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Really, the crux of it is that when Steve calls and invites him—because Steve is the kind of person to send an invite with "RSVP at your earliest convenience" at the end, and then also call someone up directly—he has this tone that Tony's come to recognise, this deliberately bland tone that neatly papers over the fact that this really matters to him.
Tony's spent a not inconsiderate amount of time trying to pinpoint what exactly Steve is, and on this matter, so very often he's like a—lake. Or something. All calm on the surface with a whole world underneath you'd have to dive into to properly comprehend. Point is, Steve wouldn't ever impose himself on anyone, takes an almost belligerent pleasure in his hyper-independence in the century he was never meant to occupy.
And Tony's not wrong, when he gets off the phone, agreeing to join the team dinner that Steve's planned, that this matters to him. In some ineffable way that Tony doesn't understand but recognises; like when Steve fixates on a community clean-up day or a neighbourhood watch programme, or that one time he'd gotten really invested in a petition and sent it to literally everyone on his phone contact list—which, by the way, included the goddamn Secretary of State. Tony conceives of it as Cap's own version of futurism, and he's grown convinced of its accuracy; that every so often, Steve will notice some crucial thread in the quote unquote fabric of society that's fraying, and he'll take it upon himself to wield the knitting needles. Or something.
Anyway, he knows Steve'll feel it if people don't show up, that it'll be a line on some private tally chart with some depressing title that Steve holds inside his heart, and that can't very well do.
So it goes that he not only picks up Bruce on his way over, but also personally shackles the seatbelt over the complaining brunet, feeds his green counterpart that mint chocolate chip gelato that gets him calm, and when Thor lands heavily on the roof of his car—while he's on cruise control, mind you—he doesn't squeal. Thor sprawls over the backseat, somehow making the Asgardian armour and Culver university hoodie work against the leather seats, regaling them with a story about valkyries that sounds increasingly embellished as they drive into the compound's parking garage.
Steve's got an apron on, and smells like garlic when he comes over to greet them. He's got these tense lines between his eyebrows but they ease up when Bruce offers to help in the kitchen, and promptly screw up again when Tony echoes that offer.
"I'm not that bad," Tony protests, as Steve steers him away from the stove, hands firm on his shoulders. "I made—that omelette. Once. On a plane."
"Okay, Tony," Steve says. He guides Tony onto one of the high chairs behind the counter, drums his fingers over Tony's shoulder for a brief moment before letting go.
A while later, he straightens in a quick, jolting movement from where he'd been peering into the oven. "Happy Valentine's," he says, with a tone that suggests the thought literally just occurred to him.
"Yeah, if that's your thing," Tony had sort of gotten distracted by the vegetables Steve had cut up, these neat colourful rows that perfectly fill up the expanse of the cutting board, and it's just another thing about Steve that's perfect as naturally as a snowflake or a rainbow against a pavement is.
Steve takes a few seconds to respond. "It's probably not but I'm trying to make an effort to give it a go, like. All the holidays. Because it's. Dumb, to presume that I can't celebrate, that I can't switch off, some cage I've made for myself. I don't know if all the hullabaloo is really my thing, but the effort to try feels good. Maybe the effort's how people connect to it." Steve shrugs self-consciously, "or something, I don't know."
"Hullabaloo's a crazy word to use," Tony says.
"Yeah, I guess."
"I think that makes sense, though," Tony clears his throat. "For what it's worth."
"Yeah?" Steve's got this firmly casual look about him, and all Tony can think is that the man genuinely, truly cares.
"Yeah, absolutely."
"Okay."
Bruce wanders back in with a hand towel, and the late afternoon passes slowly. Steve's prepped most of the stuff already—apparently, Vision and Wanda had helped out before they'd gone on their staycation—but the risotto and stir-fry are still works in progress, and Bruce assumes a natural authority over the stove that reminds Tony of those first few weeks at the tower.
Steve and Bruce are on great terms usually, possibly the healthiest friendship of the gang, but they really don't work well in the kitchen, and it's incredibly funny when they get into a snit about which oil to use. Steve's Brooklyn accent slips out in a way that gives everything this scrim of unsophisticated wonder, like Tony's watching My Cousin Vinny, while Bruce gets agitated in a manner so banal that it's actually freeing, starts lecturing Steve about cholesterol in this intense, pedagogical tone, which is funny in a completely different way because neither of them will ever have to worry about their cholesterol levels.
Clint arrives with Hill, the latter of whom insists almost immediately that she's only dropping Clint off and that she can't stay, she's really, really sorry, and when Steve frowns at her, she manages to have the strength to simply shrug it off, heading out like Steve's disappointment is something she can live with. Impressive gal.
Clint insists very volubly on contributing to the cooking, squirreling away whenever Steve tries to get him to leave, and eventually Steve starts hollering back at the archer, and Clint starts guffawing, and Tony has to put his face in his hands because the veins on Steve's biceps are really prominent and Bruce looks like he deeply regrets accepting the gelato bribe.
