Oversexed Sickos: Part 1

December 27, 1991. Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Upstate New York.

Obie looked terrible in black, like the spawn of a linebacker and a coal car. Tony sighed, wishing he'd stop it already with the eulogizing. It wasn't the place for it; Obie should have waxed elegiac in the church along with everyone else. It was too fucking cold to stand around graveside. Too fucking cold, and too fucking bright, and Tony was too fucking high. He'd just wanted to take the edge off a little, but he'd overdone it like he always did, and now he was twitchy and nauseous, picking at his nails.

"Stop," Candice hissed, laying a gloved hand over his bare ones.

Candice.

What was she even doing here? He hadn't called her, hadn't invited her. He wasn't even convinced she particularly liked him. She'd just read about the accident in the paper along with everyone else and taken it upon herself to come to the funeral because they'd been fucking like bunnies for the past semester. Still, Tony let his hands go still under the suppressing squeeze of her fingers. He shut his eyes behind his sunglasses, trying to exhale slowly, push away the too-high feeling. Then again, he was more focused on his queasy stomach than his dead mother, so maybe he was the perfect level of high…

No…

No, wait.

No, actually, he was going to throw up.

He popped up out of the white folding chair, walking briskly away from the green McVeigh and Sons canopy into the surrounding cemetery. A few concerned faces turned after him, but no one followed. Giving him space? Didn't give a shit? Who could say?

It was an old cemetery, dense with Astors and Carnegies and oak trees. Stepping behind a likely-looking mausoleum, Tony put his hands on his knees and heaved into a patch of snow. There wasn't much in it, a bite or two of toast, maybe, black coffee.

"Tony?" A pair of pointy patent heels appeared at the edge of the bile-tinged snow. "You okay?"

"Do I look okay?" he snapped, then puked again. To her credit, he guessed, Candice didn't run, just offered him a pink Kleenex from a little plastic package. He dragged it over his mouth as he straightened, then stuffed it deep in his coat pocket. He shouldn't have snapped at her. Even if she didn't actually like him that much, they were dating, and she'd come. Maybe that counted for something. No one else from school had shown, not even Rhodey who was on deployment and couldn't get away.

"Thanks," he said begrudgingly, pushing the sunglasses back up his nose, then, still guilty, he reached for her, pulling her to his chest, wrapping her up. She did smell good, he reflected, sticking his nose in her blonde perm. Candice always smelled good, like fresh dry cleaning and the cosmetics counter at Saks, and her body was warm against him, particularly where her cheek was pressed against his sternum, right there in the middle. Even that little piece of human contact was melting him right now. He needed her suddenly or, if not her, somebody. His mother, he thought. He needed to hug his mother. Wanted it so much it would rip him in two if…

"Are you ready?" Candice asked, starting to pull away from him, but he didn't let go. Instead, he started to back her up, trapping her between his body and the icy cold stone of the mausoleum.

"Uh, what are you doing?" she tittered.

Not thinking of my dead mother was the actual answer, but he couldn't say that. "Turn around," he murmured low, trying to make it sexy, which was challenging when what he kind of wanted to do was curl in a ball and cry.

He wasn't sure she'd let him; her big, blue, mascara-lashed eyes were nervous, getting bigger all the time, but when he put his hands on her hips, she did turn for him, pressing her breasts against the marble, and Tony was instantly hard. He'd be embarrassingly quick, he could tell already, but it would take the edge off his bad high, help him manage the rest of the day. She had on a short skirt, too short for a funeral, even if it was Vivienne Westwood, and he bunched it up around her waist, pulling down her stockings and panties just enough to get inside.

He slid in with a gasp, planting his palms flat on the freezing mausoleum, ducking his head between his arms, letting the sides of his unbuttoned coat shield them. There was a metaphor in here somewhere, fucking against a mausoleum at your parents' funeral, but Tony was too far gone to parse out what it was, and he didn't try, preferring to let his mind blur in the slick heat and the sounds of their mingled breathing, surprisingly loud in the intimate space he'd created between his spread coat and the wall.

Afterwards, as Candice straightened them both out, Tony felt empty and grateful for the emptiness. "Thank you," he said, meaning it. Taken as a whole, Candice wasn't so bad. Fashionable, smart, thoughtful enough to come all the way to Bumfuck, New York right after Christmas to be with him. And it would be nice to have someone else in the house, nice to have her in his bed. There was nothing worse than crying alone at night. He leaned down to kiss her cheek, but she put a hand to his chest, pushing him away.

