Chapter Text
Steven A. Starphase has always known his luck to be streaky.
At times, it saves his life. Times like these, however…
His first attempt at asking Klaus out on a date comes a few months after his darker machinations come to light, after the single most terrifying experience in his life is resolved by Klaus’s calm acceptance rather than the final confrontation he was expecting.
It hadn’t felt right to confess knowing that he was keeping such a big secret from Klaus. But now, without that barrier…and with the office empty of any other personnel...
“Um, Klaus. Do you...have a moment?”
“Mm.” The big man looks up from his computer, features mostly placid but for the hint of curiosity in his brow. “What is it, Steven?”
“Well, you see.” He starts and then stops, clearing his throat with a grimace. All those carefully thought-out words seem to disappear even as he grasps futilely for them. “That is. You know how we’ve known each other for a very long time, and now that...now that you're aware of the...ah, situation , I was wondering, if it’s possible that...would you like-”
His cell phone cuts off his fumbling attempt and Steven sighs, shoulders drooping slightly as he drops his head forward in defeat. Klaus’s expression reads as confused but he still nods patiently when Steven moves to take the call with a chagrined “sorry, one moment” to the other man.
“Mr. Starphase! We’ve got trouble!” The panicked voice of one of Libra’s contacts comes through, the sound of pandemonium in the background, and he immediately straightens back up, heading for the window to try and spot the commotion. “Paulson? What is it and where?”
He can see Klaus get up out of the corner of his eye at the sudden urgency in his voice and they share a quick nod before Klaus is calling for Gilbert to arrange for immediate departure.
Confessing will have to wait. They have a job to do.
The next time he tries is a few days after completing all the paperwork dealing with that same attack and its aftermath. The office is, once again, blessedly empty and Steven takes a nervous, steadying sip of coffee before setting the cup down with intent.
“Ah, Klaus. So...do you remember how...before Paulson called about those hydra-leeches, I was going to ask you something?”
When the other man nods, Steven gulps a little, throat working, but plunges ahead nonetheless. “Well, I wanted to know if, if you-”
The shrill shrieks of the elevator that leads into their base drowns out his next words. Steven's initial alarm fades into resigned exasperation when they hear Dr. Abrams’s excited voice long before the usually sturdy and reliable elevator suddenly crashes to the ground floor and the culprit steps out cheerfully, as energetic as ever.
(Leo and Zapp, on the other hand, spill out of the elevator after him looking like they've gone ten rounds with one of Aligura’s preferred vehicles. Even Sonic looks ragged from where he’s got a death grip on Leo’s hair.)
He knows better than to try again during the length of Abrams’s visit.
They go out to a concert together on Saturday. Steven’s sipping on some wine from the reception table and considering the possibility of a confession afterwards when Klaus excuses himself to take a call.
“That was my mother,” Klaus says when he returns, responding to his adjutant’s unvoiced question. “She wished to know when I could next visit the family. And...”
He coughs, clearing his throat, and the sound is flustered enough to catch Steven’s undivided attention immediately.
“And...?”
“She also wished to know if I would be bringing, ah. A significant other.” Small wonder that Klaus is so fidgety, then. It’s on the tip of Steven’s tongue to say something like “you could bring me if you’d like” or even something as brazen as “as long as you’ll have me, I would follow you anywhere.”
(He can laugh the second one off, after all.)
At the same time, however, Klaus’s family is composed of people who epitomize light and hope just like Klaus does. Even if the other man bizarrely somehow returned his affections, Steven would stick out like a sore thumb.
He settles on sympathy and reassurance instead. At least he can help put a smile back on his best friend’s face as they walk out of the concert hall together.
Being tipsy seemed to help at the concert, so he resolves to try again after a little liquid courage at a small gathering.
Just as he’s about to pull Klaus aside to ask if they could speak in private, however, concerned cries and raucous cheers fill the air as a completely wasted Zapp starts drunkenly fighting with a mostly sober Zed.
Steven groans and sets his drink down. Time to rein in their rowdiest employee before he gets them kicked out of yet another establishment.
Then, on the 13th:
“So...Klaus, do you have time-”
There’s a thunderous crash and they both turn slowly.
A sense of foreboding crawls down his spine as he withdraws his hand from where he had placed it on Klaus’s arm to get the other man’s attention. His apprehension only deepens at the faces of legitimate fear peering back at them, their younger employees pale and frozen over the shattered pot of one of Klaus’s beloved plants.
The burst of aura from his right sends Steven skittering away into the closest wall reflexively. The kids somehow manage to pale even more, all of them starting to inch closer to the doors and windows.
Steven sighs and drags a hand over his face, the sound briefly catching their attention in the silence. He turns away from the beseeching gazes with a shrug, dialing Gilbert’s number as he slips away from the scene of the crime.
A replacement pot should help calm down their boss, but he’s hardly going to tell the younger ones that. It’s good for them to wallow a bit over the consequences of their actions.
The next attempt sees him in a hospital chair, peeling and slicing apples for a still-healing Klaus. There’s a tiny bit of vicious, if guilty, satisfaction at the way the big man meekly fiddles with his heavily bandaged fingers as Steven’s previously milder reproaches turn into a strict lecture on the importance of calling for him or the others for support preferably before things can go to shit and land their leader in the hospital with almost-fatal injuries.
(The guilt is a little easier to ignore when he remembers how his heart dropped like a stone into his stomach at all the blood, how hard it was to resist the urge to pace restlessly outside the hospital room, trying to hold onto a calm he didn't feel.
