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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

"I'm not homophobic, am I?" Steve asks, taking a sip from his cherry juice.

Bucky, the-one-who-sometimes-goes-by-Winter, deadpans, "aren't you bi?"

"Yeah, but being queer doesn't exempt you from being homophobic." Steve thinks aloud. "We all carry biases and internalised prejudice, and maybe I have some repressed―"

"Hey, Steve, other-me," Bucky, the one-who-only-goes-by-Bucky, sits down at their lunch table. "What's that?" He squints his eyes at Winter's face. "Uh. What did I miss?"

"I got tortured." Winter says.

Bucky rolls his eyes. "Okay, okay."

"I think I might be homophobic." Steve blurts out.

"Um." Bucky's eyes flit between the two of them. "What?"

"I know, I know, I'm bi, but like I was telling Bucky, other Bucky―"

"I resent that." Winter points out.

"Sorry, not other Bucky―Winter. As I was telling him, queer people can be just as homophobic as straight people―"

"What is going on?" Bucky asks Winter.

Winter shrugs.

"Okay, hold up, Steve, shut up, I get it, queer people can be homophobic. Listen to me." Bucky steeples his hands together, elbows on either side of his lunch tray. "Why do you think you're homophobic?"

"Oh, good question." Winter says.

"Thanks!" Bucky says. "It's on account of my untortured brain."

Winter hisses. "Low blow."

"Yeah, actually, that was a low blow." Steve agrees.

Almost instantly, Winter rallies with "well, it wasn't that bad."

". . .You guys suck. I'm defending you. Do you see me defending you, both of you? Damn narcissists."

"Yeah, we love ourselves, and hey, you're apparently homophobic." Winter reminds. "What's up with that?"

"Yeah, Steve, what's up with that?"

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, takes another sip of cherry juice to refuel himself, and then explains it. "Okay. So. I saw Tony sorta flirting with Thor in class earlier, and I felt really, well, not disgusted exactly but something close to it. Nauseous, and hurt, and intense. And it's bizarre because I like Thor, and I like Tony, but the thought of the two of them together just made me feel. . . rotten. So I figure." Steve splays his hands out. "I must be homophobic."

The silence is deafening. No, not actually deafening. The cafeteria tends to be pretty rowdy so there's plenty of white noise around to blanket them.

But the way Winter and Bucky are staring at him, mirrored expressions of bewilderment, is stilling. With Winter's long hair, stubble, and punk style, and Bucky's spectacles, neat combover, and out-of-date fashion, the two hardly ever look alike anymore. Maybe fraternal twins, or brothers close in age. But the expression of pure, unadulterated shock on their faces blurs the lines between who's who to the extent that as Steve's head swivels between the two of them, it feels like he's looking in a fixed mirror right out of a circus.

"What?" Steve prompts, when they stay mute.

"I'm just." Bucky shakes his head. "Speechless."

"I'm not speechless." Winter clears his throat. "I just don't want to speak."

"Stop lying, you're speechless." Bucky mutters.

"Okay, yeah, I'm speechless."

"Why?" Steve asks. "I don't want to be homophobic. They're both dear friends of mine."

"Oh boy." Bucky pinches the skin between his eyebrows, just above his spectacles.

"Firstly." He starts. "You're not homophobic."

"Then why did I feel like going over and pulling the two of them apart?" Steve asks.

Steve catches Winter mouthing the words to himself, eyebrows still raised comically high.

"Uh. Alright. There are two possibilities here, right?" Bucky raises a finger. "Either you are homophobic, you, Steve Rogers, who thought Laurence Olivier was hotter than Greta Garbo―"

"What does that have to do with―"

"Or! Or." Bucky raises two fingers, wiggling them tellingly. "You were jealous."

"Jealous? Of what?"

"Of Tony flirting with Thor." Bucky clarifies.

". . . I'm not attracted to Thor?" Steve says, eyebrows knitting in confusion.

"Oh god. Tapping out." Bucky turns to Winter.

"Tapping in." Winter sighs, before saying, slowly like a condescending person would to someone they thought to be a particularly stupid person, "Steve, do you think maybe you were jealous of Tony flirting with Thor because you wanted Tony to flirt with you?"

"I. . . I'm not into Tony." Steve says, laughing a little nervously at the end of the statement. "I mean, he's wonderful, and, smart, and ridiculously kind, not to mention, you know, a real looker, but that's not―that's not―" Steve thinks. "Well, we've fought so much. The whole Ultron debacle. You can't be attracted to someone who you clash with so frequently, right? And if I had feelings for him, I wouldn't yell or nag or be upset with him so often, and. . . and. . . why are the two of you looking at me like that?"

"This is just how I look." Winter crosses his arms, adding thoughtfully, "maybe it's the trauma."

"Dude." Bucky clasps his hands over his eyes. "Timing. God. You're like seasonal depression."

"No, that's just the season I rep." Winter says. "You're awfully jealous of that, aren't you?"

"I am not jealous of that, what the fuck?"

"I mean, if we're talking about repressed jealousy, I may as well bring it up here and now. You're a tad sad that you don't have a cool codename. You and I both know that I don't go by 'Winter' because you're here. I go by 'Winter' because it's infinitely cooler." Winter continues. "And hey, I get it, not everyone can pull off the mysterious, edgy vibe. If you did get a season, it'd probably be, like, summer. Or spring. Can you imagine? 'Spring soldier'?"

"Dude, I am going to fucking―"

"Bucky!" Steve interjects loudly.

"Which one?"

"Obviously―you know what, actually? Both of you." Steve waves his hand dismissively. "Can you stop with the self-flagellation? I'm literally like. Going through something here."

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you admitting that you have feelings for Tony?" Bucky checks his watch. "That's premature for your usual stubborn, self-denying tendencies."

"I don't have feelings for Tony!"

"Aaaand we're right on schedule." Winter says. "Catch you in a few when you're ready to admit it."

"I hate you both." Steve directs two folded hands in Winter's direction. "And if anything, your name should be 'fall' soldier because of your tendency to fall off trains."

"Oh, wow." Bucky's eyes go wide. "Low blow!"

"No, I'll accept it." Winter says. "He'll feel a shit ton of guilt about it in a minute. I could do with two chocolate bars, hazelnut flavoured."

"That's my favourite flavour." Bucky says.

"No kidding?" Winter asks.

"Oh my god, it's like we're the―"

"―Same person!" Winter finishes, both their eyes widened for comedic touch.

". . . I hate you both. I do regret what I said." Steve says. "I'm sorry, Bucky. Not you, Bucky, you, Winter Bucky. I'm sorry. Really. I'll get you those chocolate bars. Other-Bucky, you're passable. Maybe work on your people skills."

"Damn. Just 'cause you had nothing on me, I'm other-Bucky now?" Bucky asks.

"You need more trauma." Winter advises.

"I need better company." Bucky retorts.

.

The academy's physical education unit is the most convoluted of fields. Between enhanced abilities, super powers, inhuman students, physical trauma, cultural preferences and regular old human variation, the training schedule tends to verge on a do-what-you-can mindset with the requisite that what you "can" already do is defend yourself against a Hydra attack, an A.I.M. raid, and/or a stock standard alien invasion.

Steve sits on the board of various student committees in the academy, but the one that eats up the most of his time, by far, is the athletics committee. Between Rocket, Shuri and Tony, training methods and facilities are constantly being revamped, sometimes needlessly so, but usually pushing forward their training scope and possibilities by whopping percentages. Usually 12%.

He's currently fiddling with one of Tony's robots, designed to spit out footballs for catching, giving each throw the parabola of a specific opposition player's throw.

During their matches against Hydra, Talokan, and A.I.M., the bots collect data on opposition players' throws and kicks. That data is then used to replicate the trajectory, style, and pace of different players. It's a real nifty mechanism, though Steve had initial reservations about it skirting the line of cheating, right up until he found out that A.I.M. had designed homunculi of their team. Then, he'd gladly brought F.O.T.E.R.S., or "Football Opponent Tracking, Evaluation and Replication System", into the training cycle.

He's setting up the bot to simulate a combination of Hydra players' throws for their upcoming match-up against them. Behind him, the academy's football squad is finishing up their warm-up drills, Peter Q flitting around and picking up cones off the grass.

Steve can see at the other side of the field, the brightest minds at Avengers Academy playing some strange configuration of field hockey on artificial turf. They've adapted the rules with a number of changes that Tony had detailed to Steve and that had left him glad for the familiar brutality of football.

Instead of using a regular ball, they've replaced it with power-up balls that are outfitted with bizarre quirks. Each player has a limited number of power-ups they can activate throughout the game. The ball can create force fields, turn invisible, or even explode upon impact, adding an element of surprise and strategy to every pass. Like a nifty mobile game, but, uh, in real life.

As Steve watches, he finds himself tracking how Tony moves deftly around the turf, agile and quickfooted. He's in a rare outfit of high, athletic shorts, the muscle of his thighs better defined than one would assume. Not that Steve's ever assumed, or, uh, thought about it.

