Cats in (and out of) Bags: Part 1
July 4, 1988. 5:18 PM. Los Angeles, California.
As always, the annual Stark Industries barbeque was at The Beverly Hills Hotel. Tony was hiding in a striped cabana, reclining on a deck chair, and drinking rum punch in neon boardshorts.
"Can I get you another one?" asked a pool boy.
Tony examined him over his sunglasses. He was probably 21 or 22, fit, blond, and gorgeously tan in his little white uniform. Tony took the maraschino cherry out of his drink and bit it off the stem.
"You know," Tony said, twirling the stem between his fingers, "I met a guy at a party that can tie these into knots using his tongue. I've always wanted to try it."
The pool boy eyed Tony with interest; his eyes were intensely blue. "So try it," he said.
Tony stuck the stem in his mouth, maintaining eye contact over his dark lenses. "How'd I do?" Tony asked a minute later, opening his mouth; the pool boy plucked the untied stem from the tip of Tony's tongue with a pair of tanned fingers.
"You didn't."
Tony shrugged. "Guess I need more practice. If you bring a bowl of cherries to my room, I'd slip you a big tip. Or maybe you could slip me one."
⁂
Pool boy gave great head. Lying back on the bed with legs spread, Tony rubbed through his blond, chlorine-smelling hair and sighed.
"Hey," Tony said dreamily, "you wanna fuck me?"
Pool boy popped off with a wet smack. "Roll over."
Tony rolled to his stomach, and the pool boy spread him apart with his tan hands, promptly burying his face in Tony's ass. He was good at rimming, too, fucking divine, actually. It wasn't something Tony got a lot of; he stuck to girls on campus, keeping his homosexual dalliances among west coast strangers, hired help and club kids, people firmly outside his orbit. Tony rested his head on his folded arms; his whole body was starting to melt under the intimate attention. This was so much better than getting wasted at the party and embarrassing his parents.
"You got a rubber?" The pool boy asked, pulling back with a smack to Tony's ass.
"Bag on the luggage rack. Top pocket. But keep eating me out. This is the most relaxed I've been in three weeks."
"Poor baby." The pool boy smacked him again, harder this time, and then rammed his tongue between Tony's cheeks just as the bedroom door flew open and two more bodies tumbled in. The new couple was engaged in some serious face-sucking but broke apart when they realized they weren't alone. Pool boy was frozen solid, stuck to Tony's butt like he thought he couldn't be seen so long as he didn't move.
"So," Tony said casually, "who's your friend? Aren't you going to introduce me?"
Howard's hands withdrew slowly from his female companion. She was stunning, lovely in a polka-dot sundress, and probably the same age as the fucking pool boy. She had dark, curly hair, like Howard's had been when he was young. Howard always preferred them that way; Tony theorized it was yet another manifestation of his narcissism. Nobody moved.
"Alright, guess not," Tony said breezily. He sat up, pulled a pillow into his lap, then looked at the pool boy, "I think you'd better leave. Sorry."
Pool boy threw on his little white uniform in record time and dashed out the door without a backward glance. The remaining party watched him go.
"Howie," whispered the girl, "I'm going to—" She didn't finish, just slipped out into the hallway.
"I thought you were at the party." Howard blinked owlishly at the closing door.
"And I thought that this was my room."
"I kept the second key," Howard explained. "You always lose your hotel keys."
"Right. Sure. Yeah. And also, you know, maybe you could use my room to entertain your secretary."
"So…" Howard seemed slightly dazed and definitely a little drunk. But then, so was Tony. "So, what I don't understand is…I thought you liked girls."
"What I like are blondes."
"Oh," Howard said, nonplussed. Then: "No one can know about this."
"Which 'this,' Howie?" Tony asked, cocking his head. "My boys or your girls?"
"Theboys, Tony." A little angry heat crept into Howard's voice, because of the 'Howie' or the homo, Tony couldn't immediately say. "No one can know about the boys, not if you're going to take over the business."
"Yeah?" A little heat crept into Tony's voice, too. "Is that right? You know, I took you for a lot of things, Howie, but I never took you for a bigot."
"I'm not." Howard was really angry now, defensive. "Steve Rogers was the finest man I ever knew, and if he wasn't fooling around with James Barnes at least some of the time, I'll eat my hat. But he was smart enough to keep it to himself. You aren't allowed to have those kinds of…of proclivities in defense, Tony. Not if you want to stay in defense, anyway."
"But you are allowed to fuck secretaries young enough to be your daughter?"
"Don't speak to me that way," Howard said darkly, looming over the bed.
"Oh, I'm sorry," Tony laughed, "did I misread the situation? Were you bringing Little Miss Poke-My-Spots to your son's hotel room to take dictation?" He put a light emphasis on the 'dic.'
The slap was lightening quick, catching Tony across the mouth. Tony drew back, eyes wide, tasting blood. Howard had never hit him before. Never.
"You little idiot," Howard hissed. "Don't you know it's going to kill your poor mother when you catch AIDS and die?"
He spun on his heel and stalked out.
⁂
Later, Tony found his mother poolside. She was drinking a glass of punch in a deckchair, gazing at the sky. Tony slumped in the chair beside her. The fireworks had started, red and gold and green and blue, and he watched the play of colored light over her upturned face. She looked beautiful, Tony thought, cool and sophisticated in a white Chanel pants suit. His father was a fool.
"Howie's fucking another secretary," Tony said after a while.
"Don't call you father 'Howie,'" said his mother calmly, still watching the fireworks. Her expression didn't change. "Is it the one in the polka-dots? Actually, don't tell me. I'd rather not know."
"At the rate he's going through the secretarial pool, he's going to run out of girls by the end of the year."
"Now, now," his mother said serenely, "let's not exaggerate. He maintains a steady rate of one every eighteen months. I'm sure HR hires accordingly."
"Why do you stay with him?"
"Because if I left him, darling, you'd never see him."
"You got that right," Tony agreed. "I'd only come to see you in your chic Manhattan apartment, and we could go to brunch, and watch old movies, and have a wonderful time."
