From this Ordinary Man
Day 121
“I would like to meet your betrothed!”
Steve chokes, Clint sniggers, and Bucky rolls his eyes. Natasha smiles, “hey, Thor, how was the mountains?”
“Grand, but I suspect the man who has captured our Steven’s heart to be even grander.”
Thor’s voice rings loud in the cafeteria. His hair is longer, his skin slightly tanned. The weight that had hunched his shoulders for months after his brother’s death has lifted slightly, and his eyes are younger than they were before he left for his sabbatical.
“I’m not marrying anyone just yet, Thor,” Steve tells him.
“They’re not even shagging yet,” Bucky adds with a smirk as Thor pulls a chair from the empty table next to theirs and plops down, gazing intently at Steve.
Steve sighs, preparing himself for a long interrogation, wishing that Tony would come back from his work trip faster.
Day 153
Tony’s place is far less fancy than Steve expects, it’s still a penthouse, but it’s cluttered and there are unopened boxes occupying the dusty corners of the place. Peter’s sleeping over at Ned’s place, so Steve has this rare night to spend for himself, and he’s really been looking forward to meeting DUM-E and U.
This slow exploration of each other, watching from one end of the hallway as Tony turns lives around just with the wonders of his mind, looking on as Tony puts the biggest smile on Peter’s face. Steve should be jealous of how quickly Peter’s attached himself to Tony, but he isn’t. He’s just so happy that the man he’s fallen faster and faster and deeper in love with shows the same adoration to his son.
Steve wonders, sometimes, what a man as extraordinary as Tony sees in a single father like Steve. Tony has an empire built in his name, and while Steve has left his days struggling for money behind – the army had paid him large amounts of compensation, and SHIELD gives him more than enough for Peter’s future each month – Steve has nothing compared to Tony.
Once, Steve had admitted as much to Tony, and Tony had looked at Steve as if he’d grown a second, biologically impossible head. Tony had said Steve was perfect, and Steve had admitted that he hated Peter’s birth parents. Steve knew he shouldn’t hate them, but Peter is his son, his sun, and what monster would choose to abandon a son as wonderful as him?
Tony had grown quiet for a moment before seemingly switching modes, going on to serenade about Steve’s very lengthy list of best qualities, so much that the flush in his ears took more than a day to recede.
Here, in Tony’s space, despite the mess scattered everywhere, Steve is in awe. He’s at the epicentre of Tony’s genius, and as he accepts a motor oil milkshake from DUM-E, Tony bouncing nervously behind the bot, Steve thinks he could stay forever.
But he has to leave, eventually.
When he does, he pins a sketch of the six of them on Tony’s corkboard. Unlike Steve’s place, there aren’t any pictures scattered around the apartment, and as he looks at his rendering of DUM-E, U, and Butterfingers playing catch with him and Peter and Tony, Steve decides it’s going to be his pleasure adding colour to Tony’s home.
Day 187
“We should get away,” Tony murmurs, fingers tracing soft circles on Steve’s shoulders, “a vacation would be nice. Just you and me and Peter.”
Steve shushes him, taking Tony’s right hand and placing it on his lap, beneath the sketchbook that’s propped up on a makeshift stand. After a lot of whining, Steve had finally relented to drawing Tony. Tony didn’t realise it would be this hard to keep still.
It’s one of those rare days where they both have the mornings off, and Steve had looked at the morning sun in Tony’s face, declaring it to be the perfect light. Tony isn’t disappointed, and has no regrets gifting all those pencils to Steve.
Those steady hands – a soldier’s hands, a doctor’s fingers – they follow the curves of Tony’s jaw, the crinkle of his eyes, the rough edges of his nails, the smooth metal of his watch. Steve draws and he draws, humming silently to Tony’s chatter.
By the time they have to leave for work, the drawing is unfinished, but when Tony casts one final glance at the lines of his face, half-formed and faint and reverently traced, Tony thinks he can finally start forgiving himself through Steve’s eyes.