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interim (chapter: 1 of 2)

Here we are, just 1 day left until AA S4! I received this ask the day of the season 3 finale and have been working on it ever since. So, if you’re still around nonny, thank you so much for being patient with me. I hope this was worth the wait. (Read on AO3)

Sometimes, after particularly rough battles, Steve likes to remember how easily he used to bruise as a child. It didn’t take much back then—even a short-lived game of hide-and-seek would result in a cut or a scrape here and there.

My baby, his Ma had said once as she pressed a bag of frozen peas to his freshly purpled kneecap. She was smiling, though her forehead was puckered with concern. Be more careful, I only have one son you know.

Bucky an’ I were just playing, Steve had said, and whimpered as his Ma tried to straighten his leg. Mama, it hurts.

I know darling, she had said, and briefly lifted the peas away to press her lips to his skin. It’s okay. Sometimes, it’s gotta hurt before it gets better.

Without Tony, the days at the new Avengers base pass slowly.

There are, of course, bright spots. Attilan’s reconstruction is a healthy two weeks ahead of schedule, thanks to the combined efforts of Inhumans and Avengers alike. Sam, Scott, and T’Challa have worked together to rebuild and modify Tony’s old Ultron detector, and each clean scan is a small but lovely blessing. Most importantly, thanks to Sam’s tireless efforts, Tony gains more and more presence in the Avengers base each day, having wrested basic remote access of all the facility’s tech in the span of a single week.

Still, most days, Steve feels Tony’s absence like a raw and gaping wound. The interdimensional connection is limited at best, nonexistent at worst, and Tony’s voice is often drowned under heavy static. Even if they could find a way to stabilize the connection, most of what Steve wants to say is too vulnerable and intimate to broadcast over the facility’s main intercom.

Instead, Steve does what he does best: he moves on. At the very least, he tries to; he eats, he trains, he leads the team. The other Avengers pass him like ghosts, simultaneously tethered and alienated by the collective heaviness of losing a teammate. On good nights, when he manages to sleep, Steve is careful to stay on one side of the bed, as if leaving a space for where Tony’s body would have been. On even better nights, those few and far in between, he dreams in violet—of a quicksilver grin, an extended hand, and a shining figure soaring through the sky.

“You there, Cap?” Natasha asks one morning as she digs through the fridge for protein shake. Steve starts, dropping his haphazardly assembled sesame bagel. It lands back on his plate with a smack and leaves a smear of almond butter on the ceramic edge.

“Sorry, what’s that?” he says, and their eyes connect over the top of the fridge door. Steve wonders what Natasha sees—if perhaps she can tell that he didn’t get a wink of sleep last night, or that he had eventually locked himself in the training room and punched robots until his knuckles had bled and the sun had crawled up into the sky.

“Just wondering how you’re doing,” she answers, and closes the fridge door. She comes around the breakfast bar, her shake tucked in the crook of her elbow—coconut vanilla, Tony’s least favorite—and lays a hand gently on Steve’s wrist.

The rips on his knuckles had healed a mere 15 minutes after he’d walked out of the gym that morning, but Natasha’s touch makes him flinch regardless.

“I miss him too,” she says quietly, her gaze solid and steady, and as the first aborted sound claws its way out of Steve’s throat, she sets her breakfast aside and graciously presses her face against Steve’s shoulder so he can cry without her seeing.

One evening, about three weeks into Tony’s interdimensional quarantine, Sam hands Steve a silver earpiece.

“Is something wrong with my comm?” Steve asks, puzzled, and fishes the Avengers comm out of his ear. “It was still working earlier today.”

“Don’t worry Cap, it’s not that,” Sam says, and places the new earpiece in Steve’s palm. “This one’s just for you. A private channel. From Tony.”

At once, the tiny piece of plastic in his hand becomes infinitely precious. Steve closes his fingers around the earpiece automatically. “He made this?” he chokes out.

“Technically, I made it,” Sam says. His smile is equally bright and weary. “Tony just gave me the instructions.”

This isn’t goodbye forever, Steve remembers Tony saying as they stood reaching for each other across an invisible barrier. I’ll be back.

Even trapped dimensions away from home, Tony always found a way back to him.

“Of course, there are still bugs to work out,” Sam blurts, as if unnerved by Steve’s lack of response. He scrubs a hand over his face. “Theoretically, it should work better than the main comm, but Tony said himself that he’s not sure—”

“Thank you,” Steve says, and Sam’s jaw clicks shut. “Really Sam. I’m…”

He shakes his head. Lifts a hand and places it on Sam’s shoulder. Squeezes. “Thank you,” he says again. “I mean it. You’ve really outdone yourself this time.”

Sam glows.

Steve stumbles to his room, clutching the earpiece to his chest.

