fossilised | Birthday fun

Birthday fun

It all started with a cake. Not enough stories these days did anymore, especially not in the lives of the Avengers. This wasn't just any cake either. It wasn't store-bought, picked up from the grocery with a hope that the teenager doing the lettering spelled a name correctly. It wasn't from a fancy bakery, though the person who had taken it upon himself to do the baking could have afforded something outlandish. No, this cake came from various boxes and cartons, the contents of which were painstakingly mixed together in more or less the way the recipe card was read off.

There may have been some corners cut, the eggs might not have been carefully folded (mostly because how do you fold eggs when they're goopy), the buttercream might be too runny, but the result was still fairly remarkable.

Even more remarkable was how intact it arrived, in a box in the back of an Audi, to all the usual fanfare Tony himself enjoyed when speeding through the security gates that those working at the Compound feverishly rushes to open for him. One scratch on that car would mean less of a Christmas bonus for everyone.

The cake was transported carefully from the back of the car towards one of the living quarters, a building shared by most of the non-retired Avengers. It did not need to be announced, so the man carrying it didn't bother to knock. Not at the front door and not at the recipient's bedroom. There was no need. No one would be awake anyway.

The time on his watch read 11:58 and so the cake was forced to wait a full two minutes until the day rolled over to be dramatically presented.

Tony Stark burst through the door and JARVIS started the Star-Spangled Banner on his cue, red and blue lights flashing. It was all beautifully patriotic, much like the cake itself, decorated to resemble Captain America's shield. "Happy Birthday, Grandpa!"

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It was unusual that anything could make Tony Stark stop talking, and for a moment Steve was astonished. But then the music washed over him like a wave and he understood, taking during this would be sacrilege just the same as talking during a hymn. Perhaps it wasn’t holy in the way that a hymn was holy, but it spoke to the soul in just the same way. People didn’t come to a club like this to talk or drink, they came to listen to the music.

Steve fell silent as well and fixed his eyes on the stage, eyes laser focused and body language leaning forward like a flower towards the sun, soaking up every last scrap of whatever the music could give him. The little worry lines beside his eyes disappeared and his muscles unwound. He didn’t know if hours or days had passed when the set finished, but he felt wrung out and sagged like a puppet with strings all cut.

“Wow... just, wow.”

Tony hadn’t been expecting much from Steve. He had perhaps believed that Steve would be polite, have his drink and his wings and then bob his head along for a few moments before actively work on not looking bored. It was Pepper’s MO, and so Tony didn’t expect to find a kindred spirit in the blond at all. Most people didn’t appreciate jazz as an experience outside of the music itself.

A glance over during the interlude told him a vastly different story. Commonality between them came mostly in the form of wanting to do the right thing by the most people.

But this?

This was remarkable. Steve’s face had been an object of study before but Tony peeled back the layers now, imagined the cogs and gears that could be working seamlessly under the skin of his face, and tried to figure out how they tied back to the circuitry of his brain.

Tony let the music filter through him as he regarded his guest, a distant, but genuine smile on his face. He wasn’t just staring. He was admiring.

Tony would be lucky for a while, Steve was so absorbed in the music that he never even noticed the way that he was being studied. He sat with his face in profile to Tony, expression guileless and smile at his lips. His face was the only thing that had never changed with the serum, except perhaps to lose the hollowness in his cheeks, and he had been just as honest back then.

He sat in silence until the musicians sat down for another break, only then turning back towards his friend and suddenly noticing the rather intense way that Tony was letting his gaze linger on Steve's face.

"Uh-- do I have wing sauce on my face?"

“You’re just freaking me out,” Tony said with uncharacteristic honesty. “So that’s a first.” The inventor turned his face away, watching the sax player remove the mouthpiece from his instrument as of that could save him a conversation.

He could and would ignore Steve for a little while, no matter what the other man asked him, and spent the time drinking the remains of his glass before standing. He assumed the blond would follow suit, he was his ride after all. Tony just didn’t like the fact that he enjoyed sharing this with the Captain. Being somewhat obsessed (a genetic trait passed on from his father, he was sure) was all right, but being downright lost in Steve for any length of time was just unacceptable.

They had to go. Now.

Steve didn't get it.

The evening had started out so well, with an easy camaraderie and friendly feeling. But somehow, during the music, something had changed. Tony seemed irritated or disappointed, if the way that he ignored Steve and tried to leave so suddenly, but Steve couldn't figure out why. He had enjoyed the music, hadn't disparaged it, and wasn't that what Tony wanted?

Sometimes Tony was confusing enough to make him want to tear his hair out.

He did follow, but only as far as the front entrance, where he caught up with Tony as the man waited for a valet to bring his car around, frown marring his brow.

"What's going on, Tony?"

