avengers fic - situation normal: all fucked up (steve/tony, nc-17) [2/3]
For summary, author's notes, etc, please see Part One.
Tony gets home later than he means to, mostly because Rhodey’s got this impossible tendency to stay in hotels when he visits, and Tony spends too long trying to talk him out of it. He fails, because Rhodey never gives in on anything unless he’s secretly wanted to the whole time, and when he gets inside the house is quiet, deserted, except for a pajama-clad Pepper working on a laptop at the kitchen table.
“Uh, hi,” Tony says, surprised. “I thought you were in--no, I know you were in California, why are you not in California? It’s hard enough adjusting to the fact that I’m not the only jet-setter around anymore, the least you could do is be in L.A. when I think you’re there. I mean seriously, just as a courtesy, that seems fair, right?”
“I was in L.A.,” Pepper says. “Now I’m not. Please consider yourself all caught up.”
“Jesus,” says Tony. “That’s a scary voice, what happened? Did the fucking licensing thing not go through again because I tried, okay, I really did, they swore to me that it was handled, and the whole thing is ridiculous anyway, that’s been patented Stark tech since, what, the late 90s? So--”
“It’s not a licensing problem,” Pepper says, and gives him a little bit of a smile. “I would’ve told you; thank you, as it happens, for taking the time to deal with that. It’s nice when you listen.”
“You keep saying that word, ‘listen,’” Tony says, waving a hand, and kicks a chair around to sit on backwards. “What’re you doing here, then? Is it my fault, because it’d definitely be better if it wasn’t my fault--”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’d just--I suppose you could say I’m beginning to understand your tendency to take unscheduled vacations. Not that I forgive you for making me deal with that all those times.”
“And thank god, because the surprise would probably--”
“Tony, don’t start. I just wanted a break, that’s all. But don’t you dare repeat that, because if I see one more article that says I look tired--”
“Ugh, yeah, sorry, I saw that thing in the Times.”
“L.A. or New York?” Pepper says, and sighs. “You’d think it wouldn’t get to me, after all the years I spent fielding your bad press, but that, and the sales figures--well, you know. And everything always takes a hit one way or the other whenever there’s an Avengers mess--no, Tony, don’t, it’s not you, it’s just...been a long couple of weeks, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, scrubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “There’s a lot of that going around. You could’ve told me you were in town, you know, come out with me and Rhodey. You should’ve said, or texted, you didn’t have to go waiting up for--”
“Oh, I wasn’t,” Pepper says, and her smile is real now for all she’s rolling her eyes. “You do know you’re not the only person who lives in this house, don’t you?”
“I--you--oh,” says Tony. He blinks, and Pepper flushes a little bit under his scrutiny. “Pepper, is this--oh my god, this is a cross-country booty call, I am appalled. No, wait, I take it back, I’m proud, I’m appalled and proud, I’m proud-palled--”
“Shut it, Stark,” Natasha says, coming in from the hallway. She’s wearing--holy shit, that’s a ratty old bathrobe, Natasha owns something that isn’t form-fitting or flattering, will wonders never cease--and her hair is kind of mussed, like she was sleeping. She walks right past him, puts her hands on Pepper’s shoulders. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Just trying to finish this up,” Pepper says, sounding guilty, and if Tony’s eyes widen, soften a little, at the way Natasha snatches the laptop out of her reach, at least neither one of them is looking at him.
“This is your vacation,” Natasha says, calm. “Va-ca-tion, and before you say it’s only for a couple days, I’d like to argue that it’s only for a couple days, so you might as well take advantage of it. Come back to bed. Work’ll still be here in the morning.”
“I know,” Pepper says, pulling a face, “that’s the whole problem.”
Natasha laughs, and her hands are threaded through Pepper’s hair, and Tony’s never thought about it before--how it must get to Pepper, the job, in ways it never got to him. It’s his name on the doors, on the building, on each and every product, on the stockticker, and he never once felt like he owed it anything. But Pepper doesn’t have that kind of fallback, and she also cares more, always has, about the actual business of it.
“Listen to the lady,” Tony says, smiling at her. “I’m still technically kind of your boss, right? So--”
They groan in unison, and Natasha flicks a piece of lint off Pepper’s shoulder; since it’s Natasha, it somehow manages to land right in Tony’s eye. He glares around his forced wink, but then Pepper laughs and leans forward to kiss him on the cheek, and it’s okay, it’s good, as she stands up to follow Nat back to her room.
“Oh, wait,” Natasha says at the door. “Tony, speaking of people who aren’t sleeping, I saw Cap in the gym on the way down here. Is he--”
“Steve’s here?” Tony demands, scrambling out of his chair so fast that he actually knocks it over. Then, backpedaling, he tries for nonchalant. “I mean--oh. Since when? I thought he was at HQ, huh, guess not, okay, I’ll just be going now.”
He doesn’t miss the knowing look Natasha gives him, or the one Pepper follows it up with, less knowing and more known, as fond an expression as he’s ever seen, tinged, just slightly, with sadness. He doesn’t stop, because they’ve got their thing and this is his, even if he’s got no idea what he’s going to say to Steve when he sees him. These are dangerous, uncharted waters for Tony--well, for anyone, probably--and he sticks his hands in his pockets as he slips into the gym to survey the damage.
It’s wrecked, the whole place. There’s a dent in one of the walls and a pile of free weights stacked on top of each other, like Steve had lifted them without a bar; his punching bag is slumped in the corner, beeping a sad little battery-death alert, and one of the chin-up bars is dangling, half-ripped from the wall. Steve’s hanging from the other one, hauling himself up and over it, and his shirt’s soaked through with sweat.
Tony sighs, because his alternative here is saying something he probably shouldn’t. “Hey.”
“Hi, Tony,” Steve says, not even looking around. “Sorry. I’ll put it all back when I’m done.”
“Not worried about that.” Tony leans against the wall, lets the door snick shut behind him. “You wanna maybe try out the whole ‘at ease, soldier,’ thing? I’m getting muscle cramps just looking at you.”
Steve huffs out something that’s less a sigh, more darkly irritated protest, but he drops down from the bar, raises his hands in the air. “There, okay? I’m fine.”
“I can see that,” Tony says. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No,” Steve says immediately. Then he winces, probably at the harshness of his tone, and adds, “I--sorry, thank you for asking, but no, I really don’t.”
“Okay,” says Tony, “you wanna fuck?”
It is, of course, the wrong thing to say. Tony knows this at once, even before it comes out of his mouth; he wants desperately to backpedal, wants it so desperately that he can’t figure out how. He’s left waiting for Steve to turn on him, to snap at him about a time and a place and god, how is it that he never quite manages to--
--and then Steve lifts his head, eyes dark, hungry, and breathes, “Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what I want.”
Tony opens his mouth and closes it again, completely still in the face of that admission. He looks at Steve, the honest want in his face, and is suddenly hyper-aware of his hands; he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say here, what he’s supposed to do. Normally this kind of thing is easy for him--the mathematics of human attraction aren’t any harder to work through than any other kind, provided enough background information--but this doesn’t fit any pattern, offers up a variable he isn’t sure how to parse.
“Did you want me to come over there, or do you want to come over here, or--” he says finally, and then Steve grabs him by the shoulders and all but throws him back against the wall, lifting him off the ground a little, tongue desperate and fast in his mouth.
The soles of Tony's sneakers skate against the floor, barely brushing it, and he's halfway hard already just from that; Steve's grip on his arms is tight, maybe even bruising, and it makes something twist hot in Tony's gut. For all they've fucked around--and god, they have, Steve's refractory period is wickedly short and Tony wants to show him everything, wants to have him every way he can--they haven't done this, not yet. Steve's all coiled strength, all the time, visible even when he's fully clothed; it's in the way he walks, the way he stretches, the way his shoulders roll when he tenses. It leaves Tony's mouth dry, the idea of what he can do, the fact that the hands on him can dent steel and smash brick, but Steve's always so careful, so restrained, no matter how much Tony tells him not to be.
This, though, this is new, the way Steve growls into his mouth and holds him like he's afraid Tony's going to go somewhere, like Tony even could, and Tony pushes off the ground as much as he can to grind his mouth into Steve's. He nips, hard, at Steve's lower lip and Steve pushes him into the wall with his whole body, presses them together so Tony can feel those abs through his t-shirt, and fuck, fuck, he can barely remember to breathe.
Steve pulls back, just with his mouth, just for a second, and Tony chases after his lips with a desperation that surprises even him. Steve kisses him again and again, swift and sharp, and Tony fists his hands in Steve's shirt just to get a little leverage.
"I want," he pants, between kisses, "I want you to, oh, fuck, I want you to fuck me, I want you to fuck me just like this, like you've never, like you can't stop, Steve, fuck--"
"Yeah," Steve says, "yeah, Tony, god, just," and he grinds forward, hips stutter-smooth, pressing Tony even further into the wall. He's hard against Tony's dick, through both their pants, and Tony thinks dizzily that he's had that inside him, that he's going to again--
"I gotta," he says, rolling a shoulder to get his arm free, slipping a little lower as Steve lets go, "I just, I have to," and he slides his hand into Steve's pants, wraps his fist around Steve's cock.
"Tony," Steve groans. His head dips forward, lands with a low thud against the wall. Tony tightens his fingers and Steve spasms, chokes, presses a sloppy open mouthed kiss into Tony's neck; he's panting for it already, blushing all the way down his neck, fingertips trembling where they're pressed into Tony's arm. Tony smiles and swallows a moan all at once.
"Gonna make you," he says, "you first, before you fuck me, wanna watch, I ever tell you that you come so gorgeous for me, Steve, Steve, yeah, that's it, c'mon, make that noise again, you want to, don't you?"
"I should," Steve says, and he stutters it, it trips out his mouth, syllables catching; Tony can't help the way he grinds forward on that, the way he soothes his whole hand down Steve's cock. "Should--wait--I want to--"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know you do, you can, you're gonna, all the way inside me, gonna be so good, I'll beg for it, I'll scream for it, you've got no idea, want you to--but this first, gimme this first, just a little more, c'mon, c'mon--"
"Goddamn it," Steve chokes out, and comes hard into Tony's hand, his whole body jerking.
"That's it," Tony says--gasps, really, because he's so hard he can't see straight, Steve's come dripping down his hand. "Yeah, that's it, there you go, breathe, it's okay, fuck, so good, I can't even--"
"Tony, you have to--to stop," Steve says, "stop talking, I can't," and he shudders again, arches his back, fingers flexing.
"Okay," Tony whispers, and adds, "stopping, no more talking, just breathe, there you go," because he can't actually help himself.
Steve slumps after that, lets go of Tony like he can't help it, like he doesn't even mean to. Tony's feet land on the ground and his arms go up of their own accord, pulling Steve in, because Steve's always like this when he comes harder than he means to--Tony knows that, knows him, now. He soothes a hand down Steve's back and Steve's breath comes fast and hard against his ear, little choking noises like he's forcing it out, and Tony doesn't say anything, wants to but doesn't, waits him out.
"Wanted to do that," Steve says eventually, sounding frustrated, "in you," and god, Tony would laugh, he really would, if it wasn't so stupidly fucking hot.
