I Sing the Body Electric

Tony 

The days following the Battle of New York suck. 

They suck real hard. 

Everybody from the Initiative who's still on Earth spends the next few days picking up after themselves throughout the city. They find and disassemble alien foot soldiers. They tag and collect alien weaponry, for which a new taskforce in SHIELD has already been made. (Because of course, it has.)

They even do a little search and rescue, something Tony knows is more of a publicity stunt than anything but doesn't actually say it out loud. They begin work every day as soon as the sun comes up and they don't stop until everybody seems to agree its too far gone for the night.

They aren't slave-driven. There's some rule written down somewhere about how many hours of hard labor they're actually allowed to do, consecutively. There are Red Cross stations everywhere offering food, shelter, and shade. There are medics and SHIELD scientists constantly watching, readying themselves for the total collapse of Captain Metahuman or the more obvious contender for gurney bait, yours truly. (They did just fight aliens to save the world, and some of them even flew a nuke into space; it would be reasonable to assume their bodies might need a minute to adjust.)

But, honestly, aside from the fact that while he was Up There he thinks his ribs played musical chairs and some of his organs might've turned themselves inside out, Tony feels fine.

He likes getting down dirty with the FDNY guys. He likes helping the dust-covered little girl find her dust-covered mom, and most of all, he likes doing this work out of the suit. (Though, if his suit wasn't all sorts of busted to shit, he'd like it even more.) Sure, his body feels like a Jenga tower in the late rounds, but he doesn't feel the need to complain about it until he's handed a wide-head broom and told to sweep the streets.

"Excuse me," he says, and he doesn't know if it's more or less funny that it's Captain America asking him to do it. "You want me to sweep the outside?"

Rogers looks at him and tilts his head to the side like he's placating Tony somehow. "Yes, Tony. I would appreciate it if you would. They tell me they have something for the glass so don't mess around with it, but there's garbage everywhere."

Tony almost—has to manually command his body to shut that shit down almost—laughs right in Captain America's stupid, lopsided—

Tony aborts a move to put his hand on Rogers' shoulder and just says, "Cap, it's New York. There's always garbage everywhere."

Rogers' smile twitches and between one blink and the next, he's laughing his ass off.

It's weird.

The whole situation is weird, obviously, and for a lot of different reasons. This is weird because . . . Well, Tony doesn't know why, but he knows that that's not what a human being laughing is supposed to sound like. The man sounds like he's trying to move a ping pong ball around in his lungs. His laugh doesn't sound like anything more than air coming out of a mouth that's tripping over what shape to take. He sounds very new at it.  

He's out of practice, Tony realizes and does his best to not think if this is the first time the man's laughed since coming out of the ice

The laughing dies down soon enough and he just looks at Tony with some faraway look in his eye. "You know, I once knew a guy who didn't believe in making his bed."

"Yeah?" Tony doesn't follow.

The faraway look gets far-er and away-er. "Said he didn't see the point if he was just going to mess it up again later," he says and looks sad. 

"Yeah," Tony says. "I have trouble with that one, too."

He doesn't know what to do then. The guy is obviously having some sort of a moment, and for all that he's been working on emotional literacy, Tony doesn't feel like a lesser man for admitting that the WWII vet almost a century out of his timeline is a bit out of his depth.  

Kindness though . . . Tony thinks he knows how to do that one. 

He reaches out to take the broom and mutters, "I'll watch out for the glass."

Cap just ducks his head and nods, like he gets it just a little. And then he really seems to get it, if the smile and blushing are any measure.  

It's not until Cap's walking away from Tony that it finally hits him: that must be what happens when Rogers gets reminded he's not from around these parts anymore. There are things he's missed — cues he hasn't learned how to pick up on yet and mannerisms that weren't around when he was. 

This is what happens when Captain Americaremembers. Tony thinks and without knowing it, files the information away somewhere safe. 

