avengers fic - momentum [steve/tony, r, 2/2]
For author's note, summary, etc., please see Part One.
On Veteran's Day, the Avengers go to DC for what is, essentially, a press junket. It leaves a bad taste in Steve's mouth, the whole thing; it's supposed to be a day about respect and sacrifice, not image, and he smiles when he'd told to and keeps his face blank when he's not. It's not that he doesn't understand the need for what they're doing--they're national symbols now, all of them, and the photo ops are good for morale. They help counteract the near-constant panic the country's in these days, with threats cropping up harder and faster all the time, and Steve understands, he really does.
He just wishes he could be doing it on his own terms, not SHIELD's. He fought, is still fighting, for his country--hell, he died for his country, for all intents and purposes. There's a small, selfish part of him, a part of him he tries to ignore, that feels he's owed this day for himself; the rest of him just wants to attempt to get drunk and try not to think about the Commados, about Peggy, about Bucky.
But that's not what's on the docket, so he swallows it as best he can, lets himself be ushered from breakfast on Capitol Hill to a press conference in the Rose Garden to a tour of Walter Reed Memorial Hospital, where he has to lock himself in the bathroom for ten minutes to keep from saying all the things he could. From there, it's an overly formal lunch and a series of incredibly boring meetings, and then an interview with that Cooper guy that Steve always likes better when the cameras aren't rolling, and then they've got half an hour to change before they're whisked away to the kind of black tie dinner event that makes Steve's palms itch with discomfort.
"Greetings! I am a penguin," Steve hears someone say, about an hour in; he turns to see Thor cheerfully accosting what might well be a heartily confused secret service agent, and smiles despite himself. "Or perhaps I am simply disguised as one--my friend Clint informs me that this is their typical attire, though I confess I am at a loss as to who or what they are."
"Flightless birds, Thor," Natasha says, gliding by in an evening gown that somehow manages to convey 'armed and dangerous.' "Penguins are flightless birds."
"But I am, myself, quite capable of flight," Thor says, sounding mystified, and that's all Steve catches before he's approached by yet another pompous stranger who wants to talk to him about things they can't possibly understand.
"Yes," he says, every time he's asked if he's proud to have served his country; "No," he says, every time he's asked if he has any regrets. Both answers are the truth, but not all of it--Steve's proud to have served, to be serving, but prouder of those who served with him; he's without regrets, but equally without much choice. What he wants, more than anything, is to say, "What makes you think that I answer to you?" but he recognizes that that's selfish, unkind, impolite.
So he smiles and nods, swallows it like he's been swallowing it all day, like he's always swallowing it, always trying to push it away. He smiles and nods and when he catches sight of Tony deep in conversation with a beautiful woman, hands flying everywhere, grin firmly in place, well, he swallows that too. There are things he wants, things he's wanted for awhile now, but they're hardly relevant; it hurts, a little, but there's no one without something sharp in their side, and to focus on it would be willfully missing the point.
He's surprised when he sees Tony shake the woman's hand and break away from her, surprised all over again when Tony saunters up next to him and lowers his voice conspiratorially.
"Walk with purpose," Tony says, like he's imparting some great piece of wisdom instead of talking nonsense, and Steve furrows his brow.
"What?"
"They're like sharks," Tony says, "you have to walk like you're going somewhere or they smell it on you and go in for the kill. Literally, sometimes, there was this thing with Murdoch--look, we're blowing this popsicle stand, so just be cool and do the big boy walk. See you outside."
And then he just walks away, head high, big, quick strides like there's somewhere Important he has to be, and when Steve mimics him it…works, somehow. No one grabs his arm and calls his bluff, they all just step aside, and before he knows it he's on the front steps of the ridiculously ornate building he's been trapped in all night.
Tony's leaning against a limo, wearing sunglasses even though it's pitch black outside, and grinning at him. "Told you."
"Yes, you did," Steve says, and then rolls his eyes, because he tries not to indulge Tony's smug moments too often. "What's going on?"
Tony shrugs. "You don't like parties."
"I…don't, that's true," Steve says slowly, and Tony's smile changes, shrinks down into that weird, trying-too-hard expression he gets sometimes.
"I remember some of what you told me," he says. "That night I was all…uh, anyway. I wrangled us a field trip, unless you wanna go back to schmoozing."
"No, I could definitely go for a field trip," Steve says hastily, and Tony's grin flicks back to life as he opens the door of the limo.
"Your chariot awaits," he says, gesturing with a flourish, and Steve snorts out a laugh and climbs into the car.
Tony gets in after him, pulls the door shut, and whips out his phone before Steve gets the chance to ask where they're going. He pushes a couple buttons and then holds it to his ear, says, "Hi, this is Tony Stark, I just spoke to Madeline--yeah, good, she said she was going to--about five minutes? We're close, so it shouldn't be--heh, yeah, it's a big black limo, you can't miss it. Thanks."
He hangs up, offers Steve another faint grin, and then lifts his drink to his lips, which is when Steve realizes--
"Did you take that?" he says, and raises his eyebrows when Tony opens his mouth to respond and then makes a face at the drink, like he's surprised too.
"Oh," Tony says. "Uh, yeah, I guess I did. Whoops." He makes that face again--and it's not quite surprise, Steve decides, runs a little closer to resignation--before he shrugs and knocks the whole thing back in one go. "Better a glass than a bottle, right?"
"If you say so," Steve says, eyebrows still up, and Tony pulls his phone out again, doesn't answer him.
He's…drunk, Steve realizes, almost has to be. There's a little bit of a tremor in his hands, and every time Steve's seen him all night, he's been holding a glass; he's drunk, at least a little, and if Steve's attention hadn't been brought to it he wouldn't have noticed at all. That's disconcerting enough that it distracts him from his curiosity about where they're going, and he watches Tony as surreptitiously as he can. The light from his phone casts a dim glow over his face, sunglasses and all, and Steve wonders if Tony even recognizes that it's strange, the way he lives his life--if, to anyone but Steve, it comes off as strange at all.
But then the car is drawing to a stop, and the driver is leaning over to speak to someone in the little booth they've pulled up next to, and there's a gate opening, and…
"This is…Arlington," Steve says slowly, as the car starts moving again, crawling through the gate and up to an appropriate spot. "You…our field trip is to Arlington?"
"I know you wanted to go, earlier," Tony says, shrugging a shoulder. "It got bumped for the Anderson Cooper thing, and that's totally my fault; that was supposed to just be me, and then I told Fury about it and, well. I just--Maddy, she's the superintendent now, she was my assistant for like fifteen seconds, back before Pepper, and we kept in touch, and since she was right there at the thing and all--anyway, yeah. Arlington. If you want, I mean, if not we can go, I don't know, find the elusive Einstein monument or something."
"No," Steve says, "no, I definitely want to--I, uh, I didn't think I was going to get the chance, but it was important. Is important. To me."
"Yeah," Tony says, and he takes off the sunglasses and slides them into his pocket. "Yeah, I thought it might be." He gets out of the car, waits for Steve to climb out too, and then nods out at the grounds. "I figure you probably want to…have a minute, right?"
"Yes," Steve says, too quickly, and tries not to feel guilty at the way Tony winces. "This is actually…better, empty like this, without everyone who probably would have…just a minute or two, if that's, if we're allowed to-- "
"Mads was more than happy to open the gate for me, let alone for Captain America," Tony says, waving a hand. "Take as long as you want, I'll be around."
He turns and walks off. There's purpose in his step, but then again, he might well be faking it; Steve puts his hands in his pockets, keeps his back straight, and walks the other way.
It's not his first visit to Arlington. He'd been once, during the war, when he was still a dancing monkey and the battlefront was still a pipe dream. They'd been in D.C. for a show, him and the girls, Senator Brandt showing them around, waving Steve in people's faces like a re-election poster; he'd asked for an hour, was granted it only when he told the Senator where he was going. He spent the whole time at the Tomb of the Unknowns, back ramrod straight, feet firmly planted, thinking of his father, and there was a photographer waiting for him at the gate when he walked out. The guy was obviously hired, discomfort visible and, for Steve, easy enough to relate to. He'd given the man a tired smile and walked, head ducked, the six miles back to his hotel.
That's not where he goes now, though he knows that the Tomb of the Unknowns is marking the lives of far more soldiers than it was the last time he visited. His country has kept on fighting without him, has dipped in and out of so much conflict that Steve imagines it'll take him another lifetime to catch up. He just walks, eyes raking over the rows on rows of alabaster catching moonlight, and keeps his shoulders squared.
And oh, Steve's proud to be an American, has been since he was old enough to know what it meant; he's proud of the people he's fought with and the people he's fought for, of the bravery he's encountered on the battlefield and off. He protects and serves because he loves, has always loved, his country and the people within it, the things they believe, the ideals they fight for, and there's no amount of time or distance that could change that.
But loving something doesn't mean it can't disappoint you; if anything it means the opposite, and Steve is so tired of waiting for the war to be over. Seventy years later and everything's changed, but nothing has--this is still hallowed ground and someone will still, always, be fighting, and those losses Steve has weathered seem small and battered in the face of that inescapable truth. He grits his teeth and remembers the 107th, beaten down and dragged raw and still, somehow, willing to meet him with hope.
"Thank you," he says, to the empty air, to Bucky and Peggy, to his parents, to Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips, to a hundred people he'll never see again, to a hundred thousand people he'll never meet. And maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, one voice in the darkness, but it leaves something lighter in his chest; he bows his head and means it, doesn't move for a long time.
