Work Text:
While the pancake probably described a perfect arc, Tony didn't pay much attention to it. Mainly because the person flipping that pancake was one Steve Roger and that same Steve Rogers was currently wearing nothing but a pair of sweatpants. His usual t-shirt size already didn't leave that much to imagination, but watching the muscles smoothly shift under his skin was something else still. Tony was just trying to get over the sight of that bicep bobbing up and down from handling the pan, when Steve's voice pulled him out of his thoughts: "Take a photo, lasts longer."
Tony needed a moment to collect his wits. He swallowed and put on a careless smile. Steve was grinning, so he wasn't offended. No reason to not take up a good offer when it came then, right? "When you put it that way..." Tony drawled, took out is phone and snapped a pic.
Steve's grin widened and he huffed a laugh. "I really should have expected that" he said, while turning off the stove and sliding the last pancake from the pan onto a plate. "Want one?" he asked and vaguely gestured with the plate towards Tony.
"Now you're spoiling me" Tony said. "But who am I to refuse pancakes." He grabbed another plate and cutlery while Steve went over to the fridge to get maple syrup and butter. While Tony sat down at the kitchen table, waiting for Steve to get back, he looked at the picture on his phone. It had nothing on the grace of Steve in motion, but it was still a pleasure to look at. He quickly discarded of setting it as a phone background because a) nobody had to know how bad his crush was - or that there was one to begin with - and b) going by past crushes, looking at pictures of them never made anything easier. The opposite rather. But maybe he could... "Hey Steve, is it okay if I keep this photo? And, I don't know, maybe show it to some friends or something?"
"That great, huh?" Steve smirked. He put down his fridge loot and stepped behind Tony to look at the phone. "Nice deltoids if I may say so myself." He clapped Tony on the shoulder. "Sure, go ahead. Also, send this to me, would you? This would make a good profile picture."
Tony opened his mouth, about to ask, what in the name of Tesla Steve Rogers would need a topless profile pic for. Then he suddenly was faced with a plate full of breakfast that smelled too heavenly to let it grow cold, so he picked up his fork and dug in.
"Wow, these are good" Tony exclaimed around a mouthful of what was probably half pancake, half syrup.
"Thanks. It still feels ridiculously easy to make good pancakes when you have quality ingredients and as many eggs as you want." Steve loaded his own fork and started a valid attempt to clear his four pancakes in the same time Tony needed to finish one.
Objectively spoken, it was probably obscene and maybe disgusting to see anyone eat at the speed of Steve-after-morning-run, but Tony couldn't help to ignore all of this and instead focus on the drip of molten butter that tried to run down Steve's chin before it was caught with a flick of the tongue. He looked back at his own breakfast.
'It's only a question' Tony thought for the millionth time. He started to carefully cut a perfect square out of his pancake. 'Very simple: I ask him out, he declines and we got that settled once and for all.' With the utmost precision he started to separate the pancake square into perfect thirds.
Steve's voice punctured through his fog of thoughts: "Is everything alright?"
Tony thought about the last seconds and realized that Steve had been talking for a while now. He didn't have the slightest idea, what about, though. "Yeah, perfectly fine. I might be a little tired is all" he amended.
Steve raised an eyebrow. "But you slept last night, didn't you?"
"Last night?" Tony asked sheepishly. "So, like, the night that ended yesterday? Yeah, I did."
He saw it in his eyes that the Avengers' favorite mother hen was about to lecture him on proper sleeping habits, so Tony cut him off right away: "Look, I tried. I just really, really had to finish the blue prints for the new Quinjet and yes, they don't have to be done before end of this week, but I couldn't get it out of my head and it kept me awake, so I figured I could just as well get right to it."
Steve sighed. "But they are done now?"
Tony held up his hand and made a seesaw motion. "The way it was asked for and blocked out, yeah, but while finishing up I saw some details that could seriously improve efficiency if changed."
"Okay, that settles it" Steve exclaimed. He put the plates into the dishwasher and stepped in front of Tony, suddenly in his full-on Captain's command stance. "You're going to bed even if I have to drag you there and sing you a lullaby to get you to sleep."
Tony blinked a few times. Courtesy of his probably slightly sleep deprived brain, he had somehow focused in on the words "drag you to bed". No, wrong, he had to stop. "Okay, you convinced me. Drag me to bed." He fought down the urge to slap his hand in front of his mouth. What was he thinking. But Steve just smiled and seemed to take it as little more than Tony's usual banter.
"Sure, come on then." A massive forearm was hooked into Tony's elbow and he was dragged away towards the elevator.
"Ummm" Tony began, trying to phrase somehow that this really wasn't necessary, but Steve cut him short.
"Shush, I know that if I let you go by yourself, you'll spontaneously forget where your bedroom is and you'll end up in the workshop." He sounded worried, no surprise there, but also kind.