"Yes. And then you'd be cut off from the company, and the board would appoint Obadiah when your father retires, and then you'd never leave school, and wind up with a whole wall of degrees and nothing to show for it."
"Seems like a wall of degrees would be something to show for it, Mom."
"Education is a wonderful thing, but if you never do anything with it, what's the point?"
"You don't believe in knowledge for knowledge's sake?"
"No. Knowledge is good if it does good, Tony. Otherwise, it's just…" She waved her hand vaguely.
"Masturbatory?" Tony supplied with a wry smile. "Pardon my French." Then, the smile falling from his face: "He caught me, Mom."
"With the pool boy? Mmmm," she tutted mildly. "I did wonder what you bright young things were off to do. Oh dear. How'd he take the news?"
"Like a champ. First, he told me I'd never last in defense with those kinds of 'proclivities.' Then he told me it would just kill my poor mother when I catch AIDS and die."
"Oh, darling," she sighed, "you won't want to hear it, but he's right. You can't kiss boys and have a career in defense, and if you die of AIDS, it will kill your poor mother."
"He's a bigot," Tony said sourly.
"No, your father is strictly an ass," she corrected. "Let's do try to keep the historical record straight. He fought Joe McCarthy during the Lavender Scare. Did you know that? McCarthy and that little weasel Roy Cohn thought they could make Howard 'purge' the 'degenerates' from his workforce. Because of blackmail potential and national security or some such nonsense. Howard told them they could go fuck themselves (pardon my French), and then McCarthy and Cohn asked Congress to cancel S.I.'s government contracts."
"What happened?" Tony had never heard this story and was impressed with Howard in spite of himself. His father was an asshole, but not a cowardly one. And he did have principles. Fidelity just wasn't among their number.
"Oh, the Pentagon made a stink about it and the whole thing went away, but your father told me he would have given up defense to invent a better mousetrap before he let a bunch of bureaucrats ask his employees irrelevant and invasive questions about their sex lives."
"Well, he certainly wouldn't want anyone to ask him," Tony pointed out.
"True."
They watched the fireworks show build to its crescendo, a dazzling display of red, white, and blue starbursts accompanied by 'America the Beautiful' piped in over the patio speakers.
"He told me Captain America was gay," Tony said, considering the significance of the statement for the first time.
"Did he?" His mother looked his way, surprised for the first time during the whole conversation. "That's…he never told me that, Tony."
"He didn't look for him this year."
"He will. Something about the ice packs. He's going in August."
They settled back to watch the fireworks.
Might be better to stay on ice, Stevie,Tony thought 'll absolutely kill my poor father if you catch AIDS and die.
⁂
Stark Tower. December 16th. 2012. 1:17 AM.
It was late; Steve could feel the past-midnight-ness as a heaviness in his limbs, but he didn't check the time, content to watch the party go by from his place on the sofa.
It was a beautiful party, like something from the society pages. Hell, it probably would be in the society pages: waiters in bow ties with trays of canapés, a champagne tower, glittering Christmas trees. The guests were all rich and cultured and important, and Steve had nothing to say to any of them. Still, they were pretty to look at in their gowns and black ties.
And Tony Stark was the prettiest of all.
God, but he was beautiful in a tuxedo, a study in black in white, his dark beard neat and glossy as his satin lapel, his teeth sharp and bright as his snowy shirt front. Steve had been watching Tony all night more or less—watched him schmoozing and flirting and laughing and drinking.
Watched him kissing.
Tony had dragged Pepper Potts into a mistletoe-hung doorway and had her backed up against the frame, kissing her hungrily, lips dragging from her mouth to her throat. But Pepper…Pepper wasn't enjoying it. Her smile was more of a grimace, and she was stiff in his embrace, tolerating him only for a minute or so before she shoved him off with an uncomfortable can do it to me, Tony,and I'll do more than just tolerate you. It was an ugly thought, petty and absurd, and Steve regretted it instantly. Pepper Potts had only ever been kind to him, and she was good for Tony. That's what everybody said, anyway.
Steve watched Tony dancing.
Tony pulled Pepper reluctantly from the doorway to the dance floor, and they swayed together in time to the piano music. Earlier in the evening there'd been a band, but only the pianist remained, playing something soft and sweet, Cole Porter, maybe. Tony had one hand splayed dangerously low on the small of Pepper's back. The other hand, resting on her hip, still held his tumbler of scotch. He closed his eyes, let his head drop heavy against Pepper's lovely white shoulder. One look at Pepper's face told Steve she wasn't enjoying the dancing any more than the kissing, and when the song ended, she extricated herself, darting away into the cover of the crowd, leaving Tony lost in the middle of the dance floor, rocks glass dangling precariously from the tips of his fingers. Steve watched him cast around for company, his dark eyes roving over the assembled guests, rejecting each in turn, when they finally lighted on…Steve.
"Hey, Cap." Tony flopped on the sofa, smiling and loose-limbed and practically in Steve's lap. "How's it hanging?"
"Hey, Tony," Steve said, smiling back, feeling a little flutter in his stomach. "You have lipstick on your teeth."
"Do I? That's funny; I don't remember eating any." He tugged the pocket square from his dinner jacket, scrubbing at mouth. "How 'bout now? Am I good?" He bared his teeth for Steve's inspection.
"You're good." It was a liberal interpretation of 'good:' This close, Steve could tell Tony was even drunker than he'd realized, past tipsy and on his way to downright sloppy. Under the aftershave, Tony smelled aggressively like booze, and his unknotted bowtie hung loose around his open collar. In the gloom, Steve could just see the tiniest bit of blue light seeping out through Tony's undershirt. He would've given almost anything to see more of it, but he'd content himself with playing chaperone. Pepper might not want to hang around Tony while he was sauced, but Steve didn't mind it; he'd spent plenty of time babysitting drunks during the war.
"What do you think of the party?" Tony asked, bumping Steve's shoulder with his own.
"Party's nice."
