Stuck in Stone

Steve POV (3rd person)

Three days had passed since Tony's outburst and Steve was beginning to worry. Not about Bucky or Tony's hatred towards him, but about their relationship. Steve knew that Tony was openly bisexual, and he knew Pepper was his best friend, but he had never been suspicious of their friendship until now. Pepper had always been in the friendzone for Tony, who put her in exactly the same place. However, the two seemed to be getting closer in the more romantic way. Steve and Tony had talked about girlfriends to throw people off the scent of their romance, but they had decided against it as the team thought Steve had no time for love affairs and Tony was too much of a player to stick with one girl long enough for them to call themselves a couple.

"You alright Steve?" Peter startled Steve with his comment, "It's just, you don't even use your knife that much but you're sharpening it like a pencil." Steve laughed tightly, annoyed that he had allowed his emotions to show. "I'm just a bit concerned about To- Stark, that's all. Do you know if he's in a relationship with Pepper? I would hate for him to be distracted on the mission in two days."
Peter nodded understandingly," Well, I don't know what exactly Mr Stark considers as a relationship, but I saw him kiss miss Potts in the cheek this morning." Steve clenched his teeth. He had trusted Tony. He thought they were in a serious, adult relationship but clearly Tony wasn't capable of such a thing.

Marching out of the training room, Steve stormed off to find his possibly ex boyfriend, his pocket knife clattering to the floor.  "Tony," he whispered dangerously low when he found him in the lab discussing random science schist. Tony's expression hardened. Good, Steve thought satisfiedly, He knows what I want to talk to him about. The Iron Man nodded slowly and stalked out of the laboratory after Steve.

"You know why I want to talk to you." It was a statement, not a question, as Steve knew already knew the answer.
"You're in love with the Soldier."
"What?" Steve stared disbelievingly at his boyfriend.
"I saw you this morning! You were holding his hands and saying how much you loved him!"
"Platonically!" Tony snorted cynically and laughed coldly.
"Oh sure, because friends do that kind of thing."
"Yeah, they do! And you can't talk anyway, Peter saw you kiss Pepper!"
The arguement was getting for heated now, and both men knew the other would not rest until they got some clarification.
"Look," Tony said with less hostility and volume. "I know what that looked like, but it wasn't you you think it was. Me and Pepper are just really good friends. I would kiss my sister like that!"
"That's bull and you know it," Captain America seethed, "Don't lie to me!"
"You know what? I can't take this. You're glaring down your nose at me when your self righteous butt is in love with a straight homophobe who doesn't love you back!"
Steve stopped; his face fell - clearly devastated." Wha- no! Bucky's not a homophobe, we literally dated! You're lying."
Tony sneered," Maybe I am, maybe I'm not. You don't pay enough attention to me to know anyway! You're too busy staring into his manipulated, evil eyes to even notice what I'm wearing!"
Steve let out a long, dejected sigh. "How about this: I don't talk to Bucky other than to jog his memories, and you don't touch Pepper in a way that could be interpreted as romantic. Deal?"
Iron Man nodded his head twice before embracing Steve. His boyfriend kissed his black hair with sprinklings of white. "We're good now, yeah?" Tony raised his face to meet Steve's striking blue eyes gazing at him fondly. "Course." Steve replied, kissing Tony's chapped lips.

-one day later-

True to his word, Steve had steered clear of Bucky for the most part, and was pleased to see Tony had stuck to their agreement as well. Despite his confidence in his boyfriend, Steve had asked Peter to let him know what Tony was doing when he wasn't with the team. Of course, Steve knew that Tony had asked the same of Sam under the disguise of being worried about how Steve was coping with the Bucky situation. It was eight in the evening, and Natasha, Bruce, Peter, Sam and Steve were playing a round of poker (with different colored smarties instead of money and counters). Natasha had just won for the fifth time in a row, and opted to swap out to train. Peter and Sam huddled closer to Steve. "We need and extra player, but we need to ask someone who's really bad first to give us a chance of winning. But who's here?" Sam whispered cunningly.
"Rhodey's out with war friends, Wanda and Vision are in Sokovia, Pepper hates the idea of gambling, soo...." Peter trailed off thinking deeply.
"That just leaves Tony then." Steve finished.
Peter and Sam smiled with realisation and hope: while Tony gambled often, he was not famous for winning. "I'll get him." Wandering out the room, he realised he didn't have a clue where his boyfriend was. "Jarvis," he spoke to what appeared to be a blank wall. "Yes, Mr Rogers?" The AI replied, it's voice resonating around the entire room.
"Can you ask Tony if he wants to play poker with us please?"
"If I may, sir. I think it would be better if you went to get him yourself, he might ignore me. He and miss Potts are in his room at the moment." Steve frowned at the AI's suggestion, but shrugged it off and made his way to Tony's bedroom.

Knocking on the door, Steve called out,"Tony, do you want to play poker? "
A muffled yelp came through the door and Steve frowned,"Tony, are you alright?"
Another yelp, followed by moaning. "Tony, I'm coming in!"
"Wha- no!"
Too late. Captain America barged into his boyfriend's room to find a heart shattering scene. "Tony...."
Unable to cope with what was in front of his shocked eyes, Steve turned on his heels and fled, unshed tears blurring his eyesight.

"Cap, are you okay?" Peter called out from behind him, "What happened?"
Steve stopped, wiping the tears from his eyes and putting on a brave face: Captain America could not be seen weeping. "Er, nothing," he said hurriedly,"You know what, I'm a bit tired, just keep playing without me."
"What about Mr Stark?" Peter asked curiously.
"Who gives a dam."