm; Clint is here. He's not in my unit, but he's just out of sniper training, and we ended up stationed in the same place, so that's pretty cool. He's gotten kinda quiet, but I guess he always was. I got used to his emails and letters - kid thinks a mile a minute, even if he doesn't say a damn thing. He and Tash are engaged, she gave him a ring and everything. I think we always knew it was gonna go that way, huh?
I saw you on the cover of Time from last year. (Mail is a little slow sometimes.) You look good. I miss you.
One of the men under my command died yesterday when he stepped on an IED that they think was made from your missiles. Maybe you should be making weapons that won't kill your
Tony Stark
c/o Stark Industries
200 Park Avenue
New York, New York 10166
3/3/20
Tony,
Sorry I didn't write last year; I wasn't deployed and the day got away from me. It's easier to remember when I'm surrounded by your name.
Not that I send these idiotic things, just, I don't know, it seems like something that needs apologizing for.
I'm currently stationed in Saudi Arabia, which is super weird, but you know, we go where we're needed. I hear from Clint that you give a good wedding gift- I'm kinda amazed that he and Tash worked out and we didn't. (He calls her Nat now, did you know? She goes by Tasha, not Tash, but he calls her Nat. That boy has been smitten from day one, creeping around in the catwalks with her. Never had a chance. He's still a sniper, she still works at a job that sounds an awful lot like she's a spy in her free time, something about language and the state department, I think it's above my grade.)
I guess you didn't hear about Bucky, because if you had you would have at least sent me a condolence note, so for the record; Bucky is MIA. He was in Korea last I heard. I really, well, you know. I don't believe for a second that he's dead because fuck you, that's why, but I called his mom last week, and she's a little broken.
Will you be broken when I die?
I met a guy, but I don't suppose you want to hear about that. I hear you're dating a model of some kind. I wish I were surprised.
Anyway, happy birthday, I won't be sending this.
Steve Rogers had been home a few times in the last five years - they gave him months at home to recuperate between tours, but knowing that he was home for good, stepping off the bus into the crisp autumn air and seeing his Gram, still kicking and waiting for him, there was final about that, something that he couldn't quantify.
Maybe it was the discharge papers in his bag.
He moved slowly, now, since the accident. He'd lost his leg. The other 17 men in the plane had lost their lives. No reason for him to be alive, none at all. Except to come back to this godforsaken valley, where there weren't any fireflies at all, and try to make something of himself, something of a 27-year-old who had already lived one life.
He let his Gram hold him close, let her whisper the words she needed to give him into his ear, and then let her bundle him into his old van, the one he'd named in high school, the one that had no right running anymore except his Gram kept it running, for him. For when she knew he'd come back.
He managed to stave off the tears until he was back in the little back bedroom, still the monument to Steve the Stage Manager - scripts in binders on the bookshelf, covered in blocking notes and cues in his old, slanting handwriting, a photo of the crew his senior year tucked into the mirror, and, in the corner next to his desk, a disgusting two-by-four, riddled with nails.
why didn't they use screws?
because they're stupid.
well, we need this ply.
get steve, he has arms now.
hey, captain!
yeah?
get this board loose.
got it.
damn, steve, puberty hit you like a mac truck, huh? you got a neville longbottom thing going.
do i?
It was all memories. He knew if he opened the drawers there were more, because he stashed his photos of him and Tony there last time he was home, with the scrap of fabric he'd salvaged from the grey wool pants he'd worn on his 18th birthday, and the ring Tony had given him.
Too many memories.
Steve sat on the bed - he'd call it too narrow, being a twin, but it was more than he'd had some nights in the desert, and he ran his fingers along the new seam on his right leg, where the plastic of his prosthetic met his skin. The doctors had said he'd get used to it, that it was just a time and practice thing, but Steve wasn't sure if that would ever actually happen.
The ceiling of his room was, at the insistence of his 12-year-old self, bedecked with glow-in-the-dark stars, which had lost their glow years ago, but in the fading light of the afternoon, Steve laid back on his bed and he was able to pretend, for a brief moment, that he was back in the desert, with his brothers at arm's length, and not in a place that was allegedly home, more alone than he'd ever been.
