Work Text:
The bell chimes overhead as Steve pushes open the door to the little gallery. The worn brick and weathered wood interior are illuminated by warm, white light. Earthy notes of linseed oil linger in the air, mixed with the chemical bite of turpentine. Although the space is small, it’s the kind of place that has heart — independent, grassroots, a little chaotic but layered with stories. Comforting. Familiar.
Most of the time, Steve feels at odds with the modern world. Even a year after being recovered from the ice, he’s hopelessly adrift. Everywhere he turns feels too fast, too crowded, too disjointed. Here, in the hush of oil and light, it almost feels like he belongs. There are no titles that prescribe who he has to be. He’s not a war hero, a national symbol, a man out of time. He’s just… Steve. Or, rather, G.R.
He stops to admire the kids’ drawings displayed along the hallway, his favorite feature of the gallery. He smiles as he examines each one, lingering on the creations that have been added since his last visit. He’s constantly awed by the creativity, the skilled use of different media, the opportunity to gaze at the world through youthful eyes. At the center of the display, a sign reads:
ART SAVES. Donations and sales fund free youth programs for underserved communities.
It would have meant everything to have had a program like this when he was a child, to have had the opportunity to create his own vivid reality on a sheet of canvas, far removed from the bleakness of the Depression and the ghosts in his own home. Now, the tightness in his chest feels an awful lot like sorrow for opportunities he never had.
He stumbled upon the gallery six months ago while out on a late evening run. He had taken a different bridge — one that looked almost like the one he remembered — but before he knew it, the streets started shifting under his feet, Brooklyn no longer a grid in his head. The city around him flowed like a turbulent river, a constant stream of pedestrians and cars, and he was trapped in its current. He spotted a storefront tucked between a laundromat and a vegan cafe, the hand-painted lettering on its window a stark contrast to the modern flash of neon lights around him.
Line & Legacy Project.
He found himself mesmerized by the art in the display window. One work in particular had knocked the wind from his lungs — a quiet sketch of a woman brushing her child’s hair in front of a cracked mirror, graphite on faded paper. Tender. Imperfect. Real. It made a tendril of grief coil around his heart, and he stood there staring for long moments before he gathered the courage to step inside and purchase it.
He has been coming in on a near-weekly basis since.
Steve makes his way to the front desk, shifting the weight of the canvas he’s been carrying against his hip, the paper making a crinkling sound. He always wraps the pieces himself, careful corners and neat seams, like they might fade if exposed to the world too soon. Like they need protecting.
Heidi is leaning against the counter, her hair in a loose bun, hands still gloved from rearranging some of the displays. She’s young, opinionated and whip-smart, unafraid to argue about texture and tone. He’s learned a lot from her about the advancements and influences of modern-day art. She never asks too many questions of him, which Steve appreciates.
“Grant,” she greets when she spots him. Her expression brightens further when she notices the canvas under his arm, and she clasps her hands together in excitement. “A new piece already?”
Steve gives a shy smile in response. “Didn’t want it sitting around the apartment collecting dust.”
She rounds the desk to take the painting, accepting it as if it were made of glass. Her fingertips are light and careful as she peels back the wrap. “Oh,” she says immediately, bringing a hand up to her heart. “Oh, Grant. You’ve outdone yourself.”
She lifts the piece with two hands on either side of the stretcher bar, mindful of the frame and canvas, and sets it on the padded easel she uses for cataloging.
The painting is a quiet thing — his first experimentation with watercolors. A man floating underwater, arms open, hair streaming like smoke. The world above the surface glows with unreachable light. Below, the colors soften into blues and grey-greens, heavy with silence. He looks like he’s both sinking and suspended. Peaceful. Alone. Unfound.
Steve’s stomach twists. He stands awkwardly with his hands in his coat pockets, feeling oddly vulnerable as she leans closer to examine the brushwork.
“Your edges are soft. Deliberately so?”
He nods. “I didn’t want it to be… too clean. Thought it’d feel fake.”
“It doesn’t. It feels like someone in the middle of letting go.”
That hits him in the ribs.
“I didn’t really mean it to be anything specific,” he says awkwardly, suddenly aware that each brushstroke can reveal truths he’s unprepared to face. He tugs on the bill of his baseball cap and pushes the thick-rimmed glasses further on the bridge of his nose. It’s a thin disguise, and he’s genuinely unsure if Heidi truly hasn’t recognized him or has been kind enough to play along this entire time. “It’s just—”
“Art speaks for itself,” Heidi says gently. “You don’t have to explain.”