Eventually, after the sun went down, it became obvious that they were more of a nuisance than anything else. With Tony's suit busted, Cap was the only one who could do any real heavy lifting. Even though Dr. Banner was there, he was decidedly de-Hulked, and as much as the others tried they had started struggling to keep up with the FDNY and National Guard crews around noon.

There were enough boots on the ground, anyway, with a new section of SHIELD (another faction to have been literally created overnight) apparently dedicated to this sort of thing. But nobody wanted to tell the "heroes of New York" that they were in the way, so Tony decided to do it. 

He moved the last piece of visible rebar from this edge of the park and said, "It's quitting time, folks."

"Is the princess tired?" Barton asked, though not as unkindly as Tony would've assumed from one of Fury's lapdog. He was a sight for sore eyes, panting and drenched in sweat. None of them were ready for a photoshoot, but Barton looked about ready to keel over. (Tony pointedly didn't mention that he was the one with a severely reduced lung capacity and even his breaths weren't coming as hard as Clint's.)

Mind control must do that to a person. 

"The princess thinks that we should probably let the people with the blueprints put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Besides, I think you and Captain Ahab are the oldest ones in the yard right now. No one needs you busting a hip moving that pile of rubble"—Tony pointed—"to that pile of rubble."

Barton's nose scrunched at that but he was smiling through the dust on his face. "Get fucked."

"I'll take that under advisement. You grab the kids and I'll call the valet."

After about a week, going home from the work sites didn't feel so negligent, and Tony couldn't figure out if the presence of the others helped or hindered that feeling along. 

For better or worse, it was decided that the team would crash at Stark Tower. At first, it made sense: the mess was in New York, the team needed to stay to help clean up the mess, the nearest non-SHIELD residence was Stark Tower. It was a simple equation and Tony was very good at math. 

It wasn't as if he didn't have the room for them. There were about a half dozen empty floors scattered about the upper-half of the Tower and once everyone got settled, they were fairly easy to live with, with Rogers, Barton, and the Spider keeping to near-militaristic-standards of tidiness and efficiency. They mostly kept to themselves and with Thor on Asgard, the Tower was actually quieter than it had been in years.

Typically too exhausted to exchange more than a goodnight when they made it back, they started getting together for meals regularly and spent an hour or so after breakfast watching Twilight Zone reruns on cable. It helped to cover some of what SHIELD's indoctrination missed for the Good Captain and was a nice, if unsettling way to reacclimate to the idea that aliens existed. 

No, it was the impermanence of it all bothered that him. He felt like a kid again, worrying that when he woke up every morning everyone would be gone.

He was fine on his own, really. Preferred it, actually. Living with them was really cramping his style, and he told them as much on more than one occasion. 

But in the privacy of his own thoughts, Tony could acknowledge that he actually didn't mind all that much. That a full house to wake up to every day and return to every night was more refreshing than imposing. That—and he'd rather chew off his own arm than admit this out loud—it was actually kind of nice to not be so cavernously alone for the first time since Rhodey's deployment after Afghanistan.

Still, there was only so much Tony Stark could stand not knowing and there was only so long he could stand not knowing it. 

He brings it up over breakfast.

"So, the town's almost set to rights," he says, going for nonchalance. "What now?"

They all seem to consider this for a while, like they hadn't thought about it yet. (And, man, Tony knows his brain isn't quite wired the same way, but Jesus Christ if adulthood required this little planning he really was the brightest mind of his generation.) 

The Spider (Romanov, he corrects himself) tilts her head. "Eventually Clint and I are going to have to start taking SHIELD's calls again. Normally they'd place us under probation for the blackout, but considering we just saved the world from unimaginable doom, I'm starting to think our trump card is a little bit bigger than their trump card."

Tony nods and gestures to Barton. "Well, he was technically on the side of the baddies for a bit there, so I'm sure that won't help."

"Tony," Rogers hisses.  