Natasha appears as she always does; like she's got a sixth sense for when they're on the precipice of something truly chaotic and spiralling. As if it's just that easy, she corrals Clint into a round of Mario Kart with Thor, out in the common room, then gets Bruce to stay on the risotto, let Steve handle the stir-fry, and when Steve shoots her this impossibly grateful look, she leans up onto her tiptoes and pecks him on the cheek.
Then, because she likes to pretend she doesn't have favourites, she settles onto the high chair next to Tony, tugs his phone out of his hand, and goes, "happy Valentine's, shellhead," in this silky tone. Tony groans lightly in response, watches as she swipes over to Wordle and neatly fills in the word of the day.
DITTY.
"Oh, hey, first try," Natasha says.
Tony rolls his eyes, tamps down his own smile when Natasha grins at him. "Nat's cheating on my Wordle again," Tony announces, and Bruce says, "don't spoil the—"
"Dit-tee." Natasha pronounces.
"Goddammit," Bruce snarls.
Tony ends up making a round of the first floor of the compound because Bruce asks about dessert, and frowns when Steve says chocolate cake, suggests adding another item, and then they're taking out the recipe book Wanda had bought, Bruce calling out options while Steve flits around, checking whether they have the necessary ingredients.
So Tony takes a walk, the quietude of the compound strangely centring, reminding him of the iterations of this complex that existed before, the incongruity of the little touches that have been added since occasionally giving Tony pause. He accepts most of them with benevolent nods only F.R.I.D.A.Y. witnesses, and then stalls upon yanking a meeting room door open, noticing that the furniture in Conference Room 3 has been moved, and he has experience with this, okay, so much of his professional career was him in meeting rooms, so he takes off his blazer, his dress shoes, rolls up the sleeves of his shirt, and starts moving things around.
Thor finds him, because the demigod's got the hearing of a cocker spaniel and an irrepressible instinct to investigate every little noise he hears. He watches Tony for ten seconds, and then pushes on carrying the furniture around himself, which is good because Tony gets to park himself on a swivelling chair and direct Thor, who takes to the challenge of wrangling the long, maple table like it's an active, living creature. It's very, very entertaining, and when Steve enters with a befuddled expression, it's even better.
Steve gives Thor a look, and the demigod stares back unrepentantly, table still in his arms. After a measured beat, Steve tells him, "Jane's here."
Thor gets sweetly excited about that, kisses Steve on the cheek like Cap personally brought Jane to him. Steve pushes him off of him with this aggrieved expression, but accepts Thor's jostling before the demigod walks out.
Then, it's Tony's turn, and Steve takes a proper look around, gets that befuddled look again, starts, "Tony."
"It's like, wrong. Bad feng shui." Tony waves an explanatory hand at the chairs. "This makes more sense, you know."
Steve walks over to him, sets his hands on the armrests of the chair, getting incredibly close to Tony's face. Tony notices offhandedly that he's taken the apron off but still smells of garlic.
"What," Tony mumbles.
"You are so weird," Steve tells him matter-of-factly. "Do you know that? You are literally the weirdest person I know."
"How many people do you even know?" Tony asks.
Steve pinches Tony's nose, giving him this look like he doesn't know if he wants to eat him or scrunch him up into a ball of paper.
Sounding like a prepubescent kid, Tony asks, "did we decide on the second dessert?"
Steve lets his nose go, and Tony scrunches it to clear his airways, sniffs testingly as Steve explains in a dry tone, "we negotiated putting the tub of ice cream in the fridge out on the dinner table."
"You regret bringing Bruce into the kitchen?"
Steve stands upright, and Tony sets a foot down on the ground, pushes off and spins. "No," Steve's saying honestly. "He makes the best risotto."
Tony spins once more, and his breath leaves him in a gasp when Steve stops the chair. "You're kinda wired," he tells Tony.
"No, I just got into—" Tony flails a hand around again. "The rearranging."
Steve casts a look about, very pointed about it. "You've still a ways to go."
"Yeah." Tony says, brightens. "You wanna help?"
"I have a meal to make." Steve tells him, and it isn't a no. He runs an index finger over the corner of Tony's left eye, across where the skin wrinkles when he smiles. It's a compulsive touch, and Steve's face clenches revealingly as he tucks his hand away.
Tony sort of just watches him, and in a lower, intent tone, eyes dark when they meet his, Steve asks, "you gonna explain it to me? The feng shui stuff?"
"Yeah, sure."
They finish rearranging Conference Room 3, Tony still perched on the chair, but with his feet up and crossed like a yogi's. Steve occasionally comes up to him, between moving chairs and the refreshments table, and hooks a hand over the back of Tony's chair, pushes him so he spins around, laughing quietly when Tony starts letting out quick, chanting no's at the chair moving too fast as if he doesn't regularly don a literal flying suit.