He nods, grateful.
“You know,” she says, tapping her chin, “I appreciate your generous donations over the past few months, but I almost feel guilty accepting this. I keep telling you, with your talent, you could sell these pieces for a significant sum. I wouldn’t be offended if you wanted to keep one.”
Steve shakes his head and gives a half-shrug. “I do okay. I like the idea of it doing something good out in the world.”
Heidi gives him a soft smile, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Then she tilts her head. “Want to see something?”
She leads him past the central space that serves as a studio for the youth, into the smaller gallery in the back. On a brick wall hangs a painting he’d dropped off three months ago, oil on canvas. It depicts a busy Manhattan crosswalk at dusk — crowds mid-stride, blurred by motion, a sea of people in suits. A man stands still in the center, facing the wrong direction, sharply detailed while everything else moves around him in streaks and shadows.
At the bottom corner of the frame is a red dot sticker.
“Oh,” he says softly, throat going dry.
“Sold yesterday,” Heidi says, glancing at him. “Same buyer as Silhouettes .”
Steve blinks, heart hammering in his chest. “Wait — someone bought more than one?”
She smiles. “They left a note asking to be contacted if we ever got more from you.”
Steve stares at the painting for a long moment. Something in him shifts, like a plate sliding into a different position beneath the surface.
Someone has seen this — seen him — and wanted more. Has seen those quiet, hidden parts of him and said: Yes, this. I want this.
He’s not sure whether to feel grateful or terrified.
***
The nightmare clings to him like sweat.
Disoriented, Steve stares at the blank canvas of the ceiling above him — too high, too modern. The shadows on the walls aren’t shaped like they used to be. There’s no cracked plaster, no waterstains.
It takes him a full minute to remember where — when — he is.
The room is wrapped in silence. The quiet feels still. Sterile. Not like the barracks. Not like the field. Not like the apartment he grew up in, with neighbours yelling through thin walls and the clang of pipes in the winter.
The beat of his pounding heart echos in his eardrums. His breaths are ragged and his t-shirt damp. Slowly, he sits upright and scrubs a hand over his face.
He knows better than to try and go back to sleep.
Instead, he swings his legs over the side of the bed, feet finding the floor like they’ve done this dance before — because they have. Too many times.
The clock says 03:37 a.m.
The city outside is a hush of distant motion, muffled through a filter of glass and skyline, like a dream someone else is having. The bedroom is dim, but he doesn’t bother with the overhead light. It’s instinct that propels him forward.
In the living room, he flicks on the small desk lamp and settles onto the floor beside the low coffee table. The sketchbook is already there — waiting. A tin of charcoal pencils beside it. His fingers, still trembling, find the worn edges of the paper with familiar grip, with the same assurance they wrap around cold vibranium.
He doesn’t sketch the dream. He never does.
He doesn’t know what he’s drawing yet. That’s part of the ritual. The comfort of the unknown. He never plans it. It’s a feeling that guides him — the weight in his chest, the trembling hush under his skin, the stretch of loneliness that doesn’t have a shape but always wants out. It’s a pressure that needs form, a release valve that lets out the poison.
He exhales slowly, eyes half-lidded, and leans into the rhythm. He doesn’t stop to check perspective or proportion, surrendering completely to emotion. His fingers move without asking permission, coaxing shape from nothing.He just lets the lines move, lets the charcoal smudge, lets the ache leak out slow and quiet, like blood seeping out of a gunshot wound.
A soft curve of a shoulder. The suggestion of profile. Light and form, gradually emerging from the white.
This is the only place he feels right — in the hush between lines, the weightless space where he can feel his own hands making something that doesn’t have to save the world. It doesn’t have to fix anything. It doesn’t have to be good .
It just has to be his .
The world outside still feels wrong most of the time. Too fast. Too loud. Too much. Filled with people who look right through him. They know him as a soldier. A leader. A shield. A monument.
But in the sketchbook — here — he remembers who he was before he became what everyone needed. It’s the only place he feels whole.
Here, he’s the boy from Brooklyn again. The sickly kid who used to press his nose to gallery windows, memorizing brushstrokes like prayers. The teenager who copied anatomy studies in the margins of ration slips. The soldier who packed charcoal in his kit because sometimes, even on the front, he needed to make sense of what he saw.
