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.

Comments

[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.

[starkingenuity]

“You don’t need to be cute. I tried to destroy the world by saving it. And then I tried to put a band-aid on the situation that happened. Let’s not pretend that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree here, right?” The mood’s turned, Tony’s put away his bedroom eyes. Rogers hasn’t soured anything towards himself, but Tony often has mood swings when he’s this drunk, and not simply drunk enough to let the world bounce off of him. He groans as he pulls himself up. His healing factor is baseline normal, and so he’s still bruised up pretty decently from the fight with Thanos on Titan’s wasteland.

Getting up is difficult. His bones ache.

He doesn’t give Steve a wider berth than usual, though, and that’s because Steve is seated and staying that way, so his body doesn’t react in flight away from him. He’s neat with his pour and takes a sip before returning the fill line in the tumbler to the standard three fingers he enjoys.

“Should have started realizing that there’s a problem when I created the Relief Foundation. The collateral damage we leave behind is insane, Rogers. That I leave behind. Cleaning up New York was quick. The damage we did could be seen more like the damage that the Chitauri did. Hell, it gave people jobs before we saw what was happening there, until the black market for all things alien formed. Should have seen that coming. Really should have.”

Laws move too slow, but laws are how their society works. Legislation is the way they work. Tony still firmly believes that, even if he sees now that sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands.

“If we take care of this… No invasion. No super hero boy band. No needless death. We get a do over. I promise you that I’m gonna be better than dad was this time around.”

[shieldborne]

"I'm not trying to be cute. I'm trying to be fair in spite of my own prejudices," Steve tells him gently. "Ultron scared the hell out of me on a bunch of different levels, but I'd say it's pretty obvious now that you were 100% right about the potential danger from forces outside our world too strong to combat in any traditional way."

He takes a deep breath and lets it out again, saddened to see Tony's mood changing, to see him backing off, but not offended. This was always going to be a hard conversation. It's probably past due.

"New York wasn't our fault. SHIELD was ready to bomb the place; if anything, we prevented a lot of death and property damage there. Lagos was the same deal. Wanda didn't set the bomb, she just failed to contain the explosion. Sokovia..."

There's no getting around Sokovia. "That one's on all of us, not just you. I should have been keeping a closer eye on you after the mission. It's hard, coming down from the kind of fights we were putting in. You needed support and I failed to notice that. And you did what you thought you had to do."

"I know that's at least part of why you were ready to support the Accords. For an atheist, you sure do a lot of penance. Don't go thinking I don't feel any guilt about the messes we leave behind. I do. I guess I found a way to compartmentalize some, in the army. I'm responsible for more deaths than you are, trust me."

"I don't...think we should encourage our alternates here to hide their heads in the sand, either, though. Thanos is still going to be out there. His M.O. has been going from planet to planet and wiping out half the population for years. Just because we keep the stones out of his grasp doesn't mean he'll be defeated. Just defeatable. Maybe that's not our job, but they ought to know what's out there."

"But Tony, at the end of the day, I do have faith in you as a person. You've made mistakes, but I see the why behind most of them more clearly than you may think."

[starkingenuity]

Oh, ho, ho. Steve Rogers has no idea what he’s just said. Tony finishes the alcohol in his glass in two gulps and slams it down. “Whip it out,” he says, turning towards Steve again. The liquor burns his throat and relaxes the tension in his body. Steve is still a swarm of slightly blurred colors, and Tony wonders if he’s seeing him in watercolor right now. He likes the idea.

Of course, he just waits for the blond to start stammering before he opens his mouth again to clarify.

“I have the numbers of how many people were killed by weapons I personally had a hand in designing and contracting out to various military and ally groups across the globe. Contracts I made a lot of money from.” It’s one of the ghosts he just can’t see around, they loom too large and color everything in blackness. “I’m glad you have faith in me. I actually am glad someone has faith in me. But I don’t have faith in myself to do much more than arrogantly destroy and then try to rebuild everything. Classic Tony.”

He’s not a good guy. And nothing you say will make him think he is, Rogers.

[shieldborne]

"Whip i--what??" If Tony gets any enjoyment out of seeing Steve completely blindsided and awkward, at least he'll get a couple seconds of pleasure in this conversation. Blushing, too. Lots of it.

He is, in fact, too startled to register the amount of liquor Tony has consumed thus far, and that could prove an issue before too much longer.

Unfortunately--or maybe fortunately--when Tony hastens to clarify, Steve doesn't look any less shocked. If anything, he goes from awkward to stricken, eyes too bright and too sad. "Jesus, Tony."

