"Tony?"

"Capsicle," Tony doesn't bother lifting his head to look at what's probably the saddest looking human representation of a golden retriever. "Shouldn't you be in the gym? Getting muscles, being ripped, generally being what every woman fantasizes at night?"

Once upon a time, Steve would have rolled his eyes. Maybe even laughed.

As it is, he just lifts a shoulder into a shrug.

"We missed you," he says, sounding just as awkward as Tony feels.

"Great. Awesome. Thanks," Tony can't help but keep the bitterness in his voice, "Good to know that you missed my lovely face. Know that you couldn't help it, really, I'm amazing." Okay, fine, he's deflecting again, but can you blame him?

"You are," Steve says. Slides into the seat across from Tony on the workbench. He looks out of place, perfect and blond and shiny teeth amidst Tony's half-finished projects and dim lighting.

Tony scrunches up his nose, "Don't get all sappy on me, Cap. I get enough of that from everyone else."

Steve stares at Tony's hands. He fidgets a bit in his seat and then coughs. "You know, we never really talked about..."

"And we don't need to," Tony cuts him off.

It comes out sharp.

Angry.

(Maybe he is. Maybe he's still got some residual anger over Steve despite the fact that it was half his mistake just as much as it was half Steve's. Maybe he's angry despite the fact that he knows that he didn't look closely enough, too eager to hand over the responsibility like he had done his entire life to someone who wasn't all that trustworthy.)

Steve looks away, chagrined, "Okay," he says softly.

Apologetically.

As though he's the one who suggested who suggested letting mutants sign a form that would give their life away. As though Steve were the one, not Tony, who suggested letting everyone sign a form that said that enhanced individuals who break a law will be held indefinitely. As though Steve were the one, not Tony, who suggested letting everyone sign a form that would sign away their human rights.

As though Steve weren't trying to stop something that he had already seen in Germany before the ice had come.

"It's not," your fault.

It's not your fault, Tony wants to say. Not completely.

But he has never been quite so good with words, he was not Pepper, brisk and elegant and professional, nor was he Peter, cheerful and kind and winning everyone over with a single smile.

Instead, he just says it's not.

It's not okay.

"When you're ready," Steve seems to curl into himself. It's odd. Steve has always been standing tall, even in those photos of him pre-serum. This is far softer. Apologetic. A conscious decision on Steve's part. "I'd like to apologize again."

"Don't," Tony says.

It comes out harsher than intended.

He swallows.

Averts his eyes.

"It was my fault, too," he says, chest burning as he thinks, you signed the company over to Obadiah pretty easily, too, didn't you.

Steve looks ready to argue, but he just repeats firmly, uncurling, "When you're ready."

"Okay," Tony says.

(And when he's ready to hear Steve's apology, maybe then, he'll be ready to give his own.)

Steve understands.

He overreacted.

He was out of line.

He understands this all, intellectually, apologetically, and maybe he puts a bit too much blame for this on himself and not enough on Tony, but what was Tony's mistake? Being careless. That can be forgiven. That can be fixed, with help, with a team.

What did Steve do?

He went out of line, refusing to discuss first and talk later, he blew up at Tony and became a fugitive because apparently saying something like please try to understand wasn't in his vocabulary.

It's hard now, talking to Tony.

Sometimes Steve initiates.

Sometimes, on a rare day, Tony will make a joke and look at Steve like he's waiting for a laugh, and Steve will want to but find himself unable through the lump in his throat. Tony will stare at him, eyes burning into Steve's soul as though he knows, and Steve will look away.

It's a familiar dance, one that neither of the dancers is quite so fond of.

"You should talk to him," Natasha says, a well-worn line that they both know has stopped meaning so much to Steve after the first ten times that he heard it.

Steve looks at his hands, "I should give him space," he says numbly.

"What you should be doing is talk to him," Natasha crosses her arms over her chest, completely no-nonsense.

Steve almost wishes that he could be like that. "It's complicated," he says instead.

Natasha snorts, "Not as much as you'd like to believe." but her critic on his and Tony's relationship ends there.

It isn't until a few weeks later when they're having movie night that Steve realizes how bad it is.

Tony and Steve have literally polarized, sitting on the opposite sides of the room with the rest of the team between them.

Bruce picks up the remote and turns off the screen.

"This is making me tense," he says in lieu of explanation.