Art was always the place he hid. And the place he returned to.
This is the only thing that helps, that burns the grief into something softer and quieter, even if temporarily. Not punching a bag, not running until his lungs burn, not sparring until someone hits back. This. This slow, silent exhale of pressure. No rules. No noise. No questions. Just him, the page, and the ghosts coming out in graphite.
The hours pass in a sort of trance, marked only by the soft scratch of pencil on paper. By the time Steve’s hands still, the trembling in his spine has faded, the buzzing in his ears subsided. There’s a familiar, pleasant cramping in his palm and fingers from the strength of his grip. The room is dappled with morning gold as the sun rises over the city.
Steve stands and stretches the ache from his back before examining his sketch. A figure seated in a subway car, hunched slightly, face turned toward the window where the station lights passed in blurred streaks. No one else in the car. The figure's reflection barely visible in the glass — warped, watery, not quite human.
He closes his eyes and exhales, unable to face the loneliness evident in the piece. It’s like a mirror, reflecting the cracked and ugly parts of him. Art is the only place he allows himself to exist fully, that thethers him to something real.
And now —
Now he’s putting those pieces of himself out into the world, like he’s something to be consumed. Paintings that bleed. Sketches that ache. He signs them with an alias, wraps them in brown paper, and hands them over like he’s dropping off parts of himself he can’t carry anymore.
It’s a thought that has been plaguing him for weeks, ever since Heidi told him some of his pieces sold. And then another. And another.
The truth is, he’d never expected anyone to buy them, not really. He’d only ever meant to give them away — to let the art go where it might do some good. Art for programs. For kids. For someone to find their own stillness in.
But someone had bought them. Someone is collecting them .
One person.
One stranger, who keeps reaching for the pieces Steve can’t name aloud.
He knows he should be grateful. Proud, even.
But instead, there’s this… tightness. This clench in his chest every time he imagines it — a stranger hanging one of his paintings in their home. A stranger standing in front of a canvas Steve bled into, tilting their head and wondering what it means. Wondering who it is.
He wonders what they see. Do they see the loneliness, the displacement? The grief? Do they see a man suspended in time — still trying to surface? More than that, he wonders what they feel , if it matches what he felt as he pressed paint to canvas. What did they think he was trying to say?
He wants to believe someone out there understands. That someone looked at his brushstrokes and thought, I feel this too.
But he’s also terrified.
Because if someone truly sees him — really sees him — then it means he’s not invisible. Not protected by the blur of history or the clean lines of heroism. It means someone has touched something inside him he didn’t even mean to share.
What if they see him for who he is — not the symbol, not the soldier, not the survivor — just Steve ? Just a man who still wakes in the middle of the night, haunted by things that never got a funeral.
His eyes sting. He blinks it away.
The drawing looks different now.
***
“Good work, Iron Man,” Steve says as he extends a hand to help his friend up.
“Sure,” comes the sarcastic response as cold metal wraps around Steve’s fingers. “If getting my ass kicked by a centenarian is what you call good work. That was quite the move you pulled.”
Steve laughs and pulls him up until they’re standing shoulder to shoulder. “I keep telling you, brute force doesn’t make up for lack of technique,” he says teasingly, falling into their usual banter with ease. “We’ll keep working on it.”
They walk out of the training room together in companionable silence, Iron Man’s boots echoing softly on the polished floor. Steve is always struck by how familiar Iron Man feels — despite the fact they’ve known each other for such a short period of time, despite the fact Steve doesn’t even know the identity of the man under the suit. The metal armor should feel cold or alien, but it doesn’t. Not with the way Iron Man always angled his head slightly when Steve spoke, like he cared about what he had to say; not with the way he matched his pace to Steve’s, even though the suit was capable of more, like he wanted them to be in step.
They round a corner, and Steve’s steps falter. The blood drains from his face and his stomach drops.
On the wall, lit by a discreet fixture above it, hangs one of his paintings.
His.
The Manhattan crosswalk. One of the first paintings he donated to the gallery.
“Steve?” calls Iron Man’s modulated voice. He’s a few steps ahead of Steve, having just noticed they were no longer in stride. “You coming?”
“What—” the words catch in Steve’s throat. “Where did this come from?”