F.O.T.E.R.S. beeps its confirmation, startling Steve out of his reverie with a trilling sound that echoes sharply in the air. Settings locked in, the bot whizzes off to the end of the pitch where a huge basket of balls wait.

"Alright, kids," Steve calls out. "Let's go two lines, parallel, fifteen feet. Left backs up, right takes the catch. Go to the opposite line after. Good throws back into the basket. If you toss a bad one, run up and put it in. F.O.T.E.R.S. can't account for wayside balls too well. Let's hustle."

Instructions delivered, Steve makes his way to the left line, standing behind Winter.

Winter turns to him, opens with, "so Tony's bot's not too good at picking up balls, huh?"

"Not a word." Steve warns, resisting the urge to correct that the bots had been a collaboration between Rocket and Tony, with a lot of the hardware having been ironed out by the raccoon, so if anything, the bots' lack of mobility is a reflection on Rocket's inability―

Steve blinks, looking straight ahead as the bot shoots out its first football, Korg and Peter Q running forward. Korg takes the catch easily, tossing it to Peter who throws it back in the basket's direction, landing cleanly in its pocket.

"Good one, Pete." Steve calls, and is echoed by other team members.

Peter and Korg make their way to the back of each line. The drill continues, Steve pairing up with Sam at his turn. Sam takes the catch well, tosses it to Steve, and from then, it's a neat, satisfying arc into the basket. They high five as they pass in going to each other's line, and Steve embraces the glowy feeling ignited in him.

He flits a look around, and it's just pure, dumb luck that he catches Thor walking down the bleachers. He'd texted Steve fifteen minutes prior to the training to let him know that he was stuck on a call with Heimdall. Now, Steve watches as Thor puts his gym bag down before jogging over to the artificial turf.

"Steve, move up." Peter ushers from behind him, and Steve jolts, takes a step forward into the space left before him as Drax sets off to take a catch.

Steve's head swivels back again, and he watches Jane, Bruce, and Tony walk up to Thor. This far off, Steve can't hear what's being said, but he sees Thor lean down to give Jane a hug, slap Bruce's hand in greeting, and then step forward. For a moment, Steve thinks they're going to hug, too, but then Tony puts a hand against Thor's shoulder, stepping up to say something into Thor's ear. He has to tiptoe to reach the blond's ear, flashing the bright red of the bottom of his shoes as he does so.

"Steve!"

He'd have to tiptoe to reach Steve, too. But Steve would meet him halfway, bow down his head, and Tony's breath would be whisper soft against his ear.

He can practically feel it.

"Ball!"

Startled, Steve whips back around, and has milliseconds to form the suggestion of an oh no before―

Thwack.

Steve's looking at the sky from the ground, a mortifying and familiar stuffiness to his nose.

"Oh my God." He hears a half-worried, half-gleeful voice above him.

"I'm not seeing double, right?" Steve asks the two Buckys, crouched over him.

"Nope. There's two of us," Bucky, the non-seasonal one, says.

"You've got a nosebleed," Winter adds drily.

"I know." Steve closes his eyes. "Is Tony watching?"

Winter straightens to check. "Uh. . . no."

"Hey, Cap, you okay?" Sam's here, too. More witnesses. Yay. "Damn, that's a lot of blood."

"He'll survive," Bucky assures.

"Y'sure?" And Peter's here. Great. "Maybe you should go to the nurse's office."

"No need, I'll just―ack!" Before he can reassure them of the sanctity of the serum, he's levered up by the two Buckys, the barmy pair raising him up into the air in a superman pose. "Put me down, what the fuck!" Steve gasps out. "This is so unsteady―hey!" The three-letter utterance gets about seven letters added to its end, Steve drawing it out in a panicked plea as the two boys start sprinting with him still braced on top.

As they make their way off the grass, the only thought that he has the blood in his brain to give attention to is that he really, really hopes Tony's not watching.

.

"That was quite the flight you had."

"Hey, Tony," Steve greets, groaning inwardly as he saves his presentation and prepares himself to face Tony's amusement. The brunet doesn't wait for an invitation, pulling out a chair and making himself comfortable in a seat adjacent to him. His gaze, when it meets Steve's, is openly curious.

Tony waves his hand in a flurried movement. "Yes, yes, we're both doing well, the weather's lovely, the semester's horrid, blah, blah, blah." He then puts his fingers right over the jugular, asking, "just to confirm, for my sake, the accident wasn't a case of F.O.T.E.R.S. bugging out?"

Steve does contemplate taking the out but he knows Tony too well. He knows the brunet's relentless curiosity would drive him to dismantle F.O.T.E.R.S. just to find the problem. With a soft sigh, Steve answers honestly, "no, your robot's perfect. I just wasn't paying attention."

Tony's response is a sharp look. "You weren't paying attention?"

"Only for a few moments."

"Pretty crucial moments."

Steve gives Tony's exuberant mood a side-eye. "Yeah. Okay. Get it outta you."

"Ba-ha-ha," Tony's tone is flat, but his eyes betray his glee. "You got hit in the face with a football because you were distracted. When your whole schtick is catching things."

"Got a nosebleed for my trouble," Steve rubs his nose, a telltale remembering of the impact.

"No shit?" Tony's eyebrows shoot up, genuine concern crossing his face. "Well, fuck, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Are you, though?" Steve narrows his eyes at Tony, not entirely convinced of his sincerity.

"Ye-eus?" Tony's lips twitch, a hint of a smile breaking through. "Sorry, it's just that Peter made it sound pretty funny. And there're GIFs of the Buckys running with you propped up."

"Quill is a serial Instagram poster. It's actually concerning." Steve grouses.

"Yeah, he totally is, and it is totally concerning," Tony acknowledges. "But come on, can you blame him?"

"Yes, and even more, I can make him run laps," Steve suggests, pausing for a moment before checking, "too harsh?"

"Not even," Tony assures, his right hand gesturing in an explanatory manner. "Punishment fits the crime."

"Sweet," Steve considers Tony, the way his body is curved into Steve's, unabashedly edging into his personal space. How he'd been unhesitating about doing the same with Thor, the other day in class, earlier on the turf.

"Hey, I, uh. . ." Steve presses his lips together, shaking his head slightly. "The dance, this Sunday."

Tony raises an eyebrow, his face patient and open as he waits for Steve to continue.

"When are you planning on asking Thor?" Steve asks, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Tony's lips part in visible surprise, a fleeting embarrassment running over and off his face as he leans back slightly. "Oh, um. I don't know. It's weird."

"What's weird?" Steve furrows his brow, seeking clarification.

"Y'know, just. . ." Tony swallows, his gaze shifting to the desk. "I think I'm not his type."

"His type?" Steve's frown deepens.

"Yeah, um," Tony looks down, his voice quieter. Somber. "I think he goes for the nice, smart type."

"Well, you're one of those things." Steve says.

"Intelligence isn't exactly a rare commodity at the academy, Steve." Tony points out.

"I was talking about the other thing," Steve teases. "What's this smart thing you're on about?"

The tease lands well, startling a laugh out of Tony. The boy swipes a hand over his mouth in the afterglow of the sound; the movement like he's trying to brush the amusement off him. It doesn't work, and Tony's mouth stays sloping and endeared.

"Have you thought about how you want to ask him out?" Steve presses, wondering why it is that he can't let it go, can't simply sit in the snug rhythm of their friendship.

"I―I don't know." Tony's shoulders droop before the boy catches onto the tell, straightening swiftly. "Maybe before the Asgardian re-enactment."

"Oh." The re-enactment's this Friday. Of course. That could work. Steve wets his lips and forces himself to ask, "can I help?"

". . .You want to help?"

"Of course." Steve blinks. "We're friends, right?"

He doesn't know what to make of the expression on Tony's face.

Eventually, the boy nods, the notch in his throat bobbing.

"Yeah." Tony pats both hands against the desk, a nervous tapping gesture. "Uh, I don't know. I just need to. . ." Tony shrugs.

"What?" Steve leans in. "Tony, what?"

"How would you go about it?" Tony blurted out.

"Asking Thor out?"

"Yeah."

Steve leans back, goes, "hey Thor, I think you're swell. I believe we could be good together. What do you think of being my date to the dance?"

"That easy, huh?"

"Why does it need to be any harder?" Steve impresses. "Thor's a straightforward guy, and you're, come on Tony, you're adept at flirting. What's bugging you this time?"

"Did you just compliment my flirting?" Tony's teeth flash in a distracting grin.

"Well, you convinced Pepper and Johnny to date you. They're about as different as any two people can be, so I figured. . . okay. I can see your head inflating in real time." Steve snorts. "You broke up with both of them, didn't you?"

"Oof." Tony's eyes squint. "Should I take that personally?"

"I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

"Hey. Non-sequitur." Tony tilts his head. "Actually. Sequitur. Pretty sequitur, really. Do you have anyone you're planning to ask out for the dance?"

You.

Steve barely bites the word back, shocked to the core of him that the implication would even come up. He's not even. . . he can't be. . .

Is he?

"Uh."

"Sharon, maybe?" Tony looks away for a beat, toward the end of the hallway of the library. He adds, eyes dragging back to Steve, "she's nice."

