Oh, God...

[shieldborne]

Infinity War Open Post






THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.

Drop me a prompt, or ask me to drop you a prompt. Open to doomy pre-IW foreshadowing, fix-it AUs, post-IW angst, character interactions that should have happened but didn't on-screen, crossovers, and whatever else anyone can come up with.

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[shieldborne]

Steve eyes him uncertainly from where he sits, trying to judge how easily startled he's likely to be. But Tony's reactions are hard for him to predict at the best of times, and he's feeling a little strung out again. Giving up, he comes over and sits, folding his hands loosely in his lap.

"Most of the people in Wakanda speak in Xhosa. I was in the army, Tony. I can swear in five different languages. It was kind of a game, is the thing, with the Howling Commandos. I was their officer. I was supposed to lead and make sure they put their best face forward, and Bucky--"

Sigh. "Bucky always liked to test me, swearing a blue streak in English and French and German and whatever else he could learn, and I had to tell him to watch his mouth, because we weren't kids any more. You ain't never heard swearing until you've heard Brooklyn swearing."

"Picking up the game again with the Avengers just felt...important. Even though the guys I'd known weren't there." Even though Bucky wasn't there.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head obligingly. "Having you all harass me back was part of the point."

[starkingenuity]

Trimming a few curls from a chiseled cheek is no problem. Tony has a task with his hands and that’s the only thing he cares to focus on. Cutting hair isn’t his line of work and he’s never done it for anyone other than himself, but the repetitive task with the known or desired outcome is good for him.

He runs his fingers through the bulk of the hair, lifts it from Steve’s chin, and runs the blades together. The sound is satisfying. Dropping hair on the floor, despite his OCD is also satisfying.

Hearing all about how Steve Rogers actually has a foul mouth, though, is honestly half distressing. Tony nearly puts down the scissors and takes a seat. Instead, he peers down at Steve, not quite as close as the picture on the HUD, and scoffs. “All this time. We’ve been living a lie. Do you also have ten illegitimate children and an addiction to marijuana?”

[shieldborne]

It feels...good. To sit passive for a moment, to let himself be touched without worrying about baggage or hidden meanings. His eyes stay closed, because he doesn't want to see anything in Tony's face to make him feel any different about the physical proximity. Doesn't want to see fear or wariness, especially.

If he just lets himself focus on the prosaic nature of the touch, it feels safe.

His lips quirk into a wry smile, though. "Of all the people in the world, I figured you'd be the last to buy into the Captain America persona, Tony. I guess that's my fault for letting it stand."

"For the record, marijuana does nothing for me but I'm in favor of legalization. I don't like it around, though. Reminds me too much of the asthma cigarettes I used to have to smoke as a kid. And if I have any children at all, it's because someone took parts of my DNA when I wasn't looking and grew 'em in a test tube."

[starkingenuity]

Tony looks skeptical but doesn’t further comment. He is curious though, because he’s learned more about Steve in the last ten minutes than he had over their friendship. That his own fault. He tends to forget that people exist when not in his view, or directly on his mind.

Steve certainly has all of his attention right now. It turns out that you can learn more in the time it takes to trim a beard for shaving than you can drunkenly pouring over sketchbooks looking for images of yourself for two years. Who would have thought?

“Pretty sure you’re still body snatched,” Tony says, running short nails across hair left slightly longer than stubble before leaning back towards the bag of drug store finds for the comb. “Maybe you’ll go back to normal when I get your hair to part again. So you’d better tell me all about what other crazy you have to get it out of your system now.”

[shieldborne]

There's plenty Steve doesn't know about Tony, as well, but he's pretty observant, and as much as he tried not to care at first, he did care. He's not sure how deep Tony's wounds were, before (no doubt deeper now, thanks to their conflict), but he knew they were there and sometimes he had a pretty good guess of when and how they hurt him most. But even that isn't the whole and sum of a man.

The scratch of nails across his skin raises goosebumps on his shoulders for some reason. Steve gives a little shiver, brows knitting, but doesn't open his eyes.