Tony actually managed to shut off his thoughts for a bit. Now that he pushed away all the buzzing ideas and concepts, he realized that he was actually having a headache. That settled it. He let himself be guided through his suite and to the master bedroom.
Steve kept talking to him, asking light hearted questions about basically nothing and Tony welcomed the offer of just enough distraction to keep work thoughts and worries at bay. When he was about to change into his PJ bottoms, he looked up in confusion. "Steve, this is ridiculous, you don't have to literally get me into bed. I'm a grown man and I'm beginning to suspect that you really will sing me a lullaby or something."
Steve pushed himself away from the doorway he'd been leaning in and folded his arms across his chest. Still smiling, he gently shook his head. "Look, I may be your Captain in the field only, but I do care about everyone on this team and I worry about you a little more than anyone else, Tony. You're pushing too hard. Always. And I think" - he squinted - "I can estimate pretty well, how high the chances are that the moment I step out of this suite, you'll pick up a tablet to do some bedtime engineering and before you know it, you're in the workshop again, fixing just that tiny little detail before calling it a night." Tony didn't know what to say to that, so Steve proceeded: "That will of course lead to other details and suddenly a day has gone by."
"That would be ridiculous, I'm not that unaware of myself" Tony stated. When Steve just raised an eyebrow, Tony imagined going through the sequence Steve had described. "Okay, maybe it's not ridiculous, but it's at least unlike- Yeah, okay, I probably would."
He expected some variation of 'Told you so', but nothing came. Steve just dropped his arms on his sides and stood there, eyes fixed on Tony's. Expectantly.
Nothing happened so eventually Tony continued to change into his PJ bottoms. He sat down on his bed, pulled off his socks and tee and crawled under the blanket.
"Sleep well, Tony" Steve said and left the room.
When the light started to dim and Steve probably was long out of earshot, Tony mumbled: "Thanks." He stared at the ceiling that slowly went dark above him. Steve was so kind and when he wanted, he could be empathic. Certainly being let down by him wouldn't even hurt as much as Tony feared it would be. Who was he kidding, it would sting like a bitch, but it was still just a damn question and he'd get a damn answer and that would be it. He'd get over it like he got over everything else.
The soft glow of the screen made him aware that he had picked up his phone and his fingers were already half way through the motion to call up the last state of the blueprints he had been working on. 'Bad brain, no bed science' he berated himself and swiped through the standby processes instead. There was still the tab with that picture open. His thumb hovered over the e-mail icon. If he sent it to Steve now, he'd probably get another stern look for obviously still not sleeping after being told to, so instead he clicked the Instagram logo. What even was the point of holding back, the other team members definitely appreciated Steve's impressive shape as well.
"Didn't know the kitchen had such a good view" he captioned it and put it onto his team-only account. Before he could come up with any other distractions, he shut off the phone, rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. He hadn't even finished his usual thoughts of not even being tired before sleep took over.
~~~~~~~~~~
When Tony woke up, he actually felt rested and couldn't remember any nightmares. For a change. He also felt like his body could do well with a few more hours of sleep, but he practically heard his brain kicking back into gear. He had work to do, an appointment that Pepper had told him was vital in about six hours and he had to ask Steve out.
So apparently tricking himself into doing it on a whim was vain, he already felt the insecurities washing back over him. The desperate thought of how it was only a question and there was nothing wrong with just asking was quickly drowned in fear so he pushed all of that away for later. "Friday, how's the world today?" he asked. He hadn't set an alarm so he had not been woken by his usual weather and news report, but he still found it kind of soothing to start the - well the afternoon in this case that way.
"It's 4:33 pm, Boss. Outside temperatures are at 17°C, slightly overcast but dry with occasional wind chills. No alarming news within the last eight hours. The current development of SI stocks and financials is displayed on the left bedroom wall, in case you want to get an overview for tonight's meeting, and I feel compelled to mention that your Instagram activity showed a significant spike last night, Sir."
s
"Insta-" Right, sleep drunk pic posting. He swiftly tangled himself up in the sheet even tighter as he tried to get his legs free and eventually managed to reach out for his phone. Sure enough, there it was, sporting over a bit over 3000 notifications already. Mostly likes, a few comments from the team.
Natalia left a comment on your photo: your good view is obscured by some giant meatball. jk, he's not hard on the eyes, that's for sure ;)
Maybe he wouldn't have posted it, had he been fully awake, but so far the results seemed pretty nice. He decided to keep it up and got into his work clothes right away. With a short detour via the coffee maker, he headed for the workshop. He also should probably eat something, but he'd just fix this tiny thing in the blueprints before grabbing a bite. It just wouldn't leave his mind.
