Out of Time:
Disclaimer; I do not own the rights to any of the characters mentioned here following, I am taking them out to play, and letting them run around a bit. This story will lead to some intimacy, so if the idea of homoeroticism bothers you this may not be your type of story. Thanks in advance to those of you who give this a chance.
Merick
The house had grown quiet, even though it was fairly early, especially by Malibu standards. Tony was heading down the hallway on the upper floor of his beach house, not that beach house was an apt description for the place, beach mansion, seaside retreat more likely names, but for Tony it was home. (Or one of his homes, and the one he'd brought his new teammates to after the battle of New York.)
"Or whatever they are going to end up calling it." He mumbled to himself, still feeling a bit of an ache across his shoulders at the memory.
They'd had an early dinner (or a late lunch by California standards), this rag tag group of heroes that Nick Fury had forced together, because several of them were going out for the evening; the couples, Thor and Jane, his scientist girlfriend who had joined him a few days back, and Natasha and Clint. Banner was buried in one of Tony's basement labs, loving reconnecting with the science he had left behind in favor of the peaceful life of East Asia Natasha had pulled him from on Fury's orders. They had all enjoyed homemade burgers and a crisp salad with light conversation, everyone but Steve Rogers who had been most conspicuous by his absence; not that he hadn't seemed to have been pulling back away from the group for the past several days, getting more quiet. But until then at least, he had attended these 'family' gatherings, as Tony liked to refer to them. It was the busiest his house had ever been, and normally detached, solitary Tony was beginning to enjoy the company. So, missing his friend, Tony had played the good host for the others, and then gone hunting for Steve as soon as they had dissipated.
Jarvis, useful butler as he was, had easily located Steve, in his room, and so Tony had headed there, mostly happy go lucky, trying very hard not to think of any ominous possibilities. Knocking softly on the door Tony waited for some kind of response, and received none. So, being the homeowner, and a decent friend of the guest within he figured, he opened it very slowly and called in.
"Cap? You in there." He half expected a sleepy response, but received something else.
"Yes, I'm here." Came the slow, quiet answer.
"You ah, you missed dinner." Tony suddenly felt as if he was intruding on something as he looked into the room to see Steve, sitting on the end of his bed, looking out into the sunset that was pouring in the sliding glass doors that opened onto the private terrace for that row of bedrooms. His shoulders were hunched over and his chin was in his hands, fingers wrapped over his face. He was the picture of misery, in contrast to his room, which was the epitome of neat, military efficiency. Tony thought that he could certainly bounce a quarter off the tightly made bed. It was as tight as the muscles that showed through the white t-shirt Steve had stretched over his biceps. His military uniform has hung up, also pressed, over the closet door, as if it might be needed at any second, brass polished, cuffs crisp.
"Since I figured that you need to eat like every two hours or so because of your metabolism, I thought I'd better check on you." Tony kind of stuttered, not having been prepared for what he found.
"I'm fine." The answer was flat.
"No you aren't." Tony shut the door behind himself and approached the man, who still hadn't turned to look at him. "You've been isolating yourself for days now. What's going on?"
"Nothing. It's just been," there was a pause in his sentence, and a choked half sob to fill it, "a bad week."
"Are you?" Tony began to say.
"Don't say it Stark." Steve cut him off as he raised his head and shook his shoulders, squaring them.
"I won't Cap." But in the absence of that word Tony could only just stand there, not certain if he should retreat or wait for Steve to offer up some kind of clue as to his mood. There was a moment filled with a quite uncomfortable silence where all that Tony could hear was hitched up breathing coming from the man, now more bathed in shadows than light, and the barely hidden sniffle of a tear. Tony was not good at uncomfortable silences, not that he was much better at sorting out feelings either, but something inside pushed him into giving it a go.
"Frustrated?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.
"Lost." Was the reply, an open door that gave Tony a clue as to what was eating at his friend.
"Too quiet here eh? Too much time to think? Kind of ironic, since I dragged everyone out here so they could get away from the war front."
"Without a war I don't have anything." The words hung for a few moments.
"What do you mean?" Tony had a decent idea, but he knew enough to understand that Steve needed to say some things out loud. It was like talking to yourself he figured, something he did quite a lot of, closed away in his labs. He wasn't sure if Jarvis counted as a companion, and wasn't going to have that discussion with his ego just then.