Wrong? Why was the blond so perceptive sometimes? Most people wrote Tony off for what he was...a guy with manic mood swings who had probably gotten some sort of idea and now just wanted to go and work on it. Or that he was just plain rude. But not Steve. Steve could read something in him and Tony hated that.

“It’s better to leave before the lights come up and everyone sees us. You’re the guy that runs away from selfies and autographs.” That wasn’t all true. Steve was gracious to the people that looked up to him but he still didn’t like to be the center of attention save in official capacities. “Did you want to go somewhere else, or just back to the Compound?”

He wasn’t going to give Steve the creeps tonight. His obsession was his along. The guy was from the distant past, from when all things were clouded in fog and repression. And Tony would keep this to himself.

Steve wasn't sure he was buying that, Tony just seemed... off. Like all the relaxed pleasure of earlier had been twisted and turned into tension. It made him a little sad, but apparently they couldn't actually spend time together without it being a mission, not without Tony remembering that he hated Steve for something that he had no control over.

So he sighed, the happiness fading a bit from his expression too, and didn't press the matter. He wouldn't make Tony stay in his company when he obviously didn't want to be, so that made the choice easy.

"Back to the Compound, pretty sure that's enough birthday action for anyone."

Steve had to have been fantastic at the guilt trip as a child. He probably looked as wholesome as he did now without a hint of deviousness that stopped Tony from getting much sympathy himself. He had no idea how involved Steve was with this action on his part, if it was instinct or if he turned it up on purpose, but he imagined that he used to get away with a lot.

It was frustrating to keep thinking of the blond this way. Pepper was annoyed with him already because of his growing infatuation, as she called it. Why was Rogers so important to him? Why did he go out of his way to spend time with him? Tony had answers for all of that: Pepper was just seeing things that weren’t there. Obviously. Now he wasn’t so sure.

But he was sure that taking Steve home to an empty place was bad news.

“Your birthday started three hours ago. How can you be birthday’d out already?” Tony asked as the car was brought around and parked more neatly than he himself had done. “Just because everything is closed doesn’t mean it’s bed time. Pizza?”

Steve honestly wasn't trying to guilt anyone, which was possibly why he was so effective at guilting other people, they could see he was sincere and that did more to prick at any conscience than deliberate manipulation. He shook his head and gave Tony a grateful little smile.

"No, really, it's fine. It's late, we should head back."

He was thankful that he had been given this much of a birthday treat, it was unexpected and kind, but he didn't want to force Tony to stay around him when it was obvious that Steve had done something to upset him, perhaps merely by existing in the same space as him.

"You've done more than enough, thank you."

God damn it. Why did ‘thank you’ have to ring so deeply in his gut? That seemed intentionally unfair and Tony, catching his keys, glanced over at the taller man beside him and just climbed into his car. He would have a captive audience with a console between them and that would be much easier to deal with than a kitchen table with a buttercream nose or a club table with a communal shared love of jazz to hang over Tony’s Head.

He did not head back north, out of the city. He went east instead, over the Brooklyn Bridge and off of the island of Manhattan towards Steve’s old stomping grounds and the purveyors of the best pizza in the city.

“I don’t sleep. And I’m hungry.” He should have had several more drinks at the club and let JARVIS autopilot them back. “You can hold the 2-liter. It’s going to be Coke. We are not a Pepsi household.”

It could have been annoying, being kidnapped when he'd deliberately said that he wanted to go back to the Compound, but to Steve's eyes this was Tony really trying to overcome his dislike of Steve to do what he thought he should do to celebrate someone's birthday. It was really touching, and it proved that Tony did have the capacity for selfless behaviour.

"Tony--"

He waited until they were parked up before he demanded Tony's attention, eyes serious and focused.

"Look, I know you don't like me. We've had that out a few times, and it's obvious that you'd rather be with anyone else right now than me. And that's-- that's fine, it means a lot that you'd try and do something for me all the same and I won't forget it. But you don't have to force yourself for me, okay?"

Now that was startling. Not only that Steve would call him out on it, but that he was so wrong. Tony opened and closed his mouth, genuinely speechless, before he burst out laughing. “I don’t like you? Yep. That’s exactly why I baked you a cake and got together your documents and drove over here so I could wake you up at midnight—. I wouldn’t want to know what someone like me would do if I hated you.”

Laughing was good, it was easy, and Tony reached out in an uncharacteristic gesture to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder before he opened the car door and stepped out onto the street.

The little pizza shop was bustling and filled with industry workers just getting off of their shift, and drunks trying to fill their bellies after last call. No one seemed to notice him for the moment, but that would change. Especially when he opened the car door for Steve and waited for him to get our. Like a gentleman.

“You’re an idiot. I’ll say that much. Come on. I’ll buy you a slice.”