He walks on eventually, makes a few turns at random until he finds Tony, sitting on a bench about a mile from where they came in. He's staring fixedly at some point in the distance, and one of his fingers is tracing something absently against the marble next to his thigh. He jumps when Steve says hello.
"Oh," he says, "you're done."
"Ah," Steve says, "done's…not quite the right word, if that's alright. Ready for company, maybe, unless--we can go if you want, I don't mean to keep you. "
"Keep me from what?" Tony says. "There's always another overpriced party, don't worry about it. You wanna sit?"
"Sure." Steve does; the marble's cool enough in the November air that he can feel it through the ridiculously thin tuxedo pants he's been outfitted with. It's nice, the chill, affirming somehow, and he takes a few long, slow breaths, watches the air go white around his exhales.
"Last time I was here Rhodey made me do a thing," Tony says after awhile, a slightly smile quirking at the edge of his mouth. "He--oh, uh, Rhodey, James Rhodes, he's a friend of mine. War Machine, actually, on the SHIELD stuff, you'll probably meet him at some point--anyway. There was a walking tour. He took my phone."
"It's possible to take your phone?"
"I let Rhodey take things from me, sometimes," Tony says, shrugging. "I wouldn't have used it anyway, not...my father's buried here, you know."
"I…didn't," Steve says, blinking.
"Right there, actually," Tony says, nodding out at the row of tombstones in front of them. "Fourth one back, with the wreath--Pepper used to send them, guess she never stopped."
"I'm sorry," Steve says, and is, surprised to find it's more for Tony's loss that his own.
Tony sighs. "Don't be. He was…uh, well, I mean, a great American, obviously, you don't get in here without--you know the funeral was in Manhattan? They, there was a car accident--or maybe not an accident, I guess it's possible that it--anyway, I was 17, and they did the funeral in Manhattan because my mother wasn't gonna be buried here, they wouldn't…not that she'd have wanted to be next to him for all eternity, probably. I guess it's better. But then I had to fly out here and do it again, because he wouldn't--it would've killed him if we'd let him be buried anywhere else."
"That…sounds like him," Steve admits. "He once made me promise that I'd use my post-war pull to get a monument of him erected somewhere."
"As opposed to building one himself?" Tony says. "I'm shocked."
"Well, he was more than a little drunk," Steve admits, and Tony almost laughs, pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Yeah, that sounds like him too. Or maybe like me; who knows at this point, right?"
"You're a lot less," Steve says, and stops, unsure. He doesn't know how to say what he means here, what would be revealing and what would be overstepping his bounds. But when he looks up Tony's staring right at him, eyes big and almost desperate, and honesty's really his only choice. "He…so much of it was smoke and mirrors, and it was always…oh, Tony, I don't know. He was my friend, but I never felt like I was fighting with him; it was always…he always had his own interests at heart, I guess."
"You think I don't always have my own interests at heart?"
"Of course not," Steve says, taken aback. "I mean, sure, at first I thought that, and sometimes you do, but it's--we're a team, all of us, and you're--"
"Right," Tony says, "yeah, silly question, sorry."
"I'm almost positive you're missing my point," Steve says, and the look Tony gives him this time is shuttered, careful.
"If I am, it's not by intention," he says, and then, the corner of his mouth twitching, adds, "for once."
"Well, thank heaven for small favors," Steve says, and Tony doesn't quite laugh, but he ducks his head to hide his smile.
"Can I ask you a weird question?"
"Sure."
"Did he," Tony says, and winces. "My dad, I mean, did he ever--I mean, I know you guys were, uh, pals or whatever, but there's levels of that and--did he ever talk about my mother?"
"I," Steve says, and stops. "Did he…know your mother, then?"
Tony sighs. "Well, that's an answer. Yeah, they met in--it doesn't matter, I was just curious. He sometimes talked about the war like it was this, I don't know, a Bruce Springsteen song or something, this whole heyday thing. I don't think the family thing was really in his game plan, always kind of wondered if it was her or me."
"Maybe it was him," Steve says, trying for kindness, and Tony snorts.
"Doubt it. One thing you can say about Stark men, we're very fond of ourselves."
No, you're not, Steve thinks, doesn't say even though he's got the empirical evidence to back it up. Tony Stark's least favorite person in the world is, contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark; Steve's known him long enough now that it's achingly obvious, almost painful to watch. And Howard, who'd worked like someone was chasing him, who'd ducked away from anyone who got too close; Howard hadn't been his own least favorite person, but he hadn't been the world's biggest Howard Stark fan, either.
"Just…not fond of each other?" Steve guesses instead, which is almost certainly a step too far, but he's been dancing around this with Tony for months now, and he might as well.
Tony bark out a harsh laugh; it echoes through the thick silence around them almost tauntingly. "Sounds about right."
"That's not fair," Steve says, angry suddenly, and Tony jerks like he's been stung.
"Yeah," he says hastily, "yeah, I know it's not, sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I mean, obviously he was a--"
"No--wait, no," Steve says. "Tony, for god's sake, are you out of your mind? I meant it the other way--you were a kid, of course I didn't mean--I meant him, not you, Jesus."
"Oh," Tony says. "Then, that's…uh. What?"
"It's not fair that you think that," Steve clarifies. "Or, that he made you think that. For one thing, it makes me feel like a bad judge of character."
"You are a bad judge of character," Tony says. "Unless you want to tell me you've changed your mind about Scott Summers--"
"I'm not saying he's not irritating," Steve says, for the fifteenth time since he confessed that he finds Scott a little overwrought, but good leadership material. "Just that there's more there than meets the eye. And you like Wolverine, and he agrees with me--"
"He agrees with you because he's not-so-secretly planning to get you drunk, whatever it takes," Tony says. He roll his eyes when Steve looks at him in surprise. "Have you not noticed that he keeps trying to get you into bars when we tangle with them?"
"I thought he just liked drinking."
"He loves drinking," Tony agrees. "He loves drinking alone."
"In retrospect, he has been a little strange about it," Steve says, and Tony shakes his head.
"No good can come of befriending X-Men," he says. "Only disaster and accidentally confessing things to Xavier."
Steve doesn't say anything to that, just bites back a laugh and shakes his head; silence falls between them, but it's comfortable silence, and Steve feels lighter than he has all day.
"I could go, if you're ready," Steve says after awhile, and Tony nods, gets up, follows him to the car. When they're inside it, tucked up against opposite black leather seats, he says, "Thank you for bringing me here, Tony."
"Thank you for your service, Steve," Tony says, his voice as sincere as Steve's ever heard it, and Steve doesn't answer him, can't, for fear he'll hear the sudden lump in his throat.
--
The rest of the team goes home for Christmas, for a given value of the word home. Bruce's mom's in a nursing home in Del Ray and Natasha's got a brother in Seattle; Clint and Thor apparently have some kind of road trip planned, which is an experience Steve's a little sorry he won't get to see. Even Pepper's gone, two weeks in Barcelona that Natasha's planning on joining her for after the holiday, so it's just Steve and Tony left in the mansion on December 23rd.
They're still new enough together that it's strange, doesn't quite fit--in the absence of the clattering racket of the rest of the team, Steve finds himself at odds. He's not sure he remembers how to talk to Tony, which is ridiculous. He's been talking to Tony for months, has only been sleeping with him for a few weeks, so there shouldn't be a problem at all. But the house is empty and the criminal element seems to be taking a holiday along with everyone else, and Steve's eyes follow the line of Tony's shoulders, the curve of his back, and his words dry up in his throat.
It doesn't help that there's Christmas spilling out of every television and computer, screaming out of the radio, bursting forth from each and every shopfront. There's a strange sort of desperation to it, feverish, almost, and it builds to a crescendo that sits wrong next to the holiday Steve remembers. He hadn't grown up with much, but his mother had always managed to scrape something together for Christmas dinner, for a book or an orange in his stocking, a new pair of shoes when they could afford it. They'd gone to Midnight Mass every year until she died, her smile cast in flickering candlelight, her hand held tight in his.
Steve made Bucky go with him, in those years afterward, for all he was Protestant; he didn't complain, sixteen and rock-solid when Steve needed him to be, just knelt when Steve told him to and hung back for communion. They'd walk the streets afterwards, bitterly cold but too taken with the frozen-over silence to go inside, and it had been…a good memory, later, when they'd spent Christmas camped out in an iced-over mudbank outside of Brussels.
But now…Steve doesn't want to go to church, isn't sure he even could , doesn't want to find out if it's different, if that difference is something he could stomach. He doesn't want to go to church, and he certainly doesn't want to subscribe to the screaming juggernaut of advertisement that's been pitched at him since Thanksgiving, but it's hard to imagine letting the day pass unmarked.
He goes down to Tony's workshop in the end, spends an awkward couple of minutes dancing around conversation, before he says, "So, what do you normally do for Christmas?"
Tony jerks, just slightly; the corner of his mouth twitches up and back down again, one of those little tics Steve's coming to recognize. "Uh, work."
"Work?"
"Or, well, uh," Tony says, voice canting up a pitch or two, "parties, sometimes? Only I don't, you know, there's something kind of…not great about trying to pull at a Christmas party. Not that I'd be doing that now anyway, because, I mean, obviously, unless that's not obvious, which--uh, anyway, point is, Christmas parties are kind of a bummer so mostly, yeah. Work."
"That's," Steve says, and stops, because there are a lot of ways he could finish that sentence, but he's fairly certain any one of them would hurt Tony on some level. "Do you…want to maybe do something else?"
