Chapter Text
Finding out Steve Rogers has issues hadn't exactly been a fun experience.
For one thing, Tony had had to make that discovery in a semi-flooded abandoned water plant, which is just a recipe for disaster. At the time, he had been busy trying to keep his cool and his own apprehensions about water hidden, and he hadn't noticed Steve’s grip on sanity slipping until it was too late.
Steve, as it turns out, also doesn’t like water, (probably due to, you know, being frozen in it for seventy years), and he had dealt with it much worse.
A round of panic attacks and wet clothes later, he’d had to watch as Steve had pulled back and bottled everything up again as they landed back at the Avengers Tower. Steve’s ‘recovery’ had been just as sudden as his breakdown. Tony had been left with the uncomfortable realisation that things are not okay with Steve Rogers, and that they probably haven't been for a while.
He just hadn't noticed until now.
Not that he is the only one. None of the other Avengers had noticed anything amiss when the two of them had come in from the mission, and Steve had managed to slip away without questioning. The incident had left Tony more off-balance than he would like, and he had been left with an ultimatum of what to do about it.
It is obvious to him that Steve has issues and that he isn’t dealing with them. It is also obvious that he probably won’t start dealing with them without some helpful nudging in the right direction. Tony himself is all too familiar with that process. It had taken Rhodey and Pepper several years, (and then one solid putting-of-one’s-foot-down) before he had been convinced to give therapy a try.
He had done it though, because he had had friends to help get him onto that path.
Steve has… Well, Steve has him now, apparently. Which is why he is now standing in front of Steve’s door, a pair of ultra-waterproof boots in his hands.
Here goes nothing, Tony thinks as he reaches up to knock on Steve’s door. He doubts Steve will be very receptive to any type of emotional probing right now, but…hopefully this will at least get the ball rolling.
It doesn’t take long for Steve to open the door. Tony instinctively scans the man as it swings open. In general, Steve doesn’t look too bad. A flicker of surprise flashes through his eyes at the sight of him, but other than that, his face remains mostly calm and neutral. He is dressed in his usual button-up and khakis, the material neatly pressed and nearly as stiff as his squared shoulders.
He looks like how he always looks. Stiff and closed-off. And, thanks to their recent escapade, Tony is now aware that that may or may not reflect how the Captain is actually feeling.
He realises he’s taking too long to get down to business when Steve shifts his weight in the doorway, his eyes flicking over him.
“Did you need something?” he asks, the barest hint of confusion in his eyes.
Tony isn’t surprised by his reaction. They haven’t spent a lot of time together before this, and he is pretty sure he has never tried to seek Steve out like this before.
“Uh,” he blinks, trying to get his brain back into gear. “Right.” He holds out the waterproof boots in a quick, stilted gesture. “I made these for you. They should be more waterproof than your last pair.”
The effect of his words is immediate. Something subtle shudders closed in Steve’s eyes at the mention of his breakdown a week ago, and his face tightens with a sudden shade of wariness. Tony manages to keep a pleasant, if not slightly strained, smile on his face, his hands still held out as he waits for Steve to reach for the boots.
It takes a second longer before Steve finally lifts his arms to accept them. His eyes watch him the whole time and while Tony isn’t very practiced in reading his facial expressions, he can’t help thinking that Steve looks a little as though Tony might suddenly jump up and bite him.
“Thank you,” Steve says slowly as he accepts the boots.
The note of caution doesn’t leave his eyes and Tony groans internally. He had known that Steve would not be very receptive to his initial efforts to reach out to him—his abrupt shutdown in the quinjet a week ago had made that very clear—but it is still hard trying to navigate Steve’s inherent caginess.
“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, trying to lighten the mood. “I get it, you know? I don’t really jive with water either.” He swallows and breathes in, trying to settle himself. This is still kind of hard for him to talk about, but he thinks that Steve needs to hear it. “That probably would have been me a few years ago. You know… after Afghanistan.”
He can’t help tensing at his admission. He hadn’t told any of the Avengers what had happened in Afghanistan, and even now he only vaguely alludes to it. It’s not that he wants to hide it anymore, but he and Steve aren’t really touchy-feely. This whole ‘get Steve to talk to him’ thing is a bit harder than he was expecting.
Tony waits quietly as Steve flicks his eyes over him. He can’t quite tell how the man is feeling about his confession, but he looks a little less defensive than before. If anything, he looks confused by his statement, as though he can’t imagine why Tony would be telling him something like this.
After a moment, he licks his lips and looks down at the boots. “About that…” he looks up at him again, his jaw flexing as he clenches it. “I would… appreciate it, if you didn’t tell anyone about” –his jaw tightens further– “what happened.”
Tony blinks at the stiff request and he nods immediately. “Of course,” he says, noting the flare of relief in Steve’s eyes, his expression easing as he breathes in.
“Thanks,” he says, almost begrudgingly, and Tony is left to try to figure out what to say next.
