Chapter Text
"Tony."
Someone was shaking him, the sensation distant. Tony dragged his eyes open, blinking to clear the fog from his vision. He didn't remember closing them.
"Tony." Steve was standing over him, one hand on his shoulder. The rest of the plane was empty, the vibration of the engines gone. "We're here."
He didn't remember anything after taking his hands off the controls. Thank God Jessica had been there to fly the plane.
Now that there was nothing left that he needed to do, the exhaustion had hit home full force and it felt as if gravity had suddenly increased its pull. His eyes slid shut again, and he rested his head against the back of the seat. He felt oddly disconnected from his body, as if he were floating. The Extremis was still offline.
"Right. Up you go." Steve grabbed his forearm and hauled him to his feet. The abrupt change in altitude made his head spin and he sagged against Steve. This was getting repetitive. It was also faintly embarrassing.
dependent
Back when he'd been dependent on the armor's chestplate to keep his heart beating, Happy had carried him around on multiple occasions. Somehow, that had never been an issue, save for one humiliating time when he'd run out of power and Pepper had had to come save him. With the other Avengers, with Steve, it was different. He needed to be able to pull his weight, or he was a liability to the team. And Steve wouldn't respect him.
He pulled away from Steve's steadying grip. "I can walk. I'm much better now." He took a step toward the plane's door, which turned out to be a tactical error, as his legs betrayed him by wobbling.
Steve grabbed him by the arm. "Of course you can walk. I'll just... help."
It was night outside, the air wonderfully cool after the stifling heat of the Savage Land. The very faint sound of cars drifting up from the street made a pleasant change from cicadas, frogs, and dinosaurs.
Tony could hear the rumble of raised voices as they approached the door to the Avengers' living quarters. Steve pushed the door open, and all of the voices fell silent as everyone in the room turned to stare at them.
Everyone had clustered into the entryway: Jarvis, Luke, Jessica Jones, Hank, Jan, Carol, Peter, Danny, MJ, May Parker, Logan, and Jessica Drew. Wait... what were Hank, Jan, and Carol doing there? Carol had been in California.
Hank took several hurried steps forward, grabbing Tony by the arm - the one Steve wasn't currently holding. "Maya Hansen was kidnapped right out of Rykers three weeks ago. I don't know why no one informed you. Hydra must have gotten her to do something to the Extremis." He glanced down and away. "I can't do anything with the Extremis," he said, sounding as if the words were being dragged out of him. "I don't know enough about it. If you don't know what this is-"
"It was a computer virus," Tony interrupted. "Peter and I fixed it." He'd totally forgotten about Hank, who had obviously still thought he was dying. He should have called ahead; he hadn't wanted to worry people.
"That's what I've been trying to say!" Peter burst out. "No one listens to me. Is it because I'm short? Because Wolverine's shorter, and you listen to him. And anyway, you're Ant-Man."
"You and Spiderman..." Hank stared blankly at him.
"I wrote anti-viral software. Peter input the code for me."
"How nice of you to tell us," Jarvis said. He sounded particularly British; as he always did whenever he disapproved of something Tony had done ("How nice of you to electrify your school supplies. I'm sure the other children appreciated it." "Ah. I see the microwave has exploded. How clever of you."). "Perhaps you could have informed us of this apparently dire illness earlier."
"He didn't know until-" Steve started.
"Three days ago," Jan interrupted. "He made Hank promise not to tell."
"Things got a little hectic," Tony tried.
"Too hectic to tell me when you thought you were dying," Carol snapped. She rounded on Steve, stabbing a finger in his direction. "I blame you. "
"Steve didn't-"
"You talked to me the same day and swore you'd keep me in the loop," Carol said.
"How could you do that to Hank? How could you ask him to keep a secret like that? God knows he doesn't need that kind of stress!" Jan went on.
"Anti-viral software," Hank said, still staring dazedly at Tony.
"Hydra agents came in through the windows while you were gone," MJ announced brightly, cutting ruthlessly through the babble. "I knocked one out with a pool cue."
