This is a commission for ishipallthings, who wanted a continuation of this stevetony soulmates!au where soulmates share dreams before they meet. This rolls in at 10k.
(read on a03)
-
Tony watches Steve on and off the entire ride back to Stark Tower.
This is partly because of his near-constant need to double-check Steve is really, truly sitting beside him and partly because if Tony’s in shock, then Steve must be in some next level shit, mind-wise.
Seventy years. Even with the bonus of being united with a soulmate who he’d never thought he’d get to meet, the sheer immensity of being unconscious for seventy years must have Steve repressing all kinds of grief.
Beside Tony, Steve stares out the car window at New York and at Tony intermittently. He’ll look out into the city, but ten seconds never passed without Steve’s gaze being pulled back to Tony. Tony supposes he has the same itch to check, the disbelief that creeped back every second they didn’t have eyes on each other.
Tony thinks briefly of Eurydice and Orpheus- Orpheus promising to guide his love back to the land of the living on the one condition that he wouldn’t look back at her until they set foot on Earth. But moments before they were to exit the underworld, Orpheus had felt a nagging doubt that Eurydice was behind him at all, and chanced a look. One glance was all it took- the last he ever saw of his love was her mouth opening around a scream or maybe his name as she was dragged back beyond his reach, forever this time.
Tony closes his eyes. Shut up. Things are fine now. We won’t- it’s-
He can’t come up with anything to finish the sentence. He doesn’t know what the hell to do with the possibility of a happy ending. He’s spent most of his life thinking of Steve as an impossibility, and now-
When he opens his eyes again, Steve is staring at him. His thumb rubs absently across the back of Tony’s hand. They’ve been holding hands ever since they got in the backseat.
Tony squeezes his hand, trying for a reassuring smile. “Have things changed much?”
Steve’s gaze goes to the window again. “Everything’s, uh. Bigger. And brighter.”
“Welcome to the 21st century,” Tony says.
Steve’s smile is flimsy, but his grip on Tony’s hand is solid.
Tony watches Steve crane his head up at the skyscrapers. He gets it now, why Steve always wished that this body would carry over to the dreams. It’s the kind of body that attracts stares, the kind that people strive towards, the kind that magazines advertise after hours of photoshopping the abs to the correct density.
He has no doubt that Steve is healthier in this body, but Tony still finds that a part of himself misses the small, scrawny man he fell in love with.
When Steve asks how he can find out more about the events of the last seventy years, Tony ends up giving a brief explanation about the internet.
“You can find almost everything on there,” Tony says. “Well, maybe not the kind of things you want to know about, but you can probably find out basic information, at least, about events and, uh, people you want to know about. If you wanted. Some of them are classified, but I can get them for you if you let me know what you want.”
When Tony is finished, Steve asks, “How long do I have to get caught up?”
Tony blinks. “What?”
Steve looks over at him. “From what you told me, we’re never out of threats. And I don’t expect that Captain America will be allowed to sit back and…”
He stops. Looks at Tony like he’s seeing him for the first time again, taking him in. Then he gets that practiced, almost flat expression that means he’s shoving things down to process them later, or most likely never. “They’ll want me back on active duty.”
“Do you want to retire?”
“Retire?” Steve’s eyebrows raise. “No, I- no. I’m always going to fight.”
He’s stopped rubbing a circle into Tony’s hand. Tony doesn’t think either of them are too practiced at this hand-holding thing.
Tony tries, “They’ll let you take time off. There’s never been a case like yours, but I doubt they-”
“Wouldn’t they?”
Tony takes in the dry, nearly cynical look on Steve’s face. Perhaps the unfaltering trust in the government that was always portrayed in Captain America comics didn’t follow the true narrative.
“We’d make them let you,” Tony says.
“Yeah.” Steve’s gaze falls to their joined hands. His thumb resumes rubbing, like an afterthought. “I. I probably won’t need too much time. It’s a lot to process, but-”
“Jesus, Steve. A lot to process?”
“I can still fight,” Steve says. “If they need me.”
He sounds stubborn and hollow. Tony squeezes his hand hard enough that Steve meets his eyes.
“They’ll give you time to… get used to things,” Tony says.
Steve nods slowly. His free hand raises like it’s going to touch Tony’s face, but he hesitates and drops the hand before it gets there. “I’m sorry. I know I should be- I am happy we finally get to see each other. I never- I never thought-”
“Me neither,” Tony tells him before Steve’s voice can be overtaken by the cracks that had started to appear. “Hey, it’s fine. We have time. Right now you just- you have other things to deal with.”
Steve nods again. “We have time,” he echoes, and it sounds too good to be true, even to Tony.
-
Tony is introducing Steve to JARVIS when he realizes he hasn’t thought of where Steve is going to stay. When he had left for SHIELD to see Steve, it was with a hazy head that was still wondering whether Fury was playing some cruel practical joke.
“Uh,” Tony says when he tunes back in. Steve’s staring at him expectantly, since Tony has just trailed off in the middle of a jibe directed at JARVIS.
Tony clears his throat. “Right. What was I saying? Something hilarious and witty, I expect.”
“Something like that,” Steve says.
Tony hesitates. “Okay. Right. Uh, would you like a tour?”
Steve spares a look around. “From what this place looked like coming in, I’d think that would take a week.”
“I’d just be showing you the important bits. JARVIS can tell you about the rest.”
Steve’s shoulder twitches like he wants to shift it backwards, but knows that Tony will recognize his nervous tic. “Could I see your workshop? I’d like to see the real thing instead of the place your mind made up for us.”
In the parts of Tony’s chest that aren’t occupied by metal, an ache sets in and throbs. Unlike the usual aches in his chest, this is almost pleasant- here’s Steve, standing close enough to touch, the both of them wide awake.
Tony’s mouth opens, but he can’t force it into words: the mounting love he has for this man; the chest-wracking throb at the continual realization that he can have the thing he was convinced was impossible for most of his life.
I can’t believe I might get to have this, is what comes closest to the feeling.
Steve says his name and Tony clears his throat.
“Yeah, no, great.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Follow me.”
Steve sends him a questioning look that borders on understanding, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead he examines the surroundings and Tony as they descend down to the workshop.
Tony doesn’t realize he’s nervous about Steve’s response until he notices he’s tapping binary code into his own arm. He makes himself stop and pretends not to watch Steve turn in a slow circle, taking it all in.
