A/N: Meeting finally! Hurray~!

Sketches

~Chapter 8~

~*Picking up memories Part2*~

After he checked every single page of the sketchbook Steve fell back into his chair with a sigh. He had no idea where the drawing went.

Since when do things disappear into thin air? It was more or less regular and normal when Tony had been around. Because come on, the guy kept on stealing things from all around town. Steve once spotted him with a shopping cart filled up with junk and wrenches and electric-somethings. Lamp-corpses, metal chunks of any kind, burnt-out toasters, radios, even a broken screen TV.

And the household appliances in the Rogers residence started working properly all of a sudden. Well not too suspiciously, but still. If Steve really gave it a thought he could have guessed Tony's handiwork behind all that.

Steve barely noticed that his pencil was at work again.

It drew a hand – long calloused fingers and dirty nails a stub of cigarette among them. There were also small cuts and burnt marks. Some of them old and only a pale dip of the skin, while some of them were new and one cut in particular was angry red just below the thumb in the sensitive skin on his palm between thumb and forefinger.

"Mind if I join you?"

"Your place, I can't really forbid you"

"It's a free state" Steve tried to smile as he settled beside Tony on the narrow rooftop.

"Sure it is for you too" Tony's snort was as disdainful as of a war veteran's after Vietnam.

Steve could feel the warmth of Tony's thigh next to his as the other shifted slightly. Not away from him. Not even really changing his position either. Yet Tony still managed to put some distance between them.

"I didn't know you were smoking"

He had never felt it on Tony. The past few days every time he got back and passed Steve, his hair and jumper smelled either of the smog of the city, or that delightful undescribable freshness that's left after rain mixed with something cooled warmth that was Tony.

Never the disgusting stink of smoke.

"Only when I can steal some. This is my last"

"Steal? Tony…!"

"Like they couldn't go without one or two! Those bastards smoke a pack in a break, I'm saving their pathetic excuse of lungs they still have!"

"But you shouldn't –"

"I need it, okay?! Not everybody can be as perfect as you!"

"Tony –"

"Whatever" Tony cut him short again and huffed out the smoke through his nose irritated. Then he took another long drag which burnt the end of the cancer stick to his nails. This time Tony exhaled long and smooth while he stubbed the remaining of his cigarette on the roof. "It's illegal, I know. My whole existence is illegal and pointless… So, what can I do for you, mon Capitan?"

Tony with kitten ears, curled up into a ball, only with one eye cracked open. Lazy and content with the warmth.

"You like cats?"

"More like cats than dogs. Dogs are stupid"

"Cats are nasty"

"Clever. They are clever, Steve. And they aren't servile. They do what they want"

"Until they need food. Cats exploit their owners and bend them around their fingers"

"Paws"

"Details. But still, that definitely makes them evil"

"Nope. That makes them cool. And don't tell me that kitten in the back alley wasn't cute"

"I can't believe you used the word 'cute'! You'd have thrown yourself after it in a second"

"Nah, not that much"

"Yes you did! Maybe it was your lost little brother"

"Huh, what? Steve, have you hit your head somewhere?"

"Well, he just looked like you, when I took you in"

"So I'm like a pet to you? My dignity is wounded"

"Well, in some ways… I gave you roof above your head and I feed you, and you appear and disappear, like cats do"

"Just wait until I bring a dead mouse to your doorstep!"

Steve embarrassed and with burning cheeks left the next page in the notebook and turned to another empty one.

Yet, the lean muscles, the lazy, smug expression and the challenging smirk of the stretching brunet with cat-ears on the windowsill basking in the sun never missed an opportunity to turn up in his mind and embarrass Steve to death.

Damn, how did he have so much blood for all this blushing?

Tony sometimes was very fine with being close to Steve. Touching, clapping his shoulder, leaning over him to look into whatever he was reading. Steve could recall Tony's warm breath fanning the side of his neck, the short hair on his nape standing on end from the closeness. He tried his best not to pay him much mind when Tony measured up the math or physics homework he was suffering with. The small shiver that ran along his back when Tony clicked his tongue and patted him on the shoulder when he was doing good or the warmth of his chest pressed to Steve's shoulder when he pointed out on a low rumbling voice where was a mistake in his calculations; or stealing the pencil from his hand while brushing warm fingers and correcting his graph.

