A Long Retirement - Part 4: 1997
Title: A Long Retirement - Part 4
Fandom: Captain America/Avengers
Series: To Rewrite History
Pairings: [For the series]Very minor Steve/Bucky and Tony/Pepper
Ratings/Warnings: None for this section, other than Howard's crappy parenting
Word Count: 2539 (14,382 so far)
Disclaimer: If I owned it it would be a family story
Summary: No one could have survived that fall, but for Steve they look.
Part 1: 1988
Part 2: 1989
Part 3: 1991
1997
“Hey, Steve, have you seen Bucky? I need to- Oh my god!”
Tony skids to a halt and throws a hand over his eyes. But it's too late to unsee what he's just witnessed and he's pretty sure the sight of Steve and Bucky kissing is now burned into his mind. Not just kissing, but entwined together, pressed against the wall and full on making out.
What the fuck? Like... What. The. Actual. Fuck.
He should probably turn back around and give them privacy. But it's hard to leave when he can't see and to see he'd have to look and Tony's mind is spinning far too wildly to handle that right now. So instead he just stands there awkwardly with his hand across his face.
“You can look now, kid; it's safe,” Bucky says after what seems like forever. The other man sounds amused, his voice rich with laughter, and Tony peeks through his fingers cautiously.
His brothers have separated, no longer pressed together, and he could almost believe that he had dreamed the whole thing up. Except that Steve's lips are red and swollen, his hair sticking out in all directions, and Bucky is no better off. The brunet is a mess, a giant hickey on his neck and his clothes twisted around like he's been through a hurricane.
“Sorry about that,” Steve tells him. “We didn't hear you knock.”
“Oh, I didn't-” Tony starts, then blushes as Bucky raises one eyebrow pointedly. “Oh, that was an- okay.... Next time, I'll knock first.”
“You got it. We gave you that key for emergencies, not to burst in willy-nilly,” the other man scolds gently before smiling again. “But since you're here already, what you do you need? I thought you'd be meeting with the board at Stark Industries for a few more hours. Did they finally give in?”
“More or less,” he shrugs. “The old guard is still grumbling about losing the last few weapon contracts, particularly Obadiah, but I've managed to convince the majority. Most of them don't really care as long as they're making money and it's hard to argue with the profits that we earned last year.”
“You've done impressive work, kid,” Steve says, positively beaming with pride. “It's taken time but you're well on your way to building your own legacy.”
“I couldn't have done it alone,” Tony replies, ducking his head against that smile. He's getting better about accepting compliments instead of deflecting them with arrogance, but this one is different. This isn't something he could do just because he was a genius or due to his family name. This is the project of a lifetime and he's worked damn hard to shift the focus of Stark Industries. “Seriously, I've got momentum now, but you both helped get me started. How exactly did you convince Howard to give me a department anyway? I've never asked, but I've been wondering and I needed that to show what we could do.”
“Ah, we have our ways. We can be quite persuasive when we put our mind to it,” Steve says, sharing a glance with Bucky who mouths, “Blackmail,” with a wink. It's a conspiratorial look, filled with a lifetime of in jokes and the weight of history, and Tony is suddenly thrown back to that kiss from earlier.
“Since when have you been... you know?” he blurts out, his mouth moving before his brain can shut it down. The awkward subject change is made even worse by the clumsy flailing gesture that he throws along with it.
Idiot! What the hell is wrong with you?
Tony regrets his question the instant that he speaks it, beating himself up over his curiosity. He's ready for an explosion - you can't just ask that about people - but Steve and Bucky seem more confused than anything.
Their expressions are befuddled as they both stare at Tony, glancing at each other and then back at him in turn. As the silence stretches on and on, the young man starts to wonder if they'll just pretend this never happened: brush his question under the rug and never speak of it again.
But eventually Bucky meets his eyes and answers with a shrug, “Since forever? I'm pretty sure I loved this punk from the moment that we met.”
“That's not what I remember,” Steve retorts, unable to let the brunet get the last word. “Can't have been love at first sight the way that you kept bitching about dragging me from alleys for the first couple years.”
