Written for pleasecallmesnaps on tumblr with the prompt that Steve likes Tony, but with a focus on how the 40's had slim to no openly gay people.
"I've never been known for my patience. I have the patience of a flea," Tony Stark said one day during a meeting after a battle where Tony had disregarded all orders and charged ahead too early. It had all worked out in the end, but Fury didn't think the ends justified the means.
Truth be told, neither did Steve. He loved structure and regulation. He was a soldier, had always wanted to be one, and that hadn't changed just because he'd been flung seventy years into the future. So, no. Steve didn't approve of Tony disregarding the rules and charging into dangerous situations. But on the other hand, Steve also loved creativity, innovation, and trust. He was an artist and a captain. He was a strategist, so he understood the finite skill it took to see a situation and spring into proper action. Steve knew Tony trusted the team, because he never jumped into a situation without expecting them to back him up. Tony was nothing but innovative creativity. Even out of his suit, his brain never stopped creating. It was admirable, and it was beautiful.
Steve could never get that thought out of his head. Tony Stark was magnificent. He shone more brightly than any other human being in any age. He outshone his own father, and perhaps that was the point of it all. He had mind-blowing intelligence, more money than Midas, wasn't afraid to get physical, and nerves of steel. His personality was harsh and grating, but it was a shield against the world. After the new Avengers Tower had been completed from the ruins of the Stark Tower, Steve knew just how much of a shield it was, because he was finally behind it.
Tony laughed a lot, found simple things hilarious because others found them stunning. The laugh lines were clear on his face now. Tony got lost in his work, sometimes not noticing when he was being watched in his brilliance, or if he did notice he never made it known. He blared music, and ate pizza, and sipped brandy like a soda, and once a day Pepper Potts brought him a glass of water and a large, white pill for anxiety... or maybe it was depression. Steve didn't know anymore. There were so many medications now.
Steve wished he could help Tony stop needing the pills, but he didn't know where to start. It had been months since he woke up, and he still hung to the background of life. He had been the last Avenger to agree to stay in the Tower, even after Bruce, who interacted sometimes but mostly kept to his two floors near the top. Steve found he liked to watch the others interact more than to interact himself. When they played games, he would stay out of it until several rounds in, when they forced him to play. When they drank, he sat with his water and smiled at them. It was all a learning experience. He saw the team dynamic grow, and it made him proud. They made references to things he didn't understand, and he made a long mental list of shows and movies to watch spanning back forty years.
Movies. Movies had changed. They were colorful, loud, and came in so many varieties that he didn't know how to deal with it at first, but Tony sat him down one night in front of the television and set up a playlist of things to get him started. Tony stayed by his side every night for a week until he was convinced they had watched every movie worth mentioning from the time movies were 'not crap' until the 90's. Steve had told him when they entered the 80's that Tony didn't have to stay up with him, but Tony assured him that his sleep schedule was as weird as Steve's and told him to shut up.
Behind his mask, Tony made the whole world different. He was still crass and self-obsessed. He listened to music that made Steve's ears bleed and worked on cars that moved faster than anything Steve had ever experienced. He lived life his own way, and somehow survived on a diet of cheese, grease, and coffee. His home was 'state-of-the-art', with all the AI systems, the holograms, the projection tvs in every bedroom, the automatic curtains, the LED kitchen systems, even the piping and the pool were light years beyond Steve's greatest science fiction book. And Tony designed all of it. It was all Tony, spread out for everyone to see. This was Tony's world... and Steve was living in it.
No. Steve was saturated by it. From the moment Tony Stark's picture had appeared in the reports, Steve's heart panicked. When the man himself stepped into the room, instantly taking control of the conversation, Steve's panic became fear and then anger. The way Tony worked was that being around him meant you couldn't focus on anything else. Living in his house, surrounded by his inventions and his genius, kept Tony on Steve's mind even during the days where Tony was lost to his workshop or away at a conference. There was no escaping it, and it terrified Steve.
