Of You, Me, And Us

#1

[A slightly out-of-focus polaroid of Tony standing in the middle of the ruined living room of the Tower, hands deep in his pockets, his head bowed. He’s wearing a dark grey suit with a band T-shirt, and the rumpled left pant reveals he has bright red socks on. His knees are dusty like he’d been on his knees in the rubble. The floor has a deep dent in it where Hulk smashed Loki, and every surface is covered in rubble and broken glass. The setting sun behind Tony paints a golden halo around him and makes the floor glitter. In the background, smoke rises to the sky in straight columns until helicopters whip them into spirals. Even though the rest of the background is blurry, the devastation is clear.]

”Stark Tower, May 2012.

How does one come back from something like this? We were attacked out of nowhere, in our home. We survived but at what cost? So many lives lost, so many missed opportunities, so much grief. There’s no other option but to start over, to rebuild, to make it worth it. But there’s so much to do, so much to figure out. Where to start? They say I represent the country but how can I represent something that seems so…alien? How am I supposed to hold this all together?

(I thought the war was over when I went into the ice. I thought I’d made a difference. But it’s not over. It’s never over.)”

#2

[A polaroid of a messy kitchen counter. There are stacks of dirty plates and precarious piles of coffee cups of various shapes and sizes, at least seven pizza boxes, a wrench, over-ear headphones with its cord dangling in an abandoned milkshake take-away cup, three darts, and three bottles of nail polish in different hues of purple. Under an open Lego catalogue is a carton of kibble. Taped on the cabinet door over the counter is a note scrawled in bright pink ’DON’T DO IT BARTON!’ Five different dish brushes hang in a neat row over the sink, all pristine and unused. One of the cabinet doors is open, showing a selection of Michael Bolton CDs stacked in between cookie packages.]

”This. This is what I signed up to live with when I agreed to move in. How can adults be so messy? It’s like none of them learned how to clean up after themselves. Or is this part of the team building exercises Hill told me about? I can understand that Clint doesn’t understand things like this because he’s barely domesticated but the others…How can a genius not know how to operate a dish brush? Who is Michael Bolton and why— Nevermind. We probably should hire a cleaner because no matter what Stark says, his bots clearly don’t know how to do it.

And why is there an open cat food package? We don’t even have a cat!”

#3

[A polaroid of the team in the living room in various states of laughter. Clint is sprawled on the floor and Natasha is on her knees on the couch, bent over and giggling with her eyes closed and a hand on her chest. Bruce’s face is blurred from shaking his head but his smile is visible anyway, Rhodes is wearing a raised brow and a wide grin. Thor sits in the armchair like it’s a throne, legs wide apart and hands up in the air, in the middle of reciting something heroic. Slightly to the side sits Tony, a bottle of local microbrew in hand. He’s leaning back, relaxed and at ease, glancing up with the special, soft smile he wears when he’s talking with JARVIS. The arc reactor shines through his white shirt like a beacon and, even though he isn’t the center of the picture, he is the focus of it.]

”I just realized: seven months. Seven months, and I have a family again. This absolutely crazy, wonderful, mismatched bunch of people have worked so hard to learn to live with each other, to fill the cracks in each other’s armor, to trust. And it’s all because of Tony. He forced me to crawl out of my shell, to go out and explore this bright, futuristic world of his. I was afraid that if I did, I’d disrespect everyone I left behind and forget about them. I was afraid to let myself live again. And I was afraid that all this was just a dream or a cruel joke and I’d once more wake up in some new, alien place and I’d lost my whole life again.

But I’m not scared anymore. I love this. This new life, this new world, this new family.”

#4

[A polaroid of a naked Tony sprawled on Steve’s bed. His hair is sleep-mussed and wild and his overnight stubble makes his goatee look smudged on the edges. His mouth is relaxed and slightly open. He’s on his stomach, slightly on his right side with his left knee drawn up close to his chest and his hands shoved under the pillow. The pale blue sheet only covers his right leg from the knee down, leaving the dark fingerprints on his hips in full display. He has several oval bruises on the small of his back and buttocks. His cleft shows a trickle of something pale smeared on the skin. On the floor, out of focus and almost out of frame, are one red and two white socks and a pair of dark plum boxer briefs. The camera draws focus on the bruises most closely, and the angle makes the viewer follow the line of Tony’s spine, where the markings on his skin tell a desperate and intimate story.]

”This is creepy. Is this creepy? Am I breaking boundaries here? 

…but I want this. This moment, this man. Or, if I can’t have him, I want at least to have this memory of him and hide it somewhere. He makes me feel things I wasn’t sure I was allowed to feel. Am I selfish if I want to keep this?

What if he doesn’t want to keep me? I want this and I’m sure he wants it too. I’m going to fight for this if I have to, fight for us. Because we both deserve it, damnit!”

#5

[A polaroid of Tony’s workshop, taken from the door. The workshop is dark, lit up with glowing blueprints hovering in the air, connected via multiple intertwining lines and arcs. In the middle, barely visible, is Tony, looking up with a wide grin on his face. The background is partially illuminated by the holograms’ light, showing Tony’s bots dutifully in a row, DUM-E with his fire extinguisher ready. The huge desk is piled with paper and discarded coffee cups and several partially dismantled power tools. The wall behind the bots is covered in sketches of Tony, the team, the bots, and the Manhattan skyline. One of the screens shows a reflection of Steve himself, holding the camera with a smile.]

”That’s a schematic for the structural integrity of my new shield. Or at least, that’s what Tony says. It could be a next generation satellite, the molecular blueprint of some fancy coffee bean variety, or a knitting pattern for Clint. Hell if I know. I don’t understand any of it, but it’s okay because I don’t think anyone else understands it either. Tony is like a hurricane but somehow, it makes all this easier. The quiet moments I can’t sleep or the times I think I see someone I once knew reflected on a shop window. I’m still trying to piece together what I’m going to be in this new, shiny world. 

I’m in love with a lunatic and it makes me feel alive.”

+ 1

[A polaroid of Steve and Tony passed out on the couch. They’ve taken their tuxedo jackets off and their shoes are kicked off in a pile of the floor. Tony lies on top of Steve, his face tucked in the crook of Steve’s neck while Steve rests his cheek against the top of Tony’s head. Their feet are tangled together and Steve has his arm around Tony’s waist, holding him close. Tony is holding Steve’s left hand close to his lips like he’d been about to kiss the ring right before he fell asleep. They’re both wearing soft smiles.]

”You are disgustingly adorable. We ate all the cake.” —Natasha