#imaythrowuponya

Steve had read the papers, though, over the summer. He’d scanned the headlines (TONY STARK PRESUMED DEAD, MALIBU HOME DESTROYED), had checked in with SHIELD intel—back when SHIELD was actually a thing, and oh, God, what a mess, shh, Steve, don’t think about it, you’re fine, it’s all fine—about a dozen times over to ensure that they were wrong. But there’d been speculation enough to justify his reply:

So are you, then. How about that?

Alive. Steve watched Nat ram her Peach into Sam’s Toad with a battle cry of, “Fuck yeah!” and thought about how loosely he applied the term these days…

His phone blipped again, mere seconds after he’d sent his own reply: Guess we’re just lucky. I’m back in New York. I hear you are, too. You should come hang.

Steve was starting to think that, without realizing it, he’d stepped into some kind of alternate universe in which Tony Stark wanted to “hang” with him like they were chummy or something. Sure, it turned out in the end they worked well together, but were they at the “hanging out” stage of their friendship yet? How does one even approach friendship stages with Tony Stark, billionaire asshole extraordinaire?

Another blip-beep: By ‘should,’ I mean you definitely need to. I just redesigned the training room so it has moving targets for Clint and I’m working on a new prototype shield for you. Good stuff.

Steve put his phone down and continued to mindlessly watch the video game. He most certainly did not think about how Tony seemed to be oddly pushing—perhaps too hard?—for a conversation with Steve, and how he was really making the effort to communicate that he wanted to see Steve, and who had done that, really, since Peggy, who often forgot he was sitting right next to her when he visited these days…

Tower’s always open. Let me know.

Steve stared down at his screen for a very long time. Then he wrote, Okay, and sent the message before he could talk himself out of it.

* * *

Steve had a texting buddy. Was this what normal people did with their phones? Steve had mostly used his to receive orders until recently. Either that or to receive cat emoticons from Natasha that “remind me of your squishy little face” (Natasha didn’t often have time to get drunk, but when she did, it was cat emoticons).

But Tony texted him. Like, all the time. To a point where Steve found it strange when Tony had gone more than an hour without texting him.

Mostly, the messages went like this:

- I know for a fact you’re in Brooklyn. When are you coming to visit? I’ll make it a thing. Streamers and all. DUM-E will make cookies.

- I’ll come by soon. Still working on some SHIELD clean-up with Sam.

- Oh, the winged dude, right? He can come too, I guess. As long as he’s still okay flying around wearing my tech. Product placement, right?

- You’re insane.

Or like:

- Steve. Steve, if you could only eat pizza or chocolate for the rest of your life, what would you choose?

- New-York style pizza. Obviously. Why is this a question?

- It’s for science. Don’t worry about it.

- By ‘science,’ do you mean a debate with Dr. Banner?

- …Don’t worry about it.

They’d talk until all hours. Steve hadn’t actually been exposed the sound of Tony’s voice in over a year, but heard all of his text messages in his cocky drawl nonetheless. They talked about Tony, about the Mandarin, about his eventual split with Pepper. They talked about Steve, about Bucky…although when the subject came up, Steve veered away from it as smoothly as he could. No need to dwell, he thought, on what had already come to pass (breathe, Steve, breathe…).

But mostly, Tony bugged the hell out of Steve asking him to come by Stark Tower. And Steve kept saying yes, yes he would, but things were busy, and, well…truth be told, Steve wasn’t sure if he was much fun to be around lately.

But Steve found himself smiling a lot more. Nat noticed it, took it with a raised eyebrow. And for some odd reason, Steve liked that he was stumping her. He liked keeping this little secret—Tony Stark, the most ostentatious, least secretive person on the planet was Steve Rogers’ little secret. 

* * *

He didn’t know why he was so nervous when he rang the doorbell and announced his name to JARVIS, but Steve felt his palms sweating all the same. The metal doors slid open and there stood Tony, donning a Rolling Stones t-shirt and baggy jeans. “Oh, hey. Welcome back to my big ugly building.”

Steve smirked, shook his head. “Nice to see the man behind the phone number.”

After stepping aside to let him in, Tony walked Steve over to the elevator, pressing the ascend button. “Did you think I was gonna catfish you? For reference, Catfish is a—”

“I know what it is. Sam watches horrible television.”

Tony snorted. “Quality television. I like this guy already.” They stepped into the elevator, heading up to what Steve assumed was Tony’s penthouse on the top floor. “Bruce is down in his lab, by the way. He’ll come up and say hi later. In case you were wondering, he’s not any less antisocial, nor is he any less the big fluffy green monster we all know and love.”