"Yeah? Is that why the bastards won't go home?" Tony sipped his drink, casting a weary eye over his guests.
"You want them to?" Steve wondered, a little surprised. He looked more closely at Tony's face, and then he could see it, the tiredness in the lines around his eyes and mouth.
"No," Tony sighed. "I love a good party." Steve couldn't tell just who he was trying to convince.
"You could sneak out," Steve suggested, "go to another floor, go to bed."
"No room at the inn, I'm afraid." Tony rubbed at the space between his eyebrows with a knuckle. "And I'm fresh out of stables."
Steve reached into his pocket, fishing out his keys. "You can go stay at my place if you want. I've got an extra bedroom."
"My god, you're sweet." Tony patted him on the knee, as if he were genuinely touched. "Thank you. No. But thank you. We're running out of champagne, anyway. Can't last too much longer."
They sat in silence for a while, watching the glittering throng. At least Tony was watching the throng; Steve was watching Tony. There was something wrong with him, Steve decided, something beyond being drunk, something beyond being tired…
"I will say," Tony nodded towards the pianist, "sheis very good. Not that anyone is listening, but she is. She was supposed to leave at midnight, but as she's currently the only thing making life bearable, I told her I'd triple her fee if she stuck it out as long as I did."
"What's the matter, Tony?" Steve wondered.
"Nothing's the matter. I just hate Christmas parties. They're inherently stupid."
"Then why'd you throw one?"
"Because I'm inherently stupid." The words came out casually but sincerely bitter. "Want to know a secret, Cap?" Tony asked, eyes still on the crowd, rolling his glass between his hands, making the ice rattle against the crystal. "I mean, not a secret secret. It's a matter of public record, but Mom and Dad die today. Or they will."
Steve frowned. Tony's parents were already dead, had been for twenty years, but Tony was talking like he was seeing the future, witnessing events that hadn't even happened yet in his crystal ball.
"In about, oh, let's see," Tony checked his watch, "eighteen hours or so, Howard is going to get drunk and try to take a little shortcut through an oak tree. An hour or so after that, some good Samaritan is going to find the car and call the police. And then the police will visit yours truly, informing me of my orphanhood. Or maybe not. I don't know. I was a more-than-legal adult with a mansion and a trust fund, so I don't know if I really count as a proper orphan. I always think of orphans as more tragically waifish. Dickensenian. I mean, you basically were Oliver Twist. By comparison, I've got nothing to complain about—"
"Tony—" Steve didn't know what to say, didn't have the first idea. Finally turning from the party, Tony saw Steve's stricken face and . As if the very idea that Steve might feel sorry for him was ridiculous.
Tony rolled his eyes, jostling Steve's shoulder again. "Stop it. Don't look at me like that. It was a long time ago."
"Okay," Steve said carefully, "then why bring it up?"
"I don't know. I was just thinking about it."
Just thinking about it, Steve repeated in his head. What a thing to have to think about. "I'm going to get a drink," he said, standing.
Tony drained his glass and then held up his empty. "Make it a double."
It took Steve a minute or two to locate Pepper; she was talking to Phil Coulson behind a potted palm, her smile easy in Coulson's mannerly company. No risk Phil Coulson would embarrass her in public.
"Excuse me," Steve said, awkwardly joining them in the small space behind the foliage, "I hate to interrupt, but I need to speak to Miss Potts."
Pepper's face did something terrible in reply, crumpling like she might burst into tears. Steve frowned, not sure what to make of it. Coulson saw it, too, and laid a hand on her arm.
"Virginia—" he said softly.
"Oh, Phil." She sniffed once, then forced herself to smile. "It's okay. I'm fine."
"I'll be at the bar," he told her. "And I'm armed. Let me know if he needs to be shot. It'd be an accident, of course. Non-lethal."
"Thank you, Phil. I might consider it." She gave him a shaky smile as he departed, though the smile disappeared as soon as Coulson was out of sight. "Tony hit on you," she said bluntly. It wasn't a question. "I apologize. I don't know what's wrong with him tonight." Her face crumpled again. "I knew this would happen eventually. I knew it. And I told myself over and over again that I wouldn't let myself be surprised when—"
"No!" Steve interrupted, shocked. "No. Nothing like that. He didn't do that. Didn't make any kind of…of pass." Steve could barely get the words out, staggered by the mere suggestion. Of course Tony hadn't made a pass at him. The very notion was…well, it was ludicrous. And yet, that was immediately what Pepper and Coulson had assumed. The implications…he shook his head. He couldn't consider them now. "Listen, his parents died today. Did you know that?"
She blinked at him, uncomprehending. "His parents–?"
"Howard and Maria died on December 16th. That's today. He told me."
"Oh," she put a hand to chest, her face shifting rapidly through emotions: relief, surprise, finally landing on sympathy. "Oh 's why he's been so…so…"
"You should take him somewhere. Away from the party. I think he needs—" For a moment, Steve's mind flashed on a hard, narrow cot and a scrawny boy, head buried under the scratchy wool blankets, praying no one could hear his heartbreak. Steve wanted Tony to have the inverse of that memory tonight, wanted him to have a soft, private place to cry, and a soft, private shoulder to cry on. His eyes slid to Pepper's shoulders, beautiful and bare above her blue satin , Steve thought ruefully,that'd be an awfully nice place to cry."He needs someone."
"I'll take care of it. Of him," Pepper said, dabbing at her nose. "Would you go sit with him, Steve? Keep him company? Just for a minute? I need to find a car."
"Sure. I've got him."
Steve went back to bar, got a flute of champagne for himself, and refilled Tony's glass with ice water. "Here," he said, holding out the water when he returned to the sofa.
Tony squinted. "This isn't my order."
"You said 'make it a double.' You didn't say a double what."
"Ha." Tony accepted the glass, took a sip, watching as Steve resettled on the sofa. A peculiar look came over his face, intensely curious, like he'd just remembered Steve was the most fascinating creature in the whole world.
"What?" Steve asked, his heart beating faster under the minute attention.
