Work Text:
“Have you been here all night?” he heard a familiar voice say from the doorway.
Tony didn’t lift his head from DUM-E's charging port, which was mostly dissembled, the parts balanced delicately on his crossed legs and also strewn across the workbench above his right shoulder.
He had been away for all of five days, yet even in that short timeframe, one of the bots had somehow managed to tip an unidentified liquid all over the exposed elements of DUM-E's charging port, resulting in the amusing but exasperating tableau of a battery-drained DUM-E and a morose U standing guard. Tony hadn’t reviewed the security footage yet, but his bet was that the perpetrator had been the hapless DUM-E, in some form of unintentional self-sabotage.
“I got in about four,” he responded now to his visitor, assuming that Steve would have just let himself into the workshop proper, and was probably standing somewhere behind him.
Tony’s attention was entirely focused on the micro-screwdriver he was gently rotating in his left hand, slowly teasing out the miniature screws that held part of the base plate together. He was also mulishly thinking that DUM-E was extremely fortunate he had designed this to come apart relatively easily, and that Tony hadn’t used something like pop rivets instead. The bot in question was sitting next to him, quite immobile and very forlorn.
“So you haven’t slept.”
“I actually slept on the plane for like, six hours, so...”
The base plate finally clicked apart under his hands, revealing a multitude of colourful wires criss-crossing in neat order. Tony set the discarded piece carefully on the floor, straining a little to reach the nearest available space in the ever-expanding detritus of machinery around him, then after a moment’s inspection, set to work untangling the wires so he could peer underneath them.
“So if it weren’t for the...” Steve prompted him, and Tony, his ears replaying the last minute in his head, realised he had stopped talking to Steve in the middle of a sentence. His eyes, though, were intent on the glimpse of discoloured metal he had just spied underneath the network of wires.
“...jet lag,” Tony finished distractedly, and eased out the strip of brass-coloured metal that he had been digging for. Was that corroded? How was it corroded? What had DUM-E been playing with? He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, rather similar to a parent might feel when they had thought they had securely child-proofed the kitchen, only to find evidence that their inquisitive toddler had been cheerfully poking around the bottles of bleach.
“...going out.”
“Ok,” Tony agreed vaguely, holding the strip of metal up to the light and tilting it to inspect the pattern of the damage with more than faint alarm. That couldn’t possibly be normal wear and tear on the metal, and he was seriously wondering if he wasn’t going to be able to get DUM-E back online today, especially if he had to prioritise preparing for Bruce this afternoon. He realised he hadn’t actually caught what Steve had said, and looked over at him.
Except Steve wasn’t there.
Tony scanned the doorway, then turned his head back and forth across the room, even twisting completely around to see if Steve had decided to creep stealthily up behind him, but the room looked empty.
“Cap?” he said uncertainly, and the word echoed around a quiet room, the low, steady humming of the computer the only answer that came. He was, without a doubt, alone.
“Jarvis?” Tony said instead, totally bewildered. Steve had definitely been here earlier.
“Captain Rogers left the workshop several minutes ago, sir.” As ever, Jarvis’ bland tone managed to convey a sense of deep disapproval.
Tony winced in understanding. He had been so caught up in his task, he had apparently lost all sense of time. Really, that wasn’t particularly unusual for him, but it did feel a bit odd that Steve hadn’t either interrupted him, or just sat down to wait. The fact that Steve had apparently come in, said hi, and only loitered for a few minutes before disappearing again did not bode particularly well, especially after Tony had been away for a couple of days.
“Jarvis, call Cap,” Tony ordered, and started unburdening his legs from the various tools and pieces of machinery he had accumulated while seated on the floor tinkering. He hadn’t even meant to sit down here, he’d just noticed DUM-E drooping in the corner shortly after he came into the workshop, and of course that made him duty-bound to investigate.
Jarvis obligingly put the phone call through to the room’s speakers, and Steve answered on only the third or fourth ring. Tony was more than half-expecting Steve to open with a grumpy but well-deserved remark about Tony’s attention levels, but somewhat surprisingly, Steve didn’t sound the slightest bit annoyed when he answered.
“Hey. Everything ok?” was all Steve said, his voice emanating from the nearest wall-mounted speaker as Tony stood up, stiff from sitting on the unforgiving floor.
“It’s nothing urgent,” Tony said automatically, and then immediately added, “I’m sorry I ignored you when you came to say hello. See? I’m learning how to play nice with my friends.”
He heard the gentle huff of breath on the other end of the line that meant Steve was laughing at him, and his own lips twitched smugly, and with some relief. Steve wasn’t mad at him, then.
“Don’t worry about it. I was just coming to see what you were doing with your morning,” Steve answered him.
“Emergency repairs on DUM-E, which I’m abandoning for the moment, and I am just this moment turning on the computer for something I really should have done last week. You miss me?
“I did.”
If these words had been delivered flippantly, teasingly, Tony would have been able to immediately throw back some of the easy, even flirtatious banter that made up the bulk of so many conversations with his friends. But Steve’s voice was low and heavy, giving the simple words the weight of a real compliment, and it was an oddly intimate admission for him to make. Tony felt instantly off-kilter, a warm confusion of pleasure and embarrassment at the simple sincerity, and he was quiet for long enough that Steve would know the effect the words had had on him.
“Whoa, stop, that is way too much emotion for seven o’clock in the morning,” Tony eventually joked, and sat down at the computer desk.
“Good thing it’s coming up on ten, then,” Steve replied levelly.
“It’s - what?” Tony said in some alarm, and after looking at the time, swore under his breath. “Bruce is coming over for about twelve, I really need to get a move on.” His fingers flew over the keyboard, glancing through the files and trying to decide which one to bring up first.
“He’s coming over for lunch?” Steve questioned.
“Lunch, and then he’s going to help me with a project this afternoon. We’ve been working on it online, but we’ve got to the point we just need to be in the same place for a couple hours.”
“Oh. That’s nice. So you’re pretty busy today then,” Steve said.
Without being able to see him for this conversation, Tony was limited on the social cues he had available to read, but there was definitely something off about Steve’s voice.
“You wanna join us for lunch?” Tony offered at once, because he wasn’t a complete moron, and chances were that Steve wanted Tony’s company today.
“Uh...” For some reason, this took Steve quite a bit of thinking time. “Yeah. Sure. Lunch.”
“I mean, don’t feel like you have to,” says Tony feeling slightly offended. “Just if you’re around. I don’t want to intrude on your day or anything.”
Steve hung up.
Tony lifted his head and stared in complete astonishment.
“Jarvis, did Steve just hang up me?” he asked incredulously.
“The call was ended from Captain Rogers’ end,” Jarvis confirmed.
“Call him back,” Tony ordered, and sat up straight, bristling with indignation. Usually when people hung up on him, they had a reason, and usually they weren’t Steve.
The phone rang several times before Steve answered this time.
“What gives? Did you hang up on me?” Tony demanded at once.
“No. Bad signal.” Steve’s voice was strained, but the audio was crystal clear in Tony’s ear, so he had perfect phone signal. “Sorry.”
“Where are you?” Tony asked, half-suspicious.
“Heading into Brooklyn.” Steve exhaled. “I’ll see you for lunch?”
“Yeah...”
Tony had the distinct impression he was missing something. Excluding this morning, they hadn’t seen each other in person for more than a week, mostly because Tony had been away on his business trip, and then the time difference combined with their schedules had meant they hadn’t spoken over the phone or even exchanged more than a handful of text messages.
So there should have been plenty for Steve to want to talk about, especially given that as far as Tony was aware, Steve didn’t really have many other options for companionship. SHIELD and Steve were not on good terms, and the other Avengers were fairly scattered recently.
