Chapter 2: I Was a Fool (But Now I Understand)

The headache began the second Tony sat up, followed immediately thereafter by the urgent need to vomit. He half-staggered, half-ran to the bathroom, flipped on the light, and threw himself to the floor in front of the toilet. His knees hit the tile hard enough to bruise, but the more pressing concern was the torrent of booze-flavored bile pouring out of his mouth. Fuck. He hadn't been this hungover in years.

It was worse than he remembered: the tile felt like hell under his middle-aged knees, and the vomit was sticky and sour in his hair. A cold, clammy feeling crawled over Tony, and it only had so much to do with the alcohol gushing out his stomach like water from a fire —his mind screeched to a halt. There shouldn't be vomit in his hair because his hair didn't hang in front of his face. It shouldn't be dragging in the toilet water. He wasn't fucking Alice Cooper, not last he checked. In the brief lull between one bout of nausea and the next, Tony chanced a look down at his body, at the soft, protruding mounds of tissue on either side of the arc reactor, and the distinct lack of protruding tissue between his aching , he thought, vomiting again, fingers in a white-knuckle clench on the edge of the toilet bowl. And really, 'fuck' did not even begin to cover it.

He threw up the rest of the alcohol, dry-heaved a few times for good measure, and then collapsed into a little ball on the bathroom floor, knees pulled up to his chest tight enough that he could feel the press of breasts against his thighs. He squeezed his eyes shut against both the light and a sudden, terrifying rush of hypotheticals. What if he were stuck like this forever? Would he get kicked off the board? Off the Avengers? Would that be discrimination? Could he sue? Would he sue?

Would Steve divorce him? Would Steve still love him?

No. He clamped down hard on that line of thinking. He was still metabolizing the alcohol in his system, including whatever shit he'd gotten from Sif. Honestly, who knew how long it took for human livers to process alien booze? He just had to stay calm and wait it out. And, given the way he felt, he would probably wait it out right here, curled up in the fetal position on the bathroom floor. Just the thought of trying to make it back to the bed made him want to hurl, and the chill tile felt oddly soothing against his naked, fevered skin.

He just had to wait it out. It would be fine.

The alternative was too terrible to contemplate.

At about 7:30, Steve heard Tony's feet hit the floor at a run. With his ear pressed once again to the bedroom door, Steve had listened to Tony vomiting his guts up, followed by total silence, which meant Tony was lying on the bathroom floor, needing water and aspirin and a helping hand back to bed. It did not matter what his body looked like, what his voice sounded like, Steve told himself. Tony needed help, and it was Steve's job to provide it. It was his duty as a husband. This, he thought, collecting himself, was one of those for better or worse times, and he would see it through. With newfound resolve, he retrieved some supplies from the kitchen and, screwing his courage to the sticking place, entered the bedroom.

With the blackout curtains drawn, the bedroom was very dark; there was only a sliver of light eking out from under the door to the bath. Steve set a water bottle and three aspirin on the bedside table, anticipating a need for free hands, and went to rap gently on the bathroom door.

"Tony?" No response. He tried the knob and, in his mind, began throwing up a fervent prayer to God and the Virgin Mary and Saint Michael and anyone else he thought might be listening in. The door was unlocked, and he eased it open, blood rushing in his ears. It was just possible that everything was back to normal. It was possible that in the last five minutes Tony had thrown up whatever, that Steve was going to find him back in the right body, that the worst thing he'd have to contend with behind that door would be whiny, headache-y Tony. Maybe he'd be lying on the floor, blue-black five o'clock shadow spreading around his carefully trimmed beard, eyes bloodshot, hungover, with (blessedly) no memory of last night at all. Maybe, maybe…The prayers Steve was sending fizzled out. As Steve feared, there he was (Or she was? Steve was still on the fence.), crumpled up on the floor, long dark hair spread across the white porcelain tile.

"Yes, Steve," Tony said croakily, eyes closed, face pressed to knees, "I still have tits. And I feel like shit. And, after you bring me a coffee, I'll even let you say 'I told you so.'"

Nope, Steve finally decided, shaking his head. Tony was still 'he,' because breasts or no breasts, that was definitely his husband curled up on the floor. In all the world, only Tony could manage that particular degree of flippancy under these circumstances.

"You can even say it now and later," Tony's dark eyes opened, and he tipped up his narrow face, "if the coffee comes with an aspirin."

"How about a bottle of water first?" Steve said, and was relieved that his voice, at least, sounded normal. He crouched down and, tentatively, picked up the tiny ball of Tony, holding him close to his chest. Against his forearms, Steve could feel the layer of cold sweat all over Tony's body and the faint shiver twitching Tony's frame. "Tony, you're freezing."