“It’s different in real life,” Steve says finally. He’s smiling like he’s seeing an old friend. Tony’s never seen that look directed at a cluttered workbench.
Steve’s gaze falls on the rows of suits tucked away behind glass. He points towards the current suit, which is in mid-repair across the other side of the workshop. “Is that-”
“Yeah.”
Steve walks over, Tony at his heels. The amour is mostly intact except for the chestplate and several pieces of the torso.
“Careful,” Tony warns as Steve reaches out. “When it’s not put together, you can slice your fingers off on some of the edges.”
Steve glances back at him before laying his hand across one of the shoulders, feeling gently at the joints. He skates his hand up the neck, runs a thumb over the cheek of the faceplate.
“It’s very stealthy,” he says finally.
Tony barks a laugh. “Yeah, stealth isn’t really my deal.”
“I noticed,” Steve says, and stands back, looking around the workshop again.
Tony is jittery. He has to stop himself from rocking onto the balls of his feet- Rhodey, Obie and Pepper are the only other people he’s allowed in here until now. Watching Steve walk around and touch things is a little like giving Steve a key to the inner parts of Tony and letting him root around.
“My meetings are cancelled today,” Tony says. When Steve looks over at him, Tony tries for a confidence he doesn’t feel. “So I’m all yours. If you want. I mean-”
He wonders if it’d be better or worse if Steve said something. “This is a lot to take in,” Tony says. “You need time to adjust, I can leave you alone if you want.”
It gets an immediate reaction. Steve’s face flickers, and he’s closing the distance between them in seconds. He stops before he gets close enough to kiss. “Tony. I’m… honestly, in a hell of a lot of shock and I’m definitely going to need some time by myself to get my head on straight.”
Tony nods. He opens his mouth to tell him he’ll be around if Steve needs him, but Steve barrels onwards.
“But right now the last thing I want to do is be away from you. I’ve spent too much time away from you.”
Tony’s throat is suddenly dry. He swallows over it. “Okay, then,” he says.
He thinks he should ask Steve where he wants to stay. Or offer him food. Or try to ease him into things somehow.
But Steve bends and kisses him, and they’ve kissed before but never outside of a hopeless dream of two people set apart by over fifty years. Reality keeps suckerpunching Tony over and over, and each time it sends him reeling: He’s here, he’s really here, I could- we could-
Steve’s fingers are white-knuckled in Tony’s shirt. Tony covers them with his own hands before reaching to grab Steve’s collar. Neither of them can do anything but clutch, and Tony thinks Steve is just as reluctant to let him go, terrified that Tony will somehow vanish if he’s not touching him, that they’ll both wake up alone again.
Steve makes a helpless noise into his mouth. He doesn’t sound like a solider now. He sounds like a man grabbing onto a lifeboat in a storm, like everything is crashing around him and Tony is the only safe thing in reach.
Tony thinks I can be a lifeboat. Thinks he was never with anyone else because of me. Then his thoughts melt into disjointed patterns, more feelings than coherent words, grief and desperation and the love that he’s buried for decades.
Steve says his name, says “I can’t believe-”
Tony doesn’t know what he did to deserve any of it. He’s mumbling against Steve’s mouth, tugging at his clothes. “C’mon, shit, never thought we’d ever get any of this- let me-”
“Yeah,” Steve says, hoarse. “Yes, Tony, Christ-”
He keeps blinking, like he thinks Tony is going to dissolve into nothing in front of him. His eyes stay on Tony even as they trip their way over to the cot in the corner of the workshop, shedding clothes as they go.
-
The lights are low in the workshop, but Tony assumes it’s still afternoon when he pulls himself out of his doze.
There’s a weight against his front and a pair of arms holding him close so he won’t fall off the cot. Tony is turning his face towards it before he even knows why it feels to urgent to do so.
Oh, Tony thinks as Steve comes into view. They’re close enough that their noses are now brushing. The only clothing in view is the shirt that’s pillowed under Steve’s head.
“Hi,” Steve says softly. His smile is just as soft and relieved.
It’s a relief that Tony mirrors. “Neither of us disappeared,” he says.
Steve nods. Their noses collide gently with the motion.
“I could get used to this,” Tony continues. “This whole sticking around thing.”
“Yeah,” Steve says. He grins. “I’m liking it.”
Tony shifts in his arms so his front is facing inwards. Steve’s hands press into the line of his spine and he hooks a leg over Tony’s.
Tony has never been one for staying after sex, but he lies there with Steve for several minutes listening to the man breathe. His eyes are closed, but he thinks Steve might be watching him. Tony can’t blame him- he can’t help checking every once in a while.
He listens as Steve takes a breath like he’s about to talk. Tony prepares for something like so what happens now, to which he has no clue how to respond.
“You mentioned a tour,” is what Steve says instead.
“I did,” Tony says. He nudges for Steve to release him so he can get up and find his boxers, which are lying a few feet away tangled in his crumpled slacks. He pulls both of them on, and is turning to find his shirt when he gets distracted by the sight of Steve bending over to find his own clothes.
Tony takes a moment to admire the view, then says, “You could walk around just like that, y’know. No-one’s on this floor but us.”
Steve gives him a look and finishes pulling his pants over his briefs. “I’m not taking anything back off, but I won’t wear a shirt if you won’t.”
“Ah.” Tony reaches reflexively for the arc reactor before halting his hand in mid-motion. He thinks about saying something along the lines of like what you see, but doesn’t get around to it. Steve comes up and meets his eyes, checking it’s okay before placing a big hand over the reactor.
“It was different in the dreams.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, trying not to concentrate on how Steve’s hand is now big enough to cover the circumference of it. “I upgraded since then.”
Steve’s thumb strokes along the curve of it. Tony watches the slow drag and clears his throat.
“Hey, about it just being us.”
“JARVIS is filming.”
“…Yeah. He blacks out anything too, ah, racy, though. But no, I was actually talking about the Avengers.”
Steve lets his hand drop. “The team that-”
“-might be getting put together, yeah.” Tony crosses his arms. “Uh. It’s been on standby for a few months. Partly because we’re still chasing down members.”
“And the other part?”
We don’t have a leader. Tony doesn’t say it. He knows what Steve will assume, what SHIELD is going to assume, and he doesn’t want to put that on Steve’s shoulders right now. It hasn’t even been a day.
“If the Avengers do end up… happening, I’ve offered to make Stark Tower a home base. They’d live here. Just letting you know.”
