Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Here’s the thing: Tony’s a considerate lover. That’s nothing new. He’ll happily eat out a woman until his mouth and chin are messy and slick with cream and his partner’s thighs are clamped around his head so tight he can scarcely smell or taste anything but pussy. Rim a lover easy, slow, and endlessly? Turn it into an exercise in decadence and patience until said lover’s hips kick restlessly and he begs— please please fuck me please —for Tony to fill him with his thick cock? Yes, definitely. Why the hell not? 

When it comes to bodies, when it comes to the pleasure one can wring from them, he’s always believed in this old adage: if it’s worth doing at all, it’s worth doing right. 

What’s new, however, is the bright-sharp need that pricks Tony now. Draws blood, even. As he lingers in the v of Steve’s spread legs, it wells up in him, this desperate desire does, not only to please, to make it good, so good for Steve, but to worship. 

Steve calling him his fella shouldn’t affect him like this―shouldn’t scratch with insistent, razor-tipped claws at something hidden inside Tony that wants to give and give to this kind, amazing person who says he likes Tony and, as difficult as it is for Tony to believe, seems like he’s going to stick around long enough for them to learn each other’s quirks and likes and dislikes.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

The sex is good; the sex is amazing. But along with the physical, at least this time, with this person, comes an intense and unsettling craving—a storm surge of want—to know Steve. To be known by him. 

Only the latter scares him.

“Tony.” 

His name, the two syllables spoken softly, beckons Tony’s attention; unfurls a rich, sweet ache that begins in his chest and culminates in his cock. “Hmm?” He angles his chin to rub his beard against the coarse hair that surrounds Steve’s cock; breathes in and fills his lungs with the scent of Steve that is stronger and more earthy here. He loves that scent.

“Look at me,” says Steve, “please,” the epitome of polite but still compelling, and Tony, he complies. He does. What else can he do when Steve asks so nicely? Well, he could deny him, but as he searches himself he finds there isn’t any part of him that wants to do that. “Since you’re my fella and all”—Steve, the little shit, winks, actually, honest-to-god winks at him; Tony rolls his eyes even though a bolt of pleasure shoots through him at hearing that word applied to him once again; god, he’s so weak and easy for Steve—“just, uh, just before you make it so I can’t think anymore, I want to make sure you know…”

“Know what?”

 “I like you, too, Tony. A lot. I like you a lot.” 

That’s Steve: part troll, part earnest with a capital E. Tony? Tony finds it—and him—utterly, ridiculously adorable.  

Tony says, “Yeah, I’m starting to get that.” Sure, his delivery might be controlled and dry, but the smile that stretches Tony’s lips, the one he suspects looks way beyond goofy and instead crashes headlong into stupidly lovelorn, well, that’s wholly out of Tony’s control. Maybe there’ll come a day when Tony tires of Steve telling him he likes him, but today is not that day. Today Tony allows himself to bask in Steve’s open affection for him. It’s precious and new and fragile, and he doesn’t want to take it for granted. He doesn’t even want to examine it too closely, lest he break it.

The fingers of one of Steve’s hands skim the join of Tony’s neck and shoulder before they tiptoe to his nape and finally, glide to his head and play with his hair. They spread warmth and a thick, drugging sense of contentment through his body. They touch him tenderly, move the strands with an aching gentleness that verges on too much, and Tony’s eyes flutter shut. A sigh escapes his lips and a shudder works through him. “And it should be clear already,” Steve says, fingers still in Tony’s hair and voice full of all the warmth, kindness, and reassurance Tony needs but has been too afraid to ask for, “but sometimes you and me, we talk past each other or maybe don’t understand things the way we should, so let me just say it: if you’re my fella, Tony, then I’m yours.”

At that, Tony’s eyes open. When he looks up, he finds Steve looking back at him steadily, pink lips canted in a shy smile that holds such fondness Tony’s breath hitches in response.

I’m yours. 

Mine, Tony thinks, and the resulting click of rightness shakes him.

“You sure you mean that, big guy?” Tony makes sure to leave his tone light. “Be careful,” he warns, “you can’t take it back.” Please don’t take it back , he thinks but doesn’t permit his mouth to say. He fixes his gaze on Steve and searches his face for signs of discomfort; he doesn’t find them. 

Steve just looks back at him, face relaxed under Tony’s inspection and one eyebrow angled sharply as if to ask, Are you done yet; did I pass? “I’m sure,” he replies. “I don’t want to take it back.” Steve’s voice, a lighthouse beam cleaving the darkness. 

Feelings rise inside Tony. They twist and bubble from his stomach and climb inexorably to his chest until they’re about to overflow like boiling water poised to cascade over the lip of an unwatched pot perched on a hot stove burner. He’d been talking about getting Steve’s dick in his mouth and sucking until Steve came all over his face, but as much as he wants that―and he does, oh, he does―god, he really, really wants that―at its core, all he wants is to please Steve and take care of him. To be the cause of what makes him shiver and moan and above all, feel good. Whether it’s selfish or not to want those things so much, Tony doesn’t know and frankly, he doesn’t care. 

Making Steve feel good makes Tony feel good. There’s something in him that goes soft and melting when he turns his focus to pleasing Steve, and while it’s tempting to overthink it, at this moment, he promises himself he won’t. That may come later. With his brain, there’s always another cycle to run; another chance to second guess and doubt.

He doesn’t return Steve’s smile. Instead, he says, as confident and matter-of-fact as he can, “I’m going to take such good care of you, sunshine.” 

Sunshine. 

It’s the perfect endearment for Steve, who burns so brightly that looking at him can feel like staring directly into the sun. There’s a golden conviction in him, a faith in people, a ceaseless desire to search for the right thing to do and then do it, that warms Tony in ways that reach far beyond the physical.

“No,” Steve counters, firm, stubborn as the last leaf clinging to an oak branch in autumn, and so perfectly Steve, “we’ll take care of each other.”

Now Tony smiles.

One of Steve’s hands is still tangled in Tony’s hair, grounding him, and Tony loves that; would gladly keep it there for an eternity if he could. (What a picture they must make, both of them naked, Tony stretched between the lazy sprawl of Steve’s legs. A study in contrasts: Steve’s pale, slim fingers speared through Tony’s dark hair.) 

The other rests, fingers splayed, high on the thick, muscled slope of Steve’s thigh. Tony reaches for that one and twines their fingers together, his calluses sliding against Steve’s smoother skin. Squeezes gently and feels a fresh layer of warmth blossom when Steve squeezes back. There’s some sort of sappy metaphor there, but Tony lets it nibble at the periphery of his mind and then swim away.