"Uh, yeah, she is." Steve shakes his head. "Probably not, no. I don't think I'll be asking anyone out."

". . .Maybe someone will ask you out." Tony suggests.

Steve laughs shortly, a husked sound. "Yeah, I don't think so."

"Why not?"

Steve shrugs, tapping the mouse pad of his laptop. The screen had gone dark over the length of this conversation. His tap prompts Tony to look over, and the boy makes a cringing expression. "Sorry, you're busy, right?"

"Uh. Not too busy, no." Steve says, pausing before blurting, "Tony, hey, listen."

Steve stretches a hand out, brings Tony's hand into his own.

He has the distinct thought that he's never held Tony's hand like this. Intentional and grasping. He doesn't know why he never thought to reach out before.

Tony's fingers twitch but he doesn't pull away, squeezing back after a moment.

"You're nice, and smart, and a billion other things." Steve says. "And before you say it, I don't mean the billions of dollars you're set to inherit. What I mean is who you are. Do you understand?"

Tony breathes slowly, the pace of it audibly deliberate. "You really think I should ask him out?"

Steve squeezes Tony's hand, one final time. "Thor would be so lucky." He commits it to memory then, the weight of Tony's soft palm and nimble fingers, and before he's quite willing to, lets Tony's hand go.

.

"I woke up, and wished that I was dead."

"Yeah, hey." Bucky's voice is pitched in a gentle murmur.

"With an aching in my head―"

"He's been listening to that one song by The Weepies for the past hour."

"I lay motionless in bed."

"I'll tell you what, it's fucking up my focus."

"I thought of you, and where you'd gone."

"Yeah, bring 'em all in."

"And let the world spin madly on."

Steve tightens the grip of the pillow over his face, dialling the song's volume up ever higher.

Chapter Text

"Good morning, Steve." Natasha greets, her voice a tad menacing. The pillow he'd been using to muzzle his emotions is in her hands.

Steve squints at her with one eye open, turns his head to the bedside table and drags his phone over. After checking the time, he delivers in a flat tone, "It's 4:22am."

Bucky-with-the-bob comes up next to her, grins with jubilant glee. "Morning, honey."

"Shuddup." Steve's voice is rough from sleep, and he rubs his hands over his face in an effort to wake himself up. "What're you two doing in my room?"

"Our room," Bucky-with-the-specs corrects from his bed. He's sitting cross-legged atop the mattress, and, fuckin' hell, this is obviously some sorta party he didn't get the memo for, because sitting next to him, legs dangling off the bed, is Sam.

"What's all this?" Steve asks, sitting up.

"Intervention." Bucky-with-the-bob answers. 

"Conversation." Bucky-with-the-specs amends. He's obviously in a correcting mood, the dickhead.

"I hear someone has feelings for our resident genius." Natasha says.             

"Uh." Steve says, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, c'mon, Stevie," Bucky-with-the-attitude says. "If I have to listen to The Weepies for another damn minute, I'm gonna have the fuckin' weepies myself."

"What do you want me to say?" Steve volleys. "Jesus, it's fuckin' early. Why're we doing this now?"

"The disorientation caused by waking people up at abrupt times can lead to greater honesty and vulnerability during interrogations." Natasha answers. She's being extra spooky today and Steve levels an unimpressed look at her to let her know he's not. . . well, not impressed. Unrepentant and unapologetic, her eyebrows dance back at him.

Sam pipes up from the adjacent bed. "Uh, that sounds too close to psychological torture for my comfort."

"Ditto." Bucky says from next to him.

"Can I go back to sleep?" Steve asks. "I've got a lecture at 8."

Natasha apparently takes that as her cue. "Speaking of the schedules we have―"

"―oh, nice segue―" Winter discreetly high-fives Natasha.

"―You're running late on yours." Natasha finishes. "By which I mean, it's time you stopped pining and started grinding."

". . .Really?"

"I am very serious, Steve." Natasha assures.

"Grinding?"

"I mean." Natasha's lips curl. "Trying to get Tony to have feelings for you. That grind."

"Uh-huh." Steve says. "The rest of you are seriously condoning this? You too, Sam?"

Sam raises his hands in surrender, except it's not so much surrender as it is a bluff because he continues with a, "well, you tend to need a physical or emotional push to be honest about your feelings."

"Okay, okay." Steve crosses his arms. "So, what? Everyone knows that I have feelings for Tony. Big whoop." He exhales in a low, long breath. "I can't do anything about it."

"Why can't you do anything about it?" Sam asks.

"Uh, does anyone remember how this started?" Steve asks. "Tony told me has feelings for Thor."

"But doesn't that feel weird to you?" Natasha asks. "That he would invite you out for coffee just to tell you that he has feelings for Thor? Why go through all of that pomp when he could just tell you straight-up?"

"What do you mean?" Steve feels his face starting to twist into a frown and smooths it out.

"I'm thinking, and this is my theory, not Bucky's," Natasha clears her throat, "but maybe Tony was actually planning on confessing his feelings for you, and chickened out at the last moment. I mean, Tony having feelings for Thor? How does that track?"

"We know Tony's got a thing for strong, kind-hearted, hunky blonds." Steve says, eyebrows settling low as everyone offers him a deciduously deadpan look. "What?"

"Steve." Sam drawls. "You're a strong, kind-hearted, hunky blond."

"I―" Steve tilts his head. "Well, that's. . . for Tony to have feelings for me is one thing, for him to chicken out of confessing is another, but for him to bring Thor into it is just. That's hopelessly convoluted."

"That's not hopelessly convoluted, that's Tony Stark." Natasha says.

Steve feels off-kilter, and there's probably a bit of lingering stiffness from sleep to the slow rigour of his thoughts, but it all just feels too. . . too farfetched.

"There's no way." Steve hears his voice from afar. "There's no way?"

"It's Tony Stark, there's always a way." Winter drawls.

"Can you all stop talking about him like that?" Steve interjects. "He's not some caricature. He contains multitudes. He's a human being, with feelings and thoughts and really pretty brown eyes."

"What was that last thing?" He hears Sam mutter under his breath to Natasha.

"And even if any of what you're saying is true," Steve raises the volume of his voice to make sure what he says registers. "It wouldn't be fair of me to impose my own feelings on him, not when he's shown no sign of liking me romantically."

"So you're not even going to try and woo him?" Natasha asks.

". . . What?"

"It's a fair question." Bucky says, getting up from the bed and walking closer to Steve. His arms are folded together as he peers down at Steve. He echoes, "you're not going to try?"

"Why―" Steve sighs. "Why are you all being so insistent? What's the point?"

"I think you guys would be good together."

"We care for you."

“Tony's definitely into you."

“I’m bored."

Steve didn't expect them all to hit back with mostly legitimate reasons. He figures it’s his fault, really—he’s always enjoyed keeping company with people who challenge and keep him on his toes. He can’t blame them for being exactly what he befriended them for.

Steve blows a noisy breath of air out. “What can I do?” 

“Try introducing the idea of getting together to him.” Natasha suggests. “Show more obvious signs of being into him.”

“Compliment him.” Summer-Bucky says. 

“Give him something shiny.” Winter-Bucky adds.

“What are you, a fucking magpie?” Summer-Bucky turns bodily to face Winter-Bucky.

Sam interjects in a pondering tone. “I mean, if it works, it works. People like shiny things.”

“He’s not wrong about that.” Natasha points out. 

“You could sing him a song.” Winter-Bucky continues on. 

“What?” Summer-Bucky actually throws his hands out. 

“Eyes of infernal beauty, smile like death’s infinity.” Bucky rattles out, arms in a loose imitation of an electric guitar. “Badum-gerh-badum-gerh.”

The silence that follows is so harsh that Steve actually worries for Bucky’s self-esteem. 

“. . .Or not.” Steve voices his opinion in a careful tone. 

“Or not.” Natasha echoes, rubbing the back of Winter’s shoulder reassuringly. 

“Alright, your loss.” Winter grouses. 

“You’re probably right.” Steve says. 

“You’re going to give it a go, then? A proper, Captain America go?” Sam confirms.

“Nah.” Summer-Bucky amends. “He’s gonna give it a wholesale Steve Rogers go.”

"Not this caricature nonsense with me, now." Steve sighs. "Listen. I'm gonna circle. I'm going to try and see whether there's. . . any way Tony's heart is open to the idea of someone else. Nothing else."

.

Steve feels like a proper creep.

He's hanging behind the corner of a hallway five meters from the utility room they use for meetings of the student affairs committee. He's doing this because he knows that Tony likes to take the shortcut through the bridge between the common hall and humanities complex.

Did he mention that he feels like a proper creep?

Since his early wake up call this morning, he’s been grinding his teeth over how to approach this. 

Where his inadvisable dental habits have gotten him to is this: more than anything, if he’s going to try and make his feelings a little less opaque to Tony, he needs it to be in a way that doesn’t set Tony on edge or directly impose his feelings on him. In a way that doesn’t take Natasha’s ‘theory’ as guarantee. 