"Pal, I was body-snatched in 1942," he says. "Been like this ever since. What do you want to hear? I could tell you about the time me and Bucky got in trouble for stealing the wheels off his sister's doll carriage, or the time I painted the inside of my ears with my ma's nail varnish, or the first and last time I tried bathtub gin."

He opens one eye at last. "You gotta tell me, though, how'd you like the sketchbooks?"

[starkingenuity]

“Yeah I want to hear about all of it. They make me feel better about everything in life,” Tony comments, trying to tame two years of wild growth on the top of Steve’s head. He’s not as gentle as he was with the beard and he yanks a little bit as he attempts to get the root to cooperate.

Having only cut his own hair, and in a much different style than 1942 Rogers, he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing here. There are a few photos on his phone, and he could probably use that phone to look up better ones, but he’s trying not to give SHIELD (or his other self) any reason to wonder and then, likely, to check up on why there’s a duplicated signal.

He leaves the comb in Steve’s hair and flicks through photos from years ago when his thumb sends the photo reel to the beginning. Once again, Steve Rogers is doing to him when he’s used to doing to everyone else.

“I’m not a great reader so I like to look at pictures. You’re okay, I guess. I’ve seen better. Too many dudes in your art.”

Jesus. When did someone like Rogers start to get the jump on him?

The answer arrives quickly: ‘When he stopped having anything to be Steve Rogers for.’

“Stop changing the subject.”

[shieldborne]

He makes a small sound in his throat when Tony tugs on his hair, neither approval not complaint. He's pretty sure the man is going to absolutely mangle his haircut, when it comes right down to it. Tony Stark is not a barber. But it will grow back, and hats are always an option, and Steve isn't especially vain about his hair, so he's prepared to give Tony free reign.

"Too many--Tony. Really? What, you want me to draw you some pin-up girls?" His lips twitch. "That was my first paid professional artist job; I could do that."

He opens both eyes this time and peers up at Tony. "Am I changing the subject? I'm not sure I get what you're asking me. You wanted to know about my crazy? What does that mean?"

[starkingenuity]

Though he’s not about to say what he actually thinks, Tony does agree that there should be more pin-ups. Steve is from the era of the perfect girl with the fullest of figures and the softest of skin, rosy cheeks and most well kept hair. Tony has had his fun alone with pin-ups, same as any boy stuck in a boarding school. He’s also had his share of fun with those other boys too. There’d been little choice about that, when you’re lonely and that’s all there is. Sexuality needs an outlet. Ask a fair portion of prisoners and they’ll tell you the same.

Tony resumes what he’s been doing, pulling strands of dark hair between his fingers to snip the ends at an angle. He sees the exercise in geometry, measuring angles by sight and determining the best place to make the cut by calculations entering and exiting various parts of his brain at once.

He’s not a barber. But he’s going to do a damned good job. Steve just needs to wait and see.

“The guy I grew up thinking I knew was pious and never did anything wrong other than lie a bunch of times to enlisting officers. The guy I’ve known has always been Captain America and you yourself just said you’ve let us all know you as that. So yeah. I want to know the nail polish in your ear story. Give me some dirt in case I ever have to give a eulogy. You’ve got plenty of stuff on me.”

[shieldborne]

Steve's sexual history is more sordid and sad than Tony might be expecting. He is not, as is popularly believed, a 99-year-old virgin, but he waited an awfully long time to reach out. There were no trysts before the serum, as much as Bucky encouraged him. Things got complicated after that. There was Peggy, and then there was Bucky, and there were the demands of his new body and the beginnings of the various psychological wounds of war...

It got a little weird. But he knows he doesn't have any children out there.

"There's Captain America," he says, "and there's Steve Rogers. And they overlap in a lot of places, but not perfectly. Steve Rogers is older."

