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Tony wakes to the sound of dripping water, and his first thought is that they kept him underwater for too long and he blacked out.
Then he realizes his face is pressed against something - not water, not the tin edges of the tub, not a burlap sack. It's thick and smothering, and his mind whirls as it runs through the possibilities; he'd guess it's a blanket, but why would they give him a blanket? Maybe it's Yinsen with a towel - only, no, the fabric’s too soft for that. It’s linen, or maybe cotton, and it's high-thread count, and-
Tony jolts upward, gasping. The room is dark, and he can’t remember where he is, but there’s a faint blue glow emanating from his arc reactor and he can feel his heart beat pumping beneath his ribs. He presses a hand against his chest anyway, presses it hard enough that the hum of the arc reactor bites through his skin and permeates to his bones, makes him vibrate. It should be uncomfortable - sort of is uncomfortable, it's like that feeling you get in your jaw when a dentist is drilling one of your teeth, like his dentist had had to do when he came back from Afghanistan with two of them pulled and several others chipped and - Tony runs his tongue across his gums, feels them. He's fine. The arc reactor and the thrumming of his heart reverberate through his palm.
“Tony?”
Tony's heartbeat was slowing but it's not anymore - it spikes as he turns, startled despite himself, and he's breathing ridiculously heavy for someone who just woke up, but it’s just Pepper, backlit and frowning at him from the doorway.
“Are you okay? You were screaming in your sleep.”
It’s takes him a moment to realize she’s talking to him and another for him to formulate a coherent answer - stupid, stupid, stupid, he chides himself, because he's a genius, he's a scientist, he had that going for him even when he was handing over bombs to Afghani criminals and letting them blow up the young, blonde boys who went to defend his country. Tony opens his mouth and tries to speak but realizes his throat is too dry; he coughs, swallows, manages to say, “I'm fine.”
The premature crow’s feet- no doubt brought on by thirteen hour workdays and Tony, another stupid thing he's done to someone - around Pepper’s eyes deepen as she frowns. “You’re not fine, Tony.”
Tony feels like he should have a witty retort for that, something that establishes both his genius and his level of fine, but when he opens his mouth, all he does is cough. Then he coughs again. And then it's like a tidal wave, and he's coughing but he can't stop, and he doesn't know why that is - there's no water in his throat, no tin or lightning on his tongue.
“Tony?" Pepper asks as she steps forward, and here come the frown lines, parallel to her crow's feet. She lays a hand on his back, rubbing firmly, but it does nothing to help. It just makes his lungs burn more. Without looking away from Tony’s face, she says, “JARVIS, can you send Dummy with water?”
“Right away, Miss Potts,” JARVIS says, sounding like he'd been waiting for the order; at the exact same moment Tony gasps out, “No, no water.” His throat is rubbed raw enough as it is, he doesn't need more salt-water and copper making it worse.
“Tony, you need to drink something,” Pepper says, even though he’s stopped coughing. He still feels the urge to, of course, but she'd make him drink water if he didn't stop, and he can't do that.
Tony doesn't sigh, but he lets out a breath, closing his eyes, and rests his head back against the headboard. He can see it all in his minds eye: water, sloshing over the sides of the metal tub as they shove his head down, hold it there; water, dripping from his nose, his ears, his eyelashes; water, pouring out of his mouth as he bends over, and he feels the electricity spikes from the car battery keeping him alive slowly building up layers of scar tissue on his heart. He feels stupid for not being able to control this - it's a mind, it's synapses, it's just numbers. It shouldn't be able to control him like this, but it is anyway. Dimly he realizes his hand is still pressed to his chest. The damage is already done, but he still forces himself to drop it. “Then get me coffee or something. No water.”
“Water would be better,” Pepper says, and waits a moment. When Tony doesn’t say anything she sighs, and she folds, like a bad hand in poker, like Tony knew she would.
She gets him a Gatorade, which is too close to water for Tony’s liking but which he still manages to take a few sips of before he feels like he’s going to gag and has to set it on the bedside table. Maybe Gatorade wasn't the best choice - it's salty and bitter, the wrong kind of both. Pepper sighs at him again, her trademark Tony-what-am-I-going-to-do-with-you? sigh, before she leans over and presses a kiss to his forehead, tucking him in like his mother never did when he was a child. Like how he never slept in Afghanistan, on Yinsen's cot without a blanket or a sheet, shivering himself to sleep.
Then she flicks off the lights and leaves, and Tony lies in the dark and tries to convince himself that he can’t hear the rain pouring outside.
.
.
Bruce is the first Avenger to come live with him after the Chitauri attack, and he’s the only one for a while. It takes Tony by surprise, almost - sure, Tony had invited him over, but he'd never really expected Bruce to take him up on his offer. After all, who is crazy enough - rage-monster green alter ego or no - to want to live with Tony Stark?
Apparently Bruce, because he shows up on Tony's doorstep three days after they sort of destroy the whole city, and two days before they drop off the map. It's not even a discussion, really: he says, "Does that offer still stand?" and Tony, after blinking suprisedly for a few seconds, comes back to himself enough to say, "Hell yes it does," and then that is just that. Tony bunks him in the guest suite, which is admittedly lavish and beautiful, but which Tony still doesn't think is quite good enough for Bruce - it's too impersonal, too much like the five-star hotels he visits in Paris and London and Shanghai, ones with views of the Effiel Tower and names that mean paradise. He probably would have ended up offering him the master suite, if he hadn't already moved in, but he probably would have figured out at some point, and then they would have had to have a discussion about emotions and stuff, and Tony's not really good at that. So it's probably for the better, anyway.
