The first few times Steve mentioned something about a girl named Jessica, Tony didn't read too much into it. She was a waitress, who was working in a little coffee shop near the Avengers Tower and apparently Steve had saved her life during the Chitauri attack. When Steve had started going there after his morning jog for refreshment every day, she had thanked him for it and they started talking. They had clearly become good friends since then, but lately Tony couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to it.
Steve did mention her a lot during the last few days and he always looked so happy when talking about her that it made something clench heavily inside Tony's chest. He had never been a very jealous person before, partly because he knew that on the surface he had a lot to offer. But underneath that all, he also knew what he couldn't offer. And that second list was clearly longer than the first one.
Stability.
Marriage.
Family.
To name a few important ones. Deep in his heart Tony had always known that Steve was the guy who would want all that. It did seem like a crime to imagine him never getting the classical house with a garden and a white picket fence, and living happily ever after with a loving wife and a bunch of children. It was the American Dream. And who else should be living it, if not Captain America?
Another reason why he had never been particularly jealous in his previous relationships was that he really didn't have many partners in the past who meant so much to him, that the thought of losing them to someone else would have been unbearable.
Losing Steve would be, though.
But if it meant that Steve could find real happiness then maybe he could learn to deal with it. And that was something new, too. He was willing to put aside his own wants and dreams, not because the circumstances or someone else forced him to, but simply because he wanted to do the right thing. Of course, Steve also wanted to do the right thing by staying with him like he had promised, but was it really fair to hold him to that when it was obvious that he would be happier with someone else?
The answer was simple. No.
So, Tony needed a plan. Something to show Steve, that it was okay if he went after what he truly wanted.
The idea hit him when JARVIS announced that dinner was ready and the others were waiting for him.
It was perfect.
There was no way this wouldn't work out.
Now he only needed to ignore the way his traitorous heart thumped wildly at the thought of seeing Steve with that woman, and set his plan into motion.
Five days later, he had everything ready.
He had gone down into that coffee shop the day before and asked Jessica to join the team for dinner tonight, so that she could get to know them all. He had never been more thankful of his ability to smile charmingly, even while he felt like doing quite the opposite, than when she asked if Steve would also be there. Years of practise kept that smile on his face however and he told her that of course Steve would be there. Then he winked at her while adding that it had been Steve's idea all along and he had just been too shy to ask her on his own.
She had frowned at him shortly at that comment, which Tony didn't understand at all. Personally, he loved that shy side of Steve. Well, liked it very much at least. He wouldn't go thinking about that particular l-word, especially while trying to hook up his lover with someone else. He stopped that train of thoughts right there and told Jessica to come by the tower at six in the evening. She had thanked him for the invitation and promised to be on time.
Now it was almost six and Tony had just put the finishing touches to the dinner table when two things happened almost simultaneously. JARVIS announced that Jessica had arrived and was on her way up on the elevator, and Steve stepped into the room, immediately coming up behind him and wrapping his arms around him. The tight feeling in Tony's chest, which hadn't left him since his decision to fabricate this evening, intensified horrendously and he wriggled out of Steve's grasp. "Don't do that, you'll wrinkle my suit," he said in mock indignation and started to smooth out some invisible wrinkles on his jacket.
Steve rolled his eyes at him and took a step forward to reach for him again, when he noticed how the table was set. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and quickly walked around the table to put some distance between them. He just couldn't handle being so close to him right now; it had been hard enough to act like nothing was going on during the last few days.
"Why are there only three plates laid out?" Steve was asking now, confused. "And where are the others? I thought you said you invited Jessica so that she could meet them?"
Alright. Phase one.
"They couldn't make it," Tony answered with an apologetic shrug. "Coulson left with Clint and Natasha earlier today for some top-secret SHIELD mission. Thor got a call from Jane that she has a few days off from work and he left around midday. And Bruce lets himself be excused. He was in his lab all day and apparently his current project isn't working out well. He told me that he almost hulked out about five times today, so he wants to take some time to himself and find his inner balance or something like that."
There. Totally logical reasons as to why they would be having dinner without their team-mates. Tony congratulated himself once more for his perfectly trained poker face, when Steve simply nodded in understanding.
"The last room on the right, Miss Stanton," they heard JARVIS' voice from the hallway.
A second later Jessica poked her head around the corner, looking a bit overwhelmed and nervous.
Phase two.
"Good evening, Jessica," Tony greeted her and bowed slightly like a perfect gentleman. He went over to her, looked her once over, and added, "You are looking lovely tonight, if I may say so."
She blushed a bit and took his offered hand. "Thank you, Mr. Stark."
"Tony, please," he replied and led her over to the table.
"Thank you, Tony," she repeated, looking more at ease now. Then she turned to Steve and Tony quickly let go of her hand, feeling his own clench up tight at the sight of Steve smiling at her warmly in welcome.