~~~~~~~~~~
He strolled into the common room while still tying up the last end of his bow tie. "Hey Pep, I'm here and on time" Tony announced and checked his cuff links. He stopped in front of the occupied arm chair, looked up and saw the wrong blond. Pepper had told him to meet her here so they could go to the gala together (and probably so she could make sure beforehand that he really was presentable and on time for his speech), so he had assumed the person in the chair would be her. In fact he was looking at a peacefully snoring super soldier, hair pushed up by the backrest he had slid down against and the remote dangling dangerously in his loose left hand.
Tony kept himself from verbalizing how cute that looked. He also kept himself from thinking about how he just labeled a 240 lbs adult man who was slightly drooling cute and instead plucked the remote out of Steve's hand to put it onto the next couch table. When he looked back at the sleeping form, he sighed. Still cute.
He looked around. Nobody else in the room, so he might as well... Yeah, he might. He dug up his phone and snapped a picture. Was that weird? Maybe a little. Then again, it was in the living room and it wasn't as if he'd show it to someone.
"With all his 'I'm not really 95', he sure falls asleep a lot during movies." Clint's voice had Tony almost jump out of his shoes. He really should be used to spies sneaking up on him by now, even if they didn't do it on purpose.
"You have a bird in your codename and the flying abilities of a fossil turtle, so you mean to say?" Tony jabbed while he tried to get his pulse down again.
Clint turned his head to stare at Tony with wide eyes for a moment. When Tony was just about to question if that had been to much, Clint's mouth pulled into a wide grin. "Burn, man! Nice one!" he said and jokingly punched Tony in the shoulder. Then he instantly drew back and flattened out the creases in Tony's suit. "Oh shit, sorry. Right, you have a thing."
"Yes, I have a thing, why are you -"
"Pepper's waiting in the kitchen and she said something about you better arriving soon and in a pristine suit and I don't wanna be responsible for your early death." While rambling, Clint pulled out the creases and smoothed the fabric of Tony's suit down, probably more than it had been before.
Tony chuckled. "That's charming, I think I'll live." He still took that as his cue to head off towards the kitchen and meet Pepper. Time for the not so fun part of the day. At least he had another nice picture to look at that made him smile with delight immediately. Before he could think any more of it, he had opened Instagram again. He swiftly scrolled through the filter options and picked one that added an orange tinge and a slight vignette to make and even more cozy impression. Then he clicked upload and added: "Yawning cats have nothing on him. Neither do charging tanks, but that's another story."
"There you are" Pepper remarked as he stepped through the kitchen door.
"Yes, I am and ready to go" he confirmed.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Objectively speaking, there could hardly be any better opportunities than now to ask Steve out. He was chilling on the ratty little couch of the workshop while Tony was working. Well, tried to be working. Actually he was jumping back and forth between wrangling down thoughts of asking Steve out on a date, trying to assemble the circuit plates in front of him in the right order and repeatedly burning himself with the soldering iron because he just wasn't paying attention.
He shook the thoughts out of his head and reached for the next little plastic board. It clicked into place. There was nothing wrong with asking for something you wanted. Also, there was no point in these thoughts. He clamped down two wires and picked up the solder. He absolutely could ask, there just was no point in it. Also, these boards were ridiculously small. How had he ever managed to get them attached so neatly?
He reached up to scratch his head and bumped his finger into the magnifying glass visor. Right. With the visor pulled down at least this problem seemed manageable. The thing with Steve didn't get better from it at all, but that also shouldn't matter right now. He brought solder and iron into place, melting solder onto the wire and pressing it onto a completely different component as well, that promptly attached to the solder blob. "Shit" he cursed under his breath. He nudged the wires apart and sprinkled hot solder onto another component. Great, back to where he started, just with a dirty plate.
He put away the soldering iron, kicked the switch off and unceremoniously dumped the solder into an open drawer. With a loud groan, he slid his hands over his face and mumbled "It's just a damn question."
Steve looked up. "Come again?"
Tony swiveled around in his chair, got up and put down the rest of his work gear. "A break. I said that I should take a break." He strode over to the couch Steve occupied, expertly avoiding to step on anything important and pulled out his phone. "But first..." He stepped behind the couch and slung an arm around Steve's shoulder. "Work selfie. Smile!" He managed to press the button at the exact same moment Steve realized that he was not just side-hugged but also side-smeared-with-soot and turned to half-laughing half-resentment.
"That was not necessary, but a break seems like a great idea" Steve said while wiping the black smears off his face.
Tony didn't even contemplate much anymore. He uploaded the pic and added a snappy one liner. "My thoughts exactly. Coffee and a snack, that's what I need", he heard himself say while he was busy typing. 'And the guts to ask a freakin question' his mind provided. Since the thought of that made him dizzy, he decided these guts were probably not present today.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony looked up from his plate of Chop Suey and at his best friend. Their last topic had found a natural end, so he might as well talk off of the top of his head.
