Tony & Ty's Videotape
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It started on a Saturday.
It was a random, unaccounted for weekend in which there were no emergencies, no super villains, and definitely no charity balls. A perfect time for the Avengers to relax, sprawl in the living room and catch up on the television they missed, and story lines that had been completed in series they had been following. In the case of one Tony Stark, this actually meant he no longer had a readily available excuse to avoid Pepper, and was instead spending this reprieve in LA with a certain redhead breathing down his neck. Thus leaving the rest of the Avengers to twiddle their thumbs alone at the Tower, possibly to catch up on paperwork (Steve) or fix their manicures (Natasha and Thor).
Then Clint found the video cassette.
He had been digging around in the media library, grumbling about wanting to see “Men in Tights”, when his hand landed on a case that was much bigger than the DVD and Blu-Rays. Shoved far in the back, hidden from the light of day, he pulled out something that was barely used even in third-world countries nowadays. Clint felt his eyebrows slowly crawl into his hairline as his mind processed what was in his hand.
An honest to god videotape in the home of Tony Stark.
Cackling, which quickly alerted everyone that he had found ‘pure gold’, he crab-walked over to the entertainment center clutching his prize close to his body. "Guys, guys, we need to watch this," he announced, popping the tape into the slightly dusty VHS-player that was only there because Tony never threw technology out if he might be able to use it, even if just for parts.
“What is it?” Bruce asked mildly, glancing up from his curled up position on the love seat, “Please tell me it’s not one of those stupid ‘Jackass’ movies.”
“No, no, even better! It’s a video tape!” Clint stated proudly while staring at the screen, where a symbol was blinking in the corner showing that the tape was readable and was playing.
Natasha gave a small huff, “And this is more interesting that Mel Brooks because…?”
“Think about it? Why would Tony keep around an old tape? He could have just uploaded it to JARVIS? That means it has to be something good! Like his first dance recital, or an interview gone bad,” Clint explained to his clueless teammates, continuing when they didn’t look impressed, “Or maybe it’s his first sex tape? He has six or seven kicking around, maybe this is one where he doesn’t look perfect, with his stupid models and sweaty face and-”
“My god, Clint, I thought you had more respect than that.” Natasha said, smirking a little at the blond sitting on the floor, back to everyone as he stared intensely at the grey-tinted screen. “I’m sure if you asked Tony nicely, he would have welcomed you on his casting couch.”
“Ugh. One: Disgusting. Two: If I even swung that way, I’m sure I could get someone better than Tony Stark.” Clint said, ignoring Steve’s snicker accompanied by Thor’s booming laugh. Natasha simply rolled her eyes while Bruce looked a little confused, as if he wanted to defend his friend being sexy, but wasn’t quite sure how to go about it.
“Anyway, come on, guys! Get excited! A video tape! That Tony Stark kept!”
When there was only a faint buzzing from behind him on the blank television, which was playing the cassette, Clint slumped slightly in defeat. Obviously it was a blank tape, left behind from the stone age to collect dust. Not because Tony had kept it for secret reasons, but more likely he forgot about it during spring cleaning.
“Maybe there’s nothing on it?” Steve asked, still not understanding really what just happened, but content to watch the team, his team, relax in anyway possible. “Is it possible to have blank-”
A throaty laugh filled the living room from the empty screen, cutting off Steve abruptly and causing Clint to partially-choke on his tongue in surprise due to being so close. Even Natasha paused in painting her nails, eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to analyze the noise, a small wrinkle scrunching her nose when she placed it. "Was that Tony?"
Bruce frowned, staring at the television that still wasn’t showing any change in view aside from a few waves of static near the base, "Guys, now that we know it’s not blank, we should probably put it back. Even if it was shoved to the back, it is Tony’s, and he probably had it there for a reason.”
Clint sighed, but even he knew Bruce was right, and he reached up to press the eject button when the screen suddenly came to light in a burst of white and noise.
“No, no, I am not spending my first Saturday off in forever reading classic literature!” Another laugh, this time louder, and suddenly Tony was on the screen grinning in vivid technicolor. His hair was shorter, cropped close in the back with a wispy bang dragging against his forehead. The smile he shot the camera was fond but it quickly turned flirtatious when he looked out from underneath his eyelashes, ignoring the other people wandering in the park. The MIT shirt on his chest distorted slightly when he stretched on the blanket spread on the ground to grab at a dog-eared paperback.