He's quiet for a few seconds, then says: "Raspberry Cutex. That was the color nail varnish ma wore most of the time when I was little. Raspberry, sometimes Chinese Red, and Pink Pearl on holidays. She worked real hard; I always liked it when she dressed up and got fancy because that meant she was taking a break. Anyway, I must have been about four at the time. I don't remember all of it that well, so I don't know what I was thinking, but I got into her makeup. The usual kid stuff; when she caught me I had rouge on my elbows and mascara in my hair, and she cleaned me all up and put me to bed early, but what she didn't realize is that I'd opened up the nail varnish and stuck the brush in both my ears. I guess it tickled or something, I don't know."

"So she comes to wake me up the next day and I didn't really respond to her, and I was sick so often she naturally guessed somethin' was really wrong. Checked my temperature, made me rest and eat a bunch of extra liver for a couple days--that was the pernicious anemia. Raw liver was the only thing we had for it back then. It was the worst."

He starts to shake his head, then thinks better of it. "When I didn't get any better, she took me to the doctor at the Catholic hospital, and he didn't even want to look at me. He told her with all the other problems I was having, I was probably going deaf and she oughtta think about making me a ward of the state. Well, that part I heard because she went off on him. There was yelling."

"And I was upset because my ma was upset, and it could have been a complete disaster, except then one of the other nurses came in to help calm me down and happened to get a glimpse of Raspberry Cutex in my ear canal. It had hardened in there and blocked it up enough that I could hardly hear, and that's the reason I was acting funny. All it took to clear it up was a few drops of acetone. I think the doctor was embarrassed."

"Served him right."

[starkingenuity]

It’s a story that must have been told all the time. Birthday parties and Christmases must have been filled with amusing stories told around the table with family and friends. Tony doesn’t actually have any stories like that, not from when he was that young. Christmases and birthdays had been for appearances, or for business contracting. Nothing more. Sometimes Tony saw video of holidays but he was rarely in them.

As Steve talks, Tony warms up to him. This guy didn’t have a great life and he still turned out pretty great. It’s true that there’s an overlap between Steve Rogers and Captain America but it’s also true that there couldn’t be a Captain America without Steve Rogers. He’s too necessary to the costume and the moniker.

“Think of how different it would be if your mom gave you up,” Tony muses, taking more hair from the sides. “You are who you are because of everything in your life. Even your disastrous drag phase. That’s why changing this is going to make the other you different. Maybe not for the better but different enough. Stop wiggling or I’m cutting your ear off.”

He’s not serious.

“You should have stuck with the drawing,” he says after a moment. “You were good.”

[shieldborne]

Not nearly so much family as you'd think, coming from Irish Catholic heritage. Some aunts and uncles and cousins, though, and they had plenty of friends. They often had holidays with Bucky's family, for that matter. They bonded young and bonded solid, so their mothers became friends, too.

This particular story, though, was most often recounted to Steve by his mother when he was terribly ill, to remind him that the doctors don't know everything, and that sometimes the solution to recovery is just letting go of your prejudices and taking a closer look at the problem.

"I did end up deaf in the left ear," he says, "before the serum. But that was because of high fevers, not nail polish."

He tilts his head obligingly, then rolls his eyes at the threat. "She would never have given me up. I mean, I had nightmares about it, or about being taken away from her, for years and years, but she'd have blown up Manhattan before she'd have let me go. It was hard, though, being a poor widow with a sickly son."

He chuckles, then. "Excuse you, I could've been adorable in drag before the serum. I...do still draw. When I have the time. Sometimes it's hard to carry the supplies around. I like watercolors, too."

[starkingenuity]

“I take it back. I like this Steve.” Tony’s voice is measured with concentration as he cuts out the other man’s ears and gives the left over shag a good fluffing up, fingers splayed against his scalp, before he goes back to cutting again. The template for each turn of the scissors is overlaid, like he’s building up a chart with transparency paper that only he can see, layers upon layers of angles and calculations sitting on top of reality.

Tony’s unique way of viewing the world is something even Howard didn’t have. The passed Stark had been a genius in his own right, marvelous and ground breaking, and while Tony doesn’t see it, he’s surpassed his old man.

“A deaf drag queen watercolorist would fit into New York a lot better today— I think we’ve found your next mission, after this one,” he decides, though he has already determined that they’re going to work on finding and rehabilitating Barnes before anything else.

