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'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?"

[starkingenuity]

Tony’s issues are more complicated than even Steve understands when it comes to touch. He’s not at all adverse to a hug and he has embraced people whole heartedly when he feels like he’s no longer falling apart. It’s different when he’s in crisis. He suffers those moments alone. Jubilation, however, calls for a more tactile approach. They just haven’t had a win in awhile. And he’s not relieved enough to want to hug Steve.

He’s not sure if he’s even capable of hugging someone like Steve. The man is so alien-- More so than even Thor. At least Thor provides comic relief. Rogers is all paragon of virtue.

Or had been. Now he’s just the hot guy next door who probably will impress both your friend group and your parents for very different reasons. That makes him a little uneasy, but the booze does a great job of buffing that out.

“I didn’t always hate you,” Tony scoffs up into blue eyes that seem almost like they’re swimming. He’s pleasantly dizzy. “I had a t-shirt and every action figure and all of your collectible cards-- I think I burned most of it when my thumb was strong enough to flick a lighter. Shame. It would have been worth something.”

Says the guy with more money in the world than he knows what to do with.

“Dad liked you best. Most people like you best. Even people that sided with me like you best. I wanted to balance that out.” And he’s jealous.

[shieldborne]

Steve isn't psychic, but he's good at reading body language. The past hour has made it obvious he has to approach Tony with caution. Before that, he realized friendly hugs and touches were not the norm. He doesn't necessarily get the why, but the fact that he and Tony are maybe, possibly, starting to mend bridges makes him more interested in finding out.

Gently. Carefully. Slowly.

"Christ," he mutters, inadvertently picturing child Tony Stark with action figures of Captain America. Little plush toys of the dancing monkey in a star-spangled uniform. "That's as bad as Coulson."

Oh, damn. If their plan works out here, Phil won't die. That's bound to change the future for the better. Light a fire under him, he'll ferret out any Hydra agents within SHIELD...God. If they can get Bucky and have Coulson and the Steve that belongs to this time take care of him, he'll be just fine.

"People see what they want to see, when they look at me. I don't know when that got started. After the serum, after the USO tour. Maybe during the war or maybe not until I was presumed dead in the Arctic. But they see what they want to believe in, and then sometimes they think because I wear the uniform I'm the one that originated the concept. Freedom, the American Dream, whatever. I never planned on that. I only wanted to be good enough to fight alongside the other guys."

"I think it's like how when you're a kid they tell you about how George Washington couldn't tell a lie about chopping down the cherry tree. When I wear the uniform, I'm a parable. It's not me. " The other Avengers know better, to be fair, although he's cagey about letting even them in too deep.

"Not saying your anger isn't valid or anything. I'd be pissed off, too. If it helps any, I like Iron Man better than Captain America. I was really going to keep that bobblehead. But I was angry with Howard, too, when we first met. I took it out on you. That wasn't fair."

[starkingenuity]

At Howard?

“What did my dad do to you? Give you a tiny girl-waist?” Well, Steve Rogers is pretty disproportionate. He’s all shoulders and long legs and a waist that Tony is pretty sure he can get his arms cleanly around so that his hands can cup his elbows. It’s silly to picture it. He’d probably look like a kid hugging an adult, so much shorter he is.

And maybe he’d like to eventually give Steve a shot at that hug. On his own terms. He’s not sure how else he’d manage to get over the anxiety he feels to have Steve approach him.

It’s embarrassing. He shouldn’t be flinching away from a thirty-something. He’s Iron Man.

And Steve Rogers likes Iron Man.

Surprised to hear that the blond liked the bobble head, drunk-mind Tony isn’t quite able to zero in on one topic and still process others. Drunk, he’s a lot like everyone else. Just still a lot richer and more handsome and smarter than the rest. But closer, a lot closer to other people.

He has to hold up his hand to collect his thoughts. “I’ll get you a new bobble head but please, tell me all the shit dad did. In detail.”

[shieldborne]

"What's that supposed to mean?" Steve looks down at his waist, a little perplexed by the jibe. "It holds the rest of me up; my waist is fine."

Okay, so he's basically an inverted triangle with giraffe legs, but it works.

Steve shakes his head and gives Tony a wry smile. "I'm not sure it's my place to...to speak ill of the dead."

Not that he's unaware there was conflict between Tony and Howard. It's been subtextual in their conversations, but it's been really loud subtext. The nature of it and how deep it might have run, that's the part he's not sure about. Nor is he inclined to ask.

"Look, I considered him a friend. He was a young man then, he may have changed a lot in his later years. When I knew him, the worst thing he did was flirt with Peggy right in front of me, and it was annoying, but she took it in stride so I just glared at him and walked it off. Seemed like it was just a knee-jerk reaction with him around pretty women. And Peggy was too good for him and she knew it. No offense; she was too good for me, too. But that wasn't that big a deal."

"What I really mean is, he should have left the cube alone. If anyone on the goddamn planet should have guessed what it could do, how dangerous it is, how we should have left it alone, it was him. He probably had orders. He didn't have to follow 'em."

"He was always too curious for his own good." He folds his arms over his chest, like there's something else he's thinking that he's trying to hold in.

[starkingenuity]

Tony is a better reader of body language than most people, Steve Rogers excluded, but only when he wants to be. It’s how he grew his father’s company, how he’s continued to stride into court rooms and before councils and get himself heard. People might not care too much for him, but his business acumen comes not only from a rich sense of self, but also from a rich understanding of human nature.

Crossed arms, held tightly like that while seated, that’s a sign of closing one’s self off. And Tony knows how to deal with that.