Iron Man follows Steve’s line of sight, confused. “The painting?” His voice is even, but it’s suddenly more distant, guarded. “Mr. Stark purchased it. Brought it in last week.”
Steve blinks. “Tony Stark?”
“Correct.”
Steve stares longer. It looks different in this setting — bigger, more exposed. Too many angles from which someone can look at it — really look at it.
“But… There was an original Monet hanging here.” He tries to make it sound conversational, even as his chest tightens.
Iron Man shrugs. “I guess Mr. Stark liked this one better,” he says casually, as if that’s not an insane proclamation.
“ Why? ”
Iron Man is quiet for a second too long, as if he’s considering how much to reveal about his employer. “Stark’s… not always articulate about these things. But I think he finds something familiar in them. He’s… currently a little obsessed with this artist. The rest of his works are in his private quarters. Said this one reminded him of being out of step with the world.”
Steve feels it like a left hook to his windpipe. His fingers curl slowly at his sides.
He thinks about the night he painted it — the ache in his hands, the emptiness in his chest, the need to let something out that words couldn’t carry. It wasn’t made for anyone. But Tony Stark had looked at it and said: Yes. I want this. And now it lives here, in the mansion of a man he barely knows — a man he’s only ever seen from a distance, polished and press-ready, all blinding confidence and tailored suits.
What did he see in it? It all feels too big to fit inside Steve’s ribs.
“Do you not like it?” Iron Man’s question catches him off-guard.
“I’m… not sure. It’s… sad.”
“It is. I think that’s part of the appeal,” says Iron Man, soft and almost vulnerable. “Feels like it’s about being stuck. Like the rest of the world moving past you.”
Steve’s throat goes tight, his pulse quickening as he gathers the courage to ask something he is even more desperate to know. “That’s how it looks to you?”
Time seems to stand still as he waits for an answer, his body frozen in tension. Iron Man is the one person he trusts in this strange new life, and Steve is suddenly anxious to know what he thinks — what he sees — when he looks at this piece of him on display.
Iron Man looks at him for a long moment, the mirrored eyes of his mask giving nothing away. He shrugs when he answers, his voice quiet. “What do I know? I just stand around in metal and shoot repulsors. But yeah. That’s what I get from it.”
A strange ache blooms in Steve’s chest. He feels dizzy, disoriented. “It must be strange,” he manages to say, eyes still fixated on the painting. “Having something so personal out in the world. Knowing someone’s looking at it. Wondering what they see.”
Iron Man doesn’t respond immediately.
“Sometimes it’s easier to be seen when they don’t know it’s you.”
***
The thought sticks with Steve like a burr.
Somehow, Tony Stark looked at Steve’s loneliness — his ache, his displacement, his wordless grief — and recognized it.
Steve can’t explain it, but he needs to know why .
So he tackles the mystery in the only way he knows how: obsessively, with the kind of dedication he reserves for gathering intel and planning strategy.
There’s no shortage of information. Glowing headlines. Archived interviews. Press releases. Magazine covers. He’s never seen a man so meticulously documented, yet so completely obscured. He pours through the results with a furrowed borrow, a hollow frustration swelling beneath his breastbone. The more he searches, the more uncertain he becomes. He doesn’t know what he’s looking for, only that he hasn’t found it. Not yet. Something in the space between the man and the myth.
He’s met Tony Stark, of course. They’ve exchanged words during team briefings, when he’s announced further funding and dispersed gear and technology like it was candy; at public events, when his presence as their benefactor was required. But always in passing. Always with the sleek armor of charisma and media training between them — the gleaming smile, the sharp joke, the air of distance. It always struck Steve as a performance; there was something tired and sharp beneath the wit, something guarded. The world thinks Tony Stark is all flash and ego, more interested in headlines than meaning, and he’s decided to acquiesce.
It doesn’t add up. Because that’s not who bought Silhouettes . None of it explains the person who saw something in a canvas Steve didn’t think anyone else would understand, who translated the brushstrokes that bled from his hands at 3 a.m. into words. In private, Tony Stark is the kind of man who frequents small galleries and purchases art because it made him feel something, who speaks of feeling out of step with the world.
Tony Stark is a man who builds the future and hides from the present. The latter, perhaps, is something they have in common.
Somehow, that makes Steve feel less alone.
