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There's a bluebird in the Arctic Circle.
It's like a bad poem, Tony thinks. Or maybe a good one, what would he know. The sound of birdsong over the howl of frozen wind is certainly remarkable.
A few feet ahead, the Wasp balks midair and returns to the safety of Giant Man's shoulder, eyeing the unexpected songbird with visible apprehension.
It's resting on a jagged bit of ice, its incongruously blue feathers puffed out to preserve what little warmth can be found in the, again, the literal Arctic.
"It must be a guide," Giant Man says, although he offers the Wasp his hand as a safe haven anyway.
"A guide?" Thor asks. "Hast one among us summoned this creature to lead us to the Hulk?"
"I hope not, Goldilocks!" The Wasp shudders dramatically. "No, it's a soul guide—it's here to lead someone to their soulmate. Hopefully not the Hulk, although I guess there is someone out there for everyone."
Tony sees her scan their small group quickly. He suspects the ant and wasp that he's seen her and her partner with are their soul guides, although they could just as easily be mortal insects under the control of pheromones. He's given more evidence to this theory when the Wasp cocks her head at him.
"Iron Man?" she prompts.
Tony almost—almost—lets the rote denial spill out of his mouth. 'No, I don't have a guide,' and then a quick change of subject, or a joke, depending on the audience, whatever gets the attention away from the disability that inspires more horror in people than even his heart condition would, if they knew of it—
But Tony Stark's lack of a guide is too public. Too controversial and too rare, too identifying—
And anyway, as he stumbles over possible responses, the guide alights from the snow, lands briefly on his helmet, and then flits back to the northwest about ten feet. It chits and chirrups, sounding urgent and distinctly frigid, and unimpressed with the fact that it just broke the miserable foundation of Tony's entire lonely life.
He has a guide. Over a decade late—unheard of—
The bluebird chits angrily and repeats its pointed flight, small claws briefly scratching the frigid surface of the helmet.
"Well, let's go!" The Wasp says, more cheerful now that she's not in danger of being eaten by the decidedly non-indigenous wildlife. "Maybe there's a lovely lady waiting to give our Shellhead some Eskimo kisses."
"The preferred term is Inuit," Giant Man says, with an absent tone that indicates he is correcting her for her inaccuracy, not her naive use of a derogatory name.
Tony tunes their chatter out and follows the bluebird, which is leading them coincidentally closer to the strange readings they were following anyway. His mind feels as blank and as white as the Arctic around them.
God. He has a guide. He has a soul mate. He has one, and he's going to meet them right now, in his secret identity, and while his heart can give out on him any day now.
Destiny… might be kind of a dick.
They find Captain America. Here in the Arctic, frozen in ice. Tony will never forget seeing the bluebird alight upon the half-surfaced block of ice, a flare of spring-sky blue in a landscape of winter, unmatched by anything except the similar blue of that legendary costume.
They work in silence to excavate the fallen hero. Tony carefully applies his repulsors to melt as-needed while the bluebird chirps and chirrups and takes turns resting on the armor and the ice, which, at this point, are presumably equally frigid.
They return to the submarine with him, the Hulk's trail thoroughly abandoned. The Wasp is shooting him increasingly wide-eyed looks, and it's getting hard to keep pretending she isn't Jan van Dyne when her face isn't even covered and she looks so much like she did when she was eleven and learning, from his example, that it was possible to not have a guide.
He doesn't take it personally. After all, having your guide lead you to a long-dead national icon is almost as appalling as not having one at all.
Still, the atmosphere is more awed, and respectful, than anything else. Undeniably somber, especially when Thor says something about returning a fallen warrior's body to his homeland. Giant Man, not much one for overt displays, even places a brief hand on Iron Man's pauldron as if to comfort him.
Tony hasn't decided how to feel about it. It's Captain America—the man's sacrifice is legendary, and bringing his body home is the very least they can do. But for the briefest moment, despite all the complications that would have ensued, Tony really believed he was about to meet a soulmate he'd long since stopped hoping could exist. It had felt impossible, and incredible, like—like seeing a bluebird in the Arctic, Tony thinks, and almost snorts.
And then a rat crawls out of Captain America's pockets.
Janet veers in her flight path, stopping to hover above Captain America's face. The rat, a brown, silky creature, blinks sleepy eyes around at them and scratches its ear.
"Oh my god," Janet says, as the bottom drops out of Tony's stomach. She's not even looking at the rat, which may be because she, unlike Tony, didn't win a trivia game in middle school by answering the question 'What form did Captain America's guide take?'
