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Jealousy is an odd new emotion, the way his heart plummets and he loses his appetite when Tony mentions over coffee and blueprints for new training quarters that he has a dinner date this Sunday.
“I haven’t dated since god knows when,” Tony says with a little shake of his head, almost self-deprecating. “This is one of Hill’s friends, actually. A civilian, not caught up with all this. I didn’t know she had those, to be honest.”
“Right,” Steve says, like this isn’t the softest, most unwitting way Tony has ever broken his heart.
Tony’s joke falls flat between them.
A civilian, not like them, Steve thinks. Not like him.
Ever since they came back from that last battlefield, he thought he finally had time. Natasha threw herself right back into work with Sam by her side this time and their plans for the future were far and sprawling because they saw it, a brightly lit path forward, and the other day Bucky said casually that he started therapy. Wanda wants kids. Steve thought that meant they all had time.
In his mind, he and Tony would deal with the new recruits first and then—
It doesn’t matter. There’s no more and then for them, not now that Tony is seeking out a relationship elsewhere. If Tony wanted to be with him the way he wanted to be with Tony, he would have waited.
“You okay?” Tony asks.
“Yeah,” Steve says, and if Natasha were in the room she’d tell him what a bad liar he always is. Tony squints at him and Steve offers him a smile that he hopes is convincing enough for Tony to drop it. “Have fun on your date, Tony.”
Tony looks a little sad for a moment, but then he pulls out a sketch from underneath Steve’s hand and for the rest of the morning, Steve can focus on that instead of the fact that part of the bedrock he’s built his hope for the future on has crumbled away, and the idea of this nameless faceless somebody sitting across the table from Tony having dinner with him, and Tony might want to pick out the wine, and he would ask questions and tell jokes and at the end of the night, he might smile that smile, the one that makes his eyes crinkle and say I had a great night and they would—
Steve tries to shake it off the way he shakes off any hit he takes.
What matters now is that everyone is alive and near, isn’t it? They’ve come so far in the eleven years they’ve known each other, going on twelve now, and maybe it’s okay that they’ll never get farther than this.
He and Tony are friends now, which feels strange because no word has ever seemed to really accurately capture what they are to each other, not acquaintance when they first met and called each other Captain and Mr. Stark, not even teammate when they walked that precarious line between blowing up and getting along for almost four years, not enemy.
So maybe he can find a way to be okay with friend.
It’s his fault for waiting too long again.
-
Steve tries to tell himself everything that should be true but refuses to be: he’s content with having Tony’s friendship, he shouldn’t feel like this when Tony is just trying again after his divorce to find someone. Tony doesn’t seem to like being alone as much these days as he did when he was in his forties, Steve notices.
Would they know that Tony still hurts underneath the scarring on his chest and he’s always going to step up and put on the suit no matter how much he has to lose, and would they stay when Tony’s emotions get the best of him? Would they do everything Steve will never get to do, like sleep with his ear pressed to Tony’s bare chest to listen to his heart and kiss the lines on his face and massage out the stress and knotted muscle from his back and shoulders at the end of the day?
Steve never felt this way with Pepper, maybe because he knew how much history they had, stacking up like pages in a book, too thick for anybody else to cut through. Pepper was in Tony’s life long before Steve was and Steve always respected that, but now Tony is meeting somebody completely new, someone he doesn’t even know except through Maria, and Steve still isn’t enough to match up.
That’s what leaves him wounded and awake in the nights leading up to Sunday and what nags at him when he and Tony are working together during the day, every time he looks at the face he’s memorised.
If Tony just wants to be loved, why couldn’t it be me? Everything he wants, I could do.
Maybe even after everything, Tony still doesn’t want him that way.
Maybe he just has a bad tendency to fall in love too fast and for too long, like with Peggy back then and with Tony now, but maybe the rest of his life will be a long enough time to love someone new.
-
Sunday evening rolls around, eventually, and Steve is almost relieved because then it’ll be over.
He can start to adjust to a new reality where Tony wants to be with somebody else, or if the date doesn’t go well, he can start getting used to the idea of Tony dating people who aren’t him. Tony would even introduce his partner in time and Steve’s envy would have a name and a face, and once he gets to know them, it might not be so bad. He won’t need to be suspended, wondering.
Tony stops in the kitchen on his way out while Steve is loading the dishwasher while he waits for the kettle to boil.
Tony looks good, decked out and all, and Steve can’t help but think about how it won’t be long before he stops having any part of Tony to himself, not even the version of him in glasses with the sleeves of his sweater rolled up, poring over reports and blueprints.
“Hey,” Tony says, and Steve smiles at him slightly.
“Headed out?”