They make their way down after about sixteen minutes—which Tony only knows because Steve announces the time—and they break apart so that Steve can return to the kitchen while Tony goes to say hi to Jane. He ends up sitting on the couch with her for a while, initially making respectable conversation about their scientific-cum-engineering endeavours before Jane says, sorry, I've gotta share these, swiping onto her photos app. There's a moment where Tony worries she's gonna show him photos of some secret child Thor and her share, or maybe a dog they both have, or something—anyway, it's not. It's these photos of Asgard, all these luscious landscapes interspersed with endearing snaps of people—Asgardians—posing for the camera with this confused but sincere joy. Tony is fully hit by it, he'll admit, and he holds Jane's shoulder and gives her this intense look, trying to impress that he like, gets it, and she gives him this little moue and nods.
Thor gets bored of Mario Kart, drapes himself over Jane and pretty soon after starts making out with her with this abandon that's pretty much routine for the pair. In a departing act of generosity, Jane hands her phone to Tony to continue looking through the landscapes. It's both difficult and easy to ignore them making out, but then Tony gets stuck on this photo of this genuinely gobsmacking waterfall and he gets that same tight feeling in his chest again. Like a heart attack without the paranoia and sinking-stone feeling. He sometimes feels like he's overfed on good views, like he's climbed every summit and ran his eyes across every immovable expanse, but then he'll see something like this and it catches him off-guard, the reassurance that his life's in his hands. This rekindled awe that makes the fires always burning in the foreground of Tony's life feel manageable.
He goes to Bruce with Jane's phone, resolutely keeping a thumb on the screen so it doesn't turn off. Bruce has put on Steve's apron in the time that's passed, and on the back of his shirt is a post-it. In what is clearly Clint's imitation of Natasha's chicken scrawl is a blue, "kiss the cook". Tony snorts, pokes Bruce's back, and when the man turns from the pot of—soup? They added a soup?—he shoves the phone in his face.
"Whoa." Bruce's eyes glaze over for a moment before settling on the screen, head tilting back slightly to see the photos. "That's pretty crazy." He says, indulgently. "Where is that?"
"Asgard."
"Damn."
"Right?"
"How come Thor never takes us to these spots?"
"Because we only go to Asgard when they're in trouble or we're in trouble?"
"Oh yeah."
"Did we add soup to the menu?" Tony asks him, and Bruce gets this familiar pained expression on his face.
"Listen," Bruce says. Without looking back, he turns the stove's heat down. "I think Steve's a great guy."
"You have said this."
"But he does not know how to make a menu." Bruce stresses.
"I wouldn't know."
"I do, though, Tony." Bruce tells him. "I do."
"I get it, Banner." Tony replies.
"Do you," Bruce continues, "because it really frustrates me when I get invited for dinner, and end up making said dinner. It's a betrayal of intention, a misdirect. Like when Natasha pulled a gun on me. Do you know she pulled a gun on me?"
"Didn't you do, um, a peek-a-boo at her?"
"I lunged at her." Bruce screws his face up. "In retrospect,"
"Uh-huh."
"The gun was pretty intimidating." Bruce says. "Or would've been. If I wasn't the literal Hulk."
"It is very cool that you accept this now."
Bruce makes a seesaw motion with his free hand.
"Not a good day?"
"A meh week." Bruce says. "Mint chocolate chip helped, but it's not cool that he still needs to be bribed."
"The Hulk just wants representation. Let him represent." Tony says, punctuating his point with a short flurry of punches against Banner's shoulder. Instead of loosening up though, Bruce gets this glum look like he doesn't wanna talk about it, so Tony deftly changes the topic to whether Bruce thinks they can figure out the mobility issue they're facing with deploying the new Iron Legion before Easter. Because, y'know, he can be a decent friend when he really pays attention to it...and also he really is curious about Bruce's thoughts on the mesh underlayer.
Steve pops his head around the doorway. Narrows in with a predatory precision. "What do you have on the stove, Banner?"
"Soup." Bruce says defiantly, and then, "you got all this sourdough and you're not gonna have soup?"
"We just happen to have sourdough in the compound, it isn't on the menu," Steve volleys.
"Why would you not use fresh sourdough—"
Tony goes to return Jane's phone to her, finds that both Thor and Jane are not in the main area, and a quick check-in with F.R.I.D.A.Y. informs him that they're up in a room. So. Afternoon delight. Or pre-supper nap. Tony sets Jane's phone on the table next to the console. Natasha and Clint are playing a round of Mario Kart, and Tony settles back onto the couch to watch Clint eke out a win.
Tony's hopeless at the millennial games; even though he's got decent hand-eye coordination and can actually deal with the crazy visual stimuli—that's a dig at Rhodey, yeah—he's kinda mediocre at Mario Kart, which is a shame because almost everyone else on the team has taken to it. Still, Tony's got good practice at this now, watching people play, and there's a nice meditative vibe going about him as he watches them start a new round. While Clint gripes about the overpowered Bowser bot beating both him and Natasha out on the track, he begins to get it, maybe, why Steve wanted them all together on Valentine's.