With his other hand curled firmly around the base of Steve’s cock, holding it steady, Tony inhales slowly and lets the anticipation of what he’s about to do build—in both of them. Then he seals his mouth around Steve’s cockhead, feeling how his lips stretch, savoring it for its own sake and for how Steve takes clear enjoyment in the act. A hot rush of awareness and need coils in Tony’s belly, and he deftly flicks his tongue against the slit until Steve’s hips give a decided twitch, feeding Tony more of Steve’s cock. Tony tastes a burst of precome. Steve’s hand tightens and releases in Tony’s hair in a sweet sting, and he chokes out a breathless “Ah,” that drags heat through Tony’s entire body because he loves coaxing helpless noises of pleasure from Steve, who is usually so controlled and contained. 

He licks one last time. With a sigh that rings with regret, Tony gently lets Steve slip free of his mouth and hand and shifts his hold to Steve’s inner thighs. The skin there is paler than elsewhere on Steve’s body due to always being covered with clothes and is dusted with blond hair that brushes against Tony as he sweeps his palms and fingers around and around on Steve’s thighs. 

What would it take, Tony wonders, to convince him to lie outside, naked, and let the sun drizzle him in shades of honey and gold? Come to think of it, that’s probably a spectacularly bad idea; with Steve’s fair, Irish skin, he’d need Tony to slather every last inch of him in sunscreen—and then reapply every five minutes. Oh, he can hardly believe what an inconvenience it would be for him to touch Steve all over.

Laughing to himself at that thought, Tony hooks his arms under Steve’s legs, lets the sweet weight of those limbs anchor him, and rubs his cheeks—first the bare part and then the dark rasp of his beard—against the insides of Steve’s thighs. A smile tempts his lips when Steve looses a low whimper, the soft sound a hot pulse of feeling in Tony’s cock. 

Helpless but without shame, Tony tilts his pelvis and lets his hips give a slow roll; catches his lips between his teeth and grinds himself against Steve’s smooth sheets. His mouth—soft; open; wet—he presses to Steve’s sensitive skin, allowing his breath to ghost across it and coax goosebumps. He unspools slow, damp kisses in a breadcrumb trail that wends from the secret, vulnerable crease where Steve’s thigh meets the rest of his body, near where his cock juts out, big, flushed, hard, and still shining and wet with both precome and Tony’s saliva, to his knee. Knowing that Steve’s enhanced hearing will catch the words even if he whispers them, instead, Tony goes silent. There are things that want to be said; they shiver, blood-warm and hungry, behind the prison of his teeth. My love, my own, mine, he mouths, trembling, in a mute ecstasy of devotion along Steve’s warm skin. 

Under Tony, Steve shudders.

”Please. I need—” Steve begs Tony through a voice gone so hoarse Tony feels it like a caress down the length of his spine. The sound leaves him raw and exposed, reeling, as if it’s been crafted for the purpose of flaying him open in this way. It hasn’t, Tony doesn’t think, because he’s never perceived Steve as consciously wielding that kind of artifice. “Don’t tease me. Please, beautiful,” Steve says, half plea and half admonishment. His eyes gleam—starlight in Tony’s sky. 

Beautiful.

As Tony’s cursed brain latches onto that word and plays it on a loop, a tidal wave of heat sweeps along his body and up into his face.  

Tony stops and glances up at Steve; the naked need he sees in his face, written into the small stitch between Steve’s brows, steals the air from Tony’s lungs. “Oh, sweetness, no”—his arms slide back out from beneath Steve’s legs, and he shakes his head—“I’m not teasing you.” He would; he will if they’re playing that kind of game. But this, right now, is no game. His hand slips to Steve’s hip. Curves over the bone and squeezes gently. “Anything you want,” Tony assures Steve, “I’ll give it to you.” An extravagant promise for sure, but Tony means it. Maybe too much. 

As attuned as Tony tries to be to Steve, to his body and its myriad signals and tells, he’s not a mind reader. He’s misjudged Steve’s level of need; he didn’t realize how fast it would ramp back up. The thought twists Tony’s mouth into a frown even as it sends a cascade of excitement flowing through him. He’ll make it up to Steve.

Chastened, he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how badly you wanted it.”

“You.” Steve traces his fingertips along the periphery of Tony’s beard; tilts Tony’s chin and scours his face with tender eyes that appear to see everything, even the things Tony would prefer to keep buried.

“Hmm?”

“I want you badly, Tony, not it ,” Steve insists.

“Oh. Well, yeah,” Tony replies, then mentally kicks himself seven ways to Sunday for the uber-intelligent response. He’s supposed to be suaver than this. Maybe with Steve, it’s okay not to be.

“The distinction matters to me. This isn’t just sex. You’re beautiful, Tony, and I...I want you.” 

Steve’s hand reaches down and Tony’s attention follows as Steve plays his fingertips across the slick-shiny-wet head of his own cock. Across the liquid pearled there. The rapid cadence of Steve’s breath catches in Tony’s ears and makes his own quicken. Their gazes track back up—hold and lock—and Steve’s eyes never leave Tony’s as his fingers scroll, shaking, across Tony’s lips, anointing them. 

“Holy fuck, Steve.”

Steve grins, bright and knowing and utterly irresistible, and for a moment that lasts for both a lightning flash of seconds and, paradoxically, millennia, Tony thinks he could be happy and stay that way if he could just be the cause of that breath-stealing smile. “Yeah?” Steve asks, still smiling, but with a flicker of what Tony thinks might be bashfulness in his voice and expression.

Tony nods rapidly. “Mmhmm. Yup. Yes. Definitely.” In his veins, Tony’s pulse thumps hard.

Though he can tell Steve isn’t done talking, what Tony’s heard is enough to set him in motion. Gratitude and a mélange of too many other emotions to separate into their component parts swallow him and leave him a little clumsy, but he clambers up on the bed and without any finesse collapses on top of Steve, who easily takes his weight and just lifts Tony, patiently adjusting him to lie on top of his chest with zero sign of effort, which could be emasculating but really is only insanely hot. 

Arm resting against Tony’s shoulders, Steve fits his large palm to Tony’s hair and tucks Tony’s face under his chin, against his chest. Steve’s other arm wraps low and snug around Tony’s back, cradling him close. Sighing, Tony shuts his eyes and presses himself to Steve. All of Tony, from his forehead to his stomach to his toes, touches Steve. 

It’s perfect.

