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"Absolutely not." Tony shook his head decisively.
"If you ever want to—"
"Yeah." Tony smiled. It was a thin, fragile one, but it was real. "I know."
Steve paused a moment, still watching Tony carefully, before nodding and returning the careful smile.
"JARVIS, could you resume the movie where we left off?"
"Certainly, Steve."
Tony didn't lean on him again for most of the movie, and it took Steve longer than it should've to figure out it was because he thought Steve thought he was being clingy. To hell with subtlety; he threw an arm around Tony's shoulders and pulled him in without a word, kindly ignoring the way Tony's entire body melted against him with almost palpable relief.
God, he should've known.
"What kidnapping?" Steve's breath came back in a rush. "Who kidnapped him? When?"
"What do you mean, he didn't know?" Col. Rhodes ignored him to glance between Clint and Natasha. Steve didn't give them time to answer.
"I asked you a question soldier, who kidnapped him?" Steve demanded. Every cell in his body ached to step forward, take Col. Rhodes by the shirt, and shake him until he answered. This must have been obvious, because Col. Rhodes took a small step back.
"Ten Rings, they're a terrorist group. You weren't debriefed on that when you started working with him?"
"He didn't want to know." Clint glared.
"Tony asked Steve not to research him, so against all advisement to the contrary, Steve respected his wishes." Natasha leveled Col. Rhodes with a particularly judgmental look, a look that all but dared him to continue second-guessing Steve's motives.
"God damn it." Col. Rhodes scrubbed a hand over his face in a motion eerily similar to Tony. "No wonder he likes you so damn much. You didn't kno—"
"I have to go." Steve left abruptly, ducking out in the hall. Clint and Natasha could deal with Col. Rhodes.
He had to breathe.
Everything felt slow and constricted, like the times he'd been drugged but worse, headier. He felt himself stumble before he took off into a run, down the hall and around the corner, through the lab level and up the stairs, to the roof, somewhere he could breathe without wanting to throw up—
"Hey!"
He slammed into someone. They were on their phone, but the collision knocked it out of their hands. It fell down the center of the stairwell, all the way from whatever floor they were on—fourth, sixth, tenth, Steve had no idea, he still couldn't breathe—to the ground level. It didn't shatter, surprisingly, but the person gave a loud groan anyway.
"You had to knock it down all nine flights of stairs, huh?"
Steve's head shot up at the familiar voice, and he drank in the man's face like he thought he'd never see get the chance to see it again.
Tony.
Chapter 6
Steve wanted nothing more in the world than to be able to collapse into Tony then and there. He just might have, cover be damned, if Tony hadn't opened his mouth fast enough.
"Well hey, look who it is! I suppose I'll take a meeting with Captain America over a phone. I've been looking for you, Nick said you might be around if I waited long enough." Tony extended a hand. "Tony Stark. I'm working on the War Machine project."
"Uh," Steve paused, his mouth suddenly impossibly dry.
He shook Tony's hand a bit clinically, though he ached to use it as leverage and pull Tony into his arms. He needed to feel that Tony was alive, was okay, wasn't being held hostage somewhere by terrorists, tortured or beaten or—he shook his head, ridding himself of such thoughts. He'd planned for this. He needed to pull himself together. He needed to use his Captain voice, deep and commanding, and call Tony 'Mr. Stark'. Tony would hate it and correct him immediately, but Captain America had no way of knowing that.
"Good to meet you, Mr. Stark."
"Call me Tony." Tony waved him off, as expected. "Mr. Stark was my father. But then, you knew dear old Dad, didn't you?"
"Not well."
Steve had thought he had. They hadn't been particularly close, but he'd thought he'd known the man well enough, at least until he'd met Tony. Tony wasn't particularly open about his father to put it mildly, but Steve had heard glimpses of stories, bits and pieces of the kind of father Howard had been. Steve didn't like what he'd heard in the least.
"Oh?" Tony looked surprised. "And here he made you out to be war buddies."
"He provided some support from time to time." Steve shrugged, careful not to give too much away. "Reliable scientist, unreliable man."
Tony was delighted by this, which made Steve smile. That had been his intention, after all. Tony didn't show how pleased he was to hear it outwardly, of course, he had a good poker face for these sorts of things, but it was obvious to someone who knew him like Steve did. The quirk of his lips, the hint of wrinkling at his eyes, all signs he was letting himself dial back the posturing a bit.
"Good to know," was all Tony said on the matter before he patted Steve on the arm. "I'm on my way to the mess hall for a quick fuel break, care to join me? I'd love to know what's considered edible. Every time I've been, the only discernible difference I can find in the mush is color."
"I'd—yes." Steve hoped he didn't sound as desperate as he felt. "Definitely."
"Mind if we retrieve my phone first?" Tony fidgeted, glancing over the railing. "I was talking to someone."
"Of course, I'm sorry." They fell into step, and it took Steve stupidly long to figure out Tony meant him. He blamed it on the fact that his head was still reeling from the painful, unavoidable truth in the Colonel's words. Though it was a bad idea, Steve couldn't seem to stop himself from asking. "Who?"
"Oh, just." Tony flashed him a smile, all teeth and nothing real. "A friend."
"Just a friend?" God, what was wrong with him? What on earth had possessed him to—
"That obvious, am I?" Tony smiled was a bit more real this time. "Let's say for now, and leave it at that, yeah?"
"If you'd like. But I could probably help."
"Nosy one, aren't you?" Tony raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't seem overly offended.
"I've been called so before. Specifically, Captain Inquisitive and, somewhat more of a mouthful, Captain Noseyspandex. By a supervillain, if that makes you feel better."
Tony gave a sharp bark of laughter, and the honest, genuine pitch of it made Steve smile.
"Iron Man, I'm guessing?" Tony grinned.
"Always is." Steve sighed.
"I think he's kinda funny, actually." Tony hummed. "What I've heard of him, that is."
"Do you?" Steve raised a dry eyebrow.