They start dinner early because the way Bruce is eyeing the spread of food on the table is making Steve visibly irritated, and also, Tony is super hungry. Like, hungrier than we-definitely-just-had-sex Thor and Jane. Steve's made these little placards for their seats; small cream slips of paper folded with slight creases and an obvious effort made with a marker to write their names out neatly. Tony has the thought of Steve sitting there and painstakingly folding the tiny paper into halves and it gives him this just—rush of feeling.
Anyway, he's sitting next to Steve which means that Steve's habit of serving people before himself benefits Tony first.
As Tony tears a slice of sourdough bread, Natasha makes this phatic hum of a sound, gathers their attention. "I'd like to say a few words."
"Pass." Clint says, mouth full.
"Well, it wasn't a question," Natasha says, and then Steve bats Tony's hands away from the soup ladle, eyes intent on Natasha.
"Right. So. I've been thinking about biographies. I guess, because I'm thinking about history." Natasha says. "Not mine," she waves a hand in front of her face, like shaking away a fly. "History at large. History at its largest. And maybe it's because of the U.N. documents Steve keeps tossing on my desk. But I keep getting this depressing thought that learning about history is like looking at a long, long line of inexhaustible, unimaginable crime. And if you really pay attention to it—which I'm doing now, which I should've been doing way earlier—you come to realise that nothing fundamental has changed about humanity. The systems we set up matter very much. It takes centuries to take the smallest of steps." Natasha nods, as if she's satisfied with herself.
"Biographies..." Clint trails off.
"Oh, yeah. My opinion is that the effort is commendable but the end result is always insincere." Natasha says. "And also, if you're gonna write one, do it yourself."
"Well, that was," Steve says generously, "some food for thought."
"Can we have food for stomach next?" Tony mutters to him in an undertone.
"It was good." Thor agrees. "I'd like to say a few words, too."
"No," they all chorus, and at Thor's clear affront, Jane reaches over to pat his hand. "Baby, I love you but I will die of hunger."
And because Thor's not on board with that happening, they finally get to start eating. The food is good, despite all odds, or maybe because of those odds, like the two chefs managed to bounce off each other's strengths. The meat in the stir fry being cooked all tender and soft is Steve, but the liberal seasoning is obviously Bruce. Stuff like that. Jane makes an effusive comment about the brioche, thanking Steve for his hard work and invitation, and Steve very sheepishly admits the brioche had been prepared by Vision. At one point, Steve startles, getting up and jogging over to the fridge to grab a cool pitcher of iced tea he'd made earlier in the day. That reminds Tony of the wine bottle he'd put in his car before picking up Bruce, and because Steve is that much of a Host, he pushes Tony back into his seat and goes to grab it himself. They forgo the wine glasses, and Tony opens the bottle with practiced ease, Thor applauding the cork coming out, taking it from Tony and pocketing it for God knows what reason. Tony pours wine out for everyone save Steve and Bruce, both of whom are abstaining, because of—hell, who knows—cholesterol.
Clint wishes them a happy Valentine's when they clink their glasses, and it's obvious half of them only remember then that it is in fact, Valentine's day.
"Sam didn't make it?" Natasha asks, taking a second helping of the risotto.
"He has a date." Steve explains. "He said he'd try to come over earlier to catch up with the team but there was a problem with the reservations he'd made so," Steve shrugs. "No biggie."
"Aww, Sammy's got a date." Clint says.
"Since when is he 'Sammy'?" Tony asks.
"Which one is Sam again?" Thor asks.
"The cute one," Natasha tells Thor, at the same time that Clint goes, "Steve's weird friend."
"Oh, the falcon," Thor nods sagely.
"Representation," Tony jabs his finger against the table. "Merchandise."
"Sam doesn't want to be a public figure." Steve tells him.
"But he absolutely wants to be an action figure," Tony turns in his chair so all his attention can be directed at Steve. With the kind of certainty that makes you obnoxiously gleeful, he adds, "you cannot tell me I'm wrong."
Steve's mouth twists in a tight line, but he ultimately concedes, eyes bright with merriment.
Non-sequitur, Clint goes, "it's neat that we're all doing this as friends." When they turn to look at him, he has this secret smile on his face. Shrugging, he continues, "you know. Because we're friends."
"Okay," Steve says in an even tone next to him, while Tony just sort of frowns incomprehensibly at Clint.
"Jane and I are not friends," Thor announces.
"We..." Bruce tilts his head. "Uh, caught onto that."
"It seems Clint wasn't aware."
"Oh, Clint is aware." Clint says drily. "That wasn't directed at you."
"Do you guys wanna break before dessert?" Steve asks.
"Yes, please." Jane says.
"I was seriously starting to enjoy this conversation." Natasha says.
Steve disappears to go somewhere with Natasha, and Thor and Jane slip away too. It all happens quickly and abruptly, and Tony's a bit flabbergasted when he looks up and finds it's only him sitting at the table, unsure of where Clint and Bruce have gone. He digs out an actual wine glass from the cabinet, pours himself like, three sips worth of wine, and sits down near the windows of the common room. Even though they've had dinner, the sun's only just starting to set, and its glow is coming through the windows, making everything about life feel big and contained and hopeful.
