Party in the USA
Day 30
Rubbing his eyes, Tony stares past the blue holograms to where Bruce is sputtering around the other side of the lab. The glass doors are closed, meaning that Bruce needs to stay undisturbed, lest the wrath of heaven descend on them all. It’s better not to tempt fate, and even a man like Tony knows when space is needed.
“J, what time is it?” Tony asks. His prosthetic design is advancing nowhere. Sure, it’s about three years ahead of current designs in the market, but when has three years been enough for a Stark? The response time is still lagging, and the mechanism designs make it hard to adapt the weight for different people.
“Twelve minutes past six, sir,” JARVIS dutifully answers.
Tony’s been fidgety the whole day. At least the party is at Aunt Peggy’s place. The beautiful townhouse she’d wrangled from Howard during a push-up bet is home to many of Tony’s fondest memories. He knows that Peggy understands well Tony’s… issues, but he’s still nervous to be at any party, and the whispers that follow. Yes, he can throw up his media smile that dazzles and blinds people to the truth. Tony finds that he doesn’t actually want that, though. He truly enjoys his time with Bruce, Helen, Clint, and Natasha. A small part of him hopes that it’s a friendship that can last – a bigger part of him tamps down that flame. No one has stayed longer than Pepper and Rhodey, and why would they want to when they knew the truth?
These doctors saved lives every day, Tony’s hands were dripping red with blood that even Death wouldn’t be able to wash away. And Steve. Steve’s absence this morning made Tony even twitchier. Steve was hot and cold and just, so passionate, and Tony knew that when push came to shove, it would hurt to lose Steve.
God, he needed coffee.
“Hey J? Close down everything would you? Daddy’s going home.”
“Sir, might I remind you that you have the party in your honor at Lady Carter’s place?”
Tony pulls off his lab coat and drapes it over the only empty chair in the room, the one Steve claimed for himself. “You don’t have to, JARVIS.”
“That’s a first, sir.” There’s a note of affection in the voice. Sometimes, Tony marvels at the genius that came to him the week following his parents’ car crash, when Tony created JARVIS as he spent his days blind drunk. Sometimes, Tony wonders what possessed him to make an AI with as much snark as JARVIS (but he would be lying to himself. Tony knows exactly why).
Walking out with a huff, Tony tells JARVIS, “when he stops smashing cancer cells, tell Doctor Banner I look forward to seeing his hair down tonight.”
Steve’s just finished putting on his dress shirt and leaving Peter in Darcy’s very capable hands when his phone pings with a text.
‘I know what you did. Thank you.’
It’s from Peggy. He’s about to click on it to type a reply when another message from her comes in.
‘Any funny business with my godson and I’ll hunt you down, Rogers.’
Well, Steve certainly didn’t know that Peggy and Tony were that close. Being over thirty years older than him, Steve knows that Peggy was close friends with Howard Stark. Before SHIELD, Peggy had served as the Commanding General of the Army Medical Command, but she had risen through the ranks as an intelligence officer, building close ties with Howard Stark’s weapons division. As a young boy striving to be an army doctor, Peggy Carter was idolised by Steve. Even now, he can barely resist calling her ma’am as he did during basic training.
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Steve replies, because what else can he say? It’s the height of idiocy to even attempt a bluff at Peggy Carter.
That Peggy knows Tony so intimately makes Steve desperate to ask her his endless list of unanswered questions. Somehow, though, Steve knows that Peggy would never do that to Tony.
Picking at the button of his shirt and staring blankly in the mirror, Steve sighs. For the first time in over ten years, Steve finds himself caring how he looks.
This is a nightmare, he thinks to himself, and a voice he knows is Bucky’s is laughing in his head.
The party’s in full swing by the time Tony pulls his Audi into Peggy’s driveway. The gates, which to Peggy’s eternal chagrin (and secret fondness) had a miniature version of JARVIS installed, opened automatically for him. Locking the car and slipping on his red tinted glasses, Tony walks the short distance on cobbled stones to the wide-open main doors.
“Hey, man, you made it!”
There’s a man Tony vaguely recognises holding a champagne flute. Something in Tony wants to heave, but Tony’s had more than a lifetime of practice. Tony’s glasses scan the man, reminding him that it’s Doctor Wilson, Head of Psychiatry.
“Yeah,” flashing a too-wide smile, Tony reaches out to shake the man’s free hand. “Do you happen to know where the Director is?”
Sam shakes his head. “Last I saw her, she was with Tasha – Doctor Romanoff – and you might not want to get in between those two.”