“Only cause you kept getting your face broken,” Bucky answers with a smirk. “I loved that stubborn face. You were just too busy saving the world to notice until I made it obvious. So forever, Stevie, I stand by what I said.”
Forever? But... “Why didn't you tell me?” Tony asks, once again unable to stop the question slipping out.
“You've known us for nine years - I thought you knew!” Steve says, sounding a bit exasperated. “We don't shout it from the rooftops but we're not hiding either. We don't have to anymore.”
“Pretty sure you just weren't paying attention,” Bucky adds, reaching out to take Steve's hand. “Seriously, you were at our housewarming party when we moved in together and the other Howling Commandos spent the entire time joking about christening the bed. What did you think they were talking about?”
“I thought... you were just really good friends?” Tony answers weakly, well aware of how ridiculous that sounds.
He knows they're both attractive - he's not exactly blind - but he's never truly thought of either man as sexual. They're like family to him and if he's being honest, he didn't think that people from the old days actually did that kind of thing.
Except they clearly do and Tony isn't used to feeling stupid. He's used to always being the smartest guy around. But either he's been an idiot for about a decade or his friends haven't trusted him with a main part of their lives.
“I just... How can... Why didn't you...?” he stammers, reeling too badly to speak his thoughts aloud.
“You don't have a problem, do you?” Steve says and the world snaps back into focus, the words an icy dagger plunged into Tony's chest. The blond's voice is sharp and his stance has turned defensive, moving in front of Bucky like he's preparing for a fight. But it's the eyes that kill him: utterly heartbroken yet determined anyway. That's the gaze of a man who truly doesn't want to stand against him, but will do what's required to keep his family safe.
And Tony never wanted to make his brother feel that way.
“No!” the young man bursts out. “That isn't what I meant! I'm fucking happy for you. It may not be the norm but you're clearly great together and who am I to judge? It's not like I've ever had a real relationship. I just... I can't believe I never noticed. And I hope you know that you can trust me; I'd never want to mess you up.”
Tony is pleading by the end, begging Steve and Bucky to realize that he loves them without saying it aloud.
“We weren't trying to keep you in the dark,” the brunet tells him gently, somehow managing to read his mind again. “We don't tend to advertise - it's hard to break that habit - but we figured that you knew and didn't want the details, or were staying quiet to respect our privacy.”
“No, apparently I'm just that dumb,” Tony sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. “Seriously, I'm sorry. You deserved much better out of me.”
He waits with bated breath for his brothers' reactions, stomach tied in knots from worrying. But then Steve's stance finally softens and Tony nearly collapses with relief when the blond steps forward to sweep him into a hug.
“You got there in the end, kid, and that's what really matters. I shouldn't have doubted you.”
Steve's words melt the last shard of ice in Tony's chest and for the first time in several minutes, he feels like he can breathe. At least until Bucky joins the hug and squeezes both of them until their ribs creak. But even that's a comfort, to know he hasn't lost the chance to hold his brothers tight.
“Okay, I've got shit to do,” Tony says once he's been mushy long enough. There's only so much hugging that he can take at once. And if his eyes are a little damp when he pulls away, no one calls him on it. The other men just smile warmly and send him on his way.
Tony leaves their apartment with a new understanding that both changes nothing and changes everything.
He finds himself watching Steve and Bucky's interactions much more closely over the next few weeks. Not because he's worried or disgusted by their relationship, but to figure out how he missed the signs for nine years straight.
Tony's first conclusion is that the other men really weren't lying; they hadn't actually tried to hide their love from him. Because Steve and Bucky act the same before and after. There's no sudden rush of PDA now that he knows the truth. There's just quiet smiles and the way they stand together, leaning into one another without a hair's breadth in-between. There's a lifetime of familiarity in how the two men treat each other, knowing when to tease and when to comfort, swapping green beans for carrots and making the perfect coffee order without a single spoken word.