Like the other Avengers, Steve hadn’t found the energy or heart to decorate his space since moving in, so his room contains only the bare SHIELD essentials: a twin bed, a desk, a set of drawers, a single lamp.

The only thing Steve owns here is his sketchbook. He’s barely a few pages deep, having lost his original one to Ultron after he destroyed Avengers Tower. There were many other things Steve lost that day, but none of them seem to matter as much as his artwork; if he closes his eyes, he can still see his paintings hanging on the wall, a procession of figures in motion—Natasha, with her brilliant red hair swelling behind her. Clint and Hulk, smiling widely and knocking elbows. Sam in midflight, his glassy wings outstretched. Thor, with Mjolnir at his fingertips, swathed in electric blue. Tony in his lab, gesturing wildly at JARVIS. Tony in the armor, his face hidden behind red and gold plating. Tony smiling as he sleeps, the arc reactor glowing like a star from the center of his chest.

Steve’s lost a lot in his life, but that doesn’t mean it gets any easier.

But Tony’s not lost, a small voice says from the corner of Steve’s mind, and he curls around that voice like it’s a flickering ember. He’s just stuck. And when something is stuck, you find a way to unstick it.

Moving his sketchbook to the floor, Steve sinks onto the bed, turning the new comm between his fingers. There’s a dial on the side with three pictorial settings: a moon, a sun, and a shaded oval. A small bulb, barely the size of a pinprick, protrudes from the center of the dial, dark and dormant. Steve makes a mental note to thank Sam again for his craftsmanship. Even with Tony’s verbal instruction, making something this small and intricate must have taken a lot of skill and a lot of time.

Heaving a shuddering breath, Steve moves the dial from the moon to the sun. The bulb on the side winks to life with a bright green glow. Shaking, he tucks the comm into his ear, and is unsurprised to find that it fits snug and perfect, as if it was made to be there.

“Tony?” he whispers.

White noise. Steve strains to catch any other semblance of sound—a voice, a hum, even a breath—but there’s nothing.

Steve sighs. Sam had said that there were still bugs to work out.

It’s all right, he thinks. He can wait. He once waited 70 years for the right person. He can wait again.

With the comm still nestled in his ear, Steve reclines on the bed and picks his sketchbook off the floor. Flips open to a fresh page and begins outlining the curve of Tony’s wrist.

He waits.

“Tony.”

“Hrm.”

“Tony, the movie’s over.”

Steve feels his sternum vibrate as Tony hums sleepily into his chest. They’ve sunk so far into the couch that Steve wonders if they’ve made a permanent groove. On screen, the credits for “The Graduate” roll lazily from bottom to top, the soft, melancholic voices of Simon and Garfunkel playing in tandem.

Tony had fallen asleep halfway through the movie, curled up with one hand tucked under Steve’s shirt, fingers splayed against his chest. He’s warm and pliant all over, and Steve can feel the cool press of Tony’s wedding ring against his left pec. It had been a relatively peaceful week, so they had taken to wearing their rings as a quiet indulgence around the Tower.

As gently as he can manage, Steve fits a hand over Tony’s cheek and tips forward so Tony’s head slides off his chest and onto his palm.

“You’ll get a crick in your neck if we stay here,” he murmurs, and sneaks a butterfly kiss on Tony’s sleep-soft mouth. “C’mon Shellhead, let’s go to bed.”

“Don’t wanna move,” Tony grumbles on an exhale, though he nuzzles further into Steve’s palm, and Steve feels his heart grow three sizes.

Years ago, before the ice, and even after, he would have never guessed that love could be like this—as quiet as it is overwhelming, understated and inexorable in equal parts, like feeling the sun warm the earth after rain, or falling asleep under a sky full of stars.

Heaving a sigh, Steve forces himself off the couch, gathering Tony in his arms as he goes. Tony flails, his eyes snapping open as they flick to Steve’s face in surprise. For a moment, it seems as though he might protest, but then Tony just loops an arm around Steve’s neck and tucks a kiss under his jaw.

“Gonna carry me over the threshold, Cap?” he asks, smiling, and Steve loves him so much he feels himself trembling with it.

“You got to do it the first time,” he says instead, and brings them both back to bed.

Steve’s in the process of drawing Tony’s nose when he hears it.

There’s a faint clicking noise coming from the comm in Steve’s ear, as if someone were trying to light an old gas stove. Steve drops his sketchbook to the side and sits up on his knees, one hand cupped around his ear.

“Tony?” he calls, his chest tight. The clicking continues. “Tony?” he repeats, louder this time. “Iron Man, come in, do you copy?”

The clicking morphs into a steadier crackle, then a low hum, and—

“Cap? You there? Can you hear me?”

Tony.

