Work Text:
Tony groaned as he woke up with a pounding head ache. For a second he couldn’t remember how he got it, but then it came back. Loki had shown up in some little European country, obviously hoping they didn’t have Avengers there. Turns out he forgotten that the Avengers were WORLD’s mightiest heroes, so they had flown in and saved the day. Or at least they tried, the last thing Tony remembered was being smacked against some tall building, and they hadn’t been winning back then.
He carefully opened his eyes, praying to be in a dark room somewhere in the avengers tower, with a caring cap next to him. Or Bruce, he wasn’t picky, but it would be nice to have cap hold his hand.
He looked around, while trying not to move his head too much. 2 out of 3, then. It was dark, so dark, he almost didn’t see cap, propped up against the wall a couple of feet away, but this most definitely not the tower. Not unless they had prison bars and iron doors installed in their rooms (though both Bruce and Pepper had threatened to install them last time he had gotten injured and escaped to work on an idea he had gotten while fighting the villain of the hour, but he was 99% sure they were just kidding. 60% sure.) But surely, they wouldn’t place cap in the same room as him, even if they had installed the bars. You see, there was a reason why, despite his wishes, this was the first time cap was there when he woke up: cap hated him. Not outright in his face, but enough so that Tony noticed it. The way his face - his beautiful, divine face – would contorted when Tony flirted with him, like he was constipated, or how he would refuse to sit next to Tony when they were all watching a movie, rather sitting on the ground by Clint’s (extremely smelly) feet. So yeah, no waking up from injuries with a crying cap declaring his undying love for him so far.
Being locked up together however, that had happened 7 times so far. And the Avengers had only just celebrated their first anniversary as a team. He slowly got to his feet and was pleased to find out that he didn’t have any other injuries, apart from the headache, but even that seemed to be fading already.
He carefully walked towards cap, meanwhile inspecting the room for security cameras – one in every corner – and crouched before him.
“Wake up, cap, nap time is over,” he shook Cap’s shoulder, rougher than was probably necessary, but cap could take it, he reckoned, as he watched him start to open his eyes. “Good morning, sleeping beauty, care to explain why we’re locked up this time?”
“Tony,” cap voice was rough from sleep (or unconsciousness, same difference), doing things to Tony that weren’t really appropriate, considering they were kidnapped, without any information as far as Tony knew about the rest of the Avengers. “Where are we?” Steve seemed to be fully awake by now, already glancing around the room, in much the same way Tony had done when walking over. Good, he was alert then.
“You tell me, Cap, last I remember, you guys were still fighting, while I bumped into some sort of miniature sky scraper.” Really, it was a pathetic building to bump into, only 20 stories or something.
“We won, Loki was captured, the others took the quinjet to bring him to shield, promising to come back to pick us up, while I came to see if you were alright, next thing I remember, you are shaking my shoulder as if I was dying.” And there it was, the disapproving face, the moment Steve mentioned his falling down, his eyebrows pulled together and his lips formed a tight line.
“So we wait again for them to come? Couple of days on our own again? Just great,” Tony sighed, not a great prospect
Steve didn’t look so happy by it either, but then again, he never did look happy when it came to spending one-on-one time with Tony. And really who thought it up that it would be funny for Tony to have some unreciprocated crush on Captain America? Falling for Pepper, one of his only 2 friends? Bad. Falling for Steve, who hated him and couldn’t stand to spend a couple of hours together, before fleeing? So much worse.
“Let’s hope that it won’t take days. They should have found us missing by now and questioned Loki about it. You know Loki, can’t keep quiet when he has booked some success, he should have blabbered all about to Thor by now. They’ll be here in a couple of hours tops,” Tony wasn’t sure if he was comforting Tony or himself. Probably trying to give himself some courage. Only a couple of hours with Tony alone.
They took longer than a couple of hours. In fact, they had taken two days and still no sign of them. 3 times a day, food would be shoved through a cat flap. Questions would remain unanswered and whoever shoved the food through, had the common sense to do so with a stick, so trying to grab them didn’t work either.
In those 2 days, they had barely said a word to one another and it was starting to grow on Tony’s nerves. He wasn’t meant to be quiet. Even when he locked himself away in the lab, he would constantly be busy chatting with JARVIS or DUM-E, so this silence was killing him. And it wasn’t that he didn’t try. He had tried to make small talk, had tried to comfort Steve, he had even suggested they’d play a game, but to no avail, he would only receive grunts or one-syllable words, so he had given up. For all of 4 hours, he had kept quiet, but now he was fidgeting again and he needed to speak, even if it were to the wall, he would get the same amount of respond.
