Steve opened his eyes slowly. The sun beamed through the edges of the curtain and he knew it was late into the next day. Still smiling from the events of the night, he reached for Tony, but his hand clasped empty sheets. Steve's heart rapidly dropped in his chest.
"I knew it!" He yelled in frustration as he punched the bed.
I'm just another one night stand. Even though all we did was cuddle, it was just a onetime thing.
Steve's eyes burned and threatened to overflow but he refused to let his emotion show, he knew Jarvis would be watching and Tony could view the tapes whenever he pleased. He flung the sheets off himself with a little too much effort and sent them flying across the room but he didn't care.
Steve was angry, he felt used, despite how innocent their night was. It wasn't real, it had only happened because Tony was drunk. He sighed. He couldn't reallyblame Tony, he was the one who had been stupid enough to fall for it, he'd played along though he suspected this would happen from the start.
No, he was going to blame Tony.
He quickly redressed himself with shaking hands and stood up to leave. As his fingers curled around the doorknob, the sweet memories flooded back from when he last was in this position, so eager to close the door and stay in the room. The sweetness reverted back to rage and his hand balled into a fist and collided with the wall beside the door, leaving a gaping hole and plaster crumbling. He swung the door open and marched out, headed for his room.
The engineer was in his lab of course, absent mindedly soldering parts together, building the start of he had no idea what. There was no point to it, just something to do with his hands as his thoughts ran wild.
The warm touch, the perfectly combed blonde hair, the blue eyes with ocean-like depth. Tony was crushing on Steve, it was all too clear now and he couldn't deny it to himself any longer. But he was so confused, lost in a chaotic pool of emotions and lust over another man. That worried him the most. Tony had never been one for emotional ties to another person, to want to be around them all the time or to want them to stay in his life, the fact that it was another man he longed for, it was new, and scary.
He knew he shouldn't have done it, he knew better than to toy with the emotions of another and Steve would write it off as Tony being drunk. What if Steve hadn't wanted it? What if he'd just gone along with it so he wouldn't feel uncomfortable and that night hadn't actually been as wonderful and cozy as Tony so clearly remembered? Tony shook his head. Whatever it was, it had to stop now. Not for his sake, but for Steve's. He didn't want to hurt him but Tony knew it was in his nature, he would do it without intention, it was just his volatile personality, nothing happened the way he wanted.
He slammed his hands down onto his work bench and squeezed his eyes shut, smacking the modified toaster onto the floor when it beeped at him. He'd thought his silly little crush would go away, hopefully sooner rather than later, but last night he knew what he was doing, he'd only managed the confidence to do it by being intoxicated and he enjoyedit. Being held by another man, curling up against another man… what was he becoming?
Tony had never been homophobic, but the idea of himself being gay? He shuddered.
"Sir, Captain Rodgers is calling." Jarvis informed him, Tony's head snapped up.
"Don't answer. Block all calls from him. And tell me if he is on his way down here, at any time. He is not allowed in." Tony said sternly as Jarvis complied, he wasn't ready to face Steve, or anyone, he was going into introvert mode.
Steve sighed, he'd looked all over the tower for Tony with little hope of actually finding him but he'd wandered around none the less. He'd even asked Jarvis where he was but under Tony's orders the AI hadn't replied. Steve was lead to believe Tony was in the lab and he guessed he wouldn't be allowed entry even if he did march down there to confront him.
He sat on his bed, freshly showered and head clear, staring at the cell phone in his hand and trying to build up the courage to call Tony. He inhaled a deep breath as he dialed the number and held it in as he listened to it ring. The tone made him hopeful, Tony hadn't blocked his phone, at least not yet. The phone rang and rang and suddenly disconnected, no one picked up. Steve frowned and tried again, this time greeted by an instant 'This number is currently unreachable'. He ended the call and resisted the urge to throw his phone across the room.
He'd done it, he'd gone too far, ruined their friendship and now Tony hated him. Steve doubted he would see Tony for days, maybe even weeks. He let out the breath he'd forgotten he was holding in and dropped the phone onto the bed beside him. Tony would have to resurface eventually right? Maybe he could wait it out…
"Tony still not showing up for dinner?" Clint said with a mouthful of pasta, not to anyone in particular. Steve said nothing, everyone had noticed his continued absence for the past few weeks and hadn't really said anything until now.
"He's probably still moping over Pepper." Steve offered casually, he didn't want anyone to come to the conclusion that he had something to do with it. The team nodded, it seemed a plausible reason.
"Still, someone should check on him. Sure he's not always around but it's a little weird that he's completely isolated himself." Bruce piped up.
"Aren't we locked out of his lab?" Steve replied, he'd tried to enter before but Jarvis had denied him entry and Tony had walked out of view and ignored his hammering on the glass.
"Shouldn't be. I went down there to give him something from Fury last week." Natasha said calmly and she watched the confusion rise on Steve's face and was surprised when he tried to hide anger. Her eyes widened a little as she watched him, watched the emotions tick over on his face, Tony had evidently only locked out Steve.
The conversation died down after that and Steve finished his meal quickly and took his plate into the kitchen to rinse. Much to his surprise, Natasha appeared by his side.
"I think you should check on Tony." She looked at him knowingly. Steve didn't reply for a moment, he was a little startled that Natasha seemed to know about him and Tony, which couldn't be possible. But she was a spy after all, he guessed she could have picked something from his facial expressions or his below average attitude. She fished a little device from her pocket and held it out to him. He looked at it with a frown.
"This will bypass Jarvis's command to deny you entry." She said quietly, his eyes snapped to hers and in that moment he became aware she knew something.
"This will let me in?" He confirmed as he took the device from her hand and studied it closely as if he knew what he was looking at. She nodded, and left him to it, she had confidence he would get to the bottom of it and sort Tony out.