How it was like to feel utterly helpless while the doctors frantically worked on saving Klaus’s life.)
He glances up from the fruit in his hands to find the other man’s apprehensive stare, Klaus looking both appropriately chastised and nervous at his sudden silence. The words slip out involuntarily.
“You’re important to me.” Those green eyes widen, Klaus’s jaw dropping open at the sudden brutal honesty, and Steven immediately backtracks in a panic, wrestling down the urge to gesture with the hand holding the paring knife.
“I mean! You, you’re important to all of us - you should’ve seen Leo and K.K.’s faces, even Zapp was tense, and...everyone was so worried, you know. You’re not just our leader, Klaus.” It’s not quite what he would like to say, but Klaus’s features smooth out from shock into something softer, just like he thought they would.
“Mm. I’ll have to apologize for scaring everyone. And...thank you, Steven. I will...endeavor to refrain from running ahead all the time.”
Equilibrium restored. Steven grins in relief, going back to peeling the apple in his hands and taking a moment to be grateful that he’s not the one with the heart monitor attached to him, what with his heartbeat still going a mile a minute from the scare.
“I’m holding you to that.”
The location after that is considerably more romantic.
The managers of an amusement park provide them all with free tickets in their gratitude after Libra successfully protects their livelihood from killer animatronics. While most of the kids rejoice over the free entertainment, Steven isn’t inclined to go until he notices the subtle excitement in Klaus’s features.
They end up strolling through the park alone, Steven mostly content to go along with Klaus’s choices in rides - the younger members disperse towards the more adrenaline-pumping ones after promising to meet up for lunch and dinner, K.K. goes off to enjoy the fun with her family, and Gilbert claims to have something to attend to before he leaves as well, a twinkle in his eye that has Steven wondering if the older man knows about his ill-advised crush.
(He almost says something on the Ferris Wheel. Almost - but Klaus had looked so entranced by the view that Steven had elected to stay quiet and cherish the wonder in his face instead.)
He’s watching Klaus consider carnival games when he decides to take the chance he didn’t earlier. After all, they’re no longer in an enclosed space and there's enough of a crowd nearby to escape into if necessary...
“So, Klaus, what-”
Fireworks light up the night sky, the accompanying noise stealing his next words. Klaus makes to move closer in order to try and hear him, but Steven shakes his head quickly and gestures to the show instead.
He'll have other chances. Probably.
They go to a diner together for lunch. Steven waits until they’re both almost done eating to try again.
“Klaus, I was wondering if-”
The windows and walls next to the tables behind him explode, sending giant pieces of glass and concrete shooting inwards. Dishes and customers alike go flying from the impact; there’s the stereotypical laughter of some villainous bigshot and his minions outside and Steven can’t quite drown his noise of discontent as he hurriedly chugs the rest of his coffee.
They put down enough money to cover the bill on the corner of the table not wholly covered in debris and step out of the newly-made hole together.
The fight takes five minutes.
On the 2nd, they’re walking back to Libra with bags of snacks and drinks from the nearby grocery store when it occurs to Steven that he could probably confess before they reach the main office.
(If he times everything correctly, he’ll even be able to escape before they get to the doors if Klaus rejects him like he probably should.)
“Hey, Klaus-”
“Watch out!” Hummer’s warning barely registers in time; Klaus turns and immediately punches the giant mechanical arm flying at them with enough force that it splits in two, crashing into a few rather unfortunate shops in the background. Dog and Deldro land near them a few seconds later, the impact hard enough to leave a crater behind.
“Sorry, our bad!” The exoskeleton parts to reveal the cheerful young man waving at them. Steven can hear him gently chide Deldro to be a little more careful as they bound away towards the direction of a fight.
“What were you going to say, Steven?”
“Ah, never mind. It can wait. More importantly, we should probably follow them before they get themselves put back into a maximum security ward...”
At the next party with the core Libra members, Steven’s careful not to drink too much, entertaining the possibility of confessing to Klaus afterwards. Except…
“Hey, hey, doesn’t it look like Klausie’s having a nice time with Dr. Estevez? They’d make a pretty cute couple...” K.K.’s conspiratorial smile as she elbows Patrick slyly has Steven involuntarily tightening his grip on his whiskey.
She isn’t wrong about how good they look together either - Luciana has an arm slung around Klaus’s shoulders as he leans down obligingly to hear her better over the din of the bar, the two of them smiling at whatever it is they’re talking about.
They’re both unequivocally good people who give their all every day to save others. He knocks back the drink he was nursing and orders a stronger one with a smile that feels more like a grimace, signaling the barkeep again and again until there’s suddenly the familiarly cool hand of his second on his shoulder.
“Frost.” The quiet voice near his ear isn’t a surprise - Tai Hong has a knack for appearing whenever they think he’s doing something risky or really damn stupid (or both). “With all due respect, I believe that’s enough.”
Steven blinks at them blearily for a moment before turning his gaze downwards, surprised to find more empty glasses than he expected. “Hmm…think you’re right, actua-actually. Should...head home.”
“Please allow me to help.” He would refuse, but the room tilts strangely when he gets up and he finds himself leaning against his lieutenant’s deceptively thin frame with their arm wrapped around his waist. “Mm. ‘kay. Sorry...and thanks.”
“It’s what I’m here for, sir.”
(He ends up sulking about the sheer frustration of it all to Tai Hong on the way back. His second’s impassive expression doesn’t change for a moment even as they pat his shoulder in consolation.
After all, they didn’t miss the way Klaus’s eyes had followed the two of them as they left, worry clear in his expression.)