“You’re beautiful in perfectly-tailored suits,” Steve says into Tony’s hair, ruffling it with his breath and his speech. From many other people, the compliment would sound insincere. From Steve, though, it sounds real, like something Tony can allow himself to believe and not live to find his faith misplaced. Eyes still closed, Tony sketches his fingertips along Steve’s clavicle, savors the feel of smooth skin laid over solid bone, and lets the quiet, assured resonance of Steve’s voice that he both hears above him and feels below him where their bodies touch settle over him like the softest blanket; lets himself feel cherished and safe in the circumference of Steve’s strong arms. “And you’re beautiful in old jeans, with grease stains on your forearms and your nose, creating fantastic things. With your brain and your wit, you could charm all the goodness from a saint.” His lips ghost across his Tony’s ear, drawing shivers, his tongue careful against the cartilage. Steve’s voice grows hushed: “You’re you; you’re beautiful to me. Everything about you. I can’t help it—I want you. All of you. Even the things you don’t like. I...I accept you as you are, Tony.” By the time Steve utters the last sentence, his voice is a secret Tony has to strain to hear past the detonation of his own pulse and the white noise roaring in his head. “And I want it all.”

All the same, Tony does hear every word. The parts of him that have been hurt, the parts of him he’s armored from the world so they don’t shatter entirely, these parts want to discount Steve’s words. Don’t listen , they hiss, they’re only pretty, fool’s gold words . They don’t mean anything. 

But other parts of Tony are howling wolves, shivering and starving for exactly the acceptance Steve is offering. Like Tony’s mangled heart that keeps time with Steve’s words and how they sound with Steve’s voice curled around them like autumn woodsmoke. Steve and his words are a low, bright flame and Tony is so very, very tired of being cold.  

(Other people might say such things and not mean them, but not Steve. Surely, not him.)

He tries to memorize them—Steve’s words—along with the reassuring thump of Steve’s heartbeat under his ear and the heat, solidity, and sheer size of his whole body gathering Tony close and then closer and closer still. As if, through sheer will, he can absorb Tony into himself, transmute them from two separate beings into a single organism, if he simply tries hard enough. 

The idea of leaving Steve’s muted admission hanging out there alone doesn’t sit right with Tony. He unwinds Steve’s hand from his hair and lays it over his cheek and jaw instead. Holds it there with his own hand so it won’t dart away like a bird set free. “You have it,” Tony says, and his tongue feels too thick and too big for his mouth. All of me, for as long as you want it , he thinks, but leaves the thought unspoken as he blinks back the unexpected damp in his eyes and presses a crooked smile beneath Steve’s jaw. A touch of the lip to warm skin, feather-light but pregnant with meaning. Everything in Tony yearns toward Steve. He pulls back and sits up a bit. “You’d still have it, if you, you know, hadn’t had the serum. We wouldn’t have met, I know, because of the whole being born in 1918 thing…” Tony’s rambling, he knows he is, but there’s a point he’s trying to make, and it seems important right then, to make it. “But if we had, if we had , I would’ve wanted you, even without all the muscles—which, not gonna lie, are super nice—and the jaw of justice thing you have going on.” He takes a deep breath and tries to slow the rapid-fire barrage of his words. “I’d still want the you from before Project Rebirth,” Tony adds, whispering to Steve as he gazes into his eyes. 

Solemn and unblinking, Steve says, “Thank you.”

There’s a word for the look Steve sweeps over him then with those fathomless eyes, Tony knows there is, but he fumbles for it in his mental database and comes back empty-handed.

Steve’s hands drift. They melt over Tony’s temples; flow over his cheekbones; glide to the back of Tony’s neck and knead gently until Tony’s chest spreads on a luxurious sigh. When they stroke slowly down the plane of his back to his hips and then smooth back and forth over the curve of his ass, Tony gives a low whimper and feels his muscles twitch in an involuntary shiver. 

The smile Steve bestows on him is touchably soft. Private. It constricts Tony’s chest with equal measures of longing and worry. His relationship history isn’t the greatest, and he so badly doesn’t want to mess this up.

Long, warm fingers spread wide over the arc reactor in Tony’s chest. Light spills through Steve’s stretched fingers, tinting them a cool blue. This, then, is how Steve lures Tony off the cliff’s edge of dark, inescapable thoughts about his own inadequacy. Tony stares down at Steve’s large hand splayed across his chest, at the unanticipated comfort he finds in it, and nearly flinches at how right it looks there. 

When their gazes connect, Steve’s eyes are clear, sun-dappled waters as he says, “I’m yours, Tony.” Steve sweeps his fingers over the scars on Tony’s chest in a slow, deliberate caress; the intensity in his expression thaws—melts—into something gentle and understanding but no less hungry when Tony trembles and sucks in a sharp breath. “Show me I’m yours.”

Faced with such a sweet demand, Tony acquiesces. Happily. His hand strokes through Steve’s short, soft hair. Down Steve’s body Tony journeys, a penitent making his pilgrimage back from Steve’s chest to the nave of Steve’s stomach and finally, to the high altar. Before he stretches out, he finds Steve’s hands with his own and places them in his hair. “Hold me here,” he says with their fingers still touching, seeking connection with Steve, always, “and don’t let go.” If there’s another layer of meaning wrapped around his words, Tony doesn’t examine it too closely. He has other work to do.

“If I let go, what happens then?”

Tony’s shoulders rise and fall in a shrug, and he gives Steve a deliberately cool, assessing look. “Keep ‘em in my hair, boss, or I’ll stop.” Tony looks up at Steve and makes sure he’s looking back before he drags his tongue across his mouth, mmm, already imagining Steve’s come sliding from it and Steve whimpers and bites his lip.

“You wouldn’t,” Steve says, brows pinched in a frown, and oh, isn’t that adorable?

“I so would.” Tony sharpens his mouth into a grin. “Care to try me?” 

“Hmph,” Steve says, sounding disappointed, but despite that and his narrowed gaze, his hands stay in Tony’s hair.

“Guess not,” Tony says, and winks at Steve. “Oh, and there’s one more thing.” He pauses and waits for Steve to ask the natural follow-up question.

“What’s that?” Steve asks, always a quick study.

Tony smiles, a small, dangerous thing. “Remember, I want you to fuck my mouth.” He enunciates as clearly as possible. 

At that, Steve’s face goes gratifyingly redder. Considering how much blood is currently in his cheeks, it’s a miracle that Steve has enough blood left to circulate elsewhere in his body.

Anticipating Steve’s pushback, Tony jumps in quickly: “Use me. Use me for your pleasure. If it’s too much or I need a break, I’ll pinch you on the hip, okay?”

“But I don’t want to use you. That’s so”—here Steve shakes his head and worries his lip with his teeth, distracting Tony when he doesn’t want to be distracted—“selfish...and crass. You’re a person, Tony, not a...not a sex doll.” Troubled lines etch themselves into Steve’s face; Tony just wants to smooth them away with his fingers and his lips. Fuckity fuck, he’s so royally screwed.