Intention without expectation; that's what Steve ended up writing in his notebook during his 8am lecture, and not just because Professor Hill had it up on one of her slides.

Steve's already unlocked the door, and he watches Erik, and then Reed, make their way into the room. He waves off their questions by pretending to be on a call with someone.

It's pathetic, and creepy, and if the ground opened up below his feet, Steve would do a nose dive right in.

Tony comes around the corner, through the route Steve had anticipated, a few minutes before the meeting is set to start.

He’s looking down at his gauntlet, flicking through a few designs, and Steve sets off at a leisurely stride, timing it so that Tony catches sight of him only as they both reach the door.

“Hi.” Steve grins brightly in greeting.

Tony’s eyes widen as he comes to a startled stop at the door. His arm stays awkwardly poised, blue screen still hovering. “Hi?”

“You look better rested.” Before he can overthink it, Steve runs the back of his hand over Tony’s temple and cheek.

It’s soft, scratchy with stubble, and so obviously of a man’s that for a moment, Steve’s breath catches hard in his throat. 

Tony seems similarly perturbed, wearing it openly on his face for a long-drawn moment before visibly reeling it back. 

“Y’okay?” He asks Steve.

Too much, then. Steve dials it down. 

“Yeah, I’m alright.” Steve says. “You have been sleeping better, huh?”

“I guess, yeah.” Tony’s eyes are so very brown, flicking down to his gauntlet to switch off the screens before looking back up. “Is it so obvious?” He asks. 

“Only if you’re paying attention.” Steve decides on saying, not allowing his eyes to stray for even a second from Tony’s. 

It enables him to see how the comment lands on the apple of Tony’s cheeks, makes pink rise up to the surface. 

He really shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Confirmation bias; that’s a term that Tony himself taught Steve. 

Still, there’s a thrill at the sight he can’t squash down. Emboldens him enough to wrest the door open, gesture Tony in. 

"So. What world-changing invention have you made today?" Steve asks.

Tony’s laugh comes from deep within him, heavy and sweet. “You're limiting me to the world, then?” 

They settle into their seats. Erik and Reed are the only other people in the room, and both are busy on their phones. After a quick hello to the boys, Steve and Tony lose themselves in chatter.

As Tony pulls up a screen to show him a brainmap, Steve takes the—let's say, initiative—to lean in about an inch closer than he normally would. He keeps his voice hushed so that Tony's body draws closer to explain his recent deep-dive into quantum theory.

Sooner than Steve would like—sooner than he can properly gather his thoughts on whatever's happening to Tony's face at their closeness—the room’s filling up with committee members. The last two to come in are Loki and Thor. Steve tamps down the irritated reflex to catalogue Tony's reaction to Thor's appearance.

As the chair of the committee, it’s up to Steve to run the meeting, and he moves from his seat next to Tony to the one at the head of the table. There, he pulls up his binder from his backpack and brings out the agenda of the meeting. 

From the corner of his eye, he catches Thor taking a seat next to Jane, an anomalous choice from his typical spot next to Erik. 

Hmm. 

Steve clears his throat; puts a smaller, public smile on, and starts up on the agenda. 

. 

Steve’s finishing up his chat with T’Challa, noting down the contact details of the security advisors the Wakandan’s suggested for their next football match with Talokan. 

“I’ll get in contact as soon as possible.” Steve says. “Thanks for all your help with this, T’Challa.”

“Of course, Captain.” T’Challa pats his shoulder. “It will be good for the whole college to have a better security team on hand. The last few football matches have been rather. . . rowdy."

“I agree.”

Steve makes his way out of the room, gesturing for T’Challa to go on ahead so that he can lock it up behind him.

When he turns back and starts walking, he fully expects the hallway to be deserted but to his surprise, he finds Tony hanging at the end, body turned away and facing—

Thor and Jane, walking together. The blond’s arm is wrapped around the slight brunette’s shoulders, hunkering down to whisper something into her ear. The closeness is intimate, unassuming. Natural.

Steve steps quietly closer, lured in without knowing why. 

Tony’s eyes are shadowing the pair. Steve can read his expression clearly. The boy’s so lost to it that he’s not thought of concealing it, and the aching, wistful want there reverberates into Steve as easy and stinging as a slap to the face.

Cheeks burning, Steve retreats before Tony can cotton onto his presence.

There's his confirmation then. Total and without bias.

.

It’s halfway through their run the next morning that Steve brings it up. 

“I really like him.”

Sam doesn’t stumble in his stride. 

“Okay.”

Steve’s deeply grateful to him for not saying, I knew that, or I figured. For letting him say it aloud without giving what would have been a justified follow up. 

“But he doesn’t feel the same way for me.” Steve continues. 

Again, his gratitude to Sam is reinforced as the man simply asks, “are you sure?”

With eidetic memory painstakingly sharp, Steve is helpless to the truth. 

“Yes.” 

They continue jogging for a few more minutes, making their way through the courtyard outside the common hall and onto the winding path around the training centre. 

“I don’t think Thor returns Tony’s feelings.” Steve admits the niggling thought he’s been carrying around for a while. 

“What do you plan to do, then?”

“I’m gonna,” Steve’s breath comes out ragged, but he’s not exerted. Not yet. He lets the rhythm of his legs carry him back to stability before daring to re-try. “I'm going to try and convince him otherwise.”

“Tony?”

“Thor.” 

Sam comes to an abrupt stop, prompting Steve to hang back. 

“You’re going to play wingman?” Sam’s tone is incredulous. Distractedly, the boy presses 'PAUSE RUN' on his watch.

“I’m going to try my best to get Tony what he wants.” Steve says. “If that’s Thor, then. . . then fine. I’ll play wingman.”

“Man, Steve.” Sam shakes his head. “How’s that going to work out for you?” 

“It doesn’t matter.” Steve insists, starting off on the run again. 

“What do you mean it doesn’t matter?” Sam catches up with him. 

“Simply that.” Steve bites out, ending the conversation by quickening his strides. “It doesn’t matter. This isn't about me.”

And it was true that this wasn't about him. It was about Tony, and how dear he was to Steve, and how much it meant to Tony that this thing with Thor worked out. He would play his part gladly. He would help Tony get with the person he wanted, even if it wasn't him.

And as far as his feelings for Tony went. . .

Well, he'd just have to suck it up and keep his stupid mouth shut.

Chapter Text

Steve gives himself the day. 

He goes to his morning lecture. Spends the hour and half clutching a hot latte, sipping it whenever his notes err too far into scrawls.

He’s got two hours between the morning lecture and the afternoon one, and he spends it in the library, ostensibly to work on his economics paper. In truth, he spends most of it in a closed-off corner listening to a break up playlist. It’s more than indulgent, he knows, but he’d rather get the histrionics out of him now. 

The mentos has hit the coke and everything about him is alight in mortifying granularity. With the melodramatic whimsy only the heartbroken can entertain, Steve thinks of how little coke is left in the bottle after the explosion. How little of him will be left.

He was wrong. He is wrong. He’d let himself distrust what Tony had told him upfront. Had seen what he wanted to in lieu of what was actually there. 

Steve lets out a low, embarrassed sound. Thank God he hadn’t gone further in his pathetic flirtations with Tony. Thank—well, thank Thor, he supposed. 

The thought’s bitter. Hollow like a cough. 

He wants, suddenly, to know when Tony fell for Thor. Whether it was an incline of moments or a flash fire pivot. And if it was one moment. . . what was that one moment? What had Thor done to hold Tony’s attention?

. . . What. . . what hadn't Steve done?

He dials up the volume of his laptop and lets a sorrowful soprano carry his feelings down into a drowned murmur.

.

At the end of the day, he feels like a lemon with its juice sucked out. Truly husked. He’s unwatchful as he wanders back to his dormitory, unmindful of his surroundings, and that’s what he blames for not catching the object—

The subject of his torment sooner. 

“Hey, Steve.” 

Steve doesn’t want to turn around. He turns around. 

Plasters a smile on. “Hey, Tony. What’s up?”

Tony reels back. “Shit, what happened to you?” He’s up and in Steve’s face before the blond can will up the energy to react. “Are you—you can’t get sick, what’s wrong?”

Tony’s hand flits over his forehead, pressing for a hot moment. “You definitely don’t have a fever. I mean, of course you don’t have a fever. You’ve got the serum. So. What’s—injury?”

Steve takes a step back, dislodges Tony’s grip. “I’m okay.”

“But you look like you’re. . .” Tony shakes his head. “No?”

“No.” Steve assures, firm but not unkind. “Just had a regular bad day.” 

“. . .You wanna talk about it?” Tony prompts, voice gentle.

“No. I, uh.” Steve shakes his head, blows a long breath out. “Sorry, I just wanna sleep it off.”

“I get it.” Tony says. He steps back. “Hey, we have that tutorial tomorrow. Do you want to meet beforehand? Coffee? My treat?”

“Um.” Steve’s emotionally lethargic. Unwilling to read into whatever it is that Tony’s doing now, knowing that he isn’t doing what Steve wants him to. He tries. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Why do you want to get coffee?”