Truthfully, he doesn't think about that aspect of Tony's past, which is ridiculously naive of him. But of course it's there. That kind of thing, that kind of guilt never goes away, especially when it's been driven home to a man in such personal, painful ways, time after time after time. Maybe this is one of the wider gulfs between them, Steve thinks for the first time. His conscience isn't exactly clear, but the fights he's been in, the kill-count in his head, nearly all occurred in battle. Life or death. Them or him.

Not so much for Tony, if he's taking the weapons he designed into account.

"...somethin' like twelve or thirteen thousand, last I checked," he says softly after a heavy, silent moment. "Hard to estimate how many people are in bunkers when they blow up or on helicarriers when they crash into the Potomac."

"I should have realized you feel that way. I didn't even think about it." Worse, he doesn't really have a solid argument as to why Tony shouldn't feel that way, shouldn't still be doing his penance for the people his designs have hurt. All he's got is what's in his own head.

"I just...when I look at you, I see a guy who owns up to his mistakes and tries to correct them, and then is willing to give his life to help when other peoples' mistakes or outright malevolence come into play. Since I've known you, you've worked to leave the world better than you found it. We disagree on the methodology more often than not, but I have never, even in our worst moments, doubted your courage or your goodness."

[starkingenuity]

“Scrap the watercoloring drag act and be a motivational speaker,” Tony says, or at least that’s what he’s trying to say but it comes out as something like a few mumbles and several punctuated high points that might be words but are more like baby talk. He has to lean against the window sill to keep from tipping over and that makes him close his eyes and take a few breaths. “I’m sorry,” he continues, and it at least sounds like English. “I think you’ve got me…dunk.”

Why’s it so hard for people to pronounce the ‘r’ in drunk when they’re plastered? There’s probably some neurologist that can explain slurring somewhere in the world, but there aren’t any handy close by.

“You-- You and your—” Tony twists his wrist around as if any of this helps explains himself. “You. You-you. You-ness. I like your singing.”

And that’s about when room service shows up, forty minutes post phone call and approximately right on time to stop Tony’s compliments from getting messy.

[shieldborne]

Steve isn't sure what the first part of that was. He caught 'drag act' but none of the rest. Still, it sounds like it was meant to be a reasonably-friendly joke, so he gives Tony an uncertain little smile and continues to fret. Especially when, seconds later, Tony acknowledges how drunk he is and--

"Damnit. I should have cut you off." He wasn't paying attention, and occasionally he forgets how much alcohol is a normal amount for normal people. Ironic, though, how he was just saying a few minutes ago he wasn't paying enough attention to Tony's mood after a traumatic incident. He's going to have to do better.

"My what?" He starts to stand, hesitates because he's not sure it's okay, and then shocks himself utterly by feeling a near-desperate urge to kiss the other man. It's not the compliment--he's not sure how to take that, exactly--it's something about the moment of vulnerability. Tony's smart mouth failing him, his guilt and his grief and the strange, sad, tipsy glimmer in his eyes.

"Th-thanks..." He manages to stammer, and then there's a knock at the door and the crisis is averted. Sort of.

He gets up, moving away to answer for room service, but looking back anxiously. "Don't fall over, okay? Can you sit?"

[starkingenuity]

“Can you sit?” Tony asks in a way that makes utterly no sense, wrapping an arm around thick red curtains. There’s probably dust mites all over the darn thing, but alcohol has managed to dull the receptors in his brain enough not to register. The material is cool against his cheek and it’s helping him stay upright. That’s what the most important thing is.

The molecules break down in his system quickly. His tolerance is astronomical and he’s developed a little something to help with his liver regeneration. Technically, it’s also helped patch up some Avengers and give JARVIS’ technological corpse a body too, and those are both much more useful things…but one can never underestimate the power of a rich man using his money and influence to allow him to pursue his vices to their extreme.

He’s not much more clear eyed when Steve returns, wheeling in the cart laden with a variety of food smells that must clash to the overly sensitive nose, but he does spot the guy from the front desk downstairs lingering in the still-open doorway. “He’ll be right with you,” Tony manages to articulate, using the curtains to pick himself back up to his feet from the half-sit, half-lean on the sill that he had been doing. “Go tip the nice, flirty clerk before I throw up all over your shoes.”

He won’t. He’s not a puker. Lucky for Steve.

“I’ll just fall face first into the pizza.”

[shieldborne]

Dust mites? At this hotel? Dust mites can't afford the Four Seasons.