"Can I ask you a question? It's personal. Highly irrelevant and invasive. Possibly you'll find it insulting." His dark eyes flickered over Steve's face like he was trying to decode it.
"Well…"
"Wait, a caveat: I will never tell another living soul the answer so long as we both shall live. I won't even admit to having asked the question." He seemed serious, though what Tony could possibly be serious about was a mystery.
"Alright," Steve said carefully. He took a sip of champagne, but it was a mistake: his stomach was already too full with some kind of fizz.
"Are you gay?"
Steve wasn't insulted, but he was shocked down to the marrow. "I…" He wasn't out, not to anyone. Hadn't touched another man since he'd woken up in the twenty-first century. Hadn't touched anyone, not like that. He'd been awake a year and some change, and some days he still barely felt competent to walk down a city street, much less try to take home a date. "Why would you ask me that?"
"Howard told me you were."
"Why did he say that?" Steve's blood went cold. It was different now. He knew that it was different, but it hadn't been that different when Howard was alive, and it felt like a terrible betrayal, like he'd been stabbed in the back years ago but was somehow only just finding the knife.
"He thought you were canoodling with Bucky ," Tony chortled. "Is that a forties word?"
"What?" Steve said absently, mind reeling. So Peggy hadn't been the only one who'd noticed…
"Canoodling. Did you say it? In the forties? Sounds forties."
"Not so much, no. But…but why did Howard say that to you,Tony?" Steve said urgently, trying to make Tony concentrate again.
"Oh," Tony waved his hand, indicating history, "he caught me canoodling with some guy at a pool party. We had a fight; I called him a bigot, and he whipped out the 'ole 'my best friend Captain America was gay!' defense. With the proviso that you were smart enough to keep it to yourself, of course, whereas I—" Tony shrugged. He reached for Steve's champagne, pulling it easily from Steve's loose fingers, and promptly drank half of it. He was going to be sosick, Steve thought— "So are you, Cap? Are you gay?"
"No."
"Huh." Tony seemed vaguely disappointed, deflating a little on the couch. "Well, you whiffed that one, Howie."
"No, he didn't. I mean…I'm…both. I like men and women. Bisexual. I guess." The word bisexual tasted funny; Steve hadn't ever said it before, not aloud. He wasn't altogether sure he liked it; the admission made him feel dangerously exposed, despite Tony's assurance that it would stay between them.
"Well, he got it half-right, then." And then Tony was looking at him again with that absorbed fascination. "I'm not out either, you know," Tony said. "Not publicly. I'm not ashamed or anything, but it is still a thing. I mean, maybe not in like, I don't know, professional poodle breeding or theatrical lighting, but the rainbow flag does not fly over the land of global armament. Anyone who says differently is selling something, and it ain't weapons—"
"Tony?" Pepper appeared with Tony's overcoat and scarf. "I got us a room at the Plaza. There's a car downstairs."
"Oh my god! Salvation!" Tony popped up immediately, the whole revelatory conversation abandoned in favor of a swift exit. "Pep, you are an angel from heaven." He swayed a little on his feet and reached for his coat, realizing belatedly he still had two glasses.
"I'll take those," Steve said, coming to his rescue.
"Look, and this one's an angel, too," Tony declared as Pepper slipped on his coat.
"Yes, he is," Pepper agreed, smiling at him over Tony's shoulder.
"Goodnight, Cap," Tony said. And then, going up on his toes, he kissed Steve right on the lips, throwing an arm around Steve's neck. With a glass in each hand, there was nothing for Steve to do but take it. "Welcome to the twenty-first century," Tony murmured as he sank back to the floor, winking as he turned and made his weaving way to the door.
It was the first kiss Steve had had in 67 years.
On paper, life stayed more or less exactly the same. Steve still woke up early, still got Morgan dressed, made her breakfast, fed the cats. Still said goodbye to Tony when he took Morgan out for the day, to the library or her children's music class or the zoo. Mostly, Tony still stayed home, working with the physical therapist and doing whatever it was he did on his tablet, and Steve still worried about him hiding out in the garage like a technologically-minded Quasimodo. But it took time to feel strong enough to engage with the wider world, and Steve didn't press him too much about it. Yet.
In the evenings, there was still bath time and dinner time and bedtime. Morgan and Tony were still careful of each other, mostly didn't touch, though she'd let Tony read her a story without a fuss, most nights at least. When she went to sleep, Steve still dispensed Seroquel and beers. He and Tony still watched television or played chess or read books on the couch. Only their Nighttime Activities had been rebranded; Tony now called them 'Courtship Rituals.' The rebrand was significant. At best, Nighttime Activities had only ever ended with Steve rubbing Tony's sore shoulders. Courtship Rituals ended…differently.
For example: Tuesday's Scrabble game.
"Ta da," Tony said, clicking down the last of his tiles. "Seven letters and an 'x' on the triple. I believe that is, ah, one million points–"
"Great." Steve rolled his eyes. "Hilarious. Now take it back, and play a real word."
"It is a real word. Want me to use it in a sentence? 'Get on your knees and suck my sexbone.' See? 'Sexbone.' Real word."
Steve shook his head. "'Really, Tony?"
"How do you know it's not real a word? Seriously. How do you know? Because we've invented plenty of new words since the forties. Internet, boombox, dongle—"
"And 'sexbone' you just invented in the last ten seconds, so—"
"Shakespeare invented hundreds of words, and they call him a genius. He made up the word 'eyeball.' Did you know that? And 'swagger.' And— "
"So you admit you made it up?"
"No. I admit nothing. You want to challenge, Steve?" Tony demanded with a defiant thrust of the chin. "Go ahead and challenge. You don't scare me."
"Yeah, I challenge. Give me the dictionary."
"Just hand you the instrument of my defeat?" Tony snatched the dog-eared Scrabble dictionary off the table and clutched it tight to his chest. "I don't think so. You're going to have to come over here and take it."