"I know," he says, "I know, what'd I say about that, was I not clear--you know the science behind your dick is kind of miraculous, I'd say it should be studied but no, just by me, I don’t share well, you know that, but I've done extensive research and I know if I give you fifteen minutes--"
"Tony," Steve says, and he pulls back enough that Tony can see his face, his eyes, wide and wild. "Tony, I can't--"
"Yeah, you can," Tony says, even though he's pretty sure Steve's not talking about his recovery time anymore. He kisses him to cover that, kisses him because he doesn't know what else to do, and Steve sighs into his mouth, hands crawling up underneath his shirt to settle against his back, points of warmth, of want.
"Bedroom?" Tony says, dark, hungry, after a few minutes, and Steve says, "God, what are you trying to do to me?" like he honestly doesn't know the answer.
"Whatever you want," Tony says. It's so not what he means to say--the honesty in it cracks and shatters in the air, and he can't look at Steve's face, can't stop talking, either. "I mean, you know what I--don't you? It's, I, you're...you're gonna fuck me, right? Aren't you? Because god, I just, I want you to touch me everywhere, wanna feel you in me, but I just had to, okay, I had to, because the way you look when you--fuck, Steve, I don't, just, please--"
"Oh," Steve says, and when Tony risks looking at him he's…smiling, almost, this quiet, secret curve to his mouth. Tony goes to kiss him because--well, because that's what he does, isn't it, in this moment, that's the next step here, but Steve dodges him, trails his mouth down Tony's jawline, up to his ear.
"Bedroom sounds good," he says, warm, a hint of embarrassment lurking underneath, and Tony swallows, nods, takes a deep breath as Steve steps away.
"Your room," he says, "because, uh, closer? And I'm kind of--I mean stairs right now would be. Uh."
Steve's brow furrows for a second. Then he looks down when Tony gestures, sees the tent of Tony's trousers and the come all over his hand, and groans from the back of his throat.
"Yeah," he says, "yeah, okay, definitely bedroom now," and puts a hand on Tony's back and steers him out into the hall.
"Worried I'm gonna get lost?" Tony says, because it's easier to joke right now than it is to…to breathe, or to walk, and Steve's hand is radiating heat across his shoulder blades. "Because I, y’know, I live here and stuff, I think that's unlikely."
"Don't want to stop touching you," Steve admits quietly, and Tony swallows, can't turn around, can't even look at him until they're behind the closed door of Steve’s room.
"Right," Tony says then, "good, okay, that's great news because I don't want, I definitely don't want you to stop touching me, god, Steve, fuck," and he throws himself forward, trusting that Steve will grab him like he always does. Steve makes that noise again, the choked-raw growling one, and he's stripping off Tony's t-shirt, his own, walking them back to the bed with hands skating along Tony's ribcage.
"Yeah," Tony says, falling backwards on purpose, reaching back to the drawer where he knows Steve keeps the lube while Steve fumbles with his belt, "yeah, see, what'd I tell you, you'll be ready to go again in no time and I, I'm just gonna get ready too, faster, because I don't--no waiting, not longer than I have to, Jesus, look at your cock, look at it, fuck, that never gets old."
And see, this is--this is a selfish thing Tony's doing, a little bit, except for how it isn't, not really, not at all. He strips himself out of his pants and slicks two fingers up because…because well, okay, he gets sex, doesn't he, how it works, the things it's good for, and Steve's learning still, for all he's learning fast. And Tony knows Steve's not managing it well, whatever it is, this thing that's eating at him that Tony doesn't know how to approach, and this will help, won't it, this is one of the things sex is for--
--and then Steve grabs his wrist, stills him, says, "Let me," so quietly Tony almost doesn't hear it.
"I," Tony says, "I mean, you, yeah, if you want to? Be faster if I did it but hey, this is your show--"
"No it's not," Steve says, confused, "Tony, what does that even mean," and he plucks the tub of lube up off the bed, slides three fingers into it.
"It means," Tony says, "that…uh, fuck, could you not…not do that with your fingers when I'm trying to think?"
Steve grins, fans them out in front of him; it's just lube they're slick with, Tony knows that, he knows, but it makes his dick twitch anyway. Steve huffs out a faint little laugh, warm and fond, and says, "You know, maybe Thor was right the other day. You are a little predictable sometimes."
"Could we not," Tony says, "Jesus, Steve, could we not be talking about Thor right now," and that, for whatever reason, wipes the humor off Steve's face, leaves a sort of breathlessness there instead.
"Good point," he says, and reaches down to press one lube-slick finger against Tony's opening. "I'm, uh, going to--"
"Yeah, I know, I know," Tony gasps, "god, you don't have to narrate, if you narrate it I'm definitely not going to make it--"
"I said that too," Steve says, sliding one finger in, working it slow and careful. "Didn't really stop you, did it?"
"I'm not superpowered," Tony says, and oh, hell, it's more of whine that he means it to be. "If I go early that's, that's it, whole shebang, all she wrote, fuck c'mon already I can take more--"
"Yeah, I know," Steve says. "Kind of enjoying myself, though."
Tony doesn't have anything to say to that; he screws his eyes shut, tries to resist the urge to grind down onto Steve's finger. He feels the second one entering, the third, doesn't see it because he can't look, knows from experience that the sight of Steve's hand slowly but surely slipping into him is more than he can handle right now. His hands are still shaking a little--Steve shakes when he comes, shakes after, has every time, just a little bit--and he’s slow, painstaking, achingly careful. Tony has done this so many times with so many people, knows the low burn of it, the pleasant, uncoiling warmth, but he can’t get over Steve’s hand on his stomach, rubbing slow, soothing circles.
It’s--they’ve only been doing this a month, really, when it comes down to it, and Steve’s only topped twice. It drives Tony crazy, because he knows how much Steve likes doing it, can see it, but he’s worried, Tony guesses--afraid he doesn’t know his own strength, that’ll he’ll do it wrong and Tony will get hurt. Which, god, even that makes Tony want it more, makes Tony want to spread his knees the way he had the first time, Steve holding him up, angling him, Tony’s whole weight held easily in one hand, and a few strokes had been enough, he’d come before he even knew what was happening.
Tony opens his mouth, means to say something, anything, to tell Steve how much he wants it, to egg him on a little, because he knows Steve needs this, needs to let loose, let go. But he opens his eyes, too, can’t help it, and everything he could say catches in his throat; Steve’s face is an open book like this, and it’s saying...god. He’s hard again but his face is saying lost, he’s looking at Tony like he doesn’t know what to do at all, and Tony stops thinking, or, just maybe, starts.
“Hey,” he says, fingertips grazing Steve’s jaw, his cheek, “hey, hey, okay. Okay, I’ve got you, I get it.”
He doesn’t, not really, but he rides some instinct, pushes a hand against Steve’s shoulder. Steve lets out a long breath, pulls his fingers out and lays back, and Tony straddles him, smiles down at him, lopsided.
“So this is,” he says, “uh, you’re just--I mean, it’s, obviously, you’ll follow, I don’t mean to--but if it’s too much, or anything, you can--”
“Yeah,” Steve breathes, “yeah, okay,” and Tony swallows, angles himself, presses himself down around Steve’s cock.
Steve gasps, a sudden, huge noise like all the breath’s been punched out of him, and Tony doesn’t clench around him through force of will. He inches himself down, as slow and careful as Steve had been with his fingers; Steve’s hands drift to Tony’s hips, stuttering, unsure. Tony nods at him, not trusting his voice, and lets go, Steve’s cock buried entirely inside him.
“Tony,” Steve says, half-sob, and there’s something in his eyes that Tony doesn't know how to read or understand or, hell, even avoid. He can’t look away, and god only knows what his own eyes must be saying--he’d been careful to hide them, before, with Pepper, because he knows how he is, no matter how much he pretends not to.
But this is Steve, who’s always so honest, who never quite manages to let Tony get away with anything, even when he’s doing Tony the kindness of trying. This is Steve and Tony can’t stop looking at him, doesn’t want to, can’t fathom gathering the strength, and he rocks his hips forward, just a little, just enough. Steve’s eyes slip shut and he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out; Tony doesn’t know how a moan can be mute but it is, it is, and he doesn’t, he can’t--
“Steve, I,” he says, and he’s not sure how that sentence is going to end, doesn’t have to figure it out because Steve smiles at him, eyes closed, just a little thing. And Tony’s--Tony’s done in, isn’t he, he has to be, because he’s never done this before, never been this far inside of someone before, for all it’s Steve who’s inside of him.
Steve’s hands aren’t on his hips anymore; they’ve moved down, slipped low, sliding along Tony’s thighs like there’s a map on his palm. Tony braces his hands on the headboard because he has to, can’t hold himself up anymore, tightens himself around Steve’s cock and rolls his hips, once, twice. He bows his head and sees a drop of sweat, his own, fall to Steve’s chest, and when Steve opens his eyes again he can’t do anything but shudder, breath ragged, mouth parted around something he isn’t sure how to say.
He just hangs there, over Steve and around him, too, his whole body thrumming with tension. He hangs there and Steve’s still smiling when he moves, reaches out with his whole body, arching up to pull Tony into a kiss. It changes the angle, not much but enough, and when their mouths meet he can feel Steve’s dick twitch inside of him; he doesn’t mean to, shouldn’t, but he groans into Steve’s mouth and comes, shock-hard, all over both of their stomachs. And maybe it’s just that, the sticky spill of it between them, or maybe it’s the fact that Tony’s body always tenses, wracked, when he comes before he’s ready to, but Steve shakes all over and Tony can feel it, can feel Steve spilling out inside of him. He bites down on the trembling plane of Steve’s shoulder to keep from screaming out loud and Steve’s hands are on his back, his ass, and Tony’s whole world goes white with overload, because it’s the only choice he’s really got.
When he blinks out of it--and it can’t be long, can it, not more than a second or two, because they’re both still gasping for breath, haven’t moved--he can feel Steve slipping out of him, inching loose, anatomical gravity. And that’s...Tony doesn’t want him to go, which doesn’t even make sense, which isn’t rational at all. He pulls himself free despite this, tries to ignore the aching absence there, focuses instead on the come dripping down his leg as he rolls, indelicately, to one side.
“God, Tony,” Steve says, wrecked, a hand reaching out to--fuck, Steve’s tracing the lines of his own come on Tony’s thighs, and Tony has to muffle his moan against the pillow, because Christ, that would be telling. “That was--god.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, and he’s shaking, can feel himself shaking, as Steve gets up on unsteady legs and walks to the bathroom. He’d raise a protest but he kind of...can’t, right now, maybe in a minute...but Steve’s back before he can worry about it, a washcloth in his hand. “What--”
“You’re not going to,” Steve pauses, swallows, actually licks his lips and fuck, Tony hasn’t had an aftershock like this in years, “you’re not going to sleep like, uh. Like that.”
“I can,” Tony starts, and Steve says, “No, I, uh. I want to, if that’s...okay?” and Tony really, really can’t bring himself to argue.
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, yeah, of course it’s--what am I going to do, really, that’s, uh--”
“Stop talking,” Steve says easily, like he’s giving Tony a gift, and he is, really, so Tony does.
The washcloth’s damp, warm water mostly wrung out, and if Steve notices that Tony groans into the pillow every time it touches him, he’s kind enough not to mention it. He wipes Tony clean and then, apparently out of energy entirely, throws the cloth over the edge of the bed and collapses back against the pillows.
