A little bit of Morgan Stark angst. Around 1k words. Spoilers for Endgame ahead!!
Sometimes, Morgan gets mad. Really mad. She’s a smart girl, and the worst part is that she knows she is. But no matter what a genius she might be, emotional maturity is something she can only gain with age.
Morgan is sixteen, and she’s pissed.
Mom is away. She had an emergency company trip to Asia, somewhere in Japan. Morgan doesn’t actually care. This happens a lot. Mom is old now, but she has always been a workaholic. She used to say Dad was like that, he was way worse. She doesn’t talk about dad very much anymore.
It’s been like that for years. Like he’s fading away.
Morgan wishes she could remember him. She has some memories, but they’re vage. Those kinds of very early memories she’s not really sure if they’re real, a dream, a reconstruction of stories she’s heard from other people, or a combination of all three. It’s not like she doesn’t know how he looks like: in the decade that has passed since his death, Tony Stark’s image has become almost like a pagan saint. Everywhere she goes, somewhere, there’s something of him. A sticker on a school binder, someone with an Iron Man phone case, the new biopic that’s coming out with that stupid actor who harassed Mom for like a month...
The giant Iron Man mural in the park a few blocks away from her school. And Morgan hates it.
It’s so corny. People even leave flowers and candles sometimes. She once saw one of her classmates praying to the image of her deceased father for a good grade on his algebra test. Some inexplicable rage had taken over her body that day, and she had then proceeded to “accidentally” make the boy’s backpack explode. He hadn’t been wearing it, and Morgan explained that she didn’t want to physically harm him, no matter how much Mom had screamed.
But that day, it’s dark. It’s going to rain. She’s carrying spray paint, because Miles had asked her to drop by the store close to her school and get him that new shade of red he was dying to try.
And Morgan is pissed.
But she’s also an idiot. At least when it comes to her emotional processing anyway. So when the cops catch her drawing obscenities over the stupid mural, she doesn’t have any better idea than to run. And she gets caught, easily. Because she can’t run fast, or jump buildings, or climb walls, or fly. She isn’t special like that. Sometimes she feels like she isn’t special at all.
“How old are you?” asks the police woman sitting by the desk. Morgan fidgets with her handcuffs, her eyes glued to the ground.
“Sixteen.”
“Where do you live?”
She can’t really answer that, can she? The lake house had stopped being a home years ago. The apartment in Manhattan is almost always empty. The mansion in California is her favourite place, but is not a home.
“Queens,” she lies. The policewoman keeps writing down everything in her computer. She seems pissed.
Another policeman walks by the desk and stopps to read the computer screen. He makes a strange face and then turns to Morgan.
“Vandalizing an Iron Man memorial? What the hell’s your problem, kid?”
Morgan feels her cheeks turn red and her neck heat up. She would snap back at him if it wouldn’t make her situation way worse.
The policewoman doesn’t even blink. “Read her name, Carl.”
The guy, Carl, opens his eyes like plates once he reads her name on the computer. He looks confused, then laughs.
“Well, I guess we all get pissed at our folks from time to time,” he says, and then walks away laughing.
Morgan feels mortified. The police woman keeps taking her information and remains indifferent.
“I need the phone number of your mother, a tutor, or responsible adult that can come to pick you up. Then I’ll discuss with them the terms of your penalizing.”
Calling Mom is impossible, she’s on the other side of the globe. Happy would come, but she would sell her out to mom. Same with Uncle Rhodey. She had no other option.
“What the hell did you do now?” asks Peter’s very tired voice from behind her. Morgan raises her head to meet him as he enters the police station. He looks exhausted, and Morgan feels awful for dragging him all the way across the city for this.
“You must be Mr. Parker,” greets him the policewoman, and proceeds to explain to him the situation. As the seconds pass, Morgan can feel Peter’s increasing glare into her neck, but she remains with her eyes to the ground.
After deciding that paying a penalty fee should be enough punishment, they let them go. She’s relieved, the fee is about ten grand, and she can easily pay that from her allowance without Mom finding out. What she doesn’t expect is Peter’s judgmental face when she informs him.
“You know you got lucky, right?,” he says, very slowly. Morgan frowns.
“I got caught.”
“No, not because of that. You got away with it.”
