"I am having a crisis." Tony said carefully, slowly structuring his words to keep from slurring. His hands were shaking and he tightened his grip on the little flip phone, trying to keep it steady.
"Stark…" The voice on the other end came through after a few moments, strained and tinny. "Stark, you're drunk."
"Lies." He muttered, petulantly and incredibly incoherently. Tony's mouth felt uncomfortably dry and he stared up at the green bottle on the counter with disdain. "I am not."
The voice let out a sigh of what was probably disappointment, and Tony pulled the phone away from his ear slightly, wincing as the phone's shitty speakers amplified the noise to a pitch he couldn't stand. He was starting to freak out some, breath coming faster and more strained. He hadn't expected anyone to pick up. He hadn't expected an answer. "Shit." He said. "You picked up."
The voice was quiet for a long time. Long enough for Tony to glance at the smudged screen and make sure the call was still connected. It was. He heard breathing now. "Rogers?" It was weird to say the name. He had avoided it like the plague for the first six months. "Are you mad?"
"Mad?" His voice was almost incredulous. "Stark, why are you calling?"
Oh, right. The crisis.
"I…need your help." It was easier to ask than Tony expected. "You said. You said I could call if I needed you." He heard something from Steve's side of the line- someone talking. Then Steve must have covered the receiver because everything went muffled and unintelligible. Who was he talking to? The Winter Soldier or someone else? Tony realized that he had no idea where Steve even was, much less who he was with. He never thought to track the man. He'd been too shocked by everything at first, and then he'd been too pissed off. Let Steve rot in whatever backward country he was trolloping around in. Tony didn't care.
"What do you need?" Steve's voice, when it came back on, was rougher. Tony let his eyes slip shut and he tried to picture the last time he had seen Steve. His face had been distorted in ugly anger as he raised his shield, only to slam it down, hard, into Tony's chest. That was the last time. It was the last time for a lot of things. But it was the first time Tony had ever been afraid of Steve. Suddenly, he had no idea why he was calling. His stomach was twisted up in bulging knots, and he forced himself to take several quick, deep breaths to avoid throwing up all over the floor of his kitchen.
"Rogers, I-" The phone slipped from his shaking hand and clattered, face-down, on the tile. Tony stared at it, wide-eyed, but made no effort to reach down and pick it up. It still hurt. He thought calling Steve, talking with him, would suddenly stop the anxiety and nightmares that had been plaguing him since the man almost killed him. He thought he would stop being afraid. But he wasn't. He scooped the phone up. They had been on the line for nine minutes.
"What's the crisis? Stark? Are you-" Steve was saying. His voice sounded gentler. Tony's eyes flickered up to the green bottle.
"It's…I don't actually think there's a crisis. I think I might have been exaggerating. I'm drunk." He was, but less so. Like talking to Steve had quickly sobered him up. He was beginning to realize that he'd majorly fucked up. "This is a- it's a bad idea."
"What is?"
"This. Calling. Talking to you. I should hang up."
"Why don't you?"
"I'm not sure. I'm drunk." They were talking in circles. Tony had no idea why Steve was indulging him.
"Well, what's the maybe-not-a-crisis, then?"
Tony let all of the air out of his lungs and the words tumbled along, uninvited. "I can't open the jar, Rogers. I got really drunk and then I wanted pickles, but I can't open the jar because the lid's stuck and I'd use the armor, but it's being repaired and no one else is fucking here. And then I thought 'Rogers could open the jar, but he's not here, is he' and I thought I should call you. Because we haven't talked since you tried to kill me, and I know you hate me and all, but I was drunk. Am drunk. I don't know. I'm going to hang up now." He cut off his babbling, and before Steve had the chance to say anything back, Tony jabbed his pointer finger into the red 'end call' button. Then he sat there for what could have been a half an hour, waiting for his breathing to go back to normal, and for the nausea to subside. Fuck. He was a fucking idiot. He considered snapping the flimsy phone in two, but that would mean completely severing any ties with Steve, agreeable or not. What if he called back? Shit, what if he calls back?
Somehow Tony made it down to the workshop. He didn't take the pickles with him, but he slipped the cell phone into the front pocket of his jeans, where it bounced uncomfortably against his thigh. The base was deserted and although he was glad that there was nobody around to see him, he found himself longing for his tower, back when the Avengers were still a team. Back when there were things like a communal kitchen and movie night and somebody making sure there was fresh-brewed coffee every morning and Steve calling them 'friends'. Before the Accords went and fractured them all so badly it was impossible for them to fit together anymore. Shit. He was acting like a six-year-old girl, getting all sentimental about something that was never even meant for him in the first place.
He slinked through the glass doors and threw himself on the stained leather couch that had moved from workshop to workshop. Steve would sit here, sometimes, and draw while Tony worked. Normally, Tony hated distractions but he always let Steve stay. Steve never felt like company. He felt like…an extension of what was already there. Like he was meant to be there.
Okay, wow, Tony really was drunk. Steve wasn't some grade-school crush- he was a man who defended the unstable assassin who murdered Tony's parents, and then he went and tried to murder Tony himself. Anything feelings that they might have entertained for each other were irreparably destroyed. And he didn't even have JARVIS to talk to about it.
"Fuck. Me."
He must have fallen asleep because when he opened his eyes next, there was a man sitting in a folding chair right across from Tony.
"Stark-" The man started and Tony leaned over the couch, suddenly and violently emptying the contents of his stomach. He dry heaved a few more times before he wiped his mouth and finally looked up, stunned.
"What the fuck." His voice was barely audible. "How did you get in here?"
Steve did not look particularly guilty. He was wearing civvies and when he shrugged, the hood of his sweatshirt slipped off. "You left the door open." There was something nestled in his lap but Tony couldn't make out what it was. He was having a hard time formulating any coherent thoughts at all. Maybe he had alcohol poisoning and this was all a coma-induced hallucination.
A choked, "What are you doing here?" was the best he could manage.
Steve's bottom lip curled in slightly as he bit at it. It was a nervous habit of his, Tony knew, and although he didn't look nervous, he did seem uncomfortable. "I suppose I was already in the area, um, New York I mean, and well, you didn't exactly sound O.K. on the phone. I've been meaning to check in anyways. See how everything was going, I guess."
"It's been going shitty, Rogers. I'm pretty sure you knew that already." Tony was telling the truth. The Avengers had officially disbanded six months ago, the whole organization was kaput. Tony just stayed because he didn't exactly have anywhere else to go. Repairing the tower was not a quick fix.
Steve ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "Yeah, I knew. Nat and I still talk. And Sam too."
"Then why come?" Tony spit out.
"I already said, I was worried about you. I would have come sooner but I was waiting for your call. I wasn't sure if you were still angry with me."
"Angry with you? Rogers, you tried to kill me. I don't think 'angry' covers it." Actually, if Tony was being honest with himself, he really wasn't angry anymore. Betrayed, yes. Crushed, yes. Having his childhood hero attempt to murder him with the same shield he'd crafted out of a trash can lid as a toddler for Halloween was a major blow. But he wasn't angry.
Steve nodded like he expected Tony's answer. Like he had resigned himself to it. "I know I hurt you. At the time, I didn't feel like I had any other choice. Looking back, there were probably a thousand different ways we could have resolved our differences. I'm not asking for your forgiveness, Stark. I know I don't deserve it."
"No, you really don't." Tony said, and their eyes met.
"But I was hoping this might be a good first step." And he lifted the item that had been nestled in his lap up so Tony could see. It was the pickle jar. Steve popped the lid off with an infuriatingly simple twist of his thumb and held it out for Tony to grab.
And Tony took it.