So she may not realize that the rat is the Captain's guide, which means she may not be making the connection that if the rat is still here, then that means Captain America is—
"He isn't dead!" Jan exclaims. "He's breathing! His eyes—they're flickering!"
Steve wakes up. There are urgent voices around him, and the flare of anxiety within him settles slightly as he recognizes English. He still feels uneasy, though. He doesn't recognize the voices, and whenever he's been hurt, Bucky—
He bolts upright. "Bucky—Bucky! Look out!"
His eyes are still blurry, but he can see brightly-colored figures around him. He's in a very narrow room, with walls that curve inward toward the ceiling. He gets a vague impression of metal and machinery before he lunges forward, grabbing at the nearest colorful figure.
"Where's Bucky?" He demands. "I won't let you hurt him! Tell me where—"
Bucky, insistent that the plane could be recovered. Bucky, seeing the fuse—realizing it was going to blow—
The explosion. The heat and force of flame slamming into Steve. No one could have survived that. It was some kind of terrible miracle that Steve, only a little farther away than Bucky, apparently somehow had.
He slumps, despair choking him. "It's useless, isn't it? I remember now—he is dead. Nothing on earth can change that."
It's useless to protest that death in a war isn't fair, but for one long moment, Steve wants to howl it at the ceiling. God. He's going to have to write Bucky's mother, his sisters…
His vision blurs again, but Steve blinks it back. He'll mourn his young partner in private.
In the meantime, he turns, taking in the people around him in detail. They're in flashy costumes, all of them brightly colored, including the armored automaton standing just behind Steve, metal hands still outstretched as if to hold his elbow.
"Where am I? How did I get here? Who are you?"
The last question spills out as he realizes he can see blue eyes behind the metal mask—it's not an automaton, it's a suit, and there's a person inside.
"That's what we were about to ask you!" the armored person says.
Noting a distinct absence, Steve reaches for the pocket on his belt pouch where his guide normally rides. It's empty, and, alongside his entire costume, unpleasantly damp.
"Where's—" he asks, starting to scan the room for a brown rat, and then he's astonished to see his guide clamber up the torso of the armor to rest on its shoulder. It looks back to Steve, squeaking encouragingly, and then places its pink paw on the faceplate of the metal helmet.
"You…" Steve's voice fails, his throat closing up with emotion. He feels a slight weight on his shoulder and glances down to see a small, round bluebird has landed on him. It ruffles its feathers and begins to sing.
Steve is on a submarine, which is nifty. He's also… been asleep for a long time.
It's almost too much to take in, and Steve feels his limits keenly. He sits on the cot he'd been defrosting on. He pets his guide, who returns to sit on Steve's knee and gaze up at him with keen, sad eyes. Steve feels the familiar flare of emotion each time he strokes the silky fur with his ungloved hand. It's always the same—that bright, amiable, hungry curiosity that must be the way his soulmate faces the world. The way Iron Man faces the world.
His soulmate hasn't said much, except to introduce himself. Well, to introduce himself in a fashion, as Iron Man—Steve understands these "Avengers" do have secret identities, even from each other.
Steve doesn't have much to say himself. He explains what happened to Bucky, what happened to him. He learns the war is over, long over; that they won. He's told they're returning to New York very soon. He watches a bluebird flit around the narrow cabin of the submarine, always orbiting Iron Man, always returning to perch on his helmet or shoulder.
And then things get strange.
"Take your time," Iron Man tells him as the others filter out of the submarine. "The press are likely waiting for us. Just…come out when you're ready."
His red, metal-clad hand darts forward. He very briefly clasps Steve's shoulder, applying the lightest of squeezes. Then he leaves. His guide cheeps at Steve and then flings itself toward the surface after him.
Even this simple choice feels like too much, right now. But…his soulmate is outside. The whole world is outside. His soulmate is brave and curious and eager to see the future.
"If he can do it, so can I," Steve says to the little rat in his hands.
But when he goes outside, there are no reporters—just a strangely inartistic statue of the Avengers, who… appear to have abandoned him at the docks. Puzzled and a little hurt, Steve wanders around what are unmistakably the streets of New York, familiar and alien at the same time. He even gets briefly scolded for jaywalking.
Then he gets tracked down by a youth who looks so much like Bucky that Steve thinks he's losing his mind. So does the young man, for that matter, although he demands Steve's help finding the Avengers anyway.