“Right,” he says, after another moment of silence. He rubs his hands together and tries not to feel awkward. “So, anyway…” he flicks his eyes up to meet Steve’s. “If there is ever anything, you know… like water or something, on missions, uh. You can always let me know. And we can try to deal with it. Before it becomes an issue.”
Contrary to what he had hoped, his words don’t seem to reassure him. Instead, Steve stiffens instantly. The faint expression he had been wearing disappears in a moment, a true mask of blankness descending as his hands tighten around the boots and his eyes go hard.
“I am fine,” he says, and Tony barely keeps from wincing at the bluntness of his tone.
Steve seems to recognise the harshness of his words, because a second later he blinks and the line of his shoulders eases slightly.
“Thank you. For the boots though,” he says, his words reluctant and awkward as he thanks him for something that he doesn’t want to admit is a problem.
Tony breathes in, trying to clear his lungs of the heaviness of the conversation, and manages to offer Steve a semblance of a smile.
“No problem,” he gets out, shifting back, glad that the conversation seems to be closing. “Uh, let me know if there are any problems with them.”
Steve nods mutely, and he pulls back as well. He steps back into his room and Tony watches as his door closes with a quiet click.
Back in the hall, he blows out a breath and runs a hand through his hair. “Well,” he says tiredly as he turns to make his way back to the elevator. “At least he accepted the boots.”
It looks like his work is cut out for him though, if he is ever going to get Steve to open up about what he had caught a glimpse of in the quinjet.
oOo
The problem is… The problem is, Tony doesn’t really have a means of spending time with Steve. Before now, he had never wanted to do that. Steve had been standoffish, and uncomfortable, and he had been more than content to simply see the man in passing, or in training, or during the occasional movie nights the Avengers managed to organise.
He doesn’t spend time with Steve casually. Most of his interactions with the man are either during training, or on missions. Even when he does see Steve during mealtimes or in the elevator, it isn’t like they have a lot to talk about. Most of their conversations revolve around missions, equipment, and SHIELD. He has never had a need, or a desire, to talk about anything else with him.
Except, now…now he is beginning to suspect that Steve doesn’t really talk about anything else with anyone else either.
Steve doesn’t even seem to be closer to Clint or Natasha. At first, Tony had been hoping that Steve might be more comfortable with the two SHIELD agents, because he often runs SHIELD missions with them and the STRIKE team. Those missions are not Avengers missions, and he had figured that spending more time with the two agents might give Steve more time to warm up to them.
That doesn’t seem to be the case though. As far as he can tell, Clint and Natasha don’t manage to pull the Captain out of his shell any more than the rest of them. If anything, Steve is even stricter and more business-like when interacting with them than with either him or Bruce.
Tony supposes that that might be a natural result of continually leading missions with them, but it is of no help to him.
His only other source of potential assistance is Bruce because Thor is currently off-world. To be honest, he doesn’t know if Bruce and Steve are close—he hadn't needed to pay attention to any of that before now. But he wouldn’t be surprised if Bruce’s quiet nature had managed to worm its way under Steve’s hard exterior, at least a little.
He brings it up the next time he and Bruce are working together in the lab.
“Things Steve likes to do?” Bruce says in surprise, and Tony nods back at him, fiddling a little with his tablet as he waits for him to respond.
A contemplative look passes over Bruce’s face, and he tilts his head. “Hmm. I guess he likes to read. I’ve gone with him to the library a few times.”
Tony blinks and looks up. “Really?” He hadn't been expecting him to have managed to find something to do with Steve outside the Tower. From what he can tell, Steve doesn’t have much of a life outside of running missions.
Which is just sad, when he thinks about it. It’s been a year since Steve’s been out of the ice and all he’s had time to do is run missions. And apparently go to the library.
Bruce nods at him and looks down at a series of vials in front of him, checking their levels. “Yeah,” he confirms. “The first time was because he wasn’t sure how to get a library card anymore, so he asked me if I knew how.”
That is even more of an unexpected admission.
“I’m surprised he asked you,” Tony tells him as he wracks his brain, trying to remember a time where Steve had ever asked him for any help figuring out the 21st century. Steve is so quiet about that sort of thing, it's sometimes easy to forget that he’s really only been living in this century for the last year or so.
Bruce nods quietly, focusing down on his vials. “Yeah,” he says softly, his lips pursing. “I’ve… noticed that Steve seems to be more comfortable coming to me with that sort of thing.”
Tony shifts in his seat, his tablet forgotten. “Do you know why?” he asks, suddenly intrigued.
Bruce’s eyes flick up to his, before going back to his vials. His hand comes up to fiddle with one of them as he speaks. “I asked him that once,” he says seriously, letting go of the vial. “He told me…” his lips press together. “He said it was cuz I was one of the first people he met to use his name.”
Tony’s mouth falls open and he stares. “His name?” he repeats, trying to process what he’s hearing.
Bruce nods, grimacing before he pulls out some lab notes to start scribbling on. “Yeah. You remember? Back on the Helicarrier? We were trying to convince him that SHIELD had a second agenda, and he was mostly worried about finding the Tesseract, like we were supposed to.”