Tony's second conclusion is that Steve and Bucky are both insatiable. He doesn't catch them making out, not like he did before. But the young man sees the signs now - rumpled clothes and hair after they disappear together and the barest hint of fading hickies showing on their skin. The way his brothers heal, those marks are remade daily and Bucky's grin always gets a little smugger when he touches one of them.
However, it's the softer kisses that strike the young man deepest. Tony doesn't see them often and only then because he's watching, the press of lips so quick that he can miss it in a blink. Yet those kisses are the sweetest, the ones with no lust behind them - a simple touch that says: “I love you and I'm happy that you're here.”
Tony's parents used to kiss like that a long long time ago. Hazy memories of his childhood when Howard used to be there, used to kiss his wife and smile when she leaned into him. That was before his father disappeared into the lab, leaving an empty chair and loneliness where his presence should have been.
Maybe that's when Tony stopped believing in love behind closed doors. His parents always put on a good show in public. To those who only saw them at important functions, they must have seemed the perfect couple with an ideal relationship. But their son saw the truth at home. Tony saw the silences, the broken promises, and he assumed that every love turned cold eventually. He internalized that distance and decided that he'd rather not get close at all if that's where it was bound to lead.
Tony thinks that it was instinct, an unconscious need to protect his heart from further damaging. Because the young man is quite familiar with what it's like to be abandoned and no one else can leave him if he's always leaving first. He's had acquaintances and one night stands but no real friends until Steve and Bucky. Tony still has no true friends but these men who fell through time.
Thinking about it now, he still has no idea how they slipped through his defenses. Stubbornness maybe - sheer unadulterated stubbornness that didn't let him run away.
Or perhaps it was the loyalty that Steve and Bucky showed each other. Even back when Tony still hated the blond's guts, he couldn't doubt that Captain America would die for his best friend. And Bucky, hell, their first real conversation was the other man coming straight to Steve's defense. How could Tony fear that he might be abandoned when these two men had fought their way from death itself to stand at each other's sides?
Loving them was safe; subconsciously the younger man had known that from the start. Love has always been the core of Steve and Bucky in his mind; Tony just never had the words to describe that feeling until now.
In truth, he doesn't think he wanted to take the blinders from his eyes. He'd been happy in denial. Comfortable in ignorance. Because if he didn't know then he didn't have to change his preconceptions. If love was just impossible, Tony could write it off.
But Steve and Bucky are living proof that not all love is doomed to failure, that two hearts can burn for decades without ever snuffing out.
And in admitting one truth, Tony admits another: Damn, I really want that kind of loyalty. He's made himself indifferent, but in the young man's heart of hearts, there's a romantic buried deep. Tony wants the sort of love that country ballads sing of, though he'd never admit on pain of death that he's been listening.
He wants a real relationship. He wants to know another person as well as Steve knows Bucky and have that person love him despite all his flaws in return.
Admitting it is terrifying, even to himself. But Tony finds it strangely freeing all the same.
Maybe his attempts at romance will simply crash and burn. Maybe all he'll gain from trying is sorrow and regret. But now he knows there could be joy at the end of tribulation and that's enough to give him hope.
Tony has been running full tilt away from love for decades, no high school sweetheart, no college flings that turned to something more. He's been guarding his heart unconsciously and frankly its exhausting. The young man thinks he'd like to finally set that burden down.
I wonder if Pepper would agree to date me if I asked. Obadiah's pretty assistant had caught his eye right from the start: sharp and smart and taking exactly zero of his shit. Too special for a one-night stand, not easily forgotten, the kind of woman Tony could fall for easily. The kind of woman who could break him and so he'd kept his distance, kept temptation at arm's length and pined strictly from afar.
But there's a new spark of possibility burning in his chest and just this once, Tony wants to live recklessly. Maybe he'll find true love or maybe he'll find sorrow. Either way Steve and Bucky will be there to support him, to cheer at Tony's wedding or hold his head the morning after he tries to drink away his pain.
With a love like theirs as his example, Tony knows the risk is worth it. The young man simply wishes that he hadn't wasted so much time along the way.