"I don't think we should see each other anymore," she said abruptly. "I was going to tell you after the break, but—"

On second thought, Candice was a total bitch.

Tony's sharp bark of laughter echoed off the mausoleum. "You came to my parents' funeral to break up with me? Were you out of long-distance minutes or something?"

"No," she hissed, glancing back in the general direction of the ongoing funeral. "I came to be supportive."

"Supportive?" He laughed again. "Gee, thanks for your support. And you just…" he gestured to their jumbled footprints in the snow, "what the fuck was that?"

"A mistake. Obviously. Or not. I don't know. It…clarified things. Good-bye, Tony. Sorry about your parents. Really. See you at school." She turned to go, but he caught her elbow, turning her back.

"What things, Candice? What things did it clarify?" What on earth had pity-fucking his sorry ass in a cemetery made clear to her?

"That you—" she looked in the direction of the funeral again, worried they might attract attention, "you're–"

"Just give it to me. I promise my day isn't getting any worse."

"You're weird," she snapped, giving into her ever-present, thinly veiled annoyance. "You're weird, and you always have been. With the robots and the drugs and the sex toys and—We just had sex at your parents' funeral. Who does that? You—you're an oversexed sicko," she hissed, her nose wrinkling with disgust. "And I don't care that you have a million dollars and a company and an estate or whatever, I'm not–" Tony let go of her elbow, watching as she stomped off in her wildly impractical shoes.

"You're right, Candy," he called after her. "That does clarify things."

She shot him a black-gloved bird over her shoulder and disappeared behind a monument to the Honored Civil War Dead.

Staggering back to the canopy, Tony collapsed into his empty seat. Nothing had changed in his absence: Obie was still talking, and it was still too fucking cold, still too fucking bright. He crammed his bare hands in his pockets, and his fingers closed around the pink Kleenex. Candice was right, of course. Who does have sex at their parents' funeral? He was weird, always had been. 'Oversexed sicko' pretty much summed it up.

Tony's sudden sob was loud and ugly, something between a bark and a gasp, and it caught him completely by surprise. He couldn't get the Kleenex out fast enough, cramming the little pink wad tight up against his mouth, as if it might plug the hole that had just sprung in the emotional dyke.

It didn't.

The second sob was just as loud and alarming, and so was the third. And the fourth. And the fifth…

The only consolation was that Obie finally stopped talking. No one could hear him anyway.

⁂

10:06 PM. The Red Fox Pub. London, England. February. 1945.

Steve sat alone at one end of the bar. He had a row of beer glasses set between his portion of the bar and the next, a kind of fortress of empties. It had worked so far; no one had tried to make conversation, though the pub was crowded. Steve wished he'd gone somewhere else, or maybe that he hadn't taken leave at all, just stayed on base doing paperwork. He was always behind on paperwork, and it would be a distraction. Still, there was nothing for it now. He was here in London, alone and lonely amongst all these many people.

"You know, for someone so tall, you're remarkably hard to find," said a bright voice. A small, friendly hand slid across his back for a moment, then withdrew.

Steve turned around on his stool, already smiling. "Who's lookin'?"

"Me." It was Peggy Carter, her teeth bright in the smoky gloom. "Hello, Steve." She had a small suitcase, just an overnight bag, and she set it on the ground before taking the stool beside him. She shifted some of his glass palisade with a lifted eyebrow. "Goodness. What's all this?"

"Wishful thinking," Steve said with a shrug. He never could seem to make quite the right impression with her. She always caught him doing something he oughtn't.

"Wishful drinking," Peggy corrected. Then, to his surprise, she asked, "May I have one?"

"Sure." He caught the bartender's eye and held up a finger, but she nudged him with an elbow.

"You wouldn't make a girl drink alone?"

Steve amended his lone finger with a second. The beers appeared—two pints of bitter. Peggy tasted it and made a face.

"No good?" Steve asked.

"Weak."

"There's another pub down the block."

"No," she said with a sigh, taking another swallow. "No point. It's all weak these days. Sometimes, I wish the war would end just so I could get a decent pint. And a pair of silk stockings. Look at this. I ask you." She stuck out her leg, gesturing to the hose sagging around her ankle. "Rayon," she snorted. "Lord, how I hate the stuff. What do you miss most from the civilized world, Steve?"

"Probably butter."

"Oh, yes," she agreed heartily, lifting her glass. "To butter." They toasted, and she drank deeply.

"You're doing a pretty professional job there," Steve observed; she'd nearly polished off her glass.

"Well, this is practically water, and I was raised on it. My grandfather was a publican in Hampstead."