"I, yeah," Tony says, and then he furrows his brow. "Wait, shit, it's not Christmas today, is it?"
"No," Steve says, "it's the 23rd, you're fine," and Tony's relieved exhale is familiar enough that Steve feels some of the discomfort slide from his shoulders. "Forgetting what day it is again? Really?"
"Don't try to box me in with your, your calendars and your insistence on," and then he stops, yawns hugely, and blinks. "Uh, something. Shit, hi, I've been kind of…hello. Sorry. Christmas, yeah, we can do a Christmas thing--you and me, right, that's what you meant?"
"That's what I meant," Steve agrees, and steps forward, because oh, right, he does remember how this works. "You want to call it quits with...whatever you're doing....for awhile? Watch a movie or something? We've got a whole day to figure out the Christmas thing."
"No, I've figured out the Christmas thing already," Tony says, "only, forget that, it's a--forget I said that, yeah, movie's good."
They don't end up watching anything; the house is empty for the first time either one of them can remember, and when Tony's shoulder, and then his mouth, brush against Steve's in the hallway, Steve lets himself slide into the distraction. Tony's warm and easy with him, tongue sliding over Steve's lower lip, a little slow with exhaustion; he gets less manic every time they do this, less desperate to please, and Steve knows that his own self-consciousness is falling away too. They fuck, slow, on the couch in the living room, Tony biting sharp-soft into Steve's shoulder when he comes.
When they wake up there at four in the morning, punch-drunk and laughing at themselves, it's easy to stumble to the bedroom and pass out again. The next day they sleep in, tease each other over a late breakfast, spend a lazy few hours enjoying the luxury of the quiet. Steve would actually be happy to spend Christmas this way, in a too-small pair of pajama pants he stole from Tony's dresser, grinning to himself over the mess of Tony's hair; he's surprised when, at 4:30, Tony stands up and claps his hands.
"Right," he says. "Dress yourself, we're going out."
"'Dress yourself,'" Steve repeats, dry, "Tony, there's a basic lack of manners and then there's behaving as though you're some kind of--"
"Oh, god, don't," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Here, look, I'll try again: Captain Rogers, if you would please be so kind as to consider replacing those totally stolen pajamas pants with actual clothing, that I might take you out amongst the populace without revealing your ankles. Does that fit your standards?"
"Not even a little bit," Steve says, and Tony grins at him, leans down and braces his hands against the couch, bracketing Steve's head.
"How 'bout this," he says, lips ghosting against Steve's. "You get dressed, and then maybe later we can both get…undressed."
"That's a really, really terrible line," Steve says. It's not very convincing, but at least he's making an effort. "And also, for the record, not exactly providing me with a lot of incentive to get up."
"Yeah, guess I'm not," Tony says, and grinds his hips, grins against Steve's mouth when he groans at the pressure. "I'd tell you I'm sorry, but I really don't think I am."
"You're the one who wanted to go somewhere," Steve reminds him. "I'd be perfectly happy to stay right here--this is an awfully interesting argument for that plan, actually."
"But you wanted a Christmas thing," Tony says, pulling back. He looks honestly confused, and Steve blinks, trying to track the change in tone. "Yesterday, you said--plus, I mean, you said a couple times before, about, and Pepper made me promise I wouldn't, and it's just. You! It's Christmas Eve! You wanted a Christmas thing!"
"I wanted to spend Christmas with you," Steve says.
"Right, I know--"
"No, I mean," Steve grabs Tony's hands and stills them, because he's doing that thing he does sometimes, where he moves too much, "I wanted to spend Christmas with you. I don't care what we do."
Tony's face…twitches, that's really the only way to describe it. For a second, he looks so outright stunned that it makes something ache a little in Steve's chest; then Tony's kissing him, none of the dirty slide to it Steve was expecting, just something honest and hard to ignore. Steve grounds his hands against Tony's thighs, runs his thumb lightly across the bared skin just above Tony's hip, and Tony shudders, just a little, just for a second.
When he pulls away, his grin is so uninhibited that Steve can't help but smile back, and Tony climbs up off the couch, puts his hands in the air. "Alright, alright, this is getting indecent and we have plans. Seriously. Clothing, Captain, we've business to attend to."
"Not our typical business, I hope."
"Yes, I scheduled a hostile takeover of Manhattan for you," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Go, go, before I change my mind."
Steve changes quickly--"Warm things!" Tony yells from down the hall, when Steve asks, "no dress code, just warm,"--and goes back out to the living room to find Tony wearing the single most ridiculous jacket Steve's ever seen. It's…puffy, somehow, and an oddly muted shade of red. He chokes back a laugh before he can help himself.
"Hey," Tony says, pointing a finger. "Don't you dare, okay, I am very used to Malibu winters and this is so not Malibu, and also I'm, you know, the whole incognito thing--"
"Yeah, I think it's safe to assume no one's going to recognize you under there," Steve says, reaching out to jab at the coat. It sinks in a little under his finger, only to puff back out immediately. "You know, I actually think this is bulkier than your suit?"
"Well, yeah, of course; believe me, if I could figure out a cost-effective way to reinforce regular outerwear with gold-titanium alloy--oh. You're trying to wind me up, aren't you? That's nice, Steve, very holiday-spirit."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Steve says around a smile, and Tony scowls at him.
"We're leaving now," he says, which means I have no comeback, and am thus executing a tactical retreat; Steve's grin widens. "Any preference on car?"
"Are you driving?" Steve says, because that's a terrifying thought. He's been in a car with Tony before.
Tony just tilts his head, like he's confused by the question. "Well, yeah, unless you want to. Happy's off for the holiday, they all are. I always let the staff off for the big things, I'm not a complete bastard."
And then Steve has to kiss him again, has to crowd him up against the wall and slide his hands up under that ridiculous coat. Tony'd said he worked on Christmas, and that had been enough to set off alarm bells, but if he gives the staff the time off…Steve wonders how many holidays Tony's spent in his workshop, alone in an empty house. He tangles a hand in Tony's hair and pulls him closer, doesn't break away for a few long, slow minutes.
"Wow," Tony says, when Steve steps back. "Not gonna lie, I was not thinking 'sex appeal' was high on the list of this coat's pluses, but hey, whatever works for you."
"I've been reliably informed that red's a good color on you," Steve says, and Tony laughs, head tipped back.
"Ferrari, then, if red's what we're going for. Holiday spirit and everything, probably fitting."
"If you say so," Steve says, following him out into the garage.
Tony drives slower than usual, probably in deference to Steve's plea that they heed both the black ice and the lives of unsuspecting carolers. They're going into the city, but Tony won't tell him where, other than the muttered clue that "if you've been to midtown recently, this is going to be really anti-climactic." Steve settles back against the seat and doesn't worry about it, content to let himself drift on the furious, nonsensical ranting Pepper calls "road rage" and Tony calls "driving," until Tony sighs and pulls the car into a parking spot that Steve's pretty sure is intended for foreign dignitaries and police officers only.
"Closest we're going to get tonight," he says. "We'll have to hoof it the rest of the way, sorry."
"I don't mind," Steve says, because he really doesn't. He'd elaborate, but he can't, because Tony pulls a hat out of his pocket and jams it on his head. There is fur. There are….earflaps. "Oh my god, Tony, what--"
"Not a word, Steve."
"But--"
"Incognito!" Tony says, waving his hands and glaring. The whole effect is kind of muted by the fact that, between the coat and the hat and the thick scarf he's already pulling up over the bottom half of his face, he looks like a marshmallow fresh from some kind of terrible zoo accident. Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing out loud.
"Right," he says, "think you're probably safe on that front."
"Or someone will recognize you and this will end up on the front page of People," Tony says, rolling his eyes, which are currently the only visible part of his face. "'Something like 'Tony Stark: Winter Fashion Disaster,' it'll be nice, I'll get it framed."
"You don't think they'd manage a better headline?" Steve says, pulling out the creased baseball cap he keeps in the inside pocket of his jacket and tugging it low over his eyes. "'Tony Stark Kills Small Animal And Wears It On His Head' might have some traction."
"See if I ever bring you for a holiday surprise again," Tony says, warning. "Just see."
Steve's honestly not sure what it is about that statement that makes him crack. Maybe it's the fact that he can hear the smile that's hidden under Tony's scarf; maybe it's just the suggestion that there will be other holidays on which Tony will want to surprise him. It doesn't matter, not really, and Steve lets himself him smile at Tony, slow and honest. It's starting to snow, wispy little flakes sticking to the outside of Tony's jacket, and Steve doesn't look away, because he can't think of a single reason why he'd want to.
Tony stares back, a faint flush on what's visible of his cheeks, for a long moment. Then he blinks, shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "Uh, what?"
"Nothing," Steve says, still grinning, tugging at Tony's sleeve a little. "Weren't we going somewhere?"
"Uh, we're," Tony says, blinking again, "right, yes, going, yes we are, you have to stop--uh, nevermind. Come on, this way," and he takes off, that tell-tale purpose in his step, Steve still holding onto his coat.
It's not that long a walk; Tony complains bitterly about the cold until, three blocks up, they come across an open Starbucks. Then they have the coffee argument--dressed-up beverages have their place, Steve is sure, but if it's not black and slightly burnt and tasting faintly of the metal carafe it's been in for hours, you can't really call it coffee--for the next ten minutes. Steve's so busy trying not to laugh as he searches for a comeback to "I need you to understand that espresso is my closest blood relative--no, I'm serious, my blood is 95% espresso, I have a scanner and everything," that he doesn't realize where they're going until they're already there.