"Rhodey, how do you ask someone out?"
James apparently had a hard time, keeping his drink out of his nose. "Tones, what the hell?" he exclaimed when he had recovered his ability to breathe. "I mean, I won't complain about you asking the voice of reason - which obviously is me - but you know you have asked people out before, right? Like, lots of people."
Tony rolled his eyes. "Yes, on flings or when I just wanted to test waters or, hell, even when I was just bored, but not when I... when I meant it?" He picked up the napkin and cleaned the grease off his fingers. Maybe a bit enthusiastically. Maybe it even looked like he was just wringing the napkin. He forcefully put the napkin down and looked Rhodey in the eyes. "Look, I joked my way into a date with Pepper, I was nervous like hell, which nobody realized because I'm a genius, but I just stuck to stupid remarks so if she said no I could play it off as a joke."
"You're serious" Rhodey said, sounding a little starstruck.
"Yes of course I'm serious" Tony said.
Rhodey sat up a little straighter. The laughter was gone. "Sorry, I... you were about to say?"
"I still don't know why Pepper said yes. It was so stupid, really, and I don't want to do that again. I want to ask him out and I want to do it right. And also, I probably need you to wait for me while I do it, cause he'll probably say no and then I'll need someone to sing shitty karaoke and eat ice cream with."
"Hm" Rhodey said and then fell silent for a long while. "You ever considered to just go ahead and say 'Hey, I like you a lot. Would you go on a date with me?' or something like that?"
Keeping his tone completely flat and his eyes half closed, Tony answered: "Oh wow, I never thought of that. I guess I will do that as soon as I manage to even think these words around him without my hands shaking."
It was almost comical to see Rhodey's face transition from his serious frown into a repressed grin and finally into full on laughter.
"What?" Tony asked. "What is so funny?" He gestured vaguely with his hands. "Something on my nose? What is it, clue me in."
Still chuckling, Rhodey got up from his seat in the booth. For a moment Tony wondered if Rhodey would leave him alone now, if this had just been too stupid when his friend plopped into the seat right next to him, wiped away a tear of joy and slung an arm around his shoulder. "Ok Tones, listen. The first thing you have to do is tell me everything about Mystery Man here because I ain't seen you as head over heels as now in basically forever and this is amazing."
Tony raised an eyebrow. "That's endearing, but not helpful."
"And then, I hate to tell you so, but then you have to get it together and ask him out, straight ahead. If you want to you can use the exact words I suggested, but it never gets easy."
Sighing deeply, Tony sagged down onto the table. "I guess I knew that already, but here I was hoping for a magic trick. And I'm not gonna tell you anything until I haven't figured out how and when to do this."
"It's Steve, innit?" Rhodey probed.
Tony groaned loudly. "Yes it is and you're the worst" he spoke into the table.
At least Rhodey started to rub his back soothingly. "Don't worry, I won't tell" he added. "You still have to get up and do it at some point."
When Tony looked up at his best friend, the guy was grinning like a mad man again. "You got it bad man, you really do" Rhodey smirked. Why did that have to be so right.
~~~~~~~~~~~
Just because Rhodey had told him to, didn't mean Tony actually managed to do anything soon. On the other hand, he managed a lot. He got a picture of Steve jumping off of a plane during mission. Without a parachute, of course, and thus as soon as Tony had captured the shot, he followed suit to pluck Steve out of the sky.
He also got one of Steve with ice cream on the tip of his nose from licking the remains out of a Ben&Jerrie's tub.
And one of Steve arm wrestling with Thor.
One where Steve was drinking water between sparring sessions and - being too eager - had little rivulets running down his chin and onto his shirt.
One of Steve sitting on the roof of the tower and admiring the sunset.
One of him laughing. Tony wasn't even sure why he had been laughing, but it was beautiful, full on laughter that made Steve's perfect nose crinkle and his cheeks turn a little rosy.
Each of them marking another situation where he thought: "There is nothing wrong with asking. It's just a question, so what am I waiting for?"
His Instagram was booming but he felt like he was not a single step closer to getting what he wanted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
As much effort as Tony put into finding something to do at the other end of the workshop, Steve was hot on his heels and not giving in. Tony should have never let him into the shop around the time of a social team event. When Tony put down his face shield and put the welding gun onto the material, Steve took a step back and shielded his eyes. That was the most distance Tony got from him.
"Oh come on Tony, it'll be fun" Steve drawled.
"If it was fun, it would not be called team building exercises, Capsicle. Also, as you see I have an imminent overabundance of work that must be done and time waits for no one." He put away the welding shield and examined the seam. He didn't have to examine the seam, it was flawless as usual with such easy material, but he really didn't want to look up and risk looking at Steve or he might give in.