She doesn't understand. “I’m paying a fee-”
Peter lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, pocket money for you. You got away with a pat in the back. How do you think this situation would’ve ended up if Miles had gotten caught doing what you were doing?”
Morgan stares at him. “He wouldn't have been caught, because he’s spiderman. He can run from the police.”
Now, Peter is definitely mad. “And he’s also not a white rich brat.”
He has a good point, but Morgan won’t allow him to berate her. “Why are you so mad? It’s just a graffiti.”
Peter doesn’t answer for a few seconds. It almost looks like he won’t.
“It wasn’t any mural that you destroyed, Mo. It was an Iron Man Memorial. I honestly can’t understand how incredibly disrespectful-”
“Why do you care so much?” interrupts him Morgan, “He wasn’t your father.”
An ugly silence settles between them. For some reason, Morgan feels like crying. She doesn't let any tears betray her, and keeps looking at Peter, challenging.
He doesn't look mad anymore, just sad. He can’t meet her eyes.
“No,” he says after a long minute. “No he wasn’t.”
Morgan crosses her arms in her chest, not feeling the gratification of the win at all.
“But?”
Peter sighs. “But he was yours. You should have more respect for that.”
They don’t say much else after that. Peter walks her to her apartment, talks to Happy and MJ over the phone, orders a pizza, and stays the night with her. Morgan just wants him gone. She just wants to be alone.
When Peter wakes her up the next morning with breakfast and her lunch ready for school, she asks for forgiveness. There’s nothing to forgive, Mo, he says, but it feels empty. When he leaves for work and leaves her alone in her huge apartment that she occasionally shares with her mother and an ever present ghost, only then she allows herself to cry.
“Was he your son?” asked Nebula out of the blue, while chewing on a small ration bar. It was the only thing they ate per day. In less than a week they would run out of food.
Tony looked at his hands, rough and dirty.
“Not biologically, no,” the constant state of dullness in his head allowed him to speak without fear. It was like being drunk: he understood the words he said a second after they had left his mouth. He had no control or filter, but he was not ashamed either. “But I loved him like he was.”
Nebula frowned and crossed her arms, contemplative. She would do that a lot, playing bad girl and pretending to be offended by the simplest things.
“He was lucky, then,” she said. It took Tony a couple of seconds to understand her.
“Lucky how?”
Nebula looked towards the window of the ship, away from him. Tony understood her need not to show vulnerability at any cost.
“He died knowing he was loved. Not everyone gets that luxury.”
“Peter, please stay still,” said a very frustrated voice from behind Steve. “No, the doctor said no more sugar for you, mister.”
“But Daaaaaad….” replied a high pitched voice, annoyed. Smiling to himself, Steve turned. And then he frowned.
“Tony?” he asked, confused. The last person he expected to find in the cereals section of the supermarket was his ex from college, Tony Stark. The man was struggling to keep a small kid of approximately five or six years old from running off to the candy section. A kid who was apparently his son.
Tony turned his head to look at him. He blinked a couple of times, and then his face went a little red.
“Oh, hi Steve. Nice to see you around-Peter, stop!”
The kid -Peter- was very persistent, so Tony just grabbed him by the armpits and put him inside the shopping cart, where the kid picked up a couple of plastic cars and started to play. Tony sighed, and then smiled at Steve.
“Sorry. Hi Steve.”
It took Steve a few seconds to register the scene. He walked a couple of steps, approaching them slowly. Wow. Tony had aged like fine wine. The last time Steve had seen him, he still wore ripped jeans and graphic t-shits. The man in front of him was elegant and classy. His features were well defined, his eyes were more mature, wiser. He was stunning.
“You look gorgeous,” said Steve, dumbly. Then he wanted to hit himself. Typical. Tony had always been his weakness. One look of those intense brown eyes and Steve was already babbling nonsense.
Tony smiled, cheeks flushed.
“You don’t look bad yourself,” he answered, and pointed vaguely at Steve from top to bottom. Steve nodded. In the ten years they hadn’t seen each other, Steve had spent a lot of time cultivating his body. He had grown a couple of inches and had gained twenty pounds of pure muscle. He really felt good.
“I’m Peter!” said the kid suddenly, and jumped up and down inside the shopping cart. Tony quickly held him by the shoulders, trying to keep him from falling off. Steve almost laughed, charmed.