Steve rounded the kitchen table and pried the paperback from Tony's stubborn fingers. Flipping to the relevant page, he presented it to Tony for inspection.
"No 'sexbone,' Tony. Not a word."
"Isn't it?" Tony didn't even look at the entries, just tossed the dictionary back on the table without so much as a glance. "Then why do you have one?" He eyed the conspicuous bulge in Steve's pajama pants with a raised brow, reaching out to graze it teasingly with his fingers, making Steve's breath hitch. Steve was beginning to suspect the whole play had been carefully designed to get him on Tony's side of the kitchen table.
"Probably because your foot has been in my lap for the last fifteen minutes." The slow, deliberate press of Tony's socked foot against Steve's groin had made that last bit of gameplay particularly challenging. Five minutes more, and Steve would've forgotten how to spell his own name.
"Mmm. That would do it." Tony snagged the drawstring of Steve's waistband, wrapping the ends lazily around his fingers. "You know," he said, peering up from under those long, long lashes, "I find myself suddenly less-than-enchanted with Scrabble."
"Okay." Steve found he was suddenly less interested in the game, too. He was winning anyway; he'd mark it in his mind as a victory by default. "What do you want to do instead?"
"I want you to sit on the kitchen table."
"Why?" Steve took a step closer to Tony's chair, following the tug of Tony's fingers on the drawstring.
"Why do you think? Because I'm going suck your sexbone. Obviously. Now take your pants off, and park your beautiful ass on my placemat."
Afterwards, Steve fell asleep with Tony in the downstairs bedroom for a few hours. He staggered blearily up the stairs when Morgan woke at one, moved her into the master, and promptly passed out again with his little girl tucked under his arm.
Later, when he got up to use the bathroom, a Scrabble tile fell out of his underwear.
At three, Friday woke him again, this time about Tony. He was having another nightmare, and Steve went back downstairs. Maybe, he thought, yawning, they should take out the stairlift and install an escalator. Steve woke Tony gently, and they had sex again. They often did in those small, dark hours between the night and the morning. It was a different sort of sex than the kind they had earlier (later?) in the evenings. Tony wasn't funny, didn't flirt; he just reached for Steve in the dark, and Steve tried to give him what he needed, whatever seemed to comfort him. Afterwards, Steve stroked Tony's hair until he drifted back to sleep.
At six, Steve got up for good. He carefully untangled himself from Tony's sleep-heavy limbs, dressed, made the coffee, cleaned the litter box, and filled the cat bowl. He scrubbed the table aggressively with kitchen cleaner, and then put out fresh placemats, ones his bare ass had not been parked on at any point. Morning chores done, he settled into a chair, yawning over the newspaper. At six-thirty on the dot, he heard feet pounding down the upstairs hallway, less pitter-patter than full-on hailstorm.
"In the kitchen," he called.
"Good morning, Steve!"
Morgan came bounding down the stairs in her striped pajamas, Stanley hot on her heels. While Stanley went straight for her newly-filled bowl, Morgan went straight for Steve, crawling into his lap. He put his arms around her, stuck his nose in her hair as she cuddled up against his chest, talking excitedly about…something. Some grand plan involving Lincoln Logs and plastic dinosaurs. She also had a little pink purse, and she was waving it insistently.
"What's that, sweetheart?"
"A dinosaur zoo, Steve! I'm going to build a dinosaur zoo! Do you want to buy a ticket?"
"Can I get two? One for me, one for Tony when he wakes up?"
The reply wasn't instantaneous, but after a moment's consideration she said, "Okay. You can bring him. Two tickets."
"How much?"
"Eleventy dollars."
"Sounds fair.
She put out her hand. Steve reached into his pocket, pulled out some invisible bills, and slapped them into her palm. She snapped open her purse, deposited the invisible tender, and he received two tickets in return: the 'q' tile and a sparkly pink hair elastic. "I found them in the bathroom," she explained as she bounced out of his lap and darted back up the stairs. "I'll call you when it's ready! Don't forget your tickets!"
"I won't," he promised, considering the tickets in his palm. "Eleventy dollars," he said to himself. The real cost of the items in his hand was much higher, of course. Eleventy dollars, plus a decade of heartache, for a single Scrabble tile, a little girl's hair tie, and the privilege of taking Tony Stark to the dinosaur zoo.
All in all, it seemed like a square deal to Steve.
At breakfast one morning, Morgan declared she was going to Iowa for her birthday. In The World According to Morgan, there was to be a party with her cousins at the Big Farm with presents and balloons and rainbow lollipops. As Steve liked making Morgan's version of the world a reality as far as possible, he made a phone call.
"You coming to Iowa, Tony?" Steve asked gently, once he'd cleared it with Laura and Nat. He could read the uneasiness in Tony's face, his horror at the idea of a big, crowded house of people who hadn't seen him yet, all the complicated personal logistics...
"Daddy's coming," Morgan asserted with absolute confidence. "It's my birthday. There'll be pink cake. And a bouncy castle."
"Nothing more fun than a bouncy castle in a mid-west winter," Tony said, and then he put on his very best smile, the one he reserved for Morgan and Morgan alone. "Of course I'll be there, Morguna. Now about this cake: is the cake part pink or just the icing?"
"It's pink! It's pink all over!"
"Right. Pink on pink. And the flavor is strawberry maybe or...?"
"No! Not strawberry! The flavor is pink!"
Two weeks later, Bruce met them on a strip of runway in the middle of a cow pasture (aka Waterloo Aviation Incorporated) in the Barton family minivan.
"I can't believe it! I can't believe it!" Bruce exclaimed, throwing his arms around Tony in a bear hug as soon as they'd made it off the plane. "I mean, look at you! You're walking!"
"I'm hobbling," Tony said dismissively, but Steve could see he was secretly pleased. "And only with a walker. And, y'know, no further than the distance from the sofa to the refrigerator. Or, more accurately, the distance between the remote and the snacks."