He’s going to say something, Tony knows he is, can feel it in the way his breathing changes, in the patterns his fingertips are tracing on Tony’s ribcage. He’s going to say something and Tony is too...too something, right now, for that, so he pushes himself on one unsteady arm and kisses Steve, fast, breathless, instead.
And then Steve...god, Steve, he’s always Steve, isn’t he, even in bed, especially in bed; he rolls with it, kisses back, and then takes Tony’s face in both of his hands and slows it down. He sucks lightly at Tony’s lower lip and soothes his thumb along Tony’s cheek and Tony gasps and doesn’t, drifts in the familiarity of it until he feels like himself again.
When they finally, finally break apart, he grins at Steve, and the smile Steve answers with is strange, like he can’t quite remember how the muscles in his face work. “We’re, uh. We’re definitely going to have to try it that way again sometime.”
“Mmm,” Tony says, “you like that? Remind me later, I’ll put it on the list--”
“The list?”
“Of things you’ll like,” Tony says around a yawn. “Like, uh, the other day, the shower got cold and you...so ice cubes, maybe, except, you know, it’s messy, gets shit all wet, and I know ice isn’t good for you sometimes, because of. Uh. The thing. But you definitely reacted to the temperature shift, and that one time when we started and I still, with the armor, that was just for a second and you liked that too, I’m sure I can find a way around it, what’s the point of being me if you can’t screw around with that kind of thing, right?”
“You keep track of what I like?” Steve says, because of course that’s what he took away from that. “In...in bed?”
“Well, yeah,” says Tony, “why wouldn’t I? The whole point is for you to like it, and it’s all, I mean, if you have the opportunity for trial and error it’d be stupid not to pay attention.”
“I,” Steve says, and blinks, “that’s actually...really sweet.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you’d seen the folder on my server where I keep the--”
“Oh, god, no, don’t,” Steve says, laughing, slinging an arm over Tony’s waist. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Find out eventually,” Tony says, eyelids drooping already, lulled into a sense of security that maybe isn’t even false by the proximity of Steve’s chest. “‘S gonna be a fun day.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Steve says, “go to sleep, Tony,” and hey, what the hell, Tony does.
--
Tony’s not sure what time it is--darkness time, definitely, no-sunlight time, wow, he’s tired--when he wakes to the sensation of being jabbed in the shoulder. It takes him a second to get his bearings (not drunk not in the suit this is his bed hey that’s Steve full compliment of limbs no villains heart working okay) and then he rallies immediately to action.
Well. For a given value of “action,” anyway.
“Whuzzit, ‘s night, are we ‘ssmebling?” he slurs, trying and failing to sit up. “‘Cause… suit... Jarvis...”
“No,” Steve says, and there are hands on Tony’s shoulders, and oh, hey, it’s a face, it’s Steve’s face! Tony’s totally awake, he can be awake, yes he can. “No, hey, no, it’s not a mission, nothing like that, god. Sorry.”
“Um,” says Tony, “no, I mean, ‘s fine, hello, ‘m I in...trouble or, uh, dreaming, right, was I dreaming?”
“How would I know if you were dreaming?”
“Pepper,” Tony says, yawning around it, rubbing one eye with the palm of his hand. “Said I’d, uh. In my sleep, sometimes. Er. Screaming an’ stuff, woke her up.”
“Oh,” Steve says, very quiet. “No, Tony, you weren’t screaming.”
“Awesome,” Tony says. There’s a relief. “What’s...up, then?”
“Nothing,” Steve says, and Tony’s just awake enough now to hear how sharply it comes out of his mouth. He peers at Steve in the darkness--sitting up, knees pulled to his chest--and frowns. “I don’t even know why I woke you, honestly. Call it an...impulse, I guess. Go back to sleep.”
“But I’m up now,” Tony says.
This, at least, earns him half a smile; Tony only catches it because he’s looking for it, but it’s there for a second. Steve’s hands ghosts over his arm a moment later.
“Sorry,” he says.
“If you woke me up to apologize for waking me that’d be--” he pauses, yawns hugely, continues, “I mean, if you see logic in that then, uh, share with the class or whatever--”
“No, I meant,” and now his hand’s not ghosting, it’s rubbing, knuckles against Tony’s skin, a light, careful sort of touch. “I...I left this. Bruised you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Huh?” Then Tony follows Steve’s gaze down, down, and--”Oh, shit, look at that. Wow. Uh. That’s...kind of hot, actually.”
“Tony.”
“It is!” Tony says, still not with it enough to filter himself. “It’s Cap-shaped, I’ll probably get hard in a meeting because of that now, thanks for that, hey, you’re still frowning. Stop it, seriously, it's fine, I like it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Steve says, and Tony laughs.
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t like,” he says, “but I do anyway, and this is only a little bruise and you’re, I mean, come on, you’re you. Were you really expecting to never ever leave a little mark? And anyway--oh. This isn’t about this, is it?”
“Not really,” Steve says, and worries the edge of his lip between his teeth. “Kind of? I don’t know, I shouldn’t have woken you--”
“But it’s too late, I’m awake, so now you’re stuck with me.”
Steve sighs. “I’m just not...I don’t know how to. To do this, I guess and--oh, no, not us, Tony, don’t look at me like that. You and me is kind of the only thing I do know how to do right now, or, I mean, where I at least have a...oh, god, don’t make me--”
“I wasn’t,” Tony says, “actually. Sometimes I’m not, you know, and mostly I’m just, look, I’m not really good at problem solving but on the other hand I’m great at it, but I’m sort of going to need you to explain. A little. Because if you don’t I’m probably going to say something awful. Not on purpose. But, a guideline is all, a boundary or something, because I’ve got a big picture but I need you to, uh, scale it down a little so I can get it. Or try to get it. Or whatever.”
Steve rakes a hand through his hair, takes a deep breath, and looks out the window. “Not sure what I’d even say, really.”
“Okay,” Tony says, flopping back against the sheets, “tell you what, I can wait.”
“Yes, because that’s normally such a skill of yours,” Steve says. “Patience, that’s your watchword, right after--”
“Play nice,” Tony says, “I’m trying a new thing here, it’s very difficult to focus on it,” and Steve shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything else.
And then...well, then Tony does wait, because this is a thing about Steve he thinks he might just have figured out. Steve likes to talk it out when he’s upset, but he won’t be rushed for anyone; he’s stubborn, and Tony gets stubborn, knows stubborn inside and out. He’d let it go, actually, because for all Tony can’t really pick his own battles, he can sometimes pick other people’s, but Steve had woken him. That’s what Pepper would call a context clue and what Tony would probably call...well, a coding blip, honestly, but either way it’s worth his attention, and so he stares up at the ceiling and doesn’t twitch, doesn’t hum, doesn’t explain to Steve how the backup generator in the Quinjet’s going to work...
...and eventually, Steve opens his mouth.
“He doesn’t remember,” he says slowly. “Bucky, I mean. Anything after--nothing about how I...I mean, I might as well have dropped him and he doesn’t remember, the last thing he has is me making some joke about Coney Island and I don’t know how to tell him it was my fault--”
“Was it your fault?”
“Of course it was,” Steve says, “it--all of it, it was all my fault--”
“Because I don’t actually know the whole story there,” Tony continues, “which, I mean, not that you have to tell me the story, but unless you actually, uh, shot him--”
“No! Of course I didn’t--”
“Well then,” Tony says, “I’m guessing it’s not entirely your fault, right? I mean, coming from a guy who knows from self-blame, I feel that, I get it, but I don’t have all the data, so, y’know. You could tell me, though, if you wanted. No blame here, either way.”
Steve gives him a long, open-mouthed look, and then drops his gaze and stares down at his hands. When he speaks, his voice is small.
“Do you think we could maybe, uh. Make some coffee or something? It’s...kind of a long story.”
“Sure,” says Tony, “why not? Never met a pot of coffee I didn’t like. C’mon.”
--
An hour later, Tony knows...well. He knows everything, really.
He knows why Steve was so intense about making Tony build that safety harness for Hawkeye; he knows why Steve always winces when trains fly past them in the subway. He knows why Steve still hasn’t gone to see his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, and why he shudders sometimes when they cut through certain alleyways in battle, and why he always watches the fight surveillance footage until he knows the timestamp on every single punch, kick, or explosion. He knows why he occasionally catches Steve saying Bucky’s name is his sleep, sounding tortured by it, and he thinks he might even know why Steve gets so weird and intense when Tony’s injured--he’s not sure about that last one, but hey, a guy can hope.
“...and I didn’t even look for him,” Steve finishes, finally. He’s been talking so long that his voice is a little hoarse--or, at least, Tony is going to do him the kindness of pretending to believe that’s what it is. “I mean, my best friend, my best friend, he showed up for me so many times, he never let me down and he was alive and I didn’t even think to--”
“Well, yeah, no, of course you didn’t,” says Tony, who can’t keep quiet anymore. “Steve, come on, listen to yourself--the guy fell off the side of a mountain, anyone would assume he was dead--”
“But I shouldn’t have, I should have known better, I should have tried harder--”
“How do you know you wouldn’t have?” Tony says, and takes a pointed sip of his coffee. It’s cold, awful, and he pulls a face. “Ugh, that’s gotten gross--but, no, okay, it was what, a day? Two? Between when he fell and when you did, so it’s not like you had a lot of time on your hands to go searching. And before you start, of course you didn’t go looking when you woke up, it’d been 70 years, even if he’d survived the fall he wouldn’t have survived 70 years in the mountains, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“I know!” Steve snaps. He lets his head drop into his hands. “I know, but it shouldn’t have happened at all and--and I don’t know if I want him to, to remember and forgive me, or remember and hate me, or just not remember. And that’s...it’s selfish, I think, any one of those options is selfish, but I can’t help it.”
Sometimes--not so often anymore, because he’s gotten used to it, but sometimes--Steve is such a good person that Tony kind of wants to poke him and make sure he’s real.
“Huh,” he says, instead of doing that. “What was it you said Peggy told you?”
Steve sighs. “‘Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.’ And I understand, you don’t have to--”
“No, I’m not going to. Because, look, actually, I would have given you totally different advice, and it would’ve been the wrong advice, obviously, but the way I see it? Once someone’s dead you don’t really owe them anything. I mean, it’s not like they’re gonna know, either way, so I probably wouldn’t have told you to allow him the dignity of shit. Who needs dignity once they’re dead? They’re dead, that’s not really their problem anymore. But,” he continues, when Steve opens his mouth to--Tony doesn’t know, argue with him, maybe, or something, “Bucky’s not dead, as it turns out. So now you do owe him shit, and--I mean, look at it this way. If it were me, if we were on a train and you were falling and I couldn’t--not didn’t, couldn’t--grab you in time, would you want me to beat myself up about for the rest of my life?”
“You would,” Steve says.
“Of course I would,” says Tony, “obviously I would, I beat myself up over way less than that, let’s not lie, but you wouldn’t want me to, right?”
“Well, of course not--”
“And I wouldn’t care, because you’d be...” Oh. Tony can’t actually say the word ‘dead’ in the context of Steve; that’s interesting. Unexpected. He’ll come back to it later. “You wouldn’t be around, so it wouldn’t matter, I could do what I wanted to. But Bucky’s alive! So, I mean, doing shit you know he wouldn’t want you to be doing, that’s kind of a dick move, right?”