He knew why he panicked, why he found reasons to hate Tony Stark. He also knew why he admired him so much, why he wouldn't want to still live in his tiny apartment in Brooklyn. Damn did it terrify him.
He liked Tony Stark. Not just that. With every passing day around the genius, Steve was sure he was falling in love with Tony Stark. It made his chest constrict in pleasant ways followed by horrifying ways.
It had been hard to hide it in the forties, but then again, no one paid much mind to the subject either. If you weren't dressing like a woman or kissing men in public, people didn't voice their opinions directly at you. Steve had it hard, being so slight and feeble growing up. One woman had shoved him away from her church when Steve was fifteen, saying that Steve's soul was going to hell, that she could smell the homosexuality on him and it was why Steve was so fragile. He was soaked in sin.
He didn't know if she had literally smelled anything on him, but he was extra careful about his bath products from then on, and he tried to stay away from most attractive men... Well, all except Bucky. He liked Bucky a lot in the beginning, had wanted him but knew he was too weak to ever claim him. Society wouldn't approve, and Bucky was far too interested in women. Over time, he got to know Bucky, and he couldn't think of Bucky as a prospective relationship anymore. It was just weird. They were just friends, the best of friends.
Howard Stark had been some kind of amazing - Steve's first crush since the serum. Maybe that was a lie. Steve had admired his looks since the Stark Expo, had run away to the enlisting booth so he couldn't see him. Steve had to watch himself carefully after they started working together. Howard didn't show a lot of preference either way. After Bucky started hanging around, the crush became easier to forget.
But this ain't the forties. Bucky is dead. Peggy is dead. Howard died years ago. Steve woke up in a world where television had openly gay couples kissing in prep school uniforms, men were praised for being dancers, and half of the United States was voting to let same-sex couples get married.
A lot happened in seventy years.
Except, apparently, Starks. In the file photo, Tony had looked a lot like Howard. Steve's first panic was how similar they were. In person, he looked better. He dressed and acted and groomed himself different than people in the forties - with his short and ruffled hair, his casual suits, and his band shirts. Even his facial hair was styled differently than the forties. Everyone's hair was different in most ways, but Tony's beard was something Steve couldn't get out of his head as being particularly special.
He tried to make his instant crush fade out, tried so hard it hurt. He picked out the pieces of Tony Stark that he could criticize, and he latched onto them. It wasn't hard. Tony's whole personality was one big red mark on morality. But after the first mission, and especially after moving into the Tower, how could Steve hold it all against him? Tony proved to be more than the records gave him credit for, and that was nothing but bad news for Steve Rogers. It was hard to hate someone when he kept finding things to love about him.
It was hard getting used to the idea that he didn't have to hide how he felt. Of course, Steve was still shit at relationships and knowing when and where to make a move, but at least now he was allowed to consider it. That didn't really help though. Every time Steve wanted to go tell Tony about his feelings, he would find some reason not to do it.
It took him a month to make it all the way down the elevator and then the stairs. He often got halfway and then turned back. For a week, he made it to the door before turning tail. When he stepped into the workshop, finally, Tony proved he wasn't blinded to the world outside of his projects when he smiled and teased him.
"Finally made it all the way in, huh?" he'd asked.
"Oh," was all Steve had managed to say. Tony kept smiling as he turned back to his work. Steve lasted an entire minute before telling himself Tony was too busy to listen to him, and damn it he looked like a fool for a month because Tony had known about it.
It was two months. Two months, Steve would come down to the workshop when he had time, all the while telling himself that he would do it - today would be the day he told Tony about how he felt - and each day he ended up reading or sketching or being yelled at by a tense and annoyed Tony. That was always a sign that Tony hadn't slept enough recently, and Steve took it upon himself to then drag Tony away from his machines and up to bed, with Tony complaining all the while.
Jarvis got to know Steve very well, and Steve would talk to him while Tony worked. Sometimes Tony got in on it too, and sometimes that caused Jarvis to stop talking and leave the two heroes to their own chatting. Each time they had a lull in conversation, Steve tried to open his mouth and say something, but nothing ever came out.
