“Man it up and join the rest of the multiverse in loving Tony?”
“But I’m not in love with Tony!” Steve bursts out. “I can’t just –”
“Can’t just make yourself love him?”
Steve nods soberly, reach up to rub his face. The IV line snags on the edge of his blanket and he reaches for it, tearing the tape off in one vicious yank, before sliding the needle out of the back of his hand and tossing the line away. It doesn’t make him feel any better.
“I feel like I have to,” he says. “God, if he-”
“You don’t have to,” Clint says firmly. “Tony’s a big boy; if you don’t feel the same way about him he’ll deal with it. He’s Iron Man for god’s sake, he’s dealt with worse. Always has, always will.”
Nodding again, Steve unhappily acknowledges that Clint is right. As long as he treats this right – as long as he treats Tony right – there’s no reason for this to be a disaster.
“But maybe you do feel the same way.”
Frowning, Steve turns to look Clint in the eye. He still looks deadly serious, but shrugs as Steve looks at him. “You two are…I don’t know. Intense around each other at the best of times. And come on, if the rest of the multiverse has gone for it…”
He trails off, the implication unspoken but simple to infer.
Steve groans. “Dammit, this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen, I didn’t want to get back and everything be weird.”
“Is it weird because other versions of you love other versions of Tony, or because Tony likes you, or because you quite blatantly can’t work out if you like Tony…?”
Steve rolls each question over in his mind. Swallows thickly, rubs at his temple.
“I don’t know.”
Steve is sleeping again. He’s lying on his side with his mouth lax and open, tablet computer held limply in his hand. He looks still and peaceful, still with that damn almost-frown on his face
Tony would be worried, but the doctors have told him that despite spending the last few weeks complete KO, Steve will need a lot of rest as his body adjusts to being awake and moving once more. After all, all he’s had in the way of sustenance is whatever nutrients were pumped in via IV and the half a pizza that Tony has no intention of giving Clint a thousand bucks for. His energy levels are completely shot, and it’s visible in his slow movements, his pale skin, the shadows around his eyes.
He aches to go in to sit beside him, but he won’t.
“Phil would be pissed that you’ve usurped the title of Cap’s Number One Fan.”
Tony breathes out through his mouth as Clint’s voice calls out to him, not looking away from where he’s watching Steve through the window in the hospital room door.
“You are the least helpful person I have ever met.”
Clint saunters up, hands in his pockets. He peers through the glass window in the door and then leans back against the wall, facing Tony. “How’re you doing?”
Tony’s not touching that with protective gloves on. He doesn’t reply, eyes tracing the curve of Steve’s forearm, across his wrist and down to his hand, fingers curled slackly around the edge of the tablet.
“So,” he says conversationally. “Which nurse was it that came by to take his IV out?”
Clint shrugs. “A blond one.”
“Yeah. Was the mystery blond named Steve or Clint?” he asks, and Clint pulls a face at him, crossing his legs at the ankle and glancing towards the door.
“You know I couldn’t have stopped him,” he says as way of admission, and Tony could kill Steve some days, he really could. “He wanted it out, so out it went.”
“He’s still dehydrated,” Tony says, annoyed. Trust Steve to always be on everyone’s case about taking care of themselves and then blatantly ignoring medical advice directed at himself. Tony finally pulls his eyes away, turning his body and slumping back against the wall next to Clint. Shoves his hands in his pockets because he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I’m going to tape a bottle of Gatorade into each of his hands.”
Clint breathes out, a huff of sound that’s nearly a laugh. “Tape not necessary, he’ll do it if you ask.”
“What’s your game plan, Barton?” Tony says suddenly, hearing the implication in the words, the stress on the word you. “I have an acute feeling of dread that you’re up to something, and that never ends well for anyone.”
Innocent look on his face, Clint shakes his head. “When am I ever up to anything?”
“Bullshit. I sense bullshit, and I’m calling you on it, Hawkeye. You’re not as dumb as you like people to think you are. Lacking in basic common sense, but not dumb. It’s all a terrible, terrible act.”
Clint smiles at that, and then uncrossed his legs, shifting his balance back onto both feet. “I think you two are good for each other, is all. I’m not the only one.”
Tony shakes his head, looking down at the floor. “Still calling bullshit.”
“Shut up,” Clint says. “Come on.”
“No, you need to stop this like yesterday,” Tony says. “Look, I know what I said, but it doesn’t matter because it takes two to tango, right? Whatever I feel about this, it doesn’t matter. I’ll keep a lid on it-”
“Did you know that he met two versions of himself that married you?”
Tony freezes, words catching in the back of his throat. He looks to the door, then to Clint, then back at the door. Steve met versions of himself that married him? What the actual-? But that means somewhere across the multiverse there are Steves who feel the same way about him-
He stamps down on the thought as quickly as it arrives, smothering it with a familiar blanket of denial.
“He didn’t.”
“And from what he said, a hell of a lot more versions of himself were sleeping with, dating or in a relationship with you too,” Clint informs him, ignoring the refutation.
Tony holds onto the denial. “It might not even have been real,” he reasons, voice low. “You heard Richards.”
“And you heard Thor,” Clint shoots back. “Even if it wasn’t, even if all that was just some bad trip, he felt it. It was real for him. And either way, it’s either the multiverse or his subconscious, there’s feelings for you swimming around out there. Big, big feelings, even if he doesn’t get it yet.”
As much as he doesn’t want to, Tony has to acknowledge that Clint is right.
“Fuck,” he says, hollowly.
“Aaaand he might also know how you feel about him.”
Something close to distress swells in Tony’s sternum. “Barton, what did you do? What did you tell him?”
Clint promptly pushes himself away from the wall and starts stepping away, moving backwards swiftly. “Would you look at that, now everyone is freaking out. My work here is done.”
“Barton!”
He’s gone before Tony can grab hold of him, which probably would only end with Tony being pinned to the floor in a very painful and undignified position anyway. He bites down to the impulse to keep yelling after him, still aware enough to remember Steve is sleeping on the other side of a door that isn’t sound proofed.
Clint vanishes around the corner at the end of the corridor and Tony puts his hands on the back of his head, cursing internally. He clenches his jaw, turns to look at Steve through the window once more and then drops his hands in something that’s either acceptance or defeat. Maybe both.