Steve nods. Even though Tony hadn’t said it, he’s sure Steve’s thinking it- they’ll want Steve to be on the team.
Tony continues, “But it’s- it’s a big tower. There are fuck knows how many bedrooms for them to pick. And, and you. If you’re picking one.”
He’s meaning to give Steve the space he obviously needs, the space he’d claimed to need, but for a moment Tony thinks he’s said the wrong thing- Steve’s eyebrows raise and his face goes impassive. But then he says, “Sure,” and a hand reaches out absently to circle Tony’s wrist.
He does this as Tony shows him around the Tower: casual, constant touches. Tony is still wondering if he should take the offer back when Steve picks a room several doors down from his own- maybe he should have done it wordlessly, taken Steve back to his own room and be done with it.
“We’ll buy you things tomorrow,” Tony says, chest twanging as he watches Steve look around the empty bedroom. Does Steve have anything? He shouldn’t- his belongings are in museums or in SHIELD garages, moth-eaten with age. The only thing he owns are the clothes they dressed him in.
“JARVIS is there if you have any questions,” Tony says. “Or, well, me. I’m also here. Right down the hall. Ten seconds away, if you want to see me.”
Steve opens his mouth to respond, but his stomach growls loud enough to cut him off.
Steve makes a face when Tony laughs.
“Sorry, sorry.” Tony waves it away. “You hungry? We- I don’t actually think we have food. But we can order in.”
He perks up as it strikes him. “Fuck, there’s so much food you need to try. I’m getting us the classiest takeout in New York. You eat a lot with that metabolism, right? I’m getting us everything.”
He takes Steve out into the lounge for the following call, and they end up eating a little bit of everything from around the world half an hour later.
-
-
The next day, Tony is in the middle of trying to talk Steve into expensive art supplies for the studio Tony’s decides he’s going to get when JARVIS announces, “Director Fury is requesting entrance to the Tower, Sir.”
Steve doesn’t tense up for a fight, like he had done the first two times JARVIS had spoken out of nowhere. Steve says, “The Director of SHIELD?”
“’S the one,” Tony says, then pauses. “Did I-”
“Uh, no. I looked through some things last night with that phone you gave me. You sent me over those files-”
“Right,” Tony says, standing. He stretches, feeling his joints pop. Shit, he’s getting old. “You don’t have to go through them all right this minute.”
There’s a pause and Tony looks down at Steve, who is sitting on the couch they had spent time on yesterday. He grins when he catches how Steve had been eyeing the patch of skin that had been exposed when Tony stretched- apparently he’s not too old to be appreciated for the finer things.
“I like to be prepared,” Steve says, eyes determinedly going up to Tony’s face, pretending like Tony hadn’t just caught him in the middle of ogling him. His expression stays clear, but the tips of his ears go red as Tony continues to grin at him.
“Shuddup,” Steve says, prompting Tony into a bark of laughter.
“I can send him away,” Tony tells him after the laughter has died down.
Steve shakes his head. “JARVIS?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“What does Fury want?”
Silence for several seconds. Then JARVIS says, “Officially, nothing. Unofficially, there has been a new development in the Avengers.”
Tony straightens. “Yeah, J?”
“I believe so. Also, I believe the Director wishes to see how our Captain is acclimatizing.”
“It’s been a day,” Tony says. He rolls his eyes. “Send him up, J,” he says, and then starts towards the kitchen. “Do you think Fury will want leftover Chinese? ‘Cause I’m grabbing some. Want one?”
“Sure, thanks.”
Tony nods and heads for the fridge. There are only two cartons left- Steve’s appetite last night had been impressive, even for a superhuman. Tony considers sticking them in the microwave but ends up walking back to the lounge and handing one to Steve cold.
“Thanks,” Steve says, nodding when Tony hands him a plastic fork to go with it.
Tony’s heaping fried meat onto his own fork when the elevator doors slide open and Fury strides into the lounge.
His face is impassive as he takes in the sight of Tony leaning against the arm of the couch eating takeout sloppily, then Steve sitting on said couch forking rice into his mouth.
Fury nods at them both, but only says, “Captain. How are you finding the 21st century?”
“So far, it’s fine,” Steve tells him. “But to be fair, I haven’t seen much of it.”
Tony sniggers. It gets Fury looking at him, at least. “JARVIS mentioned-”
“You know much about Thor?”
Tony has to take a minute to catch up to the sudden divergence in the conversation. “Uh, the Norse god of… thunder? No, not much. Steve, know much about the Norse god of thunder?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Well, there you go,” Tony says. “Sorry, Nick. What, did he show up or something?”
Fury’s mouth quirks. “As a matter of fact, Stark, he did.”
Tony waits for the punchline. When it doesn’t come, he clears his throat. “Are you going to explain that one or are we just going to stare at each other?”
“A being that we’ve confirmed isn’t human has recently come to our attention. From what we know, he comes from another dimension, is immortal and can summon thunder with his big magic hammer. Also he calls himself Thor.”
“Is that a euphemism?” Tony shakes his head. “No, nevermind. We have a Thor now? When did this happen? Is he for real?”
“As far as we can tell, definitely.”
Tony processes it. Okay. God from another dimension. His life just keeps getting weirder. “And you- what, you want him in the boy band?”
“Hardly a boy band.”
“Right, no, yeah, we’d have one whole girl.” Tony realizes he’s rubbing at the part of his neck where Natasha stabbed him with the needle and makes his hand drop back to the fork.
Fury’s gaze follow the hand. Tony resists the urge to flip him off with it.
Fury says, “We’re holding a meeting tomorrow with the potential team members. A chance for everyone to meet face to face and finalize things that need finalizing.”
“Uh-huh.” Tony sticks a piece of fried beef into his mouth and chews, feigning disinterest. “I’ll consider tagging along.”
“I’m so relieved,” Fury deadpans. Then, “Captain Rogers.”
“Sir.”
“Could I discuss something with you? Alone?”
Steve sets his empty carton on the coffee table, his plastic fork resting inside of the container. There’s not a crumb or spot of sauce on his clothes. “Depends what you want to talk about, Sir.”
Tony can’t stop the proud smile that spreads across his face. He cocks his head at Fury smugly as the man raises an eyebrow.
“You’re different in the comics,” Fury says, and Tony bites back a laugh.
“So they tell me,” Steve says, and stands. His shoulders come back, and Tony thinks back to reading those comics as a child, huddled under his covers with a torch. “What were you wanting to talk to me about, Sir?”