Steve stares at him like he’s crazy; Tony doesn’t really blame him. After a minute he says, “I feel like that shouldn’t make sense.”
“I feel that way a lot,” Tony says, “like, whenever Thor says anything, and every time Natasha turns out to have another secret pocket in her jumpsuit--but it does, right?”
“I,” Steve says, and then sighs, nearly smiles. “Yeah, it kind of does.”
“Well, there you go,” Tony says. He gets up to pour himself another cup of coffee, takes Steve’s mug wordlessly when he hands it back. “Is that all of it?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, and then, “well, I mean, no, not really, he’s--nobody knows what they’ve done to him. He shouldn’t be alive, and he is, and I think everyone’s afraid that he’s going to, I don’t know, go crazy from over-chemicalization or something. I don’t know the science behind it. Mostly I’ve just been trying to keep him from breaking out of the building to go look at the future.”
“Not one for forced confinement?”
“You’ve got no idea,” Steve says, and that’s a real smile, a full one, when Tony hands him his freshly refilled cup. “When we were kids he used to skip detention by jumping out of windows; yesterday he was so out of it he could barely walk, and he still asked me to take him to dinner, because he was ‘sick of the walls in this joint.’”
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Tony says absently, and sits back down. “Well, hey, look, that’s an easy fix--if he needs supervision, just bring him here. We’re crawling with superheroes and Coulson’s on the speed-dial, there’s a lab right in the basement if we have to run any kind of emergency testing, there’s no reason he has to stay on-base.”
“I--what?” Steve says. “Tony, I can’t ask you to do that--”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because this is your house,” Steve says. “I’m not going to, I mean, and I’m sure Bucky wouldn’t want me to, the imposition--”
“Have you missed the square footage on this place?” Tony demands. “Seriously, there are more bedrooms here than even I know what to do with and I am, as you may have noticed, good at excess. Hell, he could sleep in your room, it’s not like you really use it anymore.”
Oh, crap, he probably shouldn’t have said that. He regrets it, yes he does, that’s some serious regret there, he shouldn’t have drawn Steve’s attention to that fact, but he doesn’t really get a chance to panic about it properly, because a loud crash interrupts them.
The ceiling in the front hallway has fallen in, right before their eyes. There’s a cloud of plaster in the air, obscuring the intruder, but that doesn’t stop them from jumping into action; Steve rips a cabinet door off its hinges to use as a shield, tosses Tony a kitchen knife. Natasha comes running out from her bedroom, daggers in her hands, Pepper behind her and armed with what Tony thinks is Natasha’s favorite pistol, and Clint stumbles out of his bedroom a moment later, his crossbow on his hip, the strap of one of his sniper rifles caught between his teeth.
“Who dares intrude upon the home of Thor, god of thunder?” Thor cries, flying into the room with Mjölnir in his hand. He is completely and utterly naked, but that doesn’t stop him from adding, “Show yourself, villain, that you might rue the day upon which you upset my slumber!”
“Jarvis, fans,” Tony snaps, because it’s high time they got a twenty on whoever managed to get in here without raising the alarms. The cloud of dust clears nearly instantaneously, revealing...
...the Hulk, looking equal parts confused and shamefaced, lying prone across the floor.
“Hulk is sorry,” he says. “Hulk had bad dream. Hulk will stop watching Hitchcock movies before bed.”
“Jesus,” Tony, Steve, Natasha, Pepper and Clint say together.
Thor, never one to follow the crowd, mutters something in old Norse under his breath. Then he glances around the kitchen--still naked, so naked, the nakedest--and brightens considerably. “My friends! You have prepared coffee in anticipation of this meeting! My irritation is soothed entirely, for nothing can deter me from the enjoyment of a fine Italian roast.”
Tony picks up his own coffee cup, takes a long sip, and raises an eyebrow at Steve. Perfectly deadpan, he says, “You know what, buddy, you’re right. Another house guest would be an imposition. Really disturb the tranquility of the place. I just don’t think I can manage it.”
Steve looks around the room, at the plaster dust and drywall chunks, Thor’s dick swinging free as he pours himself a cup of coffee, Clint’s Kermit the Frog boxers. He puts down the cabinet door, drops his head to Tony’s shoulder, and laughs, shaking with it, so hard he nearly cries.
--
As it turns out, it’s kind of hard to go back to sleep after the ceiling falls in at half past four in the morning. After a few minutes of chaotic argument (“HITCHCOCK MOVIES?!” “Hulk did not know he was afraid of birds!”), the team drifts into the living room, clutching mugs of coffee, all in mostly silent agreement that the best thing to do is cut their losses and watch a movie.
They’re a lot less silent about their agreement that Thor should put some pants on, but, to be fair, sometimes he needs to hear that a couple of times before it really makes an impact.
It’s five when Steve starts yawning; at five fifteen his head lands on Tony’s shoulder, heavy, his body gone lax. Tony shifts without really thinking about it, curling an arm around him without taking his eyes off of Sex and The City, which they’re watching mostly because they needed something to be annoyed at that wasn’t, well, the Hulk.
“If I hunt down the people who made this movie and kill them,” Natasha says, “it’s justifiable homicide, right?”
“No court would convict you,” Clint says. “That’s a mercy killing if ever there--oh my fucking god, if you’re going to beat someone in the face with flowers the least you could do is get your form right--”
“Hulk likes pretty dresses,” says the Hulk, who is eating ramen that Tony went ahead and made for him for the good of the team.
“Good for you, Hulk,” Pepper says diplomatically; Steve snores, loud and obnoxious, and Tony smiles, tries to play it off when Pepper gives him a knowing look. “This movie is horrific, but I am willing to concede--”
“Don’t,” says Natasha, “just, just don’t, Pepper, I swear to god, murder--”
“I can appreciate a good pair of Manolo’s and support your vicious habits at the same time,” Pepper says loftily, and Natasha rolls her eyes, visibly bites back a smile.
“Hey,” says Tony, “that building wouldn’t be there without us, everybody drink.”
Everyone takes a long pull from their coffee mugs, except for the Hulk, who slurps loudly at his ramen.
“I must admit,” Thor says, tilting his head in confusion, “while I normally find Midgardian entertainment both deeply fulfilling and worthy of my attention, this storyline is neither compelling nor short on emotional manipulation. In addition, what they have done to the character development of Miranda in particular appalls me to the bowels of my soul; for what purpose have they stripped her of her sass?”
There is a long moment of silence.
“Thor watches the series,” Tony says finally, “everybody drink.”
There is a round of muttered agreement, and then the chatter drops off. Clint’s the next one to fall asleep, eyes wide open like always, but they’re all used to it by now; Natasha goes next, like a switch has been flipped, her head in Pepper’s lap. Hulk’s snoring by the time the credits roll, and Thor, who can sleep at will and anywhere, shrugs and closes his eyes when Tony puts on Fight Club to try and bleach his brain.
And then...well, it’s only him and Pepper awake anymore, isn’t it, and they’ve both got work pulled up on the glass end tables, and she knows what he’s like. He moves again, careful, guides Steve into a slightly more comfortable position, and when he looks up, she’s smiling at him.
“Don’t, Pep.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Pepper says. “Do you think I don’t know what it is to worry about someone?”
“Ouch,” Tony says, and Pepper rolls her eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Tony, and you know it.”
“Yeah,” says Tony. “I just...it was never like this with you, I guess. Uh, no offense, please don’t think I mean that in a--”
“No, I know,” Pepper says, and whatever her smile is communicating now, it’s outside the range of what Tony can translate. “You know that we weren’t...normal, don’t you? That’s probably part of what went wrong, really; we knew each other too well in other ways, I think.”
“If I nod and smile, will you pretend to believe I understood that?”
“Don’t I always?” Pepper says, and her face goes soft when Tony laughs. “You’re good together, I think. You don’t need to drive yourself crazy about it; you’re crazy enough already.”
“Thanks,” Tony says, and then--because it’s too late, too early, and it’s Pepper--he adds, “I just...I know I tend to, uh, fuck things up. I don’t mean to, but I mean--well, you know.”
“Is that what you think happened between us?” Pepper says. Tony’s eyes must say something he doesn’t mean them to say, he must not drop them fast enough, because she sighs, sounding sad. “Oh, Tony.”
“No, look, you don’t have to, it’s good, I’m--”
“Sometimes people just don’t fit together,” Pepper says, and it’s her kind voice, the one she only uses when he’s sick or injured, when she’s trying to talk him out of something emotional and stupid. “Or don’t fit together in certain ways, or have fit together too long one way to...we didn’t work, but it’s not because you didn’t.”
“Yes it is,” Tony says wretchedly, “you know it is, you don’t have to--”
“I know I don’t have to,” Pepper says. “If you really think, after all this time, that I’d tell you things because I thought you wanted to hear them, I clearly haven’t been doing my job right. Well, jobs, I suppose, but that’s neither here nor--Tony. Relationships take two people, and so do breakups.”
“Right, but--”
“No,” she says, not kind anymore, that’s the business voice. “Oh, no you don’t, I avoided you just as much as you avoided me--”
“But I pushed too much and--”
“I pushed right back. Do you know I actually find it offensive that you could--”
“Offensive, you’re offended by my--”
“--and now you’re entirely railroading the discussion, yes, of course I am, do you have any idea how much--”
“--yeah, Pep, I’ve got an idea, you’re not listening to me--”
“No, you’re not listening to me!” Pepper says, and it’s just loud enough that Natasha stirs a little in her lap. She freezes, shamefaced, and then sighs and offers Tony a smile. “This is why, Tony. We work like this, as us; we probably shouldn’t have tried it the other way, but, well.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, “well.”
“I’m glad we did, though,” Pepper says, and it doesn’t sound like charity. “Because I would’ve held a candle, I imagine, and now I don’t have to, and who knows what that would have done to us?”
“Theoreticals,” Tony says. “Dangerous game, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Pepper says, “not this time.”
Tony offers her a lopsided little grin and looks back at the screen. He doesn’t look at the circles under Steve’s eyes, because he knows they’re there; after a minute, he rubs the flat of his palm down Steve’s arm. Steve moves a little, a tiny muscle spasm that probably has nothing to do with Tony’s hand, but he smiles anyway. “So you think you’re,” he says, without glancing away from the movie, “I mean, you and Natasha. Feels like a fit?”
“I don’t like to count my chickens,” Pepper says slowly. “But, yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Good,” says Tony, and hey, look at that, he even means it. “That’s...that’s good, Pep, I’m glad. Can’t promise I won’t make an embarrassing toast at the wedding, though--hey, you think the Hong Kong story is appropriate for company, because you know what, I don’t, so it’s definitely on the docket--”
“Don’t you dare,” Pepper says. Then she laughs, ducking her head. “And you? Fitting?”
“Tell you what,” Tony says, looking down at Steve’s big, broad hand settled across his thigh, “I’ll let you know.”
Part Three
Tony gets home later than he means to, mostly because Rhodey’s got this impossible tendency to stay in hotels when he visits, and Tony spends too long trying to talk him out of it. He fails, because Rhodey never gives in on anything unless he’s secretly wanted to the whole time, and when he gets inside the house is quiet, deserted, except for a pajama-clad Pepper working on a laptop at the kitchen table.
