Salience (Will be posted on Ao3 maybe)

III| An Initiation of the Mental Variety

June 12, 2012

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It was nearing nine when Tony Stark relented and let the assortment of acquaintances into his tower. Banner had really been out of line, suggesting that—regardless of Tony's personal feelings toward them—they didn't deserve to sleep in a car, or out in the rain. The billionaire disagreed.

All he could see in Rogers' eyes was the fact that he wasn't his father. Tony had spent his entire childhood hearing stories about his father and the legendary Captain America. Sometimes it had felt the war hero was more Howard's family than him—the man's own son.

The agitation had given way to jealousy somewhere along the way, when Tony realized he would never have his father's adoration. He thought he'd moved on—the videos of the Stark Expo had certainly helped—but being face-to-face with the war hero, the wound had reopened with a vengeance, and threatened to destroy him.

Tony couldn't help but despise the qualities that made the super-soldier. Self-assurance, Tony viewed as arrogance. Emotional control was apathy. That stupid righteousness, the smile of assurance, and the posture of a friend; it was a curse. It was almost unfair how Steve Rogers earned respect in a way that Tony had never quite mastered. His disdain rose all the more for it.

Steve Rogers met his eyes, concern etched on a face deceivingly young. If the man was looking for any hint of Howard, he would be disappointed, but what—if not what he was hoping for—would the super-soldier find instead? Disappointment. It never ended. Where Howard—his father—had searched Tony's heart for a better son, Rogers seemed to look for an echo of the man he'd known—the man Tony had tried so hard not to emulate.

Tony gathered his resolve. It's only for tonight, he told himself, letting it become a sort of chant inside his mind, a promise to himself. He swore he would keep it.

Romanoff and Barton were there as well. If it had been Rogers alone, the answer would have remained an unchangeable no, but Tony wasn't sure if the war hero would've showed up alone. It was obvious they had at least one thing in common; they didn't want to be near each other.

The group walked to the elevators and Tony managed not to berate them for the trails of footprints their wet shoes had left on his floor. "Here's the thing," Tony began; the elevator doors slammed shut. "As awesome and jaw-dropping as this baby is," he said, patting the elevator paneling as the contraption shot upward, "it doesn't come with a surplus of furniture. I hope you guys like sleeping on the couch because that's all I've got to offer."

Tony's ears were greeted with the comforting sound of mechanical whirring, coming from the elevator. It buzzed in the absence of human conversation. The comforting near-silence did not last long. "You were going to open this place without furniture?" Rogers asked. It was funny; the famed war hero sounded genuinely confused, as if the lack of furniture was some kind of oversight.

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed," he snapped, a bit more harshly than he'd intended, "before our little playdate with the army from space, this tower was brand-spanking-new." Tony turned to look at Rogers, whose expression was weary. "It isn't a residential building, anyway, not that you'd know that."

He basked in his own anger, maintaining eye contact with the super-soldier, daring him to speak. Tony was ready to verbally dismantle Rogers. He was ready to put the so-called perfect man in his place. What he wasn't prepared for was Natasha Romanoff to be the one to speak up. "From what the S.H.I.E.L.D. preliminary had to say, they made it seem like you planned on moving in, Stark." Damn. Of course, their reports had known that little detail.

"Okay, so it was privately residential, but only the top few floors." He faced the crowd in the elevator, all eyes on him. Apparently, even that wasn't enough; the gathering lacked common sense. "Unless I plan on inviting the whole city to a sleepover, I don't need more than one bed—maybe two, but no more than that."