"Yeah? I didn't know that. Your folks still run it?"

"My great uncle Albert, though I daresay he'll retire one of these days. Then I suppose he'll sell the place. It was meant to be my brother Michael's, but—" She shrugged, knocking back the end of her pint.

"Sorry." He hadn't meant to make her sad, but that was always a risk. You couldn't swing a cat these days without hitting somebody in some kind of mourning.

"It is what it is, isn't it?" She examined the remnants of foam at the bottom of her glass, like a fortune teller examining tea leaves. "Though I admit, I do miss that particular future. I always fancied the idea of Michael behind the bar; he had a wonderful way with people. I miss him terribly sometimes. He was my best friend."

"When did it happen?" Steve asked, because people liked to remember as much as they liked to forget.

"May 23rd, 1940," she recited. "Calais. He could probably see England. I never can decide whether or not I find that a comfort or a torment." She shook her head. "But listen to me, rambling on, when I came quite exclusively to talk about you."

"Me?" Steve shifted on his stool.

"Yes. I went to Middlesex, but I discovered you'd gone to London. As I was already pointed in that direction, I just kept coming."

"You got something for me?" He nodded towards her bag, expecting documents with possible HYDRA base locations, but Peggy just smiled and she spread her hands.

"No. Nothing."

"Nothing?" Steve smiled back. "You didn't come all this way for nothing."

"No. That's certainly true." For a second, her expression flickered uncertainly. "I told you, I came to talk."

"What about?"

Her smile disappeared. "You. Sergeant Barnes. They say you're still taking his death very hard."

Steve frowned, wary. "Who says?"

"Everyone, though it was Morita I spoke with on base. He says you aren't sleeping, that you're having dreams, or nightmares. He says he tried to discuss it with you, and—"

"Jim should keep his mouth shut." It slipped out, quick and angry, and Peggy looked at him in surprise. "Sorry," he murmured.

"That's…that's alright." Tentatively, she reached out, resting her hand on his arm. "I don't mean to upset you, truly, but—"

"No," he shrugged her off. "Morita's right. I thought maybe if I got away for a few days, tried to think about something else, but…" he trailed off, gesturing at all the empty glasses. He shook his head, then pulled himself up straighter. "I know it compromises military readiness." Steve drank the rest of his bitter and pulled out his wallet, cramming a handful of bills into one of the empties. The first thing Steve was going to do when he got back to base was change quarters. Apparently, Morita was too nosy to share a wall with.

"Steve," Peggy grabbed her bag, "where are you going?" She hurried after him as he made his way through the crowd.

"To my hotel. I promise I've heard you, and I'll—"

"Steve." They'd made it out onto the street, and she grabbed his arm, turning him back around on the sidewalk. "I'm not here about military readiness. I don't care a jot for military readiness. I'm here about you. I'm here for you. I–lord, I've made a bloody hash of this; we're such a hopeless pair, you and I." She collected herself, squaring her shoulders. "Shall I be direct?"

"Please."

To his astonishment, Peggy went up on her toes, wrapped an arm around his neck, and kissed him. To his greater astonishment, he kissed back, hesitantly at first, and then desperately. He grabbed her, pulling her against him, sealing his mouth over hers like it was his last remaining source of oxygen. Vaguely, he heard her suitcase hit the sidewalk, and then her hands were in his hair, pulling, matching the desperation of his embrace. There were whistles and catcalls from other servicemen passing on the street. Steve registered them, but barely. No one had kissed him in so long, not like this, not since—

"Steve," Peggy wrenched away, breathless, "take me to the hotel."

"The hotel," he repeated stupidly.

She retrieved her suitcase from the pavement and grabbed his hand, pulling him into motion. After a step or two, they actually started to run.

⁂

Steve's room was a matchbox, just big enough for a bed and an armchair, with a shared bathroom down the hall. He started to apologize for it; it wasn't a place to bring a girl, but she shook her head.

"Anywhere you are is the place I want to be," she murmured, stepping out of her shoes, undressing before his eyes, all the way down to her bra and panties: pink satin, just a blush darker than her white skin. It looked soft and smooth to touch, if he wanted to, if he could work up the nerve. His own clothes weren't coming off so easy. His fingers were too big, clumsy on his buttons, and he just couldn't seem to stop the shakes.

"Peg," he said, ducking his head. "You oughta know I haven't done this before."