Tony knew, too. Steve could tell. He could tell by the way Jarvis greeted him or teased him, by the way Tony would remind Jarvis of subtlety. He could tell when Tony would stare at him from across the workshop, as though considering saying something himself, and the way Tony looked at him during the conversation lulls, daring him to spit it out. Tony knew, but Steve's gut told him no.
Each time, for those first three months and the three that followed, Steve would think 'this is it', and then the church woman was in his head, telling him of his sin. Part of Steve held back because of all the hatred he'd seen toward men like him, to those who let their emotions rule their heads and been open about their homosexuality. It was hard to get the images, the rumors, and the direct facts out of his head. Being gay in the forties, he'd seen it everywhere. It hadn't been everywhere, but Steve had been paranoid, especially after the church woman, so he had a knack for finding the hateful messages.
The other part of Steve hesitated because of the idea of stinking of sin. He'd never seen Tony with a man. Tony had plenty of sins against him, and Steve didn't want to add one more to it - not one that was frowned upon as much as this. He didn't want Tony soaked in the same fear and detestation as him... although Tony would probably tell him he was being silly.
Six months into his attempts, Steve was prepared to resign to the fact that he was a coward; that he would live the rest of his life in silence and never tell Tony anything. Tony had the patience of a flea. He'd said so himself. There was no way he was going to wait for Steve to get the message that it was okay to feel the way he did. Tony would soon revert back to his philanderer ways. Steve knew he would. No one could wait forever. Especially not Tony Stark.
Six months, and Steve had barely started sitting close to Tony while he worked, while they watched movies, while they played games. Six months, and he could barely be so close. It excited him and made him nervous... and Tony never made a move, never teased him for his obviously awkward and noticeable attempts at becoming more personal. Tony teased Clint endlessly about his attempts at conquest and relationships, but he never said a sour thing about Steve's. That scared Steve a bit too. He couldn't read Tony in these situations.
"Tony, I-," Steve managed to start one day, sitting back to back with him while Tony tightened bolts on a motorcycle. Tony paused in his work and sat up, their backs aligned and touching. Steve sighed out and covered his face with a hand, mumbling under the music a small "Damn it."
He couldn't do it. On the battlefield, he was tactical, he was strong, he was fearless, and he was the leader. But here, everyday in this workshop, Steve was back in Brooklyn at thirteen, all weak limbs and heart conditions and medical concerns and unable to breathe when faced with emotional conflict. He was the kid before the serum, before the righteousness of his dream in life had solidified. He was just a scrawny, terrified little boy, and he couldn't speak.
Tony's fingers slipped over the back of his resting hand, drawing Steve from his own self-hatred. They slid over the side, rubbing down Steve's pointer finger and turning his hand until Tony's fingers could rest across Steve's in a loose hand hold.
Steve felt his face heating up and didn't try to look back at Tony. Tony hadn't moved his torso at all, just his arm. He held loosely to Steve's hand, and Steve could hear an understanding in his tone when he spoke.
"This ain't the forties," Tony said, sort of mimicking a Brooklyn accent.
"I know," Steve answered, and he let out a harsh and heavy breath that could be heard even with the music playing. Tony's thumb moved back and forth along Steve's skin, slowly and comfortingly.
"I can wait," Tony spoke up normally. "I can be patient."
Steve laughed bitterly. "But you said yourself,-"
"This is different," was all Tony said in response. He leaned his head back against Steve's broad shoulder. "This is different."
And hell, was he ever right. Tony was never this soft, this gentle. Steve had never been so close, so open. The whole world had changed overnight and now again in the time span of a moment. Tony's little gestures made Steve's chest pound with adrenaline. Maybe, if someone would give him the time to try, Steve could get over the past, get over the discrimination, get over the fear. Maybe Tony would have the patience to help Steve know it was okay. Things were different now. This was different. It wasn't nineteen forty anymore. This was going to be alright.
And Steve gripped their hands together, sealing the moment in his memory forever.