Internally, Tony screams at hearing Steve say sex doll . “Of course, I’m a person. But I’m asking you to do this. Not every time we have sex, just now. And not only for yourself but for me, too. Look at it this way: your pleasure is my pleasure. You’re not forcing me to do anything. I’m not just consenting, extremely enthusiastically, I might add, I’m asking you.” Going silent, Tony lets Steve chew on that for a few moments. “Things only have the meaning we give them, you know. So,” Tony eventually says, gently rubbing his knuckles over Steve’s balls, “if focusing on making you feel good sometimes makes me feel really good, does that make me less of a person?” Turns out the whole communicating thing seems significantly easier when they’re touching.

“No, of course not. People look out for each other. That’s how it should be in a relationship.” Steve’s face has a distinct air of indignation surrounding it now. “A good one, anyway.” 

In a relationship.

A heady wash of near-giddy pleasure floods Tony at hearing that from Steve’s beautiful, beautiful mouth. “Exactly.” None of that is allowed to seep into his expression, however, when he flicks a glance up at Steve and taps his thigh, one eyebrow arched in question. “So, we good?”

Steve peers back at Tony thoughtfully. “Yeah, we’re good.”

“Great.” 

“So long as I get to do that for you sometime.”

“There’s no sexual scorecard here,” Tony says on a laugh. “I’m all for equity, but things don’t have to be precisely even between us to be fair.”

“Gosh, you don’t say,” Steve replies with a super-sized dose of sarcasm. 

Tony grins. “Are you sassing me, Rogers?” 

“Yes.” Steve’s eye roll widens Tony’s grin. “I may not have quite as much experience as the great Tony Stark,” he says, nudging Tony playfully with his leg, “but I know that .” 

“So, sometime in the near future, you want to…?” Tony lets the sentence trail off and shoots Steve a disbelieving look.

Oh, Tony’s ruffled Steve’s pretty feathers. “What? You can want that but I can’t?” Steve says. His eyebrows lift in clear challenge, and hmm, Tony’s well acquainted with those origami-sharp creases that are starting to fold into Steve’s forehead. He’ll never admit it—a man’s got to have a code, after all—but there’s not much Tony likes more than an ornery Steve Rogers.

Is it Christmas? Bzzt. Nope, wrong season. His birthday? Next month. Please, yes, in the name of Jesus, Allah, Zeus, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster , I would love to fuck your mouth sometime rattles around in his head, absolutely screaming to get out, but alongside that swirls a vision of a livid, red-cheeked Pepper throwing five-inch Louboutins at his head with exceptionally good aim because anything Pep does, she does well, so Tony chokes back those words, for once, and chooses the alternate option: he shakes his head vigorously. “Nononono, you can definitely want that,” he hastens to say. “Far be it for little old me to stand in the way of anything you might want.”

Steve licks his lips. (Granted, not a particularly novel move on Steve’s part but incredibly effective and elegant in its simplicity, so Tony grants him ten points for efficiency, natch.) “Oh, I want, all right.” 

The breath whooshes out of Tony in a weird hiccuping sound.

Amusement curls cozy and warm around Steve’s mouth and eyes. At Tony’s expense, of course, but Steve’s eyes gleam so prettily and he watches Tony with such obvious delight and affection that Tony instantly forgives him. “I’m so glad we understand each other.”

“Yeah, me, too. Yup.” Tony reaches down between his legs and adjusts himself. Surreptitiously, he hopes. Given the self-satisfied, carnal tint that Steve’s smile takes on, those hopes are summarily dashed. “Great talk. Communication: it’s a thing.” Tony clears his throat loudly. “You can stop laughing at me any minute now,” he mutters, pouting.

“I’m not laughing at you,” Steve protests. “Stop pouting.” Off Tony’s deeply skeptical and unimpressed look, Steve’s face relaxes into the easy smile that Tony thinks is Steve at his most beautiful. Given the person in question, that’s saying quite a lot. “Okay, maybe I’m laughing a tiny bit. But only because it’s nice to get under your skin the way you get under mine.” 

Tony closes the circuit between them by returning Steve’s warm smile. He says, “Sunshine, you’re so deep under my skin I don’t know how to dig you out.” Oops.

Steve’s eyes shine. “Yeah?” He sounds so pleased by Tony’s accidental admission that it nearly soothes Tony’s mortification.

“Yeah.”

“That scares you.” It’s not a question.

Tony could deny it; he swallows hard and even considers it. “Yeah, it does, sometimes.” The back of his neck prickles uncomfortably. He can feel Steve’s eyes on him, but he turns his face into Steve’s thigh; nuzzles his warmth and presses a soft kiss there. 

Gentle fingers in Tony’s hair turn his face up so he has to look back. “When you get scared, tell me.”

Blinking, Tony tries not to glance away. He owes both of them better than that. “Don’t know if I can.” A small laugh scalds his mouth, and he shrugs. “Not always, anyway,” he says, hoarse and honest, thumb worrying at a freckle on Steve’s leg.

“Try, please. And when you can’t,”—Steve kisses the tips of his own fingers and draws them across Tony’s lips in a light caress—“just hold on to me, and don’t let go. Think you can do that?”

Tony’s mouth twists. “I can try. For you.”

“No,” Steve says, seemingly without hesitation, shaking his head, “try for you.” The admonishment should sting but it doesn’t.

Tony’s eyes sweep Steve’s face, searching for censure, searching for the disappointment and anger he’s seen so often in the faces that meant the most to him, but all he finds there instead are compassion and warmth—so much warmth, all of it aimed at him—as Steve rubs his thumb back and forth over Tony’s cheek.

There’s enough warmth there that it transfers from Steve to Tony, filling him up. 

“Okay, I’ll try.” 

“That’s all I can ask of my fella.” 

He could say thank you; he wants to say thank you. But the words seem too small, insufficient for the emotions welling up in Tony, unequal to the things he sees in Steve’s face, so Tony shifts his focus, determined to work with what he has. MacGyvering solutions is something he’s always been good at. 

Gently, he pulls down Steve’s silky foreskin, revealing the lush wetness coating the tip of his cock and sliding down the fat head. “Gorgeous.” He didn’t intend to say that; it just slipped out on its own. A murmur. At the delicious sight before him, saliva gathers in Tony’s mouth, and he glances up to capture Steve’s gaze. “You’re mine,” Tony says; maybe if he repeats the words often enough, he’ll begin to believe them. A secret; a declaration; the base essence of a prayer. A hushed moan falls from Steve’s mouth; catches Tony in the cock and in the heart, where it lodges, less like shrapnel and more like light. “Mine?” It spreads, inevitable and inexorable—how had he ever thought that casual sex with Steve would be enough? Tony Stark: master of self-delusion—with every heavy pulse of Tony’s heart. 

He waits.