"Yeah, right." Bruce helped Tony into the passenger seat while Steve buckled Morgan and stowed the luggage. "Because you have time to watch TV and read all those articles on biomimetics you keep sending. Actually," he eyed Tony as he settled behind the steering wheel, "maybe you should be watching more television and eating junk food. You're still very thin."
"The coma diet will do that to you," Tony said dismissively. "And I read in Vogue that heroin chic is back, so—"
"What's your doctor say?"
"I don't know. I have an appointment when we get back."
"Hmmm." For a second, Bruce met Steve's eyes in the rear view mirror then slid back to the road, letting it go for the time being. "I'm really happy you came, Tony."
"Missed me?"
"Well, sure. And I can't get the tractor to start. Laura needs it working so she can mow in the spring."
Tony turned with a grin and punched Bruce's shoulder. From the second row, Steve caught a flash of the unblemished side of his face, smiling wide, and for a moment, Steve felt like he was peeking into a different universe, one where the last few months had never happened. He wondered, not for the first time, if he'd be a big enough man to give Tony that universe, if he could. If Steve found some magic talisman that could restore Tony's life, give him back his arm and his child and his wife and all the rest of it, would Steve be able to use it? He wasn't sure and wished the pointless question had never occurred to him at all.
In the mirror, he could see the other half of Tony's face, the one that was etched with silver. That side was smiling, too. Surely, he told himself, surely that must count for something.
Nate Barton, three and a half, gaped at Tony, his chicken nuggets and carrot sticks untouched. Coop and Lila were watching Tony, too, though they were teenagers and more subtle about it (They, at least, moved their forks.), and Steve watched them all. He should have expected it, of course, given Morgan's initial (ongoing) reaction to Tony's dramatic appearance. Laura was quiet, clearly embarrassed by the children but not sure what to do. Bruce shifted in his seat, picking at his food. And Nat—Steve looked at her, and she looked back, raising an eyebrow—Nat was impossible to read.
"So," Tony said finally, putting down his fork, turning to address Nate in his booster seat, "I sense you have questions."
The table fell completely silent, and Steve winced internally. Nate blinked, his little mouth falling open.
"It's okay," Tony said, attempting matter-of-fact, but achieving only brittle. "I know I look kind of sca–" Tony almost said 'scary,' but one glance at Steve and he self-corrected, "different. I know I look different. Than other people. But the marks on my face are just scars. They're…" He dusted off the familiar words from Dr. Nakamura, "I got hurt. They're places where my body healed. But it healed sort of…" he couldn't find a suitable adjective and trailed off.
No response. Steve heard the heat click on in the quiet. He wished badly that Clint was there. Clint would have said something, provided the right word that would've eased the tension at the table, made everyone laugh, been just the right degree of mean so the meanness couldn't be mistaken for anything but old, well-worn affection…
"You know," Nat said, standing up from the table, "I have lots of scars, too." She said it easily, as if it were the most banal fact in the world. Then, in front of God and everybody, she pulled her shirt up to the line of her bra, displaying a dazzling array of old wounds: bullet holes, stab marks, shiny burns. "See?" She walked around the table to stand beside Nate. "You wanna touch them? You can." And there, in the dining room, Nate's little fingers grazed the marks of violence. "What do you think?"
"You must get hurt a lot." Nate poked at a round red pucker on her side. It was big, probably from a .38; she'd gotten very lucky, though it probably hadn't felt that way at the time.
"I used to," Nat agreed. "Not so much anymore."
"Scars mean you're tough," Coop said to Nate. "Aunt Nat's really tough. And Mr. Stark," he looked at Tony straight on for the first time, "Mr. Stark's really tough, too." Tony gave him a nod, and Coop nodded back.
"Daddy had a lot of scars," Lila offered. "Remember, Nate? On his arms?"
"Yes," Nate said readily, though Steve wondered if it were true. He turned to look at his own small child, the one who had also lived an eternity the past few months. She was sitting in the chair beside him, watching the proceedings with interest. Nat noticed, too, and she moved from Nate's chair to Morgan's, her shirt still up around her ribs.
"You want to feel them, Morgan?" Nat asked casually, and Morgan nodded, reaching out to stroke one of the marks with two fingers. Absurdly, Steve thought of the rabbit they'd gotten to pet at the -finger touch,its handler had instructed, whisking it from child to child. Obediently, gently, he and Morgan had stroked its silken back.
"They're just bumpy skin," said Morgan, sounding surprised.
"Yeah." Nat agreed, pulling down her shirt when Morgan was through. "Just skin. So are your dad's scars. Bet they feel just like mine."
"Do you have any scars, Steve?" Morgan wondered, turning to Steve.
"No," Steve said. He looked at Tony across the table. "But I'm not as tough as your dad."
Laura wrapped a quilt around Tony's shoulders and put a mug of tea into his hand. "I'm sorry. It's a little cold."
"No. I'm fine. Cozy." Tony was being polite. It was, in fact, freezing. The house was old and dramatically and dramatically under-insulated,Tony thought unhappily,just like me. Even with three pairs of socks and a wool sweater, he still had to strangle the urge to wear Steve like a blanket. Currently, Tony and his would-be blanket were at opposite ends of the sofa separated by a nice, polite cushion-length. It sucked. It sucked serious ass. It had been a hard day, and Tony wanted the kind of comfort only the Boyfriend-in-chief could provide.
"It's the windows," Laura said, settling in the gap between them. "They're original to the house, but nights like this I dream of replacing them with double panes."
"Oh my god, Clint just rolled in his grave," Nat laughed. She looked plenty warm, curled on Bruce's lap in the sagging armchair closest to the fireplace.
"I know, I know," Laura said easily. "That's what's keeping me from doing it. You remember that summer we repainted—?"
"And Clint had to hand-scrape all the sills and pry open every window because they were painted shut?" Nat finished.
"And it was so hot. Ninety everyday," Laura remembered. "One afternoon, Lila came inside and asked me what 'fuck this shit' meant. She was…six, I think? Seven? And before I could say anything, Coop gasps, 'Those are Daddy's secret words! Only he's allowed to say them! And if you hear them, you can't tell Mom.' So Lila, she looks right at me, totally horrified, and tells me I'm not allowed to tell Daddy she said his secret words."