“Because we’re friends?” There’s something off about Tony’s smile. 

“Oh.” Steve musters up some energy. “Yeah, sure. Thanks, Tony. You’re a. . . a great friend.”

Tony’s smile sits better on his face. “You, too.”

“I—” No, I’m not. If I was a great friend, I wouldn’t be in love with you. “I’m tryin—I try. Thanks.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” Tony confirms. Graciously, he makes no mention of Steve's slip-up. “The cafeteria in the sciences block? At 8?”

“Yep.” Steve says. 

“I’ll text you in the morning.” Tony says. “If you’re still not feeling better, you should skip the tutorial.”

“I—yeah, I’ll be fine, I’m sure.” Steve says. “See you tomorrow.”

.

Once he’s inside the dorm room, Bucky takes one look at him and pleads, “just not The Weepies, okay?”

“I’m music’d out.” Steve says. “All I want is silence.” 

“Oh, bliss. My noise cancelling headphones are out of battery.” 

“I know you guys have a group-chat for this, but can you just give me the night before setting Twiddle-I’ll-torture-you and Twiddle-I’ll-watch on me?” 

“. . . Bizarre description of two otherwise very loving friends, but sure.” 

“Much obliged.” Steve salutes him, and then sets about trying to fall asleep. 

.

It's not like he feels miraculously better the next morning, but his pride refuses to allow him any more time to whinge and mope, so he brushes his teeth extra hard, runs his daily twenty miles extra fast, showers for ten minutes longer than he normally permits himself, and then heads out for coffee.

Despite his gritted teeth insistence to not make things weird, the moment he sees Tony—something in him slants, turns wanting and pleading. 

“Morning, Tony.” 

Tony’s eyes break away from his monitor, a distracted glance that melts into warm appraisal. “Hey.” He gestures to the table before him. "Have a seat. How're you feeling?"

"Yeah, super." Steve dismisses. "It was really nothing major, the other day."

"Y'sure? You looked. . . like someone had socked you in the jaw." Tony says. There's the faintest wrinkle pinching the skin between his eyebrows.

Steve forces himself to stop looking so closely, pulling the chair forward, its legs dragging against the floor in a blunt scrape. He cringes apologetically at the sound before settling down opposite Tony.

"Hi." He repeats.

Tony's smile is hesitant, unwittingly charming. "Hi."

And then Steve begins the work of cleaving the lingering tension, conversation molding slow and steadily as they work over the recent hits in the gossip mill: how Tigra's dumped Clint for Loki, how well-prepped they are for the upcoming mathletes quiz against A.I.M., what they think of the dance committee's chosen theme—Hollywood Icons . . .

"Jan thinks I should go as Cary Grant from Bringing Up Baby." Tony says. He fiddles with his phone for half a minute before turning the screen to face Steve. Cary Grant, looking positively bratty in a fluffy bathrobe, looks back.

"I'd have to figure out something to wear underneath." Tony says. "Don't know much dancing I can do with it on."

Steve imagines Tony in the outfit, twirling under a disco ball, hair curled and bathrobe sleeves swishing around. A smile twitches out of him at the charming image and he hides it by taking a sip of his cappuccino.

"What about you?" Tony inquires. "What Hollywood icon are you going to go as?"

"Gawd, I don't know." Steve rubs a hand over his forehead. "I haven't given it a single thought."

Tony looks him over. "Considering that the dance committee's one of the few you don't have to sit in on, I'm surprised you're not more excited about this." Tony points out. He slices a neat portion of his toast, bringing it up to his mouth. The flash of his pink tongue is brief and—distracting.

Under the table, Steve moves the heel of his left foot to settle on top of the toes of his right, pressing down harshly.

"Keeps slipping my mind," Steve shrugs. "Nothing more to it."

"Speaking of." Tony winces to himself, smoothing the abrupt segue with a flick of his hand. "Uh, so. I don't think I'm going to ask Thor out."

Tony couldn't have startled him more had he reached a hand down Steve's throat and snatched his heart right out of him.

"You—what?"

"Yeah." The word drags slow and drawling out of Tony. "I just don't think he's into me."

"How can you be sure?"

"He's a good guy, you know?" Tony stays there for a moment, eyes dipping low over his coffee. "And I guess I always figured that if I tempered some of my more outrageous tendencies, made myself more. . . palatable, I could open his heart to me. But I know now that he doesn't want to be with someone like me." Tony clears his throat. "Anyway, I'm pretty sure."

"Someone like you?"

"You know."

"No, I don't." Steve insists. "Explain it to me."

"Are you. . . upset?" Tony cocks his head.

"No." Steve says, leaning forward to repeat, "what do you mean by "someone like me", huh?"

Tony's mouth works for a scant few seconds before he recites, with the intonation of someone listlessly recalling the alphabet: "Eccentric, arrogant, closed off, dramatic, selfish, obstinate—"

"That's enough."

Steve doesn't recognise the low, mean tone in his voice.

"Hey, you asked. Oh my god. You are mad." Tony realises. "Why?"

"Why?" Steve looks around the cafe, centers himself in the bustle of the morning crowd, the world carrying on about them. He returns his gaze to Tony only when he feels he can meet it head on. Answers, "maybe, just maybe, as someone who cares about you, I don't like the fact that you feel like in order to be with the people you like, you have to completely repress or change who you are."

"That's. . ." Tony sighs, holds his hands up in a supplicating gesture. "Steve, I just don't think I have one of those personalities that's easy to be around long-term. And that's fine, some people just aren't—"

"That is not true." Steve feels, after he's said it, the snarl that's twisted his face. He pulls his lips back over his teeth, runs his tongue over them to placate their anger, and then says, "it isn't, Tony."

"You can't honestly be saying this." Tony wears an incredulous smile. "You found me infuriating when we first met."

"Yeah, and I'm finding you a hell of a lot infuriating now, too." Steve adds.

Tony's smile turns smug, winning. "See?"

"That's not the—that's not the point." Steve says. "The point is." His hand darts over, latching onto Tony's shoulder and pulling him in close. "Everyone's infuriating. After a while, after a bad day, after they cut you off one too many times. The person you care the very most for becomes infuriating. It's inevitable. But that's what being with someone is. What loving someone is. To know that they can be infuriating, to bear witness to it while also holding the fact of your love for them close."

There's a quietude in their shared breaths. Now that Steve's run out of words, their closeness is a deafening thing. His hand slides off Tony's shoulder belatedly. He can't hold back the thought that he's revealed too much, that Tony must know now how he feels.

How can Tony not know?

Tony stares back at Steve with a dumbstruck expression; all big, beautiful brown eyes and parted pink lips.

Don't kiss him. Whatever you do, don't kiss him.

Steve pulls away. "You shouldn't need to change yourself for someone to like you. Not you. You're. . . you're just right as you are. If Thor can't see that, then it's. . .it's on him. Not you. Because you're good enough."

He watches Tony exhale, eyes finally blinking, relenting. With a visible lag, Tony picks up his utensils and takes another bite of his toast. A minute passes as they finish up their breakfast, the tick of each passing second fading out the brilliant intensity of the moment they've just shared.

". . .Do you really like Thor?" Steve dares to ask, feels a fool for asking. "As in. Uh. How serious is it?"

Tony looks away, jaw clenching. Steve's eyes root themselves in the jump of muscle there.

He can't look away from him. Why did it take him so long to know it?

Tony fidgets with the question. "Do you think it's stupid to go for someone who you can never have?"

How did I miss you? All this time, how did I miss the potential of what we could be. . .

Steve shakes his head, no. He can't speak, is worried that he'll spill out his feelings if does so.

"There you go, then." Tony's smile is whole but sad; lips not quite rising to sweet symmetry. "There's my answer."

.

"Steve. Steve?"

Steve slows down to let Natasha catch up to him.

"You've got fifteen seconds, Nat." Steve says, "I'm late for a meeting with Fury."

"I can work with that." Natasha says. "Are you seriously giving up on Tony and playing wingman to his fake crush on Thor?"

"I'm not giving up on him." Steve corrects. "I'm trying to give him what he wants."

"But I really don't think he's got feelings for Thor."

"You didn't see him." Steve insists. "I don't want any more of this conspiracy, Nat. Please."

"Fine, sure. I'll play along. Tony likes Thor. Pigs are flying. The world is a happy place." Natasha continues, "I've still got to know—what do you get out of this?"

"Tony, happy."

". . . Sounds like this is more than a crush, Steve."

"Yeah, well." Steve gets to the door of the meeting room. He finally meets Natasha's stare, catches the eureka seeping into those green eyes. Steve confesses, helplessly, truthfully: "you've always had good ears."

.

It's as the squad is cooling down that Steve brings it up.

Thor's pretty lax about his stretching—he supposes that's a benefit that comes with being a demigod with muscles that just don't operate the way normal humans, or hell, even super-serum soldiers' muscles do. The boy's making a good pretense of it though, laying out on his back and raising his leg out.

Steve comes to sit next to him, resting on his abdomen to do some hip flexor stretches.