He thinks a lot, these days, about the present moment and the moment right before it, and the year after that, and the way he loves those around him, and the infinite ways in which they infuriate him. He used to think he was getting more prone to melancholy, but it's not as if all the thoughts are bad. Just. He doesn't really get it. Maybe he has more time on his hands to wander. Maybe he's just getting old.
It's intended to be a reprieve, he supposes. About a year into being a team, they'd come to this unspoken understanding that hanging out outside the job would only work if they didn't expect anything more than each other's presence, and then occasionally made it a point to break out into groups and/or take walks.
So naturally he calls the group chat.
"What."
"I would love a coffee," Tony says.
Natasha keeps her video feature off, but Bruce appears with Clint peering over his shoulder.
"I just feel like it was uncool of you guys to ditch the old guy."
"I'm older than you," Bruce says.
"But you're the green guy. You can't also be the old guy." Tony explains patiently.
"Tony," Natasha's talking bubble pulsates as Steve speaks through her phone. "You're the smart guy."
"Oh." Tony impulsively turns off his video feature, then turns it back on. "Will you make me a coffee, then?"
"Nat's the coffee guy," Steve says in a teasing tone.
"I am not the coffee guy," Natasha deadpans.
"I think I'm the coffee guy," Clint admits.
"Can I please get coffee?"
"Sure." Clint says. "Are we back to eating?"
"Why'd you guys ditch me?" Tony scowls, remembering why he'd called in the first place.
"We didn't ditch you," Bruce says. "Natasha said she was gonna go for a smoke, and Steve said he'd join her—"
"Not to smoke," Steve clarifies hurriedly.
"Yeah. Whatever. Then we asked if you wanted to come with us for a walk outside, and you said, blah, blah, blah, I'm Tony Stark and I'm looking at Iron Man designs and I need my silent time."
"Aw," Tony says. "I'd have loved a walk. I hate silent time."
"You sorta need it," Natasha corrects, not unkindly.
"Maybe."
"Silent time over?" Natasha asks.
"Yeah," Tony tells her, and then squawks in delight when she turns the video feature on, reveals Steve with a ciggie to his lips, mid-exhale.
They give up on decorum for dessert, settling around the common room couch, putting the cake and ice cream down on the low coffee table. Steve instructs Tony to grab the dessert bowls for the ice cream, and Tony actually tries to, but eventually ends up standing in front of the stove, all the cabinets opened, and no glass bowls in sight.
"What the hell happened here?" Steve asks, tone managing to package both bemusement and dismay with equal heft.
"You guys got rid of the ice cream bowls." Tony says. He thinks that explains everything, literally everything he's feeling, but then Steve straightforwardly reaches behind a stack of plates and brings out this tall, precariously balanced stack of small glass bowls.
"Nah." Steve says. "We just bought more plates." Gives Tony this distinctly Steve grin, all earnest and kind. "All the old stuff's still there."
"Okay," Tony says, and then he sort of maybe definitely tears up.
"Oh, jeez." Steve's very sweet, maybe always has been, and Tony kinda hates that it's something you have to learn about Steve instead of something that's immediately obvious. Because he's so easy to love, isn't he, and people make him out like—not quite that. Beloved but untouchable when really, he's just so, so open if you wait him out. Let the ice melt.
"Shh," Steve puts the breaks on his chatter, mumbles the word right into his temple, and the slow vibration of that clarifies something wallowing in his head.
"I can't be here and there at the same time," Tony says nonsensically.
"Yeah, I know," Steve answers, and it sounds like someone accepting a rejection gracefully.
"I just feel like I need to be everywhere."
"Mmh."
"I was supposed to get married to Pepper."
"Mmh."
"It's all..."
And Tony basically confesses, in a rambling jumble of words, why he needs people to be around him right now, and how he's doing great, he's doing spectacularly, he is Iron Man and Tony Stark and that is more than enough to keep him occupied but also, it really means a lot to have dinner with the gang. To remember that there is a gang, even if Bruce is only on call when absolutely needed, and mostly consumed with his own R&D, and Clint is more a U.N. taskforce consultant than an archer nowadays.
"Family," Steve murmurs. "I get it." He pulls away, waits for Tony to smile tremulously back at him.
"Maybe making the effort is what connects you to it." Tony echoes Steve's earlier words, watches Steve's smile go small and crooked and doubly staggering.
"You guys sure are taking your sweet time with some bowls, huh," Clint says from the doorway, walking in with a lack of hesitation that tells Tony he probably caught some of what was going on before he chose to announce himself. When he gets close, he takes a look at Tony, pursing his lips in an affected frown.
"Oh my god, don't kiss me." Tony blurts out.
"Are you sad about Pepper?"
"Only retrospectively." Tony says. "I'm not into her."