“Same thing I wanted to talk to Tony about.”
“Thor?”
“The Avengers.”
Tony’s smile fades and sets into a tight line. “Really, Nick? It’s literally been a day. One whole day.”
“It’s just a talk, Stark.”
“It’s never just a talk with you.”
He startles when a hand touches his arm. He looks over to see Steve touching his elbow.
“It’s fine,” Steve assures him. Then, to Fury, “You want me to join.”
Fury glances at Tony. “I think it’s in everyone’s best interests.”
Steve folds his arms. “Mm. Can hardly have a perfectly good weapon sitting around gathering dust.”
“The Avengers will need a leader.”
“And you think I’m the one to lead them?”
“I do.”
“You basing that off what you read in those comics, or have you actually read my mission reports?”
Fury smiles. “Both,” he says. “Come to the meeting tomorrow, Captain.”
Steve’s folded arms flex. He looks tired, even though Tony checked and JARVIS said he got a good 8 hours sleep last night. Maybe supersoliders need more sleep than regular humans?
“I’ll consider it,” Steve says.
“Good enough for me,” Fury says.
Tony assumes he’s going to turn around and walk out with that ridiculously cape-ish coat flapping behind him, and for a moment it look like he’s going to do just that.
But then his face flickers, just the slightest amount, before sliding back into its usual amount of impossible-to-read. “Glad you two finally found each other.”
“Uh,” Tony says after his brain has run that over a few times and has concluded that yes, Fury did actually say it. “Thank… you?”
Fury looks amused by Tony’s floundering. He even huffs a laugh as he gets back in the elevator. “It’s nine-o-clock tomorrow,” he says as he steps in.
“Great. We’ll be there at ten.”
Fury ignores him. “See you at nine.”
The elevator doors close.
Tony swears.
Steve hums in agreement. Then he adds, “He seems nice.”
Tony swears again. “You don’t have to go.”
“I know.”
Tony eyes him. He slides over so he’s sitting on the couch rather than perching on the arm. His knee skims Steve’s. “You’re going.”
Steve doesn’t answer. Instead he says, “Are you going to finish that,” pointing at Tony’s half-empty carton.
Tony gives it to him wordlessly. Steve thanks him and then pauses and kisses his cheek, like an afterthought.
It’s not stiff, but it’s something neither of them are used to. Tony thinks he’s just doing it to prove to them both that Steve is there to kiss Tony’s cheek and Tony’s cheek is there to be kissed; that they’re able to be a Real Life Couple now.
No matter the intention, Tony’s cheek stays warm for minutes afterwards.
-
Apart from Thor, Tony has read a file on everyone in the room he walks into at ten past 9 the next day.
From the sounds of it, he’s interrupted a conversation between Clint and Fury, both of whom look up when Tony and Steve enter.
“Now we can get into the details,” Fury tells Clint, who slouches back in his seat.
There are two seats free, Steve sits down before Tony can subtly steer him into sitting in the one closest to Natasha, which means he’s stuck wedged between Steve and Natasha.
She nods in greeting.
He eyes her warily, but cover it with bluster. “How’s the man-eating business going, Widow?”
“Booming.” She smiles and it’s almost, but not quite, friendly. What is it with super-spies trying to be nice to him lately?
He examines the rest of the table’s occupants. They’ve even got Banner- god knows how they did that. He looks nervous as all hell, picking his sleeves to pieces.
Tony assumes the blonde guy in the cape is Thor, because he’s seen everyone else’s picture in a file and who the hell else would be in that get-up? Not to mention that his muscles have muscles. He’d give Steve a run for his money.
Fury begins in on the speech that Tony’s heard before- heroes needed, threats are imminent, forming a team unlike the world has ever seen, blah blah blah.
“Stark has offered up his Tower as a homebase.”
“Graciously,” Tony says.
Fury looks like he wants to sigh but is holding it in. “Graciously offering up his Tower,” he says flatly, “as a homebase. We’re all incredibly grateful.”
If his tone gets any drier, he’s not going to be able to speak over that desert-throat.
“Wait,” says Clint. He holds up his hands. “We gotta live there?”
“Are you honestly complaining about getting to live in a billionaire’s Tower,” Natasha asks.
Clint makes a face at her. “Nah, but- I mean, I need my space. I don’t want it covered in a bunch of strangers.”
“The point of living together is to make sure you’re not strangers,” Fury says. “To get you all familiar with each other’s methods, how you fight, how you operate, how to best integrate everyone’s methods together. You can’t do that if you just answer a call whenever there’s trouble.”
Thor speaks up. “And just what kind of trouble will we be facing?”
Fury eyeballs him. “In answer to your question, yes, you will most likely get sent to contain Loki when he surfaces. Other than that, there has been a spike in threats from organizations and people with enhanced technology. There’s-”
“Is it gonna be public or is this an underground kind of deal?”
Fury says, “Right now, we’re focusing on the threats.”
“Fine.” Clint leans back in his chair far enough that Tony watches the back legs, waiting for it to topple. “Do we get aliases?”
“Yes.”
“Do we get secret identities? Do we get costumes? Iron Man gets a costume. Widow gets-”
“Those are both required for the job.”
Tony says, “And they’re not costumes.”
“Yeah, but-” Clint leans forwards. “C’mon, Fury, level with me. Are we doing the whole superhero deal? ‘Cause it’s looking like it. I mean, look at this guy.”
He waves over at Thor, who, admittedly, looks like a very good cosplay at Comic Con. “Like, are we gonna be an X-men kind of deal? I gotta know if we’re going Captain America on everyone’s ass, ‘cause if so, I have a lot of ideas about costumes.”
Fury’s mouth twitches. “I’ll be sure to send over a costume designer later to get those ideas in length, Barton. And thank you for bringing up Captain America. I was just about to introduce everyone.”
He goes through the table- Tony Stark, codename Iron Man, as you might already know. His abilities are etc etc, before finally stopping at Steve.
“Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America. He has super-strength and advanced healing, and he’s going to be leading this team.”
Thor looks blank, but everyone else has varying levels of recognition.
Bruce speaks up for the first time. “Is SHIELD getting their inspiration from old comics now?”
Clint is busy tilting his head at Steve, squinting. “Huh. Couldn’t have picked a better dude. He really-”
Fury cuts him off. “The Captain America comics were based off of an undercover agent. This is him.”
A short silence falls over the table.