It's Rockefeller Center, lit up like…well, like Christmas morning. There's a spruce larger than any Steve's ever seen at the center of the bustle of activity, glittering a hundred different colors, and an ice rink laid out beneath it. There are people everywhere, couples smiling at each other, children tugging on their parents' hands, and even that would be enough to put a smile on his face; the last time Steve was here, he'd been in costume, fighting back an invading army of sentient sewer gators, and there'd been a moment where he'd thought the whole area was going to be destroyed beyond repair. To see it healed over and teeming with humanity is more a comfort than he'd have expected, eases the guilt that's always itching, just a little, at the back of his mind.
But that's not all it is, because the time before that it was 1939, and Steve was staring up at a tree just like this one, if smaller and less colorful. He and Bucky had gone a week before Christmas, one in a long string of failed double dates, and Steve had spent most of the night sketching out what he saw. It had been couples and families then too, and something about that had stuck and stung at the time; now it warms him, that they're still doing this, that he gets to see it on the other side of seventy years and a bitter solitude he's beginning to think he won't have to weather anymore.
"Good silence or bad silence?" Tony asks, after a minute. "Because I totally have a backup plan if it's bad silence, I've got a plan B that was originally plan A, there's a whole fancy dinner thing standing by, I just…thought you might like this better?"
"Good silence," Steve says, looking around to take it all in. "Definitely a good silence--Tony. You know I was here for the first one? The first time they put a tree up, I mean, my god, that must have been--"
"1931," Tony says, and looks sheepish when Steve raises his eyebrows. "I, uh, looked it up. I knew it was the 30s, I had kind of a thing about how the lighting worked when I was a kid, read some stuff about it that must've stuck. My dad used to bring me, when I was really little."
"Here?"
"Yeah," Tony says, scuffing a shoe against the ground. "It was…I don't know. If you don't like it, seriously, we can go do something else, I've got another plan, there are options and shit, but--you wanted a Christmas thing, and this is the most Christmas thing I could think of."
He's doing that thing again, the thing where he hides his eyes and clearly imagines it hides what he's thinking. Steve wonders, sometimes, if Tony knows that his voice changes when he talks about his childhood, if he's realized that whenever he pushes something forward, he always stops at the last second to try to build himself a back door. It's not fair, because Tony's a better person than he thinks he is, to degrees that are staggering sometimes; there are moments when Steve thinks about who Tony might be if he'd had someone to tell him that every once in awhile, about the kind of happiness he might have found.
But on the other, more selfish hand, any other Tony wouldn't be this one, and for all Steve wishes Tony'd had better, he can't quite wish himself having worse.
"It's perfect," he says, smiling around it, a hand on the layer of bright red polyester currently representing Tony's arm. "The Christmas thing to end all Christmas things. You can cancel plan B, I love it, thank you."
"Oh," Tony says. "Well, that's….good, then. That's good, right, yeah, I think that's good."
"So are we skating?" Steve says, before Tony can start second-guessing himself. "Since we're here and everything?"
"Skating?" Tony says, and then seems to notice the ice rink. He puts his hands in the air at once, takes a sharp step back. "Ohhh no. No, no, no one wants to see that, okay--there are lots of winter sports I excel at, skiing, I'm an excellent skier--"
"And yet you brought me to an ice rink."
"I brought you to a Christmas tree!" Tony says. "A giant Christmas tree, we are here for the tree and only the tree."
"Well, that's kind of a waste of resources," Steve says. When Tony narrows his eyes, he laughs. "Come on, you can't be that bad at it."
He is, actually, that bad at it. They're recognized at the skate rental stand, because Tony tries to pay when Steve raises his eyebrows at the rental price and the only cash he's got on him is a hundred, and things only go downhill from there. Tony's less graceful on skates than he is three sheets to the wind, which is actually a little unsettling; he wobbles and flails his arms and pitches toward the ground, complains bitterly when Steve, long since enhanced to the peak of human performance, snatches him up before he face-plants.
"Would it have been better if I'd let you crack your head open?" Steve asks, and Tony scowls at him.
"Yes," he says, "because then I'd at least have my dignity."
"And a head wound."
"A dignified head wound, and--oh, for fuck's sake, Steve, are you skating backwards?"
Steve hadn't realized it, but he is; he grins at Tony, a little smug, because he can't help it. Tony's flushed bright red under that ridiculous hat, from cold or embarrassment, it's hard to be sure, and Steve spreads his arms in supplication and does one quick lap of the rink mostly to figure out how to explain it--he's found, since the serum, that there are things he picks up so naturally that he has to actively think about them to figure out how they work. Then he slides to a stop next to Tony and sets about teaching him how to maintain balance and momentum, the combination of smooth strokes and careful distance that spells success. Tony's nothing if not a quick study; after fifteen minutes he's moving, if not like a pro, at least less like a beginner.
"You know, I was never good at this when I was a kid," Steve says, a hand on Tony's back that Tony (hopefully) can't feel through the coat. "Or, well, the version of this we--it's not like I had skates, but sometimes on the cold days we'd let water freeze over on the sidewalk behind my apartment, slide around on it."
"Cap," Tony says, mocking, eyes wide, "that's not the commitment to civic justice and safety I've come to know. This is shameful, does Fury know about that?"
"It wasn't ever my idea," Steve says, rolling his eyes. "And, like I said, I wasn't very good at it--Bucky'd always manage to do tricks and stuff. I usually ended up breaking something."
"You're just trying to make me feel better about Nancy Kerrigan Jr. over there, aren't you?" Tony says, gesturing towards the little girl who's been skating circles around both of them for half an hour. Steve doesn't know who Nancy Kerrigan Sr. was--a skater of some kind, in all likelihood--but he shakes his head anyway.
"Just thinking out loud," he says. "You ready to get off the ice?"
"I've been ready to get off the ice since we got on the ice," Tony says, "but it's been more fun than I was expecting, so if you want to stick it out a while longer--"
"No, I think I'm good," Steve says, eyeing the line that's formed behind the rental stand with trepidation. "If this place gets any more crowded, I doubt we'll be able to move at all."
"Point," Tony says. He sounds relieved, which is telling, as is the fact that he lets Steve more-or-less tow him back to the front of the rink. There's something warm in it, the allowances he's making here, the fact that he's trying this hard; Steve goes and buys him another coffee while Tony's wrestling his way out of his skates, leads them both over to a recently vacated bench.
"So," Tony says, a couple of sips into his coffee and sounding that much more enthusiastic for it, "skills you've acquired since the serum, we've got ice skating and, uh, I'm assuming you weren't throwing a lot of vibranium around back in the day--anything else you wanna tell me about? New exciting post-serum hobbies?"
"You tell me," Steve says, "you're the one who's read my file."
"Well, yeah, of course, it was right--wait. Wait. Have you never read your file?"
"Why would I? I doubt there's anything in it I don't already know."
"But the temptation," Tony says, "it's right there, you'd have to be--you don't want to know what they've said about you over the years?"
"Not really," Steve says. "Why, do you?"
"Ah," Tony says, his face shifting slightly.
Steve sighs. "You've hacked your SHIELD file, haven't you?"
"If it makes you feel better, it wasn't exactly an ego boost," Tony says. "Although not as bad as my boarding school quarterly reviews, back in the day."
"You went to boarding school?"
"You knew that," Tony says, dismissive, and then raises his eyebrows when Steve shakes his head. "You…didn't know that, of course you didn't know that, why would you have known that? Yeah, boarding school, from the second I was old enough."
"Did you…like it?" Steve says, not sure if that's the right question. Tony's past--like all of their pasts, really, the whole team's shuffling away from their collective histories most of the time--is a minefield Steve's still trying to figure out how to traverse.
Tony smiles, just for a second, a pained little twitch of his mouth that's gone as quickly as it appears. "It was fine. Better than the house, I think. I was always--school wasn't great, ever, y'know, smartest kid in the room, and…well, you know. It's not like I've ever been great with people."
And just like that, it clicks, the loose thread that Steve's been worrying at all these months unraveling into a picture that makes sense. Steve had thought it was about Howard, the way Tony is; he'd thought it was the lack there feeding the aching desperation in Tony's eyes sometimes, the way he's always scrambling to catch up. But it's not just that, is it--Howard's part of it, certainly, and that's something Steve's still trying to reconcile with the man he'd known and liked, but he's not the whole story. Steve knows what it is to fit wrong, knows the raw sting of rejection inside and out; Tony'd said from the first that he wasn't a team player, but maybe it's just that he'd never gotten the chance to be before.
Steve puts his arm around Tony's shoulders, pulls him in against the chill. "I think you do alright."
For once in his life, Tony doesn't say anything; after a minute, he slides one gloved hand into Steve's front pocket, rubs dexterous fingers against Steve's thigh through the fabric. Steve smiles, because he knows a thank you when he feels one, whether Tony's going to say it or not.
"So, uh, Merry Christmas," Tony says after a few minutes, voice almost lost in the noise of the crowd.
"Yeah," Steve says. He turns his face to press a kiss against Tony's hair, almost laughs when his lips meet the top of that ridiculous hat instead. He's already thinking of the bed back at the mansion, the breakfast they'll probably wake up too late to make tomorrow; it's not what he'd thought he was looking for, but it's starting to feel like the right thing anyway, a certainly he'd forgotten he knew how to feel building within him. "Merry Christmas, Tony."
Illustration by the incredible Marie over on tumblr, who just, you guys, UGH ISN'T IT GORGEOUS. Please go leave her some love!