And then sometimes Tony wanted to be as far away from Steve as possible, yet be in his presence.

Just knowing he wasn't alone.

Steve found it endearing when he caught Tony curled up in the small gap between wall and bookshelf in the corner of the small living room with a self made led-lamp hanging from one shelf and emitting some misty light to whatever Tony was reading.

"What are you doing, Tony?"

Steve couldn't and didn't really want to fight the soft smile that spread on his face. Tony reminded him of himself and his mom building pillow forts when he was smaller (and also happened to be more or less healthy).

"Reading. Plotting"

Definitely no older than eight. When you want to change the world with the innocent brightness of a child's mind.

"Can I ask for permission to be enlightened about the master-plot?"

Tony looked up at him with a purple pencil dangling from his mouth, several sheets of newspapers and random, who-knows-where-they-had-come-from papers scattered around him in a huge mess and a paper-back novel in his lap. All the papers had side notes and equations and random scribbles of rectangles and squares and diagrams.

"You know Orwell?"

Steve shook his head.

"Animal farm? 1984?" Tony lifted the book so that Steve could see the cover.

"I've heard of it, but didn't know we had a copy"

"Well, you don't really, I just picked it up somewhere, but I can leave it here for you, it's really good – mortifying sometimes, but with enough cynicism or sarcasm it's really great, but since you don't have any, maybe I shouldn't but yeah… There are these two-way telescreens, via which the government – the only ruling party, you know like in socialism, can control you. You are under 24/7 surveillance. There are some in every room, even in your own flat, and they both see you and hear you, like those tinted glasses, mirrors, which you think to be a mirror, but in real they are windows, and they are like webcams, you can't switch off…"

And Tony went on and on about how he wants to create one of these telescreens, one that can't be switched off, and then how he'd find a way to switch them off, so that people can plot against the government. Because, obviously, only an evil government would do such thing and it'd be your duty to plot against it. Then after about ten minutes of rambling, from which Steve didn't really understand much, Tony reached the conclusion that it would be even cooler if he couldn't only switch the camera off, but fool it, so that the government wouldn't know that they were doing something nasty and so on and so on…

Steve liked listening to these ramblings, even if he didn't always make much sense to him. Tony was showing his brightness to him. And he would gladly stay leaning on the backrest of the couch even long after his knees and back and shoulders started aching from the uncomfortable position.

"Tony, what's happened?"

"Nothing"

"That's… Is that my bag?"

"You can have it, I don't care"

Tony swung the duffel bag at Steve. It was nearly empty, yet probably containing everything Tony possessed.

"You can sell the rest. I have some metal garbage, maybe they give something for that shit. Or just dump it in the trash"

"What are you doing, Tony?"

"What does it look like?" Tony's tone was sharp and angry as he pushed his way past Steve and out into the corridor. Steve'd never heard this tone before.

"Where are you going?"

"It's none of your business!"

"Tony, what's wrong? Please-"

"Tony! Tony! Tony! Just shut up already!"

"I want to know what's wrong with you" Steve snapped irritated.

"Nothing's wrong. Everything is as they should be. Don't think you know a thing! I'm leaving dumbass, that is. I'm fed up with you"

"What have I done?! Come on, Tony, answer me properly!"

"I don't have to report any fucking thing to you!"

Steve reached out to stop Tony before he slipped out of his sight, to turn him around and take a better look at the off-betrayed expression that flashed for a second, but Tony jerked away even further as Steve's fingertips brushed his arm. Tony stumbled to the railing, panting as if he had been electrified and in pain from the contact. Steve leapt at the opportunity to step closer, slipping behind Tony's lowered guard and grab his shoulder.

Because physical contact helped in arguments, right?

But it only flared Tony's anger even more.

"DON'T DARE TO TOUCH ME!"