Steve eyes him uncertainly from across the room, still concerned, but since he seems to be on his feet he'll let it go for the moment. He has no idea what Tony ordered, but there's a lot of it, and it looks pretty good even with the clashing scents. He hasn't had a chance to be picky on the run as he's been, and pizza and tacos--even fancy tacos with cilantro pesto and mango salsa garnish or whatever that is--look really appealing. At the door, he tries not to look the desk clerk in the eye. There's no way it will have escaped the guy's notice that Steve is shaved and his hair has changed color, which doesn't quite fit the 'bodyguard' thing they established before, but it doesn't matter what he thinks as long as he doesn't identify Captain America.

Luckily, the clerk has a tablet for electronically adding tips to the credit card bill, because Steve is carrying about enough cash for a cup of coffee. Not Starbucks, either. McDonald's coffee. "Of course, sir," he says to Tony in the tone he thinks a professional bodyguard might say it. It comes out sounding half-military and half like JARVIS if he had a Brooklyn accent.

And when he goes back to the door, the clerk's gaze has intensified. Oops. That's a look of either recognition or 'I really should know who you are, give me a second to place you'. "Uh...are you...?" He begins softly.

Steve puts a finger to his lips and takes the tablet to add the tip, desperately hoping the hospitality industry's training in polite discretion towards guests' various quirks will hold out. "Thanks, though. If I were gonna be in town longer..."

He looks even more Captain America when he smiles sheepishly. The poor clerk is going to be confused for days.

[starkingenuity]

Watching the event unfold is almost sad. Tony props up his head a little, knowing he’s met his match this time with the alcohol consumption, and frowns stubbornly as the door is shut and Steve approaches him. He’s not upset about that, he’s going to need Steve’s help to get back to his feet and Stark reaches out to try and grip some large muscle or other for support.

“Boo. You don’t have to say no on my account. I’ve got this. I can feed myself.” Says the guy with Bambi legs. “If he’s not your type, then let me sober up a little and we can find someone who is.”

It’s a bad idea to leave the room tonight. It’s a bad idea to do anything to jeopardize tomorrow’s infiltration.

Tony can really use the sleep, too.

But it’s not in his nature to do the best thing. And it’s certainly not to stay still.

[shieldborne]

Steve's got plenty of large muscles he can get a hold of, and he puts his upper arm within easy reach. His expression still says he's worried, but he can't help but smile a little at Tony's determination to get him a date. Bucky used to do that, too.

"I didn't say no on your account, I said no on the universe's account. And we should stick together in any case, on the off chance one of our alternates shows up demanding to know what the hell's going on and why we have his face."

If that does happen, it's far more likely to be Tony's alternate. Steve was still adjusting to existence again at this point in time. "Anyway, it's not a type thing. I have a bunch of types. I just...don't want to get attached to anyone. I'd go out for a beer with the guy and then we'd either die or have to go somewhere else on the timeline and if I liked him at all, I'd be wondering what if forever. I don't need that. And I don't do one-night stands anymore."

[starkingenuity]

Wrist to elbow to shoulder, Tony climbs his way up Steve Rogers until he’s got a good enough grasp to get his knees locked under him. It’s been a long time since he drank this much, this fast. Things with Pepper had been good. He’d been more of a mentor to Peter. Rhodey needed him, and his genius, to be able to properly walk again. Things had been falling so neatly into stability, minus his sometimes regresses back to missing the Steve sized hole in his life, that Tony hadn't needed to resort to slowing down his brain to function.

It’s amazing what lack of stress will do to a person and what the sudden loss of everyone in his life might make him do instead. Tony is more than hurting. He’s heavily compensating with someone he had been unwilling to meet halfway for two years.

Steve’s right, though. They can’t form relationships here. They can’t risk it. And no one will ever understand what their lives are like save for each other.

And isn’t that weird? You can’t even count on yourself?

Tony’s about to dismiss it all, body turning more towards Steve’s chest in an attempt to actually turn even more towards his arm so he can have support when he bends over for a quick snatch of food, but Steve has to let his natural honesty sneak up at the worst time.

The shift in tone tells Tony to fixate on the word ‘anymore.’

“What have you been doing the last few years? Sex tourism? T’Challa was a bad influence on you!”

[shieldborne]

Steve has no objection to being Tony's furniture, apparently. He's afraid to touch much, to actively help him up, but he holds his stance obligingly and puts his free hand against his back lightly to steady him. He should sit. They should both sit, but short of manhandling him to a chair, Steve can't force the issue, so he'll just...

Just watch Tony being wobbly and vulnerable while pretending he's nothing of the kind. Why the hell is this so endearing? Drunks usually annoy Steve more than anything else, but as Tony turns toward him he's struck by an urge to kiss him for the second time in the last ten minutes.