“Yours,” Steve agrees, stark and true, pure gaze hooded but untainted by any negativity, and Tony, Tony loses the battle to hold back from Steve this last, essential piece of himself but this, it feels an awful lot like winning. He can’t find it in himself to doubt, to be cynical, to do anything but slide Steve’s foreskin up again and welcome Steve’s cock back into the humid heat of his mouth. 

He licks at it, sloppy and lust-stupid, purely because he can. Purely because he wants to. Purely because this is bliss. 

There’s a noise at the edge of Tony’s hearing, something like a muffled groan, and he forces himself to look up. Steve’s hand covers his own mouth like he’s trying to silence any stray sounds he might be making.

Gasping, Tony wrenches his mouth from Steve’s cock and pulls himself up, braces his hands against the bed next to Steve’s shoulders until he and Steve are eye to eye. “No.” He pries Steve’s hand away from where it rests over his mouth. “You don’t need to put on a show for me. You don’t have to moan or talk dirty if you don’t feel like it.” He presses his thumb gently into the thick of Steve’s palm. Kneads it. “But don’t hide.” His eyes shut and he shakes his head. “Not from me,” Tony pleads. When his eyes blink open a heartbeat later, Steve’s staring at him, wide-eyed, with those long lashes framing the blue shock of his eyes. “Any sounds you do make, anything you do say, I want to hear it. Please. Give it all to me.” Give me everything you are. “I’ll take care of—”

Steve interrupts Tony, lifting his head and seizing his lips in a desperate kiss. Tony runs his tongue over the sharp points of Steve’s teeth and right along his tongue, too. An urgent hand firm at the back of Tony’s neck and one trembling on his cheek, and all he can taste, all he can smell, all he can feel is Steve, Steve, Steve, everywhere, Steve…

Every breath is his name.

“Can you do that for me?” Tony says against Steve’s mouth, one hand reaching between their tangled bodies and squeezing Steve’s cock; touching him the way their past several weeks together exploring each others’ bodies have taught him Steve likes to be touched.

“I can try.” Steve’s gratifyingly breathless, his chest heaving where it touches Tony’s. “For you.” The rawness of his voice goes straight to Tony’s cock.

Tony gentles the kiss by slow degrees until they are barely moving, lips still touching like they can’t bear to be apart—Tony can’t, he just can’t—but only breathing each others’ air. Even that small, simple act feels more intimate than everything he’s done with other partners. He pulls back just enough to see Steve’s eyes again. “No.” Firm and gentle. Lets his gaze sketch the bones of Steve’s face and the pink bloom in his cheeks that Tony himself put there, while his hand works Steve’s cock, setting a rhythm that has him bucking into Tony’s hand. A slow, slow smile tugs insistently at his lips, and he watches Steve watch him. “For you, sunshine.”

Steve’s breath hitches; Tony can hear it, so clearly. Then Steve makes a liquid sound that might be a laugh or might be a sob, but it doesn’t much matter which it is because Steve trusts him enough to make it right next to Tony’s ear, with his arms folded around Tony’s body, and it’s everything Tony could ask for from his fella.

“Lube, baby. Where’s the lube?” asks Tony, partially because he really doesn’t know where it is and partially to give them both a break from the intensity of feeling—to give them a moment to breathe. 

“In your ass, last I checked,” Steve quips, totally straight-faced. 

“Hardy har har,” Tony shoots back, scowling, “smartass.” With a low, feral growl, Tony nips at Steve’s throat, teeth and beard catching at his skin until Steve’s a squirming mass under him. “What am I gonna do with you?” he mutters against Steve’s skin.

“Blow me, hopefully,” says Steve with a shrug, when Tony looks up.

“Mm. Yes,” Tony replies, and drops a kiss on Steve’s cheek. One, and then another, and another, because with Steve, he’s learning, a single kiss is never, ever enough to satisfy.

Steve fumbles around on the bed, eventually finds the bottle of lube, and passes it to Tony, who takes it with another kiss and a smile.

This time, when Tony slides down, his hands map Steve’s body in a slow, heavy caress over its elevations and valleys, across the warm skin that covers his rounded pecs, small, peaked nipples, and flat belly, and register the goosebumps that rise in response to his touch, or the cool air in Steve’s bedroom, or maybe simple anticipation. They aren’t a trick of Tony’s active imagination, though; they’re real. As real as the soft, pleasure-filled breaths that surface from Steve’s plush mouth, pushed out by the great, wide wall of Steve’s chest. 

This time, when Tony covers Steve’s cock with his mouth, Steve’s hands are curled tighter in Tony’s hair, his grip more urgent. More possessive. Tony doesn’t mind. It gives him a thrill. This is what he wants. This is what he asked for. When Tony does a visual check to make sure Steve isn’t covering his mouth with his pillow or something else in order to block his own sounds, all he sees past the hallowed ground of Steve’s torso are Steve’s parted, kiss-swollen lips and his brow furrowed sweetly in concentration. He’s a vision. Like something straight out of Tony’s hottest dreams—the ones that leave him hard, wet, aching with unfulfilled want for someone who doesn’t want him back. Except Steve’s real. And he wants Tony. This is real. All of it. 

The sight of Steve like this, caught in the spell of pleasure that Tony’s weaving around him, makes sweat bead at the small of Tony’s back.

“To—” Steve chokes out, his hips rising to meet Tony’s mouth. “Oh…”

He sounds so, so good. Wrecked, already. (Tony did that.) In answer, as a reward, Tony breathes through his nose and pulls Steve deeper into his throat. Gives a pleased hum around Steve’s cock. Like everything else on Steve, his cock is sizeable—and beautifully shaped. What doesn’t fit in his mouth Tony curls his hand tightly around, diligently jerking him off, the saliva that slips messily from the tight seal of his mouth easing his fingers’ swift glide. 

Every inch of Tony’s body burns. Tony’s racing mind quiets. Softens. Homes in on the sensation of Steve’s hardness taking up space in his mouth and his throat; Steve’s panting breaths and how they part the very air around them; the tension that quivers in his muscles beneath Tony’s touch. Steve wants this, and Tony does, too. He strokes the inside of Steve’s thigh, feeling the muscle shake, and it’s a heady sensation, knowing he’s making this powerful man tremble with nothing more and nothing less than his mouth and his hands. And that’s before Tony dips his fingers between Steve’s legs and gently rubs at the soft space behind his balls until Steve is breathing hard and tugging even harder at Tony’s hair. 