It was a truth he didn't admit anymore; it was easier to let people think he'd been with those pretty, brash girls backstage, the ones the stagehands had let into his dressing room on the tours. He wasn't proud of the lie, but he liked the peace it afforded him. Men no longer teased him or tried to school him as they had all his life. Women, certain women anyway, didn't treat him as a special challenge. Everyone left him alone.

"I think you mean," she corrected gently, her hands taking over on his shirtfront, "you haven't done this before with a woman."

His head snapped up, his heart stopped in his chest. She knew. She knew somehow, and he'd been so careful, or he thought he had. He—

"It's alright," Peggy murmured, smoothly pushing the shirt off his shoulders, peeling off the undershirt beneath. "I don't think it's so different. We're all just people, aren't we? Just flesh and blood. We all need to be touched."

"Who else knows?" No one could know. No one could ever know. It would ruin his reputation, ruin Bucky's, ruin them both forever.

"Just me. I saw how you looked at him." Her gaze remained on her hands as she worked open his belt buckle, his fly. "It's the same way you look at me sometimes. Step out of these."

Meekly, Steve stepped out of his trousers. He was already hard in his shorts, and he was embarrassed by it. Should he be that way? He certainly couldn't help it. Fortunately, Peggy didn't seem offended. In fact, she reached for it, grazing it with the tips of her fingers. He shut his eyes, feeling weak. He thought about stopping her, but there was a pain in his chest so sharp he could barely breathe, leaving him helpless.

"Is he the only one you've been with?" Peggy asked.

"Yes." The pain and the fear were about to swallow him whole, but there was a lifting too, a terrific relief that, at last, another person in the world understood what Steve's loss really meant, could see his great tragedy for what it was. And the gentle way she was touching him felt so, so nice—

She put a hand to the side of his face. "I do worry that I've come too soon. But then, I decided I'd rather be too soon than too late. I couldn't bear to think of you alone with all of this. I'll go if you want me to."

"It hadn't been that way with us for a long time," he admitted. "Not since—" He gestured at himself, as his strange new body that still didn't quite feel like his own, not even after two years at war that felt more like two lifetimes. "He never forgave me for it, not really."

"Still, you were lovers once, and you continued to…to care for him."

Lovers. Steve had never heard the word aloud before, not about him and Bucky; he couldn't even remember using the word in his mind. They'd always been 'friends.' Friends who'd tumble into bed together, touching each other's bodies with the proprietary ease of long habit. Steve suddenly felt like some kind of . That's exactly what they'd been, and he'd never let himself see it before.

"Come on," she said quietly, turning down the covers and switching off the lamp.

"Should I–?" Steve began, laying down on the cold mattress. He had no idea what he was doing, no idea how to please anyone but Bucky. He wasn't ready for this, not really, but he was so lonely. Miserable and lonely and this…felt like something else. Not happiness, not exactly, but it was a flash of color against the unrelieved black.

"Just kiss me;" Peggy whispered, climbing in beside him and pulling up the covers over both of them, "the rest will sort itself out."

Peggy was right; the rest sorted itself out. It was scary at first, scary and exciting, and then terrifying and wonderful, and then finally, just wonderful. By the end, Peggy's arms seemed like the safest place Steve had been in a long time. When he fell asleep, he didn't dream there, barely even stirred.

Decades later, after the ice, once again alone and afraid, the circle of Peggy's arms was the only place Steve could think of, the only place he wanted to go.

And he could never go there again.

Tony drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, eyes trained on the snowy road, not really seeing it.

He couldn't tell how he was feeling. There was some happiness in there somewhere, some grief, some fear, though if he could pick only one overriding sensation, it was probably excitement. His whole body was tingling with a jittery energy, like he'd had too many cups of coffee, stayed up all night, and made a new toy that beeped and lit up and was flying around the workshop, bouncing off walls.

He couldn't wait to see Steve.

The reclassification of Steve Rogers from friend to boyfriend (Beau? Suitor? Boyfriend-in-chief?) had done something wild to Tony's wiring. He could now admit that the change had been in the works for weeks: he'd gone from wishing he never had to see Steve, to being happy to see him, then eager to see him, and now he was truly, over-the-top thrilled to see him. He felt like a teenage girl on his way to a Prince concert. Or a Harry Styles concert? Justin Bieber? BTS? Just who were the girls throwing panties for now, anyway?

Had Steve ever had girls throw panties? Back during Captain America's red booties phase? If not, Tony wanted to go back in time and throw the panties himself. That'd be a reasonable use of Pym particles, surely. And just what was Steve's opinion of men in silk panties? Maybe not men in general, but, say, Tony, for example? He knew next-to-nothing about Steve's sexual proclivities. Did Steve top? Did he bottom? None of the above? Did he like blow jobs? Rim jobs? Hand jobs? Maybe he had a thing for feet.