"Yeah, well, hangover sweat and a tile floor will do that to you," Tony said as Steve deposited him back in the bed and pulled the covers up over Tony's naked breasts, "That and blind terror."

"Blind terror, huh?" Steve handed him the aspirin and the water bottle, willing himself to focus on Tony's words and not the voice or vessel.

"Oh, yeah." Tony swallowed the pills before subsiding back against the pillows, eyes closed. "Total and complete panic."

"That you'll be stuck like this?" Steve sat down gently on the edge of the bed.

"Honestly, more that I'll be stuck like this and that you'll divorce me and then take all my money and never talk to me again." Tony's eyes remained resolutely closed during this admission, and while he tried to sound flip, Steve knew better. Steve sighed.

"Tony," he said, reaching for the lump under the covers that he knew was Tony's hand, "look at me, please." Tony opened his eyes, and they were exactly the eyes that Steve knew so well. "You're not going to be stuck like this." Tony swallowed hard and looked away. "But," Steve continued gently, "even if you were, I would never, ever leave you. Ever. You're stuck with me."

Tony sniffled, turning back with wet eyes. "Yeah? You sure? 'Cause if you're gonna want alimony, I need to call my attorney."

"I'm sure."

"You're still mad at me, though, right?"

Steve considered this question. He let his eyes run over the strange face in the bed, an uncanny blend of the known eyes set into foreign planes. It was, in so many ways, the face of a stranger, but it wore an achingly familiar expression of vulnerability. It was not, in the end, a face he could be angry with. He felt a knot of psychic tension dissolve somewhere, and the corresponding tightness in his shoulders and in his chest relaxed.

"No," he said honestly, "not really. Not anymore."

It seemed like a good time to prove it. He stood up and leaned over the bed, bringing their mouths together. Well, almost.

Steve was going to kiss him. Which was wonderful. The most wonderful thing that Tony could possibly imagine. Tony loved kissing Steve. Kissing Steve felt simultaneously like coming home, finally, after a long, long time and like embarking on an adventure. He loved kissing Steve so much that sometimes he would randomly look at other people in the world and feel smug pity for them because they would never know the joy of kissing Steve with teeny dog in purse? Will never kiss Steve Rogers. That guy buying a coffee? Will never kiss Steve Rogers. Kissing Captain America was the most reassuring and esteem-boosting activity that Tony could think of and, at that moment, Tony sure felt like he needed both.

Which meant it came as much of a shock to Tony as it did to Steve when he turned his face away, presenting Steve with a cheek instead of his mouth. It wasn't a conscious decision, not really; it was an animal reaction to a sudden, overwhelming swell of anxiety.

Tony saw Steve blink in the corner of his eye, nonplussed, but Steve recovered almost immediately. He didn't even kiss Tony's cheek, steering his lips instead to the shell of Tony's ear.

"I love you, Tony," he whispered, almost too softly to hear, then straightened, "Alright. I'm going to make some coffee and get dressed upstairs. I'll get Jarvis to tell you when I'm headed back down."

Oh, shit. Don't leave, Tony thought, but he could feel himself nodding.

"Okay. I'll be back. Call me if you need anything."

Stop nodding! Let me explain.

Steve was already out the door, in the very act of pulling it shut behind him. It was now or never. I'm sorry, Tony wanted to say. I'm freaking out. I want to unzip my skin. This is easily the stupidest thing I've ever done, and I have done so many stupid things…

"Steve!" he blurted. Steve stopped, peered around the door, eyebrows raised expectantly. "I…"Make with the apology, Tony screamed in his head. What came out was: "Don't tell anybody."

Steve made a face, a horrible, quintessentially Steve face that managed to combine tenderness, compassion, disappointment, and worry in equal amounts, and made Tony feel unbelievably guilty.

"I don't think that's…" Steve sighed, relented, "Okay. I won't. Not today, anyway." Then he closed the bedroom door with a soft click.

Tony felt sick and disgusted with himself. As soon as the door closed, he began to count down. Twenty seconds should get Steve onto the elevator, he reasoned, and when those twenty seconds had elapsed, Tony bolted out of the bed. After a reeling moment of nausea, he retrieved his boxer briefs from the pool of his expensive pants and pulled them on, then began to ransack the dresser. All the guest suites were stocked with some basics for unexpected overnight guests, and the drawers yielded sweatpants and a t-shirt in short order. They were both oversized, but when he briefly considered his reflection in the mirror, they didn't swamp him the way he wanted. He wanted a mumu, a full tent, but the voluminous jersey had a clingy drape, and there was absolutely no way he would tolerate even a hint of visible nipple.