On Veteran's Day, the Avengers go to DC for what is, essentially, a press junket. It leaves a bad taste in Steve's mouth, the whole thing; it's supposed to be a day about respect and sacrifice, not image, and he smiles when he'd told to and keeps his face blank when he's not. It's not that he doesn't understand the need for what they're doing--they're national symbols now, all of them, and the photo ops are good for morale. They help counteract the near-constant panic the country's in these days, with threats cropping up harder and faster all the time, and Steve understands, he really does.
He just wishes he could be doing it on his own terms, not SHIELD's. He fought, is still fighting, for his country--hell, he died for his country, for all intents and purposes. There's a small, selfish part of him, a part of him he tries to ignore, that feels he's owed this day for himself; the rest of him just wants to attempt to get drunk and try not to think about the Commados, about Peggy, about Bucky.
But that's not what's on the docket, so he swallows it as best he can, lets himself be ushered from breakfast on Capitol Hill to a press conference in the Rose Garden to a tour of Walter Reed Memorial Hospital, where he has to lock himself in the bathroom for ten minutes to keep from saying all the things he could. From there, it's an overly formal lunch and a series of incredibly boring meetings, and then an interview with that Cooper guy that Steve always likes better when the cameras aren't rolling, and then they've got half an hour to change before they're whisked away to the kind of black tie dinner event that makes Steve's palms itch with discomfort.
"Greetings! I am a penguin," Steve hears someone say, about an hour in; he turns to see Thor cheerfully accosting what might well be a heartily confused secret service agent, and smiles despite himself. "Or perhaps I am simply disguised as one--my friend Clint informs me that this is their typical attire, though I confess I am at a loss as to who or what they are."
"Flightless birds, Thor," Natasha says, gliding by in an evening gown that somehow manages to convey 'armed and dangerous.' "Penguins are flightless birds."
"But I am, myself, quite capable of flight," Thor says, sounding mystified, and that's all Steve catches before he's approached by yet another pompous stranger who wants to talk to him about things they can't possibly understand.
"Yes," he says, every time he's asked if he's proud to have served his country; "No," he says, every time he's asked if he has any regrets. Both answers are the truth, but not all of it--Steve's proud to have served, to be serving, but prouder of those who served with him; he's without regrets, but equally without much choice. What he wants, more than anything, is to say, "What makes you think that I answer to you?" but he recognizes that that's selfish, unkind, impolite.
So he smiles and nods, swallows it like he's been swallowing it all day, like he's always swallowing it, always trying to push it away. He smiles and nods and when he catches sight of Tony deep in conversation with a beautiful woman, hands flying everywhere, grin firmly in place, well, he swallows that too. There are things he wants, things he's wanted for awhile now, but they're hardly relevant; it hurts, a little, but there's no one without something sharp in their side, and to focus on it would be willfully missing the point.
He's surprised when he sees Tony shake the woman's hand and break away from her, surprised all over again when Tony saunters up next to him and lowers his voice conspiratorially.
"Walk with purpose," Tony says, like he's imparting some great piece of wisdom instead of talking nonsense, and Steve furrows his brow.
"What?"
"They're like sharks," Tony says, "you have to walk like you're going somewhere or they smell it on you and go in for the kill. Literally, sometimes, there was this thing with Murdoch--look, we're blowing this popsicle stand, so just be cool and do the big boy walk. See you outside."
And then he just walks away, head high, big, quick strides like there's somewhere Important he has to be, and when Steve mimics him it…works, somehow. No one grabs his arm and calls his bluff, they all just step aside, and before he knows it he's on the front steps of the ridiculously ornate building he's been trapped in all night.
Tony's leaning against a limo, wearing sunglasses even though it's pitch black outside, and grinning at him. "Told you."
"Yes, you did," Steve says, and then rolls his eyes, because he tries not to indulge Tony's smug moments too often. "What's going on?"
Tony shrugs. "You don't like parties."
"I…don't, that's true," Steve says slowly, and Tony's smile changes, shrinks down into that weird, trying-too-hard expression he gets sometimes.
"I remember some of what you told me," he says. "That night I was all…uh, anyway. I wrangled us a field trip, unless you wanna go back to schmoozing."
"No, I could definitely go for a field trip," Steve says hastily, and Tony's grin flicks back to life as he opens the door of the limo.
"Your chariot awaits," he says, gesturing with a flourish, and Steve snorts out a laugh and climbs into the car.
Tony gets in after him, pulls the door shut, and whips out his phone before Steve gets the chance to ask where they're going. He pushes a couple buttons and then holds it to his ear, says, "Hi, this is Tony Stark, I just spoke to Madeline--yeah, good, she said she was going to--about five minutes? We're close, so it shouldn't be--heh, yeah, it's a big black limo, you can't miss it. Thanks."
He hangs up, offers Steve another faint grin, and then lifts his drink to his lips, which is when Steve realizes--
"Did you take that?" he says, and raises his eyebrows when Tony opens his mouth to respond and then makes a face at the drink, like he's surprised too.
"Oh," Tony says. "Uh, yeah, I guess I did. Whoops." He makes that face again--and it's not quite surprise, Steve decides, runs a little closer to resignation--before he shrugs and knocks the whole thing back in one go. "Better a glass than a bottle, right?"
"If you say so," Steve says, eyebrows still up, and Tony pulls his phone out again, doesn't answer him.
He's…drunk, Steve realizes, almost has to be. There's a little bit of a tremor in his hands, and every time Steve's seen him all night, he's been holding a glass; he's drunk, at least a little, and if Steve's attention hadn't been brought to it he wouldn't have noticed at all. That's disconcerting enough that it distracts him from his curiosity about where they're going, and he watches Tony as surreptitiously as he can. The light from his phone casts a dim glow over his face, sunglasses and all, and Steve wonders if Tony even recognizes that it's strange, the way he lives his life--if, to anyone but Steve, it comes off as strange at all.
But then the car is drawing to a stop, and the driver is leaning over to speak to someone in the little booth they've pulled up next to, and there's a gate opening, and…
"This is…Arlington," Steve says slowly, as the car starts moving again, crawling through the gate and up to an appropriate spot. "You…our field trip is to Arlington?"
"I know you wanted to go, earlier," Tony says, shrugging a shoulder. "It got bumped for the Anderson Cooper thing, and that's totally my fault; that was supposed to just be me, and then I told Fury about it and, well. I just--Maddy, she's the superintendent now, she was my assistant for like fifteen seconds, back before Pepper, and we kept in touch, and since she was right there at the thing and all--anyway, yeah. Arlington. If you want, I mean, if not we can go, I don't know, find the elusive Einstein monument or something."
"No," Steve says, "no, I definitely want to--I, uh, I didn't think I was going to get the chance, but it was important. Is important. To me."
"Yeah," Tony says, and he takes off the sunglasses and slides them into his pocket. "Yeah, I thought it might be." He gets out of the car, waits for Steve to climb out too, and then nods out at the grounds. "I figure you probably want to…have a minute, right?"
"Yes," Steve says, too quickly, and tries not to feel guilty at the way Tony winces. "This is actually…better, empty like this, without everyone who probably would have…just a minute or two, if that's, if we're allowed to-- "
"Mads was more than happy to open the gate for me, let alone for Captain America," Tony says, waving a hand. "Take as long as you want, I'll be around."
He turns and walks off. There's purpose in his step, but then again, he might well be faking it; Steve puts his hands in his pockets, keeps his back straight, and walks the other way.
It's not his first visit to Arlington. He'd been once, during the war, when he was still a dancing monkey and the battlefront was still a pipe dream. They'd been in D.C. for a show, him and the girls, Senator Brandt showing them around, waving Steve in people's faces like a re-election poster; he'd asked for an hour, was granted it only when he told the Senator where he was going. He spent the whole time at the Tomb of the Unknowns, back ramrod straight, feet firmly planted, thinking of his father, and there was a photographer waiting for him at the gate when he walked out. The guy was obviously hired, discomfort visible and, for Steve, easy enough to relate to. He'd given the man a tired smile and walked, head ducked, the six miles back to his hotel.
That's not where he goes now, though he knows that the Tomb of the Unknowns is marking the lives of far more soldiers than it was the last time he visited. His country has kept on fighting without him, has dipped in and out of so much conflict that Steve imagines it'll take him another lifetime to catch up. He just walks, eyes raking over the rows on rows of alabaster catching moonlight, and keeps his shoulders squared.
And oh, Steve's proud to be an American, has been since he was old enough to know what it meant; he's proud of the people he's fought with and the people he's fought for, of the bravery he's encountered on the battlefield and off. He protects and serves because he loves, has always loved, his country and the people within it, the things they believe, the ideals they fight for, and there's no amount of time or distance that could change that.
But loving something doesn't mean it can't disappoint you; if anything it means the opposite, and Steve is so tired of waiting for the war to be over. Seventy years later and everything's changed, but nothing has--this is still hallowed ground and someone will still, always, be fighting, and those losses Steve has weathered seem small and battered in the face of that inescapable truth. He grits his teeth and remembers the 107th, beaten down and dragged raw and still, somehow, willing to meet him with hope.
"Thank you," he says, to the empty air, to Bucky and Peggy, to his parents, to Dr. Erskine and Colonel Phillips, to a hundred people he'll never see again, to a hundred thousand people he'll never meet. And maybe it doesn't mean anything at all, one voice in the darkness, but it leaves something lighter in his chest; he bows his head and means it, doesn't move for a long time.