They track down the wielder of the mysterious weapon seen in a photograph from the docks. Steve fights a roomful of hired guns. He unmasks an alien with a face like a fuzzy celery stalk, and gets him to agree to undo whatever he did to turn the Avengers to stone. Thankfully, it is reversible, and so Steve and the Avengers take the alien out to the location of his downed ship and… well, Thor does a maneuver with his mystical hammer that he explains in grandiose prose—something something "cosmic magnetism"—but really, basically, he lifts the vehicle on a jack so the alien can replace his busted tire.
Then there are lava men. And a living rock. And a Hulk. And it's a very busy, very strange, very upsetting week even before Baron Zemo reappears with his Masters of Evil and enough Adhesive X to paste every New Yorker in place like a model miniature. Iron Man has to tow Steve, Giant Man, and the chunk of concrete they're stuck to all the way back to the mansion, and it's only thanks to some joker named Paste Pot Pete that Steve doesn't have to wear red boots to bed that evening.
But they do get a moment to catch their breath after that—a few days with enough quiet that Giant Man starts planning a brief scientific trip.
That's when he meets Tony Stark.
His soulmate is employed as Mr. Stark's bodyguard, formally, although the Avengers' benefactor is good enough to lend him out for heroing business. The armored Avenger had rushed off very shortly after assuring Steve that Mr. Stark would like nothing more than for Steve to make himself at home in the mansion.
Steve's not too sure about that, himself—the mansion is nicer than any place he's been before except maybe the White House when he met President Roosevelt. He can't help but worry that he's going to scratch the hardwood, or, God forbid, knock over what he's pretty sure are actual Ming vases.
And he hasn't seen hide or helmet of Iron Man outside of Avengers business. His guide, the bluebird, he occasionally sees flitting around the mansion, but it appears Iron Man doesn't prefer to keep it by his side the way Steve does. He's…trying not to be hurt by that.
In the morning, Iron Man sends a message through his identicard letting him know that Mr. Stark wants to take him out for a night on the town. Steve agrees, even though he'd much rather be getting to know his soulmate. Quite aside from the obvious reasons, he's not sure what to think of the Avengers' mysterious benefactor. Giant Man had mentioned the man was a brilliant scientist himself, and Thor had credited the man's generosity for everything from their gear to their government clearance.
Privately, though, Steve is bracing for the kind of man he'd met doing bond tours—the men with too-firm handshakes and proprietary gazes, who smiled like they were calculating the tax write-off for their donation. Steve waits for him in the foyer and tries not to fiddle with his shirt. He hopes Stark won't judge him for not having starched his collar.
"Captain!" a warm, mellow baritone says, and Steve turns.
There's a man walking up to shake his hand. He's dark-haired, with bright eyes and a brilliant smile and a charisma so magnetic that it almost visibly cloaks him, and when Steve shakes his hand, he feels tingles all up his arm.
"You must be Mr. Stark," Steve says. His voice sounds sure and steady, thankfully. "Thank you for giving me a place to stay."
"Don't think anything of it," Mr. Stark responds. He clasped Steve's hand in both of his to shake it, and his grasp is lingering. "My home is your home. Literally. Any Avenger is welcome here. And please, call me Tony."
Steve's met enough high-rollers that he thought he'd developed some immunity to the charm of the ultra-wealthy and famous. For a certain kind of swell, the insistence on casual address is just another power play. But… there's something different about Stark. He's in earnest, Steve thinks. His attention is so focused and so genuine and so, so striking.
"Tony," Steve says, tasting the weight of the name in his mouth. "Call me Steve. It's a pleasure to meet you finally. Iron Man said we were going out, and I wasn't sure what to wear—"
Stark's eyes trail his figure briefly. Steve feels the gaze like a line of heat up his side.
"You're perfect—perfectly suitable," Stark says, shaking his head as if to dispel a distraction. "I did think about pulling out all the stops, but I thought that might be a little overwhelming. We can do the private jet and private show and private chef thing some other time, if you're interested, but I had something else in mind tonight."
The place they go is pretty upscale, to Steve's eyes, but not enough so that Steve is underdressed. Tony takes the menu from Steve.
"Trust me?" he asks, blue eyes incandescent. "You won't have tried this before."
Steve nods, and manages to thwart a guilty blush. Iron Man, he thinks. Iron Man is brave, and… metallic… and hasn't acknowledged the fact that they're soulmates at all.
But still.
"How is it you came to employ Iron Man?" he asks, after Tony orders what must be half the menu. "He's a very unusual bodyguard."