“Uh, hi,” Tony says, surprised. “I thought you were in--no, I know you were in California, why are you not in California? It’s hard enough adjusting to the fact that I’m not the only jet-setter around anymore, the least you could do is be in L.A. when I think you’re there. I mean seriously, just as a courtesy, that seems fair, right?”
“I was in L.A.,” Pepper says. “Now I’m not. Please consider yourself all caught up.”
“Jesus,” says Tony. “That’s a scary voice, what happened? Did the fucking licensing thing not go through again because I tried, okay, I really did, they swore to me that it was handled, and the whole thing is ridiculous anyway, that’s been patented Stark tech since, what, the late 90s? So--”
“It’s not a licensing problem,” Pepper says, and gives him a little bit of a smile. “I would’ve told you; thank you, as it happens, for taking the time to deal with that. It’s nice when you listen.”
“You keep saying that word, ‘listen,’” Tony says, waving a hand, and kicks a chair around to sit on backwards. “What’re you doing here, then? Is it my fault, because it’d definitely be better if it wasn’t my fault--”
“No, no, nothing like that. I’d just--I suppose you could say I’m beginning to understand your tendency to take unscheduled vacations. Not that I forgive you for making me deal with that all those times.”
“And thank god, because the surprise would probably--”
“Tony, don’t start. I just wanted a break, that’s all. But don’t you dare repeat that, because if I see one more article that says I look tired--”
“Ugh, yeah, sorry, I saw that thing in the Times.”
“L.A. or New York?” Pepper says, and sighs. “You’d think it wouldn’t get to me, after all the years I spent fielding your bad press, but that, and the sales figures--well, you know. And everything always takes a hit one way or the other whenever there’s an Avengers mess--no, Tony, don’t, it’s not you, it’s just...been a long couple of weeks, that’s all.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, scrubbing his forehead with the back of his hand. “There’s a lot of that going around. You could’ve told me you were in town, you know, come out with me and Rhodey. You should’ve said, or texted, you didn’t have to go waiting up for--”
“Oh, I wasn’t,” Pepper says, and her smile is real now for all she’s rolling her eyes. “You do know you’re not the only person who lives in this house, don’t you?”
“I--you--oh,” says Tony. He blinks, and Pepper flushes a little bit under his scrutiny. “Pepper, is this--oh my god, this is a cross-country booty call, I am appalled. No, wait, I take it back, I’m proud, I’m appalled and proud, I’m proud-palled--”
“Shut it, Stark,” Natasha says, coming in from the hallway. She’s wearing--holy shit, that’s a ratty old bathrobe, Natasha owns something that isn’t form-fitting or flattering, will wonders never cease--and her hair is kind of mussed, like she was sleeping. She walks right past him, puts her hands on Pepper’s shoulders. “Couldn’t sleep?”
“Just trying to finish this up,” Pepper says, sounding guilty, and if Tony’s eyes widen, soften a little, at the way Natasha snatches the laptop out of her reach, at least neither one of them is looking at him.
“This is your vacation,” Natasha says, calm. “Va-ca-tion, and before you say it’s only for a couple days, I’d like to argue that it’s only for a couple days, so you might as well take advantage of it. Come back to bed. Work’ll still be here in the morning.”
“I know,” Pepper says, pulling a face, “that’s the whole problem.”
Natasha laughs, and her hands are threaded through Pepper’s hair, and Tony’s never thought about it before--how it must get to Pepper, the job, in ways it never got to him. It’s his name on the doors, on the building, on each and every product, on the stockticker, and he never once felt like he owed it anything. But Pepper doesn’t have that kind of fallback, and she also cares more, always has, about the actual business of it.
“Listen to the lady,” Tony says, smiling at her. “I’m still technically kind of your boss, right? So--”
They groan in unison, and Natasha flicks a piece of lint off Pepper’s shoulder; since it’s Natasha, it somehow manages to land right in Tony’s eye. He glares around his forced wink, but then Pepper laughs and leans forward to kiss him on the cheek, and it’s okay, it’s good, as she stands up to follow Nat back to her room.
“Oh, wait,” Natasha says at the door. “Tony, speaking of people who aren’t sleeping, I saw Cap in the gym on the way down here. Is he--”
“Steve’s here?” Tony demands, scrambling out of his chair so fast that he actually knocks it over. Then, backpedaling, he tries for nonchalant. “I mean--oh. Since when? I thought he was at HQ, huh, guess not, okay, I’ll just be going now.”
He doesn’t miss the knowing look Natasha gives him, or the one Pepper follows it up with, less knowing and more known, as fond an expression as he’s ever seen, tinged, just slightly, with sadness. He doesn’t stop, because they’ve got their thing and this is his, even if he’s got no idea what he’s going to say to Steve when he sees him. These are dangerous, uncharted waters for Tony--well, for anyone, probably--and he sticks his hands in his pockets as he slips into the gym to survey the damage.
It’s wrecked, the whole place. There’s a dent in one of the walls and a pile of free weights stacked on top of each other, like Steve had lifted them without a bar; his punching bag is slumped in the corner, beeping a sad little battery-death alert, and one of the chin-up bars is dangling, half-ripped from the wall. Steve’s hanging from the other one, hauling himself up and over it, and his shirt’s soaked through with sweat.
Tony sighs, because his alternative here is saying something he probably shouldn’t. “Hey.”
“Hi, Tony,” Steve says, not even looking around. “Sorry. I’ll put it all back when I’m done.”
“Not worried about that.” Tony leans against the wall, lets the door snick shut behind him. “You wanna maybe try out the whole ‘at ease, soldier,’ thing? I’m getting muscle cramps just looking at you.”
Steve huffs out something that’s less a sigh, more darkly irritated protest, but he drops down from the bar, raises his hands in the air. “There, okay? I’m fine.”
“I can see that,” Tony says. “You wanna talk about it?”
“No,” Steve says immediately. Then he winces, probably at the harshness of his tone, and adds, “I--sorry, thank you for asking, but no, I really don’t.”
“Okay,” says Tony, “you wanna fuck?”
It is, of course, the wrong thing to say. Tony knows this at once, even before it comes out of his mouth; he wants desperately to backpedal, wants it so desperately that he can’t figure out how. He’s left waiting for Steve to turn on him, to snap at him about a time and a place and god, how is it that he never quite manages to--
--and then Steve lifts his head, eyes dark, hungry, and breathes, “Yeah, actually, that’s exactly what I want.”
Tony opens his mouth and closes it again, completely still in the face of that admission. He looks at Steve, the honest want in his face, and is suddenly hyper-aware of his hands; he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say here, what he’s supposed to do. Normally this kind of thing is easy for him--the mathematics of human attraction aren’t any harder to work through than any other kind, provided enough background information--but this doesn’t fit any pattern, offers up a variable he isn’t sure how to parse.
“Did you want me to come over there, or do you want to come over here, or--” he says finally, and then Steve grabs him by the shoulders and all but throws him back against the wall, lifting him off the ground a little, tongue desperate and fast in his mouth.
The soles of Tony's sneakers skate against the floor, barely brushing it, and he's halfway hard already just from that; Steve's grip on his arms is tight, maybe even bruising, and it makes something twist hot in Tony's gut. For all they've fucked around--and god, they have, Steve's refractory period is wickedly short and Tony wants to show him everything, wants to have him every way he can--they haven't done this, not yet. Steve's all coiled strength, all the time, visible even when he's fully clothed; it's in the way he walks, the way he stretches, the way his shoulders roll when he tenses. It leaves Tony's mouth dry, the idea of what he can do, the fact that the hands on him can dent steel and smash brick, but Steve's always so careful, so restrained, no matter how much Tony tells him not to be.
This, though, this is new, the way Steve growls into his mouth and holds him like he's afraid Tony's going to go somewhere, like Tony even could, and Tony pushes off the ground as much as he can to grind his mouth into Steve's. He nips, hard, at Steve's lower lip and Steve pushes him into the wall with his whole body, presses them together so Tony can feel those abs through his t-shirt, and fuck, fuck, he can barely remember to breathe.
Steve pulls back, just with his mouth, just for a second, and Tony chases after his lips with a desperation that surprises even him. Steve kisses him again and again, swift and sharp, and Tony fists his hands in Steve's shirt just to get a little leverage.
"I want," he pants, between kisses, "I want you to, oh, fuck, I want you to fuck me, I want you to fuck me just like this, like you've never, like you can't stop, Steve, fuck--"
"Yeah," Steve says, "yeah, Tony, god, just," and he grinds forward, hips stutter-smooth, pressing Tony even further into the wall. He's hard against Tony's dick, through both their pants, and Tony thinks dizzily that he's had that inside him, that he's going to again--
"I gotta," he says, rolling a shoulder to get his arm free, slipping a little lower as Steve lets go, "I just, I have to," and he slides his hand into Steve's pants, wraps his fist around Steve's cock.
"Tony," Steve groans. His head dips forward, lands with a low thud against the wall. Tony tightens his fingers and Steve spasms, chokes, presses a sloppy open mouthed kiss into Tony's neck; he's panting for it already, blushing all the way down his neck, fingertips trembling where they're pressed into Tony's arm. Tony smiles and swallows a moan all at once.
"Gonna make you," he says, "you first, before you fuck me, wanna watch, I ever tell you that you come so gorgeous for me, Steve, Steve, yeah, that's it, c'mon, make that noise again, you want to, don't you?"
"I should," Steve says, and he stutters it, it trips out his mouth, syllables catching; Tony can't help the way he grinds forward on that, the way he soothes his whole hand down Steve's cock. "Should--wait--I want to--"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, I know you do, you can, you're gonna, all the way inside me, gonna be so good, I'll beg for it, I'll scream for it, you've got no idea, want you to--but this first, gimme this first, just a little more, c'mon, c'mon--"
"Goddamn it," Steve chokes out, and comes hard into Tony's hand, his whole body jerking.
"That's it," Tony says--gasps, really, because he's so hard he can't see straight, Steve's come dripping down his hand. "Yeah, that's it, there you go, breathe, it's okay, fuck, so good, I can't even--"
"Tony, you have to--to stop," Steve says, "stop talking, I can't," and he shudders again, arches his back, fingers flexing.
"Okay," Tony whispers, and adds, "stopping, no more talking, just breathe, there you go," because he can't actually help himself.
Steve slumps after that, lets go of Tony like he can't help it, like he doesn't even mean to. Tony's feet land on the ground and his arms go up of their own accord, pulling Steve in, because Steve's always like this when he comes harder than he means to--Tony knows that, knows him, now. He soothes a hand down Steve's back and Steve's breath comes fast and hard against his ear, little choking noises like he's forcing it out, and Tony doesn't say anything, wants to but doesn't, waits him out.
"Wanted to do that," Steve says eventually, sounding frustrated, "in you," and god, Tony would laugh, he really would, if it wasn't so stupidly fucking hot.