But if Steve wasn’t in a mood to talk, the conversation was effectively closed. And Tony really did need to get this finished before Bruce arrived, or the visit would be a waste of both his and Bruce’s time.
“Yeah, lunch. And tonight, too,” Tony added. “Did you see in the group chat? Natasha’s on her way back, and it’s Saturday, so we’re doing another movie night, right?”
“Great!” The enthusiasm now inserted in Steve’s voice was jarring in its insincerity, setting Tony’s teeth on edge.
“Ok,” Tony said uncertainly, racking his brains to work out what he was missing but drawing a blank. “Hey, Steve, are you ok?”
“Fine.”
Well, he could have predicted that answer.
“Are you sure? You sound kind of...” Tony trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence, but Steve didn’t help him out, and the silence stretched out awkwardly between them.
“Are you sure you’re ok?” Tony asked again.
“I’m fine.” That time, Steve’s voice was definitely frosty.
“Ok...” Tony said, dragging the word out because he didn’t know what else to say, but he was unwilling to end the conversation on such an awkward note.
The silence stretched for a few moments longer, then abruptly Tony heard the low tone that meant the call had been ended.
Steve had hung up on him again.
Or, going by his story, the phone signal had dropped out again...in central Manhattan.
“Jarvis, where’s Steve right now?” Tony asked the room, knowing Jarvis would be able to access the trackers in Steve’s phone and his watch faster than he could bring it up on the screen himself.
“Lower Manhattan, moving southeast,” came the prompt reply.
“Heading into Brooklyn,” Tony muttered. So that part was probably true. “Um. Are there issues with phone signal in the area that he’s in?”
“Captain Rogers’ phone currently has full signal.”
Lying dog. Tony frowned.
“Vital signs ok? Is he injured in any way? There haven’t been any missions while I was gone, have there?”
“Captain Rogers is not currently wearing his heart rate monitor, but I detected no signs of physical ailments this morning before he left the tower.”
“He always wears his watch for his runs,” Tony said, startled. “He promised me he would.”
There was no question in his statement, and Jarvis did not reply to this. Tony looked at the clock again.
“He always runs at six, not ten, though,” he said, more to himself than anything else.
Maybe Steve had decided to go for a later run this morning. Or maybe he wasn’t going for a run at all, and he was heading out somewhere else for the morning. He couldn’t remember if Steve had been wearing exercise wear when he came into this morning. Actually, strike that, he hadn’t looked up, so he hadn’t noticed.
Tony squirmed a little with guilt, but cheered himself up with the resolution that he would see Steve for lunch in a couple of hours, and he’d make it up to him by ordering from somewhere he knew Steve liked. Maybe the noodle box place.
For now though, he needed to get ready for Bruce. He put Steve’s weird mood out of his head. He’d see him at lunchtime.
<hr>
Except Steve didn’t show up for lunch.
“You never actually told him a time, did you? So he could come back any time,” Bruce pointed out reasonably, after Tony wondered aloud for the second time why Steve hadn’t returned to the tower yet.
They had ordered food to be delivered, and then left the workshop long enough to move to the communal floor to eat, partly because there was an actual dining table there, which suited the sense of it being a special occasion with Bruce visiting, and partly because Tony wanted to surreptitiously check what food and drink was already in the kitchen ahead of their movie night. He could have asked Jarvis for an inventory of the fridge, of course, but then Bruce would hear him fretting about hosting and think Tony was a fifties housewife or something.
“Steve’s usually pretty regimented about his calorie intake though, he always eats a meal between 12 and 1,” Tony replied, without thinking.
“I thought you didn’t see each other that often,” Bruce commented, with a somewhat shrewd expression.
“Yeah, well, we message,” Tony said evasively. For some reason, he found himself reluctant to admit to Bruce how familiar he was with Steve’s daily routine. Tony had only known both of them for a few weeks, after all, and even though Steve was technically a house mate, it seemed a little stalkerish to admit he knew without having to think about it what regular times Steve was in and out of the tower. He consoled himself that he still had no idea where Steve went a lot of the time, but there was quite evidently a schedule.
“Well, call him then,” Bruce suggested.
“He always thinks it’s an emergency when I call,” Tony muttered, but he gave Jarvis the order anyway.
As Jarvis tried to connect the call, Bruce and Tony listened to the phone dialling long enough that looking at each other across the table in silence started to get a little awkward, and Tony was starting to say, “He usually answers right away,” when Steve’s voice suddenly cut in through the room’s speakers.
“Tony. You ok?” Steve sounded a little out of breath, which was strange, as it took a lot for him to tire physically. Yet another strange behaviour for him today.
“It’s not urgent,” Tony said at once, ignoring Bruce’s quirked eyebrow. “Just calling to check in, Cap. Where have you got to?”
“New York.”
New York? Great. Nice and vague.
Both Bruce’s eyebrows went up now. Tony caught his eyes across the table, and chewed his lip for a second. So Steve’s mood swings had seemingly cycled through ‘slightly grumpy’ and ‘false cheeriness’ and, he’d either landed at ‘extremely sarcastic’ or ‘supremely evasive’. That was fine, Tony could roll with that.
“Sounds nice. How’s the weather there this time of year?” Tony responded.
“Fine.”
Tony narrowed his eyes. Bruce, whose lips had been twitching in the beginnings of a smile, hurriedly made a show of putting his head down and being very engaged in looking at his phone rather than listening to the conversation.
“You know, I could just check the map to see where you are,” Tony said, trying for a conversational air. “You’ve obviously got your phone on you. Though Jarvis tells me you went out for a run without your watch?”
“I wasn’t- Tony, what did you call for?” Steve snapped, and Tony’s eyes went wide at Cap’s tone.
He felt his own temper rise in response. He did not deserve to be spoken to like an unruly child when he was actually going out of his way to do something nice.
“I called to see if you’re planning on joining us for lunch, or if I can throw out the food we ordered for you,” Tony said coldly.
“Why the hell would you throw it out?” Steve exploded. “You’re always throwing stuff away when there’s nothing wrong with it, it’s so wasteful, it’s like you don’t even care that there’s people who can’t even afford bread, or medicine, or buses, and you’re spending thousands of dollars a month on food you don’t even eat!”
A shocked silence at the kitchen table followed this passionate diatribe.
Bruce had abandoned all pretence of not eavesdropping on the conversation, which, Tony now considered with another guilty twist of his stomach, would probably have been better taken privately, especially given that Tony had known Steve was likely to be in a bad mood. Bruce, whose shocked expression likely mirrored Tony’s, abruptly seemed to come to the same conclusion, because as quietly as possible, he lifted his plate and pushed his chair back to stand up.
Unfortunately for everyone involved, the plate clinked slightly against the table as Bruce moved, and Steve’s hearing was second to none.
“Who’s that?” Steve demanded aggressively.
“I told you Bruce was coming over for lunch,” said Tony, still stunned. A dawning sense of horror was spreading through him.
Something had happened. Something was seriously wrong with Steve.
“Hi, Steve,” Bruce said meekly.
Steve swore at them both and ended the call.
Bruce and Tony were left sitting at the kitchen table, mouths agape.
“Well,” said Bruce, after a while, but then he didn’t say anything else, and trailed off rather helplessly. Tony’s mind was racing.
“He’s been poisoned,” Tony murmured, coming to the only possible conclusion for the strange behaviour.
Bruce looked baffled. “He’s- what? Tony, poisons don’t work on him. And why would you think he’s been poisoned?”