“Hi Peter, it’s nice to meet you.” Steve looked at Tony with his eyebrows raised, a question clear on his expression. Tony shifted in place, uncomfortable.
“He’s my son. He’s almost six.” Then his expression soured. “His mother didn’t get the pleasure to meet him, so it’s been the two of us ever since.”
Steve offered a fist to little Peter, who jumped from the thrill to hit it. Tony laughed at the enthusiasm of his son.
“And what about you?” asked Tony “How’s work? You got any kids, maybe got a special someone…?
Steve smiled fondly, shaking his head. “No, unfortunately no. I’m still working at the museum, I’m now general manager.”
“Oh, that’s wonderful,” said Tony without much enthusiasm. Steve chuckled.
“Yeah, it’s still a shit job, but it pays the bills.” Tony nodded, probably remembering the uncountable times Steve complained about his job while they were still together. Steve watched Peter play with the toy cars and with his heart beating a mile a minute, took an impulsive decision.
“Are you doing something tonight?” he asked, without daring to look at Tony yet.
“Uh…” Tony blinked a couple of times. “No, actually. We were just going to head home.”
Steve bit his lip. “Because there’s this new restaurant a couple of blocks away, and I hear they have a fantastic kid’s menu that doesn’t have sugar….”
He found Tony’s eyes. They were shining, like two stars in a lazy night. Glowing.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“Was he your son?” asked Nebula out of the blue, while chewing on a small ration bar. It was the only thing they ate per day. In less than a week they would run out of food.
There were rare, the moments when they just sat and talked. Tony looked at his hands, rough and dirty.
“Not biologically, no,” he answered slowly . “But I loved him like he was.”
Nebula frowned and crossed her arms, contemplative. She would do that a lot, playing bad girl and pretending to be offended by the simplest things.
“He was lucky, then,” she said. It took Tony a couple of seconds to understand her. “He died knowing he was loved. Not everyone gets that luxury.”
Post Infinity War Stony angst, or Tony and Nebula’s fantastic space adventure. .
I just wanna say, this is three monts of sweat, tears and sleepless nights. It’s not that long by fanfic standards, but it’s the longest fic i’ve ever written in english. I hope you guys enjoy!
Finding Miss Potts on that nightclub was proving to be a ridiculously difficult task. Tony walked between the sea of sweaty bodies that were jumping, rubbing against each other and generally engaging in weird movements that looked like dancing but were probably closer to the realm of fucking, trying to not get his immaculate suit dirty or lose his glasses in the process. A woman tried to grab him by the tie and drag him to her group of cheerful friends, but Tony politely freed himself and ran away from them as quickly as possible. He was sure more than one guy had gotten a good feel of his butt. He had never felt so out of place before.
God he hated his job.
By some sort of miracle, he spotted his boss, Virginia Potts, sitting by the bar. To say she was drunk out of her mind was an understatement. She was surrounded by two large men, one playing with her hair and the other petting her thighs. She didn’t seem to mind, more interested on chugging another glass of vodka soda. Tony approached the group, alarmed.
“Eh- excuse me?” he asked, hesitant. One of the men turned to him, looked at him from top to bottom, and raised an eyebrow. The other men ignored him, concentrated on his task of raising Virginia’s skirt even more. Tony cleared his throat, trying to at least appear to have his shit together. “Excuse me,” he repeated, louder this time. “I need to talk to Miss. Potts. Immediately.”
The groping man turned his attention to him, clearly irritated.
“Can’t you see we’re busy, punk?”
Fuck those men were huge. Tony seriously needed a raise. And maybe a new pair of nice shoes. He stood his ground anyway.
“It’s important,” he insisted, and poked Virginia on the shoulder, trying to catch her attention. She turned to look at him, annoyed, and took a couple of seconds to recognize his face. Then, she smiled, delighted.
“Tooooonny!” she said, slurring her words. She detangled herself from the two men in a very easy movement, but almost fell flat to her face. Tony rushed to help her get on her feet. She smiled even more, and grabbed him by the shoulders. “Oh, have you come to rescue me?”
Tony glanced back at the two men behind her, nervous.
“Miss Potts, it’s 4 am. We have to be at the airport in half an hour.”
She didn’t seem to care much, judging by the way she was touching his chest and muttering to herself.
“Have you been working out? You have some strong muscles there, honey.”