"Yeah, I know that." Clint puckers up, drops a kiss on Steve's cheek.
"Why." Steve says, impeccably poe-faced, stack of glass bowls back in his hands.
"Stark didn't want one," Clint says, as if that clears things up.
Tony wipes his tear tracks away, and they get dessert. Clint makes him a coffee, and he really is the coffee guy, because it's superb coffee, and Tony nearly tears up again, and it's probably just Valentine's, but Natasha tosses an arm around his shoulder and makes this loud proclamation over everyone's arguing that it's Tony's turn to pick something because they need to respect their elders. So Tony picks a TV show to watch because none of them have the bandwidth for a film, settles on the first episode of a documentary about Captain America, the DisneyPlus one with the gimmicky overselling of Steve Rogers as the ultimate underdog. And as they watch it, Steve periodically rubs the back of his very red neck and makes grumpy comments about how he wasn't that bad at baseball before the serum, the school team just had too many players already. Clint makes them all cackle, emulating the narrator's deep tone, mimicking this repeated refrain the documentary keeps employing at the end of the childhood scenes, where the narrator intones, in a deep and foreboding tone, "most people would've given up... but not Steve Rogers."
It's really very, very funny, and when Thor and Jane come down to join them, no one even makes a fuss about how they totally missed out on dessert, Steve getting up to bring the ice cream tub back out for Jane who puts a spoonful of the runny vanilla right on top of her chocolate cake and thus kicks off a trend of everyone following suit.
"Jane is the dessert guy," Tony remarks thoughtfully, and Steve snaps his fingers twice like he's clapping for him, and it's sort of crazy how much Tony likes this guy after spending a substantial amount of time being on opposing ends with him.
"If I had a girlfriend, I wouldn't have been here for this," Clint says while the narrator provides a dictionary list of all the health problems Steve had. "Uh. No offense, Thor. Jane."
"You could've brought her with you."
"Nah," Clint says, wagging his finger at Steve. "I would've made like Sammy and took her out for a proper dinner. Uh. No offense, Thor—"
"Yeah, we get it," Jane says serenely, taking a long sip of coffee after. The coffee Clint had made for her. Because. Yanno. He's the coffee guy.
"It makes this feel more special. That we all happened to be in alignment." Steve says. "Don't you think?"
There's a short silence as they get into the documentary, where some emaciated, blond kid actor is getting turned away from a group of boys in chiaroscuro lighting.
"I can't believe you made us R.S.V.P.," Tony says.
"Répondez s'il vous plaît." Natasha says in perfect French.
"Ah, oui, oui." Tony snarks.
"I think it's romantic," Natasha says. "Respond, if it pleases you."
Warmed, Steve says, "thanks, Nat."
"That actor's damn good." Bruce comments.
Steve makes a small noise. "If I'd worn my hair like that, my teacher would'a sent me home."
Somewhat ominously, Clint says, "most people would've given up..."
Save for the blond twins and Jane, they all chorus, "but not Steve Rogers!"
In the silence that follows, Thor harumphs and says, in a hurt voice, "you guys rehearsed something without me?"
It's both a short and long time before everyone leaves, and Tony has to drop Bruce off, but he's loitering in the kitchen while Steve washes the dishes and insists that Tony explain the recent modifications he's made to Natasha's widow bites. Thor and Jane had left with Clint, the latter commandeering one of the ubiquitous black cars they keep in the garage. He thinks Natasha and Bruce are hanging out, or maybe giving them space, but it's nice to be back where they'd started this dinner, watching Steve work while Steve pretends he's not aware of being watched.
"I wish we could do it again." Tony says, warm and heavy with chocolate cake. "The six of us, in the tower," he explains. "Partly because we'd do a better job of it this time around. Partly because we did an okay enough job of it the first time around."
"It felt like the biggest thing ever," Steve agrees, soap flecks along his forearm suitably distracting. "But now, it's like. Wow, that was so small. Compared to this." He scrubs, adds, "I feel as if we'll have this exact conversation five years from now. Just—hey, remember how we thought all of that was big?"
"Molehills." Tony says, splaying his arms wide.
"Mountains." Steve says, cupping soapy hands close.
"It's all perspective. The camera you—hey, did you see Jane's photos?" Tony asks.
"No?"
"Damn. You would've loved them. Can we do a sightseeing trip of Asgard?"
"I thought that was what we did that time with—" Steve grimaces, like he's come to a realisation right then. "I guess we didn't actually see much."
"Nope." Tony says. "They're—business trips. Literally. You get in, get out, catch a view between meetings—battles."
Grinning over at him, Steve says pithily, "I've heard about the sorta stuff you'd do on business trips."
"Shh." Tony says. "It was only, um, twice."
"Mmhmm," Steve says.
"I was a super mature CEO."
"Of course."
"I'm actually getting hives saying that," Tony admits.
Steve finishes up cleaning, and then makes himself a coffee, less from need and more because Tony's still fiddling with the second one he'd gotten Clint to make him before leaving, and the fair Captain is very naturally predisposed to being good company.