When he’s sober, which has been a lot lately thanks to Pepper (at least when she’s not traveling and leaving her fiancé to several days straight of tinkering or missing the guy whose sketchbooks he’s almost completely dog eared), he’s subtle about the lean forward, or the look upwards through his lashes. It’s a form of flirting, sure, of being docile and sweet and inviting the other person to share.

But drunk as he is, this is almost like open season. There’s a wolffish glance in his eye, predatory, curious and inquisitive. He’s absolutely his father’s son, though he’d throw a fit to hear it right about now when he’s having a good time getting dirt on the old man.

Plus, it helps that Steve is attractive.

“And?” There absolutely is one. Tony wants it.

[shieldborne]

The 'and' is ridiculously complicated. Steve isn't even sure how to vocalize it, and he hates thinking about it, because taken to an extreme it tarnishes everything he and the people he admires most have done.

But Tony is literally the only thing he has left right now. Maybe they'll rebuild later, pick an era and find friends, or even fight alongside their alternate selves somehow, if they're needed. If they're asked. Still, Steve knows a lifeline when he sees one, and if Tony's a tenuous lifeline, at least he's one that needs Steve just as much as Steve needs him.

So. Complete honesty.

"Science scares me, Tony. It didn't when I was younger and didn't really get much of it, but I've seen a lot more now. There's more to see than there used to be. It's not that I'm a Luddite or a technophobe, honestly, but--look. The Tesseract should have been left alone. The Midnight Oil was a nightmare; I don't know how anyone thought it would be a good idea to create, even if Howard had the best of intentions. After I vanished, after the war, I hear there was some kind of scramble over a vial of my blood. My blood."

The expression on his face is a blend of horror and disgust and guilt. "And really, if you strip Project Rebirth of the propaganda, it's about shooting a disabled man full of chemicals and radiation and coming up with a soldier. What kind of soldier? If they had made as many of me as they thought they could have, how would society have dealt with that? Would they have celebrated it or would we have been second-class beings only fit for cannon fodder? No one cared about shell-shocked soldiers after the first World War. What in god's name do you do with a bunch of traumatized war vets that can level a fuckin' building if they have a panic attack?"

"I'd love to believe Erskine had a plan, but I...can't. I want to believe he was a good man who just missed some of the ramifications of his actions. I want to believe that of Howard, too, but he did a lot of work without considering the consequences fully. He left a lot of messes in his wake."

He's not saying so, but that's probably why the Ultron incident upset him as much as it did. But this isn't about Tony. He's not completely his father's son. Steve has faith in his intentions in a way he never did with Howard.

"And I never got to ask Peggy. I never will. I know her intentions were good, but maybe she missed some things she should have caught, too." He actually whispers this, like saying anything negative about Peggy is borderline blasphemy. To Steve, it kind of is. It's easy to idealize the one that got away.

"It was a lot to take in, those first few months. I felt like there was shrapnel everywhere, and I was stuck cleaning up other peoples' messes. And then you came in eight different kinds of flashy and cool and beautiful and brilliant, when all the good soldiers I'd ever known were dead. I couldn't handle it. I shouldn't have said half of what I did, but--well. I guess we're mostly past that now, aren't we?"


((Referencing some of the plot from the Agent Carter TV show, although I've only seen a few episodes. Feel free to improvise whatever details you want to there.))

[starkingenuity]

Steve’s blood has been a problem ever since he stepped out of the machine and into an assassination. It’s been on the black market. It’s been used to experiment on people. It’s created both the Hulk and the Abomination (in part, at least, due to serum synthetization). Steve’s blood is a problem. Tony knew that early on, when he’d been given the key to lockboxes and a cryptic message in his parents’ Will.

Howard probably had a good reason to patent Steve Rogers’ blood. Considering that he died over the serum, and had believed to his dying day that they’d find Steve Rogers eventually, it only made sense that he not only patented the technology used to created Captain America, but also the very thing that made Steve into a super soldier. How better to keep tabs on other governments and organizations also looking for the war hero? It had pinged on his radar when Bruce Banner had been just a scientist with an anger issue. And it pinged again when they brought Steve out of deep freeze. Tony hadn’t been surprised because he had known.

So yeah, Steve has every right to be scared of technology. And he has every right to believe that people like him would be considered Second-class Citizens. Technically, Steve Rogers is one because he’s not his own man.

Tony Stark, thanks to his father, owns the blond’s blood.

But he’s not drunk enough to say any of that. He’s too fixated on the other man’s eyes and the he passionately speaks. “So,” he says, zeroing in on the wrong parts of what Steve is saying here, “you didn’t like me because you thought I was cool and beautiful? I’ll take it.”

But there’s something else that Steve had brought up that Tont can’t just let linger.

He could end perfectly well on a flirty high note, but the guy has managed to be a masochist for entirely too long not to let the rest of Steve’s speech effect him. Tony leans back in the chair, contemplating getting another class of scotch. And he will. Shortly. “The road to hell is paved in good intentions, Rogers. And the one I’m on is a six lane highway.”

(Sounds good! I tend to borrow from SHIELD and the comics too. 😊 )

[shieldborne]

Steve had actually braced himself to have opened a giant can of worms there, so when Tony deflects--the way Tony often does--his shoulders drop with relief, and he laughs quietly. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. And you didn't like me because your dad thought I was cool and beautiful."

Or one of his most successful projects. Something like that. That's the other thing; Steve isn't as certain in retrospect that Howard thought of him as a friend so much as a success story. But that's also one of Steve's worst issues of late, that uncertainty as to whether people see him or the Star-Spangled Man With a Plan. Even worse, how many see him as human.

He just doesn't know. And he doesn't, in many cases, want to know.

"Yeah? Well, if we're not on the same road, they probably run parallel." Steve is full of good intentions. "You talking about this particular project, or something else entirely?"

He may or may not be bracing for a bombshell.