He opened and then slammed shut another series of drawers, catching hanging ends of his long hair at least twice. His long hair that still sorta-kinda smelled like vomit. Fuck. He really needed a shower, but he didn't think he could face nakedness again, not right now, particularly if it involved scrubbing parts of his anatomy that he was trying to will into non-existence with every fucking breath. Please, he pleaded with the universe at large, please fix this before bathing becomes mission critical or I have to pee sitting down.

He found a drawer filled with thick hoodies. He selected one in black, hoping it was sufficiently box-like for his purposes, and zipped it up. He chanced another look in the mirror and felt slightly relieved. Behind the oversized black bulk, he could be anyone, anything. If he squinted, he could even pass for himself.

He grabbed the water bottle off the bedside table and then opened the bedroom door a tiny, tiny crack. As he expected, the suite was empty, so he scuttled into the elevator and pressed the button for the floor of his private shop. It had a sofa and a coffee maker and, most importantly, a locking door. He couldn't face Steve when he came back with the coffee and the concern, he just couldn't. He was going to camp out and watch bad television until such a time that the physical manifestation of his unbelievable stupidity disappeared. It couldn't take more than a few more hours. He felt like shit, but dread was making him sober up fast.

Please, he thought as the elevator lurched to life, please don't let me puke in here.

Steve chewed his lip in the elevator, considering. He had decided to take his time upstairs; Tony clearly needed some space, and maybe, if Tony spent long enough waiting for coffee, he'd actually drink some water. And maybe, Steve caught himself thinking for the hundredth time, if I take long enough, Tony will just be normal by the time I get back. And maybe he would be. Steve wasn't going to write the possibility off completely; he was an optimist. But eight hours in, he was also beginning to consider other scenarios. What if Tony needed some kind of... magic antidote? And what if they couldn't get in contact with Thor or his friends to get it? Sometimes, Thor was unreachable for months at a time. How long should they let this problem try to solve itself before they called a doctor? How long before they needed to inform the team? Steve wasn't sure himself, but he suspected that, for Tony, the answers involved some variations on 'infinity' and 'never.' Which meant, unless everything magically (literally magically) sorted itself out in the next 24 hours, Tony was going to force his hand. It made him feel grim.

The elevator arrived at the penthouse, and the doors slid open to reveal post-party Armageddon: worse-for-wear decorations, misplaced costume pieces, dirty dishes, and sticky glasses on every flat surface. Thank god there didn't seem to be any hungover guests among the wreckage.

There was, however, Bruce. He had unearthed an armchair from the landfill that used to be the living room and was having a cup of coffee and reading the New York Times Book Review. His lab coat from the previous evening was neatly folded over the arm of the chair. It was clearly an ambush.

"Bruce," Steve said by way of greeting.

Bruce smiled and put down his paper, "Good morning. I made coffee. It's pretty fresh." His face was more hang-dog than usual, and he didn't look like he'd shaved. Up all night, probably. "Hey, I hope you don't mind that I helped myself to your paper."

"Not unless you did my crossword."

"What kind of monster do you think I am?" Bruce asked genially, trailing Steve into the big chrome kitchen. Steve could feel himself being watched as he poured a cup of coffee, added some cream from the fridge. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how does the crossword go for you?" asked Bruce.

"You mean, how does the crossword go for a guy who's been frozen in ice and missed sixty years worth of television? About like you'd expect." Steve paused, tasting his coffee. "So, you don't take this the wrong way, but exactly what are you doing here?"

"Uninvited, in your apartment, at seven-thirty in the morning?'"

"Right."

"Uh, brunch?"

"Try again."

Bruce rubbed the back of his neck. "Well," he said reluctantly, "that's sorta hard to explain. The short answer? I had this idea that you might need a doctor."

"You did, huh?" Steve kept his face carefully neutral, but, inside, he could feel a little blip of something, hope or relief maybe. Tony didn't want anyone to know about his current predicament, would maybe never forgive Steve for telling anyone about it, but if by some sort of miracle Bruce already knew—"What's the long answer?"

Bruce sucked his teeth and adopted the pained expression of someone who is picking their words one by one, "You left sort of abruptly last night with that woman—heh, I say 'woman,'—that person—" Bruce paused and looked closely at Steve, clearly hoping for some encouragement, but Steve just lifted his eyebrows. Bruce continued, "When you never came back, I started noticing that Tony was gone, too, and he never came back and that, er, person never came back, either—feel free to stop me here, Steve, and tell me it's none of my business."

"It's none of your business," Steve said, not missing a beat. "Now, keep talking." Steve struggled to keep his suddenly acute level of expectation off his face.

