"He has a point, you know."

Tony hummed, most of his attention focused on the armour lying in front of him.

"Tony!" Pepper exclaimed in exasperation. "I know you're listening to me!"

"You already know my answer, Pep," Tony replied in irritation, putting down the blowtorch in his hand and pulling his goggles away from his face. "There's a reason I refuse to allow any of them near it – a damn good reason, as you very well know. You know what needs to be done, and so does Rhodey. That's more than enough people in the loop."

"And what happens if neither of us are available?" she demanded. "What happens if we can't make it back in time? It was perfectly fine when I was still your P.A and followed you around the world – now that I'm your CEO, you need someone who's around like I was."

"If worst does come to worst, JARVIS can instruct Bruce on what to do. There are enough ways to make sure that I'm not in any danger, Pepper – I'm not giving them any information until it's absolutely necessary."

Before she could say anything else, he pulled the goggles back on and turned his attention back to his half-finished armour. Behind him, Pepper scowled, but didn't say anything else. She had known him long enough to know better – in his mood, there was no chance of her being able to change his mind.

She turned sharply on her heels and walked out the workshop, her heels clapping on the floor. The scowl on her face only grew deeper when she heard the door to the workshop lock automatically behind her – and unnecessary accoutrement, but it was no doubt Tony's way of letting her know that she had gone just a bit too far.

Not that she cared about that. Making sure he didn't die due to some stupidly conceived plan had been her job since he had first hired her, and she was going to do exactly that, whether he liked it or not.

"He refuses to listen to reason."

Steve Rogers turned away from where he was standing, peering into the refrigerator, at the sound of Pepper's voice.

"I assume you haven't managed to-"

"Convince Tony that he's being an idiot?" Pepper asked angrily, nearly pulling the door of the fridge open. It was only after she had removed a bar of chocolate and consumed it at a speed that dwarfed even Thor's abilities did she start to calm down a little.

"No, I'm afraid I've not," she continued. Relaxed or not, her voice was still tight.

Steve had never been gladder about the fact that he wasn't Tony Stark than he was at that moment. He didn't claim to know Pepper Potts well, but what he did know of her reminded him of Peggy. And if it had been Peggy standing in Ms. Potts' place –

"You need to talk to him," the woman in question announced, pulling him from his thoughts.

Steve just gaped at her dumbly. "Me?" he asked weakly once he had finally recovered his voice. "Me?"

"Don't look so surprised," she said briskly, ignoring his confusion and bewilderment. "He actually listens to you, which is more than I can say about anyone else. You're the only choice."

"Ms. Potts, the only reason I asked you to talk to him is because he wouldn't talk to me in the first place. I don't think that I will be able to convince him to change his mind," Steve replied, gaining more confidence with every word he spoke. It was a well thought out, logical argument, and he couldn't see any way for Pepper to refute his words. She wouldn't send him-

And then he noticed a slight smirk on his face, one that reminded him painfully of the last time he had seen that look on a woman's face. In that moment, he decided that it would perhaps be best if he just went along with Ms Potts' plans. He had never known anyone capable of changing Peggy's mind when she was truly set on a course of action, and – judging by the look on Ms. Potts' face – he doubted that it was any different with her.

"Good," she said, sounding inordinately pleased when she noticed that Steve had fallen silent, and wasn't arguing even the idea of having a plan any longer. "That's settled then. I'll leave you to talk to him," she said, making her way to the elevators. "I have a board meeting in an hour, so I'd consider it a personal favour if you could keep him out of trouble for a few hours."

"Oh, and Steve?" she added, turning back to look at him just a ping signified the arrival of the elevator, "Trust me – he does listen to you. Maybe not immediately, especially if his mind is on a million things a moment, but he will. The only reason you haven't seen it happen is because it's usually only me and JARVIS – or only one of us, as the case may go – who are around." And before Steve could reply, maybe question her a bit about what she knew, she turned and was gone.

"Are you finally going to let me work on your shield?" was Tony's breezy demand to him as soon as he walked into the workshop. "Because, you know, I have some really amazing idea," he continued. "Well, of course they're amazing – I came up with them and I'm a genius. Not the point though. The point is I can add some really cool upgrades to your shield – lasers, extra vibranium plating, the works – if you'd just stop being so possessive of the thing! It's not like I don't have Howard's original plans, so if something explodes I can just build you a new one."

"There's a reason the shield's kept away from you, Tony," Steve replied. "I've already told you to stay away from it – I like it just fine the way it is."

"Alright, alright, no need to get your panties in a twist. Just give me a moment and then you can have fun giving me whatever lecture you're down here for."