“Yeah.” Tony lingers there, seeming to hesitate, and Steve thinks before he can stop himself, stay here. Don’t go. But he doesn’t know what he could offer Tony to get him to stay. “You’re staying in tonight? No big plans?”
“You mean tea and reading Louisa May Alcott aren’t big plans?” Steve asks wryly, picking up his paperback copy of Little Men off the kitchen island counter.
“Whoa, don’t forget loading the dishwasher,” Tony says, eyeing behind him, and Steve shakes his head and laughs. This is what he’ll still have. Little moments.
Tony sticks around for another minute, uncharacteristically awkward, before he glances down at his watch and says he has to get going.
Steve wishes him a nice night, then turns on the dishwasher and wipes down the kitchen as his tea steeps before he sits back down at the island to read his book, not thinking about Tony smiling at somebody else and making them laugh.
It’s only been about an hour when Steve hears the doors open and close on the other side of the Compound, and then Tony’s walking back in, his expression unreadable. Steve’s brows furrow as he glances up at the clock on the wall.
“You’re back early,” Steve says, concern shoving aside his jealousy. “Everything okay?”
Tony rubs his forehead. “It was fine. Uh, I ended it early. I—”
Steve closes his book. “What?”
Tony’s hand falls to his side and he stares at Steve. “You really wanna know, Rogers?”
Nothing good can come from Tony calling him Rogers in that tone, but he nods anyway.
“I thought I should find someone different this time, you know?” Tony says. “Not like Pepper, not like you, a civilian who doesn’t have anything to do with the kind of death calculus we do on a daily basis—but I still end up comparing everyone I meet to you and of course no one is ever going to fuckin’ measure up, and I don’t know what to—”
Steve goes blank as he catches on Tony’s words, about comparing and nobody measuring up to him. Tony couldn’t mean it.
“What do you—”
Tony sighs, his shoulders falling, and suddenly he looks tired. “I’m fifty-four, Steve. I don’t know if I can get back into the dating scene or whatever when, well. I might as well give it to you straight at this point, huh?” Standing there, Tony is the focal point of Steve’s entire world. He says, “I can’t get over you. I don’t know how.”
“I didn’t know,” Steve says, and it comes out a whisper. Steve can feel himself shaking. He wonders if Tony can see. There’s a chance and if Tony will give it to him, he won’t wait a second longer. He would commit the rest of his life to Tony now if he’ll take it. He’s been ready to do that for so long.
“I know you didn’t.” Tony’s mouth twists in a smile, wistful and bitter as he casts his gaze elsewhere. “Or actually, I thought you did and you were sparing me the embarrassment.”
“I didn’t want you to go on the date,” Steve says quietly, and Tony looks up at him sharply. Maybe his confession won’t be what Tony wants to hear, but as long as they’re telling the truth to each other tonight— “I was thinking, I could do whatever you wanted. If you just wanted company, or if you didn’t like sleeping alone, I could be there for you. I didn’t know why it couldn’t be me. I didn’t like the idea of someone else getting to hold you or kiss you or—”
Tony steps in close to him slowly, cutting off his confessions, and Steve’s world narrows with it.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I wouldn’t have gone.” Tony’s eyes are dark and searching, and Steve wants to sink into him and drown in him when he gets serious like this, not the least bit joking. Steve swallows. “I only went because I thought I’d never have a chance with you, I’ve blown it so many times. Thought I should probably move on if I wanted to stay sane seeing you every day.”
“It wouldn’t have been fair to you,” Steve says, clenching his hands to keep himself from reaching for Tony because he knows he won’t want to stop touching Tony once he starts, but willing him to come closer, even closer. “I was the one who waited too long.”
“When are you gonna learn to be a little selfish?” Tony asks, shifting in closer like he’s answering Steve’s silent prayer, and Steve takes that as his cue to tilt his face up from where he’s sitting, gaze dropping to Tony’s lips and offering himself up to Tony in a kiss. Tony breathes out a laugh, breathless and incredulous, and cups Steve’s face and kisses him stupid. His tone is disbelieving in between kisses, mumbling, “You have no idea, Steve. I walked in here and saw you with your book and I didn’t want to go anymore. I wanted to stay and help you load the goddamn dishwasher, it’s—”
“You missed out,” Steve mumbles back, arms tightening around Tony’s waist and chasing his lips. “It was fun.”
Tony laughs again as he’s kissing him and Steve feels a little surge of joy, and relief and triumph at being the one who gets to kiss Tony tonight and maybe if he does this right, if Tony gives him the permission, he’ll be the only one who ever gets to kiss Tony again.
Maybe the right word to describe what Tony is to him has always been partner, Steve thinks when Tony’s thumb strokes over his cheek and leans his forehead against his, closing his eyes with a satisfied sigh.