“Ah, thanks,” Tony says, looking around the room. His glasses pick out everyone’s names, most of which he doesn’t recognize or care about. There’s Helen talking with Doctor Selvig, and Clint glaring intently at the vase of sunflowers Peggy loved to place on the center table. There’s not as many people as he expected. Only a few of the attendings are there. Tony spots the brilliant Shuri on one corner talking animatedly with Brunnhilde, hands nearly swatting a framed sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Huh, Tony wonders, that used to be where Peggy hung the fruit painting Howard hated. It’s a hauntingly sad image, the greys of charcoal shaping the shadows of a memory from a bygone age. Tony understands why Peggy would be drawn to it, why –
“Nice to see you made it.”
“Jesus Christ, Steven, don’t jump on a man like that. I have a heart condition, you know.”
Tony’s heart struggles to slow down as he turns around to see Steve. Jesus Christ, his brain murmurs again. Steve’s dressed in a light blue dress shirt that really brings out his eyes and shapes his biceps and his chest and –
“You have a heart condition?”
Shaking his head to get himself to focus, Tony belatedly realises that Steve genuinely didn’t know. “I thought you searched me online? It’s on my Wikipedia, unless JARVIS went about messing with the truth again.”
Red races up Steve’s cheeks. It really is an adorable look. No, Tony, Pepper’s voice chimes in his head, and Tony knows he really should listen to it, but when has Tony ever made good decisions?
Both Steve and Tony are spared any catastrophe as Peggy swoops in to press a sound kiss on Tony’s cheeks. Her red dress might make her look fearsome to any other person, but to Tony it’s a comforting sight.
“You’re not fashionably late, you know, Tony?” she pokes at him. In the golden light of the chandelier above them, her greying hair fades in and out of colour.
“You had Steve to keep you company,” Tony grins back just to see the red grow darker at the base of Steve’s neck, the blond man stuffing his hands in his pockets and shoulders hunching in an effort to look smaller. There’s a small smile on Steve’s face. With extreme effort, Tony drags his mind away from any thoughts of adorable.
Peggy scoffs, taking Tony’s hand and dragging him to the center of the room. “No offense, but I prefer you over that blond hunk.”
Steve looks up chuckling as he follows along. Swiping two glasses off the drinks table, he attempts to hand one to Tony when Peggy slows down as they reach the table where most of the food is.
Tony’s face looks like a deer in headlights before his eyes shutter behind his glasses. “I, uh, don’t like being handed things,” he says in a small voice, as if trying not to let others hear. “Just put it on the table.”
Frowning, Steve continues to hold the glass. “I give you coffee cups all the time.”
Tony only needs to raise an eyebrow for Steve to realise. Oh. Steve had always placed the cup on the table. Or Tony’s Butterfingers would take it from Steve.
Just then, Peggy seems to notice the tension. With a smile that’s just a little off, Peggy reaches over to take the glass from Steve’s outstretched hand. She lifts one of the many forks from the table behind them and taps it repeatedly on the glass until everyone’s eyes turn to the three of them. Steve’s stealing glances at Tony, and Tony’s determinedly looking anywhere but Steve.
“I’m happy to announce that Doctor Stark has not been abducted on his way here,” Peggy’s voice carries over as the crowd chuckles. Clint and Bucky are struggling to get their way to the front. “Some of you may have been unfortunate enough to meet him, others have been more fortunate to meet Tony instead. Those who haven’t met him will be wary of him, but I assure you, I have the childhood pictures to show you that there’s nothing to be afraid of. He’s a brilliant man with an even brighter heart, and it has been a joy to see him take the medical world, and our hospital, into a greater future.”
Tony has only ever known five people who could make him blush, and the only one alive is Peggy. His cheeks are hot and he wants to drink something. Everything around him are suspiciously like champagne, though. He’s itching to sneak into Peggy’s kitchen to hide from Steve’s questioning frown and steal her fruitcakes and tea.
“I hope you all are able to welcome him into our team of amazing doctors and scientists,” Peggy goes on, raising her glass. Then, she turns to Tony, her other hand pushing over a filled glass to where Tony’s hand is hanging near the edge of the table.
There’s something in her eyes that Tony’s always known to trust. So, he takes the glass, and when Peggy drinks from hers, he tips the liquid slightly towards his lips, ready to spit it back out. It’s a surprise when he tastes sparkling apple juice with a hint of blueberry, the relief and shame hitting him like a wave.
Did Peggy prepare this one glass just for him? Tony harboured a hidden dread at disappointing his Aunt, and he had memorised how she used to purse her lips every time Tony held a bottle and became more and more like Howard by the day. He'd given his first AA coin to her, and he knows she keeps it in her drawer, a place of honor beside her gun. His visit to the AA yesterday was, of course, photographed. Pepper had worked a field day on the press today, but Tony knew better than anyone that it was impossible to erase anything from the internet.