“You… look good for a ninety year old,” Clint says slowly, then turns to Fury. “You really expect us to believe that this is Cap? That he’s real and apparently immortal?”
“Not immortal,” Fury says, and this time it’s Steve who speaks.
“I’ve been unconscious since the 40s.”
Natasha tries to make eye contact with Tony, asking a silent question. Tony ignores her.
Bruce says, “Uh-huh.”
“For real,” Clint says. He laughs, incredulous, and then when Fury doesn’t, he says, “Wait, for real? What the fuck?”
“I’m sure you’ll all have a time to trade stories when you move into the Tower,” Fury says.
Clint throws up his hands. “We’re waking up previously-fictional supersoldiers from seventy-year comas now? And he’s leading our team?”
Natasha says, “Clint, across from you is a man who turns green and triples in size when he gets mad. Rogers is by far the strangest person in here. There’s a god four seats away.”
“Still not buying that,” Clint says, to Thor’s apparent amusement. “And we’re all just, what, gonna go live together? That sounds like a fucked up sitcom.”
“Noted,” Fury says. “You all have a week to move into Stark Tower.”
One down, Tony thinks, feeling Steve’s leg press into his own.
-
Bruce arrives first. Tony lasts a good ten seconds of showing him around before he says, “Wow, you really don’t want to be here.”
Bruce stiffens, if it’s possible to get any stiffer. “I’m better off with my head down. Out of the way. Somewhere less stressful.”
“Because Calcutta is the prime destination for holiday spas.”
Bruce’s gaze flicks up to his. His eyes are resigned.
“Sorry,” Tony tries. “Uh. I’m a big fan of your work, it’s unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster.”
Bruce still looks wary. He stares at him. “…Thanks. Where’s my room?”
“Oh, take your pick. It’s just me and Steve right now and JARVIS will let you know if you try to pick one of ours.” Not that Steve’s been spending much time in his own room- he’s slept in Tony’s every night so far, and Tony isn’t complaining.
Bruce hoists his bag further up his shoulder. It’s small. Tony wonders if that’s all Bruce has. “He didn’t waste time.”
“He’s been living here since he woke up.”
“How long’s that?”
“About four days now.”
Bruce’s eyebrows raise. He hesitates, then says, “Um. Okay.”
“He’s a good fit,” Tony tries. “He’s- he’ll be a good leader. He’s adjusting well.”
Bruce nods dubiously. “I’ll just go pick a room.”
“Great. You do that.”
Tony steps back and wonders if he’s making a mistake. He’s never been a team player, but then again, he never got asked to participate anyway.
-
Awkward is not a word Tony would think would describe a bunch of wannabe superheroes attempting to live together, but somehow it’s the only word he can come up with when he reflects on their new living situations.
The only ones comfortable around each other seem to be the people who knew each other before moving in- not counting Natasha and Tony. Natasha keeps making attempts of friendship towards him, or something akin to friendship that Tony assumes is due to their forced cohabitation. In turn, he responds with cold civility, and cold no-so-civility when he’s in a bad mood.
“We keep to ourselves,” Tony tells Rhodey and Pepper when they meet in Pepper’s office. “Clint’s taken over the shooting range and the others mostly stay in their rooms when they aren’t working out. The most we talk is when we run into each other in the gym, but I feel like we should be talking when we aren’t trying to deck each other.”
Rhodey asks, “You’re fighting superhumans?”
“Some of them are regular humans.” And they can still kick my ass, Tony thinks. He rubs at a Clint-induced bruise on his hipbone.
He leans back in his chair and skims over the papers he needs to read by tomorrow. This isn’t all pleasure, there’s business, too- it’s half catching up and half working out what they’re going to do now that Pepper’s CEO. Rhodey’s only here because he’s been stationed overseas for the past several months and they’re all so busy they’d never have time to see each other otherwise.
Pepper continues looking from them to her laptop, which is full of emails she has to reply to. Her fingers blur over the keyboard as she says, “It happens with all new roommates. It’ll take a while to settle- oh, come on, really?”
She sighs at the screen in defeat, but then her fingers resume clicking across the keyboard. “Nothing important,” she says to Tony’s questioning look. “Speaking of important, how’s your soulmate?”
Rhodey looks at him along with Pepper. They’ve both been snippy- understanding, but snippy- that it’s been over a week and Tony hasn’t given them anything after the impromptu ‘hey turns out my soulmate has been unconscious for decades and just woke up and now he’s coming to live with me’ text Tony had sent last week.
“He’s fine,” Tony says.
Pepper takes her eyes away from the laptop to shoot him a glare before going back to her emails. She’s more snippy than Rhodey, as Tony’s follow-up text had said ‘my darling my dove my saving grace I need my meetings cancelled today and I’m really sorry I didn’t come to any yesterday I was waiting for him to wake up I’ll buy you a million shoes thanks Pep.’
“Fine,” Rhodey repeats. He steeples his fingers. “Gonna need more than that, Tones. All you ever told us about him was his name and that he was over fifty years behind us in time. Which still sounds insane, by the way.”
“Yeah, well, I now have living proof I’m not crazy.” Tony coughs into his fist. “Uh, you guys watched those Captain America cartoons growing up, right? Or read the comics?”
“No,” they chorus in unison.
“But you know of him.”
They both nod.
“Okay. Well, Cap’s based off of Steve, an undercover agent in the 40s. Media back then decided to use his shtick to hype up the masses about America. Steve’s got the whole Cap deal except he got his abilities in a different way than the comics said. He drove a plane into the Atlantic in the 40s and they only found him last week. He was frozen for seventy years.”
Pepper stares at him. “Was he awake?”
“What? No, he was unconscious. It was like cryo.” Tony doesn’t want to think about how messed up Steve would be if he was awake that whole time.
“How,” Rhodey starts, and then his mouth moves in nonsense, silent words. He tries again. “Okay. That’s- okay, fine. That happened.”
“Are you allowed to be telling us this,” Pepper asks.
Tony considers. “Probably not.”
“Great.” Pepper sighs and pauses on her keyboard. “That must’ve been a shock for both of you.”
Tony laughs bitterly. “Oh, yeah.”
“How are you guys handling it?”
“Steve’s… handling it. He adapts quickly, but it’s a lot to get your head around.”
Pepper nods. “And you?”
“Me what?”
“How are you handling it?”
Tony blinks. “I’m fine. I’m great,” he corrects. “I have my soulmate. Never thought that would happen.”