Bruce Banner Any Carver alums going to the show this weekend? C's finally retiring - Betty and I will be in town. Let me know if you want drinks.
Clinton Barton, Steve Rogers, Darcy Foster and 10 others like this.
Natasha Romanoff Yes! Clint is home and we will be there! (We might have timed our vacations to fit this, I'll never tell.)
Steve's shrink at the VA said he was suffering from PTSD and survivor's guilt, which were creating barriers to his reintegration into society. Steve thought his shrink was suffering from a crippling need to make the universe make sense, but he didn't say that, because his degree was in illustration and not psychology, and she outranked him, anyway.
When Steve brought up the spring show at Carver, Major Riggs thought it was a great idea - a chance to revisit his roots, to remember a time when drawing was easy for him, when things seemed to make sense.
He missed drawing, missed his sketchbooks, but even the act of holding a pencil felt alien to him, somehow, and the last six months had seen him sitting at his desk, the desk where he had sketched every night on the back of math worksheets and in physics books, now somehow the images he used to have weren't there, or wouldn't move out of his brain and onto the paper, he wasn't sure which.
But more than that, he longed for the closeness he had felt, not just in the Army, but before that, too, in theatre. Where that sense of family had started, with marshmallows thrown against a wall, with a transparent blue stopwatch, handed from class to class to class, and all the other trappings of home.
He knew some of the others were coming into town for the show, since C was finally retiring, but he was relatively sure that, if went to the Sunday matinee, he'd avoid them. (Well, Thor and Bruce and Tony, maybe, but Clint and Tash had been in touch constant over the past six months and yes, they were coming to see him and no he couldn't stop them and he didn't mind that as much.)
He snuck in a few minutes before curtain, reveling in the sameness of the theatre, the same stiff-backed wooden seats that he had run through in his newbie days, making sure they were all up; the same old, mustard-yellow Grande; and the same C, less a little hair, biting his nails in the back row. He smiled at Steve, who gave a half wave before sinking into his seat, the lights dimming around him.
Of course, for his final show, C had pulled out all the stops and done the one show he had never dared to attempt- not only was in Sondheim, with his impossible melodies, but it was Sweeny Todd, possibly the least appropriate musical to ever perform in a high school, what with all the blood and cannibalism and murder.
But still, it had C's fingerprints on it, and it was brilliant in every way, from the set to the singers, and Steve found himself actually lost in a story, in a way he hadn't been since college, or maybe before.
If intermission came too soon, it was no fault of the clock; Steve would have sat for another three hours of the show, because it was something, finally, that stopped his brain remembering ever damn unpleasant moment of the past 27 years.
He stepped into the daylight lobby, favoring his right leg - the prosthetic was more normal now, he could walk almost like an uninjured person, but he felt aware of it in crowds, like he might tip over at any moment, like any one of these people might shove him down and take it.
He stepped into the hallway, the concession table busy in front of him, and decided that, between the crowd and the show, what Steve really needed was air.
He wasn't exactly expecting company, but when it came, he couldn't say he was exactly surprised.
The man stepped out of the building, hands raking through his dark hair as he spoke briskly into a cell phone- it reminded Steve vaguely of Captain Rutledge, the way he had kept his cool, the way Steve imagined he had been on the plane that day, even as they were crashing.
It took a moment for the man to resolve into a person, the person he was, and by then he'd seen Steve and hung up the cell phone.
"Hi," he said, swallowing hard.
"Hi," Steve responded. "Hi, Tony. How are-- what are you doing here?"
Tony shrugged. "I mean, C's last hurrah. I owe it to him."
Steve nodded as Tony crossed the distance between them and extended his hand. Steve stared for a second before remembering what to do; to clasp and shake, right, that was what old friends did.
"You look like hell," Tony said.
"I'm six months out of Saudi Arabia, what do you want?"
Tony blinked hard, looking startled. "I thought you only owed three years."
Steve shrugged. "I did five. Four and a half." Unconsciously, he ran his hand down his calf, over the prosthetic under his pant leg. "I got sent home. Got a little - well." Steve pulled up his pants leg.
"Lieutenant Dan," Tony drawled, "you got new legs."
