Archive of Our Own ^beta

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It starts, as these nights always do, with Clint’s leftovers.

There is a kitchen—because where else would Tony be at three o’ clock in the morning after a gala where the only offerings were inscrutable fish tarts (greasy, possibly made with fake crab) and stuffed mushroom canapés (sodium bombs waiting to go off), neither of which he ate—a tuxedo jacket draped over a chair, an open takeaway carton of cold pork fried rice, a glass of water Tony wishes was something stronger, and Steve.

Tony stands at the island, elbows on white marble, rubbing his tired eyes until little white lights start to sparkle in the black. The pressure is fantastic, and the sheer relief of it is enough to pull a quiet, pitiful groan from deep in his chest.

“I’d ask how it went,” Steve says softly from the doorway, resting his shoulder against the jamb, “but I know that groan.”

If it weren’t so late, Tony would make a joke out of that, something clever and just this side of lewd, because he’d feel like it and it would make his night to see Steve blush. Those lips and those cheekbones that fair skin are so criminally attractive in their own right, but a flush of rosy pink to top it all off? Fuck.

As it is, though, the only response to that perfect setup of a comment Tony can muster is a distressed whimper of exhaustion, which he muffles against his palms. He knows he should wash them, given the number of other people’s hands he shook tonight, and he’d meant to the moment he’d trudged into the kitchen, but at the first sight of the doublewide refrigerator, Tony’s mind was hyper-focused on acquiring and inhaling Clint’s food.

“That bad, huh?”

Tony grunts, nodding his heavy head.

This doesn’t happen much, anymore—Tony coming home late from an event he didn’t want to go to in the first place—but it does still happen, often enough that he and Steve have made something of a routine of it. Nothing elaborate: Steve welcomes him home dressed for bed in sweatpants and a mercifully loose T-shirt, leaning in the doorway or standing on the other side of the kitchen island from Tony, and Tony, still dressed head to toe in Ford or Gabbana or McQueen, tells him stories from the night over (Clint’s) leftovers.

But tonight Tony is dead on his feet, eyes bloodshot from strain and fatigue and very likely a minor panic attack, and instead of giving Steve a rundown of his evening (he had a great story about a famous actor falling headfirst into a fountain and everything), Tony finds himself slipping into thoughts he usually saves for when he’s alone, of a timeline in which the island disappears and in its place is Steve, and he is as desperately in love with Tony as Tony is with him.

It’s a gut-wrenchingly unlikely scenario that Tony has nonetheless run and re-run in his mind a thousand times, like HUD footage after a battle to calculate his own weak spots.

On nights like this, as Tony drives himself back to the Tower after having talked and schmoozed and flirted his way through a hundred different people for the sake of a little good Avengers PR, he imagines walking off the elevator onto the common floor and being met with a soft but meaningful I missed you while you were gone kiss, followed by a warm and lingering let me take care of you now kiss in the bedroom while Steve slowly undoes his tie and the buttons of his dress shirt.

Sometimes it’s the only thing that gets him through it. Coming home and talking to Steve in hushed tones over leftovers and water, sometimes tea, with Steve none the wiser that all the while Tony is fantasizing the most mundane things: sickening little domesticities like Steve undoing Tony’s cufflinks and massaging his shoulders before carrying him to bed, or even just wrapping him up in a hug for a few minutes, whispering—fuck—sweet nothings in Tony’s ear as he skims his big, warm hands lovingly up and down Tony’s back, over his shoulders to his neck, cupping his jaw and stooping a little to kiss him on the forehead…

Tony’s throat constricts around nothing, tight and sharp and warm and oh god please don’t cry you’re not that tired—

“Tony?”

Because of course Steve can see his pinched expression, even in this dim light. Steve sees almost everything. Key word: almost. But Tony is so wrung out, if he so much as glances at Steve right now, he knows he’ll give something away. Steve will see one of Tony’s little fantasies playing out behind his eyes and that’ll be it for this witching hour rendezvous routine Tony’s come to enjoy too much for his own good.

Because that’s his whole modus operandi in a nutshell, isn’t it? He wants too much, and in his wanting he loses everything, every fucking time.

The thought of losing Steve freezes the air in Tony’s lungs.

Time to rein it in, Iron Man. “You really don’t have to keep doing this,” Tony mutters, closing his eyes. “It’s late.” He hears the soft brush of Steve’s sweats and bare feet on warmed tile. When Steve speaks again, he’s only an arm’s length away.

“I was awake,” he says. It shouldn’t sting, but it does. ‘I was awake’ is a far cry from the lines Tony’s fed himself to fill the deep, aching emptiness in his heart: I want to always be there when you come home or I stayed up for you or I never want you to feel alone or on one memorable occasion Next time I should just tie you to the bed so you can’t leave.

Tony opens his eyes but keeps them fixed on the backs of his hands, palms flat against the marble countertop.

“Thanks,” he says, scraping the word like so much sand off his tongue. “No need to stay up any longer for my sake. I’m just gonna polish off my ill-gotten dinner and head to bed.” Tony picks up his fork and pokes around inside the carton of fried rice but doesn’t dish any of it into his mouth. Just thinking about Steve and all the ways he can’t have him, plus the shit that happened earlier tonight, and his appetite is all but gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Steve lean a hip against the edge of the island. It must be painful, having hard marble jammed up against bone like that, but then Steve’s a supersoldier—it probably doesn’t register as anything more than a firm, vaguely uncomfortable press to him. Tony tries to keep his mind on that train of thought and not on the way Steve’s threadbare T-shirt has ridden up a little to expose a narrow V of perfect skin.

“Sorry, that came out wrong,” Steve says quietly, now leaning slightly into Tony’s space. Attempting to ignore the fact (and failing) that he can feel the warmth coming off of the other man at this distance, Tony blinks at Steve with all the wherewithal of a deer caught in the headlights. Sorry—? That word has never appeared in any of his fantasy scenarios, except the one in which Steve apologizes for taking so long to realize that Tony’s madly in love with him (because that would be so much easier than having to actually say the fucking words).

“What did?”

“I was asleep—”

“It is normal-people sleeping hours, to be fair.” The neon green microwave clock over Tony’s shoulder can testify to that.

“—but I have a…” and, oh, is that a blush starting to creep its way up Steve’s neck? Forget fried rice, this is far more interesting.

Maybe tonight won’t be a wash after all.

Tony sets the clean fork back down on the counter. “…an arrangement with JARVIS,” Steve finishes, which isn’t what Tony was hoping he would say there, but it’s also not a variation on the theme of I had nothing better to do, he tells himself hopefully.

So, that’s something.

“’An arrangement’?” The air quotes, Tony thinks, are implied.

Steve ducks his chin a little and folds his arms across his chest, which, dirty move, Rogers. Tony tries to look anywhere but at the long, protruding veins in Steve’s forearms and gives up after two seconds. “After the second time I bumped into you out here, I asked JARVIS to notify me whenever you come home from one of these things,” he says, hurrying through the statement like something’s chasing him. “That’s—shit, that sounds a lot creepier when I say it out loud.”

They’ve known each other long enough, been in enough battles together, played enough Mario Kart together, that Tony doesn’t even register Steve cursing. He’s too caught up in that blush, and the push and pull of Steve’s muscles under his T-shirt, and all the other words coming out of Steve’s mouth.

“Why?”

Steve shrugs, and immediately the little white bubble of hope in Tony’s chest—ballooning somewhere behind the arc reactor—deflates with a pathetic, droning pfffffft.

“Just want to make sure you get home okay.” Steve looks at him when he says it, but his eyes are shadowed, his expression suddenly remote.

A headcount. Steve “Mother Hen” Rogers making sure all his chicks are present and accounted for, and Tony is just one more bird in the nest. Not special, not even a little bit. Not to Steve. And he wants—god, how badly he wants to be special to Steve. That’s what’s horrible.

He’s not wearing the armor, but he might as well be for how heavy he feels all of a sudden, fatigue calcifying the marrow in his bones. Tony’s knees start to give. Exhausted by a working day spent at SI, an evening spent kowtowing with people he’d sooner jettison off the tower than invite in, and now thoroughly beaten back into his sad little corner of unrequited love, Tony shakes his head, wobbling slightly when he pushes himself away from the island. He sets his eyes on the still-open doorway and definitely not on Steve, who stays perfectly still while Tony shuffles past him.

He’ll worry about the scuff marks on his dress shoes tomorrow.