He finds himself spending more time in Avengers Mansion, settling into the private quarters that have been available to him since joining the team but that he’s rarely frequented. Not because he has to. He still has his apartment in Brooklyn — a place where he can draw and sleep and wake up alone with the ghosts.
He tells himself it’s for team cohesion. For easier access to briefings. For the gym.
But really, he’s chasing shadows. He knows, of course, that Tony’s civilian quarters in the Mansion are infrequently used. Still, he’s hoping for something — a glimpse into patterns and habits, his voice through an open door, his laugh across the room, a better view of the man underneath the performance.
A few weeks in, Steve wanders the halls of the Mansion when he can’t sleep, still learning the curves of its expansive layout. The kitchen is dark and quiet when walks in, the hum of the refrigerator the only sound in the room. He crosses to the cabinet, pulls down his favorite mug and chamomile tea when he notices the figure slumped at the kitchen island. The only light in the room is coming from the window, bathing the silhouette in moonlight.
Steve’s breath catches in his lungs.
He’s almost unrecognizable in a rumpled t-shirt and sweatpants that sit low on his hips, one leg curled under him on the barstool, feet bare. His hair is a riot of sleep-wrecked curls, a pair of metal-framed glasses perched low on his nose. It’s like the late hour has transformed him into something tangible, achingly more beautiful.
“Cap,” says Tony, and even his voice sounds different in this unfamiliar context. Gravel-rough. Like he hasn’t had the opportunity to perfect the lilt and cadence he thinks is expected of him.
“Sorry,” Steve says on instinct, his fingers tensing around his mug. “I didn’t see you. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I was just… couldn’t sleep.”
“Well, seems we’re in a similar predicament,” Tony says, gesturing to the chair next to him.
Taking it as permission, Steve finishes making his tea and comes to sit down at the island. “You do this often?”
Tony glances over. His blue eyes are bleary with exhaustion. “What, haunt the kitchen like some kind of insomniac ghost? Only on nights ending in Y.”
Steve huffs a laugh. “Yeah, I didn’t think you were the type that got much sleep.”
Tony arches a brow and leans against the counter, folding his arms. “Neither are you.”
Steve doesn’t respond. Just lifts the mug to his lips and lets the steam curl around his face like fog.
Tony reaches for the bowl of cereal by his elbow, crunching on a mouthful of dry pieces. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter, like he’s unsure if he should ask. “Nightmares?”
Steve nods once, and that’s all he says.
Tony doesn’t push.
The silence that stretches between them isn’t uncomfortable. It’s thin and fragile, like gauze, but it holds. Steve glances at spine of Tony’s book. He’s reading a battered copy of The Things They Carried . The sight of it makes something in Steve's chest seize — something about the way Tony’s holding the book like it’s something fragile, sacred even.
“I didn’t know you liked O’Brien,” he says after a beat.
Tony shrugs, not looking at him. “I like stories that don’t lie about what war does to people.”
Steve studies him in the low light. The edges of Tony’s face look softer here, the hollows of his cheeks more pronounced in the glow. His mouth is set but not sharp. His fingers fidget with the corner of the book cover. There’s something about Tony’s eyes when he’s not shielding them with a smirk. Something sharp, but tired. And underneath that — something Steve recognizes too well.
Loneliness.
It hits Steve like a punch to the gut. That familiar ache. That yawning quiet.
There , Steve thinks. There he is.
He looks out to the dining room, where another of his paintings now hangs, a mix of watercolor and graphite. A single tree in full bloom, the world around it is snow-covered and gray. Its petals are falling fast, dissolving as they hit the ground. In the distance, a blurry city skyline. The horizon is colorless, indistinct. A scarf is tangled in the tree’s branches, mid-flutter.
“Beautiful, isn’t it? Blooming in the wrong season.”
When Steve turns to face Tony, he finds that it’s his turn to be watched. There’s something almost beseeching about the question, like it’s a test he’s desperate for Steve to pass, a puzzlepiece to slot into place.
“There’s been a lot of new art around here recently.”
Tony lifts an eyebrow, amused. “Is this a subtle segue into mocking my spending habits?”
“No, I just heard— something Iron Man said. About you buying a lot of work from a particular artist?”
Tony stills, just slightly. “I like their work,” he says. “Melancholy, but not hopeless. There’s truth in it.”
Steve swallows, heart skipping. “What kind of truth?”
