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It starts simply enough—simply enough, that is, for a Tony Stark Plan™. In other words, lots of booze and a clock that is clearly lying to him because really, it can’t be three in the morning, it was only just eleven.
“It’s three, Tony. You should probably go get some sleep?” Steve’s voice is tentative, and even though they’ve been, well, whatever it is for over a month now, he still refuses to come into his workshop without asking permission, seriously, like he’s afraid Tony will actually tell him no. (Okay, so maybe he did, that one time, but okay, he was testing a very important project and he didn’t want to be told to come upstairs for Chinese or damage control or teaching Thor the wonders of Lord of the Rings. And he made it up to him later, Tony insists, although Steve refuses to acknowledge “mindblowing orgasms, don’t you even try to deny it” as currency.)
Tony tries to make that face, the one that usually works on Steve, but then he actually opens his eyes and closes his pout and Steve, what the hell, Steve is in a bathrobe, Jesus fucking Christ, and it’s blue and fuzzy, and he actually has slippers, honest-to-God slippers, and a pillow in one hand. His hair is sticking up at the back the way it does when he falls asleep weirdly—that’d make a great headline, Tony thinks, Captain America Sleeps Sideways—and he’s rubbing his eyes blearily.
“You said you’d be in bed by midnight.”
“Well, yes, I did say that, but my repulsors don’t really want to cooperate.” He prods at one insistent wire, and the hand lets off a shower of sparks, drifting down like so many shards of meteorite. Steve winces.
“Tony,” he sighs. “You’re going collapse in the middle of battle if you don’t actually sleep, and then where will we be?”
“Missing your stunningly handsome, completely loaded, flight-enabled celebrity boyfriend?”
Steve rubs a hand over his face. “Besides, I had something in mind for us tonight.” And wait, wait, stop the press, is Steve trying to seduce him, because that would so be going on his Twitter feed—nope, no, never mind, bathrobe, his life isn’t that gloriously golden after all. “Come on?”
Which is how Tony finds himself on the roof, watching Steve’s face lit up by so many pinpricks of falling light
**
Steve groans, but out of affection, not annoyance (or at least that’s what Tony tells himself), when Tony pulls two bottles out from behind the potted plants that Bruce insisted on planting on the terrace. “Really, Tony, and here I thought I could share a simple meteor shower with you without the aid of alcohol.” He takes one, though, so that’s a point in Tony’s totally not-real, not-drawn-on-the-corner-of-his-whiteboard, completely-and-totally-imaginary column. That does not exist.
“But really, Steve, this is gorgeous, you know that?”
Steve smiles. “I used to watch the stars on the fire escape, when I was a kid. You could see clear over the buildings for what seemed like miles.” He puts an arm around Tony’s shoulder, and while Steve is warm because he’s, like, genetically engineered and shit, Tony is warm from his stomach up, the buzzing in his head a mixture of alcohol and affection. “Never saw a shooting star, though.”
Tony suppresses the urge to tell Steve that “they’re actually just chunks of rock hurtling through our atmosphere, not that romantic, and really, my suit’s much sexier,” instead focusing on the crispness of the air and the softness of Steve’s shoulder. The moon is almost full, a near-circle in the sky, and Steve raises a thumb to cover it.
“It reminds me of your arc reactor,” he says. “Something about the way it glows, I don’t know, really. I’ve just always loved the moon.”
“I’ll get it for you, then,” slips out of Tony’s mouth without thinking, as is his instinct when Steve wants, because what he wants is to give Steve everything he wants. And then he chuckles, because he can just picture Pepper’s face, all soft and smooth as she berates him for the veritable PR shitstorm giving Steve the moon would inevitable stir up, and Steve’s grip on his upper arm squeezes.
“You’re sweet, Tony,” he murmurs against his ear. “But seriously? I think you should go to bed.”
**
When he wakes up, it’s to a bed that is sadly empty of super-soldier, but it is to a house that smells pleasantly of cinnamon. Upon going downstairs, he’s greeted by a table set with six plates, and okay, really, “shit, what did you guys break this time?” he has to ask.
“Nothing, my dear friend,” booms Thor from behind him, and yep, there goes his hearing in his right ear. “Steven has prepared us a glorious feast. Look, he has even procured us toast from France!”
“Thor?” Bruce’s voice comes from somewhere, and Tony’s willing to bet it’s from behind the paper open to the Science section, Jesus fuck, it is before noon and therefore way too early for scientific journalism.
Tony must be staring, probably with one of his eleven-or-so disdainful looks on his face, because Bruce arches and eyebrow, so Tony asks, in lieu of an actual explanation, “How are you awake enough for that? That is like, scholarly writing and shit, we don’t do scholarly writing, we don’t like scholarly writing, no one likes scholarly writing. Ever. Not even scientists like scholarly writing.”