“Well. Mission accomplished, Rogers,” Tony says over his shoulder, telling himself his eyes are stinging from the buildup of oil on his eyelids, not from tears. He’s just so fucking tired. If he dreams tonight, it’ll be a miracle. “Sleep tight.”

Tony’s almost through the door when Steve wraps a hand around his trailing wrist.

For some reason, the first thing that pops into Tony’s mind is Robin Williams, of all people, standing on a stage in front of a giggling James Lipton, wearing a pink scarf like a prayer shawl and asking, ‘Why is tonight different than all other nights?’

Tony’s not sure how the rest of it goes, traditionally, but he’s pretty sure a Jewish Seder ritual doesn’t involve a six-foot Irish Catholic man with a face carved by angels turning the faithful in place to look him in the eye.

“Tony.”

Tony’s slightly hysterical, religion-hopping thoughts immediately hush. He’s always been weak for the way Steve says his name, with its soft T and deep, rounded O and gentle N and smiling Y…

Nope, he’s definitely still a bit hysterical, but Steve hasn’t let go of his wrist. His expression is mostly concerned, possibly even a little bit hurt. Tony’s heart sinks against the side of the arc reactor casing: is that hurt his fault? Of course it is. It always is. How could it not be?

Steve squeezes his wrist, a hint of pressure against delicate skin. Tony watches the gears turning over in Steve’s mind, a sure sign that he has more than a few questions he wants to ask Tony and is struggling to narrow it down to just one.

“Are you okay?”

It had to be that one.

In another scenario, Steve skips the question entirely because he already knows, the perceptive bastard, he knows Tony’s not okay unless Steve is with him, because Steve challenges him, Steve inspires him, Steve builds him up and makes Tony want to be the good man Steve somehow sees him as. In this scenario, he skips the question and kisses Tony breathless, instead, reminding him with his plush, pink mouth and a little bit of teeth that Tony will be okay if Steve has anything to say about—or do with—it.

In reality, however, Tony swallows back tears of frustration and exhaustion and struggles to swallow down his increasingly frantic need to run away. It doesn’t matter, though, since Steve won’t let go of his wrist, and if Tony thinks he can out-stubborn Steve Rogers while operating on fumes, he’s an even bigger idiot than Clint so often claims he is.

“I’m fine,” he says. He looks at Steve when he says it and everything. Wills him to believe it so Tony can get away from the softening look in Steve’s eyes and Jesus Fucking H. Christ the gentle touch of Steve’s thumb against his pulse, which is currently tapping out a foxtrot.

“Are you?”

Like a dog with a bone, this guy. That’s why he won’t let go of Tony’s wrist—it’s not an affectionate touch at all, Tony realizes despairingly, but a way to keep Tony in place, rooted to the spot until he tells Steve the truth.

Tony’s breath leaves him all at once. He hates how wet it sounds, shuddering on the way out and hanging in the empty air between their bodies. Steve cares—Tony wouldn’t be standing in the kitchen with him at three o’ clock in the morning if he didn’t—but Steve’s care is universal when it comes to the Avengers. He’s vigilant in his need to know his people are safe. He’s the man who checks in over comms moments after the bad guy goes down to make sure they’re whole (Natasha), who texts the hardest hit two days after the battle to ask if they need more ibuprofen (Clint), who boils enough water for two pots of tea without having to be asked (Bruce), who volunteers himself to spar when the clear blue sky outside the tower suddenly goes dark (Thor).

It’s Steve’s nature to care. Tony can be cruel when he’s in pain, he knows, but even he’s not so cruel as to tell the man in front of him he doesn’t care enough. Just imagining Steve’s reaction to that is enough to make Tony’s still-empty stomach flip unhappily.

“It’s nothing,” he mutters after a long pause, staring at the floor. Don’t be a burden, Stark. Steve’s toes are nicely filed, he notes; not too long, not too short—perfect, just like the rest of him.

And his hand is still wrapped around Tony’s wrist.

The words come out in a rush. “Hammer decided to crash the party tonight—” Steve’s breath hitches in his throat, fingers flexing around Tony’s wrist “—and managed to corner me for a minute. Started talking about ‘taking another shot’ at reactor tech and I kind of—well.” Tony scrunches his face up and places his free hand over the bright blue circle shining out from the middle of his chest. He shrugs. “You know the drill. Guy gets under my skin even worse than you do.”

That’s dangerous. That’s inching toward a line he wouldn’t go anywhere near if he were in his right mind. But it’s late, and Tony is tired, and strung out, and in love with this man who doesn’t love him back, and he’s trying so hard to compartmentalize that along with everything else, but Steve won’t let go of his fucking wrist and it’s dissolving what’s left of Tony’s nerves.

But Steve doesn’t balk at the comment. He doesn’t pull away and give Tony that look, the one that screams I hate it when you say shit like that, and that’s fine, Tony hates himself plenty enough for both of them, but neither does Steve wrap Tony in a hug like Tony wishes he would. Instead, Steve just laughs quietly, the sound puffing out of his nose in a short burst, lips turning up at the corners. He looks ten years younger.

“I know he does.” Steve expression turns dour, then, a complete one-eighty from the face Tony had been looking at a second ago. “I’m sorry,” he says. “Did anything else happen? With Hammer?”

Tony waves the question away. “No, no. I called LifeAlert and Happy came and took care of him. All fine.” Tony can’t muster a full press smile right now, but he manages enough of one to convince himself, at least. Steve, not so much. His concerned frown deepens, eyes focused and bright with so much goddamn caring.

“You must be exhausted.”

Tony hiccups half a sob before he can clap a hand over his mouth and stifle it. That…that’s not fair. That shouldn’t be the thing that does him in. The words are too pedestrian, too fucking simple to make a tear spring from Tony’s eye, the traitor, but there, he’s watching it roll off the tip of his nose and land right smack dab on the top of Steve’s infuriatingly perfect left foot. Even in the low light of the kitchen, it glitters noticeably against Steve’s pale skin as it rolls off the slope and onto the floor.

Fuck.

He should be stronger than this. He should be past having panic attacks that leave him winded and jittery whenever someone mentions taking the reactor from his chest, and he should be able to talk to Steve about it without breaking down. But between the stress, and the hunger, and the fatigue, and the whole loving-but-not-being-loved thing, and Steve’s sheer proximity, Tony can’t help it. One tear becomes two, then three, and now he’s shielding his eyes and whispering apologies and a panicked goodnight as he tries to pull away.

From Steve, whose hand tightens around Tony’s wrist—the opposite of what Tony anticipated, but everything he needs and knows he can’t have. He wants it and doesn’t deserve it.

Steve will give him what he can, because Steve cares, but it won’t be enough.

“Steve, it’s okay, I’m just—it’s been a long day, it’s late, I don’t know what this is about, ignore me.”

Steve makes that little huff-laugh sound again, softer this time. “Tony,” he says warmly, and so close: “I couldn’t ignore you if I tried. Hugging you now.”

“It just takes practice, would probably only take you a we—wait, what—”

Before he can finish that sentence, Steve’s arms are coming around him, biceps pressing in on either side of Tony’s ribcage, warm hands splaying out against the middle of his back, and his chin is being tucked against the spot where Steve’s long, beautiful neck meets his mountainous traps.

Tony is too stunned by this development to reciprocate past raising his arms to hover around Steve’s shoulders like useless parentheses.

Steve hauls him in closer until they’re chest to chest. Steve is a wall of warmth and soft cotton and the unmistakable smell of what Tony’s logical brain knows is a combination of dish soap and laundry detergent and leftover Chinese food and leather and aftershave and gasoline and whatever pomade Steve uses and that fancy lavender-and-amber oil diffuser that Natasha gave Steve for his birthday a couple months ago, but what his emotional brain, his hindbrain, his I love Steve Rogers brain knows simply as home.

Tony surrenders to the hug. Wraps his arms around Steve’s neck and hangs there, letting the tears fall as they may. He knows Steve can smell the salt, can probably feel the skipping rhythm of Tony’s heart against his own chest, but hopefully Steve will chalk it up to Tony’s exhaustion running its course and not the fact that Tony is so happy here in Steve’s arms he never wants to leave.

Shifting in place, Tony notes that the pressure of Steve’s hug is forcing the outer ring of the arc reactor casing into Steve’s sternum. Just like the edge of the marble countertop, Steve probably doesn’t even register that it’s there, leaving a deep imprint in his skin that would bruise if it weren’t for his healing factor; whereas Tony is used to the constant, digging pain, the ache of it holding his chest apart. His heart is constantly exposed, yes, but that’s no reason to hurt Steve with it, even in theory. And that, he knows, is exactly what will happen if he lets this continue.