"Hydra agents were here?" Steve demanded, his body instantly going tense.
"I should take you with me when I go on patrol," Peter said. "Maybe people would be scared of you."
MJ struck a tough-guy pose, hands on hips, tossing her hair over one shoulder and smirking. "Tremble, evil-doers."
"It's been an eventful couple of days," Jarvis said dryly to Steve. "Ms. Jones, the two Mrs. Parkers and I took care of them. They didn't give us much trouble."
Jessica handed the baby to Luke. "Next time supervillains follow you home and I have to deal with them, you want me to gift-wrap them for you?"
Luke made cooing noises at the baby, who he was now cradling in one arm, and didn't answer.
"He likes yellow ribbons," Iron Fist said, mock helpfully.
Luke glanced up from the baby. "I'll make it up to you."
Jessica grinned, cracking her knuckles. "I enjoyed it. They had it coming."
"I'm so sorry," Steve told Jarvis.
Jarvis waved a hand dismissively. "It was no trouble at all," he said. "And from what I've heard, the Fantastic Four have taken care of their compatriots."
Steve turned to May, and continued, "I'm so, so sorry."
She patted him on the arm. "Don't worry about it, Steven. It was quite exciting. Edwin was very brave."
"A computer virus?" Hank repeated.
"I mean, for god's sake," Jan said, sounding indignant, "he couldn't even handle England."
"And you flew a Quinjet into the Savage Land with a three-degree fever?" Carol was standing inches away from Tony, her eyes at level with his. Right now, they were narrowed with anger. "How stupid are you? Why the hell didn't you call me?"
Everyone was talking at once, yelling over one another, and the noise was making Tony's head hurt. Jessica Drew and Logan had both ducked out of the room, away from the drama, and Tony wished he could follow them.
"You bastard," Hank shouted. "I thought you had cancer!"
Tony started to apologize, but before he could say anything, the world went white. The room vanished and all he could see or hear were random streams of data, deafening and completely unfiltered. It took him a long moment to pull back and shut them down.
"Tony?" Steve's voice was tight with worry; his arm was around Tony抯 back, and he was holding him upright.
Tony grinned at him. "The Extremis just came back online." If it weren't for the fact that he had a headache and the buzz of computer data had made him dizzy, he would have flung all the connections open and reveled in the flow of information.
Losing the satellite connections in the Savage Land had left them completely cut off. And losing the armor had been... he was nothing without the armor.
Steve grinned back. Then he turned to the assembled Avengers and said, "We're sorry we worried you. It's great to see you all. Tony's going to go lie down now."
Tony nodded silently. Under other circumstance, it would have been nice to talk to Carol, but right now he wasn't sure he could hold a coherent conversation, let alone a conversation with someone who was justifiably mad at him. He'd deal with it later.
"But you're okay, right?" Peter asked. He peered up at Tony hopefully, the mask making his eyes seem huge. Tony had never been sure how Peter managed to make his mask emote; it was just a piece of fabric. It shouldn't be able to look concerned. "I mean, I fixed you, right?"
Tony blinked. He was sure it shouldn't be this hard to formulate sentences. "Yes," he said, with an effort. "You're a good code monkey." He closed his eyes for a second, and shook his head, trying to pull himself together. "If anyone needs me, I'll be in our room."
"No one needs you right now, Tony." Steve started in the direction of their bedroom, towing Tony along with him. "And if they do, they can wait."
"You owe me a hundred dollars," Tony heard Jan say as they left the entranceway.
"Don't worry," Carol's voice drifted down the hall. "Simon owes me five hundred."
Inexplicably, Steve went red to the tips of his ears. It was oddly endearing; Steve always looked like a high school football player when he blushed, all broad shoulders, big feet, and awkward grin.
The hallway was a lot longer than it had been when they left. Steve was still half supporting him, a hand on his arm, or he wouldn't have made it.
He'd spent most of his adult life being sick, and it never got any less miserable.