"Oh, well…" Tony prevaricates, and then tells him the story of his overseas captivity, the other prisoner that died to give him time to escape, and the American pilot who found him afterwards.
"That's amazing," Steve says, trying to imagine. "So he's a pilot? Did he tell you… we're soulmates?" He tries to visualize Iron Man as a normal pilot. He had blue eyes—you could see that through the faceplate. He must be a little shorter than the armor made him. An image started to form: tall, blue-eyed, perhaps a bit rugged from life in the service…
"Ah, yes," Tony says, distracting him. "His guide to you took the form of a bluebird and led him through the Arctic. Very romantic," he says, smiling, with an edge of rueful tightness Steve doesn't understand. "And your guide takes the form of a rat."
Something about the way he says that makes Steve's hackles go up. "It's a domesticated rat. They're called fancy rats," he says defensively. "They're very clever—one of the most intelligent animals out there—they can even use tools. And they're social; they can get depressed just like humans."
"They can what?" Tony's face is twisted, but not with disgust; he looks almost upset.
Steve settles a little. "They can get depressed. If you keep just one rat by themselves, they'll get lonely and sick. Or if another rat in their pack dies, they mourn. They miss them." Steve swallows. He's been trying not to think about that too much, actually.
"Their lifespans are short," he adds quietly. "Two to three years, tops. Other than that, they're excellent companions."
Tony has a look on his face that Steve cannot place at all. He looks almost haunted, now, though he buries it with a wide, handsome smile when their server comes by with trays of food.
"I can see why that would apply to him," Tony says, also quiet, when they're alone with their food again.
The topic has gotten a little heavy. "What form does your guide take? Have you met your soulmate yet?"
Tony blanches. "Ah. I've…never had a guide."
Steve pauses. "I didn't know that was possible."
Tony smiles, looking rueful. It doesn't quite reach his eyes. "A lot of people don't until they meet me."
Well, that sure doesn't make sense to Steve, he thinks, a little indignantly. "Maybe your guide is just microscopic and you can't see it," is what comes out of his mouth.
Tony, fortunately, laughs. Steve feels himself blush. "It made sense to me, even if it didn't quite come out right," he continues. "I mean, you're a scientist. It could be a bacteria, or a fungus, or something."
Tony's still laughing, so at least Steve hasn't offended him, though he mouths the word 'fungus' with visible amusement. Steve apologizes anyway.
"No, you're right," Tony says, and his smile crinkles his eyes. "How would I know? Maybe there's been a very frustrated tardigrade trying to get my attention for the last decade and a half."
Steve ducks his head. He'll have to look up what a tardigrade is later. "Still, I didn't mean to poke at a sore point."
Tony shrugs. "It was refreshing. It gets a little tiring having people gawk at me over it."
"I bet." Steve represses the urge to apologize again. It just doesn't seem fair, somehow. He met Nazis with guides—lots of them. Hit a lot of them, too. "Can I ask you something? About Iron Man?"
"Ask."
"He… hasn't really been around much. Other than Avengers calls, I mean. I was wondering—I thought maybe—I'd like to get to know him, is all."
Tony's eyes are distant. "All I can say," Tony says slowly, "is that you'll have to speak with him. He's a very difficult man to know. Very—private."
"Oh," Steve says, and doesn't add, 'Even for his soulmate?' no matter how much he wants to. This isn't actually Tony's business, and Steve doesn't want to drag him into it.
"Cheer up," Tony says brightly. "He's been busy lately—all my fault—but he'll be around. Even our Tin Man gets a break every now and then. Try this, with the peanut sauce," he adds, and Steve does.
The Masters of Evil interrupt Giant Man's trip. Steve only hears about this part later, because he's busy tearing off to South America in search of Zemo. He maybe should have mentioned that to someone other than Rick Jones, actually, before he left. It works out fine. Zemo is kind enough to give him a ride back.
Zemo still gets away, though, with his new Asgardian pals, the Enchantress and the Executioner. Doubtless they'll be back to darken some doorstep before long. Whatever the Asgardian's reasons, he knows Zemo, at least, won't rest until Steve is dead. That's alright with Steve. The feeling is mutual.
Still, he finds himself unable to sleep that night. He keeps thinking of Bucky, who he hasn't avenged, and when he's not thinking of Bucky he thinks about Rick, because it's one thing to train a teenager and another to encourage them to get tangled up with supervillains.
And when he manages not to think about either of them, he thinks about Iron Man. After the Executioner knocked him senseless, he woke to Iron Man crouched at his side and asking Giant Man about him with real concern in his voice.