Bruce shrugs—or at least, Tony thinks he does, because the paper shuffles in what can only be described as a shrugging manner. “There’s an interesting article about the effects of gamma radiation on—“
“Yeah, no. Let’s talk about stuff that the rest of us will actually understand, if not at least care about,” Clint mumbles out around a mouthful of food. Swallowing, he adds, “Tony, did you get laid or something last night? Because seriously, dude, look!” He gestures in a way that seems to encompass the whole of the moment, and Tony shrugs.
“Nope, actually. I’ve gotta get my beauty sleep for the next round,” and then he stops, because Steve turns around, smiling and looking all modest and fuck, that’s an apron, an honest-to-God apron, “Steve, what the hell is that. That is not what the paragon of American virtue should be wearing. That belongs on, on Natasha in my dreams, or on Clint on his birthday—“
“I was drunk! And you were in a bikini, let’s not even go there, no one wants to remember that—“
“Not on Captain America,” Tony finishes. It is pink, and frilly, and seriously, where did Steve even get that?
“With all due respect, Tony, I hardly think your bed is where Captain America should be sleeping either, but things have a weird way of working out,” Steve says with a smirk. Natasha stifles a snort.
Settling into his chair, Tony grabs a slice of the French toast. “Steve, you are a god, seriously. Like, no offense, Thor, but this is heavenly, this is cinnamon and butter and I think my arteries are going to orgasm soon, dear god.” Steve pinks, and Tony is leaning his head back to watch the blush creep up the back of his neck when he sees it.
It’s innocuous enough, really. Just a drawing of the stars and the moon from last night, a few smudges of charcoal serving as the falling chunks of glamorized metal, but what catches his eye is the moon, and he remembers.
“I’ll get it for you, then.”
And then, him being Tony Stark and therefore above the logic of mere mortals, an idea is born.
**
He spends the next few days in his workshop, which wouldn’t be all that unusual, except he’s not working on the Quinjet or Mark VIII or Clint’s armor—seriously, dude has a vendetta against keeping his clothing intact or something—he’s working on rocket repulsors. Honest-to-God rocket repulsors. By the third day, he’s pretty sure he has a possibly functional prototype.
The problem being, of course, that he has no way to test it safely, and by safely he means not just at a human level of safety, but at a Tony Stark level of safety, as in an I-fuck-this-up-and-I-float-around-in-space-forever level of safety.
“Thor, hey man, I need you to help me with something.” He says this with one arm slung over Thor’s shoulders, the other flipping through channels on the television, because Thor has recently figured out how to work the DVR and needs to be educated in what is allowed in this house and what isn’t—namely, why he keeps Supernanny reruns saved (because Coulson likes it) and methodically deletes every episode he can find of Say Yes to the Dress (because Clint likes it).
“Yes? How can I offer my assistance?”
“You can fly, right?”
“Certainly. But your suit of iron is able to fly as well, is it not?”
“’Course it is, I built it. But Thor, you want to help me out?”
“I will gladly aid your efforts,” Thor says, before pausing. “What is your goal, might I ask?”
Which is how Thor and Tony end up on the roof, Tony attaching rocket repulsors (Mark I) to a football. And although Tony was never the quarterback in high school, and quite frankly they had always pissed the shit outta him, he knows how to throw it through the stratosphere, to infinity and beyond, Thor a bright red streak in the sky as he follows it.
**
Although the repulsors were able to get into space, they fizzled out shortly after, which is why Tony’s internet history suddenly looks a lot like NASA’s (by which he means he Googled a lot of space technology, not that he was accessing the NASA database, of course). Eventually, he’s able to build repulsors that work in a vacuum.
(Thor comes down with what appears to be an Asgardian cold not long after, but Tony refuses to admit that the two series of events are related at all.)
**
Of course, the hardest part is getting everyone else to cover for him while he just jets off to the moon, no big deal, just gonna be gone for a few days. Obviously, the easiest way to do this is to arrange for a giant, Avengers-minus-Steve meeting.
Clint breaks the silence with an incredulous “the hell?” and by nearly falling over in his chair. “Wait, Tony, what? The moon? Jesus fuck, man, you’re whi—“
“Barton, you say that, your bow says ‘Hey, Tony, you know how you wanted to run some experiments on me? Well, I think I might have to take you up on that.’”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“Hey,” interjects Bruce, hands up in an I-come-in-peace way, “he would. Trust me, one morning I caught him testing the effect of caffeine on my sample growth. Not by adding caffeine to the samples, but by eating them and measuring the levels in his blood.”
“Tony?” Natasha says, having hardly moved since he made his grand announcement.