They sit across from each other, and Tony tugs one of Steve's legs in between his, toes off his shoes and rubs his socked feet against the thick calf muscles there. It's not intended as a come on and Steve doesn't take it as such, even as he shivers slightly when Tony's toe accidentally catches against the end of his jeans and tugs it up so that the curve of Tony's foot ends up sliding soft against his skin.
They chat easily, about the governance regulations that are being drafted to manage superheroes, about Sam's girlfriend and how impressively calm she'd been that one time the hospital had called her up as Sam's emergency contact, about Rhodey's engagement, about how Tony sort of feels like he was born to be a best man, the same way in which he was born to be Peter's mentor and Iron Man—like these roles push him out just enough from the box of who he is to be a proper, relishing challenge leading to who he can be. Steve explains the staged approach he's employing with the new team members, how everyone's fighting styles don't mesh at all, how Steve sort of thrills in the fact of it, because strategy is redundant in face of variety and Steve's best strategies emerge from the cradle of chaos and improvisation. Offhandedly, like he's not even conscious of how kind this is, he explains how he's trying to give Wanda and Vision a life outside of the Avengers because this can't be all they have on their minds, a lesson Steve impresses that he understands because he's been there himself, knows that a bad battle becomes a bad day becomes a bad week becomes the dead end defining a bad life.
"I want to raise them up," Steve explains, and on anyone else's tongue, it would ring trite and stiff, but on Steve's, they're exactly the right words, and Tony wants to hold his face in his hands and tell him that the world was made to inhabit people like Steve, and that he really believes in him.
Natasha and Bruce come down using the elevator and make these over-the-top announcements about how they're coming into the kitchen and they don't want to see anything that wouldn't occupy the 'General Audiences' rating of the Captain America documentary. Steve and Tony exchange exaggerated put off looks, and make the usual grievances to them when the pair walk in. Bruce makes a big fuss about not getting a coffee at all, and then point blank refuses Steve's coffee, taking control of the espresso machine himself.
Natasha takes a sip from Steve's, frowns, and then takes a sip from Tony's, nodding contently after and parking herself next to Tony.
A while later, when Bruce starts making a smaller fuss about having work to do at home, Steve sprints up the stairs with a harried, mumbled excuse that has them all staring after him in surprise.
"I forget how fast he can move."
"I don't." Bruce grouses.
"Aw, right. Serum expert," Tony wiggles his fingers at Bruce as he says this, notching Bruce's begrudging smile as a win.
Steve thunders back down the stairs in a few minutes after Bruce has tugged his puffer jacket on and Tony's retrieved his blazer from the couches. His mouth looks distinctly pinker than it had been before, but he's otherwise unchanged, and Natasha kinda laughs into her elbow over some secret that Bruce and Tony are definitely not in the know of but that Steve outright glares at her over.
Tony's about to ask her what's up, and also, no fair, we're friends now, you have to tell us the funny stuff, but she takes Bruce's arm and steers him away with this matter-of-fact certainty that has Tony's hackles rising.
"I hate set ups," Tony reminds Steve.
"I know," Steve says, with a surprising, fervent sincerity. "I'm not setting you up."
"Okay." Tony gets up. "Then what."
"It's like." Steve wets his lips. "You know, everyone gave me a kiss on the cheek today?"
Tony weighs that for a moment. "...Bruce didn't."
"Okay, yeah. Bruce didn't." Steve agrees hurriedly. "Jane and Maria didn't either. But everyone else did."
"Three people."
"Yeah. What's up with that? You think they're pranking me?"
"I think," Tony ponders aloud, "that it's Valentine's day, and they love you very much."
Steve actually pinks at that. "Right. Sure. So then." Steve gets closer to him, appeals, "what, you don't love me?"
"Huh?"
"Ipso facto logic."
"Bruce didn't kiss you and he loves you." Tony points out.
"He played sous chef to me. I know he loves me." Steve is so disarmingly handsome like this, all faltering bluster. "I want to know if you do."
"I R.S.V.P.'d," Tony says.
"I know, I know," Steve says, then abruptly deflates. "I'm really bad at this."
Tony pretty much agrees, while holding Steve not even a little bit responsible for it. The memory's halfway through before he properly recognises it—that time Natasha had cornered him on the quinjet while Tony was still fuming over a vitriolic argument he'd had with Cap in the hangar, thinks of her explaining, sotto voce, "he's like, intensely attracted to you, but he doesn't know what to do with it."
And he's reasonably sure that it wasn't romantic attraction then, just as it wasn't romantic attraction from his end too, but there'd been definite attraction; like some magnetism between them that said, get close and pay attention. Respond, if it pleases you. Respond, regrets only. Respond.