"I know," he says, "I know, what'd I say about that, was I not clear--you know the science behind your dick is kind of miraculous, I'd say it should be studied but no, just by me, I don’t share well, you know that, but I've done extensive research and I know if I give you fifteen minutes--"
"Tony," Steve says, and he pulls back enough that Tony can see his face, his eyes, wide and wild. "Tony, I can't--"
"Yeah, you can," Tony says, even though he's pretty sure Steve's not talking about his recovery time anymore. He kisses him to cover that, kisses him because he doesn't know what else to do, and Steve sighs into his mouth, hands crawling up underneath his shirt to settle against his back, points of warmth, of want.
"Bedroom?" Tony says, dark, hungry, after a few minutes, and Steve says, "God, what are you trying to do to me?" like he honestly doesn't know the answer.
"Whatever you want," Tony says. It's so not what he means to say--the honesty in it cracks and shatters in the air, and he can't look at Steve's face, can't stop talking, either. "I mean, you know what I--don't you? It's, I, you're...you're gonna fuck me, right? Aren't you? Because god, I just, I want you to touch me everywhere, wanna feel you in me, but I just had to, okay, I had to, because the way you look when you--fuck, Steve, I don't, just, please--"
"Oh," Steve says, and when Tony risks looking at him he's…smiling, almost, this quiet, secret curve to his mouth. Tony goes to kiss him because--well, because that's what he does, isn't it, in this moment, that's the next step here, but Steve dodges him, trails his mouth down Tony's jawline, up to his ear.
"Bedroom sounds good," he says, warm, a hint of embarrassment lurking underneath, and Tony swallows, nods, takes a deep breath as Steve steps away.
"Your room," he says, "because, uh, closer? And I'm kind of--I mean stairs right now would be. Uh."
Steve's brow furrows for a second. Then he looks down when Tony gestures, sees the tent of Tony's trousers and the come all over his hand, and groans from the back of his throat.
"Yeah," he says, "yeah, okay, definitely bedroom now," and puts a hand on Tony's back and steers him out into the hall.
"Worried I'm gonna get lost?" Tony says, because it's easier to joke right now than it is to…to breathe, or to walk, and Steve's hand is radiating heat across his shoulder blades. "Because I, y’know, I live here and stuff, I think that's unlikely."
"Don't want to stop touching you," Steve admits quietly, and Tony swallows, can't turn around, can't even look at him until they're behind the closed door of Steve’s room.
"Right," Tony says then, "good, okay, that's great news because I don't want, I definitely don't want you to stop touching me, god, Steve, fuck," and he throws himself forward, trusting that Steve will grab him like he always does. Steve makes that noise again, the choked-raw growling one, and he's stripping off Tony's t-shirt, his own, walking them back to the bed with hands skating along Tony's ribcage.
"Yeah," Tony says, falling backwards on purpose, reaching back to the drawer where he knows Steve keeps the lube while Steve fumbles with his belt, "yeah, see, what'd I tell you, you'll be ready to go again in no time and I, I'm just gonna get ready too, faster, because I don't--no waiting, not longer than I have to, Jesus, look at your cock, look at it, fuck, that never gets old."
And see, this is--this is a selfish thing Tony's doing, a little bit, except for how it isn't, not really, not at all. He strips himself out of his pants and slicks two fingers up because…because well, okay, he gets sex, doesn't he, how it works, the things it's good for, and Steve's learning still, for all he's learning fast. And Tony knows Steve's not managing it well, whatever it is, this thing that's eating at him that Tony doesn't know how to approach, and this will help, won't it, this is one of the things sex is for--
--and then Steve grabs his wrist, stills him, says, "Let me," so quietly Tony almost doesn't hear it.
"I," Tony says, "I mean, you, yeah, if you want to? Be faster if I did it but hey, this is your show--"
"No it's not," Steve says, confused, "Tony, what does that even mean," and he plucks the tub of lube up off the bed, slides three fingers into it.
"It means," Tony says, "that…uh, fuck, could you not…not do that with your fingers when I'm trying to think?"
Steve grins, fans them out in front of him; it's just lube they're slick with, Tony knows that, he knows, but it makes his dick twitch anyway. Steve huffs out a faint little laugh, warm and fond, and says, "You know, maybe Thor was right the other day. You are a little predictable sometimes."
"Could we not," Tony says, "Jesus, Steve, could we not be talking about Thor right now," and that, for whatever reason, wipes the humor off Steve's face, leaves a sort of breathlessness there instead.
"Good point," he says, and reaches down to press one lube-slick finger against Tony's opening. "I'm, uh, going to--"
"Yeah, I know, I know," Tony gasps, "god, you don't have to narrate, if you narrate it I'm definitely not going to make it--"
"I said that too," Steve says, sliding one finger in, working it slow and careful. "Didn't really stop you, did it?"
"I'm not superpowered," Tony says, and oh, hell, it's more of whine that he means it to be. "If I go early that's, that's it, whole shebang, all she wrote, fuck c'mon already I can take more--"
"Yeah, I know," Steve says. "Kind of enjoying myself, though."
Tony doesn't have anything to say to that; he screws his eyes shut, tries to resist the urge to grind down onto Steve's finger. He feels the second one entering, the third, doesn't see it because he can't look, knows from experience that the sight of Steve's hand slowly but surely slipping into him is more than he can handle right now. His hands are still shaking a little--Steve shakes when he comes, shakes after, has every time, just a little bit--and he’s slow, painstaking, achingly careful. Tony has done this so many times with so many people, knows the low burn of it, the pleasant, uncoiling warmth, but he can’t get over Steve’s hand on his stomach, rubbing slow, soothing circles.
It’s--they’ve only been doing this a month, really, when it comes down to it, and Steve’s only topped twice. It drives Tony crazy, because he knows how much Steve likes doing it, can see it, but he’s worried, Tony guesses--afraid he doesn’t know his own strength, that’ll he’ll do it wrong and Tony will get hurt. Which, god, even that makes Tony want it more, makes Tony want to spread his knees the way he had the first time, Steve holding him up, angling him, Tony’s whole weight held easily in one hand, and a few strokes had been enough, he’d come before he even knew what was happening.
Tony opens his mouth, means to say something, anything, to tell Steve how much he wants it, to egg him on a little, because he knows Steve needs this, needs to let loose, let go. But he opens his eyes, too, can’t help it, and everything he could say catches in his throat; Steve’s face is an open book like this, and it’s saying...god. He’s hard again but his face is saying lost, he’s looking at Tony like he doesn’t know what to do at all, and Tony stops thinking, or, just maybe, starts.
“Hey,” he says, fingertips grazing Steve’s jaw, his cheek, “hey, hey, okay. Okay, I’ve got you, I get it.”
He doesn’t, not really, but he rides some instinct, pushes a hand against Steve’s shoulder. Steve lets out a long breath, pulls his fingers out and lays back, and Tony straddles him, smiles down at him, lopsided.
“So this is,” he says, “uh, you’re just--I mean, it’s, obviously, you’ll follow, I don’t mean to--but if it’s too much, or anything, you can--”
“Yeah,” Steve breathes, “yeah, okay,” and Tony swallows, angles himself, presses himself down around Steve’s cock.
Steve gasps, a sudden, huge noise like all the breath’s been punched out of him, and Tony doesn’t clench around him through force of will. He inches himself down, as slow and careful as Steve had been with his fingers; Steve’s hands drift to Tony’s hips, stuttering, unsure. Tony nods at him, not trusting his voice, and lets go, Steve’s cock buried entirely inside him.
“Tony,” Steve says, half-sob, and there’s something in his eyes that Tony doesn't know how to read or understand or, hell, even avoid. He can’t look away, and god only knows what his own eyes must be saying--he’d been careful to hide them, before, with Pepper, because he knows how he is, no matter how much he pretends not to.
But this is Steve, who’s always so honest, who never quite manages to let Tony get away with anything, even when he’s doing Tony the kindness of trying. This is Steve and Tony can’t stop looking at him, doesn’t want to, can’t fathom gathering the strength, and he rocks his hips forward, just a little, just enough. Steve’s eyes slip shut and he opens his mouth, but no sound comes out; Tony doesn’t know how a moan can be mute but it is, it is, and he doesn’t, he can’t--
“Steve, I,” he says, and he’s not sure how that sentence is going to end, doesn’t have to figure it out because Steve smiles at him, eyes closed, just a little thing. And Tony’s--Tony’s done in, isn’t he, he has to be, because he’s never done this before, never been this far inside of someone before, for all it’s Steve who’s inside of him.
Steve’s hands aren’t on his hips anymore; they’ve moved down, slipped low, sliding along Tony’s thighs like there’s a map on his palm. Tony braces his hands on the headboard because he has to, can’t hold himself up anymore, tightens himself around Steve’s cock and rolls his hips, once, twice. He bows his head and sees a drop of sweat, his own, fall to Steve’s chest, and when Steve opens his eyes again he can’t do anything but shudder, breath ragged, mouth parted around something he isn’t sure how to say.
He just hangs there, over Steve and around him, too, his whole body thrumming with tension. He hangs there and Steve’s still smiling when he moves, reaches out with his whole body, arching up to pull Tony into a kiss. It changes the angle, not much but enough, and when their mouths meet he can feel Steve’s dick twitch inside of him; he doesn’t mean to, shouldn’t, but he groans into Steve’s mouth and comes, shock-hard, all over both of their stomachs. And maybe it’s just that, the sticky spill of it between them, or maybe it’s the fact that Tony’s body always tenses, wracked, when he comes before he’s ready to, but Steve shakes all over and Tony can feel it, can feel Steve spilling out inside of him. He bites down on the trembling plane of Steve’s shoulder to keep from screaming out loud and Steve’s hands are on his back, his ass, and Tony’s whole world goes white with overload, because it’s the only choice he’s really got.
When he blinks out of it--and it can’t be long, can it, not more than a second or two, because they’re both still gasping for breath, haven’t moved--he can feel Steve slipping out of him, inching loose, anatomical gravity. And that’s...Tony doesn’t want him to go, which doesn’t even make sense, which isn’t rational at all. He pulls himself free despite this, tries to ignore the aching absence there, focuses instead on the come dripping down his leg as he rolls, indelicately, to one side.
“God, Tony,” Steve says, wrecked, a hand reaching out to--fuck, Steve’s tracing the lines of his own come on Tony’s thighs, and Tony has to muffle his moan against the pillow, because Christ, that would be telling. “That was--god.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, and he’s shaking, can feel himself shaking, as Steve gets up on unsteady legs and walks to the bathroom. He’d raise a protest but he kind of...can’t, right now, maybe in a minute...but Steve’s back before he can worry about it, a washcloth in his hand. “What--”
“You’re not going to,” Steve pauses, swallows, actually licks his lips and fuck, Tony hasn’t had an aftershock like this in years, “you’re not going to sleep like, uh. Like that.”
“I can,” Tony starts, and Steve says, “No, I, uh. I want to, if that’s...okay?” and Tony really, really can’t bring himself to argue.
“Yeah,” he says, “yeah, yeah, of course it’s--what am I going to do, really, that’s, uh--”
“Stop talking,” Steve says easily, like he’s giving Tony a gift, and he is, really, so Tony does.
The washcloth’s damp, warm water mostly wrung out, and if Steve notices that Tony groans into the pillow every time it touches him, he’s kind enough not to mention it. He wipes Tony clean and then, apparently out of energy entirely, throws the cloth over the edge of the bed and collapses back against the pillows.