"Hello, Steve. Thanks so much for the invitation," she said and Tony averted his gaze shortly when she stood up on tiptoes to give Steve a kiss on his left cheek.
Steve smiled and gave her a small peck in return. "Well, it was actually Tony's idea to have dinner together."
Before she could respond to that, Tony swiftly piped up, "Can I get you something to drink, Jessica?"
"Oh, yes please," she answered politely.
"Champagne? Or perhaps, a martini?"
"A martini would be fine, thank you."
"I'll be right back," Tony said and vanished behind the adjoining kitchen doors. Once he had closed them behind him, he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. He could do this. He only needed to go back in there, play the last part of tonight's show, and then he could retreat to his workshop and prepare himself for the conversation which would undoubtedly take place the next day, when Steve would gently try to let him down. He deliberately took his time fixing Jessica's drink and breathed in deeply once more, before going back into the dining room.
"I'm sorry that the others couldn't be here," he heard Steve say and Tony found himself hungrily drinking in the sound of Steve's voice. Even if Tony was prepared to make it easy for Steve to break up with him, he knew that he would need some distance after it happened. It was probably a bad time to realise just how fucking much he liked (loved) Steve's voice.
"I don't mind if it's just us," Jessica replied and Tony resisted the urge to childishly spill her drink on her dress when he walked up to them. Instead he handed it to her with a smile, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt. She thanked him for it and returned his smile openly, which probably meant that he was doing fine.
Phase three.
"I'm terribly sorry, but it seems as if I have to excuse myself, too," Tony said and risked a glance at Steve, who raised his eyebrows in question. "JARVIS has just informed me that Bruce needs my assistance in the lab and you know that he's had some problems today with his little green rage monster."
Jessica looked slightly alarmed at that. "Maybe I should go then and we can do this another time?"
"No, no, no. That won't be necessary," Tony hastened to reassure her. "He's not dangerous, if that's what you're worried about. And I promised you a dinner at the Avengers Tower, so that's what you're going to get."
He laid a hand on Steve's shoulder and pushed him slightly into Jessica's direction, which he swore that almost physically hurt. "Steve will keep you good company," he added with a meaningful wink.
He turned to walk away, ignoring the way they stared at him, and had almost reached the door into the hallway, when he registered footsteps behind him. A moment later, Steve was right in front of him, pulling him close and sealing his lips in a hard kiss. Tony gasped a little in surprise against his mouth and Steve used that opportunity to slip his tongue inside. Normally, that was all it would take for Tony to forget all about his surroundings, but he had a goddamn plan and Steve was absolutely ruining it right now.
He made a sound of protest and pushed against Steve's chest, but he didn't move an inch. He continued kissing Tony like his life depended on it, and fuck it, but who was Tony to deny him, if he seemed so desperate? He closed his eyes and surrendered to the intensity of the kiss, clutching at Steve's hips so hard that it wouldn't surprise him if he left some handprints on the super soldier's skin. They kissed like that for long moments, before Steve slowly broke away, leaving Tony breathless and totally out of sorts.
"Go, find Bruce, make sure he's okay and then come back," Steve ordered, his voice a little husky. And yeah, Tony really seemed to have developed a thing for his voice, because he wanted nothing more right now than to jump him and drag him off to bed. Steve must have seen the desire on his face, for he took a step back and repeated firmly, "Go. And hurry. We'll be waiting for you with dinner."
It was then that Tony actually remembered that they had an audience. He looked back at the other side of the room, where Jessica was standing, awkwardly trying to look anywhere else but at them. He returned his gaze to Steve, who motioned him to the door and he didn't hesitate another second to escape the room.
He needed to reorganise his thoughts and figure out what the fuck just happened.
After what seemed like the most awkward and tense dinner either of them ever had, Tony busied himself with cleaning away the dirty dishes from the table, while Steve led Jessica out. He needed to keep his hands occupied to distract himself from the chaos his thoughts were in, but he knew that he couldn't just leave for his workshop. They needed to talk about this. He needed to understand why Steve had sabotaged his glorious plan so thoroughly.
He was just putting the dishes away into the dishwasher, when he heard Steve coming back into the kitchen. Unconsciously, he found himself waiting for arms to wrap around him from behind, but long moments passed and Steve remained at a distance. He cursed himself inwardly for becoming so used to Steve's touch and swallowed around the feeling of foreboding which welled up inside him, before he turned to face him.
Steve was leaning against the doorframe and was watching him with an unreadable expression. Tony only just realised that through all of the evening he had strongly refrained from looking at Steve too closely. Otherwise he would have noticed by now that Steve was wearing the dark blue suit and crisp white shirt he had gotten him after another gala event the Avengers were forced to attend, where Steve had showed up with his old uniform. Steve had protested at first, telling Tony that people liked it when he wore that, because that way they all saw Captain America in him. Tony had ignored him, bought it anyway, and told him that personally he liked it just fine when he was simply Steve Rogers and he didn't care what other people thought.
