Work Text:
“Uh... Tony?”
Tony turns around and there’s Steve, an arguably violent shade of red and his eyes looking everywhere but at Tony’s face, as anxious in appearance as that timid tone suggests.
Tony’s eyebrows crawl into his hairline, and he immediately forgets what’s on his workbench and the holo-schedule floating above it, and gives Steve his complete attention. “What do you need, Cap?”
Is... is Steve cringing? “I uh... I... I did something I didn’t mean to do, and I could really use your help in undoing it?”
In between halting non-starts and embarrassed mumbles, Tony finally manages to cajole Steve into clearly stating, “I accidentally tweeted a picture of my penis.”
Tony’s brain screeches to a halt there, and wouldn’t be able to manage registering any more words, but thankfully Steve stops talking and sinks into the chair next to the art box in the corner, freeing him from the need to follow along. A thousand questions instantly jump to the tip of his tongue, notably what chain of events was it precisely that led Steven Rogers, Captain America (and occasionally literal poster boy for high school chastity promises in some of the more backwater places), to even have a picture of his penis anywhere near his twitter account, let alone think it a good idea to hit send, but he ruthlessly chokes them back. It’s none of his business. It really isn’t.
“Did you delete the tweet?” He startles himself with that. How the hell did he manage to make his voice so calm and casual? But the next second, it doesn’t matter, because he sees how much tension cascades off Steve’s shoulders, the relief that relaxes his face nearly to the point of tears.
“Yes. Almost right away.” A significant pause, and Steve’s eyes shadow over, fade a little.
Tony’s heart aches to see the sparkle dim. “But the internet is forever, huh?” That’s a feeling he knows all too well.
“Yeah. Uh... Is... there anything I can do to—“
“Say no more.” Please, say no more, this is heartbreaking, Cap. Tony hides the convulsion of his throat at how humiliated Steve sounds by turning back around and letting his hands fly over his console, saving and sweeping away his design work, pulling up his programming matrix. “I can whip someone together to help you out.”
He jumps nearly out of his skin when Steve’s hand slides gentle and warm on his shoulder. “Thank you, Tony,” he says, and smiles down in that stupidly Steve way and Tony realizes not for the first time that he’s ridiculously something for this man that he really should sit down and figure out soon.
“It’s really no problem, Cap.” He awkwardly pats Steve’s knuckles with his own and tries not to lean into him too much. “Just don’t tell the others I did this for you. I’d rather not find out Clint needed money in college, if you follow me.”
It takes a few hours, but eventually SARAH — Smart And Radiant Archival Heroine — comes online, and makes her way into the Internet to see what she can see. Tony leans back as she departs SI servers and scrubs his face tiredly. “JARVIS, remind me to reflect on the morality of letting a baby AI loose on the internet in the morning, will you? I need to sleep.”
“Of course, sir.” JARVIS, ever unruffled, doesn’t even hesitate before he continues with, “You have been tagged over six thousand times alongside mentions of Captain Rogers genitalia. What would you like done with—“
“Delete them all.” It’s out of his mouth before he can think about it, but once he does, he doesn’t take them back.
“All, sir?”
“Yes, all.” He shoots a narrow-eyed warning look at JARVIS’s nearest optical processor, and shuts down his station. “While I would dearly love to see, amongst many other things, Captain America’s dick, I would prefer I do those things with permission. So unless he’s the one offering them to me, no thank you, JARVIS. Burn them in the digital dumpster and bury the ashes.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Tony falls into bed cursing himself for developing morals and ethics instead of having an appropriately outrageous midlife crisis like any other self-respecting playboy, and dreams of photo albums filled with blank photos all night.
Messages await him when he begrudgingly crawls out of bed long enough to glare at the bright sunshine outside his blinds and pour coffee down his throat. He thumbs through them idly as he waits for his smoothie to finish processing, then forgets about his smoothie entirely when a new message arrives from Steve.
I don’t know what you did, but it seems to have worked. I owe you one, Tony.
He grins, goofily, and puts his second cup of coffee down to reply. It hits him then. That in something he is for Steve is in love.
“Huh.” He blinks, reflects, and shrugs. He’s strangely okay with it.
Anytime, Cap. Anything else you need a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist to help you with?
This may sound like a strange question, but JARVIS says you didn’t look at... you know.
Tony blinks, can’t for the life of him figure out where the hell Steve is going. That’s not a question. But no.
Why?
Tony stares at his screen, absently finds his coffee again and downs it while contemplating the question. Because, he finally starts typing, opting for the truth, you didn’t ask me to see your dick, Steve, so I shouldn’t be trying to see your dick.
That’s not a distinction a lot of people made, even in this building.
Tony is going to have to fire some people over this, he knows right now. I’ve been saying for years I’m not like other people, Steve. I like consent in my genital-sharing. You asking me to help you delete it from from the internet signalled to me that whatever consent you had accidentally given had been revoked. So looking was a no no.
The next text takes so long in coming Tony assumes the conversation is done and has finally poured his smoothie into his travel mug to take into the office with him. Would you like to see my dick, Tony?
He chokes on his own tongue, and spends an embarrassingly long time coughing and spluttering as he shakily replies: Only if you’re offering.
I am.
Tony’s vision goes spotty and his chest seizes so hard that he briefly worries about arc reactor failure, before he realizes he’s stopped breathing. He gulps in air and types, Then yes, Steven, I would love to see your dick.
And breathlessly waits for the images that follow to load.