Tony tried very hard not to blush. The men behind them were getting impatient. He maneuvered Virginia behind him and turned around, taking out a couple of hundred bucks from his jacket’s pocket.
“Here,” he said, and put the money in one of the guy’s hands. “This is for your troubles.”
He didn’t wait for a reply and marched towards the exit, maneuvering Virginia in his arms. She looked like she had no idea what what happening, because she kept petting his chest in almost reverence and babbleing nonsense. Tony reached the club’s doors where Happy was waiting for them, looking impatient. He helped Tony bring Virginia into the car, and then got into the driver seat and started the car. They drove away into the streets, on their way to the airport.
Now sitting safely in the back of the car, Tony allowed himself to relax a little. He couldn’t let his guard down completely: Miss Potts was still drunk and she was very volatile. On normal days, she was a high functional alcoholic. But for some reason she had chosen that particular night to get more drunk than ever before.
Speaking of Virginia, she was sitting next to him on the car, with her legs curled up underneath her, and looking at him fixedly.
“What?” asked Tony, tired of her. She was a brilliant woman: innovative, creative, and an amazing leader. She could command a group of mediocre men into doing revolutionary things. She was a genius, and there was no one on Earth like her. She was also a huge asshole, and after almost five years of dealing with her bad decisions, sometimes Tony got tired of her.
Virginia tilted her head to the side, like a curious puppy.
“You look really cute tonight,” she said, unashamed. Tony felt his face heating, and distracted himself cleaning his glasses.
“That’s really inappropriate, Miss Potts,” he answered instead. She snorted.
“I’ve told you to call me Pepper.”
“And I’ve told you that’s not part of my job.”
They stared at each other for a couple of seconds. She seemed amused, like she was testing him. Tony considered himself a smart man, but sometimes she looked at him with such sharpness in her eyes that he couldn’t help but feel like a lab rat, trapped inside a maze designed by a crazy scientist. He yielded first, dropping his eyes to his lap.
When he looked up back again, she had lost some of her cheerfulness.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Back to Malibu. You have an important board meeting tomorrow,” answered Tony, shuffling papers on his lap and putting his glasses back on. “I have the presentation you asked me to revise. The numbers are good, but the estimate-”
“Why do I have to go?” interrupted him Virginia, childish. Tony blinked at her. She was still so drunk.
“Because you’re the CEO. And renewable energy is your baby project.”
She dropped her chin to her hands, resting them on her legs. She smiled at him.
“It’s your baby too. I couldn’t do this without you.”
Tony felt warm on his chest at the recognition. He nodded. “Well, the presentation is ready.”
Virginia kept staring at him, in a very intense but gentle way. Tony felt naked and shy. Then she turned to the window, seemingly satisfied with her scrutiny of him.
“You can sleep in the plane,” whispered Tony, and turned to look at the other window. “I’ll take care of you.”
To say he was angry was an understatement. He was beyond anger. Tony felt a strange clam, like putrid acid ran through his veins.Slowly, torturously. Focused on a point of inflection, as if the earth had found a new axis. As a predator waiting for its prey. Furious, but calm.
Steve was brooding by the window. It seemed like the only thing he knew how to do those days. It was insufferable.
Tony had lost all capacity to feel compassion for Steve, of course ignoring the fact that he was giving him asylum in his house. Tony was making a superhuman effort to ignore him. Get out of the house, tour the city, clean your mind. Divert calls from Pepper, who at that point was desperate to know something him. He couldn’t blame her: Tony had gone to that shitty town with the excuse of negotiating a new manufacturing facility for Stark Industries. Of course, there was no such thing.
He had received Natasha's call three months after the disaster in Siberia, the Accords and all that shit. Steve is hurt, she had said. I don’t trust anyone else.
And like a good lap dog, Tony had fixed a house in the middle of the field so they wouldn’t be found, brought a doctor to help Steve -who he paid more money than he would earn in his whole life to keep the silence-, and his own ass up there.
All of that only to spend the days watching Steve descend in a spiral of self-destruction. Honestly, it was pathetic to watch. And Tony's patience was running out.
“This has to stop,” he said one afternoon suddenly, after getting tired of seeing Steve sitting on the garden porch contemplating nothingness like a zombie.
Steve turned to see him, the confusion clear in his eyes.
“What...?”
Tony was so fucking angry, it was unbelievable.
“You-” it took him a lot of energy to not explode right that second. “You have no right to be like this.”