He walks on eventually, makes a few turns at random until he finds Tony, sitting on a bench about a mile from where they came in. He's staring fixedly at some point in the distance, and one of his fingers is tracing something absently against the marble next to his thigh. He jumps when Steve says hello.
"Oh," he says, "you're done."
"Ah," Steve says, "done's…not quite the right word, if that's alright. Ready for company, maybe, unless--we can go if you want, I don't mean to keep you. "
"Keep me from what?" Tony says. "There's always another overpriced party, don't worry about it. You wanna sit?"
"Sure." Steve does; the marble's cool enough in the November air that he can feel it through the ridiculously thin tuxedo pants he's been outfitted with. It's nice, the chill, affirming somehow, and he takes a few long, slow breaths, watches the air go white around his exhales.
"Last time I was here Rhodey made me do a thing," Tony says after awhile, a slightly smile quirking at the edge of his mouth. "He--oh, uh, Rhodey, James Rhodes, he's a friend of mine. War Machine, actually, on the SHIELD stuff, you'll probably meet him at some point--anyway. There was a walking tour. He took my phone."
"It's possible to take your phone?"
"I let Rhodey take things from me, sometimes," Tony says, shrugging. "I wouldn't have used it anyway, not...my father's buried here, you know."
"I…didn't," Steve says, blinking.
"Right there, actually," Tony says, nodding out at the row of tombstones in front of them. "Fourth one back, with the wreath--Pepper used to send them, guess she never stopped."
"I'm sorry," Steve says, and is, surprised to find it's more for Tony's loss that his own.
Tony sighs. "Don't be. He was…uh, well, I mean, a great American, obviously, you don't get in here without--you know the funeral was in Manhattan? They, there was a car accident--or maybe not an accident, I guess it's possible that it--anyway, I was 17, and they did the funeral in Manhattan because my mother wasn't gonna be buried here, they wouldn't…not that she'd have wanted to be next to him for all eternity, probably. I guess it's better. But then I had to fly out here and do it again, because he wouldn't--it would've killed him if we'd let him be buried anywhere else."
"That…sounds like him," Steve admits. "He once made me promise that I'd use my post-war pull to get a monument of him erected somewhere."
"As opposed to building one himself?" Tony says. "I'm shocked."
"Well, he was more than a little drunk," Steve admits, and Tony almost laughs, pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Yeah, that sounds like him too. Or maybe like me; who knows at this point, right?"
"You're a lot less," Steve says, and stops, unsure. He doesn't know how to say what he means here, what would be revealing and what would be overstepping his bounds. But when he looks up Tony's staring right at him, eyes big and almost desperate, and honesty's really his only choice. "He…so much of it was smoke and mirrors, and it was always…oh, Tony, I don't know. He was my friend, but I never felt like I was fighting with him; it was always…he always had his own interests at heart, I guess."
"You think I don't always have my own interests at heart?"
"Of course not," Steve says, taken aback. "I mean, sure, at first I thought that, and sometimes you do, but it's--we're a team, all of us, and you're--"
"Right," Tony says, "yeah, silly question, sorry."
"I'm almost positive you're missing my point," Steve says, and the look Tony gives him this time is shuttered, careful.
"If I am, it's not by intention," he says, and then, the corner of his mouth twitching, adds, "for once."
"Well, thank heaven for small favors," Steve says, and Tony doesn't quite laugh, but he ducks his head to hide his smile.
"Can I ask you a weird question?"
"Sure."
"Did he," Tony says, and winces. "My dad, I mean, did he ever--I mean, I know you guys were, uh, pals or whatever, but there's levels of that and--did he ever talk about my mother?"
"I," Steve says, and stops. "Did he…know your mother, then?"
Tony sighs. "Well, that's an answer. Yeah, they met in--it doesn't matter, I was just curious. He sometimes talked about the war like it was this, I don't know, a Bruce Springsteen song or something, this whole heyday thing. I don't think the family thing was really in his game plan, always kind of wondered if it was her or me."
"Maybe it was him," Steve says, trying for kindness, and Tony snorts.
"Doubt it. One thing you can say about Stark men, we're very fond of ourselves."
No, you're not, Steve thinks, doesn't say even though he's got the empirical evidence to back it up. Tony Stark's least favorite person in the world is, contrary to popular belief, Tony Stark; Steve's known him long enough now that it's achingly obvious, almost painful to watch. And Howard, who'd worked like someone was chasing him, who'd ducked away from anyone who got too close; Howard hadn't been his own least favorite person, but he hadn't been the world's biggest Howard Stark fan, either.
"Just…not fond of each other?" Steve guesses instead, which is almost certainly a step too far, but he's been dancing around this with Tony for months now, and he might as well.
Tony bark out a harsh laugh; it echoes through the thick silence around them almost tauntingly. "Sounds about right."
"That's not fair," Steve says, angry suddenly, and Tony jerks like he's been stung.
"Yeah," he says hastily, "yeah, I know it's not, sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I mean, obviously he was a--"
"No--wait, no," Steve says. "Tony, for god's sake, are you out of your mind? I meant it the other way--you were a kid, of course I didn't mean--I meant him, not you, Jesus."
"Oh," Tony says. "Then, that's…uh. What?"
"It's not fair that you think that," Steve clarifies. "Or, that he made you think that. For one thing, it makes me feel like a bad judge of character."
"You are a bad judge of character," Tony says. "Unless you want to tell me you've changed your mind about Scott Summers--"
"I'm not saying he's not irritating," Steve says, for the fifteenth time since he confessed that he finds Scott a little overwrought, but good leadership material. "Just that there's more there than meets the eye. And you like Wolverine, and he agrees with me--"
"He agrees with you because he's not-so-secretly planning to get you drunk, whatever it takes," Tony says. He roll his eyes when Steve looks at him in surprise. "Have you not noticed that he keeps trying to get you into bars when we tangle with them?"
"I thought he just liked drinking."
"He loves drinking," Tony agrees. "He loves drinking alone."
"In retrospect, he has been a little strange about it," Steve says, and Tony shakes his head.
"No good can come of befriending X-Men," he says. "Only disaster and accidentally confessing things to Xavier."
Steve doesn't say anything to that, just bites back a laugh and shakes his head; silence falls between them, but it's comfortable silence, and Steve feels lighter than he has all day.
"I could go, if you're ready," Steve says after awhile, and Tony nods, gets up, follows him to the car. When they're inside it, tucked up against opposite black leather seats, he says, "Thank you for bringing me here, Tony."
"Thank you for your service, Steve," Tony says, his voice as sincere as Steve's ever heard it, and Steve doesn't answer him, can't, for fear he'll hear the sudden lump in his throat.
--
The rest of the team goes home for Christmas, for a given value of the word home. Bruce's mom's in a nursing home in Del Ray and Natasha's got a brother in Seattle; Clint and Thor apparently have some kind of road trip planned, which is an experience Steve's a little sorry he won't get to see. Even Pepper's gone, two weeks in Barcelona that Natasha's planning on joining her for after the holiday, so it's just Steve and Tony left in the mansion on December 23rd.
They're still new enough together that it's strange, doesn't quite fit--in the absence of the clattering racket of the rest of the team, Steve finds himself at odds. He's not sure he remembers how to talk to Tony, which is ridiculous. He's been talking to Tony for months, has only been sleeping with him for a few weeks, so there shouldn't be a problem at all. But the house is empty and the criminal element seems to be taking a holiday along with everyone else, and Steve's eyes follow the line of Tony's shoulders, the curve of his back, and his words dry up in his throat.
It doesn't help that there's Christmas spilling out of every television and computer, screaming out of the radio, bursting forth from each and every shopfront. There's a strange sort of desperation to it, feverish, almost, and it builds to a crescendo that sits wrong next to the holiday Steve remembers. He hadn't grown up with much, but his mother had always managed to scrape something together for Christmas dinner, for a book or an orange in his stocking, a new pair of shoes when they could afford it. They'd gone to Midnight Mass every year until she died, her smile cast in flickering candlelight, her hand held tight in his.
Steve made Bucky go with him, in those years afterward, for all he was Protestant; he didn't complain, sixteen and rock-solid when Steve needed him to be, just knelt when Steve told him to and hung back for communion. They'd walk the streets afterwards, bitterly cold but too taken with the frozen-over silence to go inside, and it had been…a good memory, later, when they'd spent Christmas camped out in an iced-over mudbank outside of Brussels.
But now…Steve doesn't want to go to church, isn't sure he even could , doesn't want to find out if it's different, if that difference is something he could stomach. He doesn't want to go to church, and he certainly doesn't want to subscribe to the screaming juggernaut of advertisement that's been pitched at him since Thanksgiving, but it's hard to imagine letting the day pass unmarked.
He goes down to Tony's workshop in the end, spends an awkward couple of minutes dancing around conversation, before he says, "So, what do you normally do for Christmas?"
Tony jerks, just slightly; the corner of his mouth twitches up and back down again, one of those little tics Steve's coming to recognize. "Uh, work."
"Work?"
"Or, well, uh," Tony says, voice canting up a pitch or two, "parties, sometimes? Only I don't, you know, there's something kind of…not great about trying to pull at a Christmas party. Not that I'd be doing that now anyway, because, I mean, obviously, unless that's not obvious, which--uh, anyway, point is, Christmas parties are kind of a bummer so mostly, yeah. Work."
"That's," Steve says, and stops, because there are a lot of ways he could finish that sentence, but he's fairly certain any one of them would hurt Tony on some level. "Do you…want to maybe do something else?"
"I, yeah," Tony says, and then he furrows his brow. "Wait, shit, it's not Christmas today, is it?"
