It's Just Moments
Title: It's Just Moments
Fandom: Marvel Movieverse
Rating: PG
Warnings: ...none?
Summary: Just some moments about Tony and Steve
Disclaimer: I don't own these lovely boys, but I sure do buy a lot of comic books now that I've gotten hooked again.
The first time Tony took Steve out to dinner, he ordered fondue. Tony never had the courage to ask why Steve was so heartbroken and so embarrassed at the same time, but he never doubted that Steve enjoyed the food. Still, Tony never ordered it for them again, but Steve sometimes did.
~~~~
Stark Industries had a small subsidiary e-business where R&D teams could sell simulators and games that got generated during research after sensitive company data was stripped out. Many of them involved dropping objects that shatter, bounce or splatter in interesting ways. Most of the games sold for a dollar each. The proceeds were split between the people who made it and the cost of the website. Most of the games probably weren't worth a dollar. However, there was an anonymously-submitted first-person shooter game set in World War II that damn near went viral. The profits were quietly donated to various veteran-related charities.
When one of the department heads recognized Tony's coding style and asked about it, Tony had looked somewhat sheepish and said, “I just wanted to know what it would be like to punch Hitler.”
~~~~
At some point when Tony was either a little too drunk or not drunk enough, he admitted that most of his nightmares involve people he could have killed, and was very glad that he hadn't. Steve's nightmares involved people he didn't save, and the fact that they'd probably all be dead by now made him feel worse when he woke up. Tony ended up putting on old movies his mother loved to fill the silence, and the rest of the Avengers found them asleep on the couch in the morning with the main menu of Gone with the Wind cycling endlessly.
When Clint started to give Tony shit for it, Steve claimed it was his choice. Everyone but Tony thought the embarrassment was over the movie, not the lie.
~~~~
Steve had accepted that the war gave him nightmares before he had even managed to enlist. He had a good sense of how they affected him now, so when he couldn't sleep, he dealt in one of two ways. If Tony wasn't around, Steve hit the gym. If Tony was around, Steve inevitably found Tony awake, no matter the hour, it seemed. Sometimes they both ended up in the gym. More and more often, Steve ended up falling asleep in Tony's lab while Tony's projects produced noises that no one should have been able to sleep through. Tony never said anything, though the lab eventually acquired a second cot.
Steve never had any trouble sleeping through Tony's snoring either.
~~~~
Once, when Steve had been forced to consider Tony's medical record, Steve wondered just how many times Tony would have tried to enlist in the army during World War II. Then he decided that for all Tony hated it, Tony was a lot like Howard, so Tony would have tried once. Then Tony would have gone in as a civilian with all his tech and no military training. Tony was a brilliant super hero, but he would have been a shitty soldier.
He probably would have been a lot of fun on leave though.
~~~~
Another time, when Steve wandered into the lab at oh-dark-hundred, Tony handed him a piece of paper and said, “Read this. Out loud.”
“Steve Rogers. Armor override. Code numb-- Wait. What the hell, Tony!”
Tony's computer interrupted him. “Voice print recorded. Please use the correct phrase should you need to activate it, Mr. Rogers.”
“Oh, good, that's done then. Make the control adjustments, Jarvis.” Tony grinned like a maniac. “Need to get going. I've got a flight to catch. If I miss another board meeting, Pepper will skin me alive. Catch ya later.” And he was out the door before Steve could form any coherent thoughts on the subject.
~~~~
One afternoon while the Avengers were getting ready for a press conference, Pepper Potts had the so-called privilege of briefing the team. Steve treated her with all the respect he would give a frighteningly competent lady. She reminded him so much of Peggy, but in flashes that hurt every time they happened.
And when Tony started mouthing off to her, and she gave as good as she got in a strangely professional manner, Steve finally figured out how horribly bad Tony was at talking to people he cared about. Steve wondered if Pepper had ever tried to shooting at Tony to give him a clue.
He also started forming a plan.
~~~~
A few months after the override code incident, Steve nervously handed Tony a thumb drive and said, “Fury finally said I can give you this.”
Tony took it with a slightly confused expression because he'd never tried to get Steve to get him confidential files. Aside from that one time, but it didn't count because he hadn't expected it to work. “Thank you?”
Steve waved off the thanks. “I'll be down in the gym.” Given that the thumb drive was about 99.5% encryption, and .5% a file named fairisfair.pdf, he expected to have half an hour tops before Tony reacted in a way that the entire mansion would hear.
~~~~
It took Tony three hours before he came storming into the gym waving a handful of papers. “That's enough sedative to kill a horse! To kill ten horses! What the hell are you trying to pull, Rogers?”
“Based on the reports I saw, it takes twice that to slow the Hulk,” Steve said mildly.
“And you aren't close to the gamma radiation version of the Green Giant!” Tony seemed to be gearing up for a tantrum, but Steve was pretty sure he understood what was going on.
“That dosage can only knock me out for 15 minutes. Things go wrong in our line of work. I trust you, Tony.” Now if only Tony would trust himself.
Tony gaped like a stranded fish, and before he could rally, Steve continued, “I think I need a shower. And a sandwich. Have you eaten at all today?” Steve absently clapped Tony on the shoulder as he headed for the locker room.
~~~~
The Avenger's meeting was tinged with hysteria, but it was only to be expected when they had just learned about a secret invasion from shapeshifters. No one wanted to point the first finger, but none of them quite trusted that the others were themselves.
As Tony set down his newly emptied coffee mug, Steve stood, calling the attention of the room. “Iron Man has been replaced with a fake.” Steve raised his hand to quell the outburst and made himself ignore the perfect expression of betrayal that “Tony” had on his face. “Of course, to make sure that I'm not an imposter causing dissension in the ranks, you should probably lock up both of us until someone comes up with some scientific test or you find the real Tony Stark.”
As the rest of the team moved to secure them, Natasha asked softly, “How do we determine if whomever we find is the real Tony?”
Steve considers all the little things that tipped him off, the way the laugh was wrong, how the walk had the wrong confidence, how Pepper hadn't sounded the right kind of displeased over the phone and finally whispered the way he had confirmed his suspicion. Only three words, but it made Natasha laugh.
~~~~
When the door to the room pretending to be a cell opened, Steve fought down his relief at seeing Tony. The imposter could have escaped, after all.
Tony lounged insolently in the door frame with a scowl on his face. “Y'know, Cap. I've had a pretty lousy day. Gassed with something by someone with your face, left in a car trunk, handed over to paramedics and then, then, to add insult to injury, do you know what happened?” Tony paused long enough to stride across the room and poke his finger into Steve's chest. “Then when someone finally gave me coffee, it was decaf. Do you have any idea why someone I've never done anything to in my life would be so cruel as to give me decaffeinated coffee?”
Steve's grin felt like it was almost too big for his face. “If this is how wired you get on decaf, maybe you should switch to herbal tea.”
Tony looked away first, but to face the door and call out, “Stand down. He's the real deal.”
And then Steve wasn't sure which one of them moved first to embrace the other, but he knew Tony would always say it was Steve.