Steve was utterly confused, but he believed that Tony was telling him the truth. That didn't marry with any of the other conversations they'd had, though, where Tony had made it clear that he hated the very idea of Steve Rogers. In fact, it seemed like the nicer Steve tried to be to him, the worse it got.

He followed him into the store, pulling a baseball cap low over his face as if that would hide him when his muscles were enough to make anyone stare, and lowered his voice to keep this private.

"Tony-- you've told me before how you don't like me. Remember? Everything special came out of a tube, your Dad liked me and so you don't, or did I dream all of that?""

“That was literally a year ago, Rogers,” Tony said, all flash and impossible selfishness. He knew Steve was trying to keep a low profile, but he literally didn’t care right now. The guy was asking him personal questions about his feelings and this was retaliation. “You got on my nerves. You still do. But if I hated you, there’s no reason I’d be here. How many birthday cakes do you think I have baked in my life?”

Tony stepped up to the counter and held up two fingers, mouthing ‘extra cheese pies’ and then turned back around to the blond. Who was hunching. Ridiculous. People had already noticed them and were pointing and whispering and trying to decide if that was THE Tony Stark. And could that be THE Captain America? Oh gosh!

“One. Exactly one. For you. And not because I was trying to poison you or anything. I wouldn’t do that. Poison you. I’m partial to blasters,” he muttered before his stream of consciousness came back around. “Wait. Have you thought that I’ve hated you for this entire time? Ouch. I thought we were friends.”

"Well... yeah, you never told me otherwise and you were pretty emphatic when it came to telling me how much you hate me."

Steve just looked baffled, and a little hurt that Tony hadn't been open earlier. Why did some people have so much trouble just talking about the truth? He wasn't good at guessing games, mostly because he never played them. If he said he liked someone, then he liked them, and visa versa.

Some of the watching patrons were muttering in excitement about seeing actual drama between the Avengers, and at least three phones had come out, but Steve didn't notice, he only had eyes for Tony.

"I wish you could'a felt like you could tell me, because I'm glad."

“Well, I wish that I could print pizza in my living room and that you weren’t so stupid, so I guess we both want things,” Tony said, feeling pretty pleased with himself about all of this. His eyes were bright and he couldn’t help but grin at his own reflection in the glass above the heating window. “Oh, and an order of garlic knots.”

He didn’t think about what was being recorded. Or that Pepper might not completely agree with the way he was treating Steve right now, or how she would easily gather that he’d made him a cake and taken him out on his birthday when he’d forgotten about hers completely.

That was a shame.

“Do I have to start sending you weekly love notes now, Yankee Doodle?”

Steve shook his head, honestly sometimes Tony could be both infuriating and lovely at the same time. It was good to see the pleased expression on his face, know that they might actually be real friends now, but did he have to couch it in such weird terms with people looking on.

"How about I settle for the pie, and you quit being so weird."

He snorted and then jumped as a woman touched him on the arm, looking breathless like she might be about to faint just from being in his presence.

"--I... oh my god, you're really Captain America, aren't you? I love you, no, I mean I love you and--"

Steve flushed, but he diplomatically patted her on the shoulder with a smile. "I'm flattered, ma'am, that's very kind of you."

There were so many great and wonderful things that Tony might do in this situation, but he couldn’t help but be a troll at every possible opportunity. And this one was no different. Fans were always a mixed bag. The vast majority were decent people happy for a moment of time and a smile but sometimes... Well sometimes you got the crazies.

Exhibit A, the drunk off of her rocker girl with smeared mascara and vodka cranberry breath. Tony paid for their pizza and left a generous hundred dollar tip as it was being wrapped in a brown bag before he slipped his wallet into his back pocket and wrapped an arm around Steve’s waste.

“I’m sorry. He’s not interested. Come on, sweetheart. You get the pizza and I’ll get the door.”

Steve flushed right from the back of his neck up to the tips of his ears, and he pulled a little way away from Tony as he went to grab the pizza, muttering something to the drunk woman that she barely heard and wouldn't remember the next day when she woke up anyway.

He followed Tony outside with a look of tightly controlled irritation on his face, and strode around to get in his side of the car. He was just-- pissed. He thought relationships were nothing to joke about, and definitely not something to use to get someone to back off, that cheapened the whole thing. Besides which, now there would be rumours about the two of them; which he didn't mind for the reasons people might have thought he might mind - he had nothing against homosexuality even if it was still something he was getting his head around - but he didn't want to be thrust into that spotlight.

If the media said that Captain America was gay, then he might accidentally become an inspiration to some actual gay kid out there, and he thought that they should be looking up to someone who shared their experiences. For him to be lauded that way, it felt unfair, like a white man being heralded as a racial awareness champion. He didn't understand their suffering so, though he supported rights, he had no business speaking for them, even by accident.