Tony tries to pull away. He does. But when he gives Steve the universal squeeze for “Hug over,” Steve responds by tightening his hold around Tony’s middle and breathing out a long, warm, humming sigh that goes right down the back of Tony’s neck.

Tony can’t help it—he melts.

Right into Steve, who takes Tony’s weight like it’s nothing, but not like Tony is nothing. There’s a scenario here, a variation of this exact moment in which hugging leads to kissing leads to I love you leads to enthusiastic, mind-blowing sex, but Steve doesn’t care that much.

He does care, though. That will have to be enough.

“Next time,” Steve says, close and deep in Tony’s ear (oh, god), “You take me with you. I’ll watch out for you.”

This is enough. Tony knows if he repeats that over and over, he’ll eventually be able to live with it. Mostly. He holds Steve close because he can, squeezing for one more beat and nodding, his three o’ clock shadow scratching the other man’s cheek.

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” he whispers, laughing wetly against Steve’s shoulder before pulling away from the indulgence of Steve’s embrace. Tony even manages a fraction of a real smile as he wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, breathing through the residual tremors until he’s mostly settled in his own skin again.

“Alright. Bedtime for me. Crying means I’ve officially turned into a pumpkin, and it’s not even October yet.”

It takes Tony a moment to realize that Steve’s hands are still on him. Holding him, palms pressed flat and fingers fanned out on either side of Tony’s spine, low enough to suggest but high enough to maintain his innocence, if need be. The hold keeps their hips aligned and their chests apart, a gap of plausible deniability wedged firmly between their bodies.

As much as Steve’s lingering touch thrills him to the core (and isn’t that the understatement of the year), Tony tries not to read into it, because that way madness lies and he’s already more than halfway gone as it is.

“Tony.”

“Yeah, Cap?”

Dry-eyed at last, Tony looks up at Steve and almost swallows his tongue. Steve is looking at him—really looking, like Tony is a jigsaw puzzle and Steve’s just found the missing piece. It’s an unnerving look, piercing through and exposing parts of Tony he’s spent years hiding under layers and layers of false confidence and sarcasm and armor, so much armor—shiny, pretty tricks to draw people in and keep them at a safe distance at the same time.

That look, Tony thinks, is dangerously close to knowing.

Then Tony realizes his own hands have come back up to rest on Steve’s shoulders of their own volition, and one of Steve’s hands has drifted down ever so slightly. It presses and Tony goes, stumbling forward until they’re chest to chest again.

Steve’s heart is racing.

“Steve?”

The man is too busy looking for something in Tony’s eyes to respond. Whatever it is, when Steve finds it, he smiles bright as the sun, grinning like Tony has given him something infinitely precious.

Then he starts to lean in.

Oh. Oh. This isn’t a scenario Tony’s ever imagined, not once. Of the many thousands of fantasies he’s cried himself to sleep or jerked off or woken up or daydreamed in a team meeting to, this one is wholly new, and it might even be real, because those are Steve’s eyes falling to Tony’s lips, bright with realization and hope, blue as fire, blue as the light of Tony’s exposed heart—

Seconds away from getting what he’s always wanted, Tony stops Steve with a hand to the chest. Ever the gentleman, Steve goes perfectly still, head bent forward, waiting for Tony’s next move. Word. Whatever it is—Tony’s still working that one out. In the meantime, Tony counts Steve’s absurdly long eyelashes, can almost see his own harried expression reflected in the deep black of Steve’s dilated pupils.

The air around and between them is charged—Tony can feel every hair on his arms standing on end. He can’t look away, held rapt by Steve’s hands on his body and Steve’s eyes on his mouth. Tony doesn’t know what the right thing is to say here, but he has to say something, because if Steve kisses him now and regrets it, Tony will never recover.

He can only build so many replacement hearts.

“Please,” he whispers, hand softening on Steve’s chest. He never wants this moment to end, being held in the soft safe circle of Steve’s powerful arms, never wants Steve to stop looking at him like that, like this is everything Steve wants. Tony didn’t even know Steve’s face was capable of that look. “Don’t—”

As soon as he says it, Steve starts to pull back, flushed cheeks blanching so fast Tony worries he might faint. It’s worrying, but a good sign, too, Tony has to imagine, his own head still spinning from the fact that Steve Rogers was about to kiss him just now, which. Holy shit. But now Steve is moving in the opposite direction Tony wants him to, taking all of the warmth and glow of the moment with him.

Tony fists the front of Steve’s shirt (warm, so warm) in both hands and tries to collect himself. “Wait, just…wait,” he breathes, thumping the man’s sternum gently for emphasis. When he finally looks up, Steve’s face is inches from his, lips wet and parted and waiting, but that’s not what gives Tony pause.

Steve’s blue, blue eyes are fathomless and full of want, tracking Tony’s face, yes, but also taking in the loosened bow tie around his neck, the starchy, upturned cuffs of his shirtsleeves, the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons resting at the base of Tony’s throat; Steve is cataloguing the smallest details of him like he knows exactly where he wants to look and what he’ll find when he gets there. Tony wonders how many times Steve has looked at him like this—he wonders how he ever missed it.

Sleep is the furthest thing from Tony’s mind now, his Hammer-induced mini panic attack from earlier so far in his memory’s rearview, it’s not even a dot on the glass. This—Steve holding him, Steve looking at him, Steve wanting him, Steve—is all that matters.

But he has to know.

It’s a short distance for his hands to travel, up from Steve’s heaving chest to his neck. For all that Tony was the one crying a minute ago (and he might very well be on the verge of tears again—jury’s out), Steve looks like he’s not far off, himself, bright eyes noticeably wet.

“Tony…”

“Not if you don’t mean it,” Tony whispers, inches away from the long swooping bow of Steve’s mouth, hands bracing the hard column of Steve’s neck where he can feel the man’s pulse leap under his palm. Their foreheads tip forward and connect, breaths comingling in the half-dark. Voice thick, Tony says, “I can’t—I can’t, if you don’t mean it,” and he’s tired, so tired of waiting, tired of touches with no meaning, tired of holding his breath when Steve’s in the room, tired of keeping this love to himself. But Steve’s right in front of him, standing tall and broad and looking for all the world like a man on a mission.

Only later will Tony be able to recall how the next few seconds unfolded: how Steve moved a hand from the deep curve of Tony’s lower back and used it to cradle his jaw; how he notched the thumb of that hand under Tony’s chin to tilt his face up mere centimeters to meet his; how Steve’s long, long lashes flashed gold in the low light as his eyes fluttered shut. Tony might even watch the Tower’s security footage to confirm that’s how it went.

In the moment, the only thing Tony knows is Steve, and Steve’s kiss. It’s soft at first, warm and dry and chaste, their lips only slightly parted, but the hand on Tony’s jaw is firm, molding around its shape and holding him in place while Steve works.

He doesn’t usually go in for words like magic and fireworks and the other usual clichés, but one kiss from Steve has Tony ready to list all kinds of superlatives. Steve kisses steady, and Steve kisses kind; he waits for cues from Tony before adjusting the pace, or his position, or the pressure. He gives and gives and doesn’t take.

It’s so good and so sweet, Tony could cry all over again, but after a minute of delightful, closed-mouthed kissing, he desperately wants to know what Steve kisses like—not how Steve thinks Tony wants to be kissed. So Tony works his own magic, dropping his head back with a soft moan, trusting Steve to keep the hand on his jaw steady, and then arches forward, rolling his body against Steve’s in a long, sinuous wave.

He needs to see what happens when Steve lets himself want.

And oh, does Steve ever want. Mindful of his strength, Steve tightens his hold on Tony’s jaw and moves him where Steve likes, tilting Tony’s head back further so Steve can press his advantage and finally start to take.

Tony never could have imagined Steve kissing him this much, this deep, this good. No scenario could have prepared Tony for the way Steve is holding and kissing him like he’s just come in from wandering the desert and Tony is a reservoir of cold, clear water. Steve pulls at him until there’s no air between their bodies, plundering Tony’s mouth with precision, opening him up with tongue and lips and teeth, licking and sucking and biting and fuck.

Tony is warm from Steve, and Steve is everywhere, big and sturdy and so fucking strong, hard up against him and exerting just enough force through the hand now plastered on Tony’s ass to keep their hips joined as they move together. Steve uses his whole body to kiss, rocking them every time he darts the tip of his tongue fleetingly across Tony’s lower lip so Tony gasps, adjusting Tony into new positions with little nudges of his dexterous fingers, and Tony is absolutely blissed the fuck out on how helpless he is in the face of Steve’s desire, riding the wave that is Steve’s thick thigh being nudged between his legs, the breath-stealing pressure of Steve’s lips, and the hot, wet curl of Steve’s tongue against his.