A few hours after Bruce moves in the Star Tower, Tony stops by his room to ask if he wants to go out for Thai food. The door is open and so he doesn't knock, and in hindsight, maybe that's a mistake - privacy is something to be valued, after all, or at least that's what Pepper tells him. He finds Bruce sitting with his back to Tony, cross-legged in some approximation of a yoga position, holding a framed photo delicately in his hands. Tony catches a glimpse of the woman in it before he looks away - she's beautiful, with brown hair and a kind smile with an undeniable spunk to it, something almost rebellious.
The moment seems private and personal, so Tony clears his throat. Bruce jerks around, the tips of his ears turning red- and Bruce has been here for, like, two hours, and Tony already knows that that’s how Bruce blushes- and hastily says, “I- I was just-”
"I know." There's a beat of weighted silence that seems too much like it's harboring hidden feelings - nostalgia and loss and longing and affection and a myriad of other things Tony does not do. "Want Chinese?"
It's only one of the things Tony will come to find out about Bruce over the following months; Bruce is not necessarily an open guy, but he doesn't hide his past, either - if something comes up, or Tony asks him a question, he'll answer honestly. Unlike Tony, who will deflect with sarcasm and jokes and, more then once, a false claim that Pepper has called and he needs to go answer (which Bruce undoubtedly sees right through, but. What can you do?). This is how Tony comes to know of Bruce's superhero background story, the attempts to make another Captain America and how the attempts went wrong; it's how he finds out about that time Bruce hulked out in the middle of a grocery store while he was on the run and he smashed two full displays of Hostess products (twinkies and cupcakes alike); Bruce tells him about Jamacia and Cambodia and South Africa, the languages he learned and the kids he helped save; Tony accidentally stumbles upont the details of how and when Bruce tried to kill himself. Some of the stuff he finds is funny. Some of it's exciting. A vast majority of it is overlaid with sadness or anger - but then, he's the Hulk. How can it not be? Bruce swears him to secrecy on most of the information, and for once Tony actually listens.
But here's the thing: Bruce doesn’t find out a lot about Tony.
Or rather: Tony doesn't let Bruce find anything out about him. It was kind of impossible for him not to realize Tony sleeps less then four hours, on average, every night; Tony gives away that scrap of trivia easily. He also let's Bruce find outthat he survives mostly on a diet of coffee and vodka, because, come on, they live together and they share labs for part of, if not most of, their days - how was he supposed to hide that? And there's another point - in spending so much time with him, Bruce figures out that Tony spends at least seventy-five percent of his time in some sort of lab, or in his workshop, devoted to advancing science, physics, technology, or any combination thereof. None of this imformation is particularaly personal, because all you have to do is spend a day with him to figure it out. It's all pretty obvious.
Tony likes it way, and it stays that way; until one day when they're alone together, down in the lab. Bruce is doing some with strings of DNA, trying to create or cure a genetic mutation, Tony isn't entirely sure; Tony is preoccupied with a car battery. Bruce says, “Dummy, can you bring me a water?”
Dammy beeps as he turns around, the tracts of his wheels grating, a little, against the concrete. Bruce glances up and realizes Tony’s gone stiff; his hands are clenched in front of him and his back is tight.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce says, “I should’ve asked to use Dummy.”
Tony turns around, glances at Bruce. “What are you talking about?” he asks, but even his voice sounds terse. “I don’t care if you use Dummy; hell, you can have him. It’s not like he does anything helpful around here anyway.”
Dummy beeps sadly - he sounds simultaneously depressed at his position and resigned to his fake - and just as he holds out the glass of water towards Bruce he rolls over a power cord. The water splashes out of the glass and onto Tony’s face.
“I’m sorry!” Bruce says immediately, even though it’s not actually his fault. He grabs a rag off a table and is rushing forward to help him dry off when he realizes Tony hasn’t moved.
He’s frozen, lips clenched shut and nostrils flared. Bruce swears he seems to be struggling, shivering, almost, like he's trying to buck something off his back even as he's being held down. His mouth is moving slightly, trying to suck in air or say something, but he's not breathing and his face is starting to get mottled so Bruce says, “Tony?”
Tony resurfaces all at once, wide eyes popping open, and for a split-second Bruce sees something there; terror, confusion, resignation. He doesn’t know which one.
“Yeah, right, sorry, spaced out.” Tony grabs the rag from Bruce with still shaking hands, and nods at him, says, “Seriously, you can have Dummy.”
Bruce pretends he doesn’t notice it, but he files it away anyway: Tony’s afraid of water.
.
.
Six months after Bruce moves in, there’s an incident- because that's what it is and that's what Tony's going to call it, an incident. It's just an incident. It could happen to anyone, really: Tony's not entirely clear on the details, but he knows that something startled Bruce, or angered him, and he Hulked out. He destroyed an entire floor of the Stark Tower - which, really, Tony had assured him was not a big deal, it was just an engineering floor, one full of empty labs and that are fully empty of people - and he almost hurts Tony.