"I'd command you to, but I know how well you work with commands" Steve explained. "Would you at least look at me?"
With a completely overdrawn sigh, Tony looked up at him. As expected, Steve was staring at him with the biggest, saddest cow eyes. "That is unfair" Tony pouted. Then he took out his phone and took a picture. Belatedly he realized that by now this was kind of a reflex to awkward Steve-situations with him. "That was weird. Let me delete this real quick."
"Or you keep it and in exchange you come playing boules with the team?" Steve grinned.
Tony took a look at the picture. It was nice. And spending time with the team was nice, too. Actually it would all be perfectly nice, aside from being next to Steve and wondering the entire time, if he could come up with the bravery today to ask a perfectly normal question. Like he was some crushing high school kid. "Ok, you win. I'll join in on team night. And I keep the photo."
"Great. I'm glad" Steve said and even looked like he meant it. For a moment, Tony had high hopes that if he asked now, Steve might even consider it. That was delusional. Just because the man might enjoy Tony being around, that didn't mean he'd say yes to dating.
Under the stern supervision of Captain Spanglepants, he cleaned up his gear and in company of Steve Rogers he entered the elevator and off they were. During the wait he went through the familiar taps of uploading the pic and added another caption: "It's my duty to share this pic of the Star Spangled Man With a Plan. Ladies and gents, gird your loins." He read through it again and had to grin.
"What's so funny?" Steve asked.
"Ah, just texting."
The afternoon went by with boules and later beer and was, after all, quite enjoyable. Aside from raging self-doubts that was, but Clint daring Natasha to physically launch herself at him during his turns to make it "at least somewhat difficult" as he said, was distractive enough and also damn hilarious.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony read the comment again. "Yeah Stark. Real subtle with the gazillion pics there..." So probably the secret was out now anyway. The way Sam had worded it, it might just have stopped being a secret long ago. Hell, probably even Steve knew it by now and they were just playing a game of chicken, betting on if Tony managed to ask first or if Steve lost his patience and told him off right away.
He scrolled back through his history. Yeah, subtle was something else, especially with the captions he had chosen. And the almost complete lack of pictures of anyone else. Really, Steve was probably just waiting for this ridiculousness to finally be over. Tony looked around the common room. He may have been freaking out, but he could play it cool like it was nobody's business, so when he spotted Natasha, he said: "Hey Nat, quick question to you as a long time SHIELD agent: How dangerous do you think relationships between members of a task force get on average?"
Natasha really slowly lowered the copy of some modern romance novel she had been engrossed in and revealed first one highly arched brow followed by an expression of utter disbelief. "You couldn't have come up with a more ridiculous way to phrase that, could you, Antonishka? Yes, I think you should ask Steve out."
Tony felt the color rising in his cheeks and the panic coming up. So it was that obvious.
"Don't start hyperventilating while nobody else is here. I'd have to rescue you and I'd prefer to finish my book." With these words, she vanished behind her book again.
Somehow her unperturbed tone helped Tony to sort out his thoughts a bit. Primarily the one where he had asked Natasha of all people. Of course she knew. Natasha probably knew more about his relationships than he knew himself. After repeating that fact in his head for a few times, his heart rate had calmed down and his breathing had evened out a little. "Thanks, I'll consider it" he said and bolted for the door.
He vaguely saw her giving him a death stare over the rim of her book, but right now he had more important things to worry about. "Friday, give me a list of all team members currently present in the tower."
"Certainly, Boss." His AI's voice was calm as ever and somehow grounded him a bit more. That and having a logical approach to his problem.
A list popped up on his phone and he stopped in his tracks to consider his options. Thor, Clint and Wanda were out on missions, but they wouldn't have been any help either way. Sam was on the range, but he knew. Pepper had better things to do than to care about his ridiculous crushes and she probably knew as well since she was a master level expert in reading Tony. Vision was a complete wild card, but probably it would take an hour to even explain the question to him. Vision hat emotions, but seemingly no idea how to project this concept onto others.
Barnes.
Barnes was the perfect option, seeing that he was average in reading people and certainly closer to Steve's POV than to Tony's. Also, Tony hated talking to Barnes since he had no idea what would set the man off and he had set him off accidentally a few times. They usually stuck to being polite around one another and occasionally having a weird, but engineering-based talk over the man's prosthetic arm when Tony had to help with maintenance.
Maybe it was time to have a heartfelt talk about relationships with the Wintersoldier. What could possibly go wrong.
Tony ran a few steps back and forth. Barnes was in his own place. That was good, he'd feel safe there and he could kick Tony out if he didn't feel like talking. So what could possibly go wrong?
