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With the knowledge of Tony’s secret love and admiration for poetry, Steve finds himself reading and discovering poets almost by the second. He can’t explain why it is that he seeks it out, but he feels a little closer to Tony every time he finds another poem. He has them carefully catalogued in his mind. The poems that he likes, the poems that he thinks Tony might like, the poems that he thinks the team might appreciate and the poems to help deal with his darker moods. He reads them to Tony whenever he can; it isn’t uncommon these days to find both of them in the communal floor library, curled up in an arm chair together, and having a book open in Tony’s lap while he reads.
It had jarred the team a little in the days following Tony’s confession, to find their team’s leaders curled up together reading poetry. They had all assumed, quite incorrectly, that Tony’s engineering mind had no desire for poetry and sentimentalism. In the earlier days of their acquaintance, read before Steve, they might have been correct. Tony rejected sentimentalism, years of Howard’s influence would do that to a person; the only person who ever got a bit of that affection was Pepper. Then Steve came around, and with him inevitably the teachings of Sarah Rogers to whom Tony will forever be indebted to for rearing up a nice young man, and so now Tony was able to be as affectionate as he could. It was hard, most days, to talk to Steve instead of running away and hiding down in the lab for days on end. (This particular habit had ended approximately three months, two weeks and three days after they had started dating when Tony had hidden a whole week and almost died of a combination of thirst and alcohol. In all fairness, Steve going out for coffee with Sharon was not the best idea. Maybe. Not according to Tony, at least.)
So that’s how they spend their alone time together these days, or at least a few hours every week since neither of them shirk their responsibilities anymore. Okay, so Tony maybe does like once every day, but that’s a lot less than he used to so Steve should be grateful. It’s still hard, for Tony, to be able to shut his mind off for a few moments. There are days when Steve still has to physically drag him up to their floor to sleep because he gets so caught up in work. It took him approximately three weeks after finding Tony’s note to figure out why that is, and since it’s Tony it had to come down in the worst possible time too.
See, Tony might have talked to Steve about the “note” and he might have started to believe that he wasn’t unworthy of him, but he still had certain episodes every once in a while. Steve was still fairly new to Tony’s habits so he didn’t see the jittery, almost manic way in which Tony worked until it was too late. It was June and Tony was preparing to re-launch his father’s Stark Expo project in order for the public to have a little more knowledge of what was going on with their country. (For Fury, it just meant he got to threateningly display all the dangerous toys SHIELD was privy to. For Steve, it was just a bunch of baloney, really unnecessary, and extremely stressful for his man.) It had seemed strange, at the beginning, to see Tony so involved in the event. In the previous expositions of the suits, Tony had just kind of shoved the tech into Pepper’s hands and let her deal with the rest, but for this particular exposition Tony was a lot more involved. He talked venues and security details and passes and money and all sorts of things with Pepper while at the same time trying to choose which tech he would display and also being an active participant of the Avengers.
In those three weeks after their talk, there were barely any hello kisses in the morning and good night kisses late in the evening. Thinking back on it, that night after Tony’s breakdown was the only real interaction the two had seeing as Tony was much too preoccupied with the Expo and Fury had pulled Steve away for that mission. Steve was granted a grace period in those three weeks, and looking back on it he was thankful for it because he didn’t know how Tony would have dealt if he had been by himself. Steve had been dropping down to the lab or Stark Industries to have some of Tony’s limited company and to force some food into him. He figured the Expo was so important that his boyfriend and Pepper were trying to give it their all, and that’s why he didn’t notice that Tony was reverting back to avoidance like he used to before their relationship.
The first one to make him a bit concerned was Clint, about one week and three days after their talk, as the archer was already eating breakfast when Steve walked in after his morning workout. The other blond was stirring his spoon listlessly into his coffee mug; a faraway look on his face. Steve prepared his oatmeal and his coffee before sitting across from him and waiting for the archer to say something. He started, and blinked up at Steve after about four seconds as he furrowed his brow, AH, just back from a mission. Steve tilted his head in silent questioning as Barton just kept looking at him.
