#Cheering noises and motivational phrases :D :D | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

maniibear · 8 years ago

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My stony holiday exchange fic! Based on that backsmith outfit saga on AvAc, starring Sam, Nat, T’challa, and Loki :D

Word Count: ~2500 Warnings: None

Steve is not jealous, he’s curious.

It feels like a natural enough reaction to have upon spotting Tony Stark on the Avengers Academy quad, dressed in a pile of leather straps and little else like a…a—

Steve must look as curious as he feels because Tony lifts his chin proudly and exclaims, "I’m a blacksmith!"

And Steve, who by now is past curiosity and well into nosebleed territory at the sight of the outfit to properly think, replies with, “That was my second guess.”

He’s immediately mortified, of course, but if Tony has any opinions about such a forward turn of phrase, he doesn't say. If anything, he seems more excited to share his plans for the new students. “Odin asked me to make some awesome iron armaments for the new recruits!”

Ah. Steve’s met some of these recruits; he likes She-Hulk already, and Thor’s great, despite Loki’s complaints to the contrary. Loki had also said something about Malekith’s elves being vulnerable to iron, so what Tony is doing makes sense. Tony never hesitates to be on the front line every time the Academy comes under threat, and Steve is actually immensely proud of his initiative— right until he catches up to the mention of Odin.

“Did he ask you to wear that outfit?” he asks Tony in what he hopes is a level and reasonable tone. The All-Father is not particularly trustworthy, Steve decides on the spot. Really. Loki might be their resident chaotic evil, but Loki also wears all the motives of a surly megalomanic teenager on his perfectly tailored sleeve. Odin is far too clever for that, which always points to a level of shadiness, in Steve’s opinion.

So, when Tony says, “No,” Steve’s excessively relieved, only to be further distressed when Tony adds. “This is all me.”

“That’s good,” he manages. “I thought I was gonna have to alert the authorities.”

It’s not a total lie; Steve would have done his civic duty and called someone to scrape Odin’s remains off the ground if the answer had been yes.

Tony, unaware that he’d held the life of a god in his clever hands for a moment, just nods and bounces a little excitedly on his feet. “Well, I’ll catch you later, Capsicle,” he says with an ironic little salute. “Gotta go bang these things out.”

Steve, immediately deluged by visions of Tony bent over the anvil, newly exposed muscles straining and glistening in the light of the forge, nods dumbly. “Ok.”

Steve is not jealous, he’s thinking.

It’s been hours since his little run-in with Tony. Since then, he’s been on a mission with Sam, trained with Mockingbird, and even spent some time with Peggy before ending up at Club A for some pool. Steve likes shooting pool because it’s good training to spot ricochet angles, but tonight, he can’t stop thinking about that damn outfit. Did Tony really design it himself? When? And why didn’t Jan object? If anyone, she should have seen how useless it is as a blacksmithing costume. Two crisscrossing leather straps and a whole lot of bare skin weren’t any sort of protection from molten metal and flyaway embers in the forge.

Steve doesn’t realize he’d said it out loud until Sam replies, “Actually, it’s not forging in the traditional sense.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows in a gesture that might have been agreement. Beside her at the bar, T'challa merely takes a long, thoughtful sip of a startlingly neon drink. Sam goes on providing educational reassurance, probably because, Steve suspects, he’s glad they’re talking about something other than training, fighting HYDRA, or all the reasons to not go to work for Fury.

“Asgardian iron ore is pretty easy to craft with just repulsor tech," Sam lines up his pool stick, takes his shot, and stands up triumphantly when the cueballs scatter faithfully in all the right directions. "Its real power comes from enchantment. Or that’s what Amora said, but I dunno, I always feel pretty weird when I’m around her...”

That doesn’t sound quite comforting. If anything, Steve broods more at the thought of Tony now running around with smarmy sorceresses, learning magic, and generally moving further and further beyond Steve’s reach. Asgardians, he thinks uncharitably—actually, maybe just one Asgardian in particular. Odin is a god and King of Asgard, ergo, the Frost Giants were his problem. Steve doesn’t understand why he doesn’t just take care of them with a pointed strategic offensive. Instead, he has to make a production out of the whole thing, and litter campus with bedazzled sky cycles and besaddled wild animals.

Yeah, Steve's seen the armored polar bear. It’s cute, but where's it going to go once winter is over? What would it eat? Did Odin think about that before shoving improbable gifts at Tony? No, the All-Father only thought about himself.

“Cap, you ok?” Sam pokes his elbow. “You look kinda mad.”

“What? No, I’m fine,” Steve assures him even as his own shot fails spectacularly. He eyes Sam as the young man moves around the table.

“Weren’t you saying something about your jetpack needing a fix?” Steve asks casually. “I could take it to Tony for you.”

