At the End of Day

[hiddlesgasm]

They all file out of the studio amidst copious laughter, shoulders bumping into shoulders and the good-natured jokes and gentle ribbing that comes from a group of people that have spent so much together between filming and interviews and various appearances, conventions, and so on. It's their last interview for a few months, and Tom tries not to admit how sad he is about it as he steals a look at Robert through his lashes as he laughs lightly at something that Mark says. He knows that he should just ask, but it's the hard thing about being gay. That if you ask, and someone says no, it always makes things a little weird. And he's... he's just not willing to take that risk.

But, at the same time, things are so easy, so comfortable between them. The way that he'll touch him, comes up and hugs him, the hand at the small of his back those few times when they've done interviews as just the two of them. That warmth, the comfort of his presence. He's almost sure. Almost. But there's that niggling doubt, of being the only openly gay man on the cast, the fact that he just doesn't know, because there's always that chance. And he just... he doesn't want him to pull away from him.

Some of the others have tried to encourage him, to tell him to just ask him, but he always shies out of it. That warm smile and a shy look as he taps his slender fingers against his arms and tries not to make it obvious just how interested he is. But Robert is affectionate, warm, reassuring, always has that glimmer of dark promise in his eyes, that curve to his mouth, and he wants to kiss him, feel his body against his. But he doesn't quite have the courage.

He doesn't notice at first, when the other members of the cast start drifting off as the head back toward the limo that will drop them all off. It's not that rare for Scarlett to have things to do, or for Chris Evans to have an important phone call. What is weird is all of these things happening within about a five minute span of each other, so that by the time they make it out to the sidewalk, there's no one left heading to the limo except Robert and him, and it makes his heart skip. He sees what they're doing. And it's sweet, but infuriating, and he tries to pretend that he doesn't see what's going on but he can't help squirming a little and giving the other man a sheepish sort of look as his fingers brush against the back of his neck.

Comments

[starkhasaheart]

Robert sometimes prefers the larger interviews, rather than when they’re paired off or singled out. If he’s not quite in the right frame of mind, it takes some of the pressure off. The others are there to answer when he can’t quite get out what he means to say. And they’ve all spent enough time together that he finds that, more often than not, if he’s struggling to find a word or finish a sentence, that someone else knows where he was going and can pick it up where he’d left off. Frequently that person is Tom, but he’s not the only one. Today there had been points in the interview where questions directed to him felt as though they were being answered in conversation with Tom, rather than to the interviewer. He definitely caught himself a few times simply turning away from the camera, but he just had to hope it wasn’t as obvious as it felt. He tried to catch himself, keep it an even balance between talking to Tom, to the others, and looking at the interviewer, but he feels as though he failed somewhat.

At points, he could hardly help it. He’d begun the interview with his arm casually behind Tom’s chair, his hand against his back — because it was comfortable there and because it was an excuse to touch Tom through the entirety of the interview — and by halfway through when he needed to shift or risk his hand going numb, Tom nearly dove for his hand and he had to do something. It unsettled him somewhat, interrupted what he was in the middle of saying, but he managed to right it, he hoped, without much notice. Replaced his hand and carried on talking, fumbling somewhat over his words, satisfied at least that he’d prevented Tom from taking his hand mid-interview. Not that it would be the worst thing, or that he couldn’t have played it off. Not that he hasn’t hugged Tom on stage at events, practically climbing on him like he’s a tree at times. Maybe it’s something about his mood today, just knowing that this is the last event they’ve got for a few months and he’s keyed up at the idea of it, and not sure how he’d deal with it if Tom launched himself into his lap on camera today.

Luckily, he doesn’t have to. The thing ends fairly uneventfully, and they’re all headed out to the limousine. He’s talking to Tom about something he’d starting telling him on the way in when he notices people beginning to slip away. “Hey, okay, don’t say bye then,” he calls after Scarlett as she slips away, her phone pressed to her ear and waving, smiling back at them. In calling to her, he nearly misses Mark and Chris Hemsworth going the opposite direction.