"Hey, Thor." He doesn't bother with trying to keep it casual.

"Steve," Thor's eyes track his face. "What is the matter?"

"You and Jane." Steve says. "How serious is it?"

Thor considers him for a long, thoughtful moment. Steve does him the favour of not looking away; letting him glean whatever he can from Steve's expression.

"I haven't ever thought of it in terms of "serious" or "unserious"." Thor says slowly. "Why do you ask?"

"I ask because I am curious as to," Steve brings his leg up. "Whether your heart could be open to someone other than her."

Thor reels back. "Not you, surely?"

"No, no." Steve gives a flurrying shake of his head. "Not me. No offense."

"I'm too relieved to take any offense." Thor tilts his head. "Wait. Then who?"

Fuck. Steve braces the balls of his feet against the grass and sits up into a plank. Moment of truth then. 

"Tony." The confession is a worn, pitiful thing.

"Tony Stark?"

Steve flicks an irritated glance Thor's way.

"Tetchy these days, aren't you, Captain?" Thor looks forward. "Especially toward me. . . which is curious because there hasn't been any precedence for animosity on either of our ends."

Contrite, Steve sighs. "I'm sorr—"

"Could I open my heart to Tony? It's a big question that you raise. I will answer it if you answer mine." Thor interjects. When Steve nods his concession, Thor's eyebrows drop back into a lax line. "Does Tony have a place in your heart?"

". . . He's a friend."

"I know that." Thor tilts his head down as he considers Steve. "That isn't what I'm asking."

"Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes." Steve fixes his gaze on the grass. "But he. . .he wants you."

"Really." Thor ponders. "That's interesting."

"He cares for you." Steve says. "I've been watching you and Jane. I can see there's something budding there, and I would never ask for you to ignore that. But if you. . .if you can consider someone else, if you have the space in your heart to give Tony a chance, I know you'll." He swallows. "I know you won't regret it. And it'll mean a lot to him to have that chance."

Rubbing a hand over his chin, Thor confirmed, "he told you he has feelings for me?"

Steve nods.

"And he hasn't told me this because. . ."

"I don't know the whole of it." Steve winces before amending, "truth be told, they're his reasons to share. I've already gone behind his back to tell you this, but that's. . . no, it wouldn't be right to tell you, but I do know that the gist of it is that he believes that he's not your type."

"Am I his?"

It's a bold question, one that sets off a flare of petty jealousy in his throat.

"You're a strong, kind-hearted, hunky blond." Steve blinks. "Yes, you are."

". . . So're you."

"I know." Steve bites out. He holds a hand up, pausing his stretching, pausing everything. He gathers himself together, feeling like a kid trying to hold handfuls of sand in his grip. "I'm sorry, Thor." Steve says, "I know I'm being an asshole. I don't mean to be. Really."

"Don't worry, friend. I don't hold it against you." Thor smiles. "Love brings folly to all."

". . . He doesn't feel that way towards me." Steve admits. "The type thing. I don't know. That's just some of it, right? He didn't tell me how it is that he came to have feelings for you so I can't tell you. . ." Steve clears his throat. "You see."

"I'm sorry, Steve." Thor says.

"I care for him, Thor." Steve doesn't want the apology, rejects it outright. "I want him to be happy."

"I see." Thor's eyes gleam as he makes his articulation of the situation known. "You've come to convince me."

"Yes." Steve says. "Look. I'm not asking you to drop Jane. I mean, is it. . .?" When Thor doesn't give any indication of clarifying, Steve lets it go. "She's a great gal. I'm just asking, if there's any way. . . just. Consider him? Give him a fighting chance?"

Thor nods slowly. "Oh-kay. I see what this is. I'll do it."

"Y'will?"

"Of course." Thor says. "If I can't take Captain America's counsel under consideration, whose can I?"

"I—thank you." Steve says. "Thank you, Thor." He feels sand slipping through his fingers, feels his heart break with the fall of each grain.

Thor smiles. "Anything for a friend. Isn't that right, Steve?"

Steve's smile feels plastic, Thor's line sitting wrong and cruel in him. "Yeah."

"Tony's a friend." Thor says. "But sometimes, we don't see what is before us as until we're smacked with it. Like your shield."

"Hmm?"

"And it can be difficult, to breach a friendship. To make intention of a new direction known."

Steve's smile is barely keeping on his face. He lets it drop, lets Thor witness his confusion.

"My kind-hearted friend," Thor's smile is secretive. Amused. "I think we are both set to be smacked by a shield."

"Thor," Steve runs a hand through his sweaty hair. "You've lost me, really."

"Tomorrow, yes?" Thor continues without paying Steve's comment any mind. "The Asgardian re-enactment. That should be a good chance for me to speak to Tony about. . . about maybe trying to take our friendship in a new direction. What do you think?"

"That's a good idea." Steve says weakly.

Thor's answering smile is assuring, kind. He clasps a strong hand on Steve's shoulder, gives him a shake. "Don't worry, captain. Tony will surely meet his answer tomorrow."

Steve thinks of that.

Of Thor and Tony together. Thor twirling Tony. Tony decked up in a bathrobe under the flickering, pretty lights of a dance hall.

"Yeah." Steve swallows. "I'm sure he will."

Chapter Text

Steve’s in his Global Economics class, diligently taking notes of Sharon’s presentation when a folded note appears at his elbow.

When he unveils the note, he’s met with spindly, blue lettering:

DID YOU TELL THOR TO ASK TONY OUT?? Y/N??

He sneaks a look back at Seasonal Depression Bucky, who on his end is already peering at him with bugged out eyes.

Steve mouths, did he ask him out?

Bucky squints meaningfully at the paper, and Steve rolls his eyes, turning back.

He scrawls out, STOP BEING A PIECE OF SHIT, and follows Bucky’s lines to re-fold the paper. After quickly checking that the tutor’s still turned away from them, he tosses the paper back to Bucky, assured of his trajectory.

The reply comes on the other side of the paper: I HEARD FROM DARCY WHO FOUND OUT FROM JANE THAT THOR SWITCHED FROM HIS AFTERNOON TUTORIAL TO THE MORNING ONE AKA TONY'S COHORT

Steve taps his pen against his knee as he considers that. All he's able to write down is:

WHATEVER'S GOING ON--IT'S NOT OUR BUSINESS

Bucky's reply is pure bait.

YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE TOLD JANE THEN?

Steve doesn't send the paper back, crumpling it in his hand. He tunes back in as Sharon gets to the end of her presentation.

At the end of their allotted hour, he doesn't hang back and wait for Bucky, just tosses the crumpled paper into the bin outside the classroom, wishing fervently that he could do the same to Thor and Tony's budding relationship.

.

He wants to be a good friend, and so he will be. It's as simple as that.

Steve breathes carefully through his nose as he lifts up onto the parallel bars. With his wrists locked, he does a slow somersault on the bar, feeling his laterals compress and stretch wide with the circuit.

It's his fifty-sixth turn. His arms have just begun to shake, making their exertion known in faint tremours. The bar's gathered his sweat and his hold has become a little more slippery. He has to pay proper attention to his grip to stay put as he turns.

"This feels like watching a man torture himself."

Steve huffs. "I enjoy this, Buck."

Seasonal depression has caught up to him, it seems.

"So. I spoke with my better half."

"Natasha?"

"Bucky." Winter Bucky winces. "My lesser half? Alter ego?"

"What's the point, Buck?"

"We're worried, Steve." Bucky crosses his arms. "This is you deliberately fucking yourself over."

"No, it's not." Steve disagrees, initiating a new turn. He'd come to the gym looking to center himself; to let each revolution on the bar bring him closer to inner peace.

He's yet to get anywhere even close to it.

"You don't have to agree with me." Bucky replies. "But Steve—jokes and interventions and your obsession with that one Weepies song aside, I—we— know you're hurting."

"The song just speaks to how I've been feeling." Steve protests.

"Congrats, you've discovered music." Bucky says. "Stop deflecting."

"Tony wants Thor," Steve says. "What kind of friend would I be if I dismissed that?"

"What kind of friend would Tony be if knowing that you have feelings for him would ruin your friendship?" Bucky retorts.

Steve hasn't thought of that. He stills his body midway through the turn, keeps his body poised as he considers it. "You're not wrong," he admits in a hushed tone.

"And what if it works out between Thor and Tony?" Bucky asks. "What's your strategy for dealing with that? Exactly how long do you think you can keep up this façade in front of Tony?"

Steve doesn't reply, resuming his revolution instead. He turns quicker, hears Bucky continue, "what are you going to do when Thor's twirling Tony on the dance floor? When they're being all couple-y in class? What—"

Steve slips from the bars, lands on his rear with a thud. 

He could blame it on the sweat on the bars, the lactic burn in his arms.

Bucky comes up to him, sporting a thoroughly unsurprised look. 

"You're not okay." Bucky says. "You know why I'm the one telling you?"

"Because you went through this exact thing with Natasha?" Steve guesses.

"Nope! I'm here because I was the last person to say "dibs not"," Bucky holds out his hand. "But since I'm here anyway," he shrugs. "Yeah, you're right. I went through this exact thing with Natasha. I know what it's like to want more out of a friendship already so special that it makes you feel greedy just to think it."