In his mind, Tony aggregated the limited data: Steven Grant Rogers. Retired Army. Former Avenger. Former grief counselor. 105. Bisexual. Self-proclaimed oversexed sicko in times of emotional distress. Had a yen for whip-smart brunettes, enjoyed giving back rubs to same. Enjoyed lots of tongue when making out and wasn't shy about it. Liked it gentle and slow when he touched his dick.

Strongly demarcated the line between 'fucking' and 'making love.'

Wanted to make love to Tony Stark.

And Tony wanted to be loved, he was pretty sure now, though he didn't have the foggiest notion (other than the tongue thing) what making love with Steve Rogers might be like. He was stupidly excited to find out.

And nervous.

He was so fucking nervous. He'd had one partner for a decade now. He hadn't known he'd be capable of that kind of fidelity, but it had been easy with Pepper. Sex, he had discovered, was so much better when there was love, so much better when there was history and trust. And Pepper…Pepper. She'd been great in bed. The best. Beautiful. Generous. Flexible, literally and figuratively. Surprisingly game, willing to try most of Tony's schemes at least once. They'd laughed a lot. Cried some, too. Argued. Made up again. And now Tony was starting all over with Steve, and the love wasn't there yet, not the real kind. The trust wasn't there yet, either, just the initial hot rush.

He glanced over at the little bag on the passenger seat, his excitement tipping towards anxiety. It was a pretty bag, expensively black with red ribbon handles, unmarked with a store logo. The purchase had seemed like a good idea at the time: painfully practical, but also funny. It would've made Pepper do that thing with her mouth where her lips pressed together really tight like she disapproved (and maybe kind of did), but was also trying to hold back a laugh. But Tony didn't know what Steve would think, whether he'd see the gift as it was meant, a way to inject some levity into what could be a tense subject, or if he'd read it as profane. Surely not. Steve wasn't precious about Captain America. Besides, if he couldn't handle a sex joke, they weren't viable long term anyway, so—

Tony didn't see the deer until it popped out on the road in front of him. He stomped the brake automatically, pedal all the way to the floor. There wasn't a lot of snow on the road, but there was enough, and the van lost traction, skidding into a slide. Taking a deep breath, he eased off the pedal, then eased it back down slowly. Nothing. The brakes did nothing. He had nothing, no traction at all. He tried to hold the wheel steady, but it was hard with one hand, harder than he'd expected…

The right front wheel hit something; Tony couldn't tell what it was, a rock or some road debris, and the van pitched sideways, the right tires losing connection with the road completely.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" He tried to correct, knowing it was hopeless. The top-heavy van was tipping, tipping, tipping, and if that ditch was as steep as it looked…

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Tony let go of the wheel and threw his hand over his face.

The side curtain airbags deployed with a whoosh as the van went over the edge of the slope. Everything went airborne–his coat, his phone, his sunglasses, the little black bag, and the wheelchair in the back. An explosion of fish and bubbles appeared from nowhere, filling the van completely. Tony closed his eyes in the free fall, feeling the bubbles pop against his face, his body drifting weightless before the van landed belly up with a sickening slammed into his seatbelt a split-second later, leaving him hanging midair and wheezing.

And then it was quiet.

"Fuck," he gasped. And then: "Fuck."

He didn't think he was hurt, not really, though he'd be sore as a motherfucker in a few hours. But his phone was nowhere to be seen, and with only one hand, getting out of his seat was going to be unfortunate. He closed his eyes again as he hit the button on his seatbelt, dropped like a rag doll, bounced off the dash, then hit the ground with a thud, tasting blood as he landed in a heap. Sitting up with a wince, he dabbed at his mouth: split lip. He'd had worse.

He poked through the detritus scattered across the van's ceiling-cum-floor: broken glass, starfish, bits of wheelchair, barnacles, bent aviators, charging cords, but his phone was conspicuously absent. It could've been anywhere, gone through the broken windows or crushed under a hundred and fifty pounds of powerchair. Which meant…what? He could stay in the van: the engine was still running, so it was relatively warm. He had about half-a-tank of gas, so it would run for a while. Or he could crawl out the broken window, look for his phone in the snow, drag himself out of the ditch, but then he'd be soaking wet and in bad trouble.

Shaking the glass out of his coat, he pulled it back on, and curled up beside the dome light.

"Fuck."