“Actually, I’m going to fix it myself,” Sam replies with blithe cheer. “I realized I can’t keep relying on Tony for everything.”

“Right,” Steve deflates. Just as he’s about to say something encouraging to his friend, an unholy screeching noise reverberates over the loud music. Steve whirls around and comes face to face with T’challa’s cool, dark eyes. When did he sneak up?

“Excuse me, Captain,” the Prince of Wakanda says smoothly, but the glint of his vibranium claws are flagrant. As are the three deep gouges across Steve’s shield. “It appears your shield requires maintenance. Perhaps Tony Stark can help."

“You know Tony,” Natasha quips when Steve does his best impression of a goldfish out of water. "Tall, dark hair, loves his bots. Who's working in the Ice Palace right now. Alone.”

She gives him a significant look. “Could probably use some company."

Night falls and Steve is still not jealous. Not until he runs into Loki, anyway.

After his usual repartee of insults and vaguely monumental threats, Loki smugly fills Steve in on his latest partnership with Tony to make enchanted weapons.

“It was the All-Father’s idea,” he sniffs. “Between you and me, he could have easily banished the frost giants, but he thinks this fight will create some sort of bond between myself and my fellow students. Joke’s on him: Armor-man and I are already close.”

There’s a…twinge of some sort in Steve’s chest, that’s been getting steadily tighter with every mention of Tony running around with Asgardians, but this is the last straw.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he barks, folding his arms. Loki can easily match him for height, so Steve finds his satisfaction in the way the shadow of his shield looms over the sorcerer.

“It means that when I rule Midgard, I promised Armor-man that he will be the last to fall,” Loki replies breezily, then he smirks and slyly adds. “Say, America-man, are you jealous?”

Steve scowls thunderously. “I—no.” he denies.

“I think perhaps you are,” Loki counters. “And if not of my superior good looks and majestic hair, it must be because I’m working with Tony Stark against the Dark Elves while you are…not.”

Guilt curls around his stomach and Steve folds his arms tighter. “I’m doing other things,” he mutters, wondering why he’s explaining himself to Loki of all people.

“I’m sure you are,” Loki agrees unconvincingly. “But if you’re in between recruitment trips and that infernal dancing, perhaps you should check on Armor-man’s progress. I would do it, but I must see a witch about a bird.”

“You mean, you're going off to scheme with Amora,” Steve accuses. He’s just thinking he should probably keep an eye on those developments when he hears Loki’s next words.

“We don’t need any more weapons, but he keeps making them. I suspect he’s doing it for the compliments.”

“Compliments?” Steve echoes.

Loki rolls his eyes. “Yesterday, the All-Father has deemed Stark as excellent as the dwarves of Nidavellir,” he groans. “And Stark ate it up. Probably because Bumblebee-woman is the only one to praise him otherwise.”

Loki gives him a look that echoes Natasha’s back in Club A. “Go on, America-man, I suspect you'll find him in the Ice Palace.”

“Got it, thanks,” Steve replies. “I mean, I don’t know why you’re helping me, but—“

“Oh, your mortal drama bores me, true,” Loki sighs haughtily. He’s back to his petulantly guarded self again, looking at Steve disdainfully over his shoulder. “But you and Armor-man deserve one joyous holiday before I take over Midgard and you are all annihilated where you stand.”

The Ice Palace is marvelous, there’s no denying. It’s also surprisingly warm and while Steve logically knows it’s not literally made of frozen water, he’s still ridiculously glad he doesn’t have to go inside to find Tony’s workshop. He arrives at the courtyard where the anvil is just in time to watch Tony get distracted by his own flexing biceps, misfire his repulsor, and take a turret clean off its foundation.

Steve grunts loudly as he braces himself against the turret to keep it from falling.

Tony immediately yelps, “Cap!” and rushes over to help. Between them, it takes a bare minute to restabilize the turret back on its foundation and Asgardian enchantments take care of the rest.

“Are you ok?” Tony asks. He lands just a few feet away and glances up so fretfully that Steve feels bad for distressing him. He opens his mouth to assure Tony that he’s fine when Tony cuts him off with another horrified squeak.

“Steve, your shield! What happened?”

Steve winces and glares at the metallic rifts on the shield like they're responsible for dragging Tony’s attention away. “It was T’challa.“

“You got in a fight with Black Panther?!” Tony demands incredulously. His fingers hover disbelievingly over his mouth and Steve wonders if he should feel slighted at Tony’s apparently low assessment of how well he would fare in a fight with the Prince of Wakanda.

“No, I didn’t,” he replies. “We were at Club A and T’challa thought—“ he stops himself before he says something that might demand an even more awkward explanation. “…it wasn’t a fight.”