As Tony bent his head what looked like the engine of a car – and Steve really didn't want to know what he was doing it, he'd already found out that with Anthony Stark, it was just best to remain in the dark – he perched himself on top of a nearby table. He would never understand exactly what Tony did down here – he doubted that there was anyone in the world who could, even Bruce found himself confused more often than not – but he still enjoyed spending time here, watching the other man work. Of all of them, Tony was perhaps the only one who had anything that resembled an actual life away from the Avengers, and it was always nice to be reminded of that.

To be reminded of the little picture when he was used to dealing with the big one, full of alien invasions and impending apocalypses.

Tony would probably never realise it, but in many ways, he was the one who gave the other Avengers hope.

He had no idea how long it was before Tony finally surfaced from where he had been lost in his work.

"So, if it's not your shield then what is it, Cap?" he asked, quirking an eyebrow and looking at Steve expectantly.

"Did you ever imagine that perhaps I'm just here to speak to a friend, Tony?" he fired back.

"I did," Tony conceded, "But I know you, Capsicle. You have a look on your face when you want something from me, and that's the way you looked when you first walked in. so, I ask again – what is it?"

Steve sighed. He had wanted to go into the conversation slowly, but he doubted Tony would let him get away with it, not now that he was on to the fact that Steve wanted to talk to him. "The reactor," he began tentatively.

"Not this again!" Tony exclaimed, putting the wrench in his hand down and raising both hands in irritation. "JARVIS, keep everything on standby, I'll get back to it as soon as I finish with this," he said, waving an irritated hand in Steve's general direction.

"Of course, Sir," JARVIS' mechanical voice came from the ceiling. Unless Steve was hallucinating, the AI sounded extremely disapproving of his creator, which heartened him. If Tony's own creations could see that he was being unreasonable, then perhaps Steve had a chance.

"I've already told you, Steve," Tony said, turning to face the super soldier once again, "I'm not going to let anyone know how to pull the reactor out. If I can't do it myself, JARVIS will instruct you in an emergency situation, but until that happens, I'm the only person who knows the details."

"And I still think that's dangerous," Steve argued back, just as vehement. "What happens if JARVIS cannot help for some reason? Or if we're on a place like the hellcarrier, where JARVIS still can't reach? Are we just supposed to stay back and let you die?" he demanded.

"I'm not changing my mind," Tony said firmly, ignoring all of Steve's questions. "There's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind, so why don't you just forget about it?"

"At least tell me why," Steve asked slowly.

"What?"

"You've been determined that you're not going to let anyone know how to change your reactor," Steve said, "But you've never explained why you refuse to consider it. so that's what I'm asking – why?"

"Steve…."

"Look, if you ever want me to leave you alone about this, you have to at least try and explain it."

Tony sighed heavily, walking over towards Steve and heaved himself next to Steve. More than anything, it was that that worried Steve – even during the worst possible situations that a person could find himself in (and the Avengers had been in several of those), he had never looked quite so defeated. Usually, he was looking for a way out in every way he could – Bruce sometimes referred to him as the ultimate Jim Kirk, constantly battling against the Kobayashi Maru, a reference Steve had only understood after the team had watched the new Star Trek movie during movie night.

But then, he doubted that this was something Tony could overcome by inventing some other impossible piece of technology.

Still, Tony's silence and near depression were extremely worrying, and a part of Steve wondered if it had been wise of him to push the topic. At the same time, he knew that he was right, and as the leader of the team, he had to know Tony's reasons.

And then, of course, there were his own personal reasons. Of everything and everyone that he had encountered ever since he had woken up nearly seventy years after his time, Anthony Stark was the one person who had captured his interest.

Apart from the fact that his relation to Howard was a way for Steve to keep himself connected with his past, Tony was just a genuinely interesting person. At first glance, he seemed to be nothing more than the loudmouthed spoiled billionaire that Steve had originally mistaken him for, but once someone actually took the time to get to know him, it was obvious that that was anything but the real Tony.

Anthony Stark was a brilliant man, both as an intellectual and as a genuine human being. People spoke about changing the world – Tony was actually doing it.

Then there was the simple, undeniable fact that Tony Stark was what could be called disgustingly attractive.

That had been one of the most difficult things to wrap his head around when he had been briefed on everything he had missed while in ice – the new millennium's attitude towards homosexuality. He had been in charge of one of the first desegregated units in the country, which in turn had meant that he dealt with a lot of soldiers who were, in whatever way, different from the others. He had dealt with homosexuality before.