But he'd still taken off immediately after the fight without a word to Steve, so… maybe that was just normal concern for a teammate.
Eventually, he decides he's too worked up to try to sleep and gets up, slipping a t-shirt on. He knows there's a library, and so he decides to explore it.
When he reaches the library door, the door is ajar, and there's a warm lamplight inside. He pushes the door open to see Tony sitting in one of the winged armchairs and looking exhausted, stroking more than reading an old fabric-bound book. Steve starts to speak and then sees the bluebird perched on the armchair behind Tony. As he watches, shocked, it starts to preen Tony's hair.
Tony sighs. Without moving his head, he lifts a hand up to his ear, and the bluebird hops onto his finger. It tweets.
"You know why we can't," he says, almost too low to hear. "I'm sorry. You have to keep your distance, and—and so do I."
The bluebird chirrups again, a long, rolling, somewhat aggressive sound. The bird obviously disagrees. Steve concurs.
"Iron Man?" Steve asks, stepping into sight. Tony's bright blue eyes widen with alarm, and then go dull and flat with resignation. He cradles the bluebird in his lap, shoulders slumped.
"Steve," he says. "I'm sorry. I—now you know."
"Yes," Steve says quietly. He's trying to suppress the anger and hurt bubbling up within him. "I know. But I don't understand."
"I owe you an explanation," Tony says, voice still very low. "But I don't know how to give it, and that's—that's why I…"
"You said you didn't have a guide," Steve says. A note of accusation wobbles in his voice.
"I said I'd never had one," Tony corrects. "I hadn't. My entire life, right up until we went to the Arctic looking for the Hulk and found you instead. This guy was waiting right there and that was the first time I'd ever seen him. I was wearing the armor at the time, I didn't even feel the bond until…"
The bluebird flutters to rest on Tony's elbow, peeping gently at him. Tony strokes the bluebird with one slow finger, the exact same way Steve pets his rat.
"What does it feel like?" Steve asks quietly. Tony's face crumples.
"Everything I never dreamed of," Tony says hoarsely. "I can feel…patience, determination. Your faith that doing the right thing is its own reward. It's like hope, without the fear."
He finally looks up, meeting Steve's eyes for the first time since Steve walked in on him. His eyes are wet.
"I'm dying," he says. "I'm so sorry. I can't be what you need. I can't be your anchor, I can't be anything. My heart could give out on me at any time."
"Your heart?" Steve manages. He sinks onto the footstool in front of Tony's chair.
"I have…shrapnel. An injury from a landmine. I… let me show you." His hands shake as he unbuttons his collared shirt, and Steve realizes there's another reason other than just pride of appearance for why he's never seen Tony in anything more casual than a shirt and jacket. Anything less than multiple stiff layers would reveal that underneath his ordinary clothing, he's wearing a metal chest plate around his entire torso.
"It keeps my heart beating." Tony is quiet. "But there's no guarantee. I have to charge it every day. I've had several close calls already. And even the modern medicine we have these days isn't advanced enough to remove 48 tiny pieces of metal from my heart."
Steve's making several connections in his mind. "And," he says slowly. "And you run the charge down, acting as Iron Man. Flying. Fighting evil."
Tony exhales, a sharp, short breath. The bluebird flits to his shoulder and starts preening the hair at the nape of his neck. Tony blinks, slowly.
"I'm not stopping," he finally says. "Not for anything. Not even for you. You can kick me off the Avengers, but I won't quit being Iron Man."
"Who ever said anything about kicking you off the Avengers?" Steve asks gently, trying to tease. Tony just looks away. "I mean it, Shellhead. Your—your heart. Is it fine as long as your chest plate has a charge?"
Tony's lips thin. "In theory, sure," he says, voice flat. "But practically—I'm putting a lot of strain on an already critically-injured organ. I could just…accumulate too much damage. Go into cardiac arrest."
Steve reaches out, takes Tony's hand where it's curled against his chest. His hands are cold. Like his circulation isn't good, Steve realizes, and starts to gently massage Tony's fingers with his own. Tony's hands are callused. There's a thin scar on the back of his knuckle.
Steve's throat is tight like it's 1936 and he's just been walloped good and is struggling so much to get his wind back that it's triggering his asthma.
Tony should stop. He should quit fighting, focus on finding a specialist that can give him more options or on inventing something, just for himself, not gear for the Avengers, and—and—
And sit in his office quietly doing paperwork. Watch Steve fight the Masters of Evil with the other Avengers on television. Let someone else do the fighting and hope that they have the same priorities as him, the same good intentions.