"Natasha was, is, head over heels for you." Steve says, accepting the hand up. Once he's upright, he meets Bucky's gaze. "Tony's not."

"Maybe not now." Bucky says, "but I heard. . . okay, don't get mad at me. I heard that you told Thor that if there was any chance of him being able to open his heart to Tony, that he should do so."

"How d'ya know?"

"Natasha. Her source, don’t ask me." Bucky says. "But I'm thinking, if you truly believe Thor can and should do that, why can't you ask Tony to do the same for you?"

"Because—" Steve wrinkles his nose, rubs it to quell his disquieted reaction. "Because my feelings for him—"

"Don't matter?" Bucky raises an eyebrow when Steve doesn't immediately reject it. "Come on, Steve, what is this?"

"I trust him to know his feelings. I tried to show him my own—"

"Really?"

"What do you want from me?" It's out louder and meaner than he intends for it to be but it's honest. He can’t bring himself to bother softening it. "I'm trying to make the best of this, for him." Steve rubs a hand over his mouth. "And I know you're all worried for me, and I'm grateful for that but it isn't necessary." His hand slides off his mouth and he brings both of them forward in a stalling gesture. "Let me assure you. I know what I'm doing. I will deal with the fallout. I do not need the constant check-ins."

"Okay." Bucky holds his own hands up in a mirrored reaction. "This is me backing off. You read me?"

"I read you." Steve sighs. "I do appreciate the check-in, alright? This is not me saying that I don't."

"Sure. Just as you know we'd be shitty friends if we didn't do this." Bucky reminds.

"I gotcha." Steve says, eyes shifting away, looking for a segue and finding it in the mats nearby. ". . .While we're here, you wanna spar?"

"Yeah, sure." Bucky drawls easily, before clarifying, "but just 'cause you've got a broken heart, don't think I'm gonna go easy on you."

"Just for that, I'm not going to go easy on you."

.

The Asgardian re-enactment—the play—is early in the evening, and Steve makes his way to the theater an hour and a half before the starting time.

The Asgardians are playing themselves in the re-enactment but as with all productions, there are contingencies for each role. Steve is an important contingency. He's the understudy for Thor, a role he'd accepted long before any of this mess had commenced but now feels like cruelly ironic retribution.

He walks down the hall, past the stage upon which Loki is giving Pepper a rundown of where the props need to be situated. He's a micromanager—Loki, that is—and while ordinarily Steve would intervene and get him off Pepper's back, he also knows that Pepper's more than capable of out-micro-managing the most micro-managerial of them all. He takes the steps up the side of the stage into the wings leading backstage. He passes a few of the students on the props team, swerving around Peter webbing up the corners of a backdrop so as to drag it over the floor in one hand.

He heads into the dressing room, dropping his duffle bag onto the couch behind the vanities and chairs. He's very likely to not go on at all so it doesn’t make sense for him to take one of the cast seats. Doreen gives him a cheery smile from where she's applying a liberal amount of black eyeshadow on Sif's face.

Steve walks past them and out of the dressing room, locating MJ by the curtains.

"Hey." The redhead looks up from her clipboard, eyes distant and distracted. Steve smiles in appeal to her. "How can I help, MJ?"

"Steve!" MJ says. "Well." She flicks through a page on her board. "Um. We could do with another stagehand to move the props? Peter and Johnny were bickering earlier so I had to move Johnny to the booth, and with only Peter able to move the heavy cargo, the schedule's slowed down."

"What's the point of super strength if it can't be used to lug a few cardboard pop-ups around?" Steve jokes, accepting her responding fist bump.

He finds Peter still wrangling a heavily webbed stage backdrop.

"The physics of this," Peter gestures to the backdrop, "should enable me to move it."

"Awright, Pete, I believe you." Steve says. "But how's about we try this the old-fashioned way? I'll take the back, you take the front."

Peter gives the backdrop a dubious look. "I may need your help to detach the webbing."

Steve blows a low breath of air out. "I was hoping you wouldn't say that. This stuff is impossible to get off your hands."

Peter takes a pocket hand sanitiser out of his hoodie. "You can have—"

"Kid," Steve shakes his head. "Just don't."

.

It's as he's clearing space in the hallway—putting boxes previously filled with props away—that Tony finds him.

From the email MJ had sent out a month back, Steve knows that Tony volunteered to be on lighting for the re-enactment. He's surprised the boy's come down; he figured Tony would have been well-nestled in the control booth with Shuri, Reed and Rocket.

"Hey, Cappuccino."

"Tony, I told you to not call me—" Steve pauses. "Huh."

"Cappuccino." Tony's smile is self-pleased as he offers the takeaway cup of coffee to him.

"Oh, so you think you're funny?" Steve teases, accepting the proffered cup. "Thank you."

"We've got a great vantage point from the booth. Been watching you lug around props for the past fourty minutes."

"Yeah?" Steve asks. "Catch anything worth looking at?"

Tony's answering volley is swift. "The serum is the gift that keeps on giving."

Steve feels wrongfooted in the silence after. What's this then? He knows he started it, knows Tony's quick with repartee, knows that it doesn't mean anything.

He just wishes, from the bottom of his heart, that it did.

That's what makes it tough. They could have had this had Steve just been more proactive. If he'd just seen sooner what it was that made Tony so dear to him; that made their good so bright and their bad so dim. . . maybe he could have been there before Thor.

"Steve." Tony's noticed the lapse, and his voice is coloured tender by it. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay." Steve carefully skirts his mind away from the memory of the last time Tony reached out with that request. "What's up?"

"It's about—" Tony cringes. "I need to clear something up, something I should have cleared up a while back but didn't because, because I'm a coward."

"You're not a coward." The defense is automatic.

"Maybe you should let me finish." There's soft contrition in his tone, and it stills Steve.

"I'm listening," he prompts.

"Tony!" There's Jan's voice, filtering through the P.A. system. "We need you in the booth! Johnny's accidentally deep-sixed the saved audios."

"You've gotta be kidding me." Tony exhales roughly. He gives Steve an rueful look. "I'll come back. Fifteen minutes."

"We can talk after, Tony, it's not—"

"No, I really need to just talk to you." Tony clapped his hands together. "As soon as possible. Sorry. Fifteen minutes! Promise."

"Alright, alright." Steve says. "Go save the day, then we'll talk."

At that, he finally gets some levity. "Aye-aye, avenger."

He watches Tony walk off, and hears another set of footsteps come up to him. The sighed greeting is familiar, but he makes no move to greet the boy standing next to him.

Characteristically, Rhodey cuts to the meat of it.

"I see what you're doing here, you know." Rhodey sounds unimpressed. "Talking to Thor behind his back."

"You want to help?"

"Nah," Rhodey huffs, "I like my seat just fine. Popcorn's hot and salty. Got peanut M&Ms. Those are my favourite, you know?"

"Alright." Steve replies easily, takes a long sip of his cappuccino. "I don't need this."

"Hey, chin up, Steve." Rhodey claps his shoulder, "I'm on your side."

"What do you mean by that?" Steve finally glances over, struck by curiousity. "Are there sides?"

"Fifteen minutes, Steve." Rhodey says. "Weren't you paying attention?"

With that cryptic shakedown, Rhodey walks forward and off the stage. Steve brings to mind what role Rhodey had been given in the email. Security detail. Of course.

He shakes off the feeling that he's been warned, taking a sip of coffee instead. After a minute, he blows a gusty breath out and curses.

"Damn you, Rhodes. Now I want M&Ms."

.

Steve's just finished helping Loki fix his antlers when he's pulled aside by Thor, beckoned out of the dressing room and into the alcove next to it. The man's fully decked out in Asgardian gear, looking every inch the royal. And it's not as if Steve doesn't know that Thor's a prince, or that he doesn't typically look like one, but something about the attire just elevates him; renders him imposing, unfamiliar and downright otherworldly.

"All ready for the pl—re-enactment?" Steve asks.

"It's my life I'm re-enacting the story of." Thor shrugs easily. "I am as prepared as any man can be."

"Great." Steve says. "I've gotta be honest, I think I've only got about three-quarters of the re-enactment locked down."

"Ah, you will be no one's understudy today, my friend." Thor assures. "Do not worry. Though, speaking of understudies. . ."

"Hmm?"

"I have decided to go forward with your proposal." Thor smiles amicably. "I will give Tony a chance."

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"I mean, no way." Steve blinks quickly. "Wow, that's great."

Thor grins jovially. "I wouldn't have considered Tony a romantic prospect prior to our conversation. I have to thank you for opening my eyes to him."

"Ha." Steve smiles weakly. "You're welcome."

"I plan to ask him out soon, and I thought I may ask you, as a close friend of his, whether you had any tips. What he's like, what I should do." Thor spreads his hands out beseechingly.

This moment matters, Steve realises. This is where all his proud promises to be a good friend are tested to their bleeding edge. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Don't back out now. Think of Tony, think of him happy.