The bed wasn't quite as comfortable as Steve, but it wasn't as cold. The cave floor had been wet. And anyway, it was good to be horizontal; the room had started doing a slow spin.
Tony fumbled one of his gauntlets off, then closed his eyes, devoid of energy. He would take the other off in just a minute?/p
The side of the bed dipped under Steve's weight, and suddenly, his other gauntlet was being pulled off.
"You need to take the under armor off, or re-absorb it, or whatever it is you do."
That was a very good point, Tony thought hazily. He hadn't been able to re-absorb the under-armor earlier, because it wasn't responsive unless the Extremis was operational. And it would have left him naked. But the Extremis was back now, and there was nobody here but Steve, so...
The metal flowed back through his skin, and left him even colder, now that there was nothing between him and the tower's air-conditioned air. "It's cold," Tony announced.
He must have missed a few seconds, because suddenly sheets and a blanket were being pulled over him, and Steve was climbing into bed next to him, having obviously stripped off his costume at some point.
Tony opened his eyes, blinking until Steve came into focus. His hair was standing on end now that he'd pulled the cowl off, haloed by the soft light of the bedside lamp. Steve's face was inches away from his, regarding Tony intently.
"You don't have any eyelashes," Tony observed seriously. He did, technically, but they were so fair that they were nearly invisible.
"Don't do that to me again." The words were spoken quietly, but Tony could recognize an order from Captain America when he heard one.
"I'm sorry." He'd effectively been deadweight the entire time they'd been in the Savage Land. Steve had been right; he shouldn't have gone. It could have compromised the team. "Won't happen again."
"It better not." Steve rolled onto his side, wrapping an arm around Tony's waist and throwing one leg across his. Steve was all hard muscle, about fifty pounds more of it than Tony, which meant that he effectively couldn't move. Not without exerting more effort than he felt like exerting at the moment.
Not that he'd want to move, anyway. This was, he decided, the best part of rebuilding the team. They should have done this before.
Tony closed his eyes, letting Steve - the warmth of his skin, the sound of his breathing, the smell of him - fill his senses the way the Extremis data had.
It didn't matter if Steve didn't feel quite the same way about Tony that Tony felt about him. He was here, and that was enough.
Coverage of the thwarted terrorist attack on the Holland Tunnel was all over Channel Five news. They didn't say anything about the New Avengers' role in stopping it, and even the Fantastic Four only got a brief mention. Steve wasn't complaining. He hadn't become a superhero for the glory; he'd mostly just wanted to be a solider. Becoming a superhero had been a lucky accident.
The kitchen was empty save for Steve. The rest of the New Avengers had wandered off after dinner, leaving him to sit at the kitchen table in solitude. He didn't mind, though; it gave him the chance to process everything that had happened over the past few days. In the past forty-eight hours, he'd gone from finding out that Tony - probably - loved him, and that they could make something real together, to thinking that Tony was going to die, and he was going to lose everything without ever having gotten to say anything, to... Steve wasn't entirely sure where he was, now.
Hence the fact that he had been considering the grain of the kitchen table's polished wooden surface for the past twenty minutes.
In the Savage Land, he had been prepared to say, "I love you," but he hadn't gotten the chance, and if the worst had happened, he never would have. He could have been too late. He didn't just love Tony; he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Tony, terrifying near-death experiences or no. It was, as Carol had hinted, the real reason he had reformed the team. He could have gone to Sam to reassemble a team, or Hank and Jan, or Carol herself, but it hadn't even occurred to him to put together a new Avengers line-up until Tony had been there. And there had been a very real possibility that Tony might never have known that.
He should have said something back before the Avengers had broken up. His own obliviousness had cost him his relationship with Tony then, could have done so permanently if Tony hadn't wanted to take the risk of starting things back up.
He was probably going to look pretty foolish admitting what he wanted this late in the game, but he didn't really care.