And really, fuck didn't begin to cover it. All he could do was wait, watch the bubbles, and resign himself to the fact that his plans for the evening, including any and all chance at getting laid, were probably sunk.

"Steve?" Morgan said plaintively.

"Yeah?" Steve scanned the road. Why did the van have to be white? Why couldn't it be red? Tony liked red. Or better yet, hunter orange with a neon green stripe. As soon as they found the damn thing, Steve was going to buy some spray paint—

"I see red lights."

"Really?" He applied the brakes, bringing the SUV to a slow stop on the snowy asphalt. "Where?" He turned his head around, looking out the passenger side in the direction of Morgan's pointing finger. "I don't see anything." The snow was falling harder now, and the sun was almost totally set.

"Back there. Two red lights. I don't see them now, but I saw them."

"I believe you."

He'd debated with himself what to say about their abrupt need for a car ride, but he'd finally settled on the truth: Tony hadn't come home, and now no one knew where he was, so they were looking for clues: skid marks, dead deer, debris, lights on the side of the road.

"Your seat is on the opposite side of the car from mine, Morgan," he'd explained, "and if you'd look out your window for clues, too, it would be a big help."

"Like a detective," she'd said gravely. "I'll look, Steve." And sure enough, every time he'd glanced at her in the rearview mirror, her eyes had been glued to the window. If she said she'd seen something, she'd seen it.

With the road empty for miles, Steve made a careful U-turn across the center line, driving slowly back in the opposite direction. The roadside was steep along this stretch, dropping away into a deep ditch.

"Are we close, you think?" he asked her.

"Yes. It was down the hill. Two lights. I saw them."

Steve slowed to a crawl, murmuring a prayer under his breath, the same one he'd been humming in his head all day: "Tony, Tony, please come round. Something's lost and can't be found." He couldn't remember who'd taught him the little intercession to St. Anthony, his mother maybe, or Mrs. Barnes, but he'd said it many times in the intervening years, whenever he'd lost keys or wallets or particularly important baseball cards, though he suspected lost people were above St. Anthony's paygrade—

"There!" Morgan exclaimed.

"I see them," Steve agreed, heart thudding in his chest: there were two red tail lights way down in the ditch. It had to be him. Had to be. But the way the lights were positioned…Steve pulled the car carefully to the shoulder, not wanting to wind up in the ditch himself, aiming the high beams towards the van. His heart plummeted from his chest to his stomach. "Morgan," he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice, "you stay in the car."

"Is it Daddy?" From the backseat, she couldn't see the flipped van, but her little voice trembled.

He pressed the button for the hazard lights and took off his seatbelt. "It's definitely somebody that needs help. I'll be back in a minute."

"Can I come?" She was afraid, and it made his heart hurt, but he couldn't take her, not when he wasn't sure what he would find. "No, sweetheart." Snapping open the glove compartment, he pulled out a flashlight and switched it on.

"Should I pray, Steve?" He drew up short, hand on the door. She'd asked him earlier, about what he'd been muttering under his breath, and he'd told her.

"Yes," he said unequivocally, knowing in his heart that the prayer of a little girl for her father was worth ten of his own, "I'll be right back." He hopped out of the car before she could ask him again. As he scoped out the slope, he pulled the phone from his pocket.

"I found him," he said without preamble when Rhodey picked up. "Just past mile marker twenty. The van's upside down in a ditch."

" . Is he—?"

"No idea. I'm looking for a way down there now. I'll call you back."

Jamming the phone in his pocket, Steve slid down the steep, snowy grade on his ass, flashlight between his teeth; it was going to be a nightmare trying to get Tony back up the slope, assuming he was safe to move. "Tony?" he called, but the name stuck in his throat. "Tony?" he tried again, loud this time. "Hello?"

"Cap?" The reply was so faint that Steve wasn't sure if it was real or just wishful thinking, but he started to run. Broken glass crunched underfoot as he approached the van, and he could see the deployed airbags.

"Tony?" he ripped open the passenger door, then dropped to his knees, flashlight back in his mouth as he crawled under the deflated fabric.

Tony was there, curled into a ball, visibly shivering in his camel hair coat. "T-took you long enough," Tony said, teeth chattering, then, impossibly, he broke into a grin. There was blood in his teeth.

"Are you hurt?" Steve knelt beside him, hands hovering, afraid to touch him. "Are you safe to move?"

"I'm okay. Just st-st-stiff as a fucking board. And there are so many f-f-fish." He started dragging himself upright. "I feel like I crashed into an aquarium."

"Can you crawl to the door? Then I can pick you up."