He doesn’t know why he wants to give this guy his friend back, but it’s suddenly extremely important to him. There’s too many sketches and details of him in Steve’s books. Same with Peggy, but Peggy is beyond fetching.

Going that far back in time is too unpredictable. Almost a decade had been bad enough.

“Once the younger me figures out I’ve got his accounts and shuts me out—“ Ha, like either Tony would ever notice! “—we’ll need a way to support ourselves, anyway. Chin down. Let me get the back.”

[shieldborne]

"Mnnf," Steve says as his hair gets fluffed up. He's got goosebumps again. Now he's starting to get convinced Tony genuinely knows what he's doing somehow, with respect to hair styling. He can't imagine how or why, though. Unless it has something to do with some kind of spatial sixth-sense and facility with tools of all kinds.

"I can't be a drag queen now," he protests mildly. "My shoulders are way too broad, and I have no hips."

Okay, so he didn't have hips before the serum, either, but his slight form was better suited to dresses, at least, and--yeah, so he thought about it once or twice, what of it? "You saying I should settle down in Greenwich Village and paint for the rest of my life?"

That's strangely tempting. And then 'we'll need a way to support ourselves' registers, specifically the 'we' part, and Tony will get to see a soft little smile before Steve obediently tilts his head down. "Sorry, you're saying we should settle down in Greenwich Village. For the record, just in case you're serious, I know we haven't always gotten along, and we're probably gonna be screaming at each other again sooner or later, but I'd be okay with that."

[starkingenuity]

“You mostly growl in the Leading Man sort of way. I’m the screamer,” Tony jokes with that same half-paying attention tone he’s had for the last five minutes. He puts pressure on the back of Steve’s head and uses the comb at the name of his neck to lift the hair for trimming. It’s not exact, a good electric razor would be better, but Tony doesn’t have access to one.

The illusion only has to be Good Enough. Steve can sell the rest.

“Greenwich is too hipster... but I can pull off a good pair of skinny jeans. So let’s not knock it off of the list. There’s always Malibu. He’ll still have the house there. Huh. We can stop it from getting blown up this time around. Trying to salvage that dump was a nightmare.”

But he had to do it. For DUM-E.

“All right. Color is still really off. I’ve never done bleach before. Let’s hope you’ll still have hair left.” Tony wanders back to the bag to read the box of bleach they’d bought and that will give Steve enough time to check out his ‘do. Tony’s done a great job. Steve will have to shave the rest of his face but the way Tony’s cut his hair makes him look nearly like he had been all those years ago, fresh from the ice.

[shieldborne]

"Natasha says I mansplain sometimes. I'm trying to work on that." He keeps his head down obligingly, and he's tempted to tease Tony about whether he gets a hot towel for the back of his neck after this haircut, but then he's not sure whether barbers do that any longer.

"Malibu sounds so...West Coast, though. And I'm extremely Brooklyn. Do you know how to surf? Can you teach me?"

When Tony backs away, Steve rises and wanders over to the nearest mirror. "I'm pretty sure I can handle the bleach, as long as there are written directions. I mean, I'm liking this new Cosmetologist Tony, but I'm not completely hopeless."

"Geez...you're good, though. Where'd you learn to cut hair?" He pauses, glances over his shoulder, and says, "I think I just wrote an off-Broadway show in my head. One's a deaf drag-queen watercolorist Captain America. The other is Aesthetician Iron Man. And they have to save the world. Or avenge it."

[starkingenuity]

“I don’t want to say that your show would be a hit, because really? But I think that would be a hit. Maybe they’ve already written fanfiction about it.” Tony knows more about fanfiction than he does about his own social security number. “I don’t know why you’re so anti-West Coast. Your baseball team moved out there, didn’t they?”

If Steve is going to be so very Brooklyn right now, Tony is going to make fun of him for it. He’s a Long Island boy at heart, though it might be argued that he was raised in New England, at the boarding school he attended.

He’s not going to tell Steve that he can’t surf. He’s a tech guy. Not a surfing guy. Who did the former blond think he is?