But he'd done it the way he had been supposed to, in those days – he'd made sure that the people in question kept their heads down about it, and if they had a partner in the unit, they were extremely discreet. Even if he doubted any of the other soldiers would have had a problem – their unit was more family than friendship, and betraying a mate was unthinkable – keeping everything quite was simply easier for everyone.

Only now he was in a world where it wasn't only legal and relatively accepted to be attracted to someone of the same gender, it was even legal to marry them. It was difficult to wrap his head around something like that.

And then the battle against the Chitauri happened, and in the aftermath, he found himself living in what Tony Stark had newly christened the Avengers Tower. Considering the Tower itself was in the middle of being rebuilt, he found himself spending a lot of time following Tony and Bruce. And the more time he sent with him, the more he noticed just how much he was becoming attracted to the only child of his old friend.

He had never thought of himself as enjoying the company of men just as he had of dames, by Tony Stark seemed determined not only to change the world as a whole, but the little part of it that was completely and only Steve's too.

No matter how irritating and generally torturous it was, sticking so close to a man he was – they called it crushing in this time, he believed – on, it also thought him a lot of things, and allowed himself to come to term with some others. One of which was to do with the sudden changes in the acceptance of homosexuality.

Before, he'd generally been nothing more than confused when it came to this topic. But considering his newly-discovered feeling, he had a feeling that he was going to start concentrating on at least that part of history with a diligence no one would ever believe.

"The last person who knew how to get the act reactor out of me was a man by the name of Obadiah Stane," Tony finally said, jerking the two of them out of the uncomfortable and frankly disturbing silence they had settled into. "He was my dad's business partner," Tony continued. "A lot of the stuff we've invented has been because of the basic work that he started."

"Stane was brilliant when it came to design," Tony continued after a moment's break. "Not as brilliant as me, of course, but then there's no one who is as brilliant as I am. But that isn't the point. Stane was a lot of things, and one of them was my godfather."

"I'm not sure I see where this is going," Steve asked, listening intently to another precious bit of Tony's part that he hadn't heard before – Tony played his cards extremely close to his chest, and Steve took whatever he got eagerly.

"Obadiah Stane," Tony whispered; his voice a tone of remembered horror and betrayal. It was a sound that Steve was all too well familiar with – a sound he had never wanted to hear from any of his new teammates, but especially not Tony, "Was also the man who paid the terrorists who tortured me to kidnap and kill me so that he could have full control over SI. He was the man who sold enough arms to supply a small nation to the Taliban and who knows who else. Obadiah Stane was the man who ripped the reactor out of my chest and left me helpless, knowing full well that I would die in moments without it. Thankfully Pepper found me moments after that, so – as you can obviously see – I'm still alive. But-"

A part of Steve recoiled in horror at Tony's words. Betrayal was hard enough for anyone to deal with it, but the billionaire's voice gave away just how much Stane had meant to him – and just how much he had been hurt by what the man had done. Steve Rogers wasn't a violent man, but in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to torture Stane until he realised just what he had destroyed.

But Tony was more important.

"Tony," he murmured, stopping the other man in the middle of his words.

The other man sighed. "I know you guys mean well, Cap," he said, sounding utterly defeated, "But don't tell me you can't why I'd rather keep this to myself."

"I'm not saying anything, Tony," he replied, scooting slightly towards him. "I get it, I do," he continued earnestly, "But can't you see it from our side? We're not going to do something as repressible as that, you know that!"

"There was a time when I would have sworn the same thing about Obie, you know," Tony replied, laughing bitterly. "Besides, since we're barring our hearts, let's face the truth – I'm still not sure I trust Katniss and Natasha, not while they still work for SHIELD. Telling them means telling Fury, and that's never going to happen."

Steve gave Tony a reproachful look. "You know they won't do anything to betray you, you know," he said. Before tony could say anything, he continued, "That's a discussion for later, anyway. Right now, we have other things to talk about."

"Cap…"

Steve sighed. "How about a compromise?" he suggested. "You don't need to tell everyone how to change the reactor until you're comfortable, but at least one of us needs to know. Just Bruce, maybe?" he offered.

Tony stared at him, a contemplative look on his face. He didn't say anything for several seconds, and just as Steve was starting to feel uncomfortable, he finally spoke. "That's…actually not a bad idea," he said. "But not Bruce. You've seen how tired he gets after he Hulks out, and it would be even worse if I needed while he was still trapped in his green rage monster form. I'll agree to it – but only if you're the one who acts as my safety net, for a complete lack of a better term. I should probably invent a word for it," he ended thoughtfully.