Tony leans back, considering. “Like the artist’s searching for something. Or maybe mourning it. Either way, they’re trying to make sense of a world they don’t fit into. That’s how it feels, anyway.”
Steve looks down, wringing his hands as if willing them not to shake. “That’s... an interesting interpretation.”
“It’s probably wrong,” Tony says with a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I’m not exactly an expert. But it’s the only art I’ve ever bought that makes me feel something.”
“What does it make you feel?”
“That even if you’re completely untethered — even if you’ve lost time, and place, and people — there’s still a piece of you that wants to connect. That still believes in something beautiful. Even if it hurts.”
Steve’s throat goes tight.
He says, quietly, “I didn’t know you looked at things like that.”
Tony shrugs. “Most people assume I don’t.”
“Maybe you don’t let them see it.”
Tony smiles, a little tight. “Maybe.”
Their eyes meet.
There’s a flicker of something between them — warm, electric, unsure. Steve’s hands itch to draw the feeling, give it shape in a way he’s never been able to do with words. Two men in burrowed silence, trying not to be afraid of being seen.
***
The Quinjet has barely landed on the roof when Iron Man tries to bolt. His gait is off, weight shifting wrong, like he’s favoring the left side and trying to hide it. The suit is scratched and scorched down one side, emitting a low whine that speaks of damaged circuits. The left repulsor is dead, sparking and trailing faint smoke.
The mission they just wrapped did not go smoothly — a brutal op that went sideways in the last hour, when they got separated during the last phase of extraction. Underground blast. Iron Man got caught in the shockwave.
Now Iron Man is headed for the Mansion’s lower level, away from the medbay, away from the others. He ignores Steve’s calls to stop for a proper medical check-up. Steve doesn’t think. He just follows.
He catches up three corridors down, just as the door to one of the sub-basement workshops starts to hiss shut. He slams his hand against the panel before it seals. “Don’t,” he says, sharper now.
“Cap,” comes the modulated reply through the door. Calm. Careful. “Appreciate the concern, but I’m fine. You’ve got your own clean-up to do. Go get looked at.”
“You’re not fine.”
A pause.
“I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not an answer.”
A longer pause. The hiss of machinery. A quiet grunt of stifled pain.
Steve’s jaw tightens. “Open the door.”
“Negative.”
“I swear to God,” Steve says, teeth clenched, “I will break this thing down.”
Silence. “You wouldn’t.”
Steve takes a step back. “Try me.”
Another beat. Then the locks disengage with a slow mechanical whine .The door opens a few inches, just enough for permission.
Steve steps through.
It’s a room he hasn’t been in before. The overhead lights are dimmed,casting everything in dusky bronze. Crowded, filled with half-finished projects and machines in various states of repair. Screens blink quietly from walls and tables. Tools are scattered, cords tangled like vines, but everything hums with intention. The air smells faintly of solder and oil and coffee gone cold.
Iron Man is bent at the waist, bracing himself against the wall with one arm, the other gripping his side. He doesn’t look up. The armor is half-off — the torso plating removed, gauntlets discarded on the bench. The arc reactor glows faintly in the dim, its light haloing the blood along the edges of a cracked ribplate.
Steve moves without thinking. “Let me help.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?” Steve says, kneeling to pry the damaged boot component loose. “Because I’m not supposed to know? You hide behind a suit. Fine, I get it. But you’re bleeding.”
Iron Man doesn’t answer. Just exhales hard as the boot clatters to the floor.
Steve straightens to his full height, examines as much as he can with half of the suit still in the way. The helmet is cracked in the back, revealing a trail of blood down Iron Man’s neck. He needs to be able to examine him for any head wounds.
Gently, he reaches for the exposed piece of skin on Iron Man’s nape, his fingers light. “I need to be able to examine you,” his voice is soft, almost pleading. “You can trust me.”
The next lock disengages with a hiss of hydraulics. Steam vents from the armor’s back, and then the helmet unlatches. Steve watches as the man inside slowly pulls it off and sets it on the counter.
Steve’s heart stutters.
Tony Stark.
Hair damp with sweat. A shallow cut above his brow. Blood on his jaw, dried and flaked at the edge of his goatee. Exhaustion carved into the lines around his mouth.
He doesn’t look at Steve. Just sits down hard on the bench beside the exam table, as if the weight of the secret had finally been too much to carry.