If Tony dies of happiness or asphyxiation (or both) here, so be it. There are worse ways to go, and none of them involve Steve Rogers making throaty sounds of bone-deep pleasure whenever Tony dares drive his hips forward to grind against Steve’s dick.

There’s a give and take to it, just like everything they do together, on the battlefield and off. Giddily Tony reminds himself they don’t call him an expert tactician for nothing as Steve plants his massive hands under Tony’s thighs and lifts at the same time Tony hops, walking them back over to the island and dropping Tony with a soft bounce on the marble counter. Stepping between Tony’s spread thighs, Steve drags him forward with a low growl and kisses him openmouthed.

It’s so hot, but when the corners of Tony’s lips turn up in a smile at his own private joke, Steve’s do too. Probably knows exactly what Tony is laughing about, the clever bastard. Steve breaks the flow for a moment to grin at Tony and comb his fingers through his hair. He’s panting hard and heavy like a thoroughbred at the end of a race, but the look in his eyes tells Tony they’ve barely rounded the first turn and oh, god, yes.

Steve nods once and steps in close to cradle Tony’s head in his hands. The touch is so sweet; the look on Steve’s face is not. It’s hungry and burning and Tony’s blood is singing. He tugs on Steve’s narrow hips with a whine, bracing his head against Steve’s hands as the man dives in for another kiss that steals the breath right out from Tony’s lungs.

Tony flings his arms around Steve’s shoulders, gasping hotly every time Steve pulls away to reorient himself and moaning every time he returns, mouth falling open further to let him in deeper, longer. When Steve buries his fingers in Tony’s hair and tugs, Tony shivers and his legs—which had wandered up around Steve’s hips at some point in the proceedings—go slack. His moans turn high and strained until he’s all but keening wetly against Steve’s soft, gentling lips, a heady contrast to the fingers dug in against his scalp. Steve tugs again, rumbling approvingly when Tony whimpers, and then keeps going. He buries one hand in Tony’s hair, plants the other on his ass, and kisses him until Tony’s mouth is slick and tender and open, swallowing every last one of his increasingly desperate little noises with encouraging groans that vibrate against Tony’s ribs.

How Tony ever thought he could live without this—how life could ever be enough without this—he’ll never know. Denial, rivers, Egypt, yadda yadda yadda.

It’s a few more minutes of Steve blowing Tony’s mind with kitten licks to his soft palate and firm, intermittent thrusts of his hips before Tony has to pull away with a gasp of “God, Steve—“ and catch his breath before this man puts him in the hospital.

Tony feels lightheaded; his thoughts are sluggish, and he probably looks like he just went ten rounds with an angry leaf blower, but he can’t bring himself to care. He can’t do much of anything except blink dumbly at Steve and stroke the broad planes of his back through his T-shirt, but Steve seems okay with that. He seems happy, standing there in the kitchen at—Tony glances over Steve’s shoulder at the microwave—three thirty in the morning, arms full of a blushing and bewildered Tony Stark, who may or may not be hallucinating all of this.

Steve, having caught his own breath, tips his head forward with a sigh. Expecting-slash-hoping for another window-fogging kiss, Tony closes his eyes. He huffs a high, breathless moan and opens up for it, arms around Steve’s neck, panting humidly against his mouth.

Instead of a kiss, Steve wraps an arm around Tony’s back and pulls him in close, mirroring the hug he’d given him before…all of that happened.

After spending a couple of minutes in each other's arms coming down from the high, Steve presses a trembling thumb against Tony’s chin, scratching the pad against his beard with tiny back-and-forth motions. He whispers Tony’s name softly, intimately, like it’s a promise he is determined to keep.

Tony opens his eyes to a radiant world full of Steve, who holds his gaze.

“I mean it,” he says. He’s never looked so certain.

Tony’s throat clicks wordlessly. Sensing his distress, Steve brushes Tony’s mouth gently with his thumb and bumps their noses together with a playful nudge, offering up a small, private smile that’s all Tony’s.

This, Tony thinks, this is enough.

He reaches for Steve’s hands. “So do I,” he replies, and holds on tight. 

Chapter Text

Next time comes one week after their small hours rendezvous, when Tony finds himself back in the communal kitchen drinking fresh coffee, staring a burning hole in the back of Steve’s head.

He is trying to muster the same courage that had brought him into Steve’s arms that night, but in the broad, bright light of day, taking those steps into the living room where Steve is sitting on the sofa, blissfully unaware of Tony’s presence, feels like an insurmountable challenge. Doubly so given that Steve is probably well aware of his standing there and isn’t doing anything about it. Tony tells himself that doesn’t smart, but his ability to lie to himself seems to be flaking.

It’s not like he wanted to wait this long to talk to Steve. Touch him. Kiss him, even, if that was still on the table. No one could experience getting kissed like that and then pretend to hold any interest in life past doing that and only that, forever. But work had come calling the morning after Steve had thrown Tony’s whole world off its carefully calibrated axis and then ever-so-sweetly put him to bed—alone, and no Tony is absolutely not still fuming about that—and then it kept calling, to the point that Tony is amazed he’s managed to get any sleep this past week between workshop sprees, board meetings, and the Avengers PR rigmarole.

Their last battle had brought down one of Dr. Strange’s colorful enemies, along with an entire wing of a children’s hospital. It had been vacated for construction at the time—Tony wouldn’t have let them get anywhere near it had it been occupied—but a lack of casualties doesn’t negate the fact they destroyed part of a children’s hospital.

Tony takes a long drink of black, bitter coffee, the perfect remedy for post-three hour long meeting with Pepper and the hospital board-brain. He sighs. Steve is sitting right there and still Tony can’t muster himself to take the dozen steps into the living room and plant himself in the man’s lap. He can do that, can’t he? Or did the week of almost total radio silence put a kibosh on the whole Steve-and-Tony thing?

Something in Tony’s chest twists itself into a brutal knot. It might be his heart.

He sets his mug (World’s Best Mom in sparkly gold letters against white ceramic—another one of Natasha's inspired birthday gifts) on the island counter and sighs. Again. The marble under his hands is cool to the touch, now, he notices, not warm like he remembers. Tony has to remind himself that it had been warm because he’d been sitting on it long enough for it to leech his body heat, what little of it hadn’t been going into Steve.

Tony flushes as he stares at the back of Steve’s head, remembering the feeling of the man’s big, hot hands palming the undersides of Tony’s thighs as he’d kissed him senseless. Tony hasn’t had a lot of time to sleep this past week, let alone jerk off, but that hasn’t stopped him from replaying the events of that night in his head like projector footage behind his eyeballs. He’s only human, after all, and that material is solid gold. They flicker and catch, snapshots of images and feelings, even now: the chesty sound Steve made when Tony stuck his hands under his shirt to grasp at warm skin; the filthy swirl of Steve’s tongue against his; the long, thick press of Steve’s dick against Tony’s when their hips met the first time and the way Steve had kept Tony there, one hand on his hip and one on the back of his neck so Tony could feel how hard Steve was, how ready, right there in the kitchen at half past three o’ clock in the morning.

But then he’d put Tony to bed and left. So maybe Tony isn’t the only one to blame for his current inability to step foot in the living room. Maybe, if Steve had stayed that night, and if they’d talked the morning after, Tony would know where they stood now. Which would be great, because not only does Tony miss his best friend-turned-maybe-lover worse than anything, he really needs to ask Steve a favor.

“Clint, have you seen my watch?”

Speak of the devil.

Tony startles and turns on his heel with a gasp to watch as Steve—glorious, beautiful, stunning, distracted, nervous, harried, perfect Steve—walks through the main doorway into the kitchen and stops dead in his tracks the moment he lays eyes on Tony, whose thoughts are spinning out at the sight of him. Steve’s presence alone is enough to derail him, but Steve dressed in perfectly tailored slim-fit chinos, a black jacket, and what Tony suspects is nothing more than a plain black T-shirt is icing on a large cake Tony desperately wants to devour.

Steve’s bright red face is projecting what must be a similar train of thought, because Clint laughs at them from his place on the couch, jarring them from whatever trance they got locked into when Steve walked into the room and oh god Clint was the one on the couch the whole time.

Tony absolutely does not let out an embarrassed little squeak at that realization.

“Think I saw it on the counter by the coffeemaker, Cap.”

