Apartment Above Stark Industries

[heroic_jawline]

Steve was back from his normal run and enjoying the air conditioning of their apartment (which he'd turned up a little bit to make himself feel less guilty about being engaged to an engineering genius while everyone else was melting in the heat) and had showered and changed and was now sprawled out on the sofa with his Stark tablet, going through more of the exposed SHIELD files that Natasha had flagged for him in an email titled "Tugging on that Thread."

It was probably a bad idea to be reading the information, but Steve couldn't help himself. He'd been chasing Bucky for years and had gotten exactly nowhere. Maybe what SHIELD, well, Hydra, had on his past would give him some more leads to follow.

[OOC: For that guy! Let's detonate MCU canon today, shall we?]

Comments

[heroic_jawline]

Steve's eyes welled up. "I didn't mean to say that."

[imafuturist]

"I know," Tony said, resting his forehead on Steve's. "I know. I've got you."

[heroic_jawline]

"I like it better when I get to tell you it's okay," Steve muttered.

[imafuturist]

"I'd send you back if I could, but I'm selfish. I'm so selfish to want to keep you," Tony replied, continuing to just hate today.

[heroic_jawline]

"Loki called me the man out of time," Steve said softly. "I don't always want to be here, but I don't want to go back, either. I'm just so...tired. I'm tired of feeling stupid, and pitied, and deliberately misunderstood. And I'm furious that after all the sacrifices we made in the war, Hydra infiltrated everything and the world's an even bigger mess than it was 70 years ago."

He cleared his throat, trying not to just bawl all over Tony. "And I wouldn't let you send me back without you. You're the only thing that makes sense in the last five years."

[imafuturist]

Tony hugged him a little tighter. "I want to fix it all for you, but I know I can't."

[heroic_jawline]

"Oh, I know I'm unfixable," Steve said.

That wasn't what Tony said at all, Steven.

[imafuturist]

"No," Tony said, maybe a little too loud for how close they were. "Not like that. Never like that. It's just--you can't fix people. Believe me, I've tried."

Rhodey sighed at him a lot in college.

[heroic_jawline]

Steve took in a couple of shakier than he liked breaths. "Those awful people who only wanted your money?" he guessed.

[imafuturist]

"Me," Tony admitted. "I was what I thought people wanted."

[heroic_jawline]

Steve looked broken-hearted to hear that. "That fake you that comes out for the press and parties?"

[imafuturist]

"I never want that for you," he insisted. "You're... you're so much more."

[heroic_jawline]

"For one thing, I look close enough to know where you're faking, unlike most of these people," Steve said, judging those other people so, so hard.

[imafuturist]

"I meant I don't want you to do that to yourself in order to live here," Tony said, looking a little exasperated and a lot fond.

[heroic_jawline]

"Oh," Steve said. "I'd tried to stop talking about my stuff."

That was healthy.

[imafuturist]

"I noticed," Tony said, kissing him gently. "I feel wrung out, but... better. I think. Might help you too."

[heroic_jawline]

"I'm afraid if you realize how screwed up I really am, you'll leave," Steve said.

[imafuturist]

"Never," Tony insisted.

[heroic_jawline]

"I don't really know where to start," Steve said softly.

[imafuturist]

"What worries you the most?" Tony asked.

[heroic_jawline]

"The thoughts I have when I let my brain slow down," Steve murmured.

[imafuturist]

"What do they say?" Because Tony was going to argue with them a lot.

[heroic_jawline]

"That I'm never going to fit in anywhere," Steve said. "That I'm both too old and too young to be taken seriously. That people only like me for Captain America and can take or leave Steve Rogers."

[imafuturist]

Tony made an upset little noise, resting his forehead against Steve's. "Oh, sweetheart. Anyone who can't see you for you is an idiot."

[heroic_jawline]

"I've run into a lot of idiots, then," Steve said. "I should've seen Rumlow for what he was a long time before I did. I was just so desperate for friends--"