Realistically, Barnes could panic or dissociate and level half of the tower by playing one-man-army-with-flashbacks. Then again, this was highly unlikely, considering how he had acted so far. Doctor Fox had just put this out there as a worst case after her assessment of Barnes' mental state.
There was a somewhat unforeseeable danger, but now that he had a worst case estimation, Tony did feel more capable of doing it. "What even is wrong with me" he muttered and got into the elevator.
The ride seemed to take forever. The low hum of the ventilation almost drove Tony up the wall. Maybe it was broken. It certainly wasn't that loud all the time. Or was it?
"Hey, I wanted to ask if you think I should ask your bff-and-practically-brother out on a date. Oh, you already knew I'd do that, thanks for letting me know, please don't imagine me and him having sex, oh shut up, Tony." He banged his fist against the wall. Maybe trying to come up with words wasn't the best idea. He'd make it up on the fly, as usual. And he'd listen to the hum of the ventilation some more.
Hum. Never changing. Ever lasting.
The "Bing" when he reached the right floor ripped him out of his trance. The panic was gone. Good.
He discarded all thoughts that tried to come up as he approached the door and rang the bell. After a few moments, Friday's voice sounded from the ceiling: "Sgt. Barnes would like to know if there is a reason you want to see him, Boss."
"Oh. Can't blame the man for not wanting to see me, I guess." Tony was about to turn around and walk away.
"I prepared a message that you would like to talk to him about a personal matter and he agreed" Friday continued. "He said, he'd need a minute and you could wait in the foyer if you'd like."
The door opened. No reason to turn back then. He decided to fake it and made sure his steps were firm and his posture upright.
Mere seconds after he had started to scan the foyer for options to sit down and squirm on, another door opened and Barnes approached him. Tony knew his attire to be practical and minimalistic, but he had never considered that his living space might look similar. Barely anything was changed from the sleek, modern default-furniture Tony stocked the places with. Safe from a book on one of the drawers and a pair of boots next to the door, it was hard to tell that anyone lived here.
"Minimalistic interior. I like it" Tony said, aiming for an easy, noncommittal start. In hindsight, he could have known that Barnes didn't do easy or noncommittal.
"Thanks a bunch, now can we talk about what brought you here?" His tone was too soft for it to really sound as rough as the words were. Tony felt like the man he was looking at was trying hard to not be threatening. He didn't fail as hard as he could have.
"Straight to the point then" Tony summed up and bit back another wave of mindless rambling. He didn't get this guy but he could try to play his game. "Your opinion as bff of Steven G. Rogers: Should I ask him out on a date?"
Barnes blinked a few times. It gave him an air of an owl that woke up in bright daylight. Tony felt a laugh rising up in his throat. It got immediately stuck when Barnes stopped blinking all together and fixated him with stare that would do to hold down a rhino. "You askin' this for real, Stark? Like, are you serious?"
Tony took a moment to figure out whether he would die if he said yes or if he said no. Or both.
He had no clue, so he opted for the truth. He still had to take a deep breath before he could get out anything. "Yes, I'm asking this for real. Very real."
Tony felt his heart skip a beat when his shoulders were suddenly in the vice-like grip of a supersoldier and that murder stare was suddenly mere inches away from him. "Yes, holy fuck, yes!" It took Tony a moment to parse these words and Barnes was already continuing. "Fuckin' finally, go ask that punk out, I thought I'd never get another calm minute in my life." Tony wasn't sure if the collected, leveled voice made it more or less threatening, but if he got that right, Barnes was saying that Tony should go for it. Actually he was saying that Steve was freaking out about this as well, so apparently yes, everyone knew and yes, Steve was waiting for a good moment to let him down.
"Oh shit, sorry Mr Stark I was-" The grip on his shoulders and the murder stare were gone as quickly as they had come. Barnes lifted a hand to rub his neck and undecidedly looked around the room. Avoiding Tony's eyes. Avoiding to look at Tony all together, actually. "Hope I didn't scare you" Barnes added. He looked at his metal hand. "Or hurt you." His eyes widened. "Crap, did I hurt you? Oh god ffff- 's your shoulder ok?"
For a moment Tony was swimming with the sudden change of tone, but it wasn't threatening anymore, that was good. "Nah, my shoulder is fine. Thanks Buckaroo. So, I'm gonna go talk to Steve now, right?"
Bucky seemed split for a moment between avoiding to touch Tony or look at him and examining his arm to make sure he hadn't hurt Tony. It really was kind of cute. Mainly disturbing, though. "Yeah, please do that. It's... yeah. Do it. You'll figure it out."
"I will" Tony said, trying to guess his way through appropriate facial expressions. Since finding too many polite phrases seemed to upset Barnes, he opted for "Goodbye" and left.