Tony remembers seeing Steve’s watch there when he’d poured his coffee. Had Steve—?

“Did you make coffee?” Tony doesn’t wheeze, per se, but it’s a near thing.

“I made you coffee,” Steve replies, quietly. Clint’s still in the living room, bitching about picking up after everyone else even though he’s got actual kids to deal with, but Tony doesn’t really have the capacity to talk to or think about Clint right now. He notices Steve’s hand is hanging in the air between them, trying to bridge the gap, but he’s too far away. Steve notices Tony noticing.

“Come with me?” he whispers, turning that hand over so his palm is facing the ceiling. His eyes are pleading, happy, nervous, like he’s missed Tony but also doesn’t know where they stand.

Tony doesn’t have to think twice. He reaches out and takes Steve’s hand. Something in him melts to see the nervousness fall from Steve’s eyes; an easy happiness taking its place the moment skin meets skin.

It’s a short walk from the kitchen to the nearest empty room, which just so happens to be a half-bathroom down the hall, because apparently they can’t have normal conversations like normal adults in normal places. They’re fucking superheroes, Tony chides himself as Steve guides him through the doorway with a hand on the small of his back—nothing about them is normal.

He turns around as the door clicks shut. Steve stands there with a hand on the knob, staring at it like it holds all the answers to every question he could ever hope to ask. His jaw is tight; for all that Steve looks impeccably put together right now (Tony has to stop his eyes from repeatedly dropping to look at Steve’s ass in those slacks), his energy is all over the place. Not nervous, not anymore, but…wary. Gun-shy. If it were anyone other than Steve Rogers, Tony would call that full-body tension fear.

It’s the easiest thing Tony’s ever done, walking the six steps across the bathroom floor and placing a hand over Steve’s on the doorknob.

When their eyes meet, the last week apart may as well have been a minute.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Tony didn’t install security cameras in the bathrooms, so he won’t be able to rewind the footage to make sense of how he went from standing flat on his feet in front of Steve to being pressed back and up against the door having the air siphoned from his lungs, but he’s not about to lodge a complaint. He just hooks his legs around Steve’s waist and holds on for dear life while Steve fills him in on everything he’s been missing this past week while caught up with meetings and profit statements and schematics and event planning and now his brain is oozing out of his ears because Steve’s cupping his ass with both hands and is all but fucking Tony’s mouth with his tongue and who the hell needs a profitable global business when there’s this: heat and pleasure and joy, more feeling than Tony knows what to do with.

It spills over him like sunlight, that feeling—not just Steve’s body, but the way Steve’s breath trembles against Tony’s lips every time he pulls back for air. The way his strength never wavers, holding Tony up against the door. The way he looks at Tony, taking in the sight of him like a starving man at a buffet; the way he settles the more Tony touches him, making little gasping noises when Tony runs his fingers through his hair and whining when he scratches him gently behind the ears. Tony takes it all in, already breathless at the thought of what other sounds he can pull from Steve.

Before long, the frantic kissing ebbs into something more like their first: Steve lowers Tony to stand and cradles his jaw in his hands, nudging their noses together before brushing one gentle kiss against Tony’s lips after another. Slick and wet and hurried gives way to softer, slower, warmer; both of them are panting but neither he nor Steve seem to be able to stop kissing long enough to let air through. It’s too early to say things like I’d breathe for you if I could, Tony thinks, leaning his forehead against Steve’s, but it wouldn’t be the first time the thought has crossed his mind.

Steve is rubbing his thumbs against Tony’s cheeks, eyes closed, but Tony can’t look away. He just went a whole week without this face and now he’s going to look his fill. He reaches under Steve’s jacket and rubs his back, gentling him closer until they’re flush against each other from chest to thigh.

“I missed you,” Steve whispers, warm breath ghosting over Tony’s tingling lips. Before Tony can take in the blush he knows is there, Steve buries his face against Tony’s neck and hugs him closer still. “God, I missed you so much.”

They’ve not seen each other for weeks at a time—months, in some cases. But now that this switch has apparently been flipped, time feels precious. The ache that had burrowed under his skin has gone, pushed out by Steve’s touch; Tony wraps an arm around Steve’s neck and the other around his broad shoulders and holds him for the sake of holding him, nuzzling the fine hairs near his nape until Steve shudders.

“Where did you go?”

“Not far,” Tony replies. Steve grunts, pulling back. “Too far—” Steve kisses the words out of his mouth as Tony says them, one hand splayed across Tony’s cheek to hold him there. It’s like burning, this—wild and instantaneous, a hot glow flaring in the fraction of an inch of space between their bodies. He wants to tear off their clothes and live skin-to-skin with this man, fuck him and taste him and know him and—

“I thought…I was worried…” Steve’s eyes are downcast, his expression unbearably fragile. Steve ‘I Make Up Inspirational Speeches on the Fly’ Rogers, speechless because of a hurt Tony inflicted, is more than Tony can handle. He kisses Steve, this time. It’s the least he can do.

“The rest of our lives intervened,” Tony explains, touching him—his shoulders, arms, hips—gently all the while: “it has a bad habit of doing that, even before this started.” He gestures between them with a lazy finger, vaguely signifying us. We. Steve nods, but he doesn’t seem convinced.

Tony takes that same finger and lifts Steve’s chin with it. “I’m sorry,” he says heavily, staring straight into Steve’s wide, unblinking eyes. “I owe you a week’s worth of make outs and dates. If you’ll still have me.”

“Tony,” Steve sighs, tension draining from him like water. Tony brushes a hand down the front of his chest—Steve catches it right over his sternum and presses it there. “Is there anything about this, about that night, that makes you think I don’t still want you? That I don’t always want you?”

Steve looks at him then, and Tony is thrust back to that night in the kitchen, the moment when Steve looked Tony in the eye and just…knew. Knew exactly what Tony was thinking, what he wanted, what they both wanted but didn’t have the courage to articulate—it’s as heady an experience now as it was then, being on the receiving end of that look from Steve Rogers.

Tony’s mouth is conspicuously dry.

“Honestly?” he says, looking away from Steve’s eyes to stare at their joined hands, where it’s safe, “I mostly keep swinging between ‘pinch me I’m dreaming’ and ‘don’t wake me up if I am.’ And you can’t really blame me—I spent years wanting that night, this, now, to happen, and suddenly it’s all in front of me and I…I’m reckless, Steve.” These words have been building up and building up for a week, and they’re so easy to say now—Tony can’t stop them from spilling out. He holds onto Steve for dear life, hoping for a net. “I’m reckless with myself, my things, my words, but, god, Steve, the thought of being reckless with you? It keeps me awake at night, and not in the fun way.

“I know we both said we meant it, but you have to understand, Steve: I really, really mean it. Yeah, life intervened this past week, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t partly my fault for hiding, because I was terrified I’d see you again and find out it was all just a…a fluke. It was perfect, and I got it in my head that it was better to have one night of perfect than ask for more than you were prepared to give.”

The air in the bathroom is still. Tony realizes then that Steve is literally holding his breath—he can feel the lack of movement through his hands resting on that broad chest. When Steve remains silent after a few moments, Tony knows he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. The man is so goddamn smart, and it drives Tony up the fucking wall.

Well, he thinks, in for a penny…

“You’re it for me, Steve,” Tony whispers, trying to preserve that perfect stillness, “and that’s what scares me.”

It’s the longest three point six eight four seconds of Tony’s life, from the moment he stops talking to the moment Steve releases the breath he’s been holding since he started. Then, like a man trying to gentle a scared animal out of hiding, Steve lifts his hand, telegraphing the course it’s going to take with the slowest flickers of his fingers. Tony stands stock-still and waits, air trapped in his throat, for that hand to find its place under his jaw.

Steve rests his thumb against the end point of Tony’s beard and smiles.

“Three things,” he says matter-of-factly as he moves in closer. “First: I’m going to kiss you. Second: I’m going to tell you you’re an idiot who riled himself up for no reason. And third: I’m going to tell you I love you too.”

Tony’s stomach and heart rate and knees drop, but Steve is right there ready to catch him with both hands. They burn where they’re pressed against Tony’s back, which arches away from the door as Steve kisses him so thoroughly Tony wonders if the man has suddenly decided to take up cartography.

“God, the noises you make,” he rumbles into Tony’s mouth. If he is making noises, Tony’s too busy having a nuclear brain meltdown to notice, let alone care. Steve kisses the same way he plans an attack: deliberately, precisely, patiently; he knows when to grab Tony by the back of the neck and hold him there and when to let him go, when to rasp his tongue hot and heavy against Tony’s and when to give him the long, steady pressure of both lips against his until they’re both gasping for air.