As he moved, an unseen force pulled at his pants and caused the much, much, younger billionaire to squawk when they yanked down enough to show the top of printed boxers. “You know, I can leave right now and get back to doing real work, snot face!”
Clint snorted, leaning back onto a cushion placed on the floor, settling in for the long haul of embarrassing home movies of his non-present teammate when nobody continued their objections. “Obviously Stark’s insults got better with time.”
He was promptly shushed by Thor who was watching the screen like it was one of the soap operas he had become addicted to last week.
“Come on, please,” a decidedly male voice asked, followed by a pale hand and arm coming into the screen to thread through the black bangs, shocking everyone in the room at the fond gesture. “You promised.”
The younger Tony sighed, relenting enough to lean into the hand with a soft smile that no one could recall ever seeing before, "Sure, sure, I know. I promised,” He cleared his throat, closing his eyes, and he looked so young that Steve felt his hands clench in a unbidden thought of himself at that age.
Then Tony suddenly bellowed, "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!", which caused the assembled Avengers to flinch at the speakers' sudden change in volume. A faint, crude yell came from offscreen and Tony's face tinted red as he realized other people had heard him. The camera shook slightly as the person holding it had less luck holding in a muffled snort at his antics.
"Tony-" A laugh and the camera angle dropped to show a pair of sneakers and faded jeans, "I mean, Marc Antony. You do know I need to record Iago's soliloquy? I am not going to fail this class because you can't be assed to remember the right thing."
"Fine, fine. I don't know why you waited until your junior year to take Shakespeare 101. Usually you're so smart." The camera lifted again to show past Tony licking his thumb to flick through a couple pages, ignoring the camera as he settled in more comfortably on his stomach, "I'm obviously only using you for your body at this rate."
The camera suddenly dropped on the ground and the view tilted crazily as a larger body came into the frame, sprawling on top of the boy who would be Iron Man. Half the screen was black, most likely buried in the blanket, but it was still able to capture the top half of the two boys and the pale hand traveling up the shaking sides of one Tony Stark as he twisted his body and bit his lip to suppress a laugh.
"You know, there are worse things you could say about me."
"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him!" Tony continued reading the wrong soliloquy earnestly, the open book slapping weakly against a bulky shoulder in protest as he squirmed away from the hand plastered against his bare stomach.
"You were praising me pretty loudly last night." The voice was muffled and barely heard, the face of its owner facing away from the microphone piece on the camera and crammed into a throat.
"Oh, Caesar, back from the dead without even a call! You are a horrible flirt!" A glimpse of Tony's other hand as it entered the frame, running up the broad teen's back before disappearing again when it reversed direction. "If you asked, I'm sure Marc Antony could fit you in his schedule." A beat, "Among other things."
Tony gave a wet gasp as something happened outside the frame, "Caesar, Caesar, so fresh!" The book smacked firmly against the shoulder once last time before being tossed haphazardly away, giving a perfect view of his young face breaking into another smile.
"I feel like we’re getting off track,” the voice of the larger blond said breathily, lifting up his head to give the camera the full-view of puffy red lips, “You were supposed to help me study Shakespeare, not be a distraction like you always are, Tony.” He gazed down fondly at the billionaire who had an arm linked around his neck, holding him close, “You’re going to get me into trouble.”
The bigger teen kissed his way up to Tony's wrist from the nearby arm, the snick of a watch clasp sounding a moment before the timepiece slid down towards Tony’s elbow. The soft sound of a kiss pressed to the pulse point echoed through the room from the high definition speakers.
"My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar…" Tony took a shaky breath, seeming to have forgotten the video-recorder slumped on the ground nearby, "And I must pause till it come back to me…"
"Always with Caesar?" The blond let his head fall until their foreheads brushed, hair tangling together. A buzzing noise came from the television as it struggled to convey the white noise recorded by the 20th century technology.
"No. Always with you, Ty." Tony's hand intertwined tightly with the fingers of the other, his eyes glancing over to the camera to look at it quickly before returning to the blond's, "Nothing's gonna break us apart, Ty, I swe-"
Abruptly, there was a burst of static and a commercial from the early 90's blared into life advertising a movie involving guns, evil guys and sexy women. Clint fell backwards, having slowly inched forward with each intimate second and being steamrolled by the sudden noise. Bruce and Natasha shared a wary glance, promising not to tell Tony about what they saw when he returned from LA. Thor sat back with a sigh, as if empowered by seeing his teammate at a younger time when he wasn’t so weary and only had to think of love.
Steve wondered who this Ty was, and what made him so special to make Tony smile that way.
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