Rhodey and Pepper trade a look. Tony grits his teeth. That never means anything good. Or, it can, but it’s never anything Tony likes.
“It’s fine,” Tony says. “I mean, we’re both a little- we’re confused, and neither of us know how to- how to do this whole relationship thing. We’ve never been able to spend more than a few hours together at a time, so being able to have longer is… weird. Good weird, though. He’s-”
Tony stops, looking down at his hands. They’re twisted together in his lap. He untangles them and says, “I never thought we could have this. I never let myself imagine it.”
When he looks up, both his friends’ gazes are soft. Tony clears his throat. “Uh, so that’s good. That we have that now.”
Pepper had paused in her email-typing before he stopped talking. She’s smiling at him like he just read her a poem he composed in her honour.
“What,” Tony says.
Rhodey reaches out and grips his shoulder lightly. “We’re really happy for you, Tones.”
“Thanks,” Tony says. “I am, too. Happy. Feels weird,” he admits.
That earns him another pair of looks, but Tony rolls with it.
-
Steve calls the first- well, technically the second- team meeting not long after Tony gets home.
“We need to do more than spar with each other a few times a week,” Steve announces to the team, who are crowded around the kitchen table. “While sparring is good to learn how to work together, we need to learn how to co-operate off the battlefield.”
Clint raises his hand. “So you’re forcing us to hang out?”
Steve doesn’t even pause. “Yes. I thought we could start by making dinner.”
“What, all of us?”
“Yes,” Steve repeats. “Anyone want to vote on what we should make? Keep in mind what we have stocked.”
It ends up being a tie between lasagna and pizza. They end up making both- half of the pizza is vegetarian, on Bruce’s request. The other half is loaded with enough pepperoni it sags when people pick it up.
It’s a strange experience, to say the least. But not a bad one.
Firstly, Steve has no idea how to make lasagna or pizza and spends most of the time chopping vegetables along with Clint and Tony, both of whom can’t cook anything that requires more than a microwave or a toaster.
Thor is on dough duty, because apparently they’re doing it all from scratch when Tony has some perfectly good frozen pizza bases in the freezer. Probably. He hasn’t checked in a while. How the hell does Thor know how to make dough, anyway? What do they eat in his dimension?
“When were these invented,” Tony muses aloud as he watches Bruce slide the lasagna into the oven.
“Lasagna is the oldest type of pasta,” Natasha says, and Tony turns to see her Googling it on her phone. After a few seconds, she relays, “Pizza was invented in the 1800s.”
Steve looks vaguely bewildered by all the spices Bruce offers to get out of the cupboard. But when he’s asked, he says it has to be better than having everything plain, even though he sounds dubious about it.
Bruce, surprisingly, takes charge the most. He does it cautiously, and only because he’s the one with the most cooking experience next to Natasha, who mostly has experience with dishes that Tony can’t pronounce.
The pizza goes in later, and they take out the lasagna and start in on it as they wait for the pizza to cook.
“You can pick around the mince,” Thor offers, tilting his plate towards Bruce, who shakes his head.
Steve polishes his off neatly, but as fast as someone would expect a man with enhanced metabolism to eat. He rises to wash his plate- Steve isn’t a guy who lets his dishes sit next to the sink, he does them himself even though they have a damn dishwasher- then sits back down next to Tony.
Tony pauses. He gestures towards Steve’s face, near the left of his chin. “You have some sauce.”
Steve swipes at it.
Tony gestures again. “Still there.”
Steve tries again and Tony sighs. “Come here,” he says, and rubs his palm briefly against Steve’s skin, then rubbing his hand on his jeans.
When Tony goes back to his food, he notices he’s suddenly under several pairs of eyes. “What,” he says, and then replays the last few seconds and realizes how that must’ve looked. Well.
“You two get along better than I’d have thought,” Natasha tells them.
Tony shrugs, glancing over at Steve. Are we keeping this a secret? Should we?
Steve says, “We’ve known each other for a while,” and Tony assumes they’re not.
Clint- thankfully- swallows his mouthful before saying, “Thought you’d only been awake for two weeks, Cap.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, looking over at Tony, who nods minutely. Steve turns back towards Clint. “Before that, though, we spent a lot of time together during dreams.”
The whole table stills apart from Thor, who continues eating, slowing down when he notices how his teammates are staring.
Thor is the one to break the silence. “Ah, they are soulmates? Is that not the term for the dream-bond-”
“How did that even work,” Clint bursts out.
Tony shrugs, feigning nonchalance. “We met at the same ages in our dreams up until our twenties. Then Steve got to have a surplus of dreams while I had one every year or so. It evened out.”
“But-” Clint struggles and comes up with nothing.
Bruce adjusts his glasses. He has his scientist gaze on. “I’ve never heard of a case where two soulmates were separated by more than thirty years, let alone the amount of time you two were apart by.”
“Yes.” Tony swallows. “Well. Yeah.”
“That must have been difficult,” Natasha says.
Tony looks at her. She seems sincere, which only confuses him more.
“Uh. Yeah, I guess.” Tony goes back to his food, staring at the plate instead of how everyone’s looking at them.
He startles when he feels Steve’s hand on his back. He looks over, but Steve’s eyes are on his plate as he continues to eat with his free hand.
“It worked out okay,” Steve says.
Tony bites down on his smile so it doesn’t get too soppy in front of his teammates. “Yeah, you got here eventually.”
Steve sends him a soft, small smile before taking his hand off of Tony’s back. His knee bumps Tony’s under the table and stays there.
-
Natasha finds him one day when he’s on his tablet in the lounge. They’ve been making an effort to spend a few hours of most days in a communal area, so even if they don’t actively hang out they’ll spend some sort of time together.
She sits down next to him. There’s a careful amount of space between them. “I’ve never heard of a soulmate situation as odd as yours.”
“We’re truly out of a Lifetime movie,” Tony says, distracted. He brings up a mini-version of a blueprint and starts tweaking at the notes he’d left around it.
Natasha is silent for a few seconds. Tony glances over and sees she hasn’t brought a book and isn’t turning on the TV.
“My situation could rival yours in oddness.”
Tony pauses. He glances over again. Natasha is sitting with her back straight, perches almost on the edge, hands folded in her lap. She’s looking at the blank TV.
“Uh,” Tony says. He switches his tablet screen to something he can do while he’s busy navigating what will inevitably turn out to be a minefield in the form of a conversation. “How so?”