Steve felt his vision flash red for a moment, and concentrated all his energy on Major Riggs' advice; Don't punch civilians, Rogers. Even if they cut in line at the bank. Even if they're your high school ex and they're being a cock.
Tony's brow was furrowed. "Steve? I'm-- was that not okay? I just thought--"
"I'm not that kid, Tony, the one you knew!" Steve snapped, because if he couldn't punch he could be angry. "You can't just say shit like that, damn! You know I-- you know how many times your work almost killed me in the last 5 years?"
Tony's face flashed with sadness for a brief second, and Steve remembered a moment, a long time passed, that same sadness on that same face, in Tony's bed on Steve's birthday, but the look faded quickly, giving way to a cocky arrogance that Steve had seen on magazine covers. "Yeah, well, protecting the free world."
"You're never going to change, are you?"
Tony shook his head. "If what you did was change, then no thanks."
"I-- fucking hell, Tony, I just got back from a fucking war zone. You want candy and gumdrops?"
A small smile quirked Tony's lips. "No," he said. "Marshmallows."
"Marshmallows," Steve repeated. "The night you kissed me."
"It was spin the bottle, we kissed each other."
"You dared me."
"You took the dare."
Steve stared at his hands for a long moment. "Yeah, I guess I did," he offered, finally, as thje lights inside flickered, signaling the end of intermission. "Do you think-- do you think we should go back in?"
Tony shrugged. "I really don't think I'd be able to concentrate on the show right now."
"Yeah," Steve sighed. "Me neither."
They watched the people in the building through the doors and their thick glass panels, as they filed out of the hall, out of bathrooms and back into the theatre for the second act. Tony and Steve sat, immobilized on the bench like bookends, with nothing but history between them.
"I owe you-“ Tony took a deep breath after a few minutes of silence. "I shouldn't have just left the watch like that, back when we, you know. That was shitty."
"Yeah," Steve nodded, "it was."
"And you shouldn't have-- you promised."
Steve finally turned to look at Tony, taking in the worn creases around his eyes; he looked so much older, so much more tired than Steve remembered, like he had aged a hundred years.
"I promised?"
"You don't remember?"
Steve shook his head. "Do you mean-- you mean that I wanted to give you everything? That night? That I would never leave you?"
Tony nodded, and Steve felt his throat close. "I had to go to school--"
"My parents died, Steve. Where were you?"
"I was fucking 18 years old. I was keeping my own head above water!"
Tony sighed. "It was nine years ago. I'm over it."
"I'm not."
Steve heard Tony's inhalation. "What?"
"I'm not over it," Steve said. "I'm pissed at you, I'm fucking all broken up inside and I open any magazine I've got and there you are, dating a Victoria's Secret model and-- Did you ever miss me?"
"Every fucking day," Tony told him, his face earnest. "You have no idea."
"I-" Steve balled his fists up. He fought a war, he could fight this battle. "I never stopped, you know."
"I don't know."
"Don't make me say it," Steve frowned. "You know."
"You-- are you saying you still love me?"
"I guess."
"I want to, Steve, is it okay-- can I hold your hand?"
Steve looked at his hand, still balled into a fist, and relaxed his fingers to reach out for Tony, who took it, and ever so gently, like Thor used to do with Jane, lifted Steve's hand to his moth and kissed his fingers.
"Tony--"
"I never stopped thinking about you, Steve, not for a day. I just-- I figured you were pissed cause I was a little shit and you didn't want me."
"I wrote you letters."
"I never got any letters. Is this a Notebook thing? Are we going to have to go find a dock to kiss on?"
Steve actually felt a smile cross his face, for what might have been the first time since his Gram picked him up at the bus depot. "I never sent them, but I wrote them. On your birthday."
Tony stared for a moment. "Do you know what I want to do right now?"
"Kiss me?"
"No. Well, yes. But also, we should go get milkshakes. And calamari. At Bob's."
The smile was back, wider on Steve's face. "Yes. But first-“
Tony grinned back, and leaned in to kiss him, their lips pressing together for a moment before Tony pulled back and rested his forehead against Steve's. "Is that what you want?"
"No," Steve said, squeezing Tony's hand. "I want a fuckton more. But that," he pressed another sweet kiss to the corner of Tony's mouth. "Is a good start."