Chapter Six
Tony Stark was pissed off. Standing in front of his bathroom mirror, staring intently into his reflected eyes, Tony contemplated various excuses to shuck off his tuxedo shirt and hide in the basement until the evening from hell was over. Many semi-plausible excuses floated to the brim of his concentration. A sudden lead on Doctor Doom's latest laughable lair. An unexpected bout of arc reactor sickness. Hell, fuck it, he's Tony Stark, the most predictably unpredictable billionaire on the planet, he could just buy the whole of Latveria outright and still have time to turn up late to this ridiculous art gala.
Thing.
Whatever.
There's even a marathon of the tenth doctor on television tonight, he thought sulkily to himself as he slowly did up each button, covering up the well-muscled and scarred chest underneath. The orders had come directly from Fury himself, with some half-assed spiel about positive avengers P.R. after the breakfast foible. The little brochure on the event lay open on the bench, carelessly cast down next to his cuff links, taunting him silently with its glossy, chic refinedness. Printed upon it in expensive and classy lettering were the words "Drawings from D-Day: Artwork from the Frontlines", the Metropolitan Art museum choosing to lie unobtrusively beneath.
Apparently Captain I'm-the-Most-Noble-In-All-The-Land was having some of his old drawings displayed and auctioned for charity. Tony wasn't even surprised. In fact, he fully expected twenty or so variations of the blessed stars and stripes in Steve's- Cap's- section of the gallery. Because that just had Captain America written all over it. Perhaps there would even be a bald eagle or two. Tony sighed, swiped his jacket and bowtie from the bathroom bench (Pepper had kindly laid them out for him after the last set had been accidentally incinerated) and on a whim plucked up the Iron Man sensor bracelets. Better safe than sorry, he thought, and headed off to drive his gaudiest car available.
Steve stood stiff-backed near a portrait of Peggy, a polite smile decorating his face as he spoke with a besuited man. He looked the perfect soldier, standing at rest as a superior discussed the lines of his work with him. The man was practically oozing the apple-pie modesty that was tied to his being.
Tony turned away from the sight and stood stewing, shoulders hunched around him like a hermit crabs shell in front of Steve's art. He was standing on the farthest side of the gallery from the captain. Strings wafted through the air like perfume and pompous chatter filled the expo like a cinematic stereotype of the social elite. Which, when it came down to it, they kind-of were. Tony had even seen a man wearing a MONOCLE wander past, brandy glass perched in his hand obediently. Who even wears monocles these days? He thought to himself. To make matters worse, Tony didn't really have anyone to talk to. Clint and Natasha had skulked off to god knows where, Thor was at the drinks table being Thor, and Bruce… well, Bruce had been cornered by a clingy old lady coated in jewels, and tony just didn't want to mess with that.
His attention returned to the art in front of him, and Tony had to begrudgingly admit that it was not all bad. Contrary to his previous beliefs, the Captain's art was distinctly lacking patriotic symbolism. The pages in front of him were yellowed with age and had obviously been pulled from Shield archives. Tony looked closer to them, peering at the faces in the image. They were clearly all male, but the way the lines were constructed was different, they were more like the echoes of people, their essence captured on a page. There was one drawn with more precision, a face with dark eyes and a wolfish grin. Tony frowned. Steve had obviously liked this person. He'd drawn him over and over, rough and detailed features, all over the pages. All expressions, all movements captured on paper exactly the way Steve saw the world and the people in it. It was beautiful. The way Steve saw things was so real, so fluid and organic and perfect, and Tony could practically feel the warmth of Steve's passion radiating at him through the careworn pages-
Tony shook himself out of his reverie.
Oh Dear.
With a quick, furtive look around him, he ducked his head and whipped out his phone. He tapped out the art's auction number to Jarvis, and the phone pulsed in his hand in acknowledgment.
"Hello, Tony." Tony almost swore as he dropped his phone, reaching for it desperately as it tumbled. A broad-shouldered ninja caught it nimbly one-handed, and offered it out to Tony. He pretended not to notice how smooth and warm Steve's hands were as he swiped it back, and threatened his palladium-powered heart with health food if it didn't stop jumping around in his chest like a fangirl.
"Geez, Cap, you can't keep doing that, you're gonna give me a heart attack." He said, attempting blasé but only managing irritation. Steve's eyes went puppy-dog wide and a little wrinkle appeared in his forehead.
"Is that even possible, with the reactor and all?" there was a pause, and Tony watched as Steve's eyes went ever wider (seriously, is he Bambi or something, Tony thought) and his cheeks flamed up.