“Yes, gorgeous?” She glowers at him. “Sorry. Natasha.”
“You’re an imbecile.”
“Thanks, babe, I try.” More glowering. “Oh, come on!”
Thor brightens. “I have an idea.”
“Hoo boy.” Clint lets out a low whistle.
“I shall create a storm at the lodgings of the Lady Pepper. Then she can require Tony’s assistance in re-organizing his company’s records.”
“That’s. That’s actually, well. Hmm.” Bruce trails off, looking thoughtful.
“That could actually work,” Clint says, rocking his chair forward.
Thor looks like his owners gave him people food for dinner, Tony thinks, stifling an urge to pat him on his admittedly-too-high-up head. “Well? Waiting for something?”
**
The thing is, when Thor says “storm,” Tony pictures, well, a storm, y’know? Wind, water, maybe a broken window or two, nothing major. But Thor, Thor thinks of the great battles of Asgard past, and of the destruction Earth very nearly escaped.
So when Tony gets a frantic phone call from Pepper, telling him that her apartment is a wreck, come quickly, the rest of the Avengers get called in too, by Steve and his stupid sense of chivalry. Tony fakes an emergency call from JARVIS and jets off to the office, Iron Man Mark VIII fully upgraded, but the situation is less than ideal.
Still, the rush of seeing and, more so, feeling the world slipping away, gravity’s tug lessening ever-so-slightly (he’d programmed the suit to allow that single sensation from the outside in—well, that and the vibrations of a good rock concert), is enough to calm his nerves, jittery and fried from a distinct lack of caffeine. When the suit begins to vibrate, engines at full throttle but straining in the thin air, he switches on the secondary set, bursting through the air until he can’t—
Oh, wow. He’s in orbit.
Everything feels... less, somehow, the pull and drag just a little bit slower, his suit’s responsiveness just a little bit weaker. Even his breathing is shallower, and he remembers soon enough that he no longer has a hundred-percent-failsafe. Not up here, where so few men have gone before.
And for some reason, Lady Fate decided I was worthy of ascending to their ranks.
“JARVIS, lower oxygen content to the lowest safe level, please, we’ll need to ration our supply as much as possible.” He carefully looks around, testing maneuverability in the cold nothingness—and for all his engineering genius, of which there is plenty, he can feel the cold—until he catches sight of it. “We’re going to the moon.”
**
As much as Tony loves NASA (and their pathetic security system), the posters he had hanging on his room as a kid don’t even come close to seeing the moon up close, closer than he’d ever dreamed of (except not quite, because he had quite a few dreams about walking on the moon, marking it with his footprints and making an eternally lasting impression). It’s luminous in a way that nothing he’s ever seen before is, as if it’s lit from within, and even though he knows that the moon’s just a dead sphere of rock reflecting the sun, he can’t help but feel awed in its very presence. He touches down carefully, cutting the repulsors single percentages at a time. Truth be told, his eyes are closed while he does this, because he doesn’t want to look until he can see. But when he lands, there’s a soft tinkling, as if music could laugh, and he has to open his eyes.
The moon is nothing like the posters, or the movies, or even the actual footage of the moon landing, and for the first time in his life Tony has to concede a point to the conspiracy theorists, because that? Looks nothing like this. There’s no dust, no craters, no dusky-gray hue that everyone and their mother is brought up daydreaming of.
No, there are thousands upon thousands of small, softly glowing stars. Piled up on each other like seashells, scattered across the ground so much so that Tony can’t even see the ground, just the gentle white glow emanating from what look like, in all seriousness, plush toys. He kicks at one experimentally, and it sounds like wind chimes as it skitters across the ground, knocking into its brethren.
“JARVIS?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Please tell me you’re getting this on video. Or photo. Or cave painting, I don’t know, just, please, we have to get a record of this somehow.”
“Unfortunately, the cameras don’t appear to work outside of the atmosphere, sir. Might I suggest you, as the saying goes, ‘seize the moment’?”
Well, shit. All this beauty and he can’t even show anyone. Honestly, Steve should be the one up here. Steve deserves this, more so than Tony, who hasn’t done half as much good for the country and is now the twenty-fifth person in the world to see this. Sometimes, Lady Fate fucks up like that.
But right, Steve. He came here to get Steve the moon, and he’s not leaving without it.
“JARVIS, please open the back storage compartment of the suit.” He bends down, carefully picking up a star no bigger than the palm of his hand. No reason to mess with this more than necessary.
That is, until he notices the footprints cutting a swath through the stars, leading to—motherofGodnowaynoway—an American flag. No, the American flag, fanned out but motionless in the still air. Tony’s breath catches, just for a second, because this, this is what he used to dream about as a kid, and for all his childhood dreams that have come true—hello, regular sex with Captain America?—this is one he’d, never, ever expected. Standing next to the flag, hands on his hips, he takes deep breaths, calm and steady, everything he isn’t and Steve is, because a moment like this deserves some fucking respect.