The door swung open silently, and Tony entered, barefoot in jeans and one of Steve's flannel shirts. His hair was wet, the ends sticking to his forehead. He looked like he was half-awake at best, but his eyes were no longer bloodshot, and the dark circles under them, while still present, no longer looked so much like bruises.
He collapsed into the chair next to Steve, staring down at the table in silence for a moment before announcing, "I just realized, I don't think I've eaten anything in three days."
"There's leftover casserole in the fridge," Steve said.
Tony wrinkled his nose, frowning. "Maybe I'll just have coffee."
Steve stood, putting a hand on Tony's shoulder, fingertips brushing his neck. "Coffee isn't food." And whatever Tony's opinions about the casserole, he must have been hungry, because when Steve set a plateful in front of him, he ate it.
"How are you feeling?" Steve asked once Tony had set his fork down.
"Much better." His voice was still hoarse, but the flat, exhausted note was gone. "I still can't talk all that well, but my head doesn't hurt anymore, and I can breathe again." His lips twitched in a self-deprecating smirk. "And hey, I can stand on my own two feet again. I know I was deadweight for a while there."
Only Tony would consider flying them in and out of the Savage Land while half-dead to be 'being deadweight.' Steve shook his head, and changed the subject. "A package came for you. Happy took it down to your lab."
Tony grinned, suddenly looking much more awake. "Is it from Goodyear?"
Steve frowned. He hadn't really been listening when Happy had mentioned that a package had arrived; at that point Tony had still been passed out in bed, sleeping off what Hydra had done to him, and Steve hadn't had much attention to spare for anything else. "I don't know; maybe."
"If it is, then your bike is finished. I completed the engine work four days ago; I was just waiting on the tires." Tony was still grinning, with the air of someone who had accomplished great things.
Four days ago, he had already been running a fever. Hell, he'd already been convinced he was dying. Why in the name of God had he still been working on Steve's bike? Steve himself had nearly forgotten about it, after all the excitement of the past few days. "That was fast," he said.
Tony stood abruptly. "Come on. We can go down to the lab and put the tires on."
Steve couldn't say no to his obvious enthusiasm. Realistically, Tony ought to still be resting; he'd slept for almost twenty-four hours, something Steve had never seen him do outside of a hospital. And even though his fever was clearly much lower, his skin had still been unusually warm when Steve had touched him.
But he was also alert and smiling, and obviously looking forward to playing with something mechanical. "Sure," Steve said. "That sounds good."
Tony's workroom was just as they'd left it four days ago, tools and spare parts scattered over the worktable. Steve's Harley was against the wall, behind the Quinjet engine, completely reassembled save for the tires.
"It was supposed to be a surprise." Tony nodded at the bike. "I was going to find some excuse to bring you down here and corner you against that wall, and then I was going to show it to you. Um, but then Hank decided that I had leukemia."
"That's a good plan," Steve said. "It could still work. You could 'corner me' against the wall, and I could pretend to be surprised." He leaned in towards Tony, attempting to look seductive.
Apparently, his seductive expression needed work. Tony turned away and picked up a box cutter, attacking the big, flat package on the counter. Inside were a pair of rubber tires, which Steve was willing to bet money were exactly sized to fit 2.15-inch wheel rims. Knowing Tony, the rubber might even have been poured in molds from 1948.
Okay, so wall sex was clearly not happening. He needed to talk to Tony anyway. "So," Steve started. "I, ah, talked to Carol a few days ago."
Tony looked up from the tires for a second. "Is that why she was here last night? How are she and Simon doing?"
"I don't know," Steve admitted. Presumably they were dating, since Carol had mentioned going out to dinner with Simon, but he hadn't actually asked. He probably should have, but it hadn't occurred to him. "Look, the past few days have been?stressful."
"I know." Tony looked away again, taking the tires and going to crouch down next to the bike. "Sorry."
"No, I mean, I've been meaning to talk to you." Steve crossed the workroom to stand beside Tony, watching him fit the front tire over the metal wheel rim. "About, well, us, I guess."