Everything is calculated with Tony’s pleasure in mind. There’s not going to be much more of this he can take.

The doorknob jamming against Tony’s hip kicks him back, panting, into reality. “What was the second thing?” he whines.

Steve grumbles something that sounds vaguely like don’t remember, don’t care before surging forward to press Tony against the door and oh good, that’s Steve’s hand on his ass, palming the curve and digging his fingers into the inseam hard enough that Tony can’t help but shudder and melt into them.

It’s like Steve knows where to find and how to switch on every last one of Tony’s spots to get him buzzing like a live wire. “Steve,” he keens, grabbing and tugging at the man’s jacket with fumbling hands until it finally comes off enough to hang from Steve’s wrist. He knows they need to talk more, like adults, but the lid has come off the pot and they’re both boiling over. Tony can’t remember the last time he felt this goddamn needy, like Steve is simultaneously the question and the answer to his suffering.

“You’re an idiot, Tony Stark.” Steve presses the words into the skin under Tony’s ear before latching his mouth to that spot and sucking so hard Tony’s knees buckle. The hand on his ass clenches, holds, and lifts, suspending Tony off the ground for Steve’s pleasure as he bites and sucks the base of Tony’s fluttering throat a livid purple. The brand of him against the inside of Tony’s thigh is a heavy, constant reminder that this is real, this is happening, and it’s just the beginning. “Next time you feel like going into a tailspin over whether or not I feel the same way, I want you to remember this,” Steve says, moving his fingers to massage the sensitive skin of Tony’s perineum through his jeans until Tony’s eyes are rolling up into his head where stars live.

Steve hitches him up one-handed to straddle his thigh and rolls his hips forward with the kind of single-minded resolve Steve usually reserves for the battlefield. Now he’s using it to grind his erection against Tony’s through their clothes and drive him straight from aroused to completely fucking gone, and fuck if it’s not the hottest thing that’s happened to Tony in his entire life. Between the emotional outpouring and the manhandling and the feel of Steve’s massive length through those goddamn chinos, Tony’s about fifteen, maybe twenty seconds away from coming in his jeans like a teenager, and not a single part of him gives a shit.

“Fuck, fuck, fuuuck,” he groans, breath hitching in his throat with every pointed thrust of Steve’s hips. Steve presses a sinful kiss to his slack lips with a chuckle.

“I was planning on holding out a little longer and make love to you properly, but you had to play keep away for a whole week,” he says with a hard thrust that rattles the door. Those chinos aren’t exactly dense, and Steve, apparently, decided against underwear today—even through his jeans Tony can feel the hot swell of the head of Steve’s dick as it bumps and drags against the length of his. Tony muffles a cry against the black cotton of Steve’s T-shirt, biting down and relishing the incredible, gut-churning pleasure that is Steve stroking and grinding against Tony’s throbbing cock while wrecking suggestive havoc on Tony’s ass with his nimble fingers. There are at least eight girthy inches of heart-stopping promise cleverly concealed in those godforsaken chinos, and Tony wants it so bad he’d be begging for it if he could catch his breath. And Steve, who stammers and blushes so pretty when he’s being earnest and kind and thoughtful, keeps talking—

“…watching you walk around in those sweatpants like it was nothing, or seeing you dart out of any room I walked into while wearing one of your fancy suits—God, Tony, the number of times I wanted to do this, just hold you down and make you take it…”

Tony scrambles for a handhold, digging his fingers into the back of Steve’s neck and hanging on like a limpet while Steve rolls and bounces him slightly on his thigh and pulls him up hard against his dick every now and then, clutching his ass so firmly Tony knows he’ll have ten individual bruises in the shape of Steve’s fingertips there for a week. And Steve is right there, breathing heavy, wet and gasping and grunting against Tony’s tender mouth, their foreheads stuck together like magnets.

“Feel so good…Tony…”

“Oh fuck, Steve, oh, god…”

Steve darts forward to nip and lick at Tony’s lips and groans before switching the rhythm of his hips to a slow, hard, purposeful grind that makes Tony’s whole body flush hot and his skin go tight. Someone is moaning like they’re dying, and Tony’s pretty sure it’s him. He grasps frantically at cloth and skin, takes and takes and takes everything Steve gives him, and still he feels starved and aching and desperate for more.

But it’s so, so much. He’s not even touching the floor anymore. Tony hitches his hips back and forth against Steve’s grasp, faster and faster still, shamelessly whimpering and writhing his way to a whiteout. At this point he’s so gone on the electric, throbbing pleasure of it all he can’t even see.

“Love you, Tony. I love you. Come for me, now, want to watch you…”

Ohgodohgodohgodohgod. Steve is everywhere at once, holding him and pinning him and kissing him until Tony doesn’t know which end is up or who is who. He moans brokenly into Steve’s hot, greedy mouth as he comes, shuddering, in his pants, warm wetness soothing the aching length of his cock. Later he’ll have the good sense to feel some degree of shame, but in the moment there’s nothing for Tony to think about past the heat of Steve all up and down his front and between his legs and against his ass. He feels charged, tingling head to toe like a cable throwing off sparks; it’s impossible to even open his eyes long enough to watch Steve come, too, but he feels the damp spread against the front of his ruined jeans and the soft, choked-off noise Steve presses against his mouth like a prayer.

“Yes, Steve,” Tony gasps, burying his fingers in sweaty blond hair as Steve trembles bodily, the thick muscles in his thigh quivering between Tony’s useless legs, “yes, yes, yes…”

He keeps babbling nonsense words of praise as they both come down, desperately breathing each other’s air in deep gulps, smiles spreading until they’re giggling and kissing nothing but teeth. For a while they do just that, stroking faces and lips with nerveless fingers, kissing between shuddering gasps; the air is humid and smells like sweat and come, Tony is still being held up against the door, and Steve’s jacket is fully off. They’re messy and ridiculous and together.

“Now do you believe me?” Steve asks in a husky rumble once he’s caught his breath. Tony only has a moment to appreciate the fact that he managed to knock the wind out of Steve Rogers before he whips his head back to glare at the man’s smug face.

“Hey!”

Steve’s laughter is precious and right now Tony hates him a little bit for it. But between the endorphin rush and the whole love thing and just having Steve in his arms like this again, it’s hard to complain about the sting for long.

“I’m just saying,” Steve giggles, leaning forward to press a too-sweet kiss to the corner of Tony’s mouth, “if you’d believed me when I said it the first time, we could have done this a week ago.”

“What, dry-hump in a bathroom like teenagers playing Seven Minutes in Heaven on a dare?”

“Be together.”

Tony’s tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth, cutting off his inhale and subsequent response. Steve stares as his warm hands migrate upward; so much has happened in the span of ten minutes, it’s dizzying. Tony wouldn’t be surprised if Steve is the only reason he’s still upright.

“From here on out, then?” he replies hesitantly. Steve’s grin is all the answer he needs. Tony steals a kiss off that smile because he’s allowed to test these new waters, damn it. They’ve wasted enough time as it is. He slips off Steve’s leg with a grunt. “Okay, gross,” he mutters, shifting awkwardly in his damp jeans. Steve laughs.

“Worth it.”

“Yeah, let me know how you feel in twenty minutes when it starts getting crusty.” Grousing helps Tony ignore the discomfort-slash-embarrassment of having come in his pants and the fact that he still has yet to talk to Steve about the thing. At least Steve looks as rumpled as Tony feels, hair ruined and clothes disheveled, patchy with sweat and twisted in all the wrong directions and stained in some pretty obvious places.

He’s never looked more beautiful.

“I meant to ask,” Steve says, sweeping Tony’s hair back from his forehead with an affectionate smile (and how, how did Tony miss that look for so long? How could he have mistaken it for anything else?), “why were you staring holes in the back of Clint’s head when I walked in?”

“I was looking for you,” Tony grumbles. He tells himself he doesn’t lean, cat-like, into Steve’s touch, but it’s a near thing. “Finally pulled my head out of my ass long enough to realize I needed to actually talk to you if I wanted us to continue what we started in the kitchen that night.” Tony bites his lip and swallows past the ball of nerves lodged in his throat. “And I wanted to take you up on your offer.”

Steve makes a small, noncommittal sound of interest as he rakes his fingers through Tony’s hair. “What offer?”

Tony groans. “You don’t remember?”

“I was a little distracted.”

“…Okay, that’s fair.”