A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth, but it’s not a happy one. “I can’t get into the details, but we are… similarly kept apart. By both time and circumstance.”
She examines her fingers. They’re long and thin, dainty and deadly. “I met him several times throughout my childhood, in reality.”
By the look she’s giving him, he assumes she knows all about Tony’s exploration into her files and by extension, her background in the KGB. The information Tony had been able to scrounge had been spotty at best, but he knows that they got ahold of her before she turned six.
“How’d that go,” Tony asks when she doesn’t continue.
She tilts her head. “It could’ve been worse. Neither of us were in a headspace to confront what we were to each other.”
She falls silent. Tony expects her to stop there, but then she’s taking a shaky breath. “He, um. We shared the same arrangement, time-wise as you and Steve. He’s… he spent his younger years in a decade that had passed long before I was born.”
Ah. Tony had spent years worrying about that, early on- if he could meet Steve, only for Steve to be worn and wrinkled by the time it happened. He imagines an old man- a victim? One of the people directing whatever programme Natasha was imprisoned in? – looking into the eyes of a young girl he remembers from his childhood dreams.
“I didn’t know it was him at first,” she tells him. “I didn’t make that connection until my teens. In the dreams, he grew with me. Once he was a young man, I realized who the man in my waking life was.”
Her face is wiped carefully clear of emotion, but her voice shakes.
Tony thinks about putting a hand on her shoulder, but he’s never been the touchy-feely type. “How much older was he?”
“Around seventy years.”
Jesus. Even more than him and Steve. “That’s- wow. I thought-”
“It was unheard of,” Natasha nods. “Mm. Given our shared situations, I get the feeling that it is more common than we thought. Although…”
She looks over at him. She’s not telling him everything, but he never expected her to.
“Perhaps only under certain circumstances,” she says. Her lips purse. “Maybe I will tell you about it in depth, sometime.”
“I’d like that,” Tony says, and finds he actually might. It sounds like the conversation from hell, but- he might like it. Natasha’s putting an effort into seeming less threatening, like she has been since she stabbed him in the neck with the needle.
She gives a curt nod. Then, like she’s reading his damn mind, she says, “I’m… sorry for injecting you without warning you first, back when you had palladium poisoning.”
“Not for stabbing me in general?”
“You’re twitchy about personal space-”
“Says you-”
“-you were in a vulnerable state and I shouldn’t have made it worse.”
Tony’s mouth clicks shut. Natasha’s eyes are suspiciously wet.
“Uh.” Tony runs a tongue over his bottom lip. “It’s fine.”
She arches an eyebrow at him, but doesn’t say anything.
He tries, “I forgive you?”
She looks dubious, but she nods. “Good. I hope we can be… better.”
He snorts. “Yeah, this team thing is rockier than I thought it’d be.”
“It always is,” Natasha says, and Tony wonders if she’s had one before, if she wasn’t always on her own.
-
The Avengers get their first big battle when Thor’s brother tears open a wormhole right above Stark Tower.
Things snowball, and Tony finds himself on the tail end of the fight with his arms around a nuclear bomb, steering it up into the giant gash in the sky. He’s careening towards it, can barely see it from here, but he gets JARVIS to zoom in and he can see stars. He thinks he might be flying it into the space of another dimension.
The rest of the team are shouting over the comm, reporting positions and requesting help as they buy Tony time.
Tony looks down into New York as it blurs below him. He can’t see Steve.
“Open a private line to Steve’s comm,” Tony instructs.
JARVIS obeys, and soon Steve’s voice is crackling in his ear. “Tony?”
“Hey,” Tony croaks. Adrenaline is pounding through him, punching at his insides. He always thought he’d die alone choking on his vomit. He never thought it’d be like this; never imagined there’d be something he’d want to stay for so badly. “Hey, I’m so sorry for this.”
“Natasha will keep the portal open until you’re out.”
Tony thinks back to small, stubborn Steve, the Steve who still resides in that big body they gave him. “That might not be an option.”
“We’ll make it an option.”
“Steve-”
“No goodbyes,” Steve tells him. He’s panting, Tony hears him grunt as he punches or is punched. “You hear me? Don’t go into this thinking you’re gonna-”
Tony laughs. It trembles. Steve’s trying to give him the same speech Tony gave Steve after Bucky died; the day before Steve drove a plane into the Atlantic and it sealed over him for close to a century.
“Just in case, okay? I’ll probably make it-” he almost chokes on the lie, “-but just in case, I wanted to let you know that these past few weeks have been the best of my life.”
“Tony.” Steve’s not crying. He still hasn’t accepted it yet. It’s good- Tony thinks he’ll start breaking down if Steve starts crying.
Tony sucks in a breath. Steve’s been with him, really with him, for 28 days. They didn’t even get a full month. “We always knew this would be how it goes. This- this past month was just a happy blip. Now you gotta go back to trying to move on, okay? You shouldn’t be alone your whole life.”
“To-”
“I love you,” Tony says. He’s nearing the wormhole.
“Tony-” Steve stops. “I see you.”
Tony imagines it- Iron Man supporting a bomb, smoke trailing out behind him as he streaks upwards towards that great big gap to another galaxy.
Tony doesn’t think that their comm system is going to hold up in another cosmos. “Get some people, at least, okay? The team seems like a good start, you’re getting weirdly friendly with Natasha, I won’t pretend to understand-”
Steve’s voice, loud and rasping, cuts across his babbling. “I love you.”
“I love you,” Tony says again, because he hasn’t said it enough, will never say it enough, he thinks that even if they got that lifetime they briefly thought they could have then Tony still wouldn’t get to say it enough-
Steve starts to say something else, but Tony careens through the wormhole and lets go of the bomb the second his world is submerged into darkness.
There are stars- bright pinpoints a thousand miles away, pricking the edge of his vision. Ahead of him are leagues of the same monsters they’re fighting down below.
Tony thinks, I’m going to die.
He thinks, I’m going to die and it’s not even going to be in my dimension. They’ll never find my body.
Lastly, he thinks I wish we had more time. I wish-
He closes his eyes.
The sound of the explosion starting up is the last thing he hears before he passes out.
-
A bleary yelp rips from his throat as he’s woken by a giant roar.
“Jesus tapdancing fuck,” Tony gasps. His chest aches. His whole body aches. He’s encased in amour except for the faceplate, which he spots a few feet away. It’s right next to-
“Hey, solider,” Tony says, grinning up at Steve. Holy hell, everything hurts.