Apparently, it had been the right thing to do and to say, because not only did Steve look absolutely gorgeous in that suit, but he was also treated to one of the most memorable nights he had with Steve up until now. Just seeing him in that suit now, was enough for Tony to want to rip it off him and demand a repeat of that night. As if he had heard that last thought, Steve started taking off his jacket and Tony blinked a few times to snap out of his day-dream. Steve couldn't possibly be thinking about the same thing right now.
He watched how Steve absently hung his jacket over one of the chairs at the kitchen island, while he looked Tony straight in his eyes and asked seriously, "What in heaven's sake was that all about, Tony?"
Being a genius wasn't always as awesome as people imagined it to be. Especially, if you needed to explain your perfectly structured plans all the time, because everyone else just didn't seem to get them. "I thought that you would enjoy having her over for dinner, so I invited her," he simply answered with a shrug.
He saw Steve's fingers tighten at the back of the chair, hard enough that his knuckles turned white. "You mean, you thought I would enjoy having dinner with her alone," he corrected, with his mouth turned downwards like he had chewed on a particular bitter lemon.
Tony didn't bother to deny it. "Yeah, well, I got the impression that you wanted that."
Something happened then, that Tony would have never believed if he hadn't heard it personally.
"You got the impression… Fuck!" Steve swore and ignored the way Tony's eyes almost dropped out of their eye socket at hearing him utter that word. He had tried to get Steve to say it before, especially in their bedroom, but all his attempts had been utterly unsuccessful.
Steve walked around the kitchen island, clearly more than just a little upset, and Tony decided right there that talking may not be the best solution tonight. "I did invite the others for dinner, it's a shame that they all couldn't come. But really, there's no reason to get so mad about it now," he tried to ease some of the rising tension.
"That's a damn lie, Tony," Steve responded with a low voice, despite the fact that he looked like he wanted to scream. "You didn't invite them. None of them."
Right. He was right of course. But Tony couldn't admit to that now. Not when Steve was looking at him with so much disappointment like he hadn't done since that first day on the Helicarrier. "Why would you say that?" he asked, feigning surprise. "I told you that the others aren't here and Bruce was having some trouble…"
"Bruce isn't home," Steve interrupted him sharply. "I know that, because I saw him leaving earlier with Clint. The two of them snuck out of the tower through an emergency exit. So are there any more lies you want to throw at me, or are you ready to be honest with me?"
"You knew that Bruce isn't home?" Tony asked, this time truly stunned. "But you told me to go and look after him earlier."
"I just didn't feel like having this conversation in front of Jessica," Steve answered.
There was a moment of heavy silence and Tony knew that he had no way of talking his way out of this anymore. He slammed the door of the dishwasher closed and leaned against the counter, while closing his eyes wearily. All fight left him in that moment and he swallowed once, before managing to speak with a raw voice, "I wouldn't have lied to you if I didn't think that this is what you truly want."
"And just like that you decided that you need to set me up with someone else?" Steve asked, incredulously. "Why would you do that, Tony?"
Tony snapped his eyes open at that, but not so much because of the words, but because of the sheer amount of hurt he could hear in Steve's voice. He took one look at Steve and the wounded expression on his face (you've hurt him, you've fucking hurt him, you knew this would happen, fix it, fix it, fix it), and just like that Tony broke.
"I did it, because you deserve more, Steve. More than I could ever offer you." When the pain only seemed to etch deeper into the lines of Steve's face at his words, Tony hurried to elaborate, "You get on so well with her and she can offer you a world outside of the team and SHIELD. You could try and lead a normal life with her, away from all the madness that comes with being an Avenger. God knows that you did enough to have that privilege for yourself."
An image flashed through Tony's mind of Steve with Jessica on his arm and a small child between them. Quietly, he added, "You could have a family with her. Marry. Have children. I can't offer you any of that."
Steve had shuffled closer to him while he talked and Tony noted that he looked calmer again. Maybe his words had finally gotten through to Steve. Maybe he finally realised that Tony was only doing the right thing tonight.
But then Steve threw him for another loop by asking softly, "Who says that we can't have that one day?"
That question seemed so completely absurd to Tony that he couldn't help but snort in bitter amusement. "In case you didn't notice, I don't have the right genitalia to bear children, Cap. You should know that, considering the many times you've seen me naked."
That startled a short laugh out of Steve. "I'm aware of that, thank you. I may be from the forties, but I did my research, Tony," Steve told him with a small smile. "I do believe that marriage for same-sex couples is allowed in many countries by now and two men are allowed to adopt a child."