Barton scoffs. "I was under mind control!"  

Tony shrugs. "I don't think they give sick days for that."

Barton glares at him for a moment before giving way to a laugh. "You're a funny kid," he says. "I heard you used to hang around SHIELD a lot. Can't believe I've been missing out."

But it's a question, really, because everybody knows about the Tony Stark Mystique. There are open betting pools on his life story and part of the SHIELD agent indoctrination, he knows, involves sitting around whatever functions for a breakroom at HQs and spinning stories to fill in the open gaps. He'd heard the whispers on various trips to New York and D.C.:

Heard he was trained by rebels in Sierra Leone when he was little. 

I heard he was kidnapped by doomsday planners. Kid was in a bunker underground until Director Carter had him yanked.

Stark probably kept him on an island. Whole family died and he was left alone for days to fend for himself. He is a Stark, though. I bet he even murdered the nanny just to cut her open and—

Rumors.

Rumors he'd love to confront but can't because—

Barton's unasked question is the same unasked question no SHIELD agent with more than two brain cells would ever ask out loud.

Whoare you? Where were you that whole time? 

It's like red lights and alarms are going off in Tony's head for how hard it is to concentrate. For one thing, he doesn't actually even know the answer that nonquestion. For two, even if he did, this is the last conversation he wants to be having right here, right now.

Tony hopes that this isn't going to become some sort of routine but has a creeping sense of dread that it will.

This seems to pique Rogers' and Bruce's interests, as they both turn to him as well. Romanov's eyes, he notes, are purposefully fixed on the opposite wall.

He says nothing for a long while. He doesn't know what his face is doing, but it can't be anything good because Banner, who has barely spoken more than a few disjointed sentences since being here, steps in. "Some people I've worked with have talked about you."

That, he didn't expect, but it's something to work with. "Dr. Banner, I thought I could trust you not to kiss and tell." What do they say about me?

"They say you're young," Banner takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. "Excitable. Easy to work with, but that you're not a fan of working with others."

Tony bristles. "That's bullshit." 

"Temperamental," Banner continues, smiling. "I've heard some things about your vendetta against SHIELD."

Tony rolls his eyes. "I don't—"

"On the plane," Rogers interjects, because this comedy of errors isn't fucked enough, apparently. "Fury accused you of leaking something to the press."

"He did," Tony confirms when Rogers doesn't continue. "I didn't."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not twelve and looking to make a quick buck? I have a perfectly fulfilling life outside of looking up SHIELD's—"

"No," Rogers shakes his head. "I mean, why would he accuse you of that?"

"Why does Fury do anything he does?" Tony replies quickly. "Ask him yourself if you want."

He turns to Banner and very politely says, "I don't like to talk about my history with SHIELD. It's long and complicated and a part of my life I'd prefer I left behind."

"I think we left that station a little while ago," Barton says softly, folding his hands together on the tabletop. "Unless you're leaving the team behind, I don't think you have a lot of options, kid."

Tony starts to fidget.

It's not like he hasn't thought about it. No, he's been tossing it around his mind every available minute since Coulson showed up on his doorstep asking him to save the world. Since Nick came after the press conference, even. Still, it said so bluntly and so gently has him tearing and twisting his cloth napkin in his lap. 

They must expect him to say something, because when he doesn't, Rogers sighs. "If we're going to be a team, we need to be honest with each other." 

(Tony doesn't feel scolded or singled out at all, by the way. 

He doesn't.)

"I'll go first, then," Barton bites out, throwing a hard stare at the Captain. "I don't feel comfortable having him on the team."

Oh.

Tony swallows. That's fine. Really that is exceptionally okay. I mean, you didn't even want to be on the stupid team in the first place. And who would be happy to be teammates with you, anyhow? Too poetic to be good, right? Merchant of Death saves the world with a semi-primordial goon squad. 