He doesn’t, really, he just bruises a few of Tony’s ribs and cuts up one side of Tony’s face; and the moment he sees Tony’s injuries he shrinks back into Bruce anyway, small and naked and guilty. Tony reassures him it wasn't a big deal, no lasting damage done, and he tells the same to Pepper, to Colson when he sends him an offical inquiry to why he was injured when he appearred on Fox News last night. Seriously, it's not a big deal - Tony will swear this to his grave. But it's too late. The damage has been done.
Fury decides they need some more people to keep Bruce under control. Despite Tony's protests, he does some reassigning; two days later, Clint shows up on his doorstep with a wide, cheeky grin and a duffel bag. The day after that it’s Natasha and Thor- Natasha after dinner and Thor at two in the morning; and then one week later - and Tony doesn’t know why it takes him that long, unless Fury delayed the order or something, which he doubts because, come on, Steve is totally Fury's favorite person to force Tony to put up with - Steve moves in.
At first it’s strange; Tony’s not used to walking into his kitchen for dinner and finding it already full of people, nor is he used to heading upstairs at seven in the morning to go to bed and seeing Steve and Thor already eating breakfast.
He gets used to it, after a while. Starts going into his room through the back staircase, so he doesn’t get reprimanded by Steve again - who, judging by the way he's constantly yelling at Tony about taking care of himself and being polite and manners, Tony, seems to think he’s Tony’s father or something. And, yeah, that’s a strange thought, Tony's going to push that out of his mind, now - for staying up too late. He stocks his food in the basement, so Thor doesn’t eat all his PopTarts - because he will, unless Tony gets the strawberry flavored ones, but those taste like medicine and fakness and Tony has never liked either of those things - and Clint can’t touch his pizza rolls. It's a strange routine to have, but it’s a routine, and God knows it’s been too long since he’s had one of those.
He’s not sure, but he thinks he might like it.
.
.
When Tony drew up the blueprints for the Tower, he was careful not to include baths or pools or even particularly large sinks. His house in Malibu had a pool, and was right on the ocean, and he'd always found himself uncomfortable near it - he'd tried to get in it, once, and had jumped out immediately, pretending that it was too cold. He'd never gotten in again.
But then, see, there was a slight snag - Pepper asked for a pool. She didn't even beg or plead (not that she ever would: come on, this was Pepper Potts, CEO of one of the biggest companies in the country and just a general badass), just asked. Tony, despite himself, can never seem to deny her anything. He designs a two-lane pool for the fifth floor- well out of his sight, where he’ll never have to run into it- and is rewarded with a kiss on the cheek that really shouldn’t make it worth his while - come on, it doesn't even have tongue - but somehow does.
He’s thought about filling it several times since he and Pepper broke up, not because he hates her or anything, but just because it unsettles him, sort of. Like at night, when he's laying in bed, he thinks about it sometimes - he'll be drifting off and then he'll remember that a few dozen floors below him is a perfectly good space in which is waterboard him and then he has to get up and go to the workshop. And you know what, it doesn't even make any sense - what about the Hudson River, what about the Atlantic Ocean? God knows those should unsettle him more then a pool.
And you know what, it doens't make sense: and that's why he never thinks about it seriously, because he'd never be able to justify it to Pepper, even if he explained the fear of water she was probably debriefed about by Coulson or Natasha or, hell, Fury. But God knows he's never doing that of his own accord. And anyway - it's Pepper's pool, and it would seem sort of like he hated her if he did it, and she's still at Stark Tower more often then not, and it just seems a little rude.
Steve should be glad. His constant nagging to Tony about etiquette is finally rubbing off.
Poitn being: the pool exists, and a few months after the other Avengers move in, there’s an issue with the computers on the fifth floor. It's nothing major, just some overheating and a broken fan, but it’s on the fifth floor and to get to it, he has to pass the pool.
It’s ridiculous that just the thoght of it - just the thought of seeing it - can make him nervous, but it’s enough that he actually considers calling in a team. But, of course, he's being stupid - if he called in a team, he'd have to explain to the other Avengers why he wasn't fixing it himself, and Steve and Clint and Thor probably wouldn't figure it out, but Natasha and Bruce are fucking perceptive about this shit. And the team would probably mess it up anyway.
The pool’s right next to the elevators, so he can’t avoid it. As the cool steel doors slide shut behind him, he does his best to lock his eyes on the hallway ahead - do not look to your right, do not look to your right is his constant mental mantra, because to his right is the glass wall through which he can see the pool and why did he get glass again? Oh right. Aesthetics.
Damn aesthetics.
“Tony!”
Tony stops in his tracks. He wonders if he can pretend he didn't hear it; probably not. Slowly, turns around, plastering on what is hopefully a conincing smirk when he sees Thor, dripping wet and wearing a Speedo. It really shouldn't be that hard - he can practically see an outline of the guy's dick, for goddsakes, but there's the water - “Thor!”
“You must join us in the indoor...”
“Pool!” Natasha's voice calls, echoing a bit against tile, and Tony figures that she must be inside. He doens't know for sure. He determinedly does not look.
“Aye, pool! Tis most enjoyable.”
Tony has to fake his sigh - which, really, libido? Where has it gone in his time of need? Apparently torture can dampen even your sex drive - which, of course Tony knew that, why does he insist on making painful not-so-funny jokes inside his own head? “Sorry, buddy, but there are some things I have to fix.”