And with that, he turns, gives the flag a solemn salute, and jets back off. To home. To Steve.
**
To say Steve is not happy when Tony gets home would be an understatement. The minute Tony walks through the door, Steve pounces on him, wrapping his arms around his neck tightly and burying his face in Tony’s hair.
“Whoa, Steve, easy there, I just had to step out for a bit, no need to—ah—choke me, and by that I mean Steve, please, let—ah—go, I’m having a bit of trouble breathing, which is kind of important, and—“ Steve’s arms slacken, just a bit, and Tony inhales like he’s never tasted oxygen before (and for that matter, he did just come from outer space, he’s allowed to be breathless).
Steve holds him like that for a few seconds longer before shoving his palms against Tony’s shoulders, glaring at him. “Where were you?”
“Told you, I had a workshop emergency, didn’t I say this already?” Tony trails off when Steve looks away guiltily. “Steve,” he says, rubbing a hand down his face which, ouch, gloves, metal, bad idea, but still. “You checked my workshop, didn’t you?” Steve nods, lips pursed. The back of Tony’s mind thinks well, at least he started going into your workshop without asking permission every single freaking time, but the rest of it takes one look at Steve’s face, brow furrowed with worry, and Tony sighs.
“Look, when we got back, the coffeemaker was off, and I checked downstairs and you weren’t there, so I—I assumed that there’d been an ambush or a setup or something back here, I don’t know, but Tony, you scared the—you worried me, Tony.” Tony’s heart flutters because this is Steve, and Steve was worried about him, which Tony can honestly say is not a common occurrence in his life, and he pulls Steve into a loose hug with one arm, rubbing his shoulder with the other (although he still has the suit on, so, it’s more like resting his hand awkwardly on Steve’s shoulder and fluttering his fingers).
I, Tony thinks, am the luckiest motherfucker on Earth.
**
Clint glances over at Tony so many times during dinner that even Thor, who’s probably the least observant of small, subtle gestures asks “the Hawk if his eye is ailing him,” to which Clint stares blankly until everyone realizes that Thor just tried to make a joke.
At which point they laugh, just because, and Tony claps Thor on the shoulder. “Thor, my comrade, I think your hammer is better than your humor.” The stares he gets in response are, somehow, even blanker, but the dinner continues after a moment’s pause.
Until Thor asks Tony if his trip went well, at which point he promptly chokes, excuses himself, and practically runs to his workshop, towing Steve behind him by the wrist.
“Tony?”
Tony coughs, swallows, and stops, panting, just inside his door.
“Tony!”
“Steve, just. Just gimme a sec. I have. Something. For you.” Because really, he might as well admit it at this point, for all he’d planned some extravagant reveal, because otherwise, Steve’s going to get a very distorted picture from the rest of the team.
When Tony’s caught his breath, he stands, framing Steve in the doorway with his outstretched hands. “Look, Steve, stay right there. Right there. Like, don’t move a single one of your well-defined muscles, okay?” He runs over to the storage hatch he’d designed for the trip, unsealing the door with a hiss and an exhalation of steam. “And close your eyes.”
He turns around, holding the star in one hand. It’s cool to the touch, and it still has that quiet radiance, as if illuminated from the inside through layers of silk. Except, y’know, made of magical space rock or something. Steve’s hands are at his sides, and Tony lifts one up, placing the star in his spread palm. “It’s for you.”
When Steve opens his eyes, they widen, and his mouth opens with a quiet “oh” before he falls silent, eyes round with wonder. He rubs his thumb over its surface and Tony can see, actually see, the moment when Steve’s mind realizes it has no answers.
“Tony, what is this?”
He smiles, because this is a hell of an answer, but his smile turns into a smirk that goes on for far too long because Steve repeats the question, more forcefully this time, so Tony answers. “It’s the moon, Steve. I got you the moon.”
**
It’s three in the morning, and Tony is, for once, blessedly asleep, eyes flitting this way and that under his lids, before they waver open at the dream’s end. Steve wore him out with all his questions, and of course it would be emotional discussions that tires him out, not sex (like sex could ever put him to sleep). But still. He got Steve the motherfucking moon. That has to count for something.
Steve looks up from his desk where he sits, legs straddling the back of his chair, a sketchpad perched in his lap. The paper, lit just enough for the early morning hour by the glow of the star, blocks his face, but Tony can see the smile that tugs at the corner of Steve’s mouth when he sees Tony stir.
“You’ve had a long day, Tony,” he says. “You should probably get some sleep.”