With that top of mind, Steve raises his head and delivers on his oath.

"The thing you need to know about Tony is that," Steve inhales, forces authenticity to the surface. "He's kind and he's smart, and I know everyone knows those two things, but it's in a greater capacity than you realise. And it'll be easy to feel out of your depth once you see it. Don't give into it. He takes care of people, especially those he lo—cares about. If you're. . .if you're lucky enough to be in that circle, don't take it for granted."

Steve shifts on his feet as he impresses, "don't take him for granted. Even when he tries to make it easy for you to do so—which he will—don't. It's a rare and special thing to have the attention of someone like him. Keep it, for as long as you can. Keep it close, and keep him close, and you won't go wrong."

Thor's giving him a look that's very, very taken aback. "Um." The demigod's face twists into an awkward rictus. "I meant, what he likes, what films he enjoys. You know. Taking someone out on a date info."

"Oh." Steve tamps down his mortification the way one would rip off a band-aid. "Bad sci-fi. He enjoys making a thought exercise of how he'd make the impossible science bits work."

"Really?" Thor raises his eyebrows, eyes dragging from him to someone behind him. "Is that right, Tony?"

Every part of Steve locks up.

He hears Tony walk forward, coming up and past Steve to turn and face him. Stupefyingly, his only thought is, but it's not been fifteen minutes yet.

Thor looks between them before saying, "I believe my acting here is done. Now I must make haste and get a good luck kiss from Jane before the re-enactment."

In his departure, Steve's got no excuse to look anywhere but right at Tony.

"I'm so sorry, Tony." Steve begins, "I swear, I never planned on—"

"It was you." Tony blurts out.

"What?"

"It is you." Tony rushes out. "It's always been you. I chickened out, and I blurted out Thor's name, and I've been digging myself a grave ever since. I feel like a fucking shithead for deceiving you, and for dragging Thor and Jane into it, and I'm so, so sorry."

Steve steps back, one, two, three, before he forces himself to stop his retreat. He swallows, looking again at Tony's face, splayed open with remorse and apology.

After a quarter of a minute, he manages, "it was me?"

"It is you, yes." Tony corrects. "I'm honestly sorry for all of this, Steve."

Steve tears his gaze away from Tony to the curtains detailing the side of the stage. He can't believe they're still alone in this alcove. It feels impossible. All of this feels impossible. He rubs his forehead, trying to quell the maelstrom of confusion blooming there.

"I understand if this—deception—changes things for you." Tony says. "I'm not going to hold anything that you told Thor against you. Even though it was so. . . so very. Um. Anyway. The point is, I'm really sorry. You've been such a good friend, the absolute greatest, and I—"

"I've been such a dick to Thor." Steve cuts in, low and intense.

Tony's mouth all but snaps shut, and Steve fixes his eyes on its somber set.

"I saw you, though." Steve continues. "Looking at Thor and Jane, green with envy. After the committee meeting."

"Oh." Tony's eyes lower. "That was. Well. Let's just say, it was the look of them I was jealous of. That they had the kind of thing I wanted, but with you. It's not—it's never been—I don't feel anything like that with Thor. His name slipped out because I'd been chatting to him about his thing with Jane, a day before our chat. I swear I feel nothing romantic for him."

"Why, Tony?" Steve asks. "Why all of this convoluted—"

He blinks. Recalls: that's not hopelessly convoluted, that's Tony Stark.

"Natasha was right," he says.

"She usually is." Tony purses his mouth self-consciously.

"I don't understand why, Tony." Steve bites out. "God, you've had me so blue this whole week."

"I know." Tony says. "Natasha told me, and I—I could see it. I was starting to, anyway. I hoped I was wrong because it would mean I was hurting you, and then, and then sometimes I hoped I was right because it would mean you have feelings for me. I know how it sounds. I know I'm incredibly selfish."

"No, you're not." Steve denies. "Your antics are straight out of a sitcom, though."

"I'm so sorry." Tony says, shrugging helplessly. "That's all I wanted to say. I never meant to hurt you like this. I understand. . .I understand if you need space moving forward."

Steve steps forward. "Wait, wait." He doesn't continue until he's got Tony's eyes on him. "That's all you want to tell me?"

"I—" Tony's lips twist down, "I'm sorry."

"I've yet to hear it." Steve says.

". . . What?" The scrim of confusion is a refreshing switch from the self-flagellating remorse.

"The reason you called me out that first time." Steve says. "What was it you wanted to say?"

"Steve. . . is this. . ."

"Be honest with me, Tony."

Tony steels at that. "You're right," he agrees softly. "It's the least I owe you."

With a slow inhale, Tony confesses, "I have feelings for you. I've had them for a few months. I wanted to admit them to you because I thought you may be open to giving us a shot. But I messed it all up from the get go. I should've been honest, even if I was terrified of rejection. I wasn't fair to you."

"5 minutes till curtain call!" MJ walks between them. "Everybody, get to your spots. Tony! Booth?"

"I'm going." Tony tells MJ. He walks up to Steve, gives him a tight smile. "Whatever it is that you need from me, I'll give it readily. Space, time, just let me know." Tony nods, more to himself than Steve, and it feels like an ending. A door locking.

Tony begins to walk away, and the cast comes out of the dressing room, all nerves and excited chatter. As they pass Steve, it all feels a smidge too cinematic; watching Tony get lost in a throng of students, watching him walk away.

"Tony." His voice carries, and he sees a few students pivot their way but he pays it no mind. His eyes are for one only, and he waits for that one to turn around. Look at him.

"Hey Tony." Steve repeats, shaky for a moment before he raises his voice again. "I think you're swell. I believe we could be good together. What do you think of being my date to the dance?"

Tony stumbles forward. His eyes are wide with surprise, radiant glee daring to make itself known in the edges.

"Are you. . . are you sure?" His voice is all breath.

"I think I could make you happy," Steve says. "As happy as you make me."

"Hear, hear." Thor booms. "How's about some privacy for the couple, guys?"

Students scurry forward and away.

Tony comes closer.

"Natasha is literally never going to let me hear the end of this." Steve says.

"I can live with that." Tony brings a hand forward and Steve clasps it, brings it to his own cheek. With more dare than he thought he possessed, he presses a kiss to the curve of Tony's wrist.

"Yes."

"Hm?"

"My answer." Tony says. "Yes, of course I will go to the dance with you. If you'll have me, I, I, absolutely."

"Good." Steve says, turning Tony's wrist over and checking his watch. "You are three minutes from showtime. And I know MJ has a romantic streak but I don't think even she'll be very forgiving if you skive."

"I hear ya." Tony says. "Come find me, after?"

"Duh." Steve clears his throat. "Um. Let me steal a kiss before you go?"

"You can't steal something that's already yours." Tony points out.

Steve gasps in pure performance. "And there's the flirt, late to the party."

"Only way to arrive to a party." Tony laughs shortly, before leaning up and closing in.

Steve meets him halfway, and the kiss is chaste. Until they don't pull away. Then it's less chaste.

"I knew you'd have to go on your tiptoes to reach me." Steve murmurs against Tony's lips.

He feels a pinch against his side before Tony sways back. "We need to debrief, from both of our ends. Hindsight and all that."

"It's a date." Steve concedes. "Alright, hurry off now. The lights need to go on for the play to start."

"Okay, okay, I'm going." Tony snorts, heading off. He reaches the end of the backstage curtain before he swivels back. "We're dating, right?"

"Yes, Tony." Steve bites back his grin, just barely.

"I can post it, then?"

"Aren't you going to be busy?"

"I can multi-task."

"Wait until tomorrow." Steve suggests. "Everyone will be gushing about the play tonight. It'll stick around on the gossip mill longer if we do it after the chatter around Thor's biceps has gone down."

"We owe him an apology basket." Tony says. "Of pop tarts."

"I'll take care of it." Steve says. "Hurry off, now, before any of the redheads catch you."

"Alright! I'm going, jeez, you can't wait to be rid of me." Tony whines.

"Nah." Steve grins openly now. Why not, right? He's gotten what he wants, against all odds. "I'm trying to hold off from kissing you stupid. You sticking around is making it mighty tough."

"You keep your stupid mouth to yourself." Tony teases, "I'll be back for it."

"You keep yours to yourself, too, then."

"Yes, well, I figured that's how relationships work." Tony says, and then he's gone.

In the beats after, Steve feels his heart exhale.

He knows he’ll need to let out all the remaining nonsense emotions. His own debrief of this mess. He's upset with Tony about parts of this, for the circus act this has been, but the delight of feelings requited trumps everything else. The mortification and lingering hurt don't even come close to the sheer, pure elation.

He's got the guy.

Steve smiles to himself, leaning against the wall. As he hears the roar of the crowd at the curtains peeling apart, he settles in to watch from the side. Thor strides across the stage, great guy that he is—Steve's recent feelings notwithstanding—beginning his spiel about a time "long, long, but not that long, ago."

Steve listens to Thor's monologue about his past, and thinks of his own future. Specifically, and most prominently, he thinks:

What would match Cary Grant's outfit in Bringing Up Baby?