Thor frowns. “Can it not wait?”
“Really, I wish I could stay, but they’re overheating and-”
“Oh no you don’t,” Clint says, suddenly appearing behind them, and Tony doesn’t have any idea how he could have gotten there without using the door Thor is blocking. He'd think he dropped from the vents or something, but Tony doesn't think there are any vent openings anywhere near here in the hallway - there's one behind Thor's head, and one through the double-doors that house the broken compuer base he needs to get through. He's so busy thinking about this and not looking at the puddle of water at Thor's feet or the pool through the glass that he almost doesn't notice it, the first touch of Clint's hand on his shoulder. And then Clint's pushing Tony forward, and Tony is so frozen by the feeling that he just freezes, doens't struggle for a second before he comes back to himself and realizes, yeah, he can. And then he's squirming, but it's too late. Thor grabs his upper arm and squeezes it in what is probably supposed to be an encouraging gesture, but it just hurts. And now Tony’s thinking of a canvas sack over his head and burly men pressing bruises into his arms as they lead him through tunnels that smell like smoke and sunburnt sand.
Clint pushes him closer towards the doorway. Tony would struggle more - hell, he struggled more in Afghanistan, he thinks, and there was no way to escape, then - but he's already neck-deep in flashbacks: there's gunshots and explosions, callused hands shoving the back of his head underwater, sparks from the car battery that leave his chest burning with pain.
“Alright, alright!” Tony says as Clint shoves him onto the pool deck, trying to keep the faint note of panic out of his voice. “I’ll watch!” Dimly he's aware that Steve and Bruce are in here too, not just Natasa, but his vision is pretty limited; it's hazy around the edges, like he's just been electrocuted. Maybe he has.
Clint snorts, driving him closer to the pool. Tony’s shoes are slipping on the damp tile, and he doesn't have any traction. Fuck. His stomach is doing flip-flops, and he can taste it on his tongue - the salty tang of his own blood, the grime of the ripped gag and the tinny metal of the tub.
“Throw him in, Thor!” Clint says, entirely too gleefully, and do they enjoy his pain? Probably, why else would they do this to him, the people who took him in Afghanistan liked his pain, kept pushing him under even after he agreed to make their goddamned missle, even after he agreed to kill for them, agreed to fucking murder for them - and then Thor’s lifting Tony above his head. Tony barely has time to say:
“Please don-”
And then Thor throws him in.
Water fills his mouth, nose, ears, and Tony opens his eyes wide, ignoring the sting of chlorine. Wet, wet, everything’s wet, everything’s water, and he can’t breathe; sinking. They’re holding him under, his lungs are on fire, and damnit, he already agreed to build the missle you assholes, let him up -
It’s fuzzy, grey and white and black and a little bit of blue, stars he can’t see dancing across his vision, across the ceiling of the dank cave, across the bridge of Yinsen’s nose and across his dirt-flecked skin, and then there’s Pepper’s face, pink cheeks and bright eyes and long hair, but her image fades to a smirking man with an eyepatch holding the barrel of a gun to Tony’s temple, and then suddenly everything’s fading, it’s dark, white to grey and grey to black, and maybe they’re letting him die -
Suddenly a pair of arms wrap around Tony from behind. He struggles, at first, kicking - no, no, let me go, let me die now - but they aren’t yanking him further down; they’re pulling him up.
He surfaces with a gasp, and a second later he’s heaved from the pool.
His eyelids flutter open.
The world takes it's time coming into focus. The first thing he sees is Steve, leaning over him. Then there's Natasha and Clint and Thor - all lined up in the background, like toys on a shelf, the action figures they've got ready in stores. Tony can’t see Bruce but he knows he’s there somewhere. The wall behind them sharpens, and he looks past them, lets their faces blur. He focusing on the ceiling, flaking paint and water spots. The tile beneath Tony’s hands is wet, too wet, almost a puddle around him, and grimy. He can feel the grout beneath the pads of his fingers; it's gritty and dry, like gunpowder.
“Tony? Tony?”
Through the water in his ears and his sheer unwillingness to be concious, Tony is aware that someone’s saying his name. Judging by the frantic edge to their tone, they’ve been saying it for a while, and he feels he should respond, but he can’t quite make himself do so; his tongue is thick with tea and sand, and he just doesn’t want to talk.
“Sit him up,” Tony hears someone say in the background, and he thinks it's Natasha. Dimly he’s aware of being propped against the glass wall.
“Tony, can you just nod and tell us if you’re okay?”
No, Tony can’t nod, because Obadiah paralyzed him and he can’t move anything but his eyelids. Slowly, he focuses on Steve’s face- there’s water dripping off his nose, water, and he looks intent and worried. Worry. That's something Tony hasn't seen on his face for a while, now, not since Tony almost killed himself sending a nuclear bomb to outer space and when he fell Steve was the one leaning over him, not looking like he was going to cry but not looking like he wasn't going to, either. Tony forces himself to clear his throat, forces his lips open, and manages to say, “I’m fine, Cap.”
He’s greeted with a raised eyebrow and a hint of unintentionally shown relief; it makes Steve look entirely too much like Yinsen, so Tony tries not to think about it and looks for Bruce instead.