Tony sprang up and hurried back to the worktable, where he began sorting through the various sizes of screwdriver. Steve was pretty sure you didn't need a screwdriver in order to inflate a tire.
"When I asked you to restart a team with me, this wasn't exactly what I wanted."
"How much air pressure do you want?" Tony said quickly, still fidgeting with something on the worktable. His shoulders were suddenly tense, as if bracing for a blow. "They grip the pavement better when they're-"
He couldn't say this if Tony wasn't looking at him. Steve walked to the worktable, forcibly removed the useless screwdriver from Tony's hand, and grabbed him by both wrists. Tony looked up, eyes wide and startled.
"I love you," he blurted out, already feeling his face heat. "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Not just on a team," he added quickly, "but together. You and me. Like being married, only, um, not."
Tony was staring at him, face empty of expression.
"Like a real relationship," Steve clarified. This wasn't going well. He wasn't saying it properly. "Not casual or secret anymore."
Tony was still staring at him. The look of his face was strange, an emotion Steve couldn't identify, and he was usually good at reading Tony. What if Carol had been wrong? What if he'd totally misinterpreted the situation, and Tony's affectionateness over the past few days had just been the result of delirium?
"I, ah-" Steve began again.
He stumbled back a step, the hard edge of the lab bench hitting the small of his back, as Tony flung himself at Steve. Then Tony's arms were around his neck, and Tony was kissing him for all he was worth.
Steve wobbled for a second, knocked off-kilter, then wrapped an arm around Tony's waist for balance, and slid a hand into his hair, the wet strands clinging to his fingers.
Tony pulled back slightly, biting at Steve's lower lip, and Steve stepped forward, moving them away from the table, and broke the kiss, mouth tingling. He hadn't actually gotten an answer. Steve moved his hands to Tony's arms, pushing him back a step. "So," he said, "is that a yes?"
Tony shoved him, both hands flat against Steve's chest. He didn't use enough force to make a real impact, though.
"Is that a yes?"
Tony rolled his eyes, then reached up to curve his hands around the side of Steve's face. "No." He kissed Steve again, more slowly this time. "That's a yes." He grinned, eyes very blue under the bright lights, and let go of Steve's face, sliding his arms back around him. "So, you want to live in sin with me?"
The red flannel shirt was unbuttoned just far enough that Steve could see Tony's collarbones, and the pulse beating rapidly at the base of his throat. Tony's skin was flushed again, but this time, not from fever. "Sorry?"
"Don't worry." Tony smirked, eyes heavy-lidded. "I like living in sin."
"I like you living," Steve told him, serious again for a moment. He tightened the arm he'd wrapped around Tony's waist. "Don't scare me like this again."
Tony regarded him levelly, now equally serious. "You know I can't guarantee that."
No, he couldn't. Neither of them could make that sort of promise, not with the kind of life they led. Hydra's game with the computer virus had failed, just as the hit and run attempt on Steve had failed, and the arsenic in the sugar, but the next supervillain might be luckier. Tony could no more make guarantees than Steve could. "I know. Promise me anyway."
Tony removed one arm from around Steve's neck and held up a hand, scout's-honor-style. "No more computer viruses," he said, with mock solemnity. "I promise."
Which, of course, said nothing about the next illness or injury Tony would inevitably ignore and risk his life over, but Steve would cross that bridge when he came to it. And really, it wasn't as if paying extra close attention to Tony's physical condition was going to be a hardship.
Steve spun the two of them around, backing Tony against the worktable; in the same position Tony had had him in just moments ago. He leaned forward to kiss Tony, long and slow, curling the fingers of one hand through the belt loops of Tony's jeans, resting the other hand on the table for balance.
Tony arched up into him, sliding one leg between Steve's. He set his hands on Steve's hips, fingers dipping just below his waistband, and trailed them slowly over Steve's skin until they met. Tony tugged lightly at the front of Steve's jeans, unfastening the button of his fly.
"Oh look," Steve said. "You fixed my motorcycle. I'm very surprised."
The End