It takes a moment, but Tony seems to accept it. A strange silence descends, wherein Steve grows a hundred percent more aware of the blacksmith outfit, which is still…the way it is… only now with the added bonus of Tony being all flushed with exertion and tension and...

Steve bites the tip of his tongue, “How are you?”

“I’m good,” Tony grins, abruptly sunny. “I just made a batch of new weapons. Odin says I’m really good!”

And the twinge in Steve’s chest is back. It claws its way out of him sharp as nails, “You don’t need Odin to tell you you’re good, Tony!”

“You want me to say no to street cred on Asgard?” Tony asks, like he’s scandalized at the suggestion. “They love blacksmiths! I mean, I think it’s because they don’t have internet up there, which is tragic, but y’know.”

Tony shrugs, and Steve isn’t stupid--he can see Tony's eyes dim behind that plastered smile. “They can keep their blacksmiths,” he says. “We need you, Tony.”

Tony chuckles, in a heavy kind of way that makes Steve’s heart clench. “No need to flatter me, Capsicle, I’ll take a look at your shield. I got some free time since Falcon just took a raincheck on fixing the jetpack.”

“That’s not—“ Steve starts and grinds to a halt. He returns the shield to his back, scratches and all, and reaches out to touch Tony’s shoulder instead. “It’s not about the shield. Or Sam’s jetpack, Tony, I just want…”

Tony’s brows arch, intrigued, and Steve sighs. He drops his hand from Tony’s shoulder and scratches the back of his head sheepishly. “I’m being really bad at this, aren’t I?”

“Maybe,” Tony drawls tentatively. “But hey, you’re kinda perfect at everything else so…”

“Not perfect,” Steve reminds him instinctively, but keeps his voice gentle. He doesn’t want to ruin the mood any further, so he considers his words before speaking again. “You do a lot, Tony. For us, for the Academy—we don’t tell you that enough, but the truth is, I’d miss you if you weren’t with us.”

“You’d miss me,” Tony echoes wondrously.

“I’d miss you like crazy,” Steve affirms. “There wouldn't be Avengers Academy without you; and even if there were, it wouldn’t be half as much fun.”

Tony wears an expression that wants to be pleased, but is not quite, so Steve wastes no time bringing a palm up to cup his face. Now, Tony goes wide-eyed and slack-jawed, but he doesn’t resist—not even when Steve leans in, ever closer until their skin touches. The kiss is awkward and off center, a tentative brush of Steve’s lips against the corner of Tony’s mouth because if he were to be honest, fighting a war is easier than being this vulnerable.

“Oh my god,” Tony breathes when they part.

“Is this OK?” Steve asks softly, still holding on and unwilling to move further away. “Please say it’s OK.”

Tony laughs. It’s barely a whisper above the winter breeze, but it’s genuine. “Oh, it's more than OK,” he says, and Steve doesn’t waste any more time. Their second kiss is less shy; it has more heat and Steve shudders under the wave of want that blooms behind his ribs when he feels Tony clutch at the nape of his neck.

Steve echoes the sentiment of before, “Oh my god,” he shivers at a sharp sensation on his lower lip. “Tony.”

“Cap,” Tony returns, sounding faraway even though Steve can feel him so close. His fingers drag, yearning, down the sweep of Steve’s throat. “Are we…?”

Steve nods. “Yes,” he replies hurriedly. “Anything, whatever you want from me.”

Tony grins. “Good,” he says, and Steve thinks, forget magic. Forget enchantments and iron and armors. If the sunshine delight in Tony's eyes ever turned toward the campus walls, the Frost Giants would be long gone.

“Honestly, it wasn't my intention when I first designed it, but hey, if it bought you running, I'm glad for every strap.”

Steve scoffs. There's no heat behind it; there can't be when it's a bright new day at Avenger's Academy and he's walking along the quad, holding on to Tony's hand like letting go is some unimaginable travesty. “Running is maybe a strong word.”

"No, it isn't," Tony replies happily and leans into Steve as they round the Archives. "Really, you're pretty spry for an older fella."

"Gotta keep up with you somehow," Steve sighs.

"I can't believe you thought Odin made me wear it." Tony snickers, even if Steve can't help but protectively tighten his hold. He's calmed down these days, really--barely any comment about lecherous god-kings and their various underhanded motives.

"You do see the irony in accusing the All-Father of being a shady old perv when your second guess was 'blacksmith', right?"

Steve barely resists choking on his own breath. A high pitched squeak escapes his lips instead.

For his part, Tony taps a quick pitying kiss on Steve's cheek, but gives no quarter. “Because I remember what said you said that time,” he teases. “Come on, Captain my Captain, what was your first guess when you saw what I was wearing?”

#superhusbands #stony #my writing #bymani #cap-im holiday exchange

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