"Well," Bruce continued, even more reluctantly than before, as if he had to actually pry each word out of his own mouth, "then I realized that the person you'd dragged into the elevator had been wearing a suit that looked a lot like Tony's. I mean a lot like Tony's, minus the jacket, and—hold on…" Bruce disappeared into the living room, reappearing a moment later with a Zegna suit jacket. He held it up for Steve's inspection. In the front pocket, there was a bat-patterned pocket square. Bruce watched Steve's face, but when Steve said nothing, he draped it on the counter. "I also found this under the edge of the DJ platform." Bruce dug in his shirt pocket, extending a closed fist.

When Steve presented his cupped palm, a thick gold ring dropped into it. Steve didn't need to look at it, but he did anyway, turning it between his thumb and forefinger until the single inlaid ruby was staring him in the face. Tony's wedding ring. Steve felt a stab of something in his chest accompanied by a little surge of heat behind his eyes. Unbidden, he could feel the ghost of Tony's hand, the warm weight of it resting on his own. He could feel the slide of the gold ring over Tony's finger, the slight resistance as it caught on Tony's square mechanic's knuckle. But that wasn't Tony's hand now, was it? The big square knuckle meant to hold back this ring had been magicked into the ether, leaving the heavy band to drop unnoticed to the floor. Were Tony's calluses still there? Steve suddenly wondered. Was the nail on Tony's right hand still torn from working on that car? Damn it, get it together, Steve chided himself. He had thought he was done being upset, thought he'd moved on from the feeling of crisis to the management of crisis. Bruce cleared his throat, and Steve shook himself, jamming the ring deep in the front pocket of his pants.

"Those are Tony's, right?"

Steve only managed a curt nod.

"So," Bruce continued slowly, "I know Tony was drinking with the Asgard crowd, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but did Tony maybe, accidentally, I dunno, drink some sort of alien hooch that turned him into a woman?"

"That is crazy, Bruce," Steve agreed, "but then again, aliens invaded New York City."

"I turn into a big green rage monster," Bruce said, supplying another example.

"Norse gods came to the Halloween party. It's a crazy world," Steve agreed. There was a moment of silence while Bruce looked at the floor, nudging at a scatter of glitter with the toe of his sneaker.

"So, just to be clear, what you're saying is that Tony didn't accidentally drink magic potion or something?"

Steve took a big inhale through his nose, like he was about to take a dive. And he was. This was it. The clutch. He could bring Bruce in, enlist an ally, or he could lie. He could give Tony more time. He tried to do the emotional calculus, but gave up and went with his gut, "No. That isn't what I'm saying. What I'm saying is he did it on purpose."

Bruce looked up sharply from the sparkles now clinging to his shoe, his mouth hanging open, faintly disbelieving even as Steve confirmed his own hypothesis.

"He drank it on purpose, Bruce." As much as he tried to keep it out, there was a trace of something desperate in Steve's voice. "And so far, he's been stuck that way."

Bruce blinked owlishly. "Hmmm," he said finally. "So... you gonna try to get Tony to come to the lab, or should I make a house call?" And Steve loved him dearly for the underreaction.

"I know you'll need to do tests," Steve said, "but dragging him to the lab right now would involve a lot of kicking and screaming."

"I can do a physical exam wherever you guys are holed up."

"Will that be useful?"

"It would answer some basic questions that I have."

Steve did not want to know what those were. He scratched his beard, considering. Tony wasn't going to like this, but Steve suspected he'd be much more cooperative after he got over the initial mortifying fact that Bruce knew about his predicament. He might even be relieved; Steve sure was. They needed a medical professional on this, and they needed one now, not 24 or 48 hours from now.

"Jarvis," Steve said, "Tell Tony I'm headed back down in five minutes. Bruce, go get your kit."

"Not gonna mention I'm coming?" Bruce asked uneasily.

"We're going for the element of surprise." Steve moved back towards the coffee pot to pour Tony a cup when Jarvis broke in.

"Captain Rogers," Jarvis said, with something like mild embarrassment, "Regarding your return visit to the guest suite, I have been... instructed to say that Sir is out of the building."

Steve plunked the coffee pot down and looked at the ceiling, "Run that by me one more time."

"Yes, Captain. I have been instructed to say that Sir is out of the building."

"Interesting phraseology," Bruce observed mildly.

Steve braced his arms against the counter and let his head fall forward between his shoulders. "Jarvis," he said tiredly, "have you also been instructed to revoke my entry privileges to Tony's shop?"

There was a moment of hesitation before the reply, "I am not at liberty to say, Captain."

Well, there was a non-answer answer. Steve rolled his eyes. Hand it to Tony to find a way to complicate a pre-existing crisis. Here Steve had started planning an ambush, and it was shaping up to be a siege.