He’s going to say something, Tony knows he is, can feel it in the way his breathing changes, in the patterns his fingertips are tracing on Tony’s ribcage. He’s going to say something and Tony is too...too something, right now, for that, so he pushes himself on one unsteady arm and kisses Steve, fast, breathless, instead.
And then Steve...god, Steve, he’s always Steve, isn’t he, even in bed, especially in bed; he rolls with it, kisses back, and then takes Tony’s face in both of his hands and slows it down. He sucks lightly at Tony’s lower lip and soothes his thumb along Tony’s cheek and Tony gasps and doesn’t, drifts in the familiarity of it until he feels like himself again.
When they finally, finally break apart, he grins at Steve, and the smile Steve answers with is strange, like he can’t quite remember how the muscles in his face work. “We’re, uh. We’re definitely going to have to try it that way again sometime.”
“Mmm,” Tony says, “you like that? Remind me later, I’ll put it on the list--”
“The list?”
“Of things you’ll like,” Tony says around a yawn. “Like, uh, the other day, the shower got cold and you...so ice cubes, maybe, except, you know, it’s messy, gets shit all wet, and I know ice isn’t good for you sometimes, because of. Uh. The thing. But you definitely reacted to the temperature shift, and that one time when we started and I still, with the armor, that was just for a second and you liked that too, I’m sure I can find a way around it, what’s the point of being me if you can’t screw around with that kind of thing, right?”
“You keep track of what I like?” Steve says, because of course that’s what he took away from that. “In...in bed?”
“Well, yeah,” says Tony, “why wouldn’t I? The whole point is for you to like it, and it’s all, I mean, if you have the opportunity for trial and error it’d be stupid not to pay attention.”
“I,” Steve says, and blinks, “that’s actually...really sweet.”
“You wouldn’t think that if you’d seen the folder on my server where I keep the--”
“Oh, god, no, don’t,” Steve says, laughing, slinging an arm over Tony’s waist. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”
“Find out eventually,” Tony says, eyelids drooping already, lulled into a sense of security that maybe isn’t even false by the proximity of Steve’s chest. “‘S gonna be a fun day.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” Steve says, “go to sleep, Tony,” and hey, what the hell, Tony does.
--
Tony’s not sure what time it is--darkness time, definitely, no-sunlight time, wow, he’s tired--when he wakes to the sensation of being jabbed in the shoulder. It takes him a second to get his bearings (not drunk not in the suit this is his bed hey that’s Steve full compliment of limbs no villains heart working okay) and then he rallies immediately to action.
Well. For a given value of “action,” anyway.
“Whuzzit, ‘s night, are we ‘ssmebling?” he slurs, trying and failing to sit up. “‘Cause… suit... Jarvis...”
“No,” Steve says, and there are hands on Tony’s shoulders, and oh, hey, it’s a face, it’s Steve’s face! Tony’s totally awake, he can be awake, yes he can. “No, hey, no, it’s not a mission, nothing like that, god. Sorry.”
“Um,” says Tony, “no, I mean, ‘s fine, hello, ‘m I in...trouble or, uh, dreaming, right, was I dreaming?”
“How would I know if you were dreaming?”
“Pepper,” Tony says, yawning around it, rubbing one eye with the palm of his hand. “Said I’d, uh. In my sleep, sometimes. Er. Screaming an’ stuff, woke her up.”
“Oh,” Steve says, very quiet. “No, Tony, you weren’t screaming.”
“Awesome,” Tony says. There’s a relief. “What’s...up, then?”
“Nothing,” Steve says, and Tony’s just awake enough now to hear how sharply it comes out of his mouth. He peers at Steve in the darkness--sitting up, knees pulled to his chest--and frowns. “I don’t even know why I woke you, honestly. Call it an...impulse, I guess. Go back to sleep.”
“But I’m up now,” Tony says.
This, at least, earns him half a smile; Tony only catches it because he’s looking for it, but it’s there for a second. Steve’s hands ghosts over his arm a moment later.
“Sorry,” he says.
“If you woke me up to apologize for waking me that’d be--” he pauses, yawns hugely, continues, “I mean, if you see logic in that then, uh, share with the class or whatever--”
“No, I meant,” and now his hand’s not ghosting, it’s rubbing, knuckles against Tony’s skin, a light, careful sort of touch. “I...I left this. Bruised you. I didn’t mean to.”
“Huh?” Then Tony follows Steve’s gaze down, down, and--”Oh, shit, look at that. Wow. Uh. That’s...kind of hot, actually.”
“Tony.”
“It is!” Tony says, still not with it enough to filter himself. “It’s Cap-shaped, I’ll probably get hard in a meeting because of that now, thanks for that, hey, you’re still frowning. Stop it, seriously, it's fine, I like it.”
“You shouldn’t,” Steve says, and Tony laughs.
“There are a lot of things I shouldn’t like,” he says, “but I do anyway, and this is only a little bruise and you’re, I mean, come on, you’re you. Were you really expecting to never ever leave a little mark? And anyway--oh. This isn’t about this, is it?”
“Not really,” Steve says, and worries the edge of his lip between his teeth. “Kind of? I don’t know, I shouldn’t have woken you--”
“But it’s too late, I’m awake, so now you’re stuck with me.”
Steve sighs. “I’m just not...I don’t know how to. To do this, I guess and--oh, no, not us, Tony, don’t look at me like that. You and me is kind of the only thing I do know how to do right now, or, I mean, where I at least have a...oh, god, don’t make me--”
“I wasn’t,” Tony says, “actually. Sometimes I’m not, you know, and mostly I’m just, look, I’m not really good at problem solving but on the other hand I’m great at it, but I’m sort of going to need you to explain. A little. Because if you don’t I’m probably going to say something awful. Not on purpose. But, a guideline is all, a boundary or something, because I’ve got a big picture but I need you to, uh, scale it down a little so I can get it. Or try to get it. Or whatever.”
Steve rakes a hand through his hair, takes a deep breath, and looks out the window. “Not sure what I’d even say, really.”
“Okay,” Tony says, flopping back against the sheets, “tell you what, I can wait.”
“Yes, because that’s normally such a skill of yours,” Steve says. “Patience, that’s your watchword, right after--”
“Play nice,” Tony says, “I’m trying a new thing here, it’s very difficult to focus on it,” and Steve shakes his head, but he doesn’t say anything else.
And then...well, then Tony does wait, because this is a thing about Steve he thinks he might just have figured out. Steve likes to talk it out when he’s upset, but he won’t be rushed for anyone; he’s stubborn, and Tony gets stubborn, knows stubborn inside and out. He’d let it go, actually, because for all Tony can’t really pick his own battles, he can sometimes pick other people’s, but Steve had woken him. That’s what Pepper would call a context clue and what Tony would probably call...well, a coding blip, honestly, but either way it’s worth his attention, and so he stares up at the ceiling and doesn’t twitch, doesn’t hum, doesn’t explain to Steve how the backup generator in the Quinjet’s going to work...
...and eventually, Steve opens his mouth.
“He doesn’t remember,” he says slowly. “Bucky, I mean. Anything after--nothing about how I...I mean, I might as well have dropped him and he doesn’t remember, the last thing he has is me making some joke about Coney Island and I don’t know how to tell him it was my fault--”
“Was it your fault?”
“Of course it was,” Steve says, “it--all of it, it was all my fault--”
“Because I don’t actually know the whole story there,” Tony continues, “which, I mean, not that you have to tell me the story, but unless you actually, uh, shot him--”
“No! Of course I didn’t--”
“Well then,” Tony says, “I’m guessing it’s not entirely your fault, right? I mean, coming from a guy who knows from self-blame, I feel that, I get it, but I don’t have all the data, so, y’know. You could tell me, though, if you wanted. No blame here, either way.”
Steve gives him a long, open-mouthed look, and then drops his gaze and stares down at his hands. When he speaks, his voice is small.
“Do you think we could maybe, uh. Make some coffee or something? It’s...kind of a long story.”
“Sure,” says Tony, “why not? Never met a pot of coffee I didn’t like. C’mon.”
--
An hour later, Tony knows...well. He knows everything, really.
He knows why Steve was so intense about making Tony build that safety harness for Hawkeye; he knows why Steve always winces when trains fly past them in the subway. He knows why Steve still hasn’t gone to see his old neighborhood in Brooklyn, and why he shudders sometimes when they cut through certain alleyways in battle, and why he always watches the fight surveillance footage until he knows the timestamp on every single punch, kick, or explosion. He knows why he occasionally catches Steve saying Bucky’s name is his sleep, sounding tortured by it, and he thinks he might even know why Steve gets so weird and intense when Tony’s injured--he’s not sure about that last one, but hey, a guy can hope.
“...and I didn’t even look for him,” Steve finishes, finally. He’s been talking so long that his voice is a little hoarse--or, at least, Tony is going to do him the kindness of pretending to believe that’s what it is. “I mean, my best friend, my best friend, he showed up for me so many times, he never let me down and he was alive and I didn’t even think to--”
“Well, yeah, no, of course you didn’t,” says Tony, who can’t keep quiet anymore. “Steve, come on, listen to yourself--the guy fell off the side of a mountain, anyone would assume he was dead--”
“But I shouldn’t have, I should have known better, I should have tried harder--”
“How do you know you wouldn’t have?” Tony says, and takes a pointed sip of his coffee. It’s cold, awful, and he pulls a face. “Ugh, that’s gotten gross--but, no, okay, it was what, a day? Two? Between when he fell and when you did, so it’s not like you had a lot of time on your hands to go searching. And before you start, of course you didn’t go looking when you woke up, it’d been 70 years, even if he’d survived the fall he wouldn’t have survived 70 years in the mountains, that doesn’t even make sense.”
“I know!” Steve snaps. He lets his head drop into his hands. “I know, but it shouldn’t have happened at all and--and I don’t know if I want him to, to remember and forgive me, or remember and hate me, or just not remember. And that’s...it’s selfish, I think, any one of those options is selfish, but I can’t help it.”
Sometimes--not so often anymore, because he’s gotten used to it, but sometimes--Steve is such a good person that Tony kind of wants to poke him and make sure he’s real.
“Huh,” he says, instead of doing that. “What was it you said Peggy told you?”
Steve sighs. “‘Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice.’ And I understand, you don’t have to--”
“No, I’m not going to. Because, look, actually, I would have given you totally different advice, and it would’ve been the wrong advice, obviously, but the way I see it? Once someone’s dead you don’t really owe them anything. I mean, it’s not like they’re gonna know, either way, so I probably wouldn’t have told you to allow him the dignity of shit. Who needs dignity once they’re dead? They’re dead, that’s not really their problem anymore. But,” he continues, when Steve opens his mouth to--Tony doesn’t know, argue with him, maybe, or something, “Bucky’s not dead, as it turns out. So now you do owe him shit, and--I mean, look at it this way. If it were me, if we were on a train and you were falling and I couldn’t--not didn’t, couldn’t--grab you in time, would you want me to beat myself up about for the rest of my life?”
“You would,” Steve says.
“Of course I would,” says Tony, “obviously I would, I beat myself up over way less than that, let’s not lie, but you wouldn’t want me to, right?”
