Work Text:
Steve pushes open the door to the print room and is hit by a waft of talcum powder that betrays Tony's presence before Steve can make out the piles of paper and tools and ink that Tony has spread over the main printing table and the desk, or Tony himself. Steve is about to step back out of the room when Tony sticks his head out from under the etching press and smiles at him. Steve crosses the threshold.
"I'm just here for the Albion," Steve says.
Tony waves him across the room and disappears again. Steve weaves his way past Tony's stuff to the small back printing table. Here's an oasis of calm he can make his own. He unpacks his stuff; paper on the window sill, perspex on the table, beside that his ink and roller, on the other side his box of tools and the blocks themselves.
Under the table there's a pile of newspapers. Steve pulls out an old sports section. He only realises he's stalling when he starts to consider the AFL's duty to the Demons. While he would have preferred almost anyone's company to Tony's, he's here now, and he has work to do. He stuffs the paper, carefully, into the pocket of the press.
It's a matter of a minute and long established habit to lay out a well and ink up his roller. Steve frowns into his tin of ink. It's still more than half full, but, all the same, it's definitely being used up. If the exhibition sells, then he'll have enough money for more ink, if it doesn't, he might have to rethink his career choice anyway.
He inks the block, positions the paper and block on the bed of the press, flips the cover closed and wheels the bed into position. He pulls the level and even before he lets it go thinks that it's too tight. Sure enough, when he wheels the bed out and lifts the flap, the paper is deeply embossed with the shape of the block, and the image itself shows off the carving lines where Steve has tried to clear the sky.
Steve takes half the sports section of the pocket in the flap and re-inks the block. The pressure that gives him is good enough for proofing, good enough to know that he can't bring out the delicate details in foreground without also bringing out marks in the sky. And the trees on the ridge line definitely need more definition.
Tony has dumped a pile of talcum powder on the desk, nudged ever closer to the edge by the spread of paper. Steve rescues a pinch from its inevitable fall and spreads it over the face of his block to show up the carving again. Yeah; the trees look more like the frame of a house than the 'stumbling, drunken stand' of Carter's poem.
He sits on a stool, digs the cushion out of his bag to support the block, positions it and reaches for his tools.
With the scorper tucked into his palm, Steve turns his concentration to his block, reciting the poem it illustrates. It is an excise of balance: control and force, clarity and texture, evocation and illustration. He ignores the sounds of Tony in the studio, talking to himself while he mangles his giant pieces of lino. To be fair, they're not giant; there's a limit to how large a print even Tony can pull with his modified press. Bruce's hand-printed stuff is larger; Tony always stops to watch Bruce work.
Steve takes a breath, adjusts his grip on the block and turns back to his work. He doesn't care about Tony Stark's practice. He has given up caring about Tony Stark's practice.
A sudden crash startles Steve so badly his hand slips.
"Fuck! Tony, take some care."
"Sorry, sorry," Tony says, distracted by his own mess.
Steve's less concerned about the cut he's opened on his index finger than the risk that he's cut through one of the tree trunks. He picks up the block--awkwardly to avoid getting blood on it--but the image seems undamaged.
"I really am sorry," Tony says, suddenly beside Steve, almost leaning against his shoulder. Sounding curious, he add, "I've never heard you swear before."
"You haven't deserved it before." Steve's a little silly with relief; that's why he feels warmed by Tony's presence.
"You're bleeding."
Before Steve can tell Tony to go back to his own mess, Tony has his captured his hand and is examining the fine slice in the pad of Steve's index finger.
"I'll get a bandaid. You don't want to bleed on your work. Hey, it might scar."
Steve pulls his hand free of Tony's grasp and sticks his finger in his mouth to suck the wound clean.
"It'll be fine," he says. A few minutes holding the cut closed, and it won't be a risk to continue working. A bandaid would only get in the way. "They don't scar."
Steve holds his hands up under Tony's nose as evidence. Cuts like that are inevitable and cause only a few days annoyance. Tony, in an uncharacteristic display of paying attention to other people, turns Steve's hand over and traces the scar that runs across the top of the third knuckle of Steve's index finger.
Doctor Erskine had been worried by that cut. And the principal, Mr Phillips, had had to be persuaded to let Steve continue his extra art lessons.
"Just go back to your -- whatever you're doing." Unsettled by remembered grief for Dr Erskine and the unexpected intimacy of Tony's gesture, Steve is sharper than he means to be. He can't think of anything to say to mitigate it when Tony steps back, his expression as carefully impersonal as it has ever been.
"Yes, of course," Tony says. "Sorry again to have disturbed you."
Steve has no idea what to make of that, so he lets it go and returns to his work. A few minutes later Tony asks if it's okay for him to put the radio on. Steve waves his consent. Tony's never asked before, but Steve's too engrossed in tearing up paper to mask part of this block to make anything of it. It takes three goes to get a piece of paper that will keep the sky clear of carving marks without covering up anything he wants to print.
Steve's sure he's always a little clumsy after he's cut himself.
The radio is playing something Steve's never heard before and Steve is taking a last proof of the block when Tony calls his name. Steve looks up. Tony's got one hand on the press and is standing kind of awkwardly, like he wants to scuff his foot.
"Yeah?" Steve says.
"Can you help me with this print?"
Steve pulls his proof and lays the paper aside without looking at it. He wipes his hands on a rag and dusts them with talcum powder.
"I need some help with the paper for the second colour."
"Sure." If Tony is actually going to ask for help, Steve is be happy to lend a hand. In this case it means helping Tony get the paper into the position and then, once it has gone through the press, holding the sheet up so the second block can be manoeuvred into place. The whole thing goes back through the press and Steve helps Tony pull the paper off and lay on a relatively clear part of the table.
It was --
"This is great, Tony."
-- the layers of texture was extraordinary; more complex than Steve can imagine producing with lino. The whole thing looks vaguely like a map, or perhaps schematics, a style that gave way to organic forms and expressive line. They've done well with the second block. There is a section on the left (unless Steve is looking at it upside down) where the two colours butt against each other to form interweaving lines. Steve reached out a hand only to have Tony grab his wrist again.
"Don't touch!"
"I know!" Steve pulls his hand back, embarrassed. "It's just. It's fantastic, Tony. I can't image how you did it."
"Oh, lots of stupid stuff."
Steve eyes Tony critically. He definitely seems pleased, from the arrogant line of his shoulders and the perpetual smug grin. Tony is only looking at Steve sideways, though, and his eyes flitter back to look at the print he's produced.
"I like it."
Tony's grin broadens into something more sincere. He pulls out the pencil tucked behind his ear and signs the piece carefully with its title and his name. Then, on the left corner he adds P/P.
"There," he says with a flourish.
Steve blinks, opens his mouth to say something, hesitates.
Tony shrugs, "You helped print it, you ought to get a proof."
Steve manages to say thanks. Tony's prints usually sell for a couple of thousand dollars. This print would be worth more than almost the rest of Steve's art collection, including all his own pieces, combined. The only piece worth more is the painting Dr Erskine left him.
Steve manoeuvres the large sheet of paper onto the drying rack outside the door. When he steps back into the room, Tony wis reseting his plates. He glances up and waves Steve back into place to help. Steve sighs. Getting along with Tony, though, made enough of a change from their usual relationship that Steve gave up his own work for the two hours it took to pull the necessary prints from Tony's plates.
When he finally gets to check the proof he pulled, he discovers that it's finished. Steve cleans the block carefully and wraps up. One of seven completed, he takes out the second block and brings to mind the second poem of Carter's cycle.