He can feel Steve's stare, the questions on the tip of Steve's tongue. Tony frantically looks around the room for a distraction, his eyes catching the wooden chair by the stairs, Natasha's red hair, the mahogany brown of the doors the - brown eyes and long dark hair and a smile, a laugh -
God, Tony prays, thinks, curses. His throat is struggling to let air in. He needs to breathe, damn it, he can't do this here, in front of everyone. Five things I can see, he thinks to himself, feeling Peggy's hand still on his. He grounds himself, until his breaths come deeper.
When the clapping recedes, Tony flashes a quick smile at Steve, squeezes Peggy’s hand once, and makes himself scarce from them both. He does what he does best in these parties, making connections as he trades numbers with T’Challa, Head of Orthopaedics, gets an introduction to the Maximoff twins, who are up and coming neurosurgeons, and meets Wong, the hospital’s archive manager with a liking for Beyoncé. He talks with Bruce about stem cells and nanotech application.
All night, he uses all his considerable skill to avoid Steve like a plague. He knows the house, after all, and all the secret rooms only he and Peggy are alive to know. So when the party winds down, Tony finds himself lying awake staring at the ceiling of the room he had claimed for himself as a child. The sheets still have Captain America’s shields printed all over, from a time when Tony was insanely obsessed with the comicbook hero. He used to have a Captain A-bear-ica doll, too, before everything went to hell.
He was once happy, here.
Peggy comes in an hour later, her dress exchanged for a nightshirt and loose pants. She wordlessly sits at the edge of the bed, Tony’s hand instinctively reaching for hers. He feels so, so small.
“You left poor Steve alone all night. He was so excited, I think he came just for you,” Peggy murmurs as she strokes circles around the back of Tony’s hand.
He closes his eyes, “he would have asked me about everything, and I just. I couldn’t. I can’t – ”
Shifting around, Peggy wraps a hand his shoulder and lies down with him. “Clint was in charge of the party. I thought you’d be more comfortable having it somewhere familiar. I told him no alcohol,” she paused to turn and look Tony in the eye as he stiffened, “but of course he’d prepared some vodka to spike the punch or whatever drink he could get his hands on. Until Steve sent him a very long-worded message. You’re both so different and yet so similar, you know? The stubbornness, the loyalty, the heart. Did I ever tell you how proud I am of you? Because I am so, so proud, and incredibly, selfishly glad to have you with me.”
Struggling to hold back the feelings cresting like a tsunami over his chest, Tony squeezes Peggy’s hand like a lifeline.
She goes on, “he said he remembered you liking fruits and blueberry, and he threatened to get Clint fired if any hint of alcohol was found in the party.”
Tony’s heart hammers in his chest, loud as his breaths start feeling heavy. His words shake, but it’s Peggy, so he doesn’t try to hide. “How’d he know?”
“He cares about you,” Peggy says instead, “is that so bad to have again?”
“I still can’t sleep, sometimes I can’t think. ” Tony admits softly. “I can still feel him in my arms, the weight, his hands, his eyes. They were my eyes, you know? For that one moment I could actually feel myself loving my reflection because it was his reflection. And then. And – ” Tony’s biting his lip so hard he feels the blood seeping into his mouth.
“Oh, Tony.”
She presses a kiss against his temple, lingering and fierce. Then, as if that was the final pressure his dam could take, Tony lets his tears fall silently.
He hadn’t realised how hard it would be to move to New York again, to see the city for the first time in eight years. Tony was always excellent at bottling his feelings, and he’d never let himself grieve. He didn’t deserve the luxury of grief for the horrors that he’d done.
Here, though, in Peggy’s arms, Tony feels safe again, feels the unending forgiveness she unfailingly extends to him. Since earlier than he could remember, she had been his shield, his caretaker, his shelter. When Howard and Maria had died, Peggy was there. He'd pushed and he'd pushed with all his strength and bitterness, but Peggy was there, in Rhodey's words, in Pepper's glare.
“I’m sorry,” Tony whispers, because he realises he’s never actually spoken those words to her after all this time. The hurt and grief he’d caused her is heavy in his infinite list of sins.
A shaky smile forms on Peggy’s lips, somehow truer than any smile she’d given him. “I’m sorry, too.”
Tony wants to ask what on earth she thinks she needs to apologise for, but the words stick on his throat, too much, too little, too late. His breath hitches, and she holds him tighter.
They stay like that for a long, long while, Peggy weeping with him for the son he once had.