But then Barton turns to Tony, a very open look on his face and makes him look. "This has nothing to do with you, alright? This is some next caliber shit and I don't think that should be on some kid's shoulders."

There's a long moment where nothing happens. Tony feels like he should be arguing or at least getting righteous and angry, but he doesn't. He has nothing to say right now that wouldn't be a half-truth or a lie. The only thing he can think of is this is it, this is when they come and take the suit. And with it, Tony can see the absolute devastation SHIELD could bring if they got their hands on his tech. Sure, it'd probably take them some time to figure out it all out, but if they had it, that'd be the end. 

More yet, that'd be the end of Tony, because—

Don't waste your life, Stark.

And he can see Yinsen, then, and mounds of bodies lying under Stark Industries' shrapnel.

He looks down at his hands and they feel sticky and heavy. Soaked, he might've said if he could say anything. His chest starts to feel much tighter and much smaller than it had been before the conversation began. He feels like he can't get a breath in and nobody at the table is staying still.

He starts to feel another swell of panic approach him when the archer speaks again. "I seem to recall you haven't had it so easy these last few years. Is this really what you want?"

Tony thinks about this. 

He can see it for what it is: an out.

As his head begins to clear, he finds that it's obvious that they've had this conversation without him before in some way. Barton seems to be the stronghold of his position, and he is (ironically) sitting across from Rogers who seems equally grounded in whatever argument he has yet to make, his jaw is set and his fingers are turning white at where they grip his biceps. The two still seemed locked in some nonverbal spar with glares only so far away from burning holes into the table and each other. 

Tony's been in an intervention before and this is starting to feel a lot like that. He still isn't angry, surprisingly. He feels waves of calm washing over him again and again, returning sensation to his hands and increased capacity to his lungs. 

Is this really what he wants?

It's no question that he has no desire to work with SHIELD again. And, even if SHIELD employs a hands-off approach with the Avengers — which, of course they won't — there'd still be two active agents on the team. (One of whom, he'd love to point out, has already pulled a reverse Severus Snape on his ass.) He'd still have to deal with their clean-up crews and their intel and all the shit he just spent the last four years of his life actively trying to avoid. He managed to keep the suit away from other tech companies, the governments of the world, and one dude with electric fucking whips only to land on the doorstep of the same place he'd been running away from since he realized he had legs to run with. 

SHIELD aside, he doesn't very much enjoy the baggage, if he's being honest. They're barely a month out from the battle and he's already had nightmares peppered with starlight and nuclear fallout. He knows it won't de-escalate from here. He knows that this isn't Afghanistan — that this is something he will actually be signing up for.

A choice he'll have to make.

In his mind, it's like Iron Man but worse. There's an expectation now, and propriety. 

And that's another thing: the team. That's what they're supposed to be, at any rate, excluding the whole "part of your team is a few light-years away and also a demi-god" fiasco. But, even ignoring whether or not Tony thinks there's a chance they might actually be able to pull this off (which he doesn't) and whether or not he can work with this ragtag group (which he can't), there's a gaping hole in this plan he just can't suss out yet. 

And then there's Captain America. 

The only thing he hasn't put much thought into the whole "Man Out of Time" dilemma. After their talk the night of the battle, their interactions had consisted of greetings in the morning, directives on cleanup duty throughout the day, and maybe a "goodnight" in the evening if one of them remembered. Rogers had turned scolding and tutting at Tony a habit, albeit t an unconscious one, if the way he would wince or hiss when finished was any indication. Steve Rogers had just sort of assimilated into the chaos of things and Tony had totally put off the panic surrounding him. 

Until now, it would seem. 

Is this really what you want?

No. 

No, it really isn't. 

But it's what someone else needs him to do, and that's always been enough for Tony. 

So he says, "Yes. This is what I want" 

But he doesn't say, I can do this. I will do this, for him and for them and against all odds and if it's the last thing I do.

He says, "Don't worry. Iron Man came first on the recommended list and he's perfect for the job."