“Did you hear him?” Tony said incredulously. “Look, I know you don’t know him all that well yet, but you’ve met him, and you know who Captain America is.” Tony waved a hand impatiently. “Captain America doesn’t swear! Captain America is nice to his friends! What do you think, magic then? Mind control? Oh, no,” said Tony, his eyes going wide again as another thought occurred to him. “Is this an incident? Do we need to call people? Who do we even call for Captain America being mind controlled? Is this the sort of thing the Avengers are supposed to fix? I feel under-qualified, and I never say that.”
“He just sounds like a man having a bad day,” Bruce disagreed, his brow crinkled in thought. “A really bad day, maybe.”
“No way Jose,” Tony said emphatically. “Something’s wrong. Look, he can still go woozy with blood loss or serious injury or something, the serum doesn’t make someone invincible. If you pumped Hulk or Cap full of enough of a poison-”
“Please don’t try that,” Bruce said fervently.
“-it would eventually work,” Tony finished.
“And then be rapidly metabolised,” Bruce argued. “What are you basing this on? Steve being a little snappy? He could just be really tired. Has he been sleeping?”
“Jarvis?” Tony said at once.
“If you would like to access any personal medical information about Captain Rogers, you can do so, sir, but by your own safeguards I must log the request and inform him that his information has been shared,” Jarvis said.
“It concerns me that this happens often enough that you have rules about it,” Bruce observed.
“It’s Pepper’s rule,” said Tony in disgust. “It’s for everyone, it’s not specific to Steve. She made me draw up a list of rules once because I kept - anyway! Not relevant!”
“Would you like me to share my observations of Captain Rogers’ sleeping patterns and inform him of this conversation?” Jarvis asked.
Tony and Bruce both paused. Tony remembered Steve’s uneasiness with the surveillance in the tower when he first moved in.
“I guess we could just ask him directly if we wanted to know if he’s been sleeping,” Bruce said awkwardly.
“We could do that,” Tony agreed, and made no move to call Steve back.
Tony tapped his fingers restlessly against his thumb for a moment, then got up to put the remains of his lunch in the trash. He stopped just before he dropped the carton down the chute, and looked at the meagre scraps of food he hadn’t eaten.
Silently, he picked out the hard crusts of the sourdough he had discarded, and, feeling completely ridiculous, put them in an airtight container and into the cupboard. The shreds of lettuce though, he refused to entertain keeping, and dumped them unceremoniously in the trash.
Bruce said nothing throughout all of this.
“Alright,” said Tony, sitting down again. “So let’s say he’s just having a bad day.” He was sceptical, but Bruce knew more about the serum than he did, and Tony was willing to accept he himself wasn’t an expert in absolutely everything.
“Sure. Trouble sleeping, missed lunch, had a bad week, who knows,” Bruce agreed. “But he’s out running, right? He mustn’t be feeling too unwell.”
Tony pulled out his phone and loaded the map to see where Steve actually was. The little blue dot showed him moving through the Bronx, not Brooklyn, and moving at considerable speed down one of the major roads. Tony groaned, realising something.
“What?” asked Bruce.
“He’s running on the roads again,” Tony said, grimacing and opening some social media pages.
“Ok...?” Bruce said uncertainly.
“He likes to pretend he’s traffic,” Tony said in a long-suffering voice, and with a couple of taps, mirrored his phone screen onto the TV so Bruce could see.
A shaky video, taken by a bus passenger, showed Steve sprinting along a road alongside the bus, overtaking it, and continuing on the road, keeping pace with the other traffic.
“That’s so dangerous!” cried Bruce, horrified.
“Well, he uses his indicators more than a lot of drivers do,” Tony said fairly. “Except he runs on the sidewalks when it suits him, so Happy says he’s actually faster than the traffic sometimes, depending on where he’s going. Have you not seen him in the news?”
Bruce squinted at the name of the site.
“Tony...is that a whole page dedicated to Steve-spotting?”
“Oh, yeah, his fans are obsessed,” Tony agreed. “They’ve got a monthly bingo on this one for getting pictures of him in different places, look. This month...they need him next to a statue, in a coffee stop, sitting on something other than a bench, huh, weird...”
Tony scrolled through the feed, looking at the pictures of Steve, from today and earlier in the week. There weren’t that many, probably because most of the more intense fans were in Brooklyn, and Steve tended to spend more time in Manhattan these days. There were plenty from the last two hours though. It looked like Steve had been running for a while.
“I can’t imagine being that famous,” Bruce said, in an odd tone. “Every time he goes out, people take pictures of him?”
“Nah, it’s nowhere near that bad. It’s only when he goes to certain areas, or when he does something Captain America-y, like run with the traffic,” Tony sighed. “On the plus side, I suppose we can agree he’s probably not been poisoned, if he can keep pace with a BMW. Back to work then?” He closed the web pages down, feeling an odd and unfamiliar sense of helplessness. He didn’t like problems he couldn’t fix.
<hr>
Steve did eventually return to the tower about an hour later, and came straight to the workshop, where he apologised to both of them, ‘For my language, and for losing my temper.’
As his excuse, he offered, ‘I’ve been having a bad day,’ (Bruce gave Tony a significant look) though he refused to give any more details. The tension cleared, they talked a little while, Steve clearly making an effort to force a smile and keep the small talk going, until he excused himself to go shower, saying he didn’t want to interrupt them any further and he’d see them for evening meal.
When evening came, Natasha surprised them all by arriving with Clint in tow, saying she’d not been sure he would be finished with work so they hadn’t wanted to promise anything. They were both clearly exhausted, though they gave no details about what SHIELD had had them doing, and once they’d dropped into their chairs they evidently considered themselves settled for the evening, instead begging or otherwise persuading the others to fetch and carry for them.
The five of them ate seated around the TV, thoroughly engrossed in their food, and if it was quieter than usual, no one commented. After the food, Steve and Bruce volunteered to clear away and bring out the dessert.
“Jarvis, what’s on the approved list for viewing options this evening?” Clint asked.
“Sir has already made the movie selection earlier this week, Agent Barton,” Jarvis said.
Clint gasped in mock outrage. “What? You mean we’re skipping the ritual of arguing over what to watch? What kind of movie night is this?”
“I’d just like to remind you that you weren’t actually invited tonight, bird brain, and you are here only due to the generosity and kindness of your gracious host, so you can either watch what I picked and be nice about it, or you can go sulk quietly in the loneliness of your own home,” Tony said lazily.
“Eh, I’m here for the free food anyway,” Clint shrugged, accepting his bowl from Steve, who had come over to the sofas somehow managing to balance three bowls on one arm and carrying a fourth in his other hand. Steve carefully lifted one of the bowls balanced on his left arm and stepped over to Natasha with it.
“So just to confirm, your selection has no war, no sexual assault, no deaths of small children and no drowning?” Natasha listed off, also accepting her bowl from Steve.
“We’re watching comedy,” Tony said proudly.
“Oh, no,” muttered Natasha. “I might have to add slapstick to the veto list. And toilet humour. Please, anything but fart jokes.”
“If we let you do that, there will be nothing left that we can watch as a group,” Tony objected. “Embrace the silliness. Have some vodka, it’s in the freezer.”
Natasha sighed, but didn’t really seem to mind. She dipped her spoon into her ice cream and apple pie and settled herself comfortably into her usual chair.
“Do you want a drink?” Steve offered, already halfway back to the kitchen, his cargo delivered and now empty-handed. His expression was curiously flat, but he was obviously making an effort.
“Please,” Natasha nodded. “A double, with cola.”
“Me too!” added Clint. “And I want an umbrella.”
“Thor isn’t even here!” Bruce called out from the kitchen, laughter evident in his voice.
“I’m setting the tone for the evening,” Clint called back, grinning.
