Steve wanted nothing more in the world than to be able to collapse into Tony then and there. He just might have, cover be damned, if Tony hadn't opened his mouth fast enough.

"Well hey, look who it is! I suppose I'll take a meeting with Captain America over a phone. I've been looking for you, Nick said you might be around if I waited long enough." Tony extended a hand. "Tony Stark. I'm working on the War Machine project."

"Uh," Steve paused, his mouth suddenly impossibly dry.

He shook Tony's hand a bit clinically, though he ached to use it as leverage and pull Tony into his arms. He needed to feel that Tony was alive, was okay, wasn't being held hostage somewhere by terrorists, tortured or beaten or—he shook his head, ridding himself of such thoughts. He'd planned for this. He needed to pull himself together. He needed to use his Captain voice, deep andmanding, and call Tony 'Mr. Stark'. Tony would hate it and correct him immediately, but Captain America had no way of knowing that.

"Good to meet you, Mr. Stark."

"Call me Tony." Tony waved him off, as expected. "Mr. Stark was my father. But then, you knew dear old Dad, didn't you?"

"Not well."

Steve had thought he had. They hadn't been particularly close, but he'd thought he'd known the man well enough, at least until he'd met Tony. Tony wasn't particularly open about his father to put it mildly, but Steve had heard glimpses of stories, bits and pieces of the kind of father Howard had been. Steve didn't like what he'd heard in the least.

"Oh?" Tony looked surprised. "And here he made you out to be war buddies."

"He provided some support from time to time." Steve shrugged, careful not to give too much away. "Reliable scientist, unreliable man."

Tony was delighted by this, which made Steve smile. That had been his intention, after all. Tony didn't show how pleased he was to hear it outwardly, of course, he had a good poker face for these sorts of things, but it was obvious to someone who knew him like Steve did. The quirk of his lips, the hint of wrinkling at his eyes, all signs he was letting himself dial back the posturing a bit.

"Good to know," was all Tony said on the matter before he patted Steve on the arm. "I'm on my way to the mess hall for a quick fuel break, care to join me? I'd love to know what's considered edible. Every time I've been, the only discernible difference I can find in the mush is color."

"I'd—yes." Steve hoped he didn't sound as desperate as he felt. "Definitely."

"Mind if we retrieve my phone first?" Tony fidgeted, glancing over the railing. "I was talking to someone."

"Of course, I'm sorry." They fell into step, and it took Steve stupidly long to figure out Tony meant him. He blamed it on the fact that his head was still reeling from the painful, unavoidable truth in the Colonel's words. Though it was a bad idea, Steve couldn't seem to stop himself from asking. "Who?"

"Oh, just." Tony flashed him a smile, all teeth and nothing real. "A friend."

"Just a friend?" God, what was wrong with him? What on earth had possessed him to—

"That obvious, am I?" Tony smiled was a bit more real this time. "Let's say for now, and leave it at that, yeah?"

"If you'd like. But I could probably help."

"Nosy one, aren't you?" Tony raised an eyebrow at him, but didn't seem overly offended.

"I've been called so before. Specifically, Captain Inquisitive and, somewhat more of a mouthful, Captain Noseyspandex. By a supervillain, if that makes you feel better."

Tony gave a sharp bark of laughter, and the honest, genuine pitch of it made Steve smile.

"Iron Man, I'm guessing?" Tony grinned.

"Always is." Steve sighed.

"I think he's kinda funny, actually." Tony hummed. "What I've heard of him, that is."

"Do you?" Steve raised a dry eyebrow.

"What? It's not like he's killed people." Tony rolled his eyes dismissively. "He's not trying to take over the world, or enslave the human race or anything."

"Your oldpany is one of the ones he's trying to destroy."

"And I'm sure they've briefed you on why I'm no longer involved with saidpany. You ask me, I couldn't care less what Iron Man does to StarkIndustries."

The kidnapping flashed through Steve's mind. Did that have something to do with it? Col. Rhodes had said the Ten Rings had kidnapped Tony. Terrorists, weren't they? Steve knew of them only vaguely. They were based in Iran, he thought—no, Afghanistan. Tony had made weapons, he'd been kidnapped, he'd stopped; these pieces fit together somehow, but now didn't seem like the time to ask. Especially when it wasn't Steve but Captain America Tony would be giving an answer to.

"You've been kidnapped by him rather often." Tony gave him a lingering look as they passed stairwell 3. "What's your impression?"

"Of Iron Man?" Steve blew out a breath. "Well, you're right about one thing, he doesn't want to kill people, clearly. I suppose I wouldn't necessarily even call him evil, exactly. Just…misguided."