Clint scowls, "Dude! Then you could have just left instead of turning it off completely! At least let the rest of us watch it!"

"It's tense," Bruce repeats. He glares at Steve and Tony. "You two. Figure it out. The rest of us are going to get ice cream."

Everyone falls in step, "I want Super Kid," Clint says, looping an arm around Natasha's shoulders.

"We'll see," Natasha says flatly. "I thought that your favourite was Rocky Road?"

Clint wrinkles his nose, "I don't always want the same thing, Nat."

And they're gone, whisked away by Bruce and the promise of ice cream, and Steve and Tony are left sitting across the room from each other, awkwardly avoiding eye contact.

"I want ice cream," Steve sighs a bit.

He and Tony exchange glances.

"I'll get ice cream and we don't have to talk," Tony suggests, but the doors around them slam shut.

"Sorry, boss," FRIDAY apologizes, but she doesn't sound very sorry, "I'm under orders from Dr. Banner not to let you out until you two have talked everything through."

"Traitor," Tony huffs.

"Apologies," Again, FRIDAY doesn't sound very sorry. "I can order you two a tub of ice cream while you discuss the issue."

Tony glances at Steve, who offers him an awkward one-shouldered shrug.

"Yeah," he sighs, running his fingers through his hair, "Get me something with sprinkles. Maybe birthday cake? Capsicle?"

"Rainbow sherbert," Requests Steve, who is fond of getting anything that was hard to get back when the Great Depression had hit (or just hadn't existed, period).

"Yeah, that," Tony wiggles his fingers and FRIDAY makes a verbal confirmation.

Then there's no other reason to stall, and they have to talk.

The stillness hangs heavy in the air, heavy and taunting Tony.

Unconsciously, his body curls up, knees rising to his chest and toes curling around the sofa cushion as he hugs a red striped throw pillow to his chest. It's a flimsy defence at best, it can barely absorb a punch let alone anything that someone would throw at him if they wanted to harm him, but it offers him a false sense of security nonetheless that he takes the moment to relish in.

Steve, on the other hand, opens up a bit, bluffing as he puffs out his chest and tries to pretend that he isn't terrified of what might come out of Tony's mouth. "I don't know if you're ready to forgive me," he says softly. His voice sounds like butter, smooth and silky, and Tony hates himself a bit for how utterly unfair that feels.

"I don't know, either," he says, and it sounds like a broken promise on his lips like he's broken the unspoken oath. Tony looks away, to his toes, the way they curl on his lovely cream couch (a mistake on his part, perhaps, cream considering the people that live there). "It wasn't just you."

"No," Steve says softly, closing his eyes, "But it wasn't not me, either."

And here, Tony would rather not forgive Steve.

Would rather not talk about this.

(Whatever this is.)

But Bruce told him to.

And maybe he owes it to Steve.

(Steve.)

(Bucky.)

(The kid, Peter.)

Maybe he owes it to himself, however much he'd rather not do it.

"I should have read the accords," he says quietly.

"We were out of control," Tony's eyes flicker to Steve and he catches the close-eyed, pained expression that flickers across Steve's features before they turn back to stone.

A choked, pained laugh bubbles from Tony's lips, "I was out of control, you mean."

"No," Steve's stare is steely now, a bit harsher and a bit more firm than Tony is completely comfortable with, "We were."

(That makes Tony feel better than he would like to admit.)

Tony wants to say something smart, something quippy, but his throat feels dry and his tongue won't work properly so he just asks softly, "Do you regret it?"

Steve looks away and Tony's eyes lower to his hands.

"That's what I thought," his voice sounds betrayed, though he had thought that he had gotten over that sick feeling in his chest.

"I would talk to you if I had to do it again," Steve says quietly, "I would have been upfront and honest."

"Yeah, well," Tony stands up and drops the throw pillow down. His voice is bitter as he says, "Everything's better in hindsight."

Steve still won't look at him. That's good. Tony doesn't think he has the guts to look at Steve straight on, either. "It wasn't right of me to keep secrets."

"Yeah, well," A laugh, "It wasn't right to sign something that took away the human rights of enhanced individuals either," Tony closes his eyes as he thinks of Peter's soft voice as he asks have you read the entire thing and Tony's raised eyebrow, just a bunch of legalities, isn't it?

"We both made mistakes."

And neither of them know how to fix them.