Tony awoke with a start, head still reeling slightly and tongue a damn good substitute for sandpaper. He sat up and dangled his legs off what he realized was one of the benches in his workshop. Had he fallen asleep here? No, impossible. Every bench in this place was covered, boot to bonnet, in machinery. Half finished booster rockets, scraps of tin and iron alloy, and tools. If there was one thing Tony could name about his workshop that he loved most, it was the tools. The weight of a ratchet in his hand never ceased to wash away all his worries and troubles and fears and insecurities and self doubts and of course, daddy issues. He rubbed a hand across his eyes and before he could think to do anything else, a glass of water was pushed into his hand. "Drink. You'll feel less like you're dying and a little more human." Tony squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember whose voice it was. It was so damn familiar. But everything was dull and unclear, like being submerged underwater. "Tony? Are you alright? Should I call someone? How many fingers am I holding up?" He turned to look at his concerned counterpart. Steve, holding up three fingers. Steve's so cute Tony thought. He shook his head to dislodge the idea. Cute? Where had that come from? He blinked and all of the sudden the Captain was in his space, hands on both his shoulders, standing between his legs. "Tony. Tony can you hear me? You hit your head falling off a counter...I guess that was my fault, but I couldn't find a couch in this damned tower!" He has freckles too, just a little sprinkle, like confectioner's sugar on cookies He needed to stop drinking so much. His experimental phase had long since passed. He'd been out of college for how many years now? Thinking back on it, it hadn't so much passed as been ridiculed out of him by his father. Howard, who would never admit to it, was a complete homophobe, and even the merest inkling of the idea that his son was one of them was too much for him to handle. So Howard needled Tony. A little bit every day. And as needles do, it became too much for Tony to handle. And the next time he brought someone home, it was a busty brunette with an IQ of 71 and excellent legs. Tony wasn't even sure he knew her name at the time. Blinking himself out of his reverie he looked Steve straight in the eye and kissed him, full on the mouth. Be it spite or a drug addled brain or experimentation or maybe something more slowly taking root in the pit of his stomach, Tony thought this was one of the best ideas he'd had in a long time. Besides maybe the Iron Man suit, that idea was pretty good too. Pulling softly at the soldier's lips with his teeth, he breathed out a little, an almost sigh. It took him a moment to react, but before long, Steve was kissing him back, unabashedly and whole heartedly and with more feeling than Tony thought should ever come of a first kiss. Lost in the taste of tongue and teeth and warmth and the barest traces of alcohol, Tony thought he could taste confectioner's sugar. But maybe that was the hangover talking.
He poured himself another finger of Jack and picked at his eggs. They really weren't safe for eating, they were running and the whites were still see through. He had woken up, almost drowned in the shower by accident, and then ambled into the kitchen with the intention of eating. Tony had then grown impatient with his eggs and wondered why Steve wasn't there making them like he always did, with a hit of red pepper and some chopped green thing millionaires had no need to name. It was as he was pouring a second cup of coffee, mixing it two parts milk and sugar, one part coffee, that he realized he was the only one alive to drink it. So Tony pushed it slowly to the edge of the counter until it toppled off, dumped his own coffee down the sink, and filled the mug with Jack. So yea, maybe sometimes he forgot that Steve was six feet under, maybe sometimes he rolled over in bed groping around for the hard plane's of Steve's back and shoulders and stomach and hips, maybe sometimes he wandered around looking for Steve in the middle of the night, maybe to talk him out of a war nightmare, maybe to watch him draw. Maybe Steve's smell was still fading from the bed. It got fainter and fainter every day. So Tony took six of his soldier's tee shirts, two pairs of pants, one jacket and one hat and closed them tightly into a ziplock bag, which he then placed in another bag, which he then locked in his vault. If he couldn't have Steve, then he could at least have the way Steve smells...smelled. Tony ran a hand across his face, he needed to shave, past tense is so bothersome. Steve would still be the same if he was alive. If if if if if. Why shouldn't I use the present tense? Because you're desperate to see him again. You think that if you use the present tense, he'll wake up and dig himself out and come running home. He's dead Tony. Dead and buried and decaying in that lovely glass coffin you have him in. He's not Snow White. He won't wake up if you kiss him. You'll never be able to- "Sir," Jarvis... "You have visitors." Visitors? Tony didn't have friends. The only people that ever visited were for Steve, and that was mostly little kids or teenagers who wanted an autograph or an interview "for the school news paper! It would really help us get some readers!" Tony sighed and pushed himself away from the counter, "Send them up." He walked off to their...his bedroom to change into something other than Steve's pajama pants. But when he walked back into his kitchen, if you could call it that, he was face to face with Natasha Romanov, the woman who had caused the death of Steve Rogers.
Dearest Readers,
It appears I'm back on track. I'll try to update as regularly as possible, work permitting. I recognize that this chapter is short but, hey, who's the writer here? Drop me a line, dear readers, and let me know if I'm doing my job right.
Love and kisses,
Mississippi Isabel