stark queen✦

Steve: As you can’t imagine.

Steve always frowned when Tony used demeaning language but he still found a reason to smile this time, looking into this boy’s soft and hopeful eyes. Even if the smile was just as forlorn.

“It’s more than just Howard, Tony, and you know it.”

Tony said nothing to that. Of course he knew. They’d been down this road before so many times. Steve vividly remembered and resented every single one of their verbal trips.

Governmental restrictions. Public image. From the damn contract issues to foreign bans on international engagement. The life of Captain America wasn’t his own. And he’d known what he signed up for the moment he stepped into the Vita-Ray Chamber. Back then trading privacy and free will seemed like a small bargain for the honorable chance to serve his country.

He couldn’t have imagined he’d ever regret it.

“Yeah, sure,” Tony muttered dismissively, taking a sip of coffee, ”what’s worse than a gay Captain America, huh? A gay Captain America, who’s dating his barely of-age godson, whom he’s dandled on his lap as a kid. Creepy and gross. Gross and creepy. My brain’s having a hard time deciding if my body should barf or piss itself.”

The chopped, hollow chuckle was muted by another sip. His expression, a moist-eyed grimace of swallowed bitterness, hurt to behold.

Steve was many decades older and was supposed to be the mature adult in this situation, but right now this whole twist of fate seemed like nothing more than an outrageous act of scam even to him.

“I’m sorry.” He had run out of lines of wisdom and comforting speeches. One broken heart is not much comfort for another.

Tony sniffed once, then perked up, squared his shoulders, put the cup down and Steve knew this was it - the end of conversation. And possibly everything else.

“Me too. No worries, Cap. I’m not a child anymore.” There’ll be no tantrums, no manipulations. If this was the edge of reason with only a goodbye after, it was about the time to be bitchslapped in the face by the cold palm of reality.

But Tony didn’t leave. He put his fingers on the table like he wanted to push himself away but started drumming them against the wooden surface instead, hesitating to stand up, appearing like there was something throbbing to slip off of his tongue.

Steve watched him, breath held. Braced for his coup de grâce.

“I just wanted to ask you one thing…” Tony didn’t look at him. He fidgeted and stared at the little menu card intently like it would lend him the courage to spill out whatever was piercing him so deeply with anxiety. “…Do you love me?”

In the heart. In the head. Steve’s pulse stopped for a second and rebooted at double speed.

Out of all things Tony could have said or asked, he had to choose the toughest and the easiest question imaginable.

Steve pursed his lips and steeled himself. He’d been in situations harder than this. He’d come out alive. There was an option of truth, that would leave them both scarred. And an option to lie - create an illusion of all of it being just a casual confusion between them. As if his insides hadn’t been doing somersaults when their first true kiss was sloppy and desperate and tasted of posh liquor and Tony’s salty tears. As if he gotten embarrassingly hard from Tony sneaking his hand on his thigh under the table at a regular gala dinner. As if he’d never left several lovemarks along Tony’s spine after they’d lazily made love for the third time in the same night.

Did he love him?

He should have spared them both and lied.