But he doesn't say, I will be perfect. I will make up for the fact that it's me. 

He says, "Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a teammate to fix up for you all."

He wants to say, please, don't let me do this. Please just let me rest.

But he doesn't.

So he leaves.

He doesn't hold it against them.

Not all of them, anyway.

After Disaster Breakfast Mark I the days quickly throw themselves back in working order. When their help is no longer needed daily around the city the team falls into a disturbingly normal routine. 

Barton finds him sometime later on his way to a shooting range. They get on the same elevator a floor apart, and between floors 76 and 52, Barton clasps his shoulder, turns him, and asks, "Are we good?" 

Tony shrugs. "We're good."

"Jesus, don't get all emotional about it," Barton says, laugh lines crinkled around his eyes. "We're going to have a lot of fun together, you and me."

Tony raises an eyebrow. "Sure, but call me 'kid' again and I'll design arrows that will shove themselves so far up your—"

"See ya!" And Clint flits between the quickly closing doors. 

Dr. Banner is a bit trickier. 

Between renovating the Tower (again, Christ) and working on the suits, he manages to clock some lab hours of his own. It'd been a while since he'd bothered with it, but eventually, the world would really believe it wasn't ending anymore and the real threat to Tony's well-being would come back: Stark Industries' board. They would come back from their spontaneous vacations and bucket-list adventures eventually, and when they did, Tony knew they'd to squeeze him like a ripe orange for inventions. 

He might as well be prepared. 

When he gets to the lab, Banner's glaring at a pipette filled with something dark and viscous and something Tony would bet anything is Banner's blood. He seems to just be moving it like an upside-down metronome, muttering quickly to himself. 

"I hope you're not arguing with it," Tony says quietly when he finally gathers enough courage to sidle up to the man. "I don't think it'd be a fair fight."

It seems like he doesn't hear Tony, who moves to set himself up at a far table. He doesn't so much as set his bags down when he hears, "This stuff is tougher than it looks."

Tony turns to find Banner back in motion, setting the pipette back with its set and wiping down parts of his workspace. Tony still can't see his face, but his body is taut and jerky in its motions and his voice is flat. 

Tony smiles. He's heard about Bruce Banner's social grace and is glad to find it on par with his own like he'd assumed. The man has been avoiding him since the failed breakfast days earlier, and it's apparent that he has feelings of some kind.

But Tony's not a pusher. The man will come to him when he's ready, and considering the fact that he's practically been drooling over the chance to work with the guy since undergrad, he can wait the doctor out like the best of them. 

He doesn't have to wait long, apparently. 

About an hour into their silent, separate work, Banner's voice cuts through his concentration. "I know what it's like to have nowhere to hide," he says. "To always have to be a ghost story to the people you meet. I'm sorry I brought that into your house, Tony." 

Even if Tony had still been angry, that would've done him in pretty much instantly. There was something about the man that made Tony sit up and listen despite the quietness of his person. He'd long suspected that, unless is was gamma ray-related, the man didn't have much of an audience for anything he said. He knew the man was largely alone, no living family linked to him, and his one contact, Betty, not seen or associated with him for quite some time now. Tony knew what that was and could appreciate that the other man had kept going, hiding out in foreign countries and helping those who needed it. 

Long before he met him, he liked Bruce Banner. 

Now, it was just a matter of not spooking him too badly. 

Defenses down, he smiles softly, shaking his head a little. "Water, bridges," he says, and when Banner frowns he adds, "Want to learn how to make an element?"

Things go much better after that.

He and Romanov don't say anything to each other, but he thinks that's okay. 

(There is a day when he finds her sitting alone at the breakfast bar, the rest of the team with sleeping in or out early. At the opposite end of the bar, he finds his favorite cereal poured and a smoothie made. She doesn't look at him when he enters, nor when he sits down. He thinks, for a moment, that she could be poisoning him but ultimately decides that something so blatant isn't her style. He eats and drinks slowly and when he is done, he grabs her dishes on the way by to the sink.)