“Have you and Momma Stark being fighting lately?” Clint asked after a beat. It was Steve’s turn to blink at his friend.
“Um, not that I know of?” it came out sounding like a question. He tried to think back on why Clint would ask, and was slightly disturbed to realize that it was the first day in a while where he didn’t wake up with Tony next to him. Barton seemed to see the realization on his face because he nodded. “Was there something wrong with him this morning?” Steve’s heart was now pounding in his chest.
“Not… really. He just seemed a little out of it. He kept muttering to himself when he came by to get coffee. He looked like… like… before” Clint said the last word meaningfully. It had become sort of code, to describe how Tony was before the team, before Steve, before he got better.
“I think it’s just the stress. Stark Expo, ya know, it was Howard’s other baby. It’s a lot of pressure on him,” even as he said Steve didn’t think it was that big a deal. Sure, the Expo had been a hit before, but Tony had so much more to offer. To Steve, his boyfriend’s genius and worth had already been proven. He hadn’t paid enough attention to the gossip, and he would later come to regret it. That conversation had ended with Clint’s slightly uneasy acquiescence.
Days dragged on with Tony being more and more preoccupied with the expo. On the Wednesday after his conversation with Clint, Steve noticed Tony nodding off in one of the couches on the communal floor while tweaking schematics for one of the military suits he planned on presenting. The Saturday after that, during Avengers bonding, Tony got up way earlier than everyone else and claimed he needed to take a conference call from Pepper. A couple of days after that, Steve found Thor in the kitchen frowning at something in his hand.
“You have to put the Pop-tart in the toaster for it to get warm, Thor,” Steve commented with a chuckle. For all his otherworldly wisdom, Thor still had some trouble grasping simple human technology. Steve shouldn’t be one to judge, if one remembered the incident with the movie player and the gaming console, but even he could operate a toaster. He grabbed a soda can from the fridge, not really noticing Thor’s lack of response, and found the demigod frowning at him when he looked up. “What’s wrong?”
Thor held up an empty bottle of scotch at him, a couple of drops of the amber liquid still in its bottom, and frowned deeper. “I was unaware of our renewed purchase of mead. I thought we would abstain from the drink for Anthony’s benefit,” he said slowly. By the way he was glaring at him, Steve got the distinct impression that he was being blamed for it.
“We did,” he replied in consternation. Tony hadn’t, to his knowledge, consumed alcohol since well before the start of their relationship. He still remembers with some fondness, and resilient guilt, when he had found Tony down in his lab after four days of cold-turkey sobriety. The man had been shaking and sweating, rambling about one piece of technology to another in a way that didn’t make sense even to JARVIS. Steve had gotten him calmed down enough to steer him to his bedroom, and tuck him into bed. He remembers staying up with the genius, through the fever that he succumbed to later in the night and the half-delusional ramblings, all while being bombarded with unfiltered thoughts from the smaller man. Confessions of inadequacy, and guilt, and self-hate. The talk after had revealed enough of their feelings to kick-start their now solid relationship. “He… I haven’t seen him drink since that night,” Thor finally relented on his glaring at that.
“Could this be his?” the Asgardian wondered out loud. The sadness in his voice made something lodge in Steve’s throat.
“Dear God, I hope not,” Steve replied sincerely. They searched the cabinets after that, but they couldn’t find any evidence of more alcohol. For the next three days, Steve monitored Tony as much as he could. It was kind of hard seeing as they barely saw each other for fifteen minutes, in their bedroom, before Tony passed out of exhaustion. Pepper claimed to not know where the bottle had come from. Nobody in the team had owned up to it, and he doubted they were lying to him. After three days of no warning bells, he finally let it go. It had probably been left over from when they had purged the tower.
Tony did not get better in the subsequent days. One week before the expo he was fraying at the edges. There were dark circles under his eyes, he barely spoke to anyone; his hair and goatee were a mass, his hands shook regularly, and he was pulling away from all of them. Steve tried to get him more involved both with his own health and with the team, but nothing seemed to be working. Tony would just smile, that tight brittle little thing, and kiss his cheek for long seconds before walking away. Something awful curled in Steve’s belly at that, but he couldn’t think of what to do. His fears became even worse when, four days before the expo, Tony picked a fight with Natasha.