Part 5: 2008
Fandom: Captain America/Avengers
Series: To Rewrite History
Pairings: [For the series]Very minor Steve/Bucky and Tony/Pepper
Ratings/Warnings: None for this section, other than Howard's crappy parenting
Word Count: 2539 (14,382 so far)
Disclaimer: If I owned it it would be a family story
Summary: No one could have survived that fall, but for Steve they look.
Part 1: 1988
Part 2: 1989
Part 3: 1991
1997
“Hey, Steve, have you seen Bucky? I need to- Oh my god!”
Tony skids to a halt and throws a hand over his eyes. But it's too late to unsee what he's just witnessed and he's pretty sure the sight of Steve and Bucky kissing is now burned into his mind. Not just kissing, but entwined together, pressed against the wall and full on making out.
What the fuck? Like... What. The. Actual. Fuck.
He should probably turn back around and give them privacy. But it's hard to leave when he can't see and to see he'd have to look and Tony's mind is spinning far too wildly to handle that right now. So instead he just stands there awkwardly with his hand across his face.
“You can look now, kid; it's safe,” Bucky says after what seems like forever. The other man sounds amused, his voice rich with laughter, and Tony peeks through his fingers cautiously.
His brothers have separated, no longer pressed together, and he could almost believe that he had dreamed the whole thing up. Except that Steve's lips are red and swollen, his hair sticking out in all directions, and Bucky is no better off. The brunet is a mess, a giant hickey on his neck and his clothes twisted around like he's been through a hurricane.
“Sorry about that,” Steve tells him. “We didn't hear you knock.”
“Oh, I didn't-” Tony starts, then blushes as Bucky raises one eyebrow pointedly. “Oh, that was an- okay.... Next time, I'll knock first.”
“You got it. We gave you that key for emergencies, not to burst in willy-nilly,” the other man scolds gently before smiling again. “But since you're here already, what you do you need? I thought you'd be meeting with the board at Stark Industries for a few more hours. Did they finally give in?”
“More or less,” he shrugs. “The old guard is still grumbling about losing the last few weapon contracts, particularly Obadiah, but I've managed to convince the majority. Most of them don't really care as long as they're making money and it's hard to argue with the profits that we earned last year.”
“You've done impressive work, kid,” Steve says, positively beaming with pride. “It's taken time but you're well on your way to building your own legacy.”
“I couldn't have done it alone,” Tony replies, ducking his head against that smile. He's getting better about accepting compliments instead of deflecting them with arrogance, but this one is different. This isn't something he could do just because he was a genius or due to his family name. This is the project of a lifetime and he's worked damn hard to shift the focus of Stark Industries. “Seriously, I've got momentum now, but you both helped get me started. How exactly did you convince Howard to give me a department anyway? I've never asked, but I've been wondering and I needed that to show what we could do.”
“Ah, we have our ways. We can be quite persuasive when we put our mind to it,” Steve says, sharing a glance with Bucky who mouths, “Blackmail,” with a wink. It's a conspiratorial look, filled with a lifetime of in jokes and the weight of history, and Tony is suddenly thrown back to that kiss from earlier.
“Since when have you been... you know?” he blurts out, his mouth moving before his brain can shut it down. The awkward subject change is made even worse by the clumsy flailing gesture that he throws along with it.
Idiot! What the hell is wrong with you?
Tony regrets his question the instant that he speaks it, beating himself up over his curiosity. He's ready for an explosion - you can't just ask that about people - but Steve and Bucky seem more confused than anything.
Their expressions are befuddled as they both stare at Tony, glancing at each other and then back at him in turn. As the silence stretches on and on, the young man starts to wonder if they'll just pretend this never happened: brush his question under the rug and never speak of it again.
But eventually Bucky meets his eyes and answers with a shrug, “Since forever? I'm pretty sure I loved this punk from the moment that we met.”
“That's not what I remember,” Steve retorts, unable to let the brunet get the last word. “Can't have been love at first sight the way that you kept bitching about dragging me from alleys for the first couple years.”