“That’s good to hear.” As they entered Tony’s pad, Steve let out a low whistle, taking in the suave surroundings. “Wow. Nice digs.”

“I like to think so. Pop a squat. Want a drink?”

Steve sat down on one of the couches as Tony made his way to the minibar. “I’m good thanks. But I gotta ask, Stark.” He leaned back, watching Tony tinker around, move this way and that, because as usual the other could never stand still. “Why were you so adamant on me coming here?”

“Well, I wanted you to see it,” replied Tony nonchalantly, pouring himself what appeared to be, of all things, pineapple juice.

Steve quirked a brow. “I’ve seen the tower, Tony.”

“No, I mean see it. As a…” Tony cleared his throat, shrugged, stuffed his hands into his jean pockets as he walked toward one of the enormous windows. “Potential living space.”

Steve blinked. “What?”

"Look.” Tony whirled around again, the fruit drink sloshing in his hand. “I know that ‘alive’ and ‘okay’ aren’t mutually exclusive. Trust me. After the battle with Loki’s band of creepy alien bot things, Bruce was a little bit farther away from the ‘okay’ side of the spectrum. So he’s been living with me, on and off. Here in the tower, I mean. He likes it. I think. He doesn’t turn into a rage monster more than average, so I guess that means he does?” Tony sighed, walking over to plop down on the couch beside Steve. He was sitting close enough to Steve that their knees were just barely touching. “We’ve all been through some shit recently. So I think…I think it would be good for this weird semblance of a team to have their leader back. Back…here, even.”

“You want me to move in?” Steve asked incredulously.

“Well, duh,” replied Tony, as if Steve had just won the Stupidest Man Alive Award for not picking up on Anthony E. Stark’s weird text-message signals. “You can say no, if you want. No harm done, or anything. Except I may…have already set aside quarters for you.”

Steve shook his head, staring down at his hands. His one-bedroom apartment may have been small, but at least it confined Steve to quarters where no one could hear his nightmare-induced screams, where he could just be alone with himself and his photographs and his record player and wallow when he needed it.

“Why…why me? I mean, why do you want me here?” Steve asked. “Brooklyn isn’t exactly a terrible commute. Wouldn’t you rather have Natasha here? Clint? In fact, I’m sure even Sam would—”

Tony cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Way ahead of you. I’m going to invite them all to come stay eventually. No worries.”

Steve finally lifted his head to meet Tony’s eyes. They were big and brown like always, and oddly, openly sincere. “Why me first?” he choked out.

Tony was always up for a challenge, it seemed. So he stared back, directly into Steve’s eyes, gaze firm. “Like I said. Difference between ‘alive’ and ‘okay.’ You’re alive, but you’re not sure if you’re okay with that. People who lose a lot tend to feel that way.” Tony spoke with the voice of a man who understood the plight of imposed loneliness only a superhero—a soldier—could experience. “For what it’s worth, Cap, I’m glad you’re alive. A lot of other people are too. Even if some of them don’t realize it yet.”

A lump formed in Steve’s throat, because Tony was talking about Bucky—and before that, he’d been talking about himself—Tony himself, admitting that he cared enough about this guy he fought a few battles with a couple years back that he wanted him to be just as okay as he was alive.

“So when I said the tower’s always open, I meant it. And by extension, I mean me, too. I’m always open. Not literally, because I fixed that a few months back—” Tony tapped the center of his chest, void of the arc reactor’s glow. “—But. Yeah. You get the picture, right?”

Swallowing hard, all Steve could do for a moment was simply knock his knee against Tony’s. “Yeah,” he replied thickly, “I get it.”

Tony nudged him back. “Okay.”

They kept the contact, jean-on-corduroy, Tony’s sort-of knobby knee bouncing against Steve’s much bigger one. And maybe Steve inched a little closer, grateful for the touch. Maybe Tony let him.

“So,” he said, cutting into the silence, “When can I see my quarters?”

Tony’s eyes lit up like a damn Christmas tree, and despite himself, Steve grinned from ear to ear at the enthusiastic response. “Right the fuck now. They’re all prepped. Sorry, no red-white-and-blue theme, because no housemate of mine is going to be that fucking tacky, it’s just blue. Only blue. Blues and grays. Don’t worry about it, you’ll fucking love it—”

Tony shot up from the couch, using Steve’s leg to heave himself up, and his fingers lingered on his thigh, dragging along until the contact was severed by Tony practically bouncing toward the elevator. Still a bit rattled by the feel of Tony’s fingers, Steve froze for a moment. “C’mon, Captain Slowpoke, are you ready?” Tony called behind him.