“So, why do you hate me?” maybe not the best idea to discuss it here, but then again this was the only place where he had Steve around for long enough to actually discuss this.
“I don’t. Hate you that is. What I do want is for you to be quiet,” though there was some surprise lacing his words, Steve mostly sounded angry at Tony for doing who knows what wrong. Don’t hate him, my ass.
“Of course you don’t hate me. You just can’t stand to be in the same room with me for more than five minutes, or can’t stand me talking apparently. The only thing you can put up with is fighting with me. You know, we’re a team, even when there aren’t any aliens attacking. Being able to communicate with each other stands pretty high up the list, when working together,” so maybe that was a dick move, knowing how much Steve tries to hold them together with movie-nights and team building trips, but Tony could be a bit of an dick if he wanted. He was locked up with an asshole after all.
“Tony, not now, okay. You want to talk, we’ll talk when we’re home again, just leave me be for now,” and that sounded a lot less angry and a lot more exasperated than usual. Maybe just a small push would put Steve over the edge they are balancing on. It wasn’t that Tony was desperate to hear why cap hated him, and thus burying his last hopes that it might just be unresolved sexual tension, but he was curious by nature and they were finally talking.
“Just tell me cap, I’m a big boy, I can take it.”
“Tony, this really isn’t the time or place to do this, later, I promise,” and there it was, that sounded too much like surrender for Tony to ignore. He stood up from his wall and gently sat down next to Steve.
“Steve, who knows when they come and save us,” he saw the protest already forming in cap’s eyes, always willing to stand up for his team. It was touching and Tony wanted in, rather sooner than later, “I know they will come, but it might be a couple of days still, I would rather spend those days in pleasant company than in resigned silence. We’re here alone now, who knows when that happens again.”
Steve actually smiled at that. Maybe they could work this out.
“That was the first time you called me Steve since we met I think,” and wow, how had Tony not noticed that. “I really don’t hate you Tony, I just don’t know how I do feel about you. You evoke strong emotions in the people you meet, whether you want it or not. They either love you or hate you and I don’t know which side I’m on yet.”
That wasn’t what Tony expected. He had heard it before of course. Pepper, Rhodey, Bruce, those were people who had ended up on the love side, all in different ways, but he had also made a lot of enemies along the years.
“Besides, you accuse me of hating you, but you’re not much better yourself. It’s not like you come over for long meaningful talks either,” the way Steve looked at him was so… disappointed, shy even, like he had wanted Tony to come to him. Maybe it was time to be honest, get it of his chest, get rejected, deal with it and move on (or not deal with it, he wasn’t really good with dealing with stuff). Time to admit what he really felt both to himself and Steve (ugh, he was a twelve year old girl, wasn’t he?). Here’s to nothing, right?
“That’s because I do know which side I’m on, and trust me, I really, really don’t hate you. At all,” don’t look in his eyes, don’t look at him, don’t even look at his direction. Cap may be a lot, but he isn’t cruel, he would be kind. Like putting his hand on his knee, like he was doing right now. Comforting him with touch. Why does the hand keep climbing higher though. It’s weird to reject someone with your hand almost on their crotch, right? And why is there another hand in his hair, this is growing to be the weirdest way someone has said no to him (and someone once send him a giant cake with a musical message in it which consisted of nothing more that the word no for five minutes – He did love Rhodey). The hand in his hair was trying to force him to look at Steve, but Tony refused.
“Tony, I’m going to give you the choice here: either you go back to your wall and keep your mouth shut until we get saved, because if you stay here to tempt me, I will kiss you,” and who know Steve’s voice could get so low and hoarse, it was truly a work of… wait what?
“Wait what?” could have gone worse, Tony reckoned. “You want to kiss me? Not punch me?”
“I want to do both, really, but kiss you wins for now. If I were you, I wouldn’t wait to see how fast that changes,” Steve countered and then the hand in his hair started tugging again. This time Tony went willingly, he led himself be guided until they were just inches apart. “I may have lied before, I do know which side I’m on,” and then there were strong lips against his. Ton moaned softly.
“I really don’t want to be rescued I think,” he groaned when they finally broke apart.
“I don’t know,” Steve smiled against his lips, “think of all the things we could do once we’re in a decent bedroom.”
‘Captain America should be forbidden to say such things,’ was the last thing that went through Tony’s mind before they were kissing again and all he could think about was yes, please and more.
----------
Natasha smiled at the screen in front of her, while Clint pretended to retch. They’d give them a couple of hours before they would ‘save’ them. She loved matchmaking, even if it was for idiots.