“Only cause you kept getting your face broken,” Bucky answers with a smirk. “I loved that stubborn face. You were just too busy saving the world to notice until I made it obvious. So forever, Stevie, I stand by what I said.”
Forever? But... “Why didn't you tell me?” Tony asks, once again unable to stop the question slipping out.
“You've known us for nine years - I thought you knew!” Steve says, sounding a bit exasperated. “We don't shout it from the rooftops but we're not hiding either. We don't have to anymore.”
“Pretty sure you just weren't paying attention,” Bucky adds, reaching out to take Steve's hand. “Seriously, you were at our housewarming party when we moved in together and the other Howling Commandos spent the entire time joking about christening the bed. What did you think they were talking about?”
“I thought... you were just really good friends?” Tony answers weakly, well aware of how ridiculous that sounds.
He knows they're both attractive - he's not exactly blind - but he's never truly thought of either man as sexual. They're like family to him and if he's being honest, he didn't think that people from the old days actually did that kind of thing.
Except they clearly do and Tony isn't used to feeling stupid. He's used to always being the smartest guy around. But either he's been an idiot for about a decade or his friends haven't trusted him with a main part of their lives.
“I just... How can... Why didn't you...?” he stammers, reeling too badly to speak his thoughts aloud.
“You don't have a problem, do you?” Steve says and the world snaps back into focus, the words an icy dagger plunged into Tony's chest. The blond's voice is sharp and his stance has turned defensive, moving in front of Bucky like he's preparing for a fight. But it's the eyes that kill him: utterly heartbroken yet determined anyway. That's the gaze of a man who truly doesn't want to stand against him, but will do what's required to keep his family safe.
And Tony never wanted to make his brother feel that way.
“No!” the young man bursts out. “That isn't what I meant! I'm fucking happy for you. It may not be the norm but you're clearly great together and who am I to judge? It's not like I've ever had a real relationship. I just... I can't believe I never noticed. And I hope you know that you can trust me; I'd never want to mess you up.”
Tony is pleading by the end, begging Steve and Bucky to realize that he loves them without saying it aloud.
“We weren't trying to keep you in the dark,” the brunet tells him gently, somehow managing to read his mind again. “We don't tend to advertise - it's hard to break that habit - but we figured that you knew and didn't want the details, or were staying quiet to respect our privacy.”
“No, apparently I'm just that dumb,” Tony sighs, rubbing a hand across his face. “Seriously, I'm sorry. You deserved much better out of me.”
He waits with bated breath for his brothers' reactions, stomach tied in knots from worrying. But then Steve's stance finally softens and Tony nearly collapses with relief when the blond steps forward to sweep him into a hug.
“You got there in the end, kid, and that's what really matters. I shouldn't have doubted you.”
Steve's words melt the last shard of ice in Tony's chest and for the first time in several minutes, he feels like he can breathe. At least until Bucky joins the hug and squeezes both of them until their ribs creak. But even that's a comfort, to know he hasn't lost the chance to hold his brothers tight.
“Okay, I've got shit to do,” Tony says once he's been mushy long enough. There's only so much hugging that he can take at once. And if his eyes are a little damp when he pulls away, no one calls him on it. The other men just smile warmly and send him on his way.
Tony leaves their apartment with a new understanding that both changes nothing and changes everything.
He finds himself watching Steve and Bucky's interactions much more closely over the next few weeks. Not because he's worried or disgusted by their relationship, but to figure out how he missed the signs for nine years straight.
Tony's first conclusion is that the other men really weren't lying; they hadn't actually tried to hide their love from him. Because Steve and Bucky act the same before and after. There's no sudden rush of PDA now that he knows the truth. There's just quiet smiles and the way they stand together, leaning into one another without a hair's breadth in-between. There's a lifetime of familiarity in how the two men treat each other, knowing when to tease and when to comfort, swapping green beans for carrots and making the perfect coffee order without a single spoken word.