"Oh God, Tony, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-" Tony was fascinated with the way Steve's emotions flashed across his face so blazingly clear. Regret, panic, frustration, all sweeping past so quickly Tony feared he might get whiplash. Steve looked into Tony's eyes, and sighed. He looked kind of tired, now Tony looked closely, and wondered how much sleep Cap was getting. Tried to tell himself that he didn't care.
"I just… I want to apologise, I suppose." Tony could suddenly see where this was going and resorted to his default program function: assholery. He clapped a hand on Steve's enormous shoulder and plastered a shit-eating smirk on his face.
"Don't worry about it grandpa, most people think I have a tin heart any way. Guess that's what you get for having to hack at yourself in a desert cave under the torture of terrorists to save your own life, isn't it? Oh well. C'est la vie, champ. I'll live on. If you'll excuse me now…"
Tony cursed inwardly as an iron grip closed around his wrist, whisking him back towards a man who he really didn't want to talk to right now. Steve was now well and truly crowding his space, and Tony could smell his cologne and his clean, fresh skin and see the exact way his shirt stretched across his chest. He wasn't going to able to think clearly for very long.
"Tony, please, you know I wasn't talking about that…"
"Then why don't you just say what you mean?" Tony hadn't meant to sound so viperous, but he was starting to panic. Steve's grip on his wrist loosened and his face looked like someone had told him what happens to puppies that don't get adopted at the pound.
"Why do you have to be so frustrating all the time, Tony? For crying out loud, I'm trying to say sorry for the other day and all you can do is snark, snark, snark at me!"
"I don't have to put up with this," Tony exclaimed, finally (heartbreakingly) wrenching his wrist free of Steve and taking a step back.
"Take your delicious cologne and perfect chest elsewhere, Steve, I'm busy trying to hate you."
Steve looked baffled. "My perfect what-?"
The next minutes were chaos.
The lights cut to red. Plumes of putrid smoke bloomed from seemingly nowhere, and the sound of screaming and gagging filled the air. Steve shouted to Tony over the din, eyes rolling back in his head and falling like a stone to the floor. Tony lurched forward, arms snaking around his chest as the super soldier's knees hit the ground. Tony flicked the sensors on his bracelet and shook Steve.
"Steve? Steve, come on, buddy, now is not the time to go sleeping beauty on me." His head lolled helplessly on his neck, and if this had been a less terrifying moment Tony would have been admiring the line of his throat. A foot landed thoroughly against Tony's ribs, and he fought against the urge to breathe in. No way would he be able to function if the captain's accelerated metabolism couldn't flush the airborne chemicals out. Tony held his breath and hugged Steve's limp form closer to his chest as the hulking dark shape of his suit raced towards him. He counted the seconds as it flew closer, ignoring the vicious kicks he took as civilians attempted to flee.
Really, he should have been expecting it. If Steve had been in his place, Tony knew he would have noticed the masked brutes in trench coats before they had kicked him in the head and wrenched Steve from him. As it was, Tony felt the warm stickiness of his own blood against the back of his head, and was still trying to clear the spots behind his eyes as the suit locked onto its target like a glistening cocoon. The gallery was swarming with henchmen, Tony deftly sideswiping one as they rushed him. The man collapsed like a deck of cards onto the ground, HYDRA logo clear on his epaulet. Well that answered one question. He opened up a comm link.
"Avengers, report." Tony waited a moment, heard the crackle of a radio line being opened, followed by vicious coughing and the oof of flesh meeting fists.
"Hawkeye here. I have Black widow and Bruce with me, but this fucking smoke-" another hacking round of coughing interrupted him, " there's something in it that's keeping Bruce from Hulking out, and Widow and I… We're not so good either. Is cap with you?"
"He was, but a couple of goons just took off with him." A string of curses flowed down the commlink.
"We'll take care of these leather Nazi clowns, you go rescue the princess." Tony grinned in his battle suit.
"Don't need to tell me twice."
He launched himself into the air and pelted out of the gallery in pursuit. Jarvis was tracking their three heat signatures; Steve was barely a blue-green blip between the yellowy-red figures hobbling through the Egyptian wing, and Tony's mind reeled at what that could mean for a normally super-heated man. Tony's head was still pounding, the suit pumping him full of painkillers, but he was focused on one thing; the burning panic that clung to his insides and seared the edges of his reasoning. If those bastards had laid one foul Nazi finger on Steve, he was going to make sure the Shield cleaning team was scraping them from all four walls of the Metropolitan Gallery.