There were men who were well who could fight in the war. They were drafted first. The strong, the healthy. Steve kept trying to join because he knew he could help, even too-skinny and asthmatic and with more allergies than sense. Steve still believes that. He has all the strength and health he could ever have prayed for, but he still believes that he could have helped someone, somehow, with whatever paltry strength he possessed before the super-soldier serum.
Maybe that's naive. Maybe he'd have just died as cannon fodder, pointlessly, from a stray bullet or a shell in a ditch, and accomplished nothing. God knows too many did.
But he'd have tried to help. Even if it killed him. Anyone can do that much, and make a difference. Tony's a genius. He can probably do a heck of a lot more than anyone.
Steve's rat crawls out of his pocket, clambering over his arm to sniff their joined hands. Tony twitches. Tony, like many other people, still doesn't like rats much, despite what Steve's told him about them.
"I won't tell you to stop," Steve says finally, very quietly. "You have every right to fight, even though it's dangerous. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be here now. I'd never have been Captain America in the first place."
Tony exhales shakily. "Thank you," he says. He squeezes Steve's hand in his. "And…I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," Steve says. "If I only get to have you a while, I still will have had you."
Tony's eyes meet his, and the blue in them is smouldering. Heat frissons through Steve, flushing his skin. He hadn't meant it like that when he said it, but lord. He does now.
Tony swallows. "Nobody's touched me since the chestplate." His voice is rough and low. "I couldn't let anyone… anything more intimate than a handshake…"
This, Steve can fix immediately. He stands, pulling Tony to his feet and into a hug. At first, Tony just stands there stiffly. The bluebird departs from his shoulder, landing on a bookshelf, and Steve sees his rat scamper after it a second later. He smiles into Tony's shoulder.
They're almost of a height. It's really nice. Tony wraps his arms fully around him and presses his cheek to Steve's, but he's still holding back a little. Steve tugs him in the rest of the way and realizes Tony was trying to keep the ports on the chestplate from pressing into him. They do stick out a little. Steve doesn't mind.
Tony is warm in his arms, and he's holding Steve so tight. It feels incredible. He can feel his own heart rate slow and settle.
"You're not the only one that's been alone," Steve says.
Thirteen Years Later
Steve's unpacking the last few boxes when he finds it: an old book bound in deep brown fabric, with Le Morte d'Arthur in weathered gold print. He sits back on his haunches, thumbing the brittle pages and thinking back to the first time he'd seen Tony holding it. It had migrated to their bedside shortly later—theirs, because neither of them saw any reason to wait.
That was a long time ago.
Steve sighs, resting the book on his thigh. The box must have come out of storage, because it's not anything he packed recently. There's an old Iron Man helmet Tony had signed with a quip about Steve's hard head, and a photograph Wanda had taken of Steve and Tony passed out on the living room loveseat. It had been after a fight, and Tony had kept a damaged gauntlet on to work on it, and when they'd passed out someone—Clint—had taken the opportunity to decorate the gauntlet with refrigerator magnets.
There are a few more books, a watch of Tony's that's probably obscenely expensive, and a small metal case with drawing pencils in it. Detritus. He hears a squeak, and his rat scrambles over the side of the box to investigate. Steve reaches in, tickling the rat and smiling as it squirms and chases his hand.
He looks back at the book. It has a few singed spots Steve doesn't remember, probably from the mansion's destruction. Once upon a time, they'd thought they wouldn't have long together and had to make the most of it. Somehow, Tony lived, and somehow, they messed it up anyway.
"What do you think?" he asks the rat, like he doesn't know. His guide clambers over the signed helmet, perching on top of it to reach out to Steve's knee.
Steve pets it, gingerly, tracing a single finger over its brow and around the extra-soft fur around its ears. He feels the same thing he always does: Tony's curiosity, his warmth. His loneliness.
"Yeah, alright," he says. He tucks the book under his arm as he stands, fishing his phone out of his pocket. He puts the rat on his shoulder and dials.
He flips through the book idly while the phone rings. It falls open on a page with a sticky note jammed in. Startled, Steve recognizes his own handwriting.
Shellhead—don't forget to eat breakfast!
Yours,
Steve
The phone picks up.
"Hey," Tony says, sounding surprised. He probably didn't know Steve and Sharon had called it quits.
"Hey, Tony," Steve says. "You'll never guess what I found…"