Tony's agile fingers dipped hard into Steve's forearm, finding with deathly exactitude that particular place between bone and muscle that sheltered the artery in his arm and hurt so much when pressed down hard.

"Leave me alone! I don't care about you. You're useless. I don't need you. Let me go, you sentient bastard!"

The words stung as if Tony had hissed acid into his face…

Steve just sat there. Silence engulfed him and he realized stunned that his hands were shivering and his breathing was shallow and erratic. The words still hurt. And that pain in his back wasn't only due to his hunched position. Breathing had never been so hard ever since he was small and scrawny and sick all the time.

The void of feeling useless opened up again and gaped at Steve. He desperately needed to dig up one more memory. He couldn't…

He couldn't finish his sketchbook with these ones…

Steve's past few days ran past him. He was… well, he fell into a rhythm of daily activity and when he woke up from that trance he had to force himself to recall fragments of memories of what he had been doing.

Sleeping definitely didn't play a major role in his life the past week.

In the mornings he dutifully emerged from his room and kissed his mother goodbye or welcome in a daze. Then when she complained tiredly after about three days that he prickled, he shaved. And somewhere instead of lunch and before his shift he took a shower – because he felt he should by now. Thanks for long years of careful upbringing on his mother's side.

He only ate when his body was really threatening to shut down if he didn't provide it with acceptable nutrition. It wasn't warzone for God's sake! So he ate and scribbled at the same time, because his hand just refused to let go of the pencil. Steve had to learn the hard way that it was still better with the pencil glued to his smudged right hand than having to jump up from the table and run to his room in order to get a scribble down on paper before the vengeful little shit decided to evaporate from him before Steve had the chance to grab it and shake the dear life out of it.

Damn, now he sounded like Bucky in his soldier mode. Fantastic!

He wondered what his mother had thought of him during these days. Or moreover his colleges! He could barely recall Peter wondering about his well-being, then shrugging the whole thing off after Steve reassured him with a kind smile that he was all right, just end of terms are giving him a hard time. Or something. Seemed legit, right?

Only that he hadn't made any progress with his project. Not even a line.

Sad.

But he had listened to all possible combination of his media folder. Every single track on shuffle, straight put on repeat, he created so many playlists he surprised even himself that his old (like rock of ages old) computer was capable of such performance.

Then as he was mulling over how to end his sketchbook so that he could hand it out without any doubt and remorse he caught fragments of the TV-show from the next room.

The signal of a show he watched about a week ago.

And it just hit him what he wanted to draw last.

Tony from last week. Older and smarter, clean and crispy and stunning.

Steve sketched him up from the moment he finally started to talk about his life with his mystery man. When he unconsciously hurt Steve on the best and worst way possible. Because on the one hand Steve could cry in joy that Tony was alive and even remembered him, and thought of him as the best period of his life even if he wrapped it up in an irritating amount of sarcasm. On the other hand, however, Steve couldn't fight back that wrenching emptiness that gaped in him, because he couldn't wrap his mind around why Tony had left that day -

No, he was fighting not to go down that road.

He was happy, Tony was alive. And more than that! He was brilliant – he got everything Steve'd thought he was worth. And he was special. As if Steve hadn't known this already. He wondered if he was the same to Tony…?

He tried to fill those sketch-eyes with all the depths they contained in his memories. The honest mirth dancing in them when they first talked and Tony joked about Steve not having the lung capacity to last a monologue not to mention sing. And also that deep, intangible sadness he saw there on top of the roof after the rain when he caught Tony smoking, entwined with that burning cold hatred that hid behind that resigned cover he glimpsed in those eyes when Tony was hunched in the corner of the nick and over the wrecks of his destroyed flat.

And there were still people who questioned why he loved eyes so much. If he could show them Tony's eyes and how secretive and expressive they are at the same time they won't question him ever again. But he would rather not. That sight was his.

Now he was being possessive. Just great. Cool, Steve, you're losing your mind over a drawing. No. Not a drawing. Over Tony Stark. Oh man…

A few more finishing touches and it was already Thursday evening. Afternoon, but it was already getting darker outside. Before he could change his mind, Steve got up, took his coat and with the sketchbook tugged under his arm he set off to Manhattan.