“Well, of course not--”
“And I wouldn’t care, because you’d be...” Oh. Tony can’t actually say the word ‘dead’ in the context of Steve; that’s interesting. Unexpected. He’ll come back to it later. “You wouldn’t be around, so it wouldn’t matter, I could do what I wanted to. But Bucky’s alive! So, I mean, doing shit you know he wouldn’t want you to be doing, that’s kind of a dick move, right?”
Steve stares at him like he’s crazy; Tony doesn’t really blame him. After a minute he says, “I feel like that shouldn’t make sense.”
“I feel that way a lot,” Tony says, “like, whenever Thor says anything, and every time Natasha turns out to have another secret pocket in her jumpsuit--but it does, right?”
“I,” Steve says, and then sighs, nearly smiles. “Yeah, it kind of does.”
“Well, there you go,” Tony says. He gets up to pour himself another cup of coffee, takes Steve’s mug wordlessly when he hands it back. “Is that all of it?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, and then, “well, I mean, no, not really, he’s--nobody knows what they’ve done to him. He shouldn’t be alive, and he is, and I think everyone’s afraid that he’s going to, I don’t know, go crazy from over-chemicalization or something. I don’t know the science behind it. Mostly I’ve just been trying to keep him from breaking out of the building to go look at the future.”
“Not one for forced confinement?”
“You’ve got no idea,” Steve says, and that’s a real smile, a full one, when Tony hands him his freshly refilled cup. “When we were kids he used to skip detention by jumping out of windows; yesterday he was so out of it he could barely walk, and he still asked me to take him to dinner, because he was ‘sick of the walls in this joint.’”
“Sounds like my kind of guy,” Tony says absently, and sits back down. “Well, hey, look, that’s an easy fix--if he needs supervision, just bring him here. We’re crawling with superheroes and Coulson’s on the speed-dial, there’s a lab right in the basement if we have to run any kind of emergency testing, there’s no reason he has to stay on-base.”
“I--what?” Steve says. “Tony, I can’t ask you to do that--”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because this is your house,” Steve says. “I’m not going to, I mean, and I’m sure Bucky wouldn’t want me to, the imposition--”
“Have you missed the square footage on this place?” Tony demands. “Seriously, there are more bedrooms here than even I know what to do with and I am, as you may have noticed, good at excess. Hell, he could sleep in your room, it’s not like you really use it anymore.”
Oh, crap, he probably shouldn’t have said that. He regrets it, yes he does, that’s some serious regret there, he shouldn’t have drawn Steve’s attention to that fact, but he doesn’t really get a chance to panic about it properly, because a loud crash interrupts them.
The ceiling in the front hallway has fallen in, right before their eyes. There’s a cloud of plaster in the air, obscuring the intruder, but that doesn’t stop them from jumping into action; Steve rips a cabinet door off its hinges to use as a shield, tosses Tony a kitchen knife. Natasha comes running out from her bedroom, daggers in her hands, Pepper behind her and armed with what Tony thinks is Natasha’s favorite pistol, and Clint stumbles out of his bedroom a moment later, his crossbow on his hip, the strap of one of his sniper rifles caught between his teeth.
“Who dares intrude upon the home of Thor, god of thunder?” Thor cries, flying into the room with Mjölnir in his hand. He is completely and utterly naked, but that doesn’t stop him from adding, “Show yourself, villain, that you might rue the day upon which you upset my slumber!”
“Jarvis, fans,” Tony snaps, because it’s high time they got a twenty on whoever managed to get in here without raising the alarms. The cloud of dust clears nearly instantaneously, revealing...
...the Hulk, looking equal parts confused and shamefaced, lying prone across the floor.
“Hulk is sorry,” he says. “Hulk had bad dream. Hulk will stop watching Hitchcock movies before bed.”
“Jesus,” Tony, Steve, Natasha, Pepper and Clint say together.
Thor, never one to follow the crowd, mutters something in old Norse under his breath. Then he glances around the kitchen--still naked, so naked, the nakedest--and brightens considerably. “My friends! You have prepared coffee in anticipation of this meeting! My irritation is soothed entirely, for nothing can deter me from the enjoyment of a fine Italian roast.”
Tony picks up his own coffee cup, takes a long sip, and raises an eyebrow at Steve. Perfectly deadpan, he says, “You know what, buddy, you’re right. Another house guest would be an imposition. Really disturb the tranquility of the place. I just don’t think I can manage it.”
Steve looks around the room, at the plaster dust and drywall chunks, Thor’s dick swinging free as he pours himself a cup of coffee, Clint’s Kermit the Frog boxers. He puts down the cabinet door, drops his head to Tony’s shoulder, and laughs, shaking with it, so hard he nearly cries.
--
As it turns out, it’s kind of hard to go back to sleep after the ceiling falls in at half past four in the morning. After a few minutes of chaotic argument (“HITCHCOCK MOVIES?!” “Hulk did not know he was afraid of birds!”), the team drifts into the living room, clutching mugs of coffee, all in mostly silent agreement that the best thing to do is cut their losses and watch a movie.
They’re a lot less silent about their agreement that Thor should put some pants on, but, to be fair, sometimes he needs to hear that a couple of times before it really makes an impact.
It’s five when Steve starts yawning; at five fifteen his head lands on Tony’s shoulder, heavy, his body gone lax. Tony shifts without really thinking about it, curling an arm around him without taking his eyes off of Sex and The City, which they’re watching mostly because they needed something to be annoyed at that wasn’t, well, the Hulk.
“If I hunt down the people who made this movie and kill them,” Natasha says, “it’s justifiable homicide, right?”
“No court would convict you,” Clint says. “That’s a mercy killing if ever there--oh my fucking god, if you’re going to beat someone in the face with flowers the least you could do is get your form right--”
“Hulk likes pretty dresses,” says the Hulk, who is eating ramen that Tony went ahead and made for him for the good of the team.
“Good for you, Hulk,” Pepper says diplomatically; Steve snores, loud and obnoxious, and Tony smiles, tries to play it off when Pepper gives him a knowing look. “This movie is horrific, but I am willing to concede--”
“Don’t,” says Natasha, “just, just don’t, Pepper, I swear to god, murder--”
“I can appreciate a good pair of Manolo’s and support your vicious habits at the same time,” Pepper says loftily, and Natasha rolls her eyes, visibly bites back a smile.
“Hey,” says Tony, “that building wouldn’t be there without us, everybody drink.”
Everyone takes a long pull from their coffee mugs, except for the Hulk, who slurps loudly at his ramen.
“I must admit,” Thor says, tilting his head in confusion, “while I normally find Midgardian entertainment both deeply fulfilling and worthy of my attention, this storyline is neither compelling nor short on emotional manipulation. In addition, what they have done to the character development of Miranda in particular appalls me to the bowels of my soul; for what purpose have they stripped her of her sass?”
There is a long moment of silence.
“Thor watches the series,” Tony says finally, “everybody drink.”
There is a round of muttered agreement, and then the chatter drops off. Clint’s the next one to fall asleep, eyes wide open like always, but they’re all used to it by now; Natasha goes next, like a switch has been flipped, her head in Pepper’s lap. Hulk’s snoring by the time the credits roll, and Thor, who can sleep at will and anywhere, shrugs and closes his eyes when Tony puts on Fight Club to try and bleach his brain.
And then...well, it’s only him and Pepper awake anymore, isn’t it, and they’ve both got work pulled up on the glass end tables, and she knows what he’s like. He moves again, careful, guides Steve into a slightly more comfortable position, and when he looks up, she’s smiling at him.
“Don’t, Pep.”
“And why shouldn’t I?” Pepper says. “Do you think I don’t know what it is to worry about someone?”
“Ouch,” Tony says, and Pepper rolls her eyes.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Tony, and you know it.”
“Yeah,” says Tony. “I just...it was never like this with you, I guess. Uh, no offense, please don’t think I mean that in a--”
“No, I know,” Pepper says, and whatever her smile is communicating now, it’s outside the range of what Tony can translate. “You know that we weren’t...normal, don’t you? That’s probably part of what went wrong, really; we knew each other too well in other ways, I think.”
“If I nod and smile, will you pretend to believe I understood that?”
“Don’t I always?” Pepper says, and her face goes soft when Tony laughs. “You’re good together, I think. You don’t need to drive yourself crazy about it; you’re crazy enough already.”
“Thanks,” Tony says, and then--because it’s too late, too early, and it’s Pepper--he adds, “I just...I know I tend to, uh, fuck things up. I don’t mean to, but I mean--well, you know.”
“Is that what you think happened between us?” Pepper says. Tony’s eyes must say something he doesn’t mean them to say, he must not drop them fast enough, because she sighs, sounding sad. “Oh, Tony.”
“No, look, you don’t have to, it’s good, I’m--”
“Sometimes people just don’t fit together,” Pepper says, and it’s her kind voice, the one she only uses when he’s sick or injured, when she’s trying to talk him out of something emotional and stupid. “Or don’t fit together in certain ways, or have fit together too long one way to...we didn’t work, but it’s not because you didn’t.”
“Yes it is,” Tony says wretchedly, “you know it is, you don’t have to--”
“I know I don’t have to,” Pepper says. “If you really think, after all this time, that I’d tell you things because I thought you wanted to hear them, I clearly haven’t been doing my job right. Well, jobs, I suppose, but that’s neither here nor--Tony. Relationships take two people, and so do breakups.”
“Right, but--”
“No,” she says, not kind anymore, that’s the business voice. “Oh, no you don’t, I avoided you just as much as you avoided me--”
“But I pushed too much and--”
“I pushed right back. Do you know I actually find it offensive that you could--”
“Offensive, you’re offended by my--”
“--and now you’re entirely railroading the discussion, yes, of course I am, do you have any idea how much--”
“--yeah, Pep, I’ve got an idea, you’re not listening to me--”
“No, you’re not listening to me!” Pepper says, and it’s just loud enough that Natasha stirs a little in her lap. She freezes, shamefaced, and then sighs and offers Tony a smile. “This is why, Tony. We work like this, as us; we probably shouldn’t have tried it the other way, but, well.”
“Yeah,” Tony says, “well.”
“I’m glad we did, though,” Pepper says, and it doesn’t sound like charity. “Because I would’ve held a candle, I imagine, and now I don’t have to, and who knows what that would have done to us?”
“Theoreticals,” Tony says. “Dangerous game, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Pepper says, “not this time.”
Tony offers her a lopsided little grin and looks back at the screen. He doesn’t look at the circles under Steve’s eyes, because he knows they’re there; after a minute, he rubs the flat of his palm down Steve’s arm. Steve moves a little, a tiny muscle spasm that probably has nothing to do with Tony’s hand, but he smiles anyway. “So you think you’re,” he says, without glancing away from the movie, “I mean, you and Natasha. Feels like a fit?”
“I don’t like to count my chickens,” Pepper says slowly. “But, yes. Yes, I think so.”
“Good,” says Tony, and hey, look at that, he even means it. “That’s...that’s good, Pep, I’m glad. Can’t promise I won’t make an embarrassing toast at the wedding, though--hey, you think the Hong Kong story is appropriate for company, because you know what, I don’t, so it’s definitely on the docket--”
“Don’t you dare,” Pepper says. Then she laughs, ducking her head. “And you? Fitting?”
“Tell you what,” Tony says, looking down at Steve’s big, broad hand settled across his thigh, “I’ll let you know.”
Part Three