Steve gawped at him. That – wasn't what he had been expecting. "You know I'm horrible with technology," he tried weakly.

"If I could teach Pepper how to do it, I can teach you," Tony replied, waving aside his misgivings. "So, are we doing this or not?"

There was only one possible answer. Even if he hadn't been honoured at the trust that Tony was giving him, the fact remained that one of the team needed to know how to handle the reactor, and really, Steve would rest just a bit easier knowing it would be him. "Of course," he replied, shooting a small, but real, grin at Tony, "Let's do this."

Despite Tony's conviction that teaching Steve would be as easy as pie – those were his exact words – Steve's confusion when faced with modern technology was still an impediment they had cross if the supersoldier ever wanted to be able to handle reactor tech, even in the most basic of ways.

So Tony spent the better part of a month teaching Steve enough that he would be able to understand everything that was needed to handle the reactor in case of an emergency. Usually, being so completely out of place would have chafed at Steve, but he didn't mind it this time. Apart from the fact that it was necessary to help keep Tony safe, it also meant that he got to spend a lot more time than usual with the brunet.

Of course, that didn't stop him from trying to keep Tony as far away from fights as possible. It annoyed him, irritated him, but the fact remained that Steve was protective of his team – and he wasn't about to let Tony put himself in unnecessary danger. So Tony just had to deal with it.

"And that's it!" Tony exclaimed. "Well done, Capsicle – you now know how to handle the rarest piece of technology on the planet, making you one of maybe five people who can. I'd definitely say you've come a long from when you were wondering what a StarkPhone was, don't you think?" he asked cheekily.

Before Steve could even think of how to reply to that, Tony suddenly turned uncharacteristically serious. "Hey – Steve?" he asked. Steve immediately knew that whatever he wanted to talk about, it was important – Tony didn't often use his name when he was poking fun at his general air of confusion with the modern world.

"Yeah?"

"Okay, so I have no idea if I'm reading this wrong – I think I'm reading it right, at the very least – but I don't know if you noticed, you're just an extremely attractive man, and I have no clue how it was back in the forties or if you've even gotten to there in your quest to educate yourself about the twenty-first century, it's just that-"

"Tony!" Steve said, interrupting the other's man's incoherent babbling. "You're not making much sense," he said, more gently this time. From what he had been able to decipher, he had a feeling that he really wanted to hear what Tony wanted to say – and the sooner the other man calmed down, the sooner that would happen.

"Yeah, sorry," Tony muttered, scratching his head in sheepish embarrassment. Steve noticed that he was blushing a faint, nearly unnoticeable red – a surprising change for a man who didn't seem fazed by anything, not even nude pictures of him appearing on the front page of major international newspapers. "It's just – well, I was wondering if you wanted to maybe grab a coffee sometime? You know, not like we do right now, but like a date or something," he muttered. "You know what? I'm shutting up now."

Steve couldn't help but find this new, nervous Tony adorable. He had heard stories and seen pictures of his past – of course he had, Clint had had too much fun introducing him to it – and he knew that a shy Anthony Stark wasn't just a rarity, it was a never before seen phenomenon. And to have that man nervous about asking him out on a date – well, Super Soldier Serum or not, Steve was still human, and couldn't help having his ego puff up at the thought.

He could have spent an inordinate amount of time wondering of the fact that he – he – was the one person who could make Tony Stark nervous, but it was obvious that the other man was starting to get antsy and even more anxious than before.

"Actually, let's just forget I sa-"

"I'd love to-"

The two of them looked at each other, bursting into slightly hysterical laughter.

"Why don't you talk," Tony murmured, eyes dancing with mischief.

"Well, I'd really rather not forget that you said anything, Mr Stark," Steve murmured, "Because I would love to go for coffee with you."

It was rare that he reverted back to his forties manners purposely – usually he never realised he was doing it until Tony or Clint pointed it out and poked fun at him – but to watch Tony blush, truly blush…It was worth what he knew was going to be merciless teasing when Tony woke up from wherever his head had taken him.

Of course, Steve wouldn't be who he was if he didn't take advantage of Tony's distraction. While Tony was busy staring at him, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, Steve crossed the area between them in three long steps, cradled his face gently in his hands, and bent down to gently kiss him on the lips.

Smirking at the shell-shocked expression on Tony's face, he stepped back with a satisfied look on his face.

"Let me know when and where," he murmured lowly, before turning and walking out.

For some reason, he felt like whistling.

And this is officially my longest one-shot to date.
I hope you guys liked it! As always, please don't forget to drop a review on your way out :)