"Yeah," he agreed, so Steve led the way with the flashlight with Tony shuffle-dragging himself behind.

They were almost out when Tony snagged Steve by the back of the coat. "Wait! Wait! Give me the f-flashlight."

Steve handed it to him, and Tony stuck it between his own teeth, shuffling on his knees back into the debris, shining it around until it fell on a little red-handled bag. Tony opened his coat, then snatched up the bag, stuffing it and its contents into a deep inner pocket.

"What's that?" Steve asked.

"It was supposed to b-be the evening's entertainment. Now it's something I d-don't want left at the scene." The evening's entertainment? Steve sensed it wasn't the time to probe. He finished helping Tony out of the car, then pulled him up to his feet.

"It'll have to be fireman's carry," Steve said apologetically, "otherwise I'm not sure we'll make it up the hill."

"What am I? A s-sack of potatoes? Br-bridal carry or nothing."

"See you later, then," Steve said, even as he swept Tony up over his shoulder. Tony still weighed next-to-nothing, a buck thirty soaking wet, which was good in this single instance. Steve stuck the light back in his mouth and clambered up the slope to the SUV with Tony groaning against his back.

Morgan squealed when Steve opened the door, arranging Tony into the passenger seat and buckling him in. "Steve!" she shouted. "I found him! I found him! Daddy, I found you! It was me! I saw your lights!"

"Hi, b-baby," Tony said, peering around his seatback to smile at her. "Thanks f-f-for coming to look."

Working together over the phone, Steve and Rhodey bullied and cajoled Tony into an ER visit.

"You parked the car upside down," Steve said. "You need to get checked out."

"Drugs, Tones," Rhodey said over speakerphone. "They'll give you the good drugs. Muscle relaxers and painkillers. And if you don't want them now, you will definitely want them later."

Olivia met them at the ER to take Morgan home. They were almost out the door when Morgan slipped Olivia's hand, flew back across the room with a look of determination, and threw her arms around Tony's waist in the hospital wheelchair.

"I'm glad I found you, Daddy," she said, then pelted back to take Olivia's hand again. Tony looked after her, stunned, but he pulled it together enough to smile and wave when she peeked back over her shoulder on the way out the door.

Carefully, Steve leaned over in his too-small plastic chair, nudging Tony's shoulder with his own. "How about that?"

"Yeah. How about it?" He gave Steve half of a smile. His teeth had stopped chattering in the car, though he still looked like Hell: all of yesterday's stubble and grime, plus today's bruises and a busted lip. "Does it make me pathetic if I'd wreck another car on the off chance it would make her sit in my lap?"

You won't get the opportunity, Steve thought but didn't say. There was no way Tony was driving again until the spring. "You'll get there," he said instead. "She's coming around." There was a beat of silence. Steve watched the side of Tony's face: he was studying the linoleum intently, and Steve wondered if he were looking at floor tiles or his own private ocean. Steve wanted him so badly, it was a physical ache in his chest.

"Hey," he leaned towards Tony's shoulder, nudging it again, "ignore them and they'll go away."

"Hmm? Ignore what?" Tony asked, entirely unconvincing as he wrenched his gaze from the floor.

"Talk to me, and it'll stop."

Tony licked his lips. "What about?"

"Anything. Doesn't matter. What's in the bag?" Steve asked, nodding down towards Tony's pocket.

"Bag? What bag?" Tony said, the picture of innocence.

"Okay. My mistake. What'd you and Rhodey have to eat?"

Tony's mouth twisted, "What did I have to eat? I brunched Sex and the City style to chart the course of my love life and you want to know what I had to eat? My god, you're a terrible talk show host."

"Fine," Steve conceded. "Then tell me what's in the bag."

"I had a little hair-of-the-dog," Tony said, answering the question he'd suddenly decided he preferred. "And a tier stand stacked with the itty bitty cakes they usually serve to pre-teen girls and their rich maiden aunts at elaborate Eloise-themed tea parties. You?"

"Scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes."

"So we both had breakfasts for little girls."

"Only I was actually feeding a little girl at the time," Steve pointed out.

"Touché." Then Tony tilted his head, a wry smile tugging at his spit lip. "You really aren't going to ask what happened at brunch?"

"If you want to tell me, Tony, but I'm not going to pressure you. This is on your timeline, not mine. I told you, I'm happy to wait." It wasn't quite true, but it was close enough for government work.

"You're confident, aren't you?" Tony said, looking at him appraisingly.

"I'm confident." Because you're mine, and last night, you knew it, too.