Not gonna happen, of course. You don't take advantage of a friend who's intoxicated. Still, depending how close Tony gets to Steve's actual chest, he may be able to feel his heart rate pick up.

So the playful questioning hits Steve when he's already caught slightly off-balance, figuratively speaking, and he turns pink. "Hey, don't say that about T'Challa, he's a hell of a stand-up guy."

"I...look, I meant...I was involved in the theater, after all. Selling war bonds, and traveling with the USO. There were a lot of opportunities, and I didn't have a thing with Peggy yet at that point, and there was a real learning curve, dealing with this big a physical change."

He looks ashamed about this, not just embarrassed. "Stress, and hormones all over the place, I guess. You don't wanna hear the details."

[starkingenuity]

“We both know that’s a lie.” Fumbling sex with pretty USO girls? That sounds exactly what Tony wants to hear all about! He had the trading card with Captain America hoisting three girls in tight, short dresses up on a motorcycle well into his teenage years, and he can imagine the quad without clothes on getting busy pretty easily. It’s one of the few things that survived the great burning because Tony had used it for a little tugging once in awhile.

Years later, watching some Disney flick about a bookish girl and a dog-prince with Pepper, Tony had a few flash backs of those days in his bedroom with the door shut and some of his mother’s lotion. There’s a scene in that movie where the good looking guy in the tall knee boots that the bookish girl doesn’t like lifts triplet girls on a bench and he nearly had to excuse himself then and there.

Maybe the animators had been into those old 40s pinups same as he had.

Tony tips a little to the left, around Steve’s arm, and manages to grab a garlic knot. Not quite the pizza he’d been going for, but it briefly quiets him down as he chews. He should sit. He gets that. But he also needs to carb up so he can sober up. And Steve is the perfect buffet leaning post.

“If I was traveling the world, I’d get a little tail if I could— Oh wait. That’s how I spent my twenties. And thirties and.... uh. Well most of my life.”

He’s not admitting that he’s as old as he is. He doesn’t feel like he’s pushing fifty.

“Did you swap a lot of STDs? I thought your immune system is pretty good.”

[shieldborne]

For a moment, Steve thinks Tony's accusing him of lying about not sleeping around for the last couple years, and he's about to be offended. Then it clicks that he's actually just interested in gossip, and...well, of course he is. Come to think of it, any of Steve's friends would be, although most would stop him before he got into too much detail.

Not that he likes to get into too much detail. But it's not like he's ruining anyone's reputation at this point. They're all dead.

He shifts on his feet gingerly, physically comfortable but not sure about the turn this conversation is taking. "I, um...I'm immune to pretty much every identified human disease except the common cold. Maybe not the Zika virus. That hasn't been tested yet."

Frankly, he's highly resistant to the common cold, too.

"It's not like you're thinking, you know. I mean it probably isn't. I'm not sure what you're thinking. It wasn't glamorous nights in nice vintage hotels, anyway. It was more like suddenly having a body with no brakes. So I had to find ways to crash that wouldn't leave anyone injured. Like a runaway truck."

The particular stunt Tony's thinking about was one of the scariest goddamn things they asked Steve to do. The weight was nothing. The balancing act, and the awareness that three living, healthy human women were depending on him not to drop them? That was really hard to get over at first.

"But I couldn't risk getting anyone pregnant, either. Did you spend a lot of time on your knees backstage at community theaters eating out chorus girls in your twenties? Because that was the least of it, to be honest, but I know it's not what most people want to picture."

[starkingenuity]

The remains of the roll drop from Tony’s mouth like it had been choreographed and blocked out for comedic effect he’s got to admit that it’s nothing like he expected when Steve said he had been a bit of a promiscuous leading man while traveling with the USO.

Not at first. A second thought, however, clicks it all into place. Obviously, obviously Steve’s a giver. He’s probably the best lover a person could ever have since he would likely put his partners and their pleasures first.

“Can’t say I did,” Tony says, palming Steve’s chest so he can step back out of his arms. He’s not disgusted or anything, but it’s really hard to get another non-floor roll when he can’t reach. Of course, he’s immediately wobbly again, and he grasps the cart for stability.

A cart. On wheels.

Sometimes he’s not the brightest.

And sometimes it’s probably better if one or two of the desserts he ordered topples to the ground instead of himself. Still, RIP strawberry shortcake.

“Bet you jerked yourself off too so you wouldn’t risk giving them carpal tunnel. Technically you are still a virgin then? I feel better.” Says Mr. Wobbles.

[shieldborne]

Steve is poised to feel completely humiliated here, but Tony's reaction is so entertaining, some of the embarrassment drains away and--really, they're both grown men, they've both had awkward phases. Maybe it's time Steve was able to look back at this and laugh at himself a little. Or he could laugh at the poor garlic knot Tony's sent rolling across the floor.