Steve’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. He just turned to Tony and asked him dully if he wanted a drink, too, before heading back into the kitchen to get the orders.
Tony watched him go, feeling the unease that had been building all day tightening his throat. Steve was normally so upbeat at group gatherings like this, going out of his way to put people at ease and keep conversation flowing. He’d mentioned to Tony before, somewhat diffidently, in the way that Tony was growing to know meant Steve was saying something that was important to him, that he really wanted the team to be able to get along and work well together. It had originally been Steve who organised the first ever movie night, despite having had almost no idea at the time of how to order takeout food or operate the TV. So it was downright disconcerting to see Steve acting so subdued in front of the others, too.
Clint flapped a hand at Tony to get his attention.
Is he ok? Clint signed at him, jerking a thumb at Steve’s back and then giving Tony the thumbs up with a questioning look.
In the past couple of months that Steve had been living at the tower, each of the team had had occasion to find out to their chagrin that Steve’s hearing was nothing short of phenomenal, and that talking about him behind his back was therefore an extremely high-risk endeavour. None of them knew enough formal sign language for it to actually be a viable means of communication within the group, but non-verbal communication could get a surprisingly wide range of superficial messages.
Tony shrugged and spread his hands, pulling a face that said something like I don’t know what’s going on with him, but it’s annoying me.
Natasha was watching him too, and she licked her spoon in thought, but said nothing. Then she deliberately reached out and plucked Tony’s dessert bowl out of his hands, giving him a little push as she did so.
“Go and help them in the kitchen,” she instructed, then she raised her voice loud enough for Bruce to hear from the next room and added, “If they don’t come quickly, the ice cream is going to melt!”
“I usually employ people for kitchen work,” Tony told her haughtily, but took the excuse that had been given him, and went into the kitchen after Steve.
Bruce was rinsing and loading the last of the dirty dishes into the dishwasher, surfaces already cleaned and the leftover food nowhere in evidence, so presumably neatly tucked away in the fridge. Steve was standing next to one of the benches, holding a large glass bottle with a grey label in his hand, and staring at it unblinkingly.
“Tony, how expensive is this?” he asked when Tony came in, without looking up from his scrutiny of the label.
“Uh, well, the answer to that question depends on why you want to know,” said Tony lightly. “Bruce, you look like you’re all done? Could you carry these in with you? Steve and I will be right after you, I just want to get something.”
He snatched up Natasha and Clint’s drinks from the surface in front of Steve and passed them over to Bruce, ushering him out as discreetly as possible. Bruce looked a little baffled at the forced departure, but accepted it with a good grace and didn’t say a word as he accepted the drinks.
“How much does it cost, then?” Steve asked.
He still hadn’t looked up from the vodka bottle, though he was now tilting it gently back and forth to watch the liquid inside slosh around. It occurred to Tony that the vodka had been in the freezer for the better part of an hour, and the icy glass was surely numbing Steve’s fingertips, though Steve didn’t seem to be noticing.
Tony glanced back into the living area to see that Bruce was settling himself into the seat Tony himself had recently vacated – the spot that had the benefits of the armrest as well as the easy access to the coffee table, the little sneak – and Natasha was none-too-subtly watching Tony and Steve in the kitchen area. Tony scowled at her, to no effect, so instead he stepped closer to Steve and pointedly turned his back to her so Natasha couldn’t read his lips. He leaned against the bench and looked down at the bottle in Steve’s hand.
“Why are you asking?” Tony questioned. Steve set the bottle down abruptly with a loud clunk and seemed to come out of his reverie, sweeping his gaze along the near-empty bench.
“Where did- did you lift their drinks?” Steve said, with real confusion, which was further cause for alarm because Tony had not been discreet about whipping the drinks away from him, and seriously, had Steve been that intent on the alcohol that he didn’t even notice Tony getting into his personal space? Tony folded his arms over his chest.
“Bruce took them in,” he said evenly. “What’s going on, Steve? I just want to know if there’s anything I- we- can do to help. Sharing is caring and all that jazz.”
Steve met his eyes for a long moment, and Tony braced himself for more verbal head-biting-off, but then, wonder of wonders, Steve gave him a small, sad smile.
“Thanks, Tony,” he murmured. Then he looked broodingly back at the bottle.
Tony gave him maybe another minute, but the others were waiting for them to start the movie, and the ice cream really would melt if they kept hanging around in here.
So, relenting, he said, “It’s not a premium brand, but it’s not cheap either. Solidly mid-range, by my standards. I personally wouldn’t drink it, but I’m not keen on vodka anyway. It’s not the good stuff, anyway. You can just buy it in the supermarket with the other groceries, which I imagine is how it got here.”
He looked questioningly at Steve, who nodded slowly in response to all this. “I was just wondering,” Steve said, so low it was almost inaudible, and gave no further explanation.
Tony gave it up. Whatever was bugging Steve, he clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it, and if he wasn’t going to talk about it with Tony, it was fairly unlikely he was going to spill the beans to anyone else in this century.
Tony reached out and lightly batted the back of his hand against Steve’s shoulder in what he considered to be the socially acceptable version of a comforting hug, then headed back into the living area and flopped down onto of the sofas next to Clint, giving Bruce a completely unwarranted dirty look as he did so.
Tony avoided looking at Natasha or Clint, who were bantering with each other anyway, and he focused on the TV screen instead, which was paused on the opening still of the movie. Thank goodness tonight was a comedy movie. He had the feeling if they showed Steve something like Schindler’s List tonight, he’d be catatonic with despair.
Steve came into the room a few moments later and sat down silently on the opposite sofa on his own, rather than taking the space between Natasha and Bruce. No one commented on this.
“Ready?” Tony asked the room at large. “Jarvis, we’re rolling.”
With everyone settled, the lights dimmed and the movie started to play. For a minute, the only sound was the spoons clinking against the ceramic bowls, and the conversation of the characters on screen. There were two men in a hospital, and one was talking about proposing to his girlfriend.
“I think this counts as toilet humour,” Natasha observed idly.
“Shush,” Bruce scolded good-naturedly.
“He’s a nurse?” Steve said suddenly.
“Yeah, he’s a male nurse and he’s got the worst name, just wait,” Clint cackled.
Tony could practically see the cogs whirring in Steve’s head, and felt his own temper rise at once with the memory of the past argument that had been started when Steve had found out their cleaner was a man and not a woman. Tony forced himself to count to three before he spoke, but he couldn’t let this go. Steve’s voice had been grim, almost angry at the concept of a man in what he considered to be a ‘woman’s job’. He was even now frowning at the screen.
“We talked about this,” Tony reminded Steve, deliberately calm. “Men can be nurses now. Women can be doctors.”
Steve didn’t say anything, but he put his bowl down on the coffee table and laced his fingers together, staring at the screen with his jaw locked and his nostrils flaring. Tony narrowed his eyes. If Steve was having a bad day, fine, he could cut him a little slack, but Tony had had limited patience for Steve’s archaic views on gender roles to begin with, and if whatever was going on with him today was about to bring out more of the appallingly sexist comments Steve had a habit of making so blithely, Tony and he were absolutely going to have words. Not to mention that they had an audience this time too, and Tony was desperately trying to keep the others from discovering that Captain America was actually a sexist pig.
Steve got up and walked out.
Tony pressed the hard metal of the dessert spoon against his lips and sucked it lightly, working his teeth against the smooth edge a little bit, and trying to work out what he should do now. This wasn’t the first time Steve had walked out of one of their movies. So far, they had obviously been deliberately avoiding any TV shows or movies that heavily featured war, letting Steve think that it was a group preference, and if he knew they were doing it for his benefit, he hadn’t said a word about it. They had, however, tried to show him Titanic pretty early on, which in hindsight had been a terrible idea and had gone spectacularly not well. When they further narrowed the selection to movies at least one of them considered essential viewing for someone who had been in a lengthy coma and had therefore missed the better part of the twentieth century, that actually diminished the viewing pool by a surprising amount.