Tony's second conclusion is that Steve and Bucky are both insatiable. He doesn't catch them making out, not like he did before. But the young man sees the signs now - rumpled clothes and hair after they disappear together and the barest hint of fading hickies showing on their skin. The way his brothers heal, those marks are remade daily and Bucky's grin always gets a little smugger when he touches one of them.
However, it's the softer kisses that strike the young man deepest. Tony doesn't see them often and only then because he's watching, the press of lips so quick that he can miss it in a blink. Yet those kisses are the sweetest, the ones with no lust behind them - a simple touch that says: “I love you and I'm happy that you're here.”
Tony's parents used to kiss like that a long long time ago. Hazy memories of his childhood when Howard used to be there, used to kiss his wife and smile when she leaned into him. That was before his father disappeared into the lab, leaving an empty chair and loneliness where his presence should have been.
Maybe that's when Tony stopped believing in love behind closed doors. His parents always put on a good show in public. To those who only saw them at important functions, they must have seemed the perfect couple with an ideal relationship. But their son saw the truth at home. Tony saw the silences, the broken promises, and he assumed that every love turned cold eventually. He internalized that distance and decided that he'd rather not get close at all if that's where it was bound to lead.
Tony thinks that it was instinct, an unconscious need to protect his heart from further damaging. Because the young man is quite familiar with what it's like to be abandoned and no one else can leave him if he's always leaving first. He's had acquaintances and one night stands but no real friends until Steve and Bucky. Tony still has no true friends but these men who fell through time.
Thinking about it now, he still has no idea how they slipped through his defenses. Stubbornness maybe - sheer unadulterated stubbornness that didn't let him run away.
Or perhaps it was the loyalty that Steve and Bucky showed each other. Even back when Tony still hated the blond's guts, he couldn't doubt that Captain America would die for his best friend. And Bucky, hell, their first real conversation was the other man coming straight to Steve's defense. How could Tony fear that he might be abandoned when these two men had fought their way from death itself to stand at each other's sides?
Loving them was safe; subconsciously the younger man had known that from the start. Love has always been the core of Steve and Bucky in his mind; Tony just never had the words to describe that feeling until now.
In truth, he doesn't think he wanted to take the blinders from his eyes. He'd been happy in denial. Comfortable in ignorance. Because if he didn't know then he didn't have to change his preconceptions. If love was just impossible, Tony could write it off.
But Steve and Bucky are living proof that not all love is doomed to failure, that two hearts can burn for decades without ever snuffing out.
And in admitting one truth, Tony admits another: Damn, I really want that kind of loyalty. He's made himself indifferent, but in the young man's heart of hearts, there's a romantic buried deep. Tony wants the sort of love that country ballads sing of, though he'd never admit on pain of death that he's been listening.
He wants a real relationship. He wants to know another person as well as Steve knows Bucky and have that person love him despite all his flaws in return.
Admitting it is terrifying, even to himself. But Tony finds it strangely freeing all the same.
Maybe his attempts at romance will simply crash and burn. Maybe all he'll gain from trying is sorrow and regret. But now he knows there could be joy at the end of tribulation and that's enough to give him hope.
Tony has been running full tilt away from love for decades, no high school sweetheart, no college flings that turned to something more. He's been guarding his heart unconsciously and frankly its exhausting. The young man thinks he'd like to finally set that burden down.
I wonder if Pepper would agree to date me if I asked. Obadiah's pretty assistant had caught his eye right from the start: sharp and smart and taking exactly zero of his shit. Too special for a one-night stand, not easily forgotten, the kind of woman Tony could fall for easily. The kind of woman who could break him and so he'd kept his distance, kept temptation at arm's length and pined strictly from afar.
But there's a new spark of possibility burning in his chest and just this once, Tony wants to live recklessly. Maybe he'll find true love or maybe he'll find sorrow. Either way Steve and Bucky will be there to support him, to cheer at Tony's wedding or hold his head the morning after he tries to drink away his pain.
With a love like theirs as his example, Tony knows the risk is worth it. The young man simply wishes that he hadn't wasted so much time along the way.
Part 5: 2008