Brushing off his hands, and holding the box out to Steve, Tony can’t help but be amused at how surprised the guy is at his talents. “I engineered your hair. You know who I am, right?” Tony Fucking Stark. He can do anything. Like go back in time to save the god damned day.

[shieldborne]

"Well, if you'd come see it, I'm sure it would be at least a modest success." Steve's position on fanfiction is that he knows it exists, and that's all he needs to know. Same with fan art. It's not that he minds being depicted in compromising positions, but he tends to feel artwork says more about the creator than the subject, and he doesn't especially want to know that much about the psychosexual workings of a totals stranger.

But hey, it's not really hurting anyone.

Mentioning the Dodgers, on the other hand, is a low blow as far as he's concerned. "You mean they were stolen. Don't get me started on the Dodgers, Tony. Not unless you wanna see a grown man cry."

He's exaggerating. He's certainly miffed about the Dodgers, but he's not about to start another fight over them.

Accepting the box, he shakes his head. "You don't engineer hair. That's crazy. It's hair. Hey, why don't you engineer yourself something to eat? I know you, you don't stop for breaks when you're working; I bet you haven't had a decent meal since we met up again. And it looks like I'm gonna need at least twenty minutes to become a bottle blond."

[starkingenuity]

It had been one of the first things that Tony ever said directly to Steve, that his powers had come from a bottle. He regrets them now, along with so many other things that have popped out of his mouth, and he finds the term that much more surreal that it should be said by the guy five days before Tony would be saying it himself.

No, Tony may never utter those words now, not if they can destroy the Tesseract before Loki comes trying to collect on his own debts.

He strolls brought the ornate suite to the marble table, picking up the old fashioned hand held to tuck it between his ear and shoulder. He’ll dial zero for the operator on the rotary, too, not thinking about how far with his germ phobia he’s come, either.

“Might as well get my money’s worth. He’ll be getting the bill,” Tony teases, back to Steve as the shirtless man heads into the bathroom. The order is long...

But not long enough. The shower is still running by the time he’s finished, and that’s long enough to want to call someone he shouldn’t. He doesn’t even have sketchbooks from her to tide him over, either.

But he does have scotch. A lot of scotch.

Enough scotch to get him to wish he had a tie to wrap around his head and wonder why Steve knows him better than he knows Steve.

[shieldborne]

They both said things they regret back then. They both had misconceptions of one another before they ever met. It's actually a wonder they got along as well as they did, with the deck stacked against them the way it was. Thing is, Steve wouldn't have gotten so mad about that crack if he hadn't felt it was, on some level, true.

Maybe that's harsh, though. It depends on how you define 'everything special'.

"I would love to be a fly on the wall when he does get the bill," Steve says mildly, before vanishing into the bathroom.

The water runs without accompaniment while he orders, but by the time Tony has begun to get reacquainted with the wet bar, he'll get at least some distraction in the form of the discovery that Steve sings in the shower. It starts out with the sort of music you'd expect from the man, nothing as sad as 'White Cliffs of Dover', but he sings 'Smoke Gets in Your Eyes' quietly, and a spirited rendition of 'It Don't Mean a Thing (if it Ain't Got That Swing)', but then it gets weird when he switches to the modern era: 'Diamonds', and then 'Cheap Thrills'.

At least he's not singing 'Call Me Maybe'.

He's not all that great a singer, but he's not painful to listen to, either. Just potentially surreal as hell.

He emerges after wrapping up his impromptu tribute to Rihanna, clean-shaven and as blond as he's ever been. The color is a little bit brassy, but no one will notice in indoor lighting.

[starkingenuity]

So far on the Things Rogers Blows At list, there’s a big fat blank space. Tony hadn’t been paying enough attention to the moment of depressed fugue state to listen to the notes so much as the tone, but he can’t help but find the little shower concert to be just the thing to take the edge off of his own depression.

It doesn’t stop him from drinking exactly, but he’s got a nice, lazy glaze to his eyes instead of the mania most people come to know from the once near constant drunkard that the inventor had been. Dark eyes, floating on an amber cloud of self medication, follow the blond as he enters the room, akin glistening from the shower and hair now the appropriate color and shape. He kind of misses the lumberjack beard but he decides again at saying so.