Luckily he was too nervous and was too busy not getting lost in the subway to worry too much about what he was going to do. Thoughts like 'What if he doesn't really remember me?' 'What if he just throws me out?' 'What if the whole thing was just for the show?''What if he changed too much…?' And there were several similar and worse What ifs about his stupidity as he walked up the stairs to the entrance of Stark Industries.

There was no going back.

Steve fought his embarrassment and squared his shoulders as he walked up to the reception where a middle-age secretary was on the phone at the moment. She offered Steve a small smile and mouthed "Just a second" and went back to taking notes and frowning occasionally. But whoever was on the other end, she was probably used to the extra or crazy wishes she jotted down.

Her nametag said Bambina Arbogast.

Steve smiled back at her politely when she finally hung up the call.

"Good afternoon, and welcome to Stark Industries. How can I help you? You seem a bit lost" she smiled again, but it was rather the polite side of kindness. The one which was more effective than scaring the poor lost guy to hell.

"Good afternoon. Well, yes, ma'am" Steve couldn't help his instincts and stood at attention for a moment then relaxed a bit. "I'm looking for" Tony "Mr. Stark"

This name sounded all too strange on his tongue. Tony was nearly five years younger than him for God's sake!

"And who is looking for him?"

"My name is Steve Rogers, ma'am"

"You didn't come for a meeting, I presume" Mrs. Arbogast eyed her over the edge of her glasses, her hand resting near the key-board.

There was nothing to deny. Steve obviously looked out of place with his leather jacket, and cargo pants among the other employees and businessmen in suits.

"No. No, I just brought him something" Don't blush!

"So you have no appointment"

Steve had never been a good liar, and it would be in vain anyway. He couldn't just say, 'Yes, but we only talked on the phone, and Mr. Stark probably forgot to mention me, but he surely is expecting me.' Those vigilant eyes would unveil his poor attempts at lying even before they actually left his lips.

"No, ma'am" there was a small appreciative glimmer in her eyes. "I just simply want to give him something"

"Mr. Stark doesn't like being handed things, and right now" she pushed the button on the side of her headset and frowned again "he is in the middle of a meeting with Ms. Potts. But I can send it up to him, if you just leave your package here"

There was no real need to ask for confirming his identity or to demand Steve confessed what he brought. She probably could see in him that he only wanted to get over it, and he meant absolutely no harm.

Steve exhaled through his nose. All right, he can do this…

"That would be great. Could I get a piece of paper?"

Mrs. Arbogast sent him another strange look but handed him an empty sheet. Steve fished a pen out of his pocket and after some thinking he wrote with flourish 'My doorstep wouldn't mind getting to know you. S.R.' He folded the paper in half and pinned it over the hard cover of the sketchbook, then handed the whole pack to Mrs. Arbogast and waved goodbye to SI.

Now he only had to get home without turning back, running up the stairs and tell Mrs. Arbogast to just forget the whole thing, he was an idiot and he would just leave with the book.

He managed to get onto the underground without doing so. And Steve finally had the chance to breathe a bit more freely and contemplate his actions. Soon nervousness settled in his guts. Because what the hell made him do this?

Let's say it's okay to draw someone you like. Maybe adore, but Steve wouldn't really go that far. He liked Tony, and he pretty much enjoyed drawing him. That was okay. He had a classmate who had her whole room covered in pictures of an actor. But not when you filled an entire sketchbook with the said man and all this in just one week! And you most certainly, if you really can't stop yourself, you just hide the book under your bed, so that no one would find out (and assume you had an unhealthy crush on the model of said drawings) and definitely not give it to them!

Steve didn't know if he should be grateful or feel depressed that he couldn't give his work to Tony in person. Because sure, it would be great seeing him again, making sure that he was really good and wasn't just the makeup and the lighting for a TV show. Reassuring himself that this person, Tony Stark really was the same Tony he held so dear. However, if it really is as creepy as he now thought it was to draw a guy and then present the drawings to him (even if that guy was as narcissist as Tony Stark was said to be) then it was definitely better not doing it in person. Steve couldn't handle the humiliation.