But even when they dialled down the ratings and subject matter to ease him into modern viewing entertainment a little more gently, Steve was weirdly erratic with his emotional responses to what they showed him. He’d watched Marley and Me last month with nothing more than a sorrowful sigh at the most tragic scene, while Bruce and Clint manfully tried to control their own reactions (Tony had deliberately spent half the movie looking at his phone so he didn’t get sucked in to the story and disgrace himself at the sad bits). When they showed him Gladiator, Steve had barely flinched at the violence, not to mention the numerous character deaths. But then they’d watched Finding Nemo the week after that, and when Jarvis had put the lights back on at the end, Tony had caught a glimpse of Steve’s face before he controlled himself. He’d looked totally devastated. Which was weird, because Tony had only been half-watching, but he really didn’t think the movie had been that sad. He’d checked the reviews after, curious to see what Steve might have noticed in the movie that he had missed, but all the reviews had been pretty positive. Plus, it was just a kids’ movie.
So, all in, it wasn’t the most shocking thing in the world for Steve to walk out of a movie Tony had picked.
It was pretty disappointing that the thing that apparently tipped him over the edge was a little subversion of traditional gender roles though.
“Are we pausing?” Bruce asked.
“Someone else decide,” Tony replied wearily.
“Have we all seen this before?” Clint wanted to know. There was a general murmur of assent amongst the four of them. Clint stretched back with a sigh. “Jarvis, pause,” he said. Tony understood the reasoning - no point in watching on without the only person who hadn’t seen it – but he was still irritated. Steve’s ice cream and apple pie was sitting forlornly on the table, almost certainly going to be a melty, soggy mess if Steve bothered to return. Tony lifted his phone for a distraction and opened his work emails. Over two hundred unread, and three more since the last time he’d looked.
Clint coughed meaningfully, and Tony lifted his head to see the other three looking at him expectantly.
“What?” he said, very annoyed.
“Are you not going to go see what’s up with him?” Clint asked. Tony threw up his hands.
“I’ve been asking him all day!” he exclaimed. “He’s been acting weird all day – he bit Bruce’s head off at lunch time for no reason whatsoever, and he kept hanging up on me on the phone this morning. He's like a teenager having mood swings, and I swear to all you now I will not be responsible for my actions if I have to scold Captain America one more time and send him to his room. No, I’m not going, it’s someone else’s turn.”
No one seemed particularly convinced by his little tantrum, which was a sure sign they were all spending too much time with him.
“He knows you best,” Bruce pointed out. “He’s still guarded with Natasha and Clint because of their connection with SHIELD – no offence, guys – and I don’t know him anywhere near as well as you. You live with him.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t see each other as often as you’d expect, he’s got a pretty full social calendar,” Tony muttered, but he didn’t really have any further arguments. He did know Steve the best out of all of them, for all that they’d only met each other a little over two months’ ago. “Fine, but I’m finishing my dessert first,” he said grumpily, and took two more huge spoonfuls before getting up.
Tony crossed the room and headed towards the door Steve had disappeared through only moments before, leading into one of the stairwells that connected the upper levels of the building. Tony rarely used the stairs, preferring to take the elevator between floors, but Steve and for some reason Clint had showed a baffling tendency to bound up and down on foot, so it wasn’t anything special that Steve had chosen this door.
Tony saw at once that Steve hadn’t gone far. He was standing at the top of the stairs that would lead down to almost everything else in the building, as though he had gotten so far and then been leached of the energy required to continue further. He was standing sideways on to Tony’s view, staring into the middle distance. His broad shoulders looked like they were being dragged towards the floor with immense chains. Steve turned his head a little to the left to look up at Tony as he entered, Tony still chewing in a very undignified manner on his dessert, cheeks stuffed full like a chipmunk. Their gazes met, Steve’s eyes dull and inexpressively weary.
Steve was crying.
Tony halted mid-step, feeling entirely wrong-footed. His hand was still on the door he was pushing through, holding it open, and he wobbled momentarily before he remembered to put his foot back down on the floor, then he shuffled forward with an awkward, uncertain gait, far enough that the door could swing closed behind him. The door clicked softly shut, and the background hum that had been the low conversation from the over Avengers, as well as the various appliances in the kitchen and living area, gave way to near-perfect silence. Tony put a useless hand up to his mouth and tried to swallow the food in it. His mind was blank.
“Thought you were going to finish your dessert first,” Steve rasped, something strangely mocking about the words, though there was nothing like mockery in his face. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and his pale face had a translucent, blotchy quality that made him look quite unlike his usual self. In short, Steve looked utterly wretched.
“Got most of it,” Tony mumbled, once he had swallowed enough of the food to speak. The hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end, prickling urgent unease at him. Steve nodded once, without a trace of interest, and tipped himself backwards, limp and languid, until he was leaning against the wall, as though he could no longer support his own weight. He tipped his head back to thump against the wall, too, and stared up with unseeing eyes.
Tony licked his lips. Steve’s eyes were glassy and shining, though his expression was wooden and his cheeks looked dry. He showed no inclination to speak, and Tony didn’t know what to say, so he rubbed his own jaw with the heel of his hand for something to do. The silence stretched out between them.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Tony said eventually. “Or I can go back in and get Nat to come out.” The words came out with more brusqueness than he intended.
Steve shook his head, almost imperceptibly, still staring at the ceiling. He blinked, and a tear squeezed itself out of the corner of an eye, trickling down a lethargic trail past his cheekbone and into his ear lobe. Tony’s breath wouldn’t move properly through his throat, catching somewhere before it could fill his lungs, and his chin and shoulders were hunching around the tension in his own body. He felt supremely useless, and the agitation made him unreasonably angry.
“Okayyy. Well, we can just stand here a while then,” Tony tried.
Steve said nothing to this, but he let out a soft breath, and closed his eyes, withdrawing even further from the situation. Tony felt a hot spike of irritation.
“Should I get a chair?” he bit out sarcastically. He shifted his stance, folding his arms over his chest, straightening up and raising his chin with an attempt at defiance towards the crippling sense of helplessness threatening to overwhelm him. Tony glared, though Steve couldn’t see it.
Steve lifted his head forward again, the whole movement seeming to draw on reserves of energy he didn’t have to spare, as though his skull were a concrete block he was unequal to moving easily. He was facing Tony, but his gaze was unfocused, weary, and directed somewhere to Tony’s elbow, as though finding Tony’s face was too much of a task to attempt.
“I’m going to bed,” Steve croaked. He paused, swallowed, and went on, “Night, Tony. Say sorry to the others for me. Please.” He passed a hand over his face, then pushed himself off the wall.
“Uh, no, Cap, that’s like, the definition of running away from your problems,” Tony snapped, abruptly furious at Steve for doing this to him, for putting him in this position and making Tony watch this miserable scene. Tony crossed the space in a few strides and grabbed at Steve’s arm before he had done more than begin to turn around towards the stairs leading downward. His hand fastened firmly around Steve’s arm, just above the elbow.
Steve stilled at once, and his whole body seemed to droop again, the energy that had propelled him upright vanishing as quickly as it came. Up close, Tony could see more clearly the uneven sheen on the side of his face where another tear had escaped without fanfare from his swollen eyes. Steve’s face was etched in lines of misery, and Tony felt another surge of helpless anger. He gave Steve’s arm a sharp shake.
