“It’s like you think arguments over bagels and whose turn it is to fill in mission reports isn’t serious,” Seven deadpans, and despite the strange twist of some unknown emotion in his gut, Steve can’t help but laugh again.
“It probably seems crazy,” Seven says, and that’s not the only word Steve would use but he lets it slide. “But it works. For both of us. For everyone, really.”
Steve feels the familiar ache of grief and want twisting painfully. He’s lost everyone before, and god, he doesn’t want to lose this bunch of misfits that he’s been thrown in with this time around. He can’t. Though most of it undoubtedly is, it’s not even just about Tony; he misses all of them fiercely and unwaveringly.
“You don’t look too traumatised,” Seven remarks with an arched brow.
Steve blows out a breath, reading between the lines and knowing what Seven is trying to say. “I’m glad you were happy,” he says sincerely. “But that doesn’t mean the same for me.”
Seven just looks at him for a moment, before turning his face back up towards the sun, and doesn’t say anything.
“Here.”
Tony jumps at the sound of Natasha’s voice just behind him, cursing and rubbing his chest with one hand, the other locked around the arm of the cafeteria chair. He unclenches his fingers, heart thudding painfully against the arc reactor.
“How is it even possible for you to sneak up in those shoes on this floor?” he snaps, and then registers what she’s holding out towards him, his anger vanishing. Without a word, he reaches out and taking the bottle of Macallans from her, turning it over in his hand and rubbing his thumb against the label.
“The last one?” he says, mouth twisting contemplatively and ignoring the lump in his throat. He remembers Steve sitting at the kitchen counter, seven empty bottles in front of him, the eighth in Tony’s hand as he poured out yet another measure. ‘Tony, no,’ he’d protested half-heartedly, though he’d looked amused and had drank without an objection, only the same wince and heavy exhale. Tony had been laughing by that point out of sheer disbelief, both impressed and a little awed. Seven bottles and the only indication that Steve’d consumed his own damn bodyweight in alcohol was a slight pink flush to his cheeks, though whether from the booze or amusement, Tony hadn’t been able to tell.
He just remembers being secretly pleased beyond measure that Steve had been willing to go along with it. In the beginning, Steve hadn’t been at all open to humouring Tony; it was still pretty hit and miss depending on his mood and exactly what Tony was after.
“The last one,” Natasha confirms, and slides into the chair opposite him, leaning back and breathing out deeply.
“Thought you would be more of a vodka girl,” he says.
“She is,” another voice calls, and Tony looks up to see Clint walking over, three tumblers grasped between the fingers of one hand and a metal champagne bucket in the other. “But this,” he begins, pushing Tony’s half-finished meal aside with his elbow, “was up for grabs and free booze always tastes better.” He sets the glasses and bucket down on the table and Tony sees that the bucket is in fact not full of champagne but full of ice.
“What, we’re going to sit in the cafeteria and get drunk?”
“Yes,” Natasha says simply.
“Pepper will murder you for taking that,” Tony says as she takes the bottle back from his hands and cracks it open, pouring three healthy measures of whiskey which Clint drops ice into, the ice clinking and cracking with a familiar and soothing sound.
“Pepper is the one who gave it to me,” Natasha says as she sets the bottle down and pushes a glass over towards Tony with her fingers. “I think she’d rather you be supervised through the self-destructive phase.”
Clint lifts his own drink in a toast. “I volunteered.”
Despite himself, Tony smiles, a weak twitch of his lips. “So why is Natasha here?”
“I’m supervising Clint supervising you,” she says with a perfectly straight face, and Tony starts to laugh. He spans his hand over his eyes, thumb and fingertips on his temples as he tries to keep control of his already wobbly emotions. Thankfully, the other two ignore it. Either they’re being sensitive, or – more likely – they don’t want to deal with anything remotely emotional right now. Whichever it is, Tony is grateful.
“This is officially the most expensive thing I have ever put in my body,” Clint says like it’s an announcement, and Tony looks up in time to see him neck his drink, the ice clinking softly against the glass. Clint sucks in a breath, eyeing the bottle and frowning. “Aw, I can't tell the difference.”
“You need to work on your phrasing,” Tony remarks and then follows suit. Natasha just smiles at them, sipping at her own drink in an altogether more dignified fashion.
“And Steve drank eight bottles of this stuff?”
“One of the more impressive things I’ve seen him do,” Tony says as Clint pours two more drinks.
“More impressive than the throw he did that took out eleven AIM grunts?” Clint grins crookedly. “Or the thing with the fire hydrant?”
“That wasn’t impressive, that was moronic and cost me a small fortune to fix,” Tony grouches, and his chest is tight and his stomach rolling and he aches to be back with Steve, to have him in sight and within touching distance.
“But it was internet gold,” Clint sighs, knocking back his second drink without pause. “But then again, nearly everything Steve does seems to be internet gold, whether he means for it to be or not.”
“He loves the internet,” Tony says absent-mindedly, staring at the ice in the bottom of his glass.
“Erm, we’re both talking about Steve Man-Out-Of-Time Rogers, right?” Clint asks sceptically.
“Yeah, I mean he hated it at first. But he hated everything at first,” Tony says, and Natasha hides a smile in her glass. “Too bright, too flashy, too in his face. Too unnecessary, from his point of view. But yeah, he was complaining about not getting something and I threw a Starkpad at him and said to Google it.”
“You taught him how to Google.”
“He taught himself how to Google.”
Clint snorts. “Did you turn safesearch off?”
“Christ, no. I’m not a maniac.”
Natasha does smile at that, a soft sad curve of her mouth. “He still writes down everything though. As in pencil and paper in the back of one of his sketchbooks.”
“I know, I know,” Tony says wearily, taking a large gulp of his drink. “What can I say. You can take the man out of the forties…”
“And you can teach him to love Google?”
“He’ll never admit he likes it,” Tony says, and his mouth hitches in a small smile. “And yeah, he hates the murkier side of it, the porn and the gossip and the gambling-”
“All the fun parts,” Clint interjects.
Tony bites back on a laugh. “Yeah. Those parts. But he’s clocked the fact that now he doesn’t have to constantly ask when he misses a reference. His pride can make it through the day intact.”
Without him having to ask, Natasha leans forwards and tops up his drink. He blinks, eyes all at once feeling too warm and bright as he thinks about the Steve’s stubborn frown, the way he insists that he’s got it, that he doesn’t need any help, thanks. “Was this the plan?” Tony asks, voice rough. “Get drunk and wax poetical about Steve?”
“Talk about him, complain about him, write sonnets about him,” Clint shrugs. “Whatever, man.”
Tony laughs, a rough unsteady sound, and he reaches up to pinch the bridge of his nose between his fingers. The words are on the tip of his tongue, and Pepper already knows, and Clint has already hinted that he suspects something, so there’s really next to no chance that Natasha won’t have picked up on it. With that in mind, the urge to actually say it is pretty much more than he can supress.
“So, should I just get it out the way and admit that I might be totally and utterly gone for Steve?”
“Glad you’ve worked that out,” Natasha says, and grasps his wrist, lifts his hand off the table-top and pushes his glass back towards him. “Drink.”
Tony pulls his hand away from hers, a little disconcerted by the lack of reaction. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Natasha confirms with a nod.
“Dude, it was pretty obvious,” Clint says with a grimace. “We talked about this already, with the whole face touching thing. You two are kinda…intense around each other.”
“We are not.”