"No," Steve says, "it's the 23rd, you're fine," and Tony's relieved exhale is familiar enough that Steve feels some of the discomfort slide from his shoulders. "Forgetting what day it is again? Really?"
"Don't try to box me in with your, your calendars and your insistence on," and then he stops, yawns hugely, and blinks. "Uh, something. Shit, hi, I've been kind of…hello. Sorry. Christmas, yeah, we can do a Christmas thing--you and me, right, that's what you meant?"
"That's what I meant," Steve agrees, and steps forward, because oh, right, he does remember how this works. "You want to call it quits with...whatever you're doing....for awhile? Watch a movie or something? We've got a whole day to figure out the Christmas thing."
"No, I've figured out the Christmas thing already," Tony says, "only, forget that, it's a--forget I said that, yeah, movie's good."
They don't end up watching anything; the house is empty for the first time either one of them can remember, and when Tony's shoulder, and then his mouth, brush against Steve's in the hallway, Steve lets himself slide into the distraction. Tony's warm and easy with him, tongue sliding over Steve's lower lip, a little slow with exhaustion; he gets less manic every time they do this, less desperate to please, and Steve knows that his own self-consciousness is falling away too. They fuck, slow, on the couch in the living room, Tony biting sharp-soft into Steve's shoulder when he comes.
When they wake up there at four in the morning, punch-drunk and laughing at themselves, it's easy to stumble to the bedroom and pass out again. The next day they sleep in, tease each other over a late breakfast, spend a lazy few hours enjoying the luxury of the quiet. Steve would actually be happy to spend Christmas this way, in a too-small pair of pajama pants he stole from Tony's dresser, grinning to himself over the mess of Tony's hair; he's surprised when, at 4:30, Tony stands up and claps his hands.
"Right," he says. "Dress yourself, we're going out."
"'Dress yourself,'" Steve repeats, dry, "Tony, there's a basic lack of manners and then there's behaving as though you're some kind of--"
"Oh, god, don't," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Here, look, I'll try again: Captain Rogers, if you would please be so kind as to consider replacing those totally stolen pajamas pants with actual clothing, that I might take you out amongst the populace without revealing your ankles. Does that fit your standards?"
"Not even a little bit," Steve says, and Tony grins at him, leans down and braces his hands against the couch, bracketing Steve's head.
"How 'bout this," he says, lips ghosting against Steve's. "You get dressed, and then maybe later we can both get…undressed."
"That's a really, really terrible line," Steve says. It's not very convincing, but at least he's making an effort. "And also, for the record, not exactly providing me with a lot of incentive to get up."
"Yeah, guess I'm not," Tony says, and grinds his hips, grins against Steve's mouth when he groans at the pressure. "I'd tell you I'm sorry, but I really don't think I am."
"You're the one who wanted to go somewhere," Steve reminds him. "I'd be perfectly happy to stay right here--this is an awfully interesting argument for that plan, actually."
"But you wanted a Christmas thing," Tony says, pulling back. He looks honestly confused, and Steve blinks, trying to track the change in tone. "Yesterday, you said--plus, I mean, you said a couple times before, about, and Pepper made me promise I wouldn't, and it's just. You! It's Christmas Eve! You wanted a Christmas thing!"
"I wanted to spend Christmas with you," Steve says.
"Right, I know--"
"No, I mean," Steve grabs Tony's hands and stills them, because he's doing that thing he does sometimes, where he moves too much, "I wanted to spend Christmas with you. I don't care what we do."
Tony's face…twitches, that's really the only way to describe it. For a second, he looks so outright stunned that it makes something ache a little in Steve's chest; then Tony's kissing him, none of the dirty slide to it Steve was expecting, just something honest and hard to ignore. Steve grounds his hands against Tony's thighs, runs his thumb lightly across the bared skin just above Tony's hip, and Tony shudders, just a little, just for a second.
When he pulls away, his grin is so uninhibited that Steve can't help but smile back, and Tony climbs up off the couch, puts his hands in the air. "Alright, alright, this is getting indecent and we have plans. Seriously. Clothing, Captain, we've business to attend to."
"Not our typical business, I hope."
"Yes, I scheduled a hostile takeover of Manhattan for you," Tony says, rolling his eyes. "Go, go, before I change my mind."
Steve changes quickly--"Warm things!" Tony yells from down the hall, when Steve asks, "no dress code, just warm,"--and goes back out to the living room to find Tony wearing the single most ridiculous jacket Steve's ever seen. It's…puffy, somehow, and an oddly muted shade of red. He chokes back a laugh before he can help himself.
"Hey," Tony says, pointing a finger. "Don't you dare, okay, I am very used to Malibu winters and this is so not Malibu, and also I'm, you know, the whole incognito thing--"
"Yeah, I think it's safe to assume no one's going to recognize you under there," Steve says, reaching out to jab at the coat. It sinks in a little under his finger, only to puff back out immediately. "You know, I actually think this is bulkier than your suit?"
"Well, yeah, of course; believe me, if I could figure out a cost-effective way to reinforce regular outerwear with gold-titanium alloy--oh. You're trying to wind me up, aren't you? That's nice, Steve, very holiday-spirit."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Steve says around a smile, and Tony scowls at him.
"We're leaving now," he says, which means I have no comeback, and am thus executing a tactical retreat; Steve's grin widens. "Any preference on car?"
"Are you driving?" Steve says, because that's a terrifying thought. He's been in a car with Tony before.
Tony just tilts his head, like he's confused by the question. "Well, yeah, unless you want to. Happy's off for the holiday, they all are. I always let the staff off for the big things, I'm not a complete bastard."
And then Steve has to kiss him again, has to crowd him up against the wall and slide his hands up under that ridiculous coat. Tony'd said he worked on Christmas, and that had been enough to set off alarm bells, but if he gives the staff the time off…Steve wonders how many holidays Tony's spent in his workshop, alone in an empty house. He tangles a hand in Tony's hair and pulls him closer, doesn't break away for a few long, slow minutes.
"Wow," Tony says, when Steve steps back. "Not gonna lie, I was not thinking 'sex appeal' was high on the list of this coat's pluses, but hey, whatever works for you."
"I've been reliably informed that red's a good color on you," Steve says, and Tony laughs, head tipped back.
"Ferrari, then, if red's what we're going for. Holiday spirit and everything, probably fitting."
"If you say so," Steve says, following him out into the garage.
Tony drives slower than usual, probably in deference to Steve's plea that they heed both the black ice and the lives of unsuspecting carolers. They're going into the city, but Tony won't tell him where, other than the muttered clue that "if you've been to midtown recently, this is going to be really anti-climactic." Steve settles back against the seat and doesn't worry about it, content to let himself drift on the furious, nonsensical ranting Pepper calls "road rage" and Tony calls "driving," until Tony sighs and pulls the car into a parking spot that Steve's pretty sure is intended for foreign dignitaries and police officers only.
"Closest we're going to get tonight," he says. "We'll have to hoof it the rest of the way, sorry."
"I don't mind," Steve says, because he really doesn't. He'd elaborate, but he can't, because Tony pulls a hat out of his pocket and jams it on his head. There is fur. There are….earflaps. "Oh my god, Tony, what--"
"Not a word, Steve."
"But--"
"Incognito!" Tony says, waving his hands and glaring. The whole effect is kind of muted by the fact that, between the coat and the hat and the thick scarf he's already pulling up over the bottom half of his face, he looks like a marshmallow fresh from some kind of terrible zoo accident. Steve bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing out loud.
"Right," he says, "think you're probably safe on that front."
"Or someone will recognize you and this will end up on the front page of People," Tony says, rolling his eyes, which are currently the only visible part of his face. "'Something like 'Tony Stark: Winter Fashion Disaster,' it'll be nice, I'll get it framed."
"You don't think they'd manage a better headline?" Steve says, pulling out the creased baseball cap he keeps in the inside pocket of his jacket and tugging it low over his eyes. "'Tony Stark Kills Small Animal And Wears It On His Head' might have some traction."
"See if I ever bring you for a holiday surprise again," Tony says, warning. "Just see."
Steve's honestly not sure what it is about that statement that makes him crack. Maybe it's the fact that he can hear the smile that's hidden under Tony's scarf; maybe it's just the suggestion that there will be other holidays on which Tony will want to surprise him. It doesn't matter, not really, and Steve lets himself him smile at Tony, slow and honest. It's starting to snow, wispy little flakes sticking to the outside of Tony's jacket, and Steve doesn't look away, because he can't think of a single reason why he'd want to.
Tony stares back, a faint flush on what's visible of his cheeks, for a long moment. Then he blinks, shakes his head like he's trying to clear it. "Uh, what?"
"Nothing," Steve says, still grinning, tugging at Tony's sleeve a little. "Weren't we going somewhere?"
"Uh, we're," Tony says, blinking again, "right, yes, going, yes we are, you have to stop--uh, nevermind. Come on, this way," and he takes off, that tell-tale purpose in his step, Steve still holding onto his coat.
It's not that long a walk; Tony complains bitterly about the cold until, three blocks up, they come across an open Starbucks. Then they have the coffee argument--dressed-up beverages have their place, Steve is sure, but if it's not black and slightly burnt and tasting faintly of the metal carafe it's been in for hours, you can't really call it coffee--for the next ten minutes. Steve's so busy trying not to laugh as he searches for a comeback to "I need you to understand that espresso is my closest blood relative--no, I'm serious, my blood is 95% espresso, I have a scanner and everything," that he doesn't realize where they're going until they're already there.