He’s standing at the other end of the pool, hands clenched together. He's almost bristling, like he’s about to Hulk out at someone. Tony wonders who for a moment - until he connects the dots and realizes Bruce isn't standing over him with concern and worry and looking like he's torn between crying and not crying, and so it's probably him.
“So, I’m just gonna-” Tony says, and weakly tries to push himself to his feet; his hands shake and his arms shake and his legs shake but he still somehow manages to make it to a standing position before he stumbles and has to lean against the wall.
“Tony, sit down,” Steve says, and it occurs to Tony that Steve’s the only one talking. Why is that? Tony takes another step, towards the door but not straying from the wall, and Steve reaches out for his arm but Tony ducks out of the way before he can grab him.
“I said I’m fine, Cap,” Tony says. He's not fine, but he told Pepper that when he knew it was a lie. He can still feel the sand, a bit, and the gunpowder, but the flashback is fading quickly. He's going from disoriented to embarassed quickly, and he wants to get out before the full force of his actions can hit him - he likes to be in his workshop for the full-on self-hate rages. “Just startled, that’s all.”
“Man of Iron, let me assist you -” Thor tries, reaching for Tony as well, but Tony steps around him - staggers, really, but he would never admit to that - ignoring his weak knees and weaker legs.
“I said I’m fine,” Tony says, but it doesn’t come out as biting as he intended. They’re all staring at him, everyone, even Natasha. She really shouldn’t care. Why would she? None of them should, really.
“Tony-” Steve starts again, but Tony hurries out the door, almost tripping over his own feet, and manages to make it into an elevator before he hears the end or anyone comes after him.
Or maybe, he thinks, that night as he hires contracters to come fix a routinue mistake and fuck up his system instead, because he's too weak to do it himself - maybe no one was coming after him at all.
.
.
Tony stays in the lab for four days, and by the time he comes back up, Natasha and Clint are gone on missions, Thor’s gone back to New Mexico to visit Jane and Bruce has gone with him, and Pepper’s off on a business trip to Paris. It leaves Tony alone with Steve; he'd actually been waiting for this. Not Steve, obviously, because really, Steve was possibly the worst one who could be left. Just because he pretended to care more then the others. But the point: Tony had been waiting for the occupants of the Tower to drop to the lowest number possible. This was because, as he'd found with Bruce, it's much easier to avoid everyone when they're gone.
It was also experience with Bruce that taught Tony it should not be hard to avoid Steve - Tony rarely leaves his lab at all, and when he does it’s to go to his private quarters, and unlike Bruce, Steve has little place in either of those places. And yet: when Tony steps outside his bedroom that first day, freshly showered and dressed with a hot cup of coffee in his hands, ready to retreat to the workshop, Steve is waiting for him.
Tony considers just ignoring him and going back down to the lab - he was going to go back down anyway - but Steve looks so sincere. He glances over to the staircase, and Steve must have noticed the movement, because then he widens his eyes. They're all blue and shiny and, come on, Tony may be heartless, but even he likes puppy dogs.
“Hey, Cap,” Tony says, stepping around Steve and making his way to the kitchen. It's just down the hall - he had strategically placed the master bedroom directly between his workshop and the kitchen, the subsequently two most important non-sentinent things in his life: the Iron Man suits and coffee. He opens the fridge and, realizing he hasn’t eaten yet today, grabs some leftover Chinese food.
“You haven’t been upstairs,” Steve says, short and blunt and straight to the point. Tony just shrugs as he pulls a fork from the drawer, popping open the takeout container.
“Busy,” he says, stuffing a forkful of noodles in his mouth. Okay, it’s pretty obvious Steve doesn’t believe that, but what was he supposed to do? Say he wasn't busy? Yeah, right.
“With what?”
“Upgrading your armor,” Tony says, the first excuse that comes to mind. “Making a new bow for Clint. Trying to figure out how to work protective padding or something into Natasha’s catsuit without her knowing, because let me tell you, one of these days she’s gonna get shot or stabbed or hit with some weird-ass alien rays, and she needs protection even if she’s being stubborn as fuck about it.”
"She's not the only one I know like that," Steve says. He gives Tony a completely unnecessry pointed look - it's pretty obvious who he's talking about. Tony doesn't know how to answer, so to avoid doing so he stuffs some more food into his mouth.
“Are you okay?”
Tony nods, and is about to open his mouth to shrug him off - filled with noodles and all - before Steve cuts him off and says, “I’m not kidding here, Tony, I don’t want you to say you’re fine- I want the truth.”
“The truth is that I’m fine, Cap,” and that's actually not a lie. Tony thinks he’s fine. He believes he’s fine. Reasonably fine. If they're talking about the hot-damn kind of fine, because if they're talking emotionally, even Tony can't think his way out of that one. Maybe if he believes he's emotionally fine he will be - isn't there some moral like that for kids, believe in it hard enough and it'll come true? It's bullshit, Tony knows that, but if Steve doesn't...
“Are you scared of water?”
The accusation is abrupt and it takes Tony off guard. He'd been expecting some hunky-dory talk about feelings or something, rom-com style. For a split second Tony just stares at Steve - what? is his general train of thought - and then he comes to his senses and realizes Steve asked him a question.