They were having an early Avengers bonding night, seeing as the expo was that Saturday, so they were all assembled in the communal floor watching a movie. It was clear, from the beginning, that Tony would rather be doing anything but that. He was sitting next to Steve, as usual, but he was tense and poised as if he was reading to run off at any second. His fingers drummed on his thigh and one foot kept bouncing. After the first movie, and a fumbled soda that had Tony cursing, Natasha had finally had enough. It was rare for her, these days, to raise her voice or lose her temper to any of them. Not even Clint made her curse in Russian anymore, but that day she had finally had enough.
“Stop fidgeting so much!” she finally snapped at him, her accent making the words sound more severe than usual.
“I don’t see how it’s affecting you,” Tony snapped back. See, usually, he would smirk at her, do it one more time before finally quitting. This time, however, preservation seemed to fly right out the window. He glared back at her as defiant as if he had been staring down Obadiah. “I don’t tell you to quit when you’re being irritating.”
Natasha seemed slightly taken aback, but Tony’s recent behavior had been weighing down on all of them. Not to mention the fact that she was very protective of Steve, and he had been almost as stressed as Tony lately because of the genius’s behavior. That’s why, the super soldier thinks, she glares right back and swears at him. “If you’re so damned miserable, you don’t have to be here. In fact, we don’t want you here if you’re just going to make everyone else uncomfortable. Go back to your hide-hold if you’re so unhappy,” she tells him harshly.
“Tasha,” Clint reprimands quietly, but she just tosses her hair and focuses on the TV like she wants to make it explode. There is an awfully thick tension in the room. Thor is, surprisingly, the first one to see it. He begins to rise from his seat, and apology clearly on his lips, but Tony beats him to it.
“Fuck you,” he says tightly. He’s on his feet, he’s clearly tired and irritated and something worse, but he still stands his ground. “Fuck you, and your fucking family night, and your stupid bonding. I have more important shit to be doing anyway, things that actually fucking matter. You won’t yell at me for preferring to do something that’s actually fucking worth my time!” he growls. He glares at all of them, bypassing Steve’s seeking hand, before he stomps out of the room. The implications of what he just say sit heavily on them. Thor looks like he’s about to cry, Bruce fiddles with his glasses, and Clint glares at his partner. Natasha, surprisingly, looks disturbed rather than enraged. Tony has never cursed at anyone like that. Tony has never called their time a waste. He had never said no to family bonding.
“Jesus Christ, Natasha, what was that?” Clint demands. It’s surprising because barely two months ago he would have gone for Tony’s balls for speaking to her like that. It speaks volumes of how close he has bonded with Tony to hear him defending him like this. The things the genius said were hurtful, but thankfully they can all see that there is something worse affecting Tony than his tendency to be an asshole.
“He was being a brat. I was irritated, I didn’t think—“she bites her lip to keep herself from saying anything, but it’s clear she’s regretful.
“I think we all know he’s barely holding it together,” Bruce says quietly. He’s looking at the hall where Tony had disappeared.
“It’s that stupid expo,” Clint spits out with anger. “It’s any goddamn thing that has to do with that piece of shit, Howard. I don’t even know why he insisted on doing it when he knew it was just going to hurt him.”
“I don’t understand why he’s freaking out about this as much as he is. I mean, it has been a success in the past. It’s not like he doesn’t like showmanship. His whole life is like a show,” Natasha says, and on a glimpse of humanity, bites at her thumbnail.
“That’s why,” Steve suddenly realizes. It’s shameful, and it overflows him with guilt, to finally get to it. To the root of all of Tony’s problems, as always. Howard fucking Stark. He still has trouble, sometimes, flashbacks of Howard smiling, or with his glasses askew as he looks at blueprints of his bike, or with the designs of his suit. It gets hard to recognize the distinction between the glimpses of the man Steve got, and the nightmare that Tony had to deal with. “It’s Howard’s ghost. It’s… everything Tony has been told about his abilities. If the expo doesn’t go completely flawless… It’s going to break him.” Steve runs a hand over his face, and then does what he does best. He assembles his team and plans.