On the upstroke, as Tony’s other hand rolls from the base on up, Tony hollows his cheeks and sucks hard at the flared head of Steve’s cock. Listening for Steve’s reaction, his tongue he uses to lap and tease at the sensitive patch on the underside. A mess of sounds rain from Steve’s mouth: soft gasps, softer moans, a whitewater rush of words Tony can’t decipher but that feel unbearably good, and real, in Tony’s ears and against Tony’s skin. And always, always, Tony’s name serving to bind it all, uttered in Steve’s need-ravaged voice. Hearing it, Tony hums his approval around Steve’s hard length and rocks his hips forward and back, rubbing himself against the bed to relieve some of the pressure that’s building inside him as he sucks Steve’s cock and absorbs Steve’s responsiveness—the way he moans and writhes under Tony. 

Steve’s fingers loosen their grip and slide through Tony’s hair to rub affectionately at his ears before Tony says, “Mm-mm.” It comes out garbled because Tony’s trying to talk around Steve’s dick in his mouth, but he catches hold of Steve’s wandering fingers and moves them firmly back to his hair. His message seems to have been received since Steve leaves his fingers on Tony’s head and doesn’t try to move them again.

Tony backs off enough to take a deep breath and then wiggles both his hands under Steve, cradling the globes of his ass. When he sucks Steve’s cock into his mouth again, he redoubles his efforts, offering Steve the hot, wet suction of his mouth. He uses his grip on Steve’s ass as leverage to pull his hard length even deeper into his mouth and throat. Dampness trickles down his spine. Tony feels a split-second of discomfort at having Steve’s cock in his throat, at urging him to go as deep as he can go, but he forces himself to relax and breathe through his nose and then he’s fine. When he feels Steve stroking through his hair, tugging him closer, tears gather at the corners of Tony’s eyes. He moans, knowing Steve can feel the vibrations through his cock, and ruts against the bed as he lets Steve fuck his mouth. 

“So good— ah —sweetheart. So sweet for me,” Steve says.

That’s what finally does it; a few words of praise in Steve’s panting, wrecked voice send the tears spilling hot over Tony’s cheeks while he works Steve’s cock faster and faster with his mouth and slides his tongue against it. Without taking his mouth off Steve, Tony feels around for the bottle of lube. He flicks the cap with his thumb, and the bottle opens with a snick. Lust makes him clumsy, so Tony spills far too much slick into his hand, but when he nudges his wet middle finger against Steve’s rim, just teasing at the outside, Steve doesn’t seem to mind.  

Steve’s close—perched on the precipice. He doubts it’ll take much to get him to tumble. Tony can tell by the way he trembles, by the increase in the speed of his breath. He can feel the tautness in Steve’s body; he sucks harder, hot and dizzy with want. The blood pounds in his body and his hips never stop moving as he rubs off against the bed. Elegant? No. Necessary? Yes. 

All he wants is to make it good for Steve. Lightheaded and fuzzy at the edges, Tony swallows around Steve’s cock, certain that he’ll feel the undulation, and lets the sound of Steve’s resulting groan wash over him. The world, finally, spirals down—narrows to this pinprick focus: Steve in his mouth; the aria of Steve’s strained, panting breaths; Steve’s fingers moving through his hair, anchored there like they’ll never let him go; the slow-honey drizzle in Tony’s head. Pleasure, heat, want coil in Tony’s balls, at the base of his spine, tight as the tension in a rubber band that’s been stretched almost to its limit. Tony’s pulse thuds a rapid tattoo, scalding in his shaking hands, in his chest, in his head. Everywhere.

Just...a little...more...

“Hngg.” Steve’s hands tighten in Tony’s hair as his hips piston. “Tony.” Steve’s voice as if from a great distance. Husky. Parched. Like a man who hasn’t had water in days. “Tony, please. I can’t...” Hands on Tony’s shoulders, stroking, rubbing restlessly at his hot skin.

He knows what to do. 

Sliding up, he lets his mouth suckle at just the head of Steve’s cock while one of his hands forms a tight channel around the rest of it. The slick-covered middle finger of his other hand he presses into Steve’s hole. Shallow. Not deep, but it doesn’t need to be. Steve’s reaction is instantaneous: as Tony breaches him, Steve throws back his head, lets loose what can only be described as a wail, and thrusts up into Tony’s mouth. Shuddering over and over, he fills Tony’s mouth with salt and bitter that Tony swallows, gladly. Tony’s tongue darts out and flickers over his lips to taste the overflow.                                                                                                        

While Steve’s body is still spasming, Tony pulls off Steve’s cock but remains close, propped on one arm with his eyes trained on Steve’s face, on his slack, pink mouth, and pleasure-pinched brows. It feels like every pulse of Steve’s cock is synchronized with Tony’s heartbeat. Warmth splashes Tony’s cheek, catches the hair on his chin. With his finger still tucked inside Steve, he feels the clutch and release of Steve’s body as it tries to coax him in deeper. 

With a jolt that zings right out to his fingertips, that makes Tony suck in a deep, shuddering breath through a mouth gone dry, their gazes connect. Tony couldn’t look away even if he wanted to, and Steve’s hand moves from Tony’s shoulder to his chest, long fingers walking the path of his reactor scars. 

For the whisper of time that exists between when a match head kisses a striker and when it ignites, Tony experiences absolute stillness. No fear; no judgment; no prophecy; no yesterday; no tomorrow. Then the rubber band snaps; the heat that’s built in him crescendos into a supernova, and he spills across the bed, hips jerking. 

Steve’s name breaks from his lips, spun glass dropped from a great height, shattered into tessellated light on impact.

Tony’s still breathing through it when he feels himself being lifted and moved around on the bed. He could protest; could move his own body—if his limbs would only cooperate. Instead, he stays limp, eyes shut, and allows Steve to do whatever it is he’s doing.  When the movement finally stills, Tony surfaces to Steve’s warmth stacked up behind him. He can feel the faint brush of hair where the fronts of Steve’s thighs are pressed to the backs of his. They’re lying on their sides, and Tony never wants to move again. 

Wriggling a bit to settle himself more firmly against Steve, Tony says—or rather mumbles into the pillow squashed under his cheek, “You moved your hands. You weren’t supposed to do that, naughty boy.”

“Sorry,” Steve says in a soft, fucked-out rumble, and damned if that isn’t sexy as all hell. His breath soughs against Tony’s hair and warms his ear, tricking a long shiver down his spine. “I didn’t know what I was doing at the end there. No control. Your fault, though.”

“My fault?” Tony knows he’s fishing, but he doesn’t care.

“Mm. Your mouth—’s too good. You’re too good.” Steve’s hold on Tony tightens a fraction. “Thank you...for taking care of me like that.”

The words fall sweet and warm in Tony’s ear. He relaxes into them, opening his eyes and letting himself smile a tiny smile. “You’re welcome. Anytime, tesoro mio .” 

“What’s that?”

“Hmm?”

“What did you just say?”