Tony breathes out shakily, says, "I know this guy." Steve's sharpening up, blue eyes honing in on him like he believes this is vitally important. "He had crazy odds. A complete underdog. A complete person. And he looked these odds in the face, and said, fuck you, and also, pretty infamously this other line about how long he could go for, I don't remember the exact wording." Steve's eyes are huge. Tony rallies himself. "He was great, and he remains great. Because, see, most people would've given up, but not—"
"Jesus Christ." Steve lunges for Tony's face, holds him there instead of kissing him.
Tony's mouth has been squished into duck lips; he can just feel it. "Definitely him," he manages to get out.
"There aren't enough words to describe how weird you are." Steve tells him. "I need you to know this."
"You've said this before."
"I'm also crazy into you," Steve runs on, like he needs to get it out. "That's also something for you to know."
Tony takes Steve's hands off his face. Holds onto them between their chests. Settles on a kind smile, and both gently and firmly reminds him, "you didn't want to go on a date with me."
"I know that." Steve blinks.
"Okay, so." Tony shrugs, and he feels the helpless, loose shape of it akin to a betrayal.
"I want to, now. I didn't—I've been trying," Steve says, "to figure out how to go about it. It's not a question of wanting you but a question of how that fits into all of this."
Steve is raising some pretty reasonable concerns, but all Tony can focus on is: It's not a question of wanting you.
"I know I've been just unforgivably in my head about it. It's like—I want to go slow, and I wanna go fast, and I'm tired of holding back and I know I've made you wait," Steve gives him this look of intense frustration that's not actually directed at him but registers as an appeal. "I feel like an asshole for putting my shit on you."
"Some of it's my shit, too." Tony says quietly.
"Well." Steve seems lost for words; like maybe he'd only known the bullet point fragments of what he'd wanted to say. It's not a question of wanting you.
"I really think it's because they love you," Tony says.
Steve's frown returns, thick with confusion.
"That they kissed you." Tony says. He leans in, presses a light brush of a kiss on Steve's cheek. "Similar to a reminder. Hey, we miss you, Cap. We still love you, Steve."
"Okay?"
"I feel like you're not catching on," Tony says, not unkindly.
"You deserve to have someone take you out on Valentine's day, woo you, give you flowers," Steve's voice gets heavy as he continues, "post a photo of you with a sweet caption, play you music you like, dance with you, hold you, make love to you, make it known exactly how incredible you are. Make it so that nothing in your life is lonely. Someone who you belong with, someone who—belongs."
"Steve."
"Yeah."
"What exactly have we been doing all day?"
"It's not—the same." Steve says. "It's not enough. I can't even get the words right."
It's Tony's turn to grab Steve, and he holds him by the neck, thumbs pressing into the hinges of Steve's jaw, as he kisses both his left and right cheek, sweet and lingering. Then, with only the faintest jolting anticipation turning his stomach, he kisses him on the mouth, wet and insistent and not at all like the kisses he'd given him on his cheek.
"Jeez." Steve murmurs.
"None of us would've been here without you." Tony tells him. "None of us would have had somewhere to be. We'd have been alone on Valentine's day, each of us. Can you imagine. We belong with you, and you belong with us. And it's stupidly simple."
"I really, really like you, Tony." Steve presses in, kisses him like it's a punctuation point.
"You brushed your teeth," Tony realises, and he's so bright with amusement that he bypasses laughter completely. "When you went upstairs. You brushed your teeth."
"I, uh," Steve's red now. "I may have smoked. And I didn't wanna—"
"Okay, weirdo." Tony says, reeling him in again. "Okay."
"Tony?" Steve says. "Wait, Tony, you were gonna say me, right? Earlier? The, uh, I know a guy stuff. I'm the guy?"
Tony has to laugh, rests his head against Steve's chest, and feels the man's heart tick up. "You are the guy," he assures Steve breathlessly, lifts his head to impress, "you are my guy. Okay? Tony's guy."
"Alright, good."
"I am superbly into you. It's incredibly exciting to me." Tony tells him. "Like. I'm pretty sure you're a lake. A big, huge lake."
"Oh. Okay." Steve's remarkably polite about being compared to a body of water. "Thanks." Then, "can we keep kissing? Sorry. I've just thought about it a lot."
Bruce is very affable about Tony being twenty minutes late to the car, swollen-mouthed and hair askew. Natasha sees them off in the garage, makes obnoxious kissing faces at Tony when he goes to wave goodbye so maybe that's the secret, and if so, it's neat that she does end up sharing it with them. Bruce is sleepy but mostly content as he flicks through the radio stations, and Tony takes a quiet pleasure in how he eventually gives up on the radio, pushes the chair back and naps, because it's a reminder that this good, impossible guy trusts him.
At a stop sign, Tony pulls out his phone, sends Steve a link to a restaurant he'd saved in a folder, way back when, that morning he'd had good intentions and a hopeful heart and Steve had given him this young, scared look over his desk and said, Tony, you mean so much to me, but—
And it's a world away now, but still miraculously their world, like the past is crossfading into this exact present, and it's with good intentions and a hopeful heart that Tony types an invitation. Adds, right as the stoplight goes green:
RSVP.