“No.” For once he doesn’t have a snappy comeback because, honestly, no, he isn’t afraid of water. He’s afraid of Afghanistan, yes, and waterboarding, but they’re completely different things.
“Then why did you have a panic attack when Thor threw you in the pool?”
Tony shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant even as he swallows hard around the lump in his throat that may or may not be noodles. “I was surprised,” he says, and he can hear the lie in his voice, but he knows Steve won't be able too, not unless he suddenly morphs into Pepper which, come on, that's just ridiculous, that would be weird even for them, “and it wasn’t a panic attack.”
“I wish you wouldn’t lie to me,” Steve says, dropping his gaze from Tony to the egg whites on his plate. He looks resigned; apparently Steve has morphed into Pepper. That doesn't make sense, nor do his egg whites. Where did those come from? Tony might be loosing his mind. He might say something about that, but it’s pretty clear Steve’s done with this conversation, so Tony just clears his throat, tosses the half-full carton of Chinese food into the trash, because it was starting to leave a weird taste in his mouth, and, grabbing his mug, says, “See you around, Cap.” He leaves the room.
Steve doesn’t look up.
Tony doesn’t look back.
.
.
Three days later, Pepper returns from Paris.
Tony’s in the lab when JARVIS announces it, says, “Sir, Ms. Potts has arrived.”
“Let her in,” Tony says, because whenever she gets back from a business trip she always comes to see him first. Always. He sticks his screwdriver in his mouth and swats at Dummy's claw when he twitches a bit, under Tony's hands; "Damn bot, I'm trying to upgrade you, stop fidgeting." Dummy, of course, doesn't stop fidgeting.
Five minutes later Pepper steps into the workshop, heels clacking against the tile, but Tony doesn’t look up; he's just got to correct the one wire, and then that switch, and oh yeah, he wanted to add that programming thing - but that'll only take five, ten, fifteen miuntes max, and yeah, Pepper doesn't like the workshop, but she doesn't hate it, she can wait -
“Tony,” she says. It's her Tony-you-better-stop-what-you-are-doing-right-now-and-I-want-no-fucking-excuses voice, and Tony actually always obeys this voice, because she usually doesn't use it for stuff like papers and patents and towering stacks of stuff he needs to sign. It's usually reserved for fun stuff. Tony pulls tehe screwdriver out of his mouth, wipes his hands on an already-grimy rag, and firmly tells Dummy not to move as turns towards her, grinning widely.
“Pep! You’re home!”
“Like JARVIS didn’t tell you that already,” she says, stepping closer to Tony. Tony notices she has a box in her hands - it’s cardboard, sagging, with water stains and a sloppy permanent marker scrawl that Tony can’t read.
“Yep,” he says, flashing another half-smile. “What is that?”
“It was your father’s.”
Immediately the smile on Tony’s face sours and dies, and his stomach sinks. “Why do you have it?” he asks, and notes that his voice has suddenly gone emotionless - it always does when he's talking about his dad, unless its an interview or something, in which case he'll usually suddenly add too much inflection to it - and Pepper sighs.
“Tony-”
It's her sorry-but-this-is-necessary tone. “It’s fine,” Tony says shortly, turning back to his screwdriver and Dummy who, sure enough, is twitching. He's upset one of the half-positioned wires in his mainframe. “Just tell me where you got it.”
“The Malibu house.”
“Oh,” Tony says, and his tone still doesn't have any emotion in it even though he's feeling some, now, that's not been tamped down by years of self-therapy and vodka. “Looks like someone lied about where they were going.”
Tony tries to ignore the feeling - all-too-familiar and somewhat uneasy, the one he gets whenever someone lies to him. He tries but he can’t, and he glances over to the corner of the workshop. He catches sight of the box sitting there - dark sandy wood labeled with Kahlua and still filled with cigars. And Now he’s thinking about Obie, why does everything seem to come back to Obie and Afghanistan? But the memory of him is leaning over Tony like a ghost, breath thick with sweet smoke.
“- so just look through it, okay?” Pepper says, with the faint air of finishing a long speech, and Tony realizes he just spaced out and has no idea what she said.
He clears his throat and, without turning, says, “Sure, Pep, I’ll do that later. Can you leave now? I’m working on something.”
“I - sure. Make sure you eat dinner. And sleep.” He can feel Pepper hovering behind him for a second, before she sighs and leans towards him, pressing a kiss to the back of his head. For a split second Tony leans in towards her - because no, they aren’t dating, but she’s still the closest thing he has to someone he can trust, and sometimes he has to indulge in that, okay? - but then he forces himself to bend farther over Dummy's mainframe. He can practically feel Pepper’s disappointment; he basks in it. It's better then the uneasiness in his stomach.
“Make sure he eats, JARVIS,” Pepper says in the background, heels clacking against tile again.
“Certainly, ma’am,” JARVIS says. Tony would call him a traitor, but, frankly, he doesn’t have the energy right now. He’s tired, bone-deep tired, too tired to sleep, and he finds himself setting down his screwdriver again, reaching for the cardboard box.
It’s filled with old photos of machinery, yellowed papers filled with equations, and Captain America trading cards that Tony carefully sorts into piles. There are Captain America action figures, too, and a Captain America flag, and a rusty compass with chipped red, white, and blue paint. Novetly boots, an old, '80s sweatshirt, a miniaturized, plastic shield. It’s everything Captain America, and nothing Steve Rogers, and as Tony sifts through it all he can think is that Steve would have hated most of this stuff.