Steve crossed his arms, offended. Good. At least he was showing some emotion.
“It’s not- I’m not doing this on purpose,” he said, and it looked like he was ready to cry. Tony clenched his fists, counted to ten, and walked over to sit next to Steve on the porch.
“What you did was fucking awful, Steve. And I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you.” Tony covered his face with his hands, sighed tiredly, and turned to stare at Steve. The man seemed to tremble: small, insignificant. The guilt was eating him alive. And it was probably not just because of having hidden what he had hid from him, but because he facilitated the fracture of the only family he had left as well. The one they had built together.
“But you’re in the wrong path. Before I forgive you, before anyone does, you have to forgive yourself. I won’t matter if I say it’s ok, or if Natasha does, or if your friend Barnes does. It won’t matter because if you don’t forgive yourself, you’re going to make the same mistake again.”
Steve retained a sob, and he looked like he wanted to puke.
“I don’t know how to do that,” he whispered.
Tony looked away. “You’re going to have to learn. And I can’t be your guide anymore. You’ve proven me that you don’t actually give a shit about me.”
Steve reached out to him, his face dejected. “Tony, no-” he took a deep breath, “Caring about you is exactly my problem.”
Tony smiled, a bitter taste in his stomach. Steve would never change.
“You’re right. We can’t get this angry at people we don’t care about.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Morgan has grown under her father's shadow, but without his warm embrace. As she ages, the world doesn't forget the Legend, but she feels his memory slipping away. Endgame spoilers ahead.
I also posted it on AO3! I might to a second chapter of this.
His heart was beating a million kilometers per hour. His fingers felt cold and trembling. The pit of his stomach began to tighten with vertigo. The severity of what he had done slowly dispersed in his consciousness, like adrenaline rushing through his veins.
He dropped the phone violently and left it on the coffee table. He threw himself on the chair and closed his eyes, counting to ten.
There was no turning back. Of all his stupidly impulsive decisions, this one took the jackpot. Oh no, wait until Pepper finds out. She was going to skin him alive, oh shit.
(watch for the cut, mobile)
Tony got up from the chair abruptly, walking in circles around the chair. He approached the huge picture window of the apartment, and observed the city somberly, feeling like a movie character, brooding into the distance. The city was noisy, chaotic, gray, familiar. An entanglement of circulations and crossed roads, high walls to the sky, eternal itineraries. Chaos in its purest state, chaos from which creation is born. He had rarely thought about the longing for anonymity, the idea of being one of the bunch.
Being born in a golden cradle had opened infinite doors, given him the opportunity to get up one day and decide that he wanted to build a colony on Mars and virtually no one could say no. But the power that money gave him was a double-edged sword.
In the same way that growing up on the spotlight had transformed him into a circus act, dominating the political field from the shadows had been something his father had been expert at, but never Tony. No, Tony was a showman, pragmatic. Politics and bureaucracy were very far from his interests.
But what he had just done? Political suicide. There was no way to recover from this. Humiliation poisoned him inside.
A few soft heels sounded in the distance. With a sigh, Tony turned to see Pepper enter the room.
She took one look at him and all her anger melted.
“Oh, sweetie…”
“Don’t-” Tony cut her. “I don’t need to hear it. It was impulsive and stupid and now I regret it. Can we focus on how to solve this, please?”
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. She arranged the papers she carried in her arms and sat down in the chair next to Tony’s computer.
“Read the people’s answers, Tony. No, no, listen to me-” Pepper insisted strongly before he could interrupt her. “Take a second to read what most people, your fans, are responding.”
There was no denying it, Tony was scared. He had been in the act for years, he was not ready to let go. No, that was a lie. He had been ready for decades, but he did not want to face reality and the consequences of abandoning it.
He sat next to her and with a knot in his chest and opened his twitter account, where less than a couple of minutes ago he had furiously announced to the world that he was bisexual. And in the most subtle way possible.
Iron Man @tonystark · 8m ago
How about a rainbow suit for pride month?
5,6k replies 594k retweets 1,3M likes
↩ MAGA @repusa · 5m ago
you heard it here first folks, iron man is a cock sucking faggot
83 replies 48 retweets 309 likes
↩ Iron Man @tonystark · 3m ago
Yes, and I’m very good at it. Almost as good as I am at kicking idiots like you in the ass.