At that, the image of Steve and his possible family popped up once more before Tony's eyes. Only this time Tony himself was standing beside Steve, holding his hand, while his lover carried their child on his other arm. He was surprised at the amount of yearning he felt in that moment, but that feeling was overshadowed by the certainty that he would be a horrible husband, and even more horrible as a father. Steve couldn't actually think that it would be a good idea to raise a kid with him...
"Not that we're anywhere close to that stage of our relationship to seriously consider any of that yet," Steve added, clearly noticing the panicked look on Tony's face. He reached out then, gripping Tony's upper arms and tugging him close. "But I do think that you would be a wonderful father."
Tony couldn't stop himself from leaning in against Steve's chest, even while he shook his head despondently. "Yeah, sure. Because I've had such great role models in my life. My own father was barely acknowledging my existence most of the time and the only other man I ever considered as a father figure tried to kill me."
The grip around his arms tightened strongly for a moment at the mention of Obie, but Tony knew that this time the anger radiating from Steve wasn't directed at him. He remembered clearly when he had first told Steve about Obie being responsible for his capture in Afghanistan and about the attack in his own home. Even though he had tried to be as casual as possible while recounting those events, Steve had seen straight through him and noticed how much pain it still caused him, that the one person he had always counted on as a child, had betrayed him in the worst possible way.
Steve had destroyed seven punching bags in the gym that night.
"You are not them," Steve said firmly. "When given the chance, you've proven that countless times during the past few years."
Tony refrained from mentioning, that it wasn't nowhere near enough to compensate for all the shit he's put into the world in the many years before that. He seriously didn't want to talk anymore tonight. After all the stress in the last few days he simply wanted to enjoy the fact that somehow, miraculously, Steve was still his. He nuzzled Steve's neck, his arms coming up to rest on his lover's lower back. "I'm sorry," he whispered against Steve's skin. "About tonight. And for lying to you."
Steve sighed and his body seemed to relax at his touch. "Let's forget about tonight," Steve offered, while Tony was busy tugging his shirt loose of his pants to feel some skin.
He hummed in agreement and was about to pull off Steve's belt, while wondering if he could maybe persuade him into having sex in the kitchen (apparently it was a day for miracles after all), but all of a sudden Steve pushed him away and looked at him seriously.
"Does that mean no sex tonight?" Tony asked immediately and trailed his fingers along Steve's back, eliciting a shiver. "Because that would mean punishing yourself. I really, really wanted to make it up to you," he smirked suggestively.
"You really have a one-track mind," Steve chided playfully, but proceeded to keep him at arms-length. "I want to ask you a favour first."
"Anything you want," Tony replied easily.
For a few seconds Steve only looked at him, probably to check if he was earnest. "I know that you're still having trouble with trusting me to stay by your side, but I don't want something like tonight happening again," he said then, and while his voice was strong, Tony could detect some of the previous unhappiness in it again. "It was, well, it was quite hurtful to be honest, that you would push me at someone else in such manner, even though I know that you thought you were doing the right thing. I just… If you have any doubts again about me, or us and our relationship, I just want you to come and talk to me about it. Don't let everything get so twisted up inside that genius head of yours, alright?"
It was a reasonable request, Tony knew that. And he was also aware of the promise he had made to Steve, that he would at least try to trust him. It was really no wonder why Steve had seemed so disappointed in him earlier about this evening. But as long as Steve wasn't ready to give up on him, he would continue to try again and again. "I think I can do that," he answered therefore, resolutely.
"Good," Steve replied, smiling again. Just a moment later it turned into a grimace however, and he groaned. "You know, I will have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow when I see Jessica."
"You just have to tell her that you're out and proud, and apparently gay for Tony Stark," he tried to make light of the situation.
Steve shot him an exasperated glance at that comment. "She already knows, Tony. I told her about us right after we decided not to keep it quiet any longer," Steve admitted. "That is undoubtedly the reason why she looked like she had no idea what was going tonight."
Oh. Well, that actually made a lot of sense now. It explained why Jessica had looked at him weirdly whenever Tony made all those suggestive hints about Steve wanting to date her, and also why she didn't seem to be all that surprised when Steve had kissed him earlier, even though she had been a little embarrassed at the display.
"Uh, I could borrow you Pepper. Believe me, she knows how to sort out a mess like this," Tony offered, only half as a joke.
"Tony, you can't lend me a person," Steve reprimanded him wryly.
"I totally can. I'm still paying her salary."
"That still doesn't mean that you own her."
Tony's response was muffled, since Steve obviously decided that he too had enough of talking for today and pressed his lips against his rather insistently. Immediately, Tony chose to forget all about that argument, in favour of returning Steve's hungry kiss. It didn't matter, anyway.
Tomorrow, they would sort it all out together.