"I bet Daddy heard some secret words later," Nat chuckled.
"Daddy did." Laura smiled at the memory. "You know, it's probably time to paint again, Nat."
"We'll do it this summer. And guess who'll be helping?" Nat turned a meaningful smile on the assembled men, finishing with Bruce, who couldn't quite hide his grimace.
"I think I might be busy then," Bruce muttered.
"That's right," Nat said, pecking him on the lips. "Busy painting."
Tony looked away, feeling a sharp pang of jealousy. He envied them everything, all of it: the armchair, the proximity to the fire, the PDA. He envied Nat's nonchalance about the scars on her body, the way she freely offered them up for the kids to poke at. He envied the way they were talking about Clint. And the thing was, there was nothing to prevent Tony from having that stuff, if he were brave enough to fucking take it. Steve was so gone for him that Tony could stand up, plop down in Steve's lap in front of their friends, and make Steve the happiest guy in the tri-state area. Likewise, Tony could tell a story about Pepper, something funny and apropos, maybe about the time he'd come home towards the end of her pregnancy to discover she'd coated an entire wall of the nursery with a stunning array of tester pots, seventeen practically indistinguishable shades of warm cream. "I just can't decide!" she'd said, completely serious. It was totally bonkers, some weird result of insomnia and nesting hormones gone berserk, and he'd gotten lots of comedic mileage out of it after. It might feel good to talk about her, good to remember her, but his grief suddenly felt so close, and…
Tony's gaze sank into the murky depths of his tea, and fuck if there weren't a couple fish in it, a pair of teeny, tiny fry, like finned specks of dust. He put the mug on the coffee table and sighed.
"Tony," Laura asked, "are you alright?"
"I'm tired. I think I might go to bed."
"You need a hand?" Steve offered, but Tony shook his head.
"No. You stay." He felt very old shuffling away from the group with his walker and three pairs of socks.
Since it was downstairs, the Rogers-Stark household been given Lila's bedroom. It was pale pink with flowered drapes pulled shut against the cold mid-western night and a shabbily grand antique four poster with a trundle that pulled out. Tony climbed into the old bed carefully; it was tall and squishy, and made him feel like the Princess and the Pea. He lay on the very edge of the mattress, looking down at the trundle with his little girl asleep smack-dab in the middle of it. God, he wanted to go down there, sleep with her under the pile of patchwork quilts and down comforters. He knew so well what she felt like, her heat, her smell. There was nothing like the smell of your own child; it unlocked some kind of primal contentedness, and he craved it like a drug. He knew he'd never recover from the addiction, he'd just keep craving it until the moment his broken heart finally did him in.
He rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling. It was covered in green-glowing plastic stars, just like the last time he'd slept in the pink room. A decade earlier, when they were all on the run, he'd slept here with Steve, the only time they'd shared a bedroom until the present day. They'd been so angry with each other then, Tony remembered, the air crackling with it as they'd listened to each other breathing in the dark.
The door opened a crack, and Steve crept in, noiseless on his sock feet. "Tony?" he whispered.
"Yeah," Tony whispered back, and Steve crawled onto the bed beside him, slipping under the covers, fitting himself to Tony's side.
"You shouldn't," Tony said half-heartedly, suddenly warm for the first time in hours. "Morgan—"
"I'll move in a minute," Steve assured him. Tony could feel his cold nose pressing into the side of his neck, nuzzling behind his ear. He remembered doing the same thing to Pepper, only her hair was so long, it always wound up in his mouth. "You could've stayed, you know," said Steve quietly. "Could've cried, even, if you felt like it." Tony stiffened; he didn't know he'd been that easy to read. "Every person in that room understands, sweetheart. No one would've minded."
Tony didn't believe him; nobody liked a sad sack. If he'd have stayed, he would've ruined their nice time. But then, Tony supposed he'd already ruined their nice time; Steve had obviously left to come check on him.
Tony sighed, "What's wrong with me?"
Steve started to sift through his hair. "Wrong with you? How do you mean?"
"The way they talk about Clint, I can't do that with…" Right now, it was hard to even say her name. "I can't do it. And it isn't that I don't want to, Steve. I do. I think about her constantly. But I…" he didn't know what came next and stopped.
"They've just had more time with it. You should've seen us at Thanksgiving. Somebody was crying constantly. We did it in shifts. Christmas wasn't much better. This is your first significant event without her, Tony. And with the way things are with Morgan—it's hard. It was always going to be hard. You don't have to pretend that it isn't."
But Steve was wrong: Tony did have to pretend. His 'normal person' routine was all that was keeping him together sometimes, though it wasn't always an act. There were swaths of time when Tony did feel perfectly normal. Sometimes, when he was flirting with (or fucking) Steve, he was even happy, but it could all turn on a dime.
Last week, he'd been digging through his toolbox and found one of Pepper's earrings mixed in with the screws, a pearl stud that she'd worn all the time. He'd helped look for it when it had disappeared: poking around in the sofa cushions, peering under the bed with a flashlight, digging through the dustbin on the robot vacuum. He couldn't believe it had , Pep! Check it out! Look what I found!Then it had hit him: she was dead. For a whole heartbeat, he'd been so excited, he had actually forgotten. How'd you forget something like that? And then he'd been so crushed by sadness, he'd thought he'd never be happy again. It was like Pep had just collapsed dead in front of him, her body crumpled up on the shop floor. He'd dropped the earring back in the screws, slammed shut the toolbox, and pretended nothing had happened. What else was he supposed to do? Constantly go to pieces? He was doing that anyway.