His lips twitch, and he's about to tease, but then there's another perfectly good dish on the floor and Steve just can't stand back and watch Tony destroy dinner, the carpet, and a good portion of his dignity. "For fuck's sake. I'm sorry, but you need to put your ass in a chair."

Maybe the the fact that he's drunk will mean he won't panic this time? Steve puts an arm around his waist and more or less drags him to the nearest cushy arm chair, plopping him into it. "Stay. I'll bring the cart over."

"...I guess so. Technically. Not that that's your business." He grabs for the cart, managing not to knock anything off of it. "Depending how you define it."

[starkingenuity]

Steve doesn’t pose a threat right now, not when Tony is still got his mind half caught up in imagines of chorus girls with their thighs wrapped around his ears. It’s oddly endearing. Should something like that be endearing? Probably. Tony doesn’t imagine that there had been a lot of women that had experienced oral sex during the Second World War. Not in that sort of patriarchy. So good for Steve.

He’s still congratulating the then twenty year old when he’s lightly pressed into a chair and calls out demands for exactly what foods Steve should put on a plate for him, arms loose over his thighs.

Steve’s use of the word ‘technically’ is a little more amusing than stuffing his face right now, even in the effort to sober up. He really ought to ask for some of that coffee, but he’ll get to it. “There’s only one definition. Your penis has to go into someone between their legs or someone else’s penis has to go into you. Unless you’re a lesbian. By the way, you’re not. Lesbians... I don’t understand lesbians. But I appreciate their existence.”

[shieldborne]

Manhandling Tony into a chair is more fun than it ought to be. Steve tries to just focus on his relief that he hasn't upset him again, but it's hard when they're talking about food and sex in almost equal measures. Have they ever been this casual around one another? Even at group parties there's been a little distance between them.

He really doesn't want to encourage Tony to drink to excess, but Steve is reluctantly starting to enjoy himself.

He makes a show of looking grudging, but puts Tony's plate together as requested, with generous servings. He even uses utensils delicately, rather than his hands, which ought to be appreciated. "Intercrural doesn't count? I think your definition is too limited, and you're lucky I'm not a lesbian because I would be rolling my eyes into the next county after that commentary."

Oh, he gets what Tony means, and he is far from immune to the allure of watching two women canoodling, but he's pretty sure no actual lesbians want to hear that. "One of the girls threatened to bend me over a table and stick a prop pistol in me once, but I'm pretty sure she was joking. Fredolf would have had a fit--that was our stage manager. He played Hitler off and on for us, too. That's why the nickname--I don't think anyone would actually name their kid Fredolf."

He brings Tony the plate and sets it in his lap, then goes back to fill one for himself. "In the interest of getting one more aspect of your prurient interest out of the way while we're on topic, it wasn't just the girls. There were a couple good-looking stagehands, too, and a photographer in Des Moines, but we didn't talk about that kind of thing in the 40s."

"Anyway, it felt kind of hollow after a while."

[starkingenuity]

Use of utensils is a big positive to Tony’s already shifting review of who Steve Rogers, as a person, happens to be. Considerate now joins the list of kind and giving. He’d expected a lot from the guy, he’s Captain America after all even if he gave up the title and the sweet PSA deal, but this sort of raises the bar.

It makes him more human, too. And more relatable. He’s not the paragon of virtue. Under the costume, he’d just been a man.

The latest confession does get Steve quite the long look. ”That’s…amazing. I’m going to make so much money on your tell-all book. And all of those college kids in art class are going to feel so vindicated. For the record, did you leave the boots on with those stagehands?”

What? Steve going down on chorus girls and stagehands in just his boots is pretty damned hot.

[shieldborne]

"What, the bright red Tinkerbell boots?" Laughing, Steve sets his own full plate on the chair across from Tony's. He's gone for a little bit of pizza, and then for a lot of anything that looks sweet.

"Really, you're gonna fixate on those? You know what, they were the most comfortable shoes I ever wore until I came out of the ice. I left the boots on backstage, yeah. Photographer got us a private room, but I didn't get to stay long."

He can't just leave the shortcake on the floor, is the thing. He's not going to go borrow a carpet cleaner or anything, but his sense of responsibility is such that he has to make a cursory clean up attempt, so he picks up the wastebasket, tosses the dropped garlic knot into it, then grabs a handful of napkins and gets down on the floor to pick up the dessert.

On his knees. He's not thinking about how this reflects their current discussion. "Anyway, I'm not all that proud of myself in retrospect. It was an outlet, and no one got hurt."