Instead, Tony raises a glass, though it’s empty of anything but bronze droplets. “Didn’t know you were a lounge singer. After that one song, I was hoping to hear Umbrella. Or something from Britney Spears.”

[shieldborne]

He still can't dance, don't worry. And his flirting skills are in some ways even worse than they were in the 1940s, especially where flirting with women is concerned. If Tony just drags him to a club, he can feel infinitely superior while Steve lurks by the wall and looks like a deer in headlights.

That's probably not going to happen any time soon, though.

As soon as Steve emerges, he can tell Tony's been drinking again, to a greater degree than before, and he knows his history. He isn't sure anyone's ever used the term 'alcoholic' to describe him, but it's probably applicable. He's also dead certain Tony's not about to do anything to jeopardize the mission they've set themselves, so there's a flicker of concern in his face, a little frown, and a sigh. "Don't make me jealous with that stuff," he says, nodding at the glass.

Softening again, he has the grace to blush at the reference to his singing. "I like Umbrella. I could try Toxic, but don't expect me to wear the outfit."

He wanders closer and sits across from Tony. "Sometimes when I'm on edge anyway, the sound of water trickling close to my head is...uncomfortable. It's a coping mechanism. Anyway, I like music."

[starkingenuity]

“Ella-ella-ella,” Tony chants, because he doesn’t want to picture Steve wearing clothing from 90s music videos. It’s bad enough that he’s already warping the watercolorist drag queen off-Broadway play version of Rogers together with the Lumberjack he littered the floor with and this new-but-old Rogers standing in front of him.

Tony can’t see a difference in the brassiness of his hair, but he’s not a super soldier with superior sight that doesn’t appear to age like a normal person. This Tony Stark is much older than the one from most of a decade ago. He’s not sure if he’s improved with age, but he still doesn’t think anyone will look too closely. Most people don’t really look at him for long periods of time.

Evidently being a wise cracking, genius, billionaire tends to make people uncomfortable.

Except for Steve Rogers, who doesn’t care who you are and will punch you down to size if he thinks you’re being a bully.

In response to Steve’s ‘jealousy,’ Tony tries to drain the last two drops from the glass, but it’s a no go. He barely gets a taste and his smarmy, absolutely drunken smile proves that the whole thing was for the best.

“I really like this Taxi Cab Confessional episode. I’m learning so much about you.” The man might be drunk, but he doesn’t slur. That’s the mark of a truly functioning alcoholic. “What’s it like…? Crashing? Do you remember it more than just subconsciously?” Because if Steve gets nervous about water on his head-- Well, who the hell knows. Tony’s not an expert in psychoanalysis. Maybe he’ll spend tonight reading up on it so he can be.

[shieldborne]

Okay, but Steve's drag queen persona would be either a USO girl or a sexy nurse, never a flight attendant. He'd probably go to the USO first, since he remembers the chorus girls he worked with awfully well, even now. Red, white, and blue is still his comfort zone.

The smug look on Tony's face rubs Steve the wrong way. That's one aspect of the man's personality he's never cared for, and seeing it crop up right now makes him less comfortable with this conversation than he might have been ten minutes ago. It's also impressively insensitive for him to ask that kind of question, and Steve doesn't have to dignify it with a response.

But they're both hurting, and information--maybe a nibble of schadenfreude--might ease the pain for Stark a little. They both need one another functional. Letting himself be vulnerable for a few minutes can be strategic.

Besides, he's tired of pretending nothing gets to him.

"I was awake. Well...there was the impact, and I hit the windshield like a ton of bricks, and that knocked me out for a couple minutes. I think I probably broke some bones, too. SHIELD files said there were some repairs during the thawing process, and I remember my chest hurt. I did come to, though, as the plane was settling into the ice. I figured I had nothing to lose, so I tried to rewire the radio, but I was already losing manual dexterity in the cold, and then the water started coming in, and it started to get real dark. I guess it was going under at that point."