Didn't Tony get that?

Somehow, in record time, Tony had gone from making Steve’s night to kissing him off. He followed him back to the car, phones held up in the window of the shop behind them, and he put a hand over the door. That wouldn’t keep Steve from moving him, but the point was just to get him to stop moving and look up.

“That was fast,” Tony said with a frown, leaning his hip against the car door now. “You look like I shot your new puppy.”

The ride back home would be extremely uncomfortable if this wasn’t resolved now and despite Tony having an awkward moment of feeling towards Steve, he didn’t want to ruin this.

"Yeah, well-- you made those people think we were something that we're not, and now there's going to be a lot of rumours about us as a couple."

He frowned, for a moment looking like the forbidding 40s guy who didn't approve of men liking other men, but then he fixed Tony with a look that was equal parts disapproval and guilt.

"I don't want to speak for people I have no right to, and if people think that I'm with another man that way then they're going to want me to. I used to hate people talking for me when I was a kid, all these doctors and nurses who had no idea what it was actually like to live it. People in these sort of relationships are still struggling to be accepted, I don't want to take away from that."

Tony listened. He didn’t open his mouth and he didn’t interject. He listened with one hand on the door and the other flipping through his phone. He didn’t need to Google anything, he had a few choice images saved. What that said about him was a matter not open for discussion.

He turned the phone around when Steve was done with his impassioned plea and held the glowing screen up for the blond to see an image of himself (not badly drawn either) in his uniform and Tony, in a three piece suit, lip locked. A flick of the thumb changed the image to a much more crudely, distinctly Asian style image of Tony laying on an American flag in the sand as if it was a towel, naked save for Steve’s shield covering him.

There were more, mostly drawings of Steve, that Tony didn’t want to display right now.

“It’s 2013, Rogers. People are weird. You’re an icon for a whole lot of things that you probably don’t even want to know about. This one is just the most amusing.”

Tony pushed off from the door, slipping his phone in his pocket.

“Welcome to the world of fan service. You probably made the night of every woman in there. It’s not that big of a deal.” So said Tony Stark, for whom nothing was that big of a deal.

Steve's jaw tightened when he looked at the pictures being shown to him. He supposed he shouldn't be too surprised, people drawing art of their favourite celebrities was nothing new even in his time, but it usually wasn't like this. This felt somehow like it crossed the line, and he wished that he had never seen it.

"To you, maybe."

Steve's voice was curt and disappointed, and a little annoyed that Tony never got when things were difficult or important for other people. It was the one thing that really let him down, empathy was such an important trait.

"But it is to me, so-- sorry, but I think I'm done with the celebrations for tonight. Goodnight, Tony."

He turned away from the car and began to walk away.

His mother’s voice always hit him at the most inopportune moments of his life. Rejection usually means that those are the people you need to try harder for. She had said it in reference to his father, a means to make Tony try harder. And he hadn’t. The opportunity was gone just as fast as Steve was, walking away from him.

Tony didn’t chase. He could probably turn the car around easily even in the one-way street to catch up with Steve, but he didn’t. He just watched him go, pizza and soda on the roof of the car. That was a no-no but he was up to allowing exceptions at the moment.

After Steve disappeared, while patrons of the pizza shop watched and filmed, Tony flicked through the images he had saved on his phone as he leaned back against the car and grunted.

Damn it. Wrong play. Not just a wrong play but he’d probably just made Steve irrevocably uncomfortable around him. Shit. Tony tossed his phone through the passenger window of the car, climbed back in, and headed beck to the Compound.

He’d be there whenever Steve returned, poking at the birthday cake, eyes looking a little crusty. He had to fix it, not just for the team, but because Steve was stupidly worth trying harder for.

Steve wasn't mad because Tony had showed him those pictures, though they had made him uncomfortable with how graphic and inappropriate they were, he was mad because Tony never thought it was important enough to put himself into someone else's shoes. If something didn't affect him personally, or he didn't see why it should be a big deal, then he never treated it as if it was a big deal no matter how anyone else thought.

Steve thought it was a big deal if people started reporting on his sexuality wrong. And whatever Tony said, there was a difference between actual rumour and some overinvested fans drawing some inappropriate art. He just didn't want to take away from an already pretty oppressed community. Not even mentioning that Tony hadn't considered his own personal comfort when he decided to pretend they were a couple. He hadn't had many partners, only two, and only one that the official histories recorded, and that sort of thing was a big deal for him.

He didn't come back to the Compound for a few hours, he went for a run to cool off first, and when he got back his shirt was sticking to his chest with sweat that turned it slightly transparent. He glanced over at Tony picking at the cake and sighed.

"Eat it or put it in the fridge, you're gonna ruin it like that."

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