87,5k replies 986k retweets 3,8M likes
“Ok, I admit that I could have handled the situation with a little more tact …”
Pepper refreshened page almost furiously and began to scroll trough the responses.
“Tony for God’s sake, listen to me and look at the responses of the people.”
↩ staaaacy @lifeaspuppy · 3m ago
omg iron man is queer?? My fav avenger is queer??? This is the best thing to ever happen in 2018
↩ Jonhy @firstgrop · 3m ago
iron man proving that 20gayteen is here to stay
↩ NAT FOLLOWED @avengerstan · 3m ago
GUYS FJKGHDSJ TONY STARK IS GAY?? OR BI OR PAN??? OMG!!!!! I’M SO HAPPY FOR HIM
↩ Iron Daddy @starkinghero · 2m ago
sfdhjds i’m crying of happiness my idol is a gay idiot like me
↩ Fred @threedaysout · 2m ago
i mean we been knew but I’m so happy Tony came out
There were hundreds more like that. Some were indecipherable for Tony, but he got the positive vibe from the majority of the replies. The deep anxiety in his gut didn’t fade away, but he did feel relieved. He looked up and found Pepper smiling at him.
“I… I don’t know what to say…”
“Two things: it’s 2018, the political morality is dominated by allies of the LGBT community, and the internet is the domain of the community. If you had said this at a press conference, the result would have been different, because you would be giving the media the monopoly on how they build the narrative. But on twitter? People dominate the narrative.” Pepper said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Tony frowned.
“I had not thought about it that way …”
“Tony, you have 85 million followers on twitter, you must know your audience!” She rolled her eyes, but her smile was fond.
“Honestly I don’t care, I use twitter to throw up what comes out of my mind.”
Pepper started laughing.
“You’re lucky you’re pretty….”
“Hey! I’m a smart person!” Tony was outraged. He was a genius!
“I would call it more selective intelligence…” she kept saying, and he looked at her with resentment. Tony knew she was right, but he’d never admit it. “I have to go to a meeting, please do not provoke another scandal before we clarify this one, yes?”
Reality fell on Tony’s head like a bucket of water.
“What are we going to do?”
Pepper tilted her head.
“You could simply tweet again, say the truth in an honest and clear way. But don’t fight anyone. Please.”
“No promises.”
“Tony…” she said like a warning while picking her stuff from the table. While she was leaving she passed her hand through his hair, and he sighed.
Tony contemplated deleting his account altogether for a couple of minutes. Nervous, he looked around the notifications section, and noticed one in particular that caught his attention:
Steve Rogers @captainamerica · 2m ago
All of you people saying nasty stuff about @tonystark get in line, I’ll fight you one by one.
9k replies 35k retweets 76k likes
Tony started checking the answers. People were going crazy, answering with insults and laughter, but the vast majority were supporting Steve in his mission to fight homophobes.
Tony could not stop smiling.
He started writing a new tweet:
↩ Iron Man @tonystark·1m ago
hey, @steverogers I’m supposed to be the knight in shining armor, but thank you for defending my honor.
22k replies 173k retweets 830k likes
In less than 30 seconds he got a response:
↩ Steve Rogers @captainamerica · 1m ago
how about you thank me with dinner?
42k replies 802k retweets 1,6M likes
Oh shit.
Tony’s heart stopped for a full minute. He stared at the screen, stunned. Did… did Steve just ask him out? And come out on twitter?
Oh… oh damn.
The replies started to appear.
↩ NAT FOLLOWED @avengerstan · 1m ago
Did Captain America just came out of the closet????
3 replies 498 retweets 758 likes
And of course, Steve’s insanely fast response:
↩ Steve Rogers @captainamerica · 1m ago
So what? He did it. I can do it too.
9,2k replies 504k retweets 1M likes
Of course, Tony thought fondly, everything is a competition for him. But it fell good to have someone to take the punches with.
Steve was asking him out? Tony’s mind was in emergency mode. He actually had fantasied about asking him several times, but he never had the courage to actually act on his feelings. Steve was always so hard to read, and honestly, way too harsh when he rejected something. Tony had never seen him reject someone romantically, but he was so afraid of humiliation that he had buried his desire. But now? It was all out in the open. Posted on public for everyone to see. It felt good, actually. For Steve to make a show out of it.