“Oh, that,” says Tony, reaching behind him to dust his fingers against Steve’s leg. “It’s nothing.”

Long, warm fingers chase across his reactor and flick his nipple. Tony squeaks and shudders, still very sensitive post-orgasm.

“You’re lying,” Steve says, lips buried against the back of Tony’s neck. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll get it out of you eventually.” 

“I plead the fifth,” is all Tony says in reply, voice prim.

Steve rocks gently behind him, his softening cock rubbing against Tony’s ass. Tony arches his back involuntarily, and Steve laughs quietly, a soft, shivery sound like a breeze through spring-green leaves. Tony feels it everywhere. Steve’s mouth rubs along Tony’s shoulder; nips at his skin. “I have ways of you getting you to talk.”

“Why, Captain, how very devious of you.”

The arm that Steve has curled over Tony urges him a little closer. “You have no idea,” Steve replies, his voice laugh-warm. That’s how Steve should always sound. His fingers tiptoe over the mess on Tony’s cheek that’s already gone a bit tacky, and trail through his beard. “How do you feel about a shower and a change of sheets?” Unbelievable. His voice is still doing that rumbly thing that makes Tony want to stretch and rub himself all over Steve.

“Nope Not yet. Maybe in a few minutes.” Tony’s too warm and too comfortable and just too plain happy where and how he is right now to even contemplate moving.

“We’re lying in your wet spot right now, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Excuse you, I didn’t make that wet spot all by myself,” Tony says, brimming with mock indignation.

“Fair enough,” Steve says in response to his grumbling, “but you did make a lot of it. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Sorry, I’ll buy you ten new sets of sheets.”

“Shh. No, you won’t. Don’t be ridiculous. I said I’m not complaining. Not about one of the hottest things I’ve ever seen.”

“Top ten?” Tony asks, perking up, and he’s fishing again, and really, he doesn’t care. Again. He’s already wearing Steve’s come on his face; pfft, who needs dignity, anyway?

“Oh, definitely top twenty.” Steve catches Tony’s ear lobe between his teeth; huffs a laugh when Tony swats him half-heartedly and mutters something about ungrateful blue-eyed supersoldiers from Brooklyn.

Steve reaches down and pulls the sheet over them both, then snuggles up behind Tony again and takes possession of one of his hands. As much pleasure and raw feeling as they’re able to draw from every part of Tony’s body, if someone were to ask Tony where he most liked Steve’s hands, this is how he’d answer: holding his own. Probably not what the tabloids would expect of Tony Stark, but his image, ultimately, consists of a great deal of smoke, mirrors, and sleight of hand. No one who knows Tony well―and there are so few of those, aren’t there?―would be surprised by Tony’s answer. 

They both fall quiet, he and Steve do, but it’s not uncomfortable or strained. It’s the kind of silence that spreads and comforts like the heat that emanates from a fireplace in winter. Tony can’t say exactly how long the silence unwinds around them, but he can tell from Steve’s breathing and the telltale, almost metronomic stroke of Steve’s fingers against his that he isn’t asleep. 

Unsurprisingly, Tony’s the first one to part the curtain of silence that’s settled around them in the waning afternoon light. He thinks back to Steve’s hand and the minuscule freckle dotted on his index finger. Wonders again how long it’s been there. Wonders what else he doesn’t know about the man holding his hand―and his heart. “Tell me something,” he says into the stillness, then brings Steve’s hand to his mouth and kisses it. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.” 

He can feel it, the tension that enters Steve’s body. The tightness. Immediately, Tony kicks himself for saying the wrong thing. For being selfish and pushing when he shouldn’t. He’s misjudged― It’s just, it’s just that he feels safe and content, and he hopes maybe Steve feels like that, too, but this is probably another terrible miscalculation on his part. Steve doesn’t pull away though; his fingers tighten where they’re still wound around Tony’s, snipping the snarled thread of Tony’s steamrolling thoughts.  

“I like how you fit against me,” Steve says, low and hushed, like he’s making a confession. Maybe he is. 

“Me, too.” Temptation sneaks up on Tony, an itch he knows damn well he shouldn’t scratch. He wants to turn around in Steve’s arms and examine his face, to see if he can decrypt whatever’s there, but Tony smothers his curiosity, stays put, and simply listens. 

“I like how my arms don't feel empty anymore.”

The moment seems...fragile. What’s happening between them feels good, but it occurs to Tony that it’s like a bubble—shimmering and translucent, but let it get caught in a strong gust of wind or poke it with a careless finger and pop , there it goes: no more bubble. 

Hoping Steve takes it for the encouragement he intends it to be, Tony takes their joined hands and moves them so they rest over his arc reactor. “I’m glad,” he says. The other hand he reaches up and back and squeezes Steve’s biceps.

“They used to,” Steve continues. “I, um, I,” he says, his speech so slow and halting that it’s painfully obvious to Tony how difficult it is for him to even get the words out. His words cease, but his breathing picks up, and he trembles against Tony. It’s slight—hardly anything dramatic—but undeniably present in his muscles, and while Tony’s been thinking it would be easier for Steve to talk to him without them looking at each other, he can no longer restrain himself from turning around. 

Tony’s not one of those lucky people who always know the right thing to say. Sure, he can talk his ass off; that’s not the same as having a master key that will unlock every awkward conversational moment. But the expression Steve’s wearing right now—forlorn and confused—makes Tony want to try. “It’s okay,” he says, running his pointer finger down the slope of Steve’s nose, “it was just a thought. A dumb one. You don’t—”

“Not dumb. I want to. I just…” Steve’s voice fades and he hunches forward, his gaze sliding away from Tony’s.

“It’s not fair, I guess, to ask you to tell me something you’ve never told anyone before without doing the same thing.”

“Tony, that’s not. You don’t have to—”

“Hush,” Tony says, and leans in to kiss Steve quiet, hands resting light at his cheeks. The decision isn’t an easy one to make, but Steve’s gaze lingers so gently on his when Tony pulls back that he makes it anyway. “I went to MIT when I was 15. I build things—bots, planes, weapons…” He glances away from Steve, staring, instead, at his bookshelf, while he pauses and clears his throat. “I could talk your ear off about novel spin-orbit physics. But you know,”—Tony tilts his head to the side and clicks his tongue—“there’s one thing I never figured out.” A laugh bubbles out of him, but it tastes acrid. “Believe me, I tried.”

“What’s that?” Steve asks.

He can’t say this with Steve’s full focus so visibly on him. He wishes he could, but it’s too unnerving; closing his eyes, Tony hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder. “How to get my dad to love me.”