"You said you need some commitment. I need to know what that looks like."

Steve shrugged, "Nothing much. You just have to tell me you'll take it seriously, and that you understand I'm taking it seriously."

"Like I said this morning, you're raising my kid. You're living in my house. Seems like it's already pretty serious."

"Morgan and me, that's serious, but that's separate. You and me, that's something else, and I want it to be serious, too."

"So you want a formal courtship," Tony's wry smile was growing, and Steve felt a flutter in his chest, like some small, feathery creature was trying to take off. "You want to hold my hand in the parlor for six months, steal a kiss when the chaperone isn't looking."

"I want to do more than kiss your cheek. That chaperone is going to get an eyeful. But I do want to take you out. See a show or something. Take you to dinner."

"You really don't want that, Steve," he snorted. "You've never dealt with hardcore paparazzi because you're The World's Least Interesting Man, but let me tell you, the second a freshly maimed and newly widowed Iron Man is seen holding hands in public with Captain America, all hell will break loose."

"Okay," Steve agreed slowly, unsure what Tony was getting at. It felt like flirting, but he'd just been shot down on dinner. "What do you suggest?"

"I'm not sure. Why do you want to go out?" It struck Steve as an odd question. Why did anyone try to take out anyone…?

"To court you," he said. "To date you. Whatever you want to call it. To spend time with you. Just you."

"But we do that every night. You. Me. Seroquel. Bottles of beer. Shooting the shit about our very boring day and trying to guess the estimates on Antiques Roadshow. Actually, upon reflection, you and I may already be married." And the words were breezy enough, but there was something else under the joke, an undercurrent of sincerity that made Steve's breath catch.

"I imagine," Steve said carefully, "there's a little more to marriage than that."

"You'd think, wouldn't you? But you'd be wrong. On a day-to-day basis, that's pretty much it. Pay the bills, keep the kid alive, and then the nightly hang after the kid's asleep. These are the fundamentals. Sprinkle some sex on top, and that's the whole enchilada."

"What are you trying to tell me, Tony?"

"What I am trying to tell you, even though it scares me—and it does, Steve; it scares the shit out of me— is I have come to the conclusion that we're already involved. We can do whatever courtship rituals you want, but—"

"You mean it?" Steve reached for Tony's hand on the arm of the chair, discretion be damned, and Tony let him link their fingers. The thing in Steve's chest was airborne, flapping its feathered wings against his ribs with every beat of his heart.

"You're officially promoted to Boyfriend-in-chief," Tony confirmed, "if you want the commission. There's no pay raise, but you get to use the executive washroom—"

"I want it," Steve said immediately. Glancing around, he desperately wished they were not in a hospital waiting room, wished there wasn't a woman in labor in the corner, wished there wasn't a guy trying to cough up a lung to his right. Still, he wondered what might happen if he kissed Tony's split lip anyway, very gently, just a brush—but then Tony was kissing him, pressing their mouths together, split lip and all, though he pulled away with a wince.

"Ouch," Tony said, taking his hand back to dab at his lip; it had started bleeding again, but he was smiling. "That hurt more than I'd hoped."

"I thought we were being discreet," Steve said with happy surprise, glancing around the waiting room again to see if anyone was watching them. They weren't, too busy with their own miseries to concern themselves. He pulled a clean handkerchief out of his pocket, reaching over to press the linen against the split.

"I don't think it gets more discreet than the Watersville ER at six pm on a Sunday, Steve."

"Don't talk. You'll keep bleeding."

"You know, I think I'd rather bleed." And the way Tony was looking at him, sly, with a point of heat in his eyes, was making Steve start to sweat in an immensely pleasurable way. Then, with a smile that would've made the devil proud, Tony murmured, "Hey, you still want to know what's in the bag?"

"Yes," Steve admitted, his voice dropping, too, knowing full-well that curiosity killed the cat...but, Hell, he wasn't a cat, right?

"If I show you," Tony warned, "you can't, I don't know, scream or audibly gasp or anything like that. Pretend it's socks or something. Yeah?"

"Okay…" Steve agreed, folding away his handkerchief, his breath starting to hitch as Tony reached for his pocket. He couldn't imagine—

"Anthony Stark?" A nurse called, stepping into the waiting room from behind the double doors.

"Present!" Tony said loudly, thrusting the red handles into Steve's hand. Then, to Steve, he added, "On second thought, open it in the bathroom. I don't want you passing out publicly when I'm not here to administer smelling salts. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go make myself pitiful to get the good drugs. Rhodey's right. We are going to want them later."