“Tony,” Steve says in a rush, and his heart is pounding so hard he can feel it in his ears. “Tony, yes, I can hear you, it’s me, it’s me—”

“Fucking finally,” Tony says, and god, Steve wants to cry. “I saw the moment you turned your comm on, but the signal was so faint I couldn’t hear anything.” There’s a series of clicks and beeps, like Tony’s rearranging something on an interface. “I’m thinking the device just needed time to warm up, but it really shouldn’t have taken so many tries to zero in on your frequency—have I mentioned how much I hate magic?”

“Once or twice,” Steve chokes out, and it should be ridiculous how overwhelmed he suddenly feels; it’s not like this is the first time he’s heard Tony’s voice since he was trapped in Strange’s pocket dimension, and yet—

“God, I miss you,” he settles on at last, because it’s true and because the thought hasn’t left him alone since they left Tony behind.

Tony chuckles, the sound short-lived and fragile. “I’m…” he starts, and Steve hears him swallow. Can almost imagine him scrubbing a hand over his face. “Steve. Not a day goes by here where I don’t think about you.”

And I you, Steve thinks, but the words catch in his throat. “Tell me you’re okay,” he says instead, because that’s more important, that’s all that matters. “Tell me that there’s something I can do.”

Tony pauses, long enough that Steve begins to worry that the connection has broken again. “I don’t know how long I’ve been here,” he says quietly, “and part of me is afraid to find out. Time passes so differently. Like I’m in a dream without a beginning or an end.” He sighs. “I’ve been taking apart the suit. It’s grounding in a way, you know? Gives me a sense that there’s something to look forward to.”

“And Ultron?” Steve asks, because he hasn’t had a dreamless sleep in weeks, because too often he lies in bed haunted by images of Ultron growing like a cancer in the pit of Tony’s chest—

A body even more indestructible than vibranium, Ultron had said, his metallic voice saturated in malice. Because you will never destroy it.

“Deactivated, as far as I can tell,” Tony says, and Steve presses a hand into his eyes until he sees bright spots. “Whatever Strange did, it’s still working. Ultron’s in statis and stuck here with me for the time being.” He huffs a laugh. “At least we know for sure he isn’t terrorizing anyone on Earth. Maybe it’s better this way.”

“Don’t say that,” Steve snaps, and cringes at the way the words come out of his mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I’m just—” He’s suddenly exhausted, as if all his sleepless nights have finally caught up to him.

“Hey,” Tony says, and his voice is gentle and coaxing in a way that’s almost foreign. “You okay Cap?”

Steve swallows, shakes his head even though he knows Tony can’t see. “It’s not the same here without you,” he admits, and hates himself a little for it. Tony shouldn’t have to worry just because Steve is having trouble adjusting to his absence. “Never mind. It’s been a long day.”

“I can guess,” Tony says, and the words are bittersweet. “You should go to bed, Cap. A little birdy told me that you haven’t been sleeping very well.” A pause. “A little spider too.”

But I’m not ready to say goodbye, Steve thinks. They’d only just started talking. There was still so much he wanted to say.

Instead, he hears himself laugh, weak and forced. “I’m gonna have to tell them to mind their own business,” he says. Please don’t leave.

“Hey, someone’s gotta look out for you while I’m not there,” Tony says, and Steve aches. As much as he doesn’t want to hang up, he is tired. He wonders if it’s psychosomatic, if his body recognizes the closeness of Tony’s voice and has relaxed because of it. He’s right here, his mind supplies. It’s okay. You can rest now.

Mindful of the comm in his ear, Steve strips down to his boxers and crawls under the covers, flicking the bedside lamp off as he goes. He curls on his side. “Tomorrow,” he promises. “We’ll talk again tomorrow. I just need a few hours of sleep.”

Tony hums, the sound a low rumble in Steve’s ear. “Goodnight Steve,” he says softly, and when Steve closes his eyes, he can almost pretend that Tony’s lying right beside him, warm and solid and thrumming with life.

“We’ll bring you home Tony, I swear it,” he says urgently, because he has no choice but to believe it. “Just hang in there. I’m not leaving you behind.”

Tony doesn’t answer for a long time, though there’s a heaviness to the silence that makes Steve wonder if he’s missing out on something. Just as he’s about to ask, Tony voice cuts back in, low and hoarse.

“Steve…you know I love you, right? So much.”

Steve throat constricts. He is suddenly reminded of their wedding night, of Tony’s hand gripping his and the words they pressed into each other’s skin: I do, I do, I do.

“I love you too,” he says, and then the silence deepens as Tony goes offline on his end. Steve pulls the comm out of his ear and thumbs over the bulb of green light in the center, still shining.

Soon, he thinks, and fits the comm back in. He sleeps.

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