They hadn't made it very far. They were nothing more than a pair of grunts. No backup, no covering squads. Hell, their guns were still in their holsters. If he hadn't already seen their uniforms, Tony would have thought that they were a couple of amateurs that had gotten in way over their own heads. One of the two made a rather unmanly noise when Tony landed in front of them in the lobby. Jarvis alerted him of a vehicle waiting outside, but Tony barely registered it over the crumpled form supported between the two henchmen. Blonde hair was stained red with blood, and heads were going to be mounted on plaques.
"Drop the supersoldier, gentlemen, before I deep fry you both." He said, and almost laughed when one of them actually did as he said, flinging himself to the floor and crawling away towards a fire exit. The other grunt was slightly savvier, pulling his pistol out and pointing it at Steve's head, even as he struggled under the deadweight.
"Stay back or I'll shoot!" he shrieked. Tony narrowed his eyes and tried to push past the panic that stopped him from formulating a plan. He couldn't freeze up. He had to stay cool.
"Really?" he asked, "You're going to shoot the guy you- sorry, your bosses- went to all the trouble to kidnap, just because an awesome guy like myself stepped in front of you and told you stop? Doesn't that seem a bit stupid to you? I mean, think about it, do you really want to be on the bad side of a powerful evil organization? Killing their golden goose and all? Look, I'm going to be nice, I'll lower my weapon if you do, okay?"
The grunt hesitated, and Steve whimpered at his side. That was all the distraction it took for Tony to hit the last one with a tranquillizing dart. The man crumpled to the hard floor, head cracking against the cold marble, and Steve followed suit in slow motion, a hand propping him up unsteadily for a moment and then slipping out from underneath him. Oh no oh no oh no, Tony thought, and let his faceplate retract as he rushed toward his comrade- no, his friend- no, his Steve- and knelt over him with a metallic clunk. He wasn't sure what to do, he couldn't remember the Shield-mandatory first aid course he had suffered through, and his gauntlets hovered over Steve's unmoving form. He could feel them shaking inside his gloves, could feel his breath coming short and sharp from adrenalin. Acting on instinct, he gently edged his hands under Steve's knees and around his shoulders, the suit lending him strength as he stood with the Captain in his arms. A tiny, seedy part of his brain wished he could feel the press of Steve's body against his as he tried to figure out where to take his burden. Unsure of what else to do, he started walking towards the stairs back to the gallery. Perhaps he should call in, make sure the rest of the team was alright.
Steve murmured in his arms though, rolling closer into Tony's chest, and all other thoughts dissipated like a shadow cast into light.
"Steve," he practically whispered, unable to keep the panicked strain from his voice. Steve's eyelids flickered open slowly, pupils blown wide and sleepy-looking.
"Tony," he smiled softly up at him, running a wobbly finger across his armour plates. Tony's brain puttered slightly. Whoah. What? He smiled down at the hopped-up Steve.
"Easy there, soldier, I don't think you're quite thinking straight. Let's wait until you're not under the influence of Hydra juice to take this any further, okay? I don't want to be hit with sexual harassment charges on a national symbol. That wouldn't look so good on my record, you know?" Tony babbled, hoping sarcasm might disguise the nervous knot in his chest.
"You are such an ass, Tony," Steve said, and Tony didn't have any idea how it happened but Steve's lips were suddenly pressed against his, his hand pulling Tony down by the back of his neck, and he wasn't quite sure but he thought that for a second there was a surge in the arc reactor battery. Steve tasted like champagne, and mint, and something that was unique and distinctly Steve. Tony's arms tightened around him entirely by themselves and Steve arched up into him, pressing against the armor like he never wanted to let go again. Tony certainly didn't want to let go, toxin induced insanity be damned.
Steve leant back, breaking the kiss sharply, and Tony prepared for the bill of rights to be spouted at him, or to be slapped for being the depraved sleaze that he was.
"How are you even holding me up? You're, like, tiny." Steve said. That was the last thing Tony was expecting, and when he thought about it he felt kind of insulted.
"I'm in my suit, Steve. I can do lots of things in the suit. Hasn't someone explained how my suit works to you yet?" His eyes were still slightly glazed and blank. Tony sighed.
"Let's just leave the science to me." And Tony put the super soldier's already opening mouth to far more productive pursuits.
*** A.N. Well, that's kinda it, folks! There will be an epilogue, soon, but other than that this story is, for all intents and purposes, finished. :) Hope my meagre offering to the fandom is worth it. Love to all of you who stuck through with me and my hopeless updates! ***