Steve was a lion. He was brave and courageous. A leader. He had been Tony's idol as a child. Of course, Tony had eventually grown up as all children do. But he had always held a special place in his heart for the star-spangled super soldier. And admiration had quickly turned into a begrudging affection once they had met face to face, despite their arguing. And now that they were all living together like one big psycho family in Stark Towers, Tony had begun to notice that affection was turning into something more. But Tony was also aware of the fact that nothing could happen between them. While Steve may have been a lion, Tony was a tiger. And the last time he checked, lions didn't often get with tigers.

Tony managed to handle himself for a while. But it was around the time that Tony realized he was beginning to stare at the captain and get jealous of every single girl he talked to that Tony also realized handling this wouldn't be as easy as he thought it would be.

And so Tony decided to deal with this the same way he dealt with any sort of trouble he found he either couldn't or wouldn't deal with. He locked himself in his lab, spending hours and days working on improving the suit. The only other person who could get in was Pepper and she, thank whatever deity was watching at the time, only made him leave when he had an appearance to make.

But even Pepper had her limits.

"Tony," The tone in her voice made said playboy look up. That was her 'Time-to-do-it-my-way' tone. "You need to get out of the lab. You have over a hundred urgent emails to answer and- hey." Fingers snapped in front of Tony's face, making him zone out of the project running through his mind to focus on the red head standing in front of him with her hands on her hips. Oh god. That never boded well for him. But he waved his hand and turned back to the gauntlet lying on the table in front of him.

"Relax, Peps, I'll just have Jarvis go through them later. Jarvis!"

Right away, Master Stark. Shall I—

"Jarvis, don't." Bright green eyes turned on Tony and Pepper crossed her arms. "Tony, you can't keep avoiding whatever it is that's bothering you."

"What? That's totally absurd, I—"

"Zip it. We both know you are. And we both know exactly what it is, too." Tony opened his mouth to protest but the look Pepper gave him had his response dying away in his throat. "Now, I'll give you today. But tomorrow you had better be upstairs in your office and attending to those important emails, got it?" Tony nodded. "Good." And with that, Pepper left, leaving behind the tools and parts Tony had requested. The billionaire genius stared at them for several moments before sighing.

As usual, Pepper was right. Tony couldn't just keep hiding down here. He had to go up and deal with his problem. If Steve didn't feel the same way, so be it. So things would be a little(or incredibly) awkward for a while. Tony was not the type to just let something go without taking care of, even if he did put it off for a while. Standing, Tony entered the elevator and reached out to press the button that would take him to Steve's floor. He changed his mind at the last minute, however, and hit the button that went to his penthouse. If he was going to do this, he was going to need a shower.

And maybe some alcohol.

Well, it's done. It's been bugging me all night and now it's done. Read, please review. I'll have the next part up soon!