Tony Stark charmed his way around the circle that had gathered to hear Rhodey's, "Boom!" story, and spotted a solemn-looking Steve on the upper landing overlooking the festivities. At first he rolled his eyes, but there was something in Steve's expression that resembled heartbreak or regret. Since no one gets to feel alone at one of Tony's parties except himself, he took the stairs two at a time and shouted,
"Hey, crabcapple! I thought gloom and doom was Bruce's thing." Steve raised his eyebrows, sucked a playful breath through his teeth, and motioned down toward the bar.
"I think he's a bit too interested in Natasha's, um," his cheeks flushed, "assets, to be gloom and doom." Bruce and Romanoff were getting close as Nat made him a drink. His eyes were obviously travelling down her neck toward her more prominent physical assets. "I'm just taking up the stead in his absence."
"Yeah, whatever, Capslock." Tony rested his forearms on the railing overlooking the party in an imitation of Steve's posture. He relaxed his shoulders and muttered, "You wanna talk about it?"
"I feel like I should, but I really don't. It's just … the party atmosphere. I'm not used to it. Makes me feel—makes me wish I'd experienced it while I was alive."
"You're not dead."
Silence. They stood there for a few seconds, Cap ignoring Tony's last statement, and Tony awaiting a reply he knew would never come. Someone patted Steve on the back just then, and he effortlessly flew into the conversational quick-step he'd perfected post-icing. Tony knew that style, though. He used it when he did press. Make them think you're interested when your mind wanders elsewhere.
Minutes later, Cap politely dismissed whomever it was and nudged Tony. Never one to stay quiet for long,
"You wanted to have that dance, huh, Cap?"
"Yeah, I do," He sighed. "But it's not just losing Peggy that gets me. Back when I was skinny, asthmatic, and five-foot-nothin', I didn't do this but I could've. I didn't get a lot of offers, but Bucky was persistent with the dames. I could've had fun."
The crowd on the couches laughed along with Rhodey who'd only just gotten to the punch line. Steve's pal, Sam—Falcon—Tony corrects himself, found a new opponent at the billiard's table.
"What's stopping you now?" Tony asked, genuinely curious. "I mean, I throw a great shindig." He opened his arms wide, gesturing to the party going on below them.
The chatter rose slowly, like a mist, suffocating the sound so Tony could hardly hear Steve's reply.
"Responsibility."
Tony cocked an eyebrow and turned to face him.
"You're full of shit, Rogers. You love to lead, you live to lead, and you're damn good at it." Steve chuckled. Tony's stomach fluttered a bit, getting Captain America to laugh like that, just that little chuckle that got past the hardened battle mask that seemed permanently etched onto his face. "So what's the deal?" Steve licked his lips and turned to face Tony.
"Dr. Erskine chose me for my heart. If I had been the type to have fun, to not defend myself, to be a normal guy, I would've never gotten this," He gestured with the hand not holding his drink to his dorito-shaped torso. "I don't regret it." Steve was resolute on that point, Tony noted.
"Why would you? Those arms don't come about every day."
"It's hard to remember that, spending so much time with Thor," Steve quipped in reply.
"One point for the Capsicle," Tony conceded. "Alright, continue your brood."
"I'm not brooding."
"You are so brooding."
"I'm just—When he died, he was on the floor and I hovered over him. Nobody had faith in me like Erskine. Not even Bucky. He knew I could do great things and trusted me to do right by him. The last thing he did, with his dying breath, he pointed to my heart." Steve sighed. "I'm petrified I'm gonna fail him, and I worked too hard and forgot to do this." Steve pointed back to the crowd. "I'm torn between knowing what I've missed and appreciating what I've been able to do. Who I've become."
"Well, Cap, you are the first person I've told this to, and probably will be the last. If you breathe a word of this to anyone I will have Dum-E cover you with so much flame-retardant foam you'll be cast in the remake of Ghost Busters."
Steve's unspoken, "I don't get that reference," was ignored.
"When I was in that cave in Afghanistan, which I hate talking about but you're important so I'll let it slide, I had a scientist with me. He'd been there longer than me, put a magnet on top of my heart and attached it to a car battery. We were working with nothing, but he saved me. Working in those conditions with someone makes you closer, you know?"
Steve nodded, his eyes going distant for a moment.
"I thought we were going to escape together. Bastard sacrificed himself, knowing only one of us could make it out. He gave himself up for me so I could do great things. That's why I joined this boyband, Cap. I want to save people that won't be safe otherwise from threats we don't even know about yet. Yinsen was lying there, bleeding out, and poked me right in the chest. I thought he was talking about the tech, you know? The arc reactor is technological ingenuity, and I built it in the middle of a fucking desert with scrap metal."
"Language, Tony."
"Alright, Cappuccino, my point is that my guy thought the same way about me that Erskine felt about you. I get it, the pressure to do what they wanted you to do. It's internal; it's nagging at me all the time. I'm not doing enough. No one else knows, but I give myself enough crap to fill twelve tabloids. You and me? We're a therapist's dream!
"Sometimes I used to see the glow of the arc reactor in the dark and plunge right into a panic attack. I was back in Afghanistan, sweating, then I'd see Yinsen covered in blood and I wouldn't be able to breathe."
"I feel that way all the time. It's suffocating, knowing I'll never be exactly what I was meant to be. That soldier fighting that war is gone. When I found out Hydra infiltrated SHIELD, it broke me. Everything I had been, what I died for—"
"Still alive, Rogers."
"—was for nothing. They still won. Hydra owns the legacy of who Steve Rogers used to be."
"Well, then, take control of what you're going to become," Tony said. "Be that guy, be the man you are. I see it in you, Steve, all the time. Your fearlessness and stubbornness and leadership, all that's in you. That's not Erskine, it's you, and I know you'll do right by us."
Steve chuckled, but it was melancholy and Tony didn't like it. Almost like he scoffed, but Captain America never scoffed. Tony wondered if scoffing at people was permissible in the 40s.
"I don't doubt that I can be, I'm just scared to let it happen again. What if the next threat is too close to home? How am I supposed to go through that again? Be here, be the 21st-century Steve Rogers and do the right thing? How do I do that?"
"Together."
Steve lifted his head, his jaw tightening.
"I mean it. We're here, we're your teammates, and we've got your back. You are Steve Rogers, probably the greatest man I've ever met—fuck that, you are the greatest man I have ever met and yes, I know I said 'fuck,' and you're a shithead to keep pointing it out. Dammit, Cap, every one of us is flawed, but we trust you. We believe in you, so you will lead us to great things while being who you are in any century. I trust you to do that, and I know you will continue to do great things that will not be undone by HYDRA, Loki, or any other big bad that comes our way.
"This isn't a one-man show. Steve Rogers doesn't do the greatest things, he leads those who do. Erskine saw what people have been seeing for seventy years." Tony spread his hand across the middle of Steve's chest. "We'll do this together. As a team, and no one could lead us but you."
The noise was overpowering at that moment. It blanketed the two men like sunlight, neither of them bothering to point it out, merely accepting its presence. They stood there like that for a moment, Steve's ice blue eyes boring holes into him, parsing out whether Tony meant what he said. Tony realized then, there were a few hundred people in the Tower and any number of them could see him fondling Captain America. His hand fell to his side and Steve stiffened. His eyes briefly darted around the room before landing squarely on Tony's.
"You're right."
"JARVIS? JARVIS, did you get that? I want you to make that phrase my ringtone. My alarm clock. The timer on the microwa—"
"Tony, stop being a dick," Steve interrupted.
"And for that, I'm gonna put soap in your toothpaste."