I took the liberty to write an accompanying ficlet for pwnyta's adorable IronFalcon fanart on Tumblr and this came out.
Tony prided himself to have his face under control. It was necessary, given his life in the spotlight, and so he had an immaculate poker face down.
That failed him when it came to people he admired. Or liked. Or fell in love with.
Tony quickly pushed that last thought away and then dragged his eyes away from Sam.
He needed to be careful; Natasha and Bucky were already snickering behind his back whenever he and Sam were in the same room and Tony couldn't allow Sam to know.
Sam clearly didn't feel the same about him, but he would go out of his way to make sure their friendship wouldn't be strained under that and Tony couldn't let that happen.
Sam would be overly polite and nice and trying his hardest to put Tony at ease, all while silently pitying Tony for his stupid little crush and it was just not happening.
Tony needed a new poker face for the tower and personal interactions.
His obvious solution to that was of course to avoid Sam, and especially looking at Sam, but they were friends and it was awfully rude not to look at people you were talking with, that was a lesson from Pepper that stuck, so that plan crashed almost as soon as he formed it.
So instead Tony kept telling himself that he wasn't making such love sick eyes at Sam as Natasha's and Bucky's reactions suggested but after a while even Clint began to catch on. Tony argued that Clint was, all human mess aside, still a trained agent, of course he would notice something like that, so it didn't mean anything.
Until Steve brought it up at breakfast.
"You should tell him," he said while Tony took a sip of his coffee and Tony promptly choked.
He coughed and spluttered, while Steve smiled into his cereal, and when Tony could breathe again he stuttered "What?"
"Sam. You should really tell him you're in love with him," Steve calmly replied and Tony indignantly straightened up.
"You have no clue what you're talking about," he told Steve who kept smiling.
"Everyone knows, Tony," he said and Tony blanched at that.
"Not everyone can know," he desperately said and now Steve outright laughed.
"It's only a matter of time till he catches up. He's not stupid."
"Of course he's not!" Tony defended Sam and when he saw the knowing look he got from Steve he grumbled into his coffee.
"No one tells him a thing," he spat out and only left when he heard Steve's affirmative "Of course not."
It took Sam another three days before he caught on.
He threw these little glances at Tony whenever they were in the same room and when Tony looked at him, no doubt with his same enamoured face as always, Sam got this little frown.
Tony managed to avoid the confrontation for another few days, but eventually it happened.
They were just coming back from a team evening at their favourite bar and Sam was talking and even Tony knew he looked like a love sick teenager at him, but he couldn't help it. That was, right until Sam stopped him in the middle of the hallway.
Sam waited until the others all vanished into the living room before he turned to Tony again.
He leaned slightly in and then said "Look at me like that again, Tony," and here Tony's brain shorted out for the first time, because damn, Sam had realized it.
"And I will," Sam continued and Tony rapidly went through all the possible endings of that sentence.
Beat you, hit you, avoid you, be angry with you. Really, there were a lot of possibilities.
"Take you," Sam went on.
Take you to the gym and beat you, was the most prominent thing that came to Tony's mind and he ducked a bit under Sam's gaze.
"Out," Sam said next and Tony could barely avoid his widening eyes.
Well, that was a clear statement.
"To dinner," Sam finished and actually blushed a bit.
Tony's brain screeched to a halt because that made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
So the most eloquent thing that came to Tony's mind was "Huh?"
Sam looked down, still blushing and scratched his head. "Uh, around… nine-ish…my treat?" he asked all adorable and continued to look down.
Tony was aware that he was blushing as well, but he could only gape at Sam, right until Sam got this little frown again and his blush receded. That couldn't happen, it was too adorable to vanish again.
So Tony finally managed to get his mouth to work. "Uh, yeah," he said and Sam's eyes snapped up to his.
"Yeah?" he asked very hopefully and the blush was right back on his cheeks.
"Yeah!" Tony replied and smiled.
Sam seemed as excited about this than he was himself and they stood in the hallway like morons, both blushing furiously and still smiling at each other. Never had someone asked Tony out in a sweeter way.