“You, too?” he sounds half-amused, half-insulted, but he can’t believe this. “Come on, guys, what about dinner? I’m starting to get offended…”

When he looks back at Tom, he sees Jeremy and the last remaining Chris parting ways and it’s just him and Tom left standing a half dozen feet from the limo. Robert is the last to catch on to what’s happening, but he does catch on.

“They ditched us,” he says to Tom, trying to play it cool. Because he knows. Of course he knows. He’s not obvious about it — he’s not out — but he is interested. That much, he thinks, should be fairly apparent, if you’re looking. It’s not as if he’s like this with everyone. Not quite to this degree, anyway. Sure, he might hang on some of the others here and there for a laugh or a photo op, but it’s the kind of playful tumbling about that comes from months together spent on set, weeks spent shooting and re-shooting the same sweat-soaked fight scene three inches from each other’s faces. They’ve all somewhat gotten to the point where personal space is a thing that doesn’t quite exist anymore. It’s just that these times where he spends a little too much of an interview touching, or spontaneously hugs Tom’s legs instead of posing like a normal person should all mean something a little bit more. And sometimes with Tom, he’ll go for the laugh just so that it’s not so obvious.

So of course he can tell. He can see that Tom knows what’s going on, too — he’s not a stupid man by any stretch of the imagination. Tom looks uncomfortable, sheepish, rubbing his neck as he tries to figure out what to do in this new situation, how to recover from it. Fortunately for the both of them, Robert’s almost always moving about five steps ahead of where his mind even is at the moment. “Tell me you’re still coming out for dinner. Or, wait, no — something came up and you’re bailing on me too?”

It’s his not-very-subtle and yet noncommittal way of asking Tom out to dinner, alone, without making it obvious that that’s what he’s doing. But that’s obviously what he’s doing. Especially when he’s pulling off the perfect faux-hurt puppy dog expression, as though he’s trying his hardest to convince Tom to stay.

[hiddlesgasm]

"Looks that way, doesn't it?" He commented with a low hum of near amusement on his mouth as he looks at Robert, trying to pretend he's not entirely aware of what's going on and wobbling between embarrassed and a little bit giddy. He's still a little flustered about the interview, though the other man hasn't brought it up, even through Tom knows that he was painfully obvious.

He's always a little awkward with interviews; being on camera sitting across from someone asking questions is always a bit harsher than the easy camaraderie he's always found in working on films. Robert always made it easy. The small touches, the ways that he made interviews feel more like casual conversations. He hadn't even thought about it, when he'd had his hand there at the small of his back, and then he'd pulled away.

He'd reached out without thinking about it, almost stumbling on his words, fingers searching for his hand before that touch had been pressed back against his spine and he'd settled. Only in the moments after had he realized what he'd just done, and he could only hope that he hadn't blushed on camera.

Then there's that question. Casual as anything, but at this point Robert has to know that it's not. And yet he still asks, that puppy dog expression making it light, almost easy, and Tom can't help that soft way that he laughs, brushing curls back from his face. "How could I say no? Of course I'm still coming to dinner," he assents with a smile, though there's a tension in his shoulders as he fidgets and tries to find something to do with his hands, before giving up and just slipping into the limo.

[starkhasaheart]

“That it does,” he says, looking back at Tom. It’s obvious that they both know what’s going on. Tom looks as excited about the prospect of dinner alone, just the two of them, as he feels, mixed up with shy embarrassment. Tony knows because he’s known all along. Maybe not from the beginning, not from the same place that Tom did or when the others had noticed. It had started the way things were with the rest of the cast, friendly camaraderie, and slowly over the course of the months spent filming, things had begun to change. He hadn’t noticed until the first time that a touch lingered a little too long, when he decided to push a little further, test to see if the sneaking suspicion he had was right by asking Tom to squeeze harder on that take and it broke both their characters because it flustered Tom and ultimately they’d devolved into helpless laughter because the alternative that was suddenly on both of their minds wasn’t something that they could consider with cameras rolling.