Now only the insecurity remained. Will Tony get his present? Or does he get so many fanmails and gifts that his secretary doesn't even deliver them to him, just dump them in the trash? Or if Tony gets his sketchbook, how will he know how Tony reacted?

And if Tony decided to get in contact with him – he couldn't really think Tony would come to his door – how would they start over? Would they start over as if they'd only met for the first time? Or as if nothing had happened and Tony hadn't been gone for six years? Or would it be all awkward, because Steve really wanted to know what'd been going on, and knowing Tony, he wouldn't want to explain and…

So many questions – they would be enough for Steve to make an emotional and physical wreck out of himself for the time he arrived home.

There was only one thing he knew more or less for sure. He'd missed Tony.

He tried to forget him. To give himself the believe that Tony really meant nothing to him, and vice versa. But he missed him. He didn't think about him all day and night like he had after his leave but how else could he explain that the old memories came back to him so easy and ready?

Steve missed the bantering. The jokes, the snarky, cynical comments. Tony's presence. His warmth. The small songs he hummed while swirling the screwdriver in his hand. Everything. He missed his friend.

Not as if he hadn't had friends. Steve had friends. Of course, he did. He was the type of guy you just had to like. But there was a difference between friends and friends.

There were his classmates. Some of them were really interesting, extravagant and crazy but warm-hearted. And there was Peter from the café he was working at.

Then there was Peggy, even after they broke up they remained good friends, and she became like a little sister to him, but right now she was away on the Western-coast with her husband, planning to establish a family. They chatted on the Internet and she shared all her ideas and she was pouting because of her husband to Steve all the time, but there was no high-tech technology that could nullify the distances of a whole continent.

He had Bucky too, of course. But right now and for years, Bucky had been staying in Afghanistan. He was finally coming back in a few weeks (he wrote this a few weeks ago, so that was as sure as it sounds), and he had a lot of similarities with Tony, and Bucky had known him for probably the longest, and were best friends ever since, but that wasn't the same.

To tell the truth, Steve really missed the instant and direct connection. For the person to be next to him. So that he could feel they were real and what they had together was also real.

Fantastic.

The rain couldn't wait until he arrived home. Great. Now he wasn't only confused but cold and wet too.

He just opened the lock when he heard the main door slam with a loud DONG! and then his name echoed through the stairway.

"STEVE!"

Steve stunned moved to the railing and looked down. He caught the glimpse of a man staring up too and then he only saw a splash of white rushing and stumbling up the stairs. A few moments later there was the man in business pants and a wet shirt nearly falling flat on his face on the top stair – that curse sounded painfully familiar – and before Steve could take a better look of the bewildered face the man sprung at him, threw his toned arms around his neck –

And the next second Steve had his arms full with one wet and cold Tony Stark making some undefinable happy sounds.

Steve put his own arms around the narrow waist in a daze, his brain unable to do the catching up. Tony was even shorter – even though he had to grow a bit in the past few years, and he had to lean on his tip toes to be able to hug Steve like that and bury his face in the crook of his neck, getting under the collar of his jacket.

As the smaller body started slightly shivering in his embrace Steve instinctively pulled him closer, and it only registered in him that Tony was wet and he only had a thin shirt on with its sleeves rolled up over his elbow –

And he prayed he didn't only fall asleep on the subway.

TBC

A/N: Hurray! Meeting finally! :D

Sorry that it took me so long, and this chapter became even longer than I thought. See? This is why I had to pick them apart. I'd like to say a huge THANK YOU to all my dearest reviewers! (and yes, Tony sort of was a caretaker. Because, seriously? He would have ruined all his teachers, and just imagine genius Tony Stark at an average high school... not the safest idea)

I slept like 3 hours today and I've been running too long only on a cup of coffee, so sorry for the result. I hope you'll like it though! I'm very grateful for you guys!

I don't think I'll be uploading soon (I still have 5 exams coming) so have this extra long for now. :(

However reviews might change my mind ;)