"Everything I knew, everybody I knew is gone, half a century gone." Steve whispered.
"I can't even begin to imagine how hard that must be Cap."
"When we were called together, as this Avengers group for Fury, when we fought against Loki and the Chitauri I thought I had a place, a job, an identity."
"You still have that."
"I don't. I have Captain America, who was just a propaganda construct."
"He was more than that." Tony began to protest, "I mean, you are more than that." His continued stuttering was beginning to bother the normally eloquent, confident man.
"I'm a super soldier, just looking for the next battle." Steve said with another deep sigh.
"You don't have to be Cap, there's so much more for you here."
"Sometimes I wish they had just left me frozen at the bottom of the ocean. Then at least I would have died a hero. I wouldn't be forced to live as an anachronism personified, out of time, out of place. I'm nothing." Tony watched as Steve's head bobbed forward in his hands once again, his shoulders falling, too broken to even disguise the sob that fought its way from his throat. The sight and sound of it made Tony shiver. He reached out and put his hand on Steve's shoulder, just feeling like the man needed some kind of human contact.
"You're still a hero." He whispered. Steve turned to look at him then, red-rimmed eyes as obvious as the swollen lips in betraying the tears so recently fallen. Tony tried to smile, but the attempt failed, only making his gut flip-flop involuntarily again.
"Where do I belong Tony?" Steve asked; his head cocked in a pleading sort of way Tony thought.
"Right here." Tony affirmed quickly, feeling the need to catch his own breath for a moment staring at the man. "You belong here, in this time. I know it looks pretty grim right now, but we'll find you a place. Hey, I have a ton of money," he grinned, "We'll buy you a new life, whatever you want." The words tumbled out of his mouth, without his brain quite registering having put them together. He was the kind of person who always turned to humor; pithy one-liners, when situations got uncomfortable, and this situation was steaming towards epic discomfort. It became even more so when the disarming, nervous, cartoon smile was answered by Steve placing his hand over top of Tony's, sighing a great long sigh as he did it.
"You are a good friend." And he looked straight at Tony, his face half lit by the last rays of the sun, the other half in a shadow that did nothing to quell the queasiness Tony was still feeling. The smile faded into something more natural, and suddenly it was his own breaths that Tony heard through the silence. "Some days are just much harder than others." He whispered, his smoky blue grey eyes closing even as his hand clutched at Tony's just marginally harder. Tony was glad their gaze had been broken, because he could feel his own eyes getting wider, and the roiling in his gut was beginning to scare him.
"It is easy to feel sorry for myself when I have the time to think." Steve muttered. "And it is a fine line between despair and anger, and some days I don't know which path to take." He moved his hand away from Tony's and balled his fingers into fists, forcing them against the bedclothes so hard that Tony could see the muscles cord under the skin of his arms.
"Well now there, there is something I can help out with. I know all about anger." Tony said gleefully, happy to have something to latch onto besides those eyes. "What you need Cap," he pulled his hand away from the other man's shoulder and sat down beside him (which in hindsight might not have been the best idea, proximity and all), "is an outlet. Here in the twenty-first century we call it 'beating the living crap out of something'." And Tony's joix-de-vie smirk was back.
"Jarvis?" He called out to the AI butler.
"Mr. Stark."
"Jarvis, is there anyone in the gym right now?"
"No sir."
"Good," Tony smirked at Steve who was looking at him with knitted eyebrows. "Lock it down, Captain Rogers is going to be coming down for a private workout."
"Very good Sir, shall I place an order for more heavy bags then?"
The right side of Tony's smile curled up. "Excellent idea Jarvis, and send me a digital reminder to start work on designing a hardier sparring dummy for our guests will you?"
"Of course sir."
"Go and have a good workout Cap."
Steve was still stunned at everything that had transpired so rapidly, but he stood from the bed, thinking that perhaps Tony had a point. And for his part, Tony knew two ways to cheer up a man who was feeling miserable and angry, the first one involved Surf and Turf, and the second one, well, he'd let the second one play out if it came to that. (But the thought of it kind of excited him for a second or two.)