They don't say a single word over breakfast, but he starts to feel a part of himself melt for her. 

It's another three days before the Captain manages to corner him, not for a lack of effort on Tony's part.

Captain America, it turns out, is a creature of habit. It wasn't something particularly interesting or surprising, given the everything about him, but it was usable to Tony's advantage. Tony compelled himself with anxiety and sheer spite to get out of bed and do most of his travel about the upper levels when he knew Rogers eventually starting running at the asscrack of dawn. He saved heavy-lifting, long-term projects for Sundays when he knew the man would attend Mass at least once a day, if not twice at the little church at the edge of Brooklyn. (Tony pretends he doesn't know that that's where Steve is going. He pretends there's nothing to feel nostalgic about with that, and instead focuses on literally anything else.)

When the team does share a meal together, Tony doesn't even look in Cap's general direction, while the man is palpably nervous about how to function around him. (Tony also pretends he doesn't know why it's so much harder to accept an L from Captain America and promptly decides to never examine it further.) 

Rogers finally corners him on the roof (yes, again) and looks so disappointed when he tries to leave, it makes Tony almost cry. 

He tries for a joke. "We have to stop meeting like this, Captain: people will talk." 

Cap doesn't laugh. "They say talk is cheap here."

"On the roof? I don't speak for the locals around here but I wouldn't call it colloquial."

Again, nothing. And then, "So, are we gonna talk about what happened?"

No. "Whatsoever do you mean, Caperunno?"

Rogers sighs, sitting at the edge of the chair next to Tony. "Everything that happened with the Chitauri and . . . everything. I know you weren't exactly keen on joining the team—"

"I didn't mind the team part," he lies, hackles rising just a little. "I wasn't keen on doing any more favors for Nick Fury." I'm sick of being the second rate choice for Nick Fury.

"Noted," Rogers says, finally cracking a little bit of a smile. "You know, you really seem to have it out for that guy."

Tony scoffs. Open hostility towards Nick Fury was pretty much a personality trait of his at this point. So he admits, flatly, "Yeah."  

The captain seems to be suppressing a full grin. "Want to tell me why?"

"Not particularly. You'll find out in your own time if you stick around long enough." Now it's spite. Not exactly for Rogers but enough to be directed at him. "There's a running pool going at a few SHIELD water coolers I bet you could get in on."

Rogers shakes his head. "I'm not one for gossip, myself. If you don't want me to know, I'll respect your privacy."

Tony actually has to laugh at that. "It's sweet of you to think that I have privacy," he says, and then smiles genuinely because yes, you would have to be frozen for half a century to think Tony Stark and privacy weren't mutually exclusive concepts.

"It won't be a problem, if that's what you're worried about," he goes on. "If I didn't know how to play nice with people less inclined to play nice with me, I would be out of several jobs."

"That's not what I'm worried about, Tony, and you know it."

"Do I?" Tony asks, sharp then. "You spent a week on this pitch and this is the best you could come up with? This is the attack plan from the master strategist of a century?"

Steve rolls his eyes. "You're really going out of your way to make this a fight. I'm a friendly, Tony, you've got all that sharpness pointed at the wrong side of the line."

"And where, pray tell, have you found the right side to be?" Tony hisses. (He wants to scream.) "You don't know me— you don't know any of us, and your best plan of attack for that was picking sides, putting us all in a room, telling us to be honest with each other, and what? Just waiting to see what happened?"

He doesn't realize he'd raised his voices until his mouth closes with a snap. The sound of his jaw clicking together causes them both to flinch, and when Tony decides he just can't stand to look at Steve anymore, he stomps back to the entryway of the stairwell, Steve's feet almost clipping the back of his heels. Back inside, surrounded by the warmth of the room and more comforting smells, Tony fails to suppress a shudder, his skin breaking out in goosebumps and shivering. 