“Ok look, if you don’t want to tell me for your sake, tell me for my sake, because doing this whole moody teenager thing you’ve got going on is just making me jump to conclusions and I’m pretty sure whatever it is, I will have already considered the truth and also several far worse alternatives, so at this point you’re actually being unfair to a friend by not just spitting it out and you’re kind of dragging my mood down with you-”
“Stop talking,” Steve rasped, and Tony stopped at once, a squirming feeling that like always, he had probably gone that teensy bit too far in trying the guilt-tripping approach, but still feeling resentful of Steve and the whole situation all the same.
“Ok, no talking,” Tony agreed, dropping Steve’s arm and throwing his hands up with quick, nervous movements, showing his peaceable intentions. “Hug? That doesn’t require talking.” Tony held his arms out wide, half-joking, trying to break the tension with humour, anything to crack the heart-breaking, all-encompassing despair in Steve’s whole demeanour.
In Tony’s experience, Steve was generally rather awkward about physical contact with anyone. So to say it was unexpected when Steve sighed and leaned willingly into Tony’s offered embrace would be a vast understatement. As Steve dropped his head onto Tony’s shoulder, Tony’s heart stuttered, sheer incredulity and horror jolting through him, and his eyes widened.
Steve is definitely sick, Tony realised in horror. He mechanically closed his arms over Steve’s shoulders, then held him tightly, almost desperately, and frantically tried to work out how he could persuade Steve to come downstairs to the lab with Bruce and submit to tests to try and work out what was wrong with him. They’d need to check his temperature. Maybe he had a fever? That would explain the flushed look on his face. And they should definitely start with some blood tests to try and isolate the pathogen capable of subduing a super-soldier.
But in Steve’s clearly unhinged state, he was unlikely to cooperate with providing a blood sample, given that he was paranoid and reluctant about bloodwork at the best of times. They would need to restrain him, and how on earth were they going to manage that? They could try sedating him, but Tony couldn’t think of a single instance of sedatives working on Steve, and what if it interacted badly with the poison or the virus or whatever he’d been infected with? And anyway, Tony had explictly promised Steve that he would never let anyone lock him up, and he was pretty sure forcibly restraining someone for medical treatment would come under that category, and as soon as Steve realised what they were about he would just bolt and then they’d never see him again and if was really truly sick he might die and he’d be alone and– wait. Tony’s thoughts stuttered to an abrupt halt.
“Steve, why do you stink of alcohol?” Tony asked suspiciously.
Because I drank all Natasha’s vodka,” Steve replied, his voice muffled into Tony’s shoulder.
Tony blinked.
Ok then. That was...unexpected. Drunk Steve? Drunk Steve would explain the out of character crying.
But Steve had told him before, with absolute confidence, that alcohol had no effect on him. In the face of their disbelieving rebuttals, he’d also eventually demonstrated this to Clint and Tony one evening last month, by downing six shots of whisky in a row, screwing up his face in hilarious disgust at the taste, then executing a perfectly balanced sequence of somersaults and backflips across the room, evidencing that the alcohol had caused him absolutely no loss of coordination.
“Did it...do anything?” Tony asked cautiously.
“No.”
“Did it help?”
“No.”
“Did you expect it to?”
“I was curious. It’s more expensive than the stuff I tried to get drunk on before. I wondered if it might work.” Steve’s voice was still muffled, but it sounded devoid of anything like emotion, much less curiosity. His head was a dead weight on Tony’s shoulder.
“You’ve tried before?” Tony was trying hard to keep the alarm out of his voice, because A: No judging and B: Steve couldn’t get drunk anyway. So it wasn’t like he could actually become an alcoholic, but still, repeated attempts to deliberately get drunk couldn’t be anything other than concerning, indicating as it did a deep-rooted unhappiness with something in his life.
“No, not-” Tony felt Steve shaking his head, Steve’s forehead moving against Tony’s own shoulder, and then felt the broad shoulders shift as Steve sighed deeply, before Steve pulled away and stood upright again. His face was twisting up, his nose wrinkling and his mouth downturned. “Not...now. I mean before. In 45. Before I died.”
Steve had never actually died, but Tony didn’t correct him. Steve had formed an unpleasant habit of referring to the decades he was frozen as the time he was ‘dead’, which was somewhat reasonable, considering the last thing Steve recalled from 1945 was a supposedly fatal plane crash. But Tony had whole-heartedly rejected this description the first time Steve had mentioned it, and generally continued to every time Steve slipped up and referred to his ‘death’. Tony knew that Steve would probably oblige him and correct himself if it was pointed out to him now. But changing the wording wouldn’t really address the issue, which was that Steve evidently continued to think of himself as being in the wrong place and the wrong time in 2012, something like a lonely ghost, rather than a human being with every right to life.
“You tried to get drunk in 1945?” was what Tony said, instead.
Steve nodded with a single, terse movement. He wasn’t looking at Tony. His chest was rising and falling with deep, exaggerated breaths, and his eyes were closed again. He looked like a man fighting for control, and it wasn’t a look Tony felt entirely comfortable seeing on Captain America.
“London,” Steve said briefly. His voice was low and tremulous now. Tony hesitated, but he needed to know.
“Why?” Tony asked.
“Bucky.”
And that had clearly been the wrong thing to ask, because nothing about Steve’s expression was wooden now, and the flat, dull look had been entirely swept away by anguish. Steve was turning abruptly, trying to pace towards the stairs and escape, but Tony reached out again and snatched at him seizing both of Steve’s arms this time and demanding the embrace rather than offering it, because the raw, desperate agony in Steve’s face needed no words and Tony suddenly found that he knew what to do. His arms were around Steve again, and he didn’t know exactly what he was saying, but he was murmuring something low and gruff as Steve was shaking, gasping, choking for air past the sounds ripping themselves from his throat.
When it subsided, Tony had his arms around him, rubbing a comforting pattern on his back. Steve pulled away again, embarrassed, and putting some distance between them.
“Sorry,” he muttered. He sniffed, and avoided Tony’s eyes, tension radiating from every pore.
“Don't be sorry,” disagreed Tony. “Hang on, I’ll get you a tissue, don’t go anywhere.” He ducked back into the living area briefly and walked quickly into the kitchen, snatched up the box of tissues and tried to leave just as quickly. The TV was on again, though the volume was down low.
Bruce called over to him, “Did you find him? Is he ok?”
Tony called back, “Uh, yeah. We're good. You guys watch something else. We'll be a while.”
He didn’t stop moving as he spoke, and escaped back into the stairwell before anyone could ask him anything else, very aware that Steve could apparently hear through the walls every word that was said. Steve was still standing where Tony had left him, his face still averted, but his breathing was more regular now than it had been moments ago. Tony handed him the box of tissues and let him blow his nose, politely looking away. Then he carefully positioned himself leaning against the wall, just behind and beside Steve, where they wouldn’t have to look at each other as they spoke. After a moment, Steve leaned back again too with a soft sigh. Silently, Tony pressed his shoulder into Steve’s. Both men had their arms crossed tightly over their chests.
“Sorry,” Steve said gloomily. “I’ve been doing this all day. It’s really embarrassing.”
“Have you?” Tony said in surprise, and he felt rather than saw Steve’s flinch at the words.
“No, no, it’s fine,” Tony said hastily. “I’m just surprised I haven’t noticed.”
“Well,” said Steve, and then he stopped and swallowed. “You were busy.”
Tony grimaced. “Yeah,” he allowed. “But still. You know, you seemed a bit short-tempered. But I didn’t realise you were....” he searched for the word, “unhappy”.
“I've got a terrible temper,” Steve admitted. “Sorry. For that, too.”