Tony does remember that. At the time, he had been pretty focused on the irritating presence of Steve, who had seemed too stubborn and focused on orders to listen to their legitimate concerns. He hadn't realised it until now, but Steve had backed off almost instantly after Bruce had called him by his name to try to reason with him.
Had calling Steve by his name really been such a big deal back then? He will admit he can’t remember if he had ever called Steve by his name in those first few hours of knowing each other. Sure, he calls him by his name now, but according to Bruce, Steve had been accustomed to that not happening.
So accustomed, in fact, that through the simple act of doing so, Bruce had managed to gain Steve’s trust on a level that none of the rest of them have been able to do.
He…can’t…quite imagine what Steve’s thought process must have been like, or what he must have been going through for that moment to become so significant in his life. How long had he gone without anyone calling him by his name?
Tony gives his head a shake, trying to dislodge the increasingly circular and distressing thoughts. He really has no way of knowing the answers to any of his questions, so he focuses back on Bruce. For a moment, he contemplates capitalising on the already established relationship between Bruce and Steve and simply asking the man to try his best to approach Steve on the topic of mental health…
But then he remembers his promise to Steve that he wouldn't tell anyone what had happened between them on the quinjet. Technically, he could probably nudge Bruce in the right direction without actually telling him what happened, but he can imagine Steve will just assume he had broken his promise if Bruce starts asking him suspiciously specific questions.
He doesn’t want that. He wants Steve to trust him. Now that this whole other side to Steve had suddenly been revealed to him Tony feels a little guilty that he hadn’t seen it before. He wasn’t the only one, but that hardly feels like an excuse.
Steve needs someone, and it looks like, right now, he is on his own for this.
“So,” Tony says, shrugging his shoulders as he tries to clear the air of their more serious conversation. “He likes reading. Anything else you’ve noticed?”
Reading is all well and good, but Tony doubts Steve will take too kindly to him trying to insert himself into his trips with Bruce to the library.
Bruce ducks his head over his notes, his voice a little far away as he focuses elsewhere. “He borrows drawing books sometimes,” he offers, and Tony nods.
He can work with drawing.
oOo
Actually, the drawing thing isn’t too much of a surprise. His dad had mentioned the hobby a few times, but he mostly focused on Steve's work with the Howling Commandos and the serum. A few documentaries might have mentioned it here and there, but it isn’t what most people think of when they hear ‘Captain America’. It had been Peggy who talked about it more.
From what Peggy had said, Steve seemed to mostly work with pencil and paper, but that isn’t really conducive to what he wants. Tony wants a reason for him and Steve to spend more time together casually, so that he might eventually be able to broach the topic of therapists and panic attacks without the man slamming the proverbial door in his face.
So he makes a reason.
“I wanna design a drawing app,” he tells Steve, the next time he sees him in the kitchen. Steve looks a little surprised by his announcement, but he must be used to his abrupt hyperfixations by now, because he rolls with it pretty easily.
“How come?” he asks, his heated leftovers from last night sitting neglected in front of him as he waits for him to respond. It's a huge portion of fettuccine that Steve eats right out of the container, his name taped on the side. Steve is rather… insistent about labelling his things in the shared fridge. Eating his food is one of the few things Tony has noticed gets visibly under his skin.
Tony is ready for his question. “I thought my graphics team would appreciate it,” he says, waving a hand and turning to pull a heated burrito out of the microwave. “Except, I don’t really know what artists want with these sorts of things, so I thought you could test it out for me.”
Steve takes a bite of his food and watches Tony wince at the too-hot burrito he tries to nibble. “Couldn’t one of your team do that?” he asks, as Tony blows frantically on an exposed corner.
“Want it to be a surprise,” he says, looking around for a plate to relieve his burning fingers. “Having them help sort of defeats the purpose.”
He finds a plate, and by the time he looks back at Steve, the man is looking contemplatively at his own food. He stabs at a limp noodle, and looks back at him.
“I’ve never done digital art,” he admits, a hardness pushing at his features, ready to shut him down if needed. “I don’t know if I’d be the greatest help.”
Tony is ready for that one too. “Actually that’s perfect,” he says, poking his burrito and giving Steve a second to relax. This man’s defences are really something. “I'm trying to avoid rocket science. My design needs to be beginner friendly.”
Steve blinks at him, seemingly thrown by his response. Tony can imagine why. It's usually about now that he’d crack some kind of joke about old-age or something but… after his talk with Bruce, he is guessing that that sort of thing isn’t going to win him any brownie points.
Instead, he does his best to offer Steve some sort of a smile as he picks up his plate to blow on his burrito some more. “Whaddya think?” he asks, internally praying that Steve will take the bait.
Steve stares at him a moment longer, and something shifts behind his eyes. “I guess I could try it,” he says. “If you need me to.”
It’s not exactly an enthusiastic offer, but Tony doesn’t have to work for a smile this time. “Great,” he says, picking up his burrito. “I’ll let you know when it’s ready.”
Operation Befriend Steven Rogers has begun.