But from then on, Tony knew they were both thinking it. At times when they had to come close, when they had to touch or made excuses to, they were thinking of how they might touch if they were out of the scrutinizing eye of the cameras. But still, they’d never spoken of it, never discussed it. He’s not sure now why he never had. Of course, there always had been the risk of him saying no and they’d still have to work together. The twin risk of him saying yes, and navigating how that would change things.

“Good. Glad that’s settled,” Robert says, and he notices the brief moment where Tom looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself in the face of this, and stifles down the smile that’s tugging the corner of his mouth enough that it doesn’t look like the full-blown, goofy grin it feels like. He’s excited at the prospect of this. He follows Tom into the limo and pulls the door shut behind himself. It’s the first time that they’ve been intentionally alone in… well, ever. It’s happened, sure, here and there, between takes, at events, but never like this. Now it’s his turn to be awkward, just a little bit. “They’re not terribly subtle, are they?” he asks, finally broaching the topic.

[hiddlesgasm]

There's that smile on Robert's face, and it has an echoing expression curving Tom's lips as he looks across the limo into those warm brown eyes. His gaze lingers just a moment before slipping off to the side with a soft hint of a laugh as he drags his knuckles against the side of his jaw, a little shy about the whole situation.

"Certainly not. Although, I don't think subtle was their intention," he says with a hint of amusement as much as embarrassment. He can't help the fact that he's still flustered, even as the fact that Robert asked him out to dinner is still sinking in. Of course, they were all supposed to go to dinner together, but it's different now, and they both know it.

He's still a little nervous, but then the words are off his lips and he's looking a little unsettled. "I think they all know that I like you." It comes out as a soft murmur, a brief slide of his eyes and a shy huff of laughter that's not really amusement as it twists into a sigh. He's nervous, still. A little unsure, timid, and based on how his hands fidget, the other actor might be able to read just how badly Tom wants to reach out for his hands, like back during the interview.

[starkhasaheart]

Good Lord, but Tom is gorgeous, he thinks to himself as he catches sight of how he looks but tries not to seem as though he’s looking, fidgeting, fingers drawing along his jaw, drawing his attention there and to his neck. He knows he’s not the only person who sees just how handsome he is — Tom is becoming an increasingly popular actor and the world loves him for it — but he thinks maybe he’s the only one who sees him quite like this. Nervous and fidgeting, adorable more than handsome (though he is both), not sure what to do with himself and awkward even though he doesn’t have to be. But then again, Robert supposes he could say the same of himself, because he’s feeling more than a little bit awkward himself, and there’s likely no reason for it. Of course, knowing it is different than accepting it, and there’s no amount of logic that’s going to completely quiet his nerves right now.

Robert had some snappy comeback all prepared about how they’d have to get back at them for this, exact revenge, play some sort of prank, but before he manages to say anything, Tom goes and says that. It derails that line of thinking entirely because up until now it’s been all assumption. All obsessing over lingering glances or touches, or the way that Tom sometimes seems to lean into him, always chooses to sit beside him when the option is presented. Now, it’s right there, utterly undeniable, taking any remaining question away, as if there really had been any question at all.

Tom’s nervous. It doesn’t take a genius to know that, but the two of them have, for a while, had a sort of symbiosis. In press events and interviews they’d sit or stand side by side and just by virtue of being so close, one of them leaning into the other, both of them were calmer, more relaxed. It’s automatic, happens without thinking, Robert leaning into him or hugging him and passing it off as though he’s trying to interrupt, picking up on the need and moving in on it. He reaches over and lays a hand on Tom’s knee and rubs up along his thigh to take one of Tom’s hands and pulls it over towards him, thumb rubbing over the back of his hand very matter-of-factly.

“I think we owe them a big thank-you,” Robert says, at first very seriously, and then with a slowly spreading, secret grin.