“Quit saying sorry. So, what? You saw the alcohol and it reminded you?” Inwardly, Tony was wondering if they would need to remove all alcohol from the tower. If it needed to be done, they could, but it would be a nuisance. He supposed they could try alcohol-free versions of things, but it wouldn’t be quite the same, and it might cause some resentment.
“No,” said Steve, his voice so low it was almost inaudible.
“Ok. So. What?” Tony asked.
Steve's breathing was getting faster again, rapid, shallow breaths that threatened towards hyperventilating again if he didn’t regain control.
“Steve,” tony said despairingly, feeling at the end of his tether with this whole day. “Look, I know this is hard, but I can’t help if you don’t tell me, and it’s obviously important.”
“My mom died,” Steve bit out.
Tony waited, but it didn’t seem like Steve had anything more to say.
“Yeah, she died a while ago,” Tony eventually said cautiously. Steve blew out a breath.
“Yeah,” he agreed, tonelessly. He gently extricated himself from where Tony’s arm was pressed against his, and he started to move towards the stairs again without saying another word, clearly signalling that this was all he could say for now. Tony thought quickly.
“Steve, wait, hey, Steve, when did your mom die?” Tony asked hurriedly. Steve flinched again, almost imperceptibly, and stopped moving, though he didn’t turn around.
“Fifteenth of October. Nineteen thirty-six,” he said, sounding defeated, and Tony sighed with relief and pity intermingled because he finally understood. Seventy-six years ago to the day. Today was the anniversary of Sarah Rogers’ death. And it was the first time Steve had had to mark the date since he’d woken up in the ice five months’ ago, to find out that almost everyone he had known in the world had died, and that instead of dying with them, he had been asleep for seventy years.
“I’m sorry,” Tony said, full sincerity.
Steve shrugged. “It was a long time ago,” he said with obvious difficulty, but he turned back again so Tony could see the weary lines of his face. “I didn’t want to say anything and ruin the evening.”
“You could have told me, even if you didn’t want to tell the others,” Tony said, a little reprovingly. It was hypocritical of him, he knew, given his own poor track record, but he couldn’t help but feel a little healthy communication would have meant a lot less hassle for everyone involved.
Steve opened his mouth at once, then paused, seeming to reconsider his words before he spoke. “You were...busy. I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said feebly, and Tony’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“You did try to tell me, didn’t you? That’s what you came to see me about this morning,” Tony guessed, and Steve’s expression gave him his answer. Tony winced. “Ah, Steve. I’m sorry. I didn’t even realise. But you should have- no, I should have noticed, I’m sorry. And I’ve been away this week- yeah, I’m a crap friend. Sorry.”
“You’re not a bad friend,” Steve said automatically.
“I should have noticed,” Tony repeated.
Steve shrugged again. “It’s fine,” he said dully. “Shall we go back in?”
“What made you walk out?”
“My mom was a nurse. Like the guy in the movie. I was already thinking about her, and it just,” Steve shrugged again and then out of nowhere he laughed, a harsh, brittle sound. “And she used to make apple pie. Hers didn’t even taste anything like the one we’re having tonight, it was just another little thing. It’s like everything this week has just reminded me of her. And today has been...” Steve’s voice abruptly cracked.
Tony was feeling thoroughly and suitably guilty.
“Just out of interest, what are your views on male nurses?” popped out of his mouth.
Steve snorted. “Really?” He gave a half-hearted smile. “I can’t remember my line.”
“We’ll revise it before you inevitably accosted in the street and asked by a stranger about traditional gender roles,” Tony promised, and inched a little closer to Steve. “For now, I’m happy enough that you remember you’re supposed to have a line, and not just say that men shouldn’t be stealing women’s jobs because there’s so many things women can’t do, so we should leave them the things that they can.”
Steve rolled his eyes. “I don’t think that’s exactly what I said,” he objected, but without any real energy.
“Where did you go today?” Tony asked him awkwardly.
Steve’s face shuttered again.
“Ok, if you don’t want to talk about-”
“I went to Brooklyn first to leave some flowers, then I went to Hart Island to see where she’s buried,” Steve said all in a rush.
Tony absorbed this information.
“Why didn’t you leave flowers where she’s buried?” he asked cautiously
“Because it’s hard to visit Hart Island,” Steve said simply. The words seemed to be coming easier now. “I tried to arrange a visit, but they wanted ID and proof of my relationship to her, and I've got my passport now, but I just thought if they realise I'm Captain America they’ll make a huge fuss. And I think the grave is probably unmarked anyway, so there probably isn’t anything to actually see. So I just ran as close as I could get and looked across the water. And then I ran home again.”
“How far is it?” Tony asked. A sick feeling of nausea had risen at the words ‘the grave is probably unmarked’. Steve’s mother had died years before he had crashed the plane into the ice. Why had he never visited his mother’s grave?
“How far is what?”
“You said you went to Brooklyn first, and then you ran to the island, how far is that?” Tony clarified.
Steve shrugged a little, then considered it. “About twenty miles, maybe.”
“Jeez, Steve,” Tony said, taken aback. He knew Steve was perfectly capable of running that distance, and further, but it still seemed a little extreme to travel so far on foot when there were so many other methods of travel available in New York City. “Why didn’t you get a cab?”
“I couldn’t afford the bus when she was buried,” Steve said, not really answering the question. His eyes were unfocused, gazing unseeing into the middle distance. “And it was too far for me to walk, back then. It was a really cold year, my coat wasn’t very warm, I’d have worn out my shoes, and I knew I’d have been exhausted if I tried. I thought, she wouldn’t have wanted me to go all that way, when I couldn’t see her anyway, and then I would probably make myself sick trying.”
Tony felt a cold trickle of understanding.
“You've never visited your mother’s grave before?”
“I couldn’t afford the bus when she was buried,” Steve said again, and looked miserably at Tony. “And they wouldn’t let me see her anyway, once she was dead, because of her being delicate. In case she was infectious, I mean. So I don’t know where her grave is. Because I couldn’t afford to pay for the casket-”
Steve was speaking very quickly now, the words tumbling out of his mouth and bumping into each other in an increasingly frantic gabble, and his voice was rising in pitch. Colour was rising crimson in his cheeks, and to Tony’s horror, he saw that Steve’s eyes were blurred and shining brightly, almost obscured with unshed tears. The words kept pouring out.
“And I couldn’t afford to pay for a plot in the church we went to, so they took her away, and we just did a service anyway without her body, and I used to just go and leave flowers every year in the graveyard and just pick a headstone that had a name I thought she would have liked-”
Steve’s voice broke off entirely, and a sob escaped from his throat before he clamped his lips shut and bowed his head. His shoulders were jerking raggedly, but there was no sound as he held his breath rather than allow himself to cry. Tears were running freely down his cheeks again, dripping messily from his chin and dropping in dark stains on the top of his t-shirt.
Tony stood, wretched and transfixed, so aghast by the rawness of Steve’s pain that he felt immobilised by it. Everything in him cried out in sympathy, but at the same time shrank away instinctively from the depth of Steve’s despair.
“And here I am now,” Steve concluded, “with millions of dollars in a bank account, and I could probably afford to buy the whole damn bus company if I really wanted, but I couldn’t even afford a bus fare to go see my mom’s funeral.”
Steve finished speaking, and took several deep breaths, composing himself. His breathing gradually changed from the terrible, ragged gulps, to something slower and more even as he regained control.
Tony still didn’t move. In the near-silence of the halfway, above Steve’s breathing, he could hear his own heartbeat thumping steadily in his ears, incongruous against the turmoil of his confused thoughts. Tony had known Steve was poor. Captain America, the penniless orphan who stepped forward without hesitation to serve his country, was a commonly touted romantic angle in the history books. But what Steve was describing was a level of poverty Tony had never even contemplated could exist on American soil.