He’s about to just toss everything back in and throw it out - even the scientific journals, because he’d never been able to do anything with them before - when something catches his eye. It’s a book made of deep brown leather and thick if roughly torn pages, and looks expensive. As Tony picks it up he realizes he’s a photo album.
He almost doesn’t open it - what if it's pictures of Steve? sure, maybe it's kids in the Captain America memorabilia, but what are the odds of that? slim to none - but then curiosity kills privacy and Tony's slowly opening the spine. It cracks under his fingers, but not unpleasantly, and it will not leavea mark. And then he finds himself looking at pictures - and yes, he was right, they aren't of random kids. They're of Steve and his father, and a woman that could only be Peggy.
In the first one, they're smiling and laughing, passing around a bottle of whiskey; Tony turns the page and finds Steve’s furrowed brow, a sketchbook with a dancing monkey, and Howard, staring at Steve with the pride Tony had missed; another flip of heavy paper and there's a pocket watch emblazoned with SR, a picture of Peggy, a scarred table, and Steve, a cut across his cheek and a bruise on the bridge of his nose but smiling, in every goddamn picture he’s smiling.
Tony clears his throat, blinks back the tears in his eyes and goddamn it, is he really crying? He needs to stop with this emotional shit. He's not crying for himself - whatever, his dad liked Steve better then him, he'd always known that. Was he - no, he refused to believe he was crying because Steve was happy. That's fucking ridiculous. But he slides a photo out of the back of the book - Steve, arm slung casually over Bucky’s shoulder, smiling so wide it looks like it hurts - and puts it in his pocket, then closes the book, sets it on the counter. He piles everything else back in the box - the trading cards, the figurines, everything- and gives it to You. “Burn it,” he says, and the machine chirps enthusiastically. Perhaps he should have offered it to Steve; that probably would have been the moral thing to do, what Pepper wanted him but didn't expect him to do. He finds he doesn't care much.
Steve is, unsurprising, in the gym, exactly where Tony thought he'd be - beating up a punching bag. Tony just leans in the doorway and watches for a second, admiring the stretch of his shoulders and the pull of his sweats on his ass. Even if he didn't - well, no matter what, it'd be okay for Tony to do this. He's just admiring a beautiful body, is all. He allows his attention to stray to the punching bags - they’re not nearly as flimsy as the ones at S.H.I.E.L.D., he knows. He had designed them to stand up to him while he was in the armor, and they’re reinforced with a titanium core, but Tony has no doubt that Steve could break it. If he wanted to.
Then Tony realizes he's been standing here longer then is socially appropriate (and wow, Steve, now you got him worrying about what's socially appropriate) and he clears his throat.
Steve whips around, and for a split second he looks panicked before he realizes it’s just Tony. “Oh. You scared me.”
He doesn’t say anything else, just sort of stands there dripping in sweat, and awkwardly Tony takes a step forward. I shouldn’t feel awkward, this is my gym, he thinks, but it doesn't change his level of awkwardness, because it doesn't change the way that Steve's looking at Tony like he’s about to shatter into a million pieces, and Tony doesn’t like it. His expression, he means.
“I, um. This is for you,” Tony says, pulling the book out from behind his back, and suddenly he can’t remember why he was hiding it there in the first place. Something in Steve’s face clicks, and he takes the boxing gloves off, unraveling the bandages around his knuckles. It's still really awkward because Tony’s just standing there, bouncing on the heels of his feet with his hands outstretched.
“Where did you get this?” Steve asks, something in his voice that sounds a lot like wonder, and Tony shrugs.
“Old box of my dad’s.”
Gingerly, Steve flips to the first page. Tony is slightly alarmed when he realizes that tears have sprung into his eyes. He tries to remember what picture was on the first page; it was just Steve, he thought, with a notebook and - oh. No, Howard was in it too. Howard.
“So, I’m just gonna-” Tony takes a step towards the door, but then Steve’s hand shoots out, grabs his forearm, forces Tony’s eyes to meet his after a moment of reluctant avoidance.
“Tony, this is - thank you.”
Usually Tony would say something like, “No problem, Cap,” and salute, but Steve’s eyes are glimmering, sincere and honest and so goddamn blue, and Tony's mouth does not work when there are eyes that blue looking at him with that expression, and he's thinking of how they'd looked at him when they dragged him out of the pool, and after he'd fell out of a black hole, and when he'd looked down at his breakfast and said he'd wished Tony wouldn't lie to him and so instead of doing that Tony doens't lie to him; it's not a concious decision, but he finds himself saying, “I don’t like water because I was tortured with it in Afghanistan.”
It takes a moment for the words to hit his mind after they leave his mouth; and then he thinks shit, shit, shit, stupid brain-to-mouth filter, where the fuck did you go, shit - and Steve’s eyes immediately widen, and suddenly the wide-eyed innocence and gratitude is gone and it’s just shock. Tony steps back - staggers really, like when he'd gotten up from the pool after Thor threw him in and after he'd promised to kill a hundred, a thousand, a million blonde American boys like younger versions of Steve with his tech - and his feet move without thinking. Just like my mouth, he thinks. He hurries out of the gym, ignoring Steve calling his name.