Steve tips Tony’s head back to look at him directly. Have Steve’s eyes always been this blue, this atoll-deep? A man could drown in those eyes if he’s not careful. Tony would go willingly.

“What?”

There’s nothing stopping him from slowly pushing his hands under the front of Steve’s now-untucked T-shirt to stroke the hard plane of his abs. Tony preens to see Steve’s eyes flutter dazedly at the contact.

“I have to go to another event tonight,” he says. “Wanna dress up? Be my date? Watch my back?” This is something he can do now—he can touch Steve, take him out, kiss him, be with him. Tony isn’t about to cry out of sheer happiness, but he’s not not about to, either.

Steve lights up brighter than the sun.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

***

This? This part’s easy.

This is the thing Tony was literally born to do (according to Howard). Swanning into an outrageously festooned midtown ballroom right into a swarm of glitterati—whose names he knows, whose husbands and wives and children he asks after, but who don’t love him past the number of zeroes he can add to a check—is old hat. He could do it in his sleep, backwards.

The tux he chose for the occasion is simple, classic, no-fuss, but the tie is custom: a gift from Steve he’s never worn before tonight. He’s looked at it hundreds of times, hanging among the countless many in his closet, but it was too special to wear out for just any event—rich, red silk spotted with tiny gold Iron Man faceplates, each with eyes embroidered a bright, burning blue. He loves it, and he loves it even more for the fact that Steve put it on him earlier tonight, looping the ends over each other and tightening the knot just so while kissing Tony stupid between giddy smiles.

Tony fingers the end of it absentmindedly as he scouts the room for the man in question. There are hundreds of people milling about, holding fine crystal champagne flutes like college sophomores at a frat party, talking out their asses about nothing, and Steve is nowhere in sight. Tony huffs as he leans back against the bar. Here he was, hoping to whisk his new—oh god it’s too early to put a name to it, back away now back away fast—person into some dark corner before his speech, maybe ravish him a little bit for luck, but instead Tony’s left scanning the sea of faces, listless and alone.

He tries to calm himself by fiddling with his tie, but this thing with Steve is so painfully new, it’s a short drop from blissfully happy to unbearably anxious. Only a week ago they were platonic friends (and co-leaders, and partners), unvoiced longtime feelings notwithstanding, and now Tony has visceral memories of Steve saying I love you and nearly dry-humping him through a door that are only a few hours old. He’s allowed to feel little unsteady.

Fifteen minutes to places, Tony thinks with a glance at his watch—a one-of-a-kind Roger Dubuis he only takes out when he’s feeling particularly exposed. Vulnerable. Its parts and pieces tick and move together in perfect synchrony, twin tourbillons keeping to the rhythm of 4:4 time. Skeletonized, they call this design, because among the many intricate moving pieces one can see straight through to the beating heart of the thing.

And isn’t that just fitting.

Tony drops his sleeve and leaves the bar empty handed. He’d meant to order a scotch, but he’s too preoccupied wondering where Steve’s gone to bother going back for it. It’s not important, anyways. Given the choice between Steve and alcohol, Tony would choose Steve every time.

Walking in deep shadow, Tony slowly works his way toward the front of the ballroom where a lectern has been brought out with a single microphone attached, jutting out insistently into space. The silk pennant on the front bears the name of the foundation Tony is about to plug, but the words seem to blur the closer he gets. From the dark outskirts of the busy ballroom, he watches the crowd move with and against itself—toward the food, toward the bar, toward and away from each other—and wonders, not for the first time, why he bothers coming to these events at all. No one has spoken more than a few sentences to him all night; he might as well be a particularly expensive window dressing.

Coupled with the fact that Tony would much rather be at home in the tower with Steve, and his nerves surrounding recent developments with said supersoldier, it’s any wonder that he’s still willing to go on that stage and stump for a charity that definitely spent more money on this event than on—Tony peers more closely at the name of the foundation on the pennant—orphans and orphanages.

Something sours in Tony’s stomach.

“JARVIS,” he says, sotto voce.

“Sir?” JARVIS’s smooth voice appears in his nondescript earpiece like clockwork.

“Send a note to Pepper to look into this charity tomorrow—my gut tells me someone on the board is skimming off the top. If they are, I’d like us to do something about it.”

“The message is away, sir.”

Tony plucks a flute of bubbly off a passing tray and slips a few crumpled hundred-dollar bills, unnoticed, into the waiter’s apron as he walks by. “Thanks, J.”

“Is there anything else you require?”

At the question, Tony pauses with hand on his tie, looking out from the shadows at the milling crowd. The string music is posh and lively; everyone is dressed to the nines and they all hate each other. Everything glitters and everything shines, concealing the horrific amount of bullshit roiling just below the surface.

Steve, of course, is nowhere to be seen. I’ll watch out for you, he said.

“Any chance you’ve got eyes on Cap?”

A pause as JARVIS scans the building. Tony bites a nail and taps his foot nervously, out of sync with the music.

“Captain Rogers is on the second floor, northwest balcony.”

Tony is gone before JARVIS can remind him that it’s ten minutes to speech-time. He bolts for the stairs—lushly carpeted for the evening in dark blue, the color of Steve’s eyes on a rainy day—and takes them two at a time, breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth the whole way up. It pulls him like a hook on the end of a line, this need—to see Steve, to feel him, to know that it wasn’t all a dream. It pulls and pulls until Tony is loping down the exposed corridor overlooking the ballroom below, glancing at every balcony doorway en route just in case.

How he’s expected to function now that Steve is supposedly his, Tony has no idea; every desire he’s ever had has suddenly burst forth at once. Some of them are so goddamn domestic, too. But that’s the thing with Steve—what they’ve built over the years, what they’ve been to each other and what they’ve become, it’s all so fucking natural. Easy. Being with Steve feels like coming home. The superheroics are more than enough to satisfy their respective need for high-octane thrills; this need, now, here, is far simpler, and far easier to satisfy. He wants to see Steve, so he’s going to go see Steve. If it’s cheesy and saccharine and cliché, fuck it—they’ve earned the right to be.

Just as JARVIS reported, Tony finds the man in question standing outside on the northwest balcony, a stubby glass of something amber in one hand, the other resting on the sleek steel railing in front of him. Steve looks resplendent in the New York glow, dressed to the nines, his hair beaming golden in the city lights and against the flat blue-black sky. He’s smiling, looking off to the side, and Tony is forcefully reminded of the fact that just because something feels natural and easy doesn’t mean that seeing Steve Rogers in a tux and knowing he’s going to peel those gorgeous clothes off that stunning figure later isn’t a holy fucking shit kind of moment.

Tony steps toward the open glass doors, ready to announce his arrival. The happy-swooping feeling of finding and seeing Steve short circuits when Tony gets close enough to take in the whole of the scene and realizes someone else out there with him.

“Why do you say that?”

Steve isn’t alone. He’s not alone, and he’s talking to someone.

“I just think it’s interesting,” a woman says blithely, “a man like you coming to an event like this, alone.”

Tony doesn’t know this woman. Going by the wary skepticism in his voice, neither does Steve. But unlike Tony, who (mostly) knows how to duck out of conversations he doesn’t want to have with people he doesn’t like (last week’s interaction with Justin Hammer notwithstanding), Steve is polite to a fault. Tony listens from his hiding place behind the door (because this is who he is now, apparently) as Steve hums.

“I didn’t come alone, though,” he replies earnestly. There’s also the distinct tone of a man insulted, like Steve resents the idea of people thinking his coming here with Tony is anything less than a date.

It’s not enough to make Tony blush, but it’s a near thing.

“Friends don’t count, Steve.”

The words—carelessly indifferent as they are—pierce Tony like rebar. As his stomach sinks somewhere around the vicinity of his feet, the woman’s words circle round and round in his head like the gears in his watch: Friends. Friends don’t count. You don’t count.

It’s incredible, how shockingly little effort it takes for total strangers to unravel him, even after all this time. Even remembering what Steve said earlier, and last week: Love you. I love you, Tony. I mean it.

“This one does.”

Even as Steve's words fill Tony with an overwhelming, lung-squeezing surge of happiness, the woman's derisive, chiming laugh stings him right where it hurts; he has to set his glass on the floor because his hand is starting to shake. “I thought Tony Stark didn’t go in for friends.”

It kills him that even if he has no idea who this woman is, it doesn’t change the fact that she’s right. Mostly. Kind of. To be fair, up until very recently Tony Stark-plus-friends was a zero-sum equation—Rhodey and Pepper and Happy being preciously rare exceptions to the rule. Tony had had to build friends for himself before any of them entered the picture. Now things are different. Now, he has the Avengers. More importantly, he has Steve. Has him in every way he’s ever wanted him, and they’ve barely just begun. And Steve doesn’t just want Tony—he wants others to know he has him.