"Misguided." Tony blinked.

"Very misguided." Steve amended.

"The guy blows things up for a living and kidnaps you in his spare time, and you think he's misguided." Tony shook his head with a chuckle. "You're something else, Cap."

"I've been told." By you. A lot.

Silence fell between them for a moment, and, because Steve was an idiot who couldn't leave well enough alone, he was the one to awkwardly break it.

"I could help you. With your, er, friend. If you'd like."

"Who, Iron Man?" Tony teased, pretending not to understand. "We're strictly platonic these days, him and I. We had our fling back in the day, but the supervillainy was kind of a deal-breaker."

"You know what I meant." Steve smacked him, the familiaritying to him all too easily. He'd have to watch himself better, but Tony didn't seem to notice anything odd. Well, odder than he was already being, of course.

"Is Captain America trying to give me love advice right now?"

"I don't know, are you listening?"

"You're terrifyingly sassy for a ny-year-old."

Steve let out a huff of air that was more fond than aggravated, and allowed himself a brief moment to really look at Tony for the first time since they'd bumped into each other. Tony was smirking at him a little, eyes bright with humor, but he had the beginnings of circles underneath. His hair was mussed, like it got sometimes when he ran his hands through it too much, and there was a smudge of black across his cheekbone. Grease? Motor oil? Steve had no way of knowing.

He didn't look like he'd gotten much sleep these past few days, but it was an eager kind of sleeplessness. Tony had probably been ecstatic to be back to work, even if it inadvertently involved weapons. Tony loved engineering, loved building things with such endless enthusiasm he'd probably just otten the concept of time altogether.

God, he'd missed this man.

"You're…" Steve searched for a phrase that wasn't perfect, painfully eous, or everything I've ever wanted but never knew to search for. He settled on something he'd heard his mama call Bucky once, throwing in a bit of Brooklyn to really sell it. "Well, you seem like a real put-together fella."

"Flatterer." Tony rolled his eyes, but his smile was much more real now. He attempted a mimic of Steve's brogue, though it came out a bit more like a Southern drawl. "You're pretty swell yourself, handsome. Them dames must just eat you up with a spoon, huh?"

"I wouldn't say that." Steve shifted, careful not to dwell on how Tony's twangy ent, however bad, had sent an irresistible little shiver through him.

"More's the pity for them, I suppose." Tony shrugged easily enough, and any air of flirtation disappeared as they reached the ground floor and Tony beelined for his phone.

"God Almighty, does that thing still work?" Steve blinked in surprise. The casing didn't even look dented.

"A Stark original." Tony waved it with a grin. "Only two in the world. These things will survive a nuclear blast."

"Two?"

"The friend I mentioned has the other. I swapped it out when he wasn't looking and told him it was an upgrade."

"You what?" Steve demanded indignantly. Tony seemed taken aback, which was pretty fair considering for all intents and purposes he had no idea why Captain America would care.

"Uh, well." Tony shrugged. "Technically speaking, it is. I just didn't upgrade it directly from his old phone. That thing was insultingly useless, but he's way too proud to just let me give him a new one, so. I swapped it."

"You're unbelievable."

"That's what they say." Tony grinned, but it was more show and less Tony than he was used to. "I'll just be a sec, then we can go."

He bent to pick up and open his phone, likely to text Steve again. Shit—his phone's volume was on. If Tony texted him right now, Shoot to Thrill would go off and there was no possible way a genius like Tony wouldn't put two and two together.

"Can I see that?"

Without any thought or plan, Steve quickly grabbed Tony's phone. He fumbled with it, pressing whatever button he could.

"Hey, what're you—hey!" Tony snatched it back, but not before Steve managed to delete the conversation. That wouldn't stop Tony by any means, but it did derail him long enough for Steve to switch his own phone to silent. "What the hell? I was saving those!"

"You were…what?" Steve paused.

"Some were work-related." Tony lied smoothly. If Steve didn't know for a fact it wasn't true, he almost would've bought it. "We work together, and there was important, work-related information in there that I needed to save."

"They didn't look work-related."

"Well, they were, okay, just—you know what, I don't have to explain myself, who the hell goes around stealing people's phones, anyway? You're Captain America for Christ's sake, what're you doing snooping through my things?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean…" Steve shook his head. "I'm sorry. That wasn't right of me."

"…" Tony regarded him suspiciously for a long minute. "Fuck it, this is probably karma. I'm just gonna go find the mess hall on my own."

"No, I…" Steve didn't know what Tony was go

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