The pieces slot into place with exhilarating clarity. Why he feels the same way around both of them. Why it felt like the same… ache.
“Do you have a medkit in here?” Steve asks, fighting to keep his voice even.
Tony nods, jerking his chin toward the far cabinet. “Second drawer from the bottom. Red latch.”
Steve moves quickly, retrieving the battered kit and setting it down with practiced care. He kneels in front of Tony and opens it, hands miraculously steady as he sorts through gauze, antiseptic, tape. He clicks on the examination light overhead and grabs a pair of gloves. “Let me look at you properly.”
Tony doesn’t speak. Just watches him with a wary, tired expression that makes it clear he’s bracing for judgment and rejection.
Steve starts with the worst of the visible bruising, gently probing along Tony’s side. “These ribs are banged up, but I don’t think they’re broken. Breathing okay?”
Tony nods. “Hurts like hell, but yeah. No wheezing, no stabbing. Just bruised.”
Steve checks the contusion on Tony’s temple, tilting his chin with two fingers. “Pupils are equal, tracking’s fine. No signs of concussion. You remember everything about the mission?”
Tony gives him a flat look. “Tragically, yes.”
Steve moves carefully around to check his shoulders, arms, back — cataloging every scrape, every half-healed wound. When he’s done, he presses his knuckles gently into Tony’s palm.
“Squeeze.”
Tony does.
Steve nods. “Good. Reflexes are fine. You’re banged up, but nothing life-threatening.”
Tony gives him a crooked smile. “Look at that. Doctor Rogers.”
That out of the way, Steve wets a cloth with antiseptic and gently starts cleaning the cut on Tony’s forehead. Tony flinches, but doesn’t pull away. The room is quiet but for the hum of machinery and the soft rasp of Steve’s movements.
“You should have told me,” Steve says eventually, voice low. “You didn’t have to keep hiding.” He moves to the wound on Tony’s neck, wiping gently at the blood.
Once the worst of the blood is cleaned, Steve bandages the split skin with careful fingers. Then he sinks down to sit beside Tony on the bench, close enough that their knees brush. He removes his own cowl, letting it drop on the floor.
“I should’ve known,” Steve murmurs. “I think I did. Somewhere deep down.”
Tony exhales. “Would it have changed anything?”
Steve looks at him. “It would’ve made things make sense sooner.”
A beat passes. Then Steve’s gaze flicks toward the far corner of the workshop — the alcove partially obscured by a welding curtain. Something draws him to it. He stands, walking toward the space as if pulled by gravity.
Tony doesn’t stop him.
Steve pulls the curtain aside.
There, under a single spotlight, is the painting .
The underwater man — suspended, arms open, eyes closed. The light above like a distant memory. The quiet, aching isolation.
Steve stares, heart beating fast, blood roaring in his ears. His throat is tight, threatening to swallow the words even as he makes the choice.
“I drew that after a nightmare.”
Tony freezes behind him.
Steve lifts a hand, fingers brushing the edge of the frame like it’s a shield he can hide behind. “It wasn’t meant to be anything. I didn’t think anyone would ever see it. I donated it with a stack of others. Figured it might help the kids’ program. Figured it would disappear into the noise of the city.”
When he gathers the courage to turn, Tony’s eyes are wide and disbelieving, but they see through him. Watching him like he’s trying to solve something without breaking it. Full of raw hope and reverence. “It’s… you?”
“It’s the only part of me that still feels mine,” Steve says, the weight of vulnerability unfamiliar on his tongue. “I was worried you wouldn’t see me.”
Tony’s laugh is quiet and wet, a little broken. “Steve. I’ve been looking at nothing but you .”
The words hit like a punch. Harder, really. Steve’s eyes sting.
And then — slowly, like gravity has finally figured itself out — they lean into each other at the same time. Steve reaches up and cups Tony’s face, thumb brushing lightly across his cheekbone. Tony’s fingers curl against Steve’s wrist like he can’t bear to let go. The space between them is charged, humming. Tony’s eyes flick to Steve’s mouth. Steve answers by leaning in — no hesitation, no fear — and pressing their mouths together in a kiss that feels like everything falling into place. No masks. No armor. No secrets. It’s slow, aching, honest .
When they pull apart, both of them breathing a little harder than before, Tony presses his forehead to Steve’s. Warm. Solid. Real.
They stay like that for a while.
The painting watches them.