Put simply, the reactor doesn't allow for much conservation of heat, very sensitive to conducting the temperature of his surroundings. Near-autumn on a New York roof top isn't brutal, but it's enough to have Tony cursing what's left of his sternum like an old man cursing his joints when it rains. He's almost 22 he's going to be premonating weather patterns soon — that's the real tragedy of it all really. 

An aborted reach from Steve draws his attention again, the man looking like he's going for Tony's arm or shoulder before clearing thinking better of it.

But he doesn't look angry.

Unlike anyone else would've, Steve doesn't rise to the bait. They stand in the entryway for a while, Steve's face pinking as he rubs the back of his neck all aw, shucks and just shrugs, chagrin. "I will admit, I didn't do much outsourcing of information."

And that . . . that's why he's Steve here and now. That's why, as much as Tony wants to pin all of everything to this man, he just make anything stick. If he hadn't gotten the secondhand account of Steve's life growing up, he would've thought the man survived on charm alone for the last half-century. 

He sighs deeply, rubbing at his chest and praying for heat. "Did you do any?"

Steve shrugs again, eyes drawn to the movement. "Natasha didn't have much to say."

"I'd imagine she doesn't," Tony mutters. 

Steve reaches up again, stopping himself, but not before Tony takes a sharp step back.

Steve marinates in that a moment too long, not looking up when he asks, "You two have a history together?"

He can't stop himself, still shivering. "Now who's not one for gossip?"

That seems to set something off with Steve, whose face crumbles into something more recognizable of the Rogers from the Hellicarrier. "It's always circles with you," Steve bites, walking further into the room, grabbing the throw draped at the edge of the couch and tossing it at Tony, who is unprepared and lets it fall to his feet.

The look he receives for that is venomous and tired in turns.

Steve replaces the throw, haggard-looking. "I'm just trying to see if you're okay, Tony."

"I'm fine," he says, reaching down and wrapping the blanket around himself. "Never better."

Steve rubs his face. "You said you were close with Agent— with Phil."

"I didn't say that." Tony squirms, leaning against the entryway a bit more. "I said you could say that."

"Tony. If you were close with Phil, why doesn't Clint know who you are?"

"Coulson was Barton's handler — I would be surprised if Barton knew his first name."

"We're a team," Steve snaps. "We need to be honest with each other."

"Apparently your 'need to be honest' equates to me being off the team," Tony snipes, raising a brow at Steve, almost daring him to contradict. True, the man hadn't seemed as eager as Barton had been to lay his verdict on the table, but he wasn't quick to disagree, from Tony's recollection.

It takes a minute to click. "I never said that. I never even thought that!"

"Then what is it with you and the honesty kick?" 

"You're my— I'm supposed to— I'm your leader," he lands on. "There are things I should know. About you."

Tony raises an eyebrow. "About me?"

"About everyone," Steve stresses, backtracking. "The team. There are things I should know about the people on this team."

"And what do you know about the people on this team?"

Steve seems to consider that a moment. "Not much," he says, honest and disappointed. "I've tried asking but..."

"Two super spies, a man who's spent the last five years living off the grid, and me."

Steve nods. "And you."

"Well, there's Thor," Tony says. "But I'm not entirely sure he's on this plane of existence, let alone taking house calls." 

That gets a laugh out of Steve, and Tony realizes only then how much he'd been counting on hearing it. "Yeah, there is that."

"Might prove to be a bit of an obstacle," Tony continues, and then stops when he realizes something else. "I'm surprised you're still caught up with all this, considering the paperwork."

Steve is lost in a different thought. "Hm?"

"Or did we not settle that dilemma?" Tony asks, genuinely curious. Turns out getting spit out of a black hole several stories down to a Manhatten sidewalk results in minor memory loss. Most of the night after the battle is lost to him, save flashes and the impression of Steve = safe burned into his mind's eye. "If not, this is quite the moral quandry to have you so tied up. The gossip, the personality readings — next you're going to want my astrology chart."