So that was done. As Tony sagged against the wall outside of Barnes' apartment, he realized that all this excitation had a tremendous upside: Talking to Steve, by comparison, felt maybe half as threatening as before. If that. And he was prepared. He knew that Steve knew and he knew that Steve wanted to get this over with. No time like the presence.
With a few taps on his phone he had Steve's location in the tower. Since he was in the common areas, there even was a floor plan with a tiny, blinking dot wandering around. That dot, flickering on and off in a vibrant blue, somehow seemed to get more captivating, the longer Tony looked at it. The logical reaction then was to stop looking at it, so he went for another excruciating ride in the elevator. If his life proceeded like that, soon he'd revolve to taking the stairs. The ventilation still hummed. Of course it did.
When the doors of the car slid open, the tiny blue dot was standing in the kitchen. By now Tony was feeling a certain rush to get this over with. When he passed through the open common room, there was still Natasha, reading her book and apparently getting close to the end. As he passed by her spot, she still lowered it for a moment to show him an encouraging smile. "Go get him, tiger."
Tony stopped in his tracks for a second. "Okay, that was so a) the most tacky line you could come up with and b) so creepy, I'm not sure I even want to know, how you did that."
She shrugged and turned back to her book. Still smiling. Whatever. He had more important things to do.
In the kitchen, Steve was, indeed. Tony almost turned around and fled the scene. Of course Steve had just come back from workout. This time he had a shirt. Slung over his shoulder. That would not make anything easier, but Tony pushed himself forward.
"Steve, you got a moment?" he asked, voice surprisingly enough not wavering.
He turned his head but proceeded to crack eggs into a bowl. As he spotted Tony, he brightened up considerably. So at least he'd be nice about it. "Sure thing, Tony. I was about to make some scrambled eggs, you-"
Maybe Tony understood at least some of Barnes' lack of patience when it came pleasantries. He cut into Steve's words. "No, actually I do not want to eat anything right now, I'd just like to have a word with you."
Steve blinked and drew his eyebrows together, nonetheless kept smiling. He looked back at his meal preparation before he replied: "Go ahead. I'll finish this if it's ok with you, but I'm listening."
"So, as we both know, there is this thing." Tony realized that he was constantly shifting weight from one foot to the other. He sat down before he continued. "I mean, I'm not sure what I even have to say on that anymore." If Steve was nice, he wouldn't have Tony spell it out in detail. This was excruciating enough as it was, so Tony waited for now.
"I'm not sure either?" Steve said eventually.
So no being nice. And here he had been hoping that maybe Steve would know mercy. Tony offered another chance by waiting for a few more seconds. Very awkward seconds. "Steve, really, is this how we do it now?"
Steve turned on the stove and dumped the contents of his mixing bowl into a the pan. When it sizzled satisfyingly, at least he turned around to look at Tony. "I'm sorry, I feel like I missed something there. What are we doing?"
Tony took a deep breath, managed to calm himself a little. That was not how he'd imagined this to go. To be fair, maybe Steve was losing his calm here as well. Tony had lost his nerves more than once over talking to someone about relationships. But this had to be handled now. "We are talking about you and me. About us." There was a growing look of horror on Steve's face. "Whatever it is between us" Tony clarified and that seemed to have the exact opposite effect of what he had hoped for. Now Steve looked full on like a deer in headlights.
"Am I..." Steve began.
"Well I don't know, are you?" Tony pressed when nothing else came.
"Oh no, no, no." Steve shook his head a little and paced around the kitchen. "I didn't-" He carded his hand through his hair which caused the shirt on his shoulder to slip and drop the floor. Hurriedly he picked up the shirt and put it on with a little latency from first trying to pull one of the sleeves over his head and then realizing that he had put it on backwards. Tony couldn't fully ignore the ridiculousness of the situation but mainly wondered what had brought this on.
When he was finally done with putting on a shirt, Steve breathed in, out and focused back on Tony. "Look, I never meant this to be any kind of, Jesus, I didn't even know you knew, I thought this was just fun or something and maybe I was kidding myself a little. Lord, had I known that this is getting to you so much, I'd have sucked it up and stopped. I'm... I'm sorry, Tony."
Steve had hardly taken a breath while saying all that so now Tony went back through all the words to find out what they meant. Thinking about it, they still didn't make much sense. "We're talking" he remarked. "Talking is good. Now it would be nice if your talking made any sense, but we're talking, that's something." He looked at Steve, expecting something. So far he got nothing so it looked like he'd have to be the reasonable person here again. "Simple questions then. We're going to figure this out. You didn't mean it. What? What did you not mean?"
"To annoy you?" Steve tried.
"You did not until just a few minutes ago, so more questions: I didn't know what? Cause I feel like I still don't know."
"Well, how I feel about you."