So why does hearing this woman—this stranger—talk to Steve about him make it all seem so fleeting?

“Careful, Steve,” she coos, “keep talking like that and people will start to suspect something’s going on between you two.”

Tony doesn’t need to see them to know that the woman’s hand is currently working its way up Steve’s arm from his wrist; he can hear it in the way Steve makes a point of clearing his throat, a laugh catching the tail end of it, and the whisper of hard soles chafing against concrete as he takes two steps back. Even when discouraging someone’s unwanted advances, Steve is the consummate gentleman.

He’d swoon if he had oxygen to spare. As it is, Tony struggles for breath as he waits for Steve’s response.

“Funny you should say that."

Even Tony, with his unenhanced ears, can pick up on the scandalized gasp that escapes her when Steve says it.

“You…are you…?”

“I am,” Steve replies. Tony can hear him grinning. Is that even possible? Should they have discussed this first? And why the hell is his first instinct to go out there and blow Steve on the balcony right this second? Just the thought gives him tunnel vision (and a semi).

Then, a crackle in Tony’s ear: “Sir—”

“And you’re—”

“We are.”

Tony has heard and seen Steve speak in front of angry mobs. Politicians. Royalty. Children. Intergalactic super-beings. Hydra. Nick Fury. Not once has he ever heard words come out of Steve’s mouth so confidently and with so much conviction. He says we like it’s everything and nothing all at once—the simplest, most obvious answer to a question that didn’t even need to be asked. An absolute, indisputable fact.

I mean it.

“Sir. Your presence is requested downstairs.” JARVIS, however, sounds downright peeved. “Opening remarks are scheduled to begin momentarily.”

“If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” and oh, Tony could blow Steve and kiss him on the spot. Ma’am indeed—the lady’s probably Tony’s age and here’s Steve, ma’am-ing her.

God, he loves this man. Loves him so much it pushes out anything that isn’t this effervescent feeling, like flying but better. He loves Steve’s misplaced sense of optimism and the way he can’t stomach zombie movies; loves his discordant collection of grandpa flannels and form-fitting dark wash jeans; loves his inability to back down and his ability to keep others from falling; loves his bone-dry sense of humor and his foul mouth and his sweet, soft, tender heart. 

And yeah, maybe Tony’s been at a loss for friends most of his life. Maybe this thing with Steve got off to a bumpy start because of his profound self-esteem issues. Maybe this will all blow up in their faces. But he loves Steve Rogers, and that has been and always will be the truth.

The woman is bleating like a sheep, something about the press and approval ratings and what about the children. Steve’s footsteps, meanwhile, are coming closer, and the only thing concealing Tony at the moment is a literal glass door. He picks up his champagne glass with a silent curse. Run away now, he tells himself—save face and find Steve after the speech. He’ll pretend he doesn’t know about this little conversation on the balcony, that Steve didn’t admit to being in a relationship with Tony Stark like it’s just another day that ends in a Y.

But before Tony can scamper off, Steve steps back into the hall and pivots crisply on his heel to face him. Tony gawps, wordless, as Steve looks him up and down through the pristine glass with a burning look and a knowing smile that screams I knew you were there the whole time, you nerd, as much as any smile could. It dissolves something in Tony that his nerves had calcified, something elemental; he feels lighter in its absence.

Let her talk, then. That look, this man, belongs to him.

“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere else right now?” Steve asks, stepping around the edge of the door. Seeing him reach a hand out, Tony turns his just so to allow their fingers to connect and weave together. Easy. They walk away hand-in-hand down the hall toward the staircase at their own pace. It feels like they’ve been doing this forever.

“I’ve got a few minutes to spare,” Tony replies, ignoring JARVIS’s indignant beeping. “Have a good talk with Lady Capulet back there?”

Steve squeezes his hand. “I’m sure she’ll get some decent mileage out of the gossip once she picks her jaw up off the floor.”

His laughter comes out in a sharp burst, anxiety soothed away by Steve’s presence and the delightfulness of his wicked, whip-smart sense of humor. Tony muffles his giggles against the man’s shoulder as they turn and start walking down the stairs. Steve keeps him steady all the while, never allowing him to fall out of step, never letting his grip falter. Balanced. Safe. Secure.

“You’re the worst,” Tony wheezes. When he looks up, Steve is grinning down at him, skin and hair and eyes beautifully aglow in the light of the chandeliers. He looks like something out of an angel’s wet dream, or maybe a Renaissance painting, or a particularly stunning line of code. 

“Ah, you love me,” Steve teases. As they reach the bottom of the stairs, Tony turns toward him again and smiles, bright and brazen. Steve turns and looks a little stunned at what he sees written there on Tony's face.

“That I do,” Tony says, easy as anything, as breathing, trusts Steve to keep him balanced and leans forward.

The moment their lips touch, Steve gasps like Tony did the first time they did this, back at the tower in the middle of the night. It starts soft and gentle; a careful touch that sends warmth through him until he feels lit from within. Then, stealing the advantage, Tony hauls Steve in with a firm hand against the small of his back and kisses him, deep and dirty—a short, spit-slick preview of what’s to come. Tony angles his head and delves in to lick the bourbon off Steve’s pliant tongue, drawing soft noises from him while around them people gasp loudly in shock like poppers at a New Year’s Eve party.

The ballroom quickly devolves into a noisy buzz of stunned excitement. There’s no press here per Tony’s “request” (i.e. Pepper’s contractual demands), but that doesn’t stop the guests from frantically reaching into pockets and purses to retrieve their phones and take pictures.

He’ll deal with stocks and the PR fallout (and Pepper’s wrath) tomorrow. Right now all that matters is the way Steve whimpers when Tony nibbles and tugs at his bottom lip and keens every so quietly when he swipes the tip of his tongue suggestively against that warm pink flesh, leaving it shiny and kiss-swollen for the world to see. When Tony gently pulls away, he can’t help but chuckle: Steve’s expression, dazed and slack and flushed past the collar of his shirt, is practically a neon sign that says Tony Stark Was Here (and Steve Rogers Loved Every Second of It).

It’s positively indecent, which is a good look on him.

“I have to go up there and give a speech,” Tony says slowly. Judging by the way Steve’s mouth is just kind of moving silently and his eyes have that hooded, glazed look of someone whose thoughts have devolved into nothing but fuck me, his brain is still in the process of rebooting. Because of the kiss? Because Tony admitted he loves him back? Who knows. That’s for Future Tony and Future Steve to discuss. Right now, there’s a beautiful, dumbstruck man with the bluest eyes staring at Tony like he hung the sun, the moon, the stars, and possibly the International Space Station—and that’s not an opportunity he intends to waste.

Not now, not ever again.

Adjusting the loosened knot of Steve’s tie with confident, nimble fingers, Tony continues: “After I’m done, we’re gonna get in my car and drive home, and then I’m going to strip you down, suck you off, and ride you through the mattress.”

Not for the last time, Tony can’t believe how he managed to think (let alone for so long) that this love was one-sided. Watching Steve’s eyelashes flutter and his Adam’s apple jump, feeling the restlessness of him under his hand, remembering the desperate way he’d shoved Tony up against the bathroom door earlier just to begin making up for lost time—it’s like looking through a window at his own heart. Both of them: the blue and the red.

Biting his bottom lip, Steve runs a hand down the front of Tony’s tie, obviously enjoying being able to touch him like this, to see his gift displayed above the arc reactor like a visible claim. Already Tony is imagining all the ways he can get Steve to look like that in public as often as humanly (or superhumanly) possible. He will wear every dorky tie Steve buys him, if that’s what it takes; he will sport hickies and tattoo the shield on his forehead. He’ll put on a charm bracelet, carry photos in his wallet, put a ring on it—anything, anything, to see the expression Steve’s currently wearing, now that the rush of pleasure from Tony’s kiss is simmering below the surface of everything: giddy, predatory, hungry, horny, lovestruck, and a little bit stupid with happiness. The mirror image of Tony’s, if he knows himself at all.

And Tony knows Steve so well already, the thought of knowing even more—how he touches, how he fucks, and god, how he loves—is enough to make Tony lightheaded.

It feels easy. It feels good.

“Promise?” Steve asks, flushed and breathless.

Tony smiles and gives him one more lingering kiss, promising more with touch than words could ever hope to because now, at last, he can.