He gets back to the lab and he takes a deep breath, and he reaches for his pocket - and he realizes the picture of Steve smiling had fallen out of his pocket.
.
.
Tony’s hunched against a workbench, cradling a bottle of tequila in his hands that’s he managed to finish most of, and trying not to think about anything. He's failing pretty spectacularly.
Because he can't shut everything out - with his eyes closed, he can just think clearer, and with his eyes open, he can see. He can see, and everything he can see reminds him of something, someone, every goddamn thing. Because the lab smells like motor oil and cigars and molten iron; because he can hear dripping water and whirring machines; because the grout is rough beneath his fingertips, like sand, or gunpowder, or the stubble on Steve’s chin; because every time he closes his eyes, he sees them - Howard and Obie and Yinsen and Pepper and Steve and a thousand other people he's known and failed, knows and will fail; because, even when he opens his eyes, they won’t go away.
“Sir, Captain Rogers is requesting entrance.”
Tony sighs; Steve, goddamn Steve, and fuck if he isn’t Tony’s biggest problem. It's really his fault Tony's in this state, anyway - this not-nearly-as-alcohol-addled-as-he'd-like-to-be-meditative-or-introspective-stupor because sure, Tony has drank more then is probably healthy but he learned how to handle his alcohol a long time ago. A long, long time ago - when he was ten and Howard first thrust a glass of whiskey in his hand, told him it'd make him a man. For a brief mment, Tony considers ignoring Steve - but then he considers the consequences of that, and realizies Steve might go do something rash, like break the glass of the workshop down and Tony really has to stop picking glass because of astehtics because clearly astethics do not like him, and not only will the glass be a bitch to replace because of all of Tony's security protocols, Steve might hurt himself. And, wow, are you getting how ridiculous it is that that's Tony’s concern?
“Let him in,” Tony says wearily, and there’s a whooshing noise as the door opens.
Tony hears the footsteps as they approach - quieter then Pepper's clacking heels, but no less ominous then she can be, on the right occasions - and then there are callused hands around Tony's, prying the mostly-empty bottle from his grasp. Someone slides down next to Tony, and almost instinctively - and maybe because he's in this not-nearly-as-alcohol-addled-as-he'd-like-to-be-meditative-or-introspective-stupor - Tony puts his head down on their shoulder.
“Tony-” Steve starts, and Tony doesn’t open his eyes because he doesn’t want to see Steve’s face. He can feel the vibrations of his words through his shoulders, through his chest.“Are you drunk?”
“No,” Tony replies easily, this answer coming quick because he’s not, actually. It’s clear Steve doesn’t believe him. “Seriously. Not drunk.”
“What happened in Afghanistan?”
"Why do you care, Cap?"
Steve sighs; Tony feels the rise and fall of his shoulders, in time with his chest. Tony considers his possible answers: maybe he'll say something like 'because it's the decent thing to do' or maybe it'll be 'because I don't believe in torture' or maybe, get this: 'because you're Howard's son and he was my friend'. Oh God, Tony hopes it's not that one. "Because you're you," Steve says finally, and oh God, it is that one, until - "and I care about you."
In that moment, for just a split second, Tony hates Steve as a human being. He really does - Steve, who can just walk in here like the guys Tony killed and make the back of Tony’s throat itch because it needs water and not tequila and Steve has brought attention to that, his basic human goddamned needs. Fuck him, Tony thinks for a moment - and then there is an slightly movement and his shoulder and Tony realizes he's running his thumb over it, reassuringly. Reluctantly, Tony opens his eyes, and he immediately met with Steve, honesty and sincerity and goddamn blue and, his brain-to-mouth filter shuts off for a second again. "Can I have a glass of water?" he asks.
In hindisght, Steve probably shouldn't have understood the significance; maybe he didn't, and the gleam in his eye was some other emotion altogether that Tony is interpreting wrong. That wouldn't be unheard of. Tony interprets a lot of emotions wrong. But, you know, if you'd asked him - he'd say it's a little bit of pride, mixed in with whatever else he's feeling, that normal people feel and that normal people don't feel, because he's got to have some fucked up thoughts from dying and then coming back to life and loosing literally everything. "Yeah," Steve says, and he breaks out into a smile - not a wide one, mind you, not like the one of him and Bucky in the picture together that Tony stepped on when he walked into the workshop. "You can," he says. The next day, and the next week, and the next month, Tony will pretend like this never happened - and when Steve mentions it, or Clint because he doesn't want to let Tony live it down even though he wasn't fucking there when it happened, he'll say he was drunk and he lied to Steve. But see, that's the thing: he not drunk. And when Dummy brings the glass of water on a tray because Tony hadn't wanted Steve to move and he does not drip over any cords and he gives the glass to Tony - Tony drinks it. He tilts it up, and he drains the glass, and it's the first time he's drank water since he got back that wasn't filled with sugar or Splenda or coffee grounds.
And, yeah: he can tell Steve he was drunk all he wants, later on. But you know what? Steve will watch him get water from the faucet. And hey, maybe he'll wash his hands in it, wipe off the ever-present grease with something that's not a greasier rag Dummy handed him. And then Tony before he drinks the whole glass of untainted, pure water - and, well, Steve knows better. He'll remember the heat of Tony's head on his shoulder.