Those next three days, life at the tower is utter hell. Tony doesn’t speak, he doesn’t even blink at any of them. It’s an empty shell of the man he loves, this Tony, and it eats at Steve. He knows, however, that his interference won’t bring anything to fruition. So he watches Tony, always near but never in his space. He doesn’t touch him, he doesn’t speak first; he just lets Tony exist in those next three days. He doesn’t know if it’s helping or hurting his lover more, but he needs for Tony to give him a clue. The shorter man never does. He just barrels through, his tremors worsen and the vessels in his eyes pop, until Pepper comes in with a well-tailored suit in a clothes bag. She looks stressed, but at least she’s put together.
She finds Steve in the kitchen the day of the expo, and she sinks into the chair next him with a deep exhale. She looks at Steve, pleadingly. “This is yours. Tony said you might want to get ready early.”
“Yeah, I was—“he breaks himself off and drops his head in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do, Tony never lets him dress without him. It takes considerably longer, but he’s always appreciated the intimacy of it. The way he can fix Tony’s hair, or the way Tony puts his cufflinks on his wrists. Being deprived of it, well, it hurts. “I don’t know what to do, Pepper.” He finally concedes in defeat.
“He’s… He’s afraid,” Pepper tells him softly while pulling a hand from his face and holding it between her own. “The criticism doesn’t affect him. It’s the things in his mind that are messing him up.”
“If I go up there right now, and try talking to him… is it going to make any difference?” he asks her sadly. Even before she answers he knows what her response will be.
“Not one bit,” she smiles bitterly. “All we can do is watch him. Try to make this thing the best expo, so that no one even brings up Howard.”
He looks at her for a bit, then has to look away. He doesn’t know if he’s going to make it through today unscathed. He straightens his spine, however, and heaves himself off the chair heavily. He is Captain America, for god sake, he will get through this mission one way or another. He picks up his suit, and smiles at Pepper. “Let’s get this over with.”
It’s five thirty, a little over an hour before the expo, when Steve meets Tony on the communal floor to go down to the garage. The genius, for the first time in what feels like months, doesn’t have any technology in his hands. Instead, he’s standing away from their friends and fidgeting with his cuffs. He’s swaying on his feet, but his jaw is clenched stubbornly. Clint is off to the side, fidgeting as Phil adjusts his tie. Natasha is calmly petting Bruce’s hand, but she keeps shooting glances at Tony. Pepper comes up quietly to speak to Tony, but he looks up with something dark in his eyes, and she kisses his cheek and walks away after announcing the car will be ready in a few minutes.
Thor claps Steve on the back as he moves towards his boyfriend, and Steve manages to give him a weak smile. It has been a while since they’ve done anything other than peck each other’s cheeks so he feels a great bout of apprehension at being so close to the man he loves. It’s like at the beginning of their relationship when Steve didn’t know where their boundaries were; he didn’t know how much affection he was supposed to give, he didn’t know how Tony would skitter away… the truth is that, for all his bravado, Steve is now afraid. He lets out a breath and slowly approaches his boyfriend.
Tony looks up to him hesitantly, bites his lip, and then looks back down quickly. The trembling in his hands increases slightly. That’s all the confirmation that Steve needs to know what whatever he chooses to do will be well received by the genius. So he tries to smile as encouragingly as possible as he gets closer, and some of the tension eases out of Tony’s frame. It encourages the super soldier, and he gains the confidence enough to reel the other man in. he has never been prone to be overly affectionate, but now he feels the urge. “Hello, my love,” he tells Tony quietly.