He's never discussed this before, and in the intervening years it has lost some of its sting, but not nearly enough. He's staring at Tony's empty glass as he talks, as if it has something to tell him. "So it was too dark to see, but all I could hear was water rushing in, and the ice grinding and crunching against the metal, and I didn't know if I was going to freeze, or drown, or get crushed first. Even if I could get the radio working, no one was ever going to find me in time, so."

He takes a deep breath, calming himself, then shrugs weakly. "I laid down on my back with the shield on my chest and just let go."

[starkingenuity]

Just let go.

Tony finds his eyes closing. It’s not a comforting tale, even if Steve has a strangely fantastic way of telling them. He’s descriptive and he’s careful, picking his words carefully as he speaks to give him that deeper, darker sort of voice that is very different from the Captain America tone. Steve’s various vocalizations, various tones, have always managed to inspire reaction in people and Tony’s no different. The call to assemble increases his pulse. Commands on the field of battle are often heeded, despite Stark’s generally combative do-it-my-way personality.

Now this tone…this tone makes him feel like he’s in that plane, running out of oxygen in his lungs, freezing, being crushed—

He’s experienced something very similar in his life, something that the oddly soothing gravel in Steve’s voice dredges up for him. The smug smile just stays on his face, but he doesn’t open his eyes. “First time I was in space-- Well, upper atmosphere, my armor froze over. Fixed that problem with a gold-titanium alloy and some extra temperature control. Thought I fixed that problem,” he clarifies. “Space is cold. So cold. It drains power, which shouldn’t be a problem, arc reactors are perpetual-- But too much cold freezes the moving parts and—” He almost snaps.

“So I was up there. I saw the missile hit the Chitauri ship. I watched the fireworks. Front row seat. But the HUD gave out. And JARVIS gave out. Everything went dark and cold-- So fast,” he half-whispers, finally opening his eyes to look over at Steve. “I didn’t have time to worry about the oxygen levels in the suit. It should have thirty minutes without power, even with the draw from the vacuum. Closed system, like a plane only better. More atmospheric control—” Evidently, drinking makes him rattle on. He’s much less poetic than Steve, that’s for sure. “So it froze up, and I’m just wearing jeans and a t-shirt inside of a metal coffin at that point. I don’t remember anything at all, just that I didn’t want to go out like a martyr…and then yeah, I really did want to go out like a martyr to make you feel bad. Shit. I couldn’t get my girlfriend on the line and I’m just thinking about you and not her as I went to my death. But hey! I just figured out what we have in common-- Floating pieces of metal in freezing temperatures can’t beat us. And we like Rhianna.”

[shieldborne]

Steve has always had a big mouth. It's not that he likes to talk, it's just that a lot of the time he can't stop himself. Steve wasn't always an innocent bystander when bullies selected him, personally, to target. A lot of the time, he lashed out with his tongue before anyone's fists came into play. Not that that made it right or okay, but being able to say he brought it on himself sure makes him feel better. Never a victim, always a participant.

He has a big mouth, and big ideas, and sometimes the two characteristics coincide and he finds people listening to him like the Word of God issues forth from his mouth. Or, in Tony's case, like he's dragged shadows out of his brain and spun them into a solid form. He wants to reach out and soothe him, but that doesn't work so well, from what he's seen. Steve is tactile by nature. Tony, even under all his quirks and traumas, is not.

He'd like to comfort or reassure him, but he has no idea how, or whether he would even accept it.

"That, and the whole 'just about died to save New York' thing, you mean." Steve rests his elbow on the counter, chin on his hand, watching with a softer look in his eyes.

"It's the worst moments of our lives that leave the most indelible marks on us," he adds. "And we keep quiet about it as much as we can, because no good ever comes of anyone seeing us struggle."

That may be him drawing more parallels between himself and Tony, or it may just be a general observation on the nature of humanity. "But I'm honored that the last thought on your mind was 'Take that, Rogers'. I would have definitely felt like shit. Kinda did anyway."

Kinda still do.

As long as they're still in a confessional mood: "Did you really hate me that much when you were growing up?"