"Fair enough" Tony concluded. If he didn't want to speak it out loud, he could hardly assume that Steve was fine addressing the elephant in the room on a whim. Still, they'd get there. "And this whatever is getting to me so much. I mean, it does, but how is that your fault? What would you have stopped? Letting me take pictures of you? I mean, the pictures were nice, but I'm not sure their absence would have changed anything."
"The pictures" Steve repeated. "It would not, I guess? Wait, what do these have to do with anything anyway?"
"Well, for starters they made you realize what was going on" Tony explained. "You and probably everybody else."
"But you take a lot of pictures of everyone, Tony" Steve said.
Back to spelling it out then. "I was more talking about posting them on Instagram with comments that would maybe count as 'fawning' or 'gushing', at least in your friends' books." Tony rolled his eyes. "So can we acknowledge now, that this probably changed something?"
"Instagram." Steve's voice was flat now. "Oh wait, Natasha showed me that one. It's the one with the images, right? The ones that look like taken with a really old camera, only the resolution is utter crap."
What was going on here.
"Yes, and everyone seemed to understand from that what is going on with me." This was getting ridiculous again. Was Steve playing stupid now to humiliate him.
Steve suddenly turned an impressively dark shade of red. "You're saying everyone knows I've been hitting on you?"
"Yes everyone, wait no, yes, everyone knows I've been - what did you just say?" Tony must have heard that wrong.
"Yeah, probably was a stupid idea to begin with" Steve amended. "I don't understand flirting and all, I just thought maybe, you know, casually forgetting my shirt sometimes when you might be around or hanging out where you're working would seem... nice." He was rubbing his neck now and seemingly trying to sink into the floor. Which looked utterly ridiculous for this size of a human.
This conversation was a train wreck. "It was nice" Tony said, cause that was one of the few things he could say for sure right now. "It was nice to have you around and it was also nice, I guess, that you tried to get me to eat and sleep. Was that also part of your cunning plan?"
Steve chuckled and rubbed over the floor with his toes a little. "No, that was just me accepting that I wouldn't get you to do it any other way. I do care about everyone on the team, you know?" He looked up a bit sheepishly. "'S just I do more than care about you." He threw up his hands in a deflecting gesture. "But I'll tone it down if it's annoying you, I just didn't know."
Now Tony couldn't help it any more. He threw back his head and laughed. He wasn't even sure if it was more happiness or more relieving tension, but he laughed. He vaguely realized Steve's confusion and somehow managed to stop laughing at that point. He was still wheezing a little. "Annoying? Steve, it's adorable. It's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me in a long time. Please tell me if I'm getting something here wrong - again - but..." He got up from his seat and took Steve's hands that were hanging down loosely, reminding Tony a bit of the sad, dying flower he had tried to keep in his dorm room in college. "Please never stop doing these things. I love them. And I-" There was Rhodey's voice in the back of his mind. Helping, for a change. "I like you a lot. Would you go on a date with me?"
Steve looked like going into shock for a moment before he huffed a laugh. "Yes?" he tried and a huge grin seemed to try to split his face. "Yes! Yes, I would love that Tony. Yes." Suddenly Tony found himself in the arms of and then lifted up into the air by an overenthusiastic super soldier. A little unfortunate, since he felt like jumping up and down with giddy happiness, but who was he to complain. He decided to just cling to his... boyfriend? That's what they would be now, right?
"You know what this needs to start off right?" Tony asked.
Steve looked up at him since Tony, who was still dangling almost one foot above the ground. Tony still managed to dig his phone out of his pocket.
"Success-selfie?" Steve guessed.
"You got it" Tony confirmed. "Also, that's a perfect caption." He held up the phone above their heads and captured both of them looking up with the goofiest smile. "And now back to flirting. I want to officially state that I do not complain about shirtless flirting."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tony saw Bucky dragging himself through the kitchen, probably searching for breakfast, but some things just couldn't wait.
"Hey, Buckybear, Barnes, Buckaroo, just a simple question, if you have the time?"
Bucky turned the full loathing force of a not-morning-person onto him. "I'd say fuck off and talk to me when it's daytime, but I'm living in your house and my mum taught me manners, so... what?"
Yeah, that was a state of mind Tony could understand and work with. Or ignore. "Look, when I asked you if I should ask Steve out and you said, I don't even remember, whatever you said - what the hell were you thinking? Obviously you did not tell him about my crush on him?"
"Are you shitting me now?" Barnes said. "How the hell would I know about your 'crushes' on anyone. That punk didn't shut up for two seconds about how he was thinking of you and if he should talk to you or not. He was a mess and a god forsaken menace and I had to take care of him."
"Oh" was all Tony had to say to that.
"Yeah, oh, and now I need coffee. You're welcome." Bucky turned around to punch his usual thing into the coffee maker. "I'm happy for the two of you" he mumbled.
"What was that?" Tony asked.
"That was my manners, now fuck off."