It's Rockefeller Center, lit up like…well, like Christmas morning. There's a spruce larger than any Steve's ever seen at the center of the bustle of activity, glittering a hundred different colors, and an ice rink laid out beneath it. There are people everywhere, couples smiling at each other, children tugging on their parents' hands, and even that would be enough to put a smile on his face; the last time Steve was here, he'd been in costume, fighting back an invading army of sentient sewer gators, and there'd been a moment where he'd thought the whole area was going to be destroyed beyond repair. To see it healed over and teeming with humanity is more a comfort than he'd have expected, eases the guilt that's always itching, just a little, at the back of his mind.
But that's not all it is, because the time before that it was 1939, and Steve was staring up at a tree just like this one, if smaller and less colorful. He and Bucky had gone a week before Christmas, one in a long string of failed double dates, and Steve had spent most of the night sketching out what he saw. It had been couples and families then too, and something about that had stuck and stung at the time; now it warms him, that they're still doing this, that he gets to see it on the other side of seventy years and a bitter solitude he's beginning to think he won't have to weather anymore.
"Good silence or bad silence?" Tony asks, after a minute. "Because I totally have a backup plan if it's bad silence, I've got a plan B that was originally plan A, there's a whole fancy dinner thing standing by, I just…thought you might like this better?"
"Good silence," Steve says, looking around to take it all in. "Definitely a good silence--Tony. You know I was here for the first one? The first time they put a tree up, I mean, my god, that must have been--"
"1931," Tony says, and looks sheepish when Steve raises his eyebrows. "I, uh, looked it up. I knew it was the 30s, I had kind of a thing about how the lighting worked when I was a kid, read some stuff about it that must've stuck. My dad used to bring me, when I was really little."
"Here?"
"Yeah," Tony says, scuffing a shoe against the ground. "It was…I don't know. If you don't like it, seriously, we can go do something else, I've got another plan, there are options and shit, but--you wanted a Christmas thing, and this is the most Christmas thing I could think of."
He's doing that thing again, the thing where he hides his eyes and clearly imagines it hides what he's thinking. Steve wonders, sometimes, if Tony knows that his voice changes when he talks about his childhood, if he's realized that whenever he pushes something forward, he always stops at the last second to try to build himself a back door. It's not fair, because Tony's a better person than he thinks he is, to degrees that are staggering sometimes; there are moments when Steve thinks about who Tony might be if he'd had someone to tell him that every once in awhile, about the kind of happiness he might have found.
But on the other, more selfish hand, any other Tony wouldn't be this one, and for all Steve wishes Tony'd had better, he can't quite wish himself having worse.
"It's perfect," he says, smiling around it, a hand on the layer of bright red polyester currently representing Tony's arm. "The Christmas thing to end all Christmas things. You can cancel plan B, I love it, thank you."
"Oh," Tony says. "Well, that's….good, then. That's good, right, yeah, I think that's good."
"So are we skating?" Steve says, before Tony can start second-guessing himself. "Since we're here and everything?"
"Skating?" Tony says, and then seems to notice the ice rink. He puts his hands in the air at once, takes a sharp step back. "Ohhh no. No, no, no one wants to see that, okay--there are lots of winter sports I excel at, skiing, I'm an excellent skier--"
"And yet you brought me to an ice rink."
"I brought you to a Christmas tree!" Tony says. "A giant Christmas tree, we are here for the tree and only the tree."
"Well, that's kind of a waste of resources," Steve says. When Tony narrows his eyes, he laughs. "Come on, you can't be that bad at it."
He is, actually, that bad at it. They're recognized at the skate rental stand, because Tony tries to pay when Steve raises his eyebrows at the rental price and the only cash he's got on him is a hundred, and things only go downhill from there. Tony's less graceful on skates than he is three sheets to the wind, which is actually a little unsettling; he wobbles and flails his arms and pitches toward the ground, complains bitterly when Steve, long since enhanced to the peak of human performance, snatches him up before he face-plants.
"Would it have been better if I'd let you crack your head open?" Steve asks, and Tony scowls at him.
"Yes," he says, "because then I'd at least have my dignity."
"And a head wound."
"A dignified head wound, and--oh, for fuck's sake, Steve, are you skating backwards?"
Steve hadn't realized it, but he is; he grins at Tony, a little smug, because he can't help it. Tony's flushed bright red under that ridiculous hat, from cold or embarrassment, it's hard to be sure, and Steve spreads his arms in supplication and does one quick lap of the rink mostly to figure out how to explain it--he's found, since the serum, that there are things he picks up so naturally that he has to actively think about them to figure out how they work. Then he slides to a stop next to Tony and sets about teaching him how to maintain balance and momentum, the combination of smooth strokes and careful distance that spells success. Tony's nothing if not a quick study; after fifteen minutes he's moving, if not like a pro, at least less like a beginner.
"You know, I was never good at this when I was a kid," Steve says, a hand on Tony's back that Tony (hopefully) can't feel through the coat. "Or, well, the version of this we--it's not like I had skates, but sometimes on the cold days we'd let water freeze over on the sidewalk behind my apartment, slide around on it."
"Cap," Tony says, mocking, eyes wide, "that's not the commitment to civic justice and safety I've come to know. This is shameful, does Fury know about that?"
"It wasn't ever my idea," Steve says, rolling his eyes. "And, like I said, I wasn't very good at it--Bucky'd always manage to do tricks and stuff. I usually ended up breaking something."
"You're just trying to make me feel better about Nancy Kerrigan Jr. over there, aren't you?" Tony says, gesturing towards the little girl who's been skating circles around both of them for half an hour. Steve doesn't know who Nancy Kerrigan Sr. was--a skater of some kind, in all likelihood--but he shakes his head anyway.
"Just thinking out loud," he says. "You ready to get off the ice?"
"I've been ready to get off the ice since we got on the ice," Tony says, "but it's been more fun than I was expecting, so if you want to stick it out a while longer--"
"No, I think I'm good," Steve says, eyeing the line that's formed behind the rental stand with trepidation. "If this place gets any more crowded, I doubt we'll be able to move at all."
"Point," Tony says. He sounds relieved, which is telling, as is the fact that he lets Steve more-or-less tow him back to the front of the rink. There's something warm in it, the allowances he's making here, the fact that he's trying this hard; Steve goes and buys him another coffee while Tony's wrestling his way out of his skates, leads them both over to a recently vacated bench.
"So," Tony says, a couple of sips into his coffee and sounding that much more enthusiastic for it, "skills you've acquired since the serum, we've got ice skating and, uh, I'm assuming you weren't throwing a lot of vibranium around back in the day--anything else you wanna tell me about? New exciting post-serum hobbies?"
"You tell me," Steve says, "you're the one who's read my file."
"Well, yeah, of course, it was right--wait. Wait. Have you never read your file?"
"Why would I? I doubt there's anything in it I don't already know."
"But the temptation," Tony says, "it's right there, you'd have to be--you don't want to know what they've said about you over the years?"
"Not really," Steve says. "Why, do you?"
"Ah," Tony says, his face shifting slightly.
Steve sighs. "You've hacked your SHIELD file, haven't you?"
"If it makes you feel better, it wasn't exactly an ego boost," Tony says. "Although not as bad as my boarding school quarterly reviews, back in the day."
"You went to boarding school?"
"You knew that," Tony says, dismissive, and then raises his eyebrows when Steve shakes his head. "You…didn't know that, of course you didn't know that, why would you have known that? Yeah, boarding school, from the second I was old enough."
"Did you…like it?" Steve says, not sure if that's the right question. Tony's past--like all of their pasts, really, the whole team's shuffling away from their collective histories most of the time--is a minefield Steve's still trying to figure out how to traverse.
Tony smiles, just for a second, a pained little twitch of his mouth that's gone as quickly as it appears. "It was fine. Better than the house, I think. I was always--school wasn't great, ever, y'know, smartest kid in the room, and…well, you know. It's not like I've ever been great with people."
And just like that, it clicks, the loose thread that Steve's been worrying at all these months unraveling into a picture that makes sense. Steve had thought it was about Howard, the way Tony is; he'd thought it was the lack there feeding the aching desperation in Tony's eyes sometimes, the way he's always scrambling to catch up. But it's not just that, is it--Howard's part of it, certainly, and that's something Steve's still trying to reconcile with the man he'd known and liked, but he's not the whole story. Steve knows what it is to fit wrong, knows the raw sting of rejection inside and out; Tony'd said from the first that he wasn't a team player, but maybe it's just that he'd never gotten the chance to be before.
Steve puts his arm around Tony's shoulders, pulls him in against the chill. "I think you do alright."
For once in his life, Tony doesn't say anything; after a minute, he slides one gloved hand into Steve's front pocket, rubs dexterous fingers against Steve's thigh through the fabric. Steve smiles, because he knows a thank you when he feels one, whether Tony's going to say it or not.
"So, uh, Merry Christmas," Tony says after a few minutes, voice almost lost in the noise of the crowd.
"Yeah," Steve says. He turns his face to press a kiss against Tony's hair, almost laughs when his lips meet the top of that ridiculous hat instead. He's already thinking of the bed back at the mansion, the breakfast they'll probably wake up too late to make tomorrow; it's not what he'd thought he was looking for, but it's starting to feel like the right thing anyway, a certainly he'd forgotten he knew how to feel building within him. "Merry Christmas, Tony."
Illustration by the incredible Marie over on tumblr, who just, you guys, UGH ISN'T IT GORGEOUS. Please go leave her some love!