Tony’s hands automatically come to rest on his chest, and his head whips up at the endearment. He narrows his eyes at the soldier, as if he’s searching for some kind of deceit. Steve curses at Howard in his head, at him and all the others, who have made Tony so weary of affection. The genius bites his lip, keeping in a tiny, shaky smile. “Hello, Steve,” he replies just as quietly. “I wanted to… that is, I—“whatever he was going to say gets cut off as Steve kisses him on the lips softly.
“Not now,” the soldier tells him when they break apart. He cups Tony’s face softly to make him meet his eyes. “I love you, baby. We’ll talk after.” Tony exhales softly and nods, his hands are holding on to Steve’s wrists as if they’re the only things anchoring him to the here and now. If Steve has to fight the demon of his old colleague then he will.
The expo, as expected, goes without a hitch. Steve can’t help but think that Tony looks beautiful up there. He’s all sarcastic wit and sharp smiles. They’re fake, yes, but that doesn’t make him less beautiful. The best thing about it is that Steve is the one who gets to see the man behind the mask, he’s the one that gets to break down the barriers… and when they get home, they do exactly that. He gets to know all the gory details of how much his boyfriend has been affected for the previous weeks.
“I kept thinking,” Tony tells him as he lays in bed with his head on Steve’s chest and the soldier’s fingers carding through his curls. “That he’ll pop out at some point, and tell me what a failure I was. How I could have done more if I had continued his legacy. I kept… expecting everyone to realize I never will be like Howard.” Steve feels the heat of Tony’s tears sear into his skin. He exhales sharply, wishing he could go back in time and punch Howard’s face in. This brilliant perfect man in his arms… so broken, so blind to what he really is.
“You were amazing, Shellhead. Watching you up there… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything more beautiful. You’re so brilliant, baby, I was so damn proud of you,” Steve kisses Tony’s head reverently. Tony’s voice breaks down into a sob when he tries to respond, and the soldier brings him closer and lets him get it all out. He keeps whispering endearments into his boyfriend’s ear as the other man calms down.
“I suppose I owe you an apology,” Tony whispers into his skin a while later. Steve makes a questioning noise, not wanting to break the perfect bubble they have created. “For what I said the other night. The way I’ve… the things…. How I’ve—“his voice cracks again and he fears that he’s going to break down again.
“I was confused,” Steve tells him softly. Tony feels the lump in his throat get bigger. “I didn’t know how to help you, and that scared me. I… I’m sorry too, for not noticing in time. I… I need you to tell me how I can help,” Steve pleads him. He squeezes him tighter.
Hearing Steve in pain, being so close to tears, breaks something in Tony. He peppers kisses into the skin of the soldier’s chess. “I didn’t know how… I’ve never… I’m sorry,” is what he settles on, brokenly.
“I know, baby, I know,” with the feeling of Steve’s fingers carding through his hair, Tony falls asleep. Uninterrupted, safe and comforted sleep.
It’s a few hours later, and Steve still keeps the ministrations on Tony’s exhausted body. The genius has curled into his chest as he snores away softly. Steve moves them onto their sides so he can look at his lover’s face. Tony’s breath hitches for a second, but he doesn’t wake up, or if he does Steve is willing to let him keep pretending like he’s not. Steve gathers him close, and with a smile on his lips, he soaks in every aspect of Tony’s face.
“the shadows
Of too many nights of love
Have fallen beneath your eyes.
Your eyes,
So full of pain and passion,
So full of li-ies,” Steve’s voice cracks as he raises a hand to Tony’s face. He’s so fragile, Steve thinks, he might have hard edges but underneath all that… He seeks warmth and comfort, and he has never been able to find it. Steve vows to change that.
“So full of pain and passion,
Soledad,
So deeply scarred,
So still with silent cries,” Steve can feel himself crying by now. He’d rather do it now, though, because he knows how it affects Tony to see him hurt. His lover who blames himself for everything, even when he doesn’t need to carry all that weight around. He kisses his nose, his eyelids, and the curve of his jaw… any place he can reach. Tony lets out a breathy chuckle, confirming Steve’s suspicion about his wakefulness.
“You utter sap,” Tony tells him sleepily, but he’s smiling. That contented curve just for him.
“For you, my love. Always.” Steve grins.