He still regularly had dreams that left him shaking, and he couldn't hide them because the Boyfriend-in-chief had asked Friday for notifications. Tony thought about canceling them, keeping the nightmares to himself, but he didn't have the personal strength. He craved Steve in the aftermath, wanted to hold Steve's warm, real, not-dead body, wanted Steve's warm, real, not-dead cock inside him as physical proof that Tony too was alive and capable of something other than misery though all of it made Tony guilty in the morning. It felt like he was sullying Pepper's memory and exploiting the Boyfriend-in-chief at the same time…
"Tony?" Steve asked. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know. That maybe this is all crazy. That maybe I'm crazy. Rhodey thinks it's crazy, you know. On some level, I think it's crazy."
"What's crazy?"
"This. All of this. I mean, I dream about my dead wife, and then I wake up and want to fuck you. I want to talk about my dead wife, but I want to talk about her with you. Quite possibly while sitting in your lap."
"I don't think it's crazy," Steve's voice was warm, unruffled, his fingers still sifting hypnotically through the hair at Tony's temples.
"Isn't it? And it's…" He swallowed hard. "I still love her, Steve. I miss her. Shouldn't I, I don't know, stop doing that before I…?"Before I fall madly in love with you?The question was already coming late for consideration.
"Let me get this straight: you plan to stop loving Pepper Potts? Because I'll be honest, I just don't see that happening."
"No," Tony sighed. "Me neither."
"So, what do you want to do? You want to stop seeing me, Tony?" Steve didn't sound the least bit worried about the answer, just kept petting Tony's hair. He was going to put Tony to sleep if he did it much longer.
"No." Tony turned in Steve's arms, burying his face in Steve's chest. "I still think this is crazy, but, ironically, I think you're also the only thing keeping me sane."
They put the bouncy castle on the leeward side of the house, sheltered from the worst of the cold, and Morgan and Nate happily jumped in their coats and mittens. Before long, Nat was jumping, too, and then Coop and Lila and Laura. Bruce had to be bullied. Steve and Tony, the lone holdouts, watched from lawn chairs set up under a patio heater.
"Come on!" Nat yelled across the dead winter grass. "Avengers assemble!"
"Yeah, right ! What am I supposed to do in there?" Tony yelled back. "Collapse?"
"We jump gently! We've got preschoolers in here, remember?"
"Forget it!"
"Oh, come on!" Nat insisted. "We won't let you get hurt! Haul him in here, Steve!"
"Not me!" Steve protested, laughing. "I'll break it!"
"No, you won't! It's rated for a thousand pounds!"
Steve looked over at Tony, considering, and then—
"Put me down! Rogers! No! Oh my god!" Tony beat at Steve with his fist, but there wasn't much he could do draped backwards over Steve's shoulder. Steve pulled off Tony's sneakers with one hand, toed out of his own, and then clambered up the inflatable ramp into the crowd of bouncing, laughing bodies.
"Don't let me fall!" Tony said with real alarm as Steve set his feet on the unsteady ground.
"I won't," Steve promised, wrapping an arm around his waist. "I won't let you go. Ready?"
"Whenever it's early twilight, I watch 'til a star breaks through—" Steve sang to himself, scrubbing icing off a cake plate. The icing was stubborn stuff, violently pink, and had stained everyone's teeth. When the plate was clean, he handed it to Nat, ready with a dishtowel.
"So," Nat said casually, slipping the dry plate back in the cabinet, "how's the sex?"
The dish Steve was scrubbing slipped from his hand and fell back in the sink with a muted clatter, sinking under the pink water.
Nat smirked, "Sometimes I can't believe we let you do covert ops. You've got absolutely no poker face."
"I don't know what you mean," Steve said, feeling his cheeks flush pink as the dishwater.
"Steve," Nat said flatly.
"Fine." There wasn't any point in denying it. She had him dead to rights. "How'd you know?"
"Well, I didn't know for sure until you dropped the plate." He winced at his stupidity, and Nat noticed that, too. "Don't beat yourself up. Tony's the one who stopped wearing his ring. Five months ago, he was Married with a capital 'M.' He wouldn't have taken it off if he weren't seeing someone."
"That doesn't mean he's seeing me." Steve retrieved his plate from the water, scrubbing it harder than strictly necessary.
"Who else could it be, Rogers? You said yourself he barely leaves the house. Honestly, I was surprised when you told me he was coming out here. I am less surprised now."
"What's that supposed to mean?" He handed her the re-washed plate, relieved his hands were steady again at least.
"It means he didn't want to be without you for a week."
"He came for Morgan, Nat, not for me."
"Maybe, but you being here certainly didn't hurt. I mean, the way he looks at you—" she paused, putting away another dish..
"The way he looks at me?" Steve prodded, unable to let her sentence go unfinished.
"Like you're the most interesting thing he's ever seen. Don't tell me you don't know what I'm talking about."
"No, I do." It felt immodest to admit to somehow, but Steve knew exactly the look she was talking about. Tony would just stare at him sometimes, eyes moving over Steve's face like he was trying to memorize it, or maybe like, if he concentrated hard enough, he could read its lines and learn some mysterious secret of the universe. Whenever Steve caught him doing it, it lit Steve up inside, even though he was positive he wasn't nearly captivating enough to warrant it.
"He obviously adores you. My question is: why are you keeping this a secret?"
"Evidently, we're not."
"Attempting to keep it a secret, then."
Steve sighed and resumed his dishwashing, hoping to find a convincing answer in the suds. "We agreed we should be discreet around Morgan. I don't know how she's going to react. And her relationship with Tony is on such shaky ground already—"
"She still won't touch him."
"Barely. I mean, you've seen it. And he won't initiate. He just won't. I've tried to talk to him about it, but…" he shrugged. His inability to fix the Starks was the biggest frustration in his life. The puzzle only had two damn pieces, but he just couldn't make them fit. He was at the point where he wanted to either handcuff them together or duct tape Morgan directly to Tony's lap.
"That explains why you're not telling Morgan. It doesn't explain why you wouldn't tell me."
"It's still pretty new, Nat."
"New?" Nat scoffed, accepting another clean dish. "New?Rogers, you've been threatening to fuck each other for at least ten years. You might as well go ahead and buy the ring. Which brings me back to my original question: how's the sex?"
"No comment."