Steve’s eyes are big and bright, bordering on wet. His voice is hoarse when he says, “God. Tony. God.”
“’S me,” Tony says. He fumbles for Steve’s shoulder and grips it on the second try. He casts his gaze around, craning his head to see, since he can’t seem to move his suit right now. “We good? Everything’s good? Saved the city?”
“You saved it,” Steve says. One of his hands covers the arc reactor. The other comes up to cup Tony’s face, falling half onto the metal of Tony’s helmet. “Jesus, I thought you were done for.”
“Can’t get rid of me that easily,” Tony tells him. He looks toward Hulk, mostly because Hulk is stepping in close enough for Tony to worry. “Hey, hey- ease up there, big guy.”
“He caught you on the way down,” Steve says, and for a moment Tony just frowns at him before it clicks- if his suit doesn’t work now, it probably wouldn’t have worked after he fell out of the wormhole.
“Thanks, buddy,” Tony tells Hulk, who roars and pounds his chest like King goddamn Kong.
Tony lets his head sit back against the concrete. “Shit. Good work, everyone! Good job. Drinks all around. Can we get drinks? No, wait, I’m hungry. I saw a shwarma place a few blocks from here, I don’t know what it is but I want to try it.”
Tony expects Steve to tell them they all need to get checked out by medical, but all Steve says is, “Gather the team and let’s go.”
-
Tony catches glimpses of Stark Tower as they make their way to the shwarma joint. It’s wrecked- every letter has been dragged off apart from one.
He pauses, cocking his head at the A sitting haphazardly on the building. “Huh.”
“What,” Steve says. He had stopped when Tony stopped; their joined hands have made it impossible not to notice one of them halting in the middle of the road.
“Tell you later,” Tony says. “Shwarma now. God, the streets look different when they’re all busted up.”
“There’s going to be a lot to clean up,” Steve agrees.
Bruce says, “We should help. With that.” He’s speaking and walking slowly. Tony guesses he’s pretty drained. He has a pink cardigan tied around his waist; loaned to him by a passerby who was trying to get through the streets to check on her grandmother.
As it turns out, shwarma is more or less a burrito. There are discrepancies to that definition, but Tony is too tired to hear them. The rest of the team seem just as wiped- the meal is eaten in near-silence as they make their way through a truly impressive amount of food.
Back at the Tower, they pick their way through rubble to check on their rooms. It’s only when Steve hesitates in the hall that Tony remembers Steve technically has another room, despite sleeping in it maybe twice since he woke up, both times when Tony was in the workshop for the night.
“You should move in,” Tony says. When Steve stares at him, Tony says, “Uh, into my room. Which you pretty much already have.”
Steve hesitates, and god, this isn’t the right time to be having this conversation-
“Forget it,” Tony starts, just as Steve says, “I wouldn’t want to impose.”
“You’re not imposing,” Tony says.
Steve says, “If you need space-”
“Okay, we both know we need space sometimes. But when have I ever said anything even slightly negative about having you in my room? Hell, I’m hardly ever in my room except for when you’re in it. If I need space I go to my workshop, if you need space you head to the gym. Or your art studio. My room isn’t where I need space. I’d- I’d like it, even, if my room was somewhere to go to not… get space.”
He stops. They’re both beaten and bloody and exhausted. Tony kind of wants to shelve the conversation for later.
“Okay,” Steve says, and Tony quickly stops wanting to shelve it, if it’s over and done with and has the outcome he wants.
“Good,” Tony says. “Okay. Uh. You have literally nothing in your own room, so how’s about you don’t check it and we fall into bed instead.”
Steve’s nod is a hundred different kinds of weary. “Good plan.”
-
The Avengers have no chance of being anything but widely public after New York happens.
Tony and Steve’s relationship also have just as much chance after photos of them holding hands after the battle are sprayed across multiple media sites, taking a backseat to ‘holy fuck aliens are real and they tried to kill us’ but still very much present.
“They think you’re a Cap impersonator,” Tony tells Steve over breakfast several days after the battle. “Inspired by the character, or something.”
Steve continues chewing his cereal. He’s taking a liking to anything sugary, cereal-wise. “That might be awkward to explain.”
“Not to mention impossible. Yeah, hi, that cartoon character you loved as a kid? Based on a real life dude with superpowers who got frozen for seventy years. Now he’s awake and fighting crime. Yay!”
Steve snorts. “Maybe we won’t reveal it quite like that.”
Tony hums in agreement. They’ve been talking about the inevitable press conference they’ll have to hold ever since Fury called them about it the morning after the battle. They’re still stewing over what remains secret- identities being a big one, especially for someone like Natasha- but they’re working on it.
He looks up when there’s a slight pressure on his hand. Steve has laid his free hand across it, and Tony turns his own up to link their fingers. He doesn’t think they’ll stop doing this anytime soon- casual touches, little ones to assure themselves and each other of their presence.
I keep expecting to wake up, Steve had told him a week ago when they had been lying in bed one night. I keep thinking this is all a long dream and I’m going to wake up in my own time.
Tony doesn’t blame him. He’s had the same thought more than once. They still have that quiet belief at the back of their minds- the idea that this can’t last, that they’re destined for tragedy. After a lifetime of thinking it, it’s a hard thought to kick.
Tony smiles into his mug at the feel of Steve starting to rub gentle circles into Tony’s hand. It’s early, horrendously so, and Tony is only up because his insomnia has been whaling on his ass ever since the battle. None of the others are up yet, which means they get a quiet breakfast before everyone herds into the kitchen like they’ve taken to doing these past few weeks. They aren’t a family, but Tony thinks they’re definitely a team now, or at least speeding towards being one.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” he admits.
Steve looks over at him. The light falls through the kitchen window and brushes his face, his arm, stretching all the way to his wrist.
“You being here with me,” Tony clarifies.
Steve’s eyes soften understandingly. His thumb rubs comforting circles into Tony’s skin. “We’ve got the rest of our lives.”
He says it like he’s still trying to believe it. Still, it’s like balm on Tony’s nerves.
“I guess we do,” he says.
Neither of them believe it, too caught up after a lifetime of thinking otherwise. But they have time now, and Tony thinks that one day they can look at each other and have an unwavering belief that they can keep this, that it will stay with them, that the world has allowed them this, finally.
As the sun rises into the morning sky, the light climbs across the table to touch their joined hands.