Steve smirks, but his eyes are still distant. "Is there something wrong with getting to know your coworkers?"

Tony shakes his head. "Very pedestrian is all," he says. "Had you pegged for 'ride in on a Harley, collapse underground Nazi organizations, ride out' kind of guy. All this touchy-feely doesn't seem very you." 

And that gets Steve back from wherever he'd been, sharp-eyed and gawking openly now. "And what do you know about me?"

Huh. 

Well. 

"Darling, if you keep asking for Steve stories, I might not have any left to tell you one day."

.   .   . 

"An' Cap died in the ocean?"

"Yes."

.   .   .

"Uncle Obie says that Cap was a hero."

"He was."

.   .   .

Christmases in too-small Brooklyn churches with scuff-marked pews. Sad faces surrounding votive candles and computer monitors. A blur, streaking long and dull throughout his memory, but a constant — Steve — too stubborn to be washed away.

And what do you know about me?

Everything. 

(It's the thought of the suit, after all, that helped get him out of the cave, if nothing else.)

But also—

"Minor blip on the historical radar," Tony lists, half the effort of standing divided into actively suppressing in the internal barrage from his features under Steve's scrutiny. "The dedicated wing at the Smithsonian might not fit your low-key image but they do give stunning reviews."

But also nothing. 

(Mark I is his and Yinsen's victory and his repertoire—every one after that—is his triumph alone, just like everything else.)

Steve, for his eagle eye on Tony, doesn't seem to sense anything is wrong. His features droop and darken.

"That's not me," he says, a touch desperate. "None of that is me. It's just—"

"It's just something you did?" Tony asks, relishing in the relief that washes over Steve's face as he nods. "Yeah, I get that. Look, Cap, I don't want to step on your toes here. I'm not out for a fight, but you can't expect me to just be asking 'how high' every time you tell me 'jump', okay? Last I heard teams are predicated on trust, too, and I don't see so much of that floating my way."

"Tony, I just got here," Steve says, hands raised. "I don't deny I'm out of my depth here too, but if we're going to have problems, I'd rather know about them now rather than when we have guns at our backs again." 

"And my problems with SHIELD," Tony asks. "You think those are your problems now, too? Just because we got picked for the same team for the most high-stakes game of intergallactic dodgeball ever?"

"If it affects the team, then yes," Steve pushes. "It's the easiest of all potential problems to fix. Barton was right. No matter what I think, you are young and—"

"And so, what? That's a problem now?" Tony isn't shouting, but it's a near thing. "I don't remember anyone trying to card me when I stepped in the suit three weeks ago."

And that's another thing, with Tony and memory: once it starts, it tends not to stop.

"Phil came to me, at my home to ask for my help. Nick came to me, years ago. I get that Tony Stark wasn't recommended for job, but the suit and I are one, and if you have a problem with that you can shove it up your star-spangled ass."

He pushes off the wall, chucking the blanket at Rogers, who's just sitting with a dumb fucking look on his face.

"Tony, I—"

"Kick me off if it bothers you so much." He tries (and probably fails) to not sound bitter about that. "It must be up to you. If it were up to SHIELD alone, you wouldn't be here, and I would've been off the team right when I fell back through the portal."

He's halfway out of the room when the sound of Rogers stuttering through another argument stops him. He could feel the man practically combusting behind him, still sat on the couch with his head in his hands. Looking at him now, Tony's torn between sympathy and more rage.

He thinks: a pedestal turning into a cliff-face and then a pulpit in the caves, the metal of Steve's shield shining too brightly in his head to be forgotten when he needed it most.

But then he forces himself: remember.  

"Do me a favor? Next time you try reconnaissance, just Google me. Better yet, don't assume that the guy with the hole in his chest is the easiest target in the room."

He leaves.