“I couldn’t afford her funeral anyway,” Steve said after a few moments, in dull tones. “I asked everyone for help. And lots of people gave me money. But it wasn’t enough, so I gave it all back. I kept track of who gave what, I kept a list.”
Steve was silent for another moment, then said softly, “The flowers I bought today cost ten times what the bus fare would have. I left them down at a headstone that said Margaret. My mom wasn’t really fussed about the name Margaret. Her friend, Pearl, her real name was Margaret, and they didn’t like it. But I think my mom would have liked Peggy. So it seemed to fit.” He sighed. “There was another headstone with the name Elizabeth. She liked that name. But I saw the Margaret one first, and I couldn’t lift the flowers once I'd set them down.”
“Steve, holy hell,” Tony managed. The words felt wholly inadequate.
Steve laughed. “I know. I had a really bad day,” he agreed, then sobered. “And then I took it out on you guys. I'm sorry.”
“You...wow, Steve. No apology required.” Tony was still reeling.
“I was late for lunch. It all took me longer than I thought it would, and I wasn’t watching the time. I'm sorry. I tried to run back quickly, but I kept hitting traffic and I didn’t want to run a red light,” Steve said soberly.
Tony started to laugh, weakly and Steve laughed with him, but the laugher changed in a moment and then his breath was hitching again, and his mouth was twisting as he tried to hold himself back.
“I really, really miss her, Tony,” Steve said, very low. “I know it’s stupid. I don’t know why it makes any difference now. She's been dead for so long.”
Steve abruptly stopped talking and put both his hands over his face, the pads of his fingertips pressing hard into his skull, as though if he could squeeze hard enough, he would press down on the pain and put it back in a box.
Tony reached over and grasped his shoulder helplessly. Steve shook his head fiercely, but didn’t pull away from the touch, and then with a deep, shuddering breath, took his hands away from his face, clenching his fists by his sides and lifting his chin.
“She's been dead for ages,” Steve repeated, low and determined. “And I was 18 when she died, it was years ago.” He paused, and wrinkled his brow, then said thoughtfully, “She died over seventy years ago, but for me, it’s the eighth anniversary of her death. My timeline is a mess.”
He was quiet for a long time again. Nothing that would be useful to say occurred to Tony, so he stayed silent, wishing it were Pepper here instead of him, and wondering if it would be better for him to leave. But Steve seemed to be finding some sort of reassurance in Tony’s presence, so no matter how uncomfortable Tony felt, he would stay. He could do that much, at least. Tony pressed his lips together and grimly committed himself to listening to whatever Steve wanted to say, if it helped.
“She used to do all the cooking when she was alive,” Steve said wistfully. “I know women aren’t supposed to do that anymore, but she was good at it. Until she got sick, and then she’d tell me what to do in the kitchen. She was really scared of me getting sick though. She wouldn’t let me lie down near her for too long. I used to think that I wouldn’t really care,” Steve stated with a cool, pragmatic tone that did not match the topic. “Everyone knew I was going to die anyway. And I knew that once she died, I'd be on my own. I’d have been happier just living a little longer than her, so she didn’t have to see me die. But I didn’t really care, other than that.”
“You weren’t on your own, you had your friend Bucky,” Tony objected, unnerved by Steve’s casual contemplation of his own likely death as a teenager.
“Yeah, and then he died too,” Steve said thoughtfully. “And then I died. Except then I came here. I wonder where they went.”
“Steve, you didn’t die, you were frozen,” Tony protested, unable to stop himself.
“Yeah, I know,” Steve agreed equably. “Sorry, I was getting mixed up.” His eyes were still red-rimmed, but the earlier distress had entirely vanished, replaced by an unnatural level of cool detachment.
Tony waited, but Steve didn’t say anything more after this. When Tony realised nothing more was forthcoming, he half-wished he hadn’t disagreed out loud with Steve, if it had dissuaded Steve from saying anything more. Though Tony uneasily thought that it couldn’t be healthy, to let Steve talk about having previously been dead.
“I'm really sorry all that happened to you,” Tony said eventually, awkwardly.
“It's fine,” Steve said, still in that calm, reasonable tone. “Much worse things happen to other people.”
“That doesn’t...make your stuff any less important,” Tony said, low and helpless.
“Yeah, I know,” Steve murmured. He didn’t seem to be arguing, or agreeing with what Tony had said. He was just closing the conversation.
After a moment, Steve said, in an entirely different tone of voice, “Tony, do you think maybe that vodka did have an effect? I don’t normally talk this much.”
Tony laughed despite himself. Steve sounded genuinely curious, but there was a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“Depends. How much did you drink?” Tony asked, glad to revert back to the safety of careful, light-hearted banter.
“The whole thing. It was disgusting. You need to buy more expensive stuff next time,” Steve informed him.
Tony snorted. “Agent Romanoff is going to be rather unimpressed if you really did finish off that entire bottle by yourself,” he scolded Steve, but without any heat.
“Mmm. Why did you keep it in the freezer? It was so cold to drink like that.” Steve shivered.
“You’re not supposed to drink vodka straight like that, idiot, and definitely not right out of the freezer,” Tony said despairingly. “Vodka’s freezing point is below the temperature of the freezer. So you can keep it in the freezer and it stays liquid. You're telling me you really poured a whole bottle of icy liquid down your throat? Your PTSD must be having a field day.”
“It was terrible like that,” Steve said definitively. “And I don’t have PTSD. Or shellshock. Or psychosis. Or any of the others. I’m fine.”
Tony just shook his head. Steve had consented to one assessment appointment with a psychiatrist, but then had been quite sure he didn’t need another one.
“We'll work on that one,” was all Tony said. Steve just smiled wryly at him, knowing perfectly well Tony was picking his battles.
“Thank you for coming after me,” Steve said awkwardly. “What was the phrase? Sharing is caring? I do feel better. Even though you haven’t done anything.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” Tony said dryly. “But you’re welcome.”
“Natasha’s been googling today’s date with my name, and she’s worked it out, by the way,” Steve told him. “They've been trying to find something to watch that doesn’t involve family for the last few minutes. It doesn’t sound like they’re having much success.”
“Your hearing is really freakish,” Tony said candidly. With the door to the living area tightly closed, he couldn’t hear so much as the murmur of voices. Yet Steve was apparently able to hear and understand the conversations all the way in the next room.
“I don’t understand why you all keep trying to talk about me behind my back when you know I can hear you,” Steve complained. “I can hear you when you’re trying to lip read each other as well, you know. I know you and Clint were saying something about me when I was getting the drinks.”
“Freakish,” repeated Tony. “Ok. Are we going back in?”
“Yeah, sure,” acquiesced Steve easily, the earlier tension now completely dissipated, or at least well-hidden. “But, listen, Tony.”
Steve looked at him very seriously, and Tony braced himself for whatever emotional rollercoaster Steve needed to take him on now. Maybe he felt he needed to express his thanks more profusely to Tony. Whatever it was, Tony could listen, no matter how convinced he might be that emotions gave him hives.
“I need you to tell Clint I don’t want a group hug,” Steve said seriously, and Tony burst out laughing with relief. Steve didn’t like emotions either. This was the real reason they were friends.
“I mean it!” Steve laughed. “That was one of his ideas a few minutes ago. Awful idea.”
“How about more ice cream?” Tony suggested.
“Ice cream is good,” Steve confirmed, and smiled, relaxed and genuine, into Tony’s relieved face, nudging his arm a little in companionable understanding as they returned to the group together.