At first, Steve doesn’t do much of anything in response but cup the back of Tony’s head with his hand and stroke slowly over the small of his back. Steve’s warm and solid against him and honestly, it’s kind of enough. Tony doesn’t want to hear any platitudes about how every parent loves their kids, no matter what they do, yadda yadda yadda. “It’s tough for me to imagine anyone not loving you,” says Steve, “especially your own dad. Not that I knew Howard that well.” 

“Probably better than I did, but hey, what’re you gonna do?” Tony quips. He laughs, hollow and false, and it sounds like a car crash, wheels spinning crazily, metal rending, and glass shattering. Sonofabitch , Tony thinks. His throat thickens and his eyes burn, and he’s not doing this— “Nope, hey, Cap,” Tony says, already moving away. “We’re not talking about this. I’m done. Kaput. Said all I’m gonna say, and I think I’m ready for that shower now.”

“Wait, Tony.”

He’s not going to do it—he’s not going to look at Steve’s face. Doesn’t want to see the pity or horror or whatever the fuck is there. In his haste to get away, Tony gets tangled up in the sheets and basically tumbles off the bed. Nothing really hurts much except his ego, but Steve’s in front of him in a second, hand outstretched. 

“You okay?” Steve asks. The concern in his voice makes Tony’s bruised ego smart.

Tony stares at Steve’s hand. His gaze stalls there—doesn’t travel any higher—and he calculates the possibilities. He could ignore Steve’s hand and make a run for the bathroom. Could barricade himself in there and wait until Steve gets tired of waiting and leaves his own room. He could scramble for his clothes, wherever they are at this point, put them on and then be the one to leave first. He could run out naked, which let’s be honest, he’s done much worse. Or he could...He could…

Tony takes Steve’s hand and lets him pull him to his feet.

He doesn’t look at his face.

Steve rubs shampoo into Tony’s hair. He’s meticulous about it, too, seeming to leave no strand untouched, no section of his scalp unwashed. The feel of Steve’s hands caressing his head is hypnotic. Between Steve’s touch and the warm, drumming rush of the water, Tony slips into a soporific, lulled state.

It’s not until Steve’s fingers curl ‘round Tony’s shoulders and exert the slightest bit of pressure, urging him to turn, that he speaks. “When I came out of the ice, I hated it here.” He nudges Tony’s chin; tilts his head back under the warm spray to rinse out the shampoo. “The food, the sounds, the streets I used to walk— Everything was unfamiliar. I just...I just wanted to go home, even though there was no way to do that.” Steve’s palm wipes the hair away from Tony’s forehead. Lingers there. “I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep. No one would touch me. Except for the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors jabbing me with their needles all the time. And except for in battle. But getting kicked in the gut isn’t the same as a...It’s not the same as a....”

Tony opens his eyes and finally blinks up at the man who’s patiently soaped all his nooks and all his crannies with his wide-palmed, careful hands and thus far hasn’t flinched away from any of his dirt. “As a hug?” he finishes for Steve.

Steve’s brow crinkles. “Yes.”

“You were lonely.” With two fingers, Tony traces the path a single droplet takes from the shadowed space beneath Steve’s eye, over his cheek and jaw, down his throat.

“I…” Steve’s throat works on a long, heavy swallow. “Yeah, guess l was.” His jaw clenches as the water falls around them in a damp cocoon. “I thought about it sometimes—how I might do it. How to make it so I wasn’t here anymore. I wanted so badly to not exist, but I didn’t do it because I got scared thinking—” Though Steve’s eyes are open, his gaze seems turned inward, far from where Tony can reach. “Because of the serum, I didn’t know what would work and...”

In spite of the warm water cascading over them both, ice encases Tony. Inside, where the heat from the water can’t touch it. It crackles through his veins, freezing Tony while he continues to stare at Steve with a growing sense of horror—and understanding. “Steve”—as Tony crowds closer, feet bumping Steve’s, he tips his head back to look up at him, and his hand shoots out and catches Steve’s jaw—“what are you saying?”

Under his focused, searching gaze, Steve’s face twists with something ugly—something Tony recognizes immediately because he’s seen it in the mirror many, many times: shame and self-loathing.  

Steve’s not supposed to look like that. Not ever.

Steve blinks, his water-spiked lashes framing the pain that flares deep in the blue of his eyes. “You know what I’m saying, Tony.”

“You wanted to die?” He gapes at Steve. “ You ?” Raw with disbelief. With pain, too.

“I’m only a man, Tony.” Steve’s shoulders curl in, and he retreats a step from Tony, mouth pinched in a stark line. Oh, no. The expression on his face, like he’s just swallowed a handful of broken glass, makes Tony want to punch himself in the face.

“No, sweetness,” Tony says, shaking his head, “don’t do that.” He’s doing this all wrong—saying the wrong things and driving Steve away. With horrible clarity, he can see the end of them before they’ve really even begun. He takes one step forward. Then two. Going up on his toes, he reaches for Steve; throws his arms around his neck and pulls until Steve acquiesces, leans down, and goes where Tony’s trying to lead him. He doesn’t continue speaking until their foreheads are pressed together. “Of course you’re only human. You’re allowed to struggle. Are you…?” His hands curl around Steve’s cheeks. “Do you still…?” He fumbles the words and nearly screams in frustration. “Do you feel like that now?” Tony finally manages to get out. 

“No. It’s been...at least a year and a half since I’ve thought about anything like that.”

“Okay. Okay, that’s good.” Tony rubs his thumbs over Steve’s face in a slow caress. “But if it comes back… If you start to feel like that again, tell me. Steve, you have to tell me.” His hands drop to Steve’s shoulders, and he gives him a small shake. 

“I'm fine, and I don’t want your pity,” says Steve, and draws back enough that Tony catches the telltale tightness in his stupidly handsome jawline, and the strain carved around his eyes. “So if that’s what this is, maybe you should just go.”

It’s such a shockingly dumb thing to say that Tony just blinks back at Steve for a good thirty seconds, eyeing his pink cheeks and his blue eyes and fuck it; fuck him; fuck them , he lo— “Damn it, Steve, that’s not what this is. Don’t be an idiot.” Has he not understood anything that Tony’s said today? Or worse, does he just not believe him? At that thought, Tony rubs at his chest. Exhaling sharply through his nose, he attempts to rein in his panic and frustration before he makes things any worse. Jerking around, he switches off the shower. After opening the shower stall door, he snatches up one of the towels Steve hung from the bar and pats at Steve’s wet hair. “This isn’t just sex for me,” he says while wiping the water off Steve’s chest. “We talked about this. I want more.” Earlier, he’d thought about how badly he just wants to know Steve. Well, this is part of Steve. It’s not the total of who Steve is, not by a long shot, but it’s part of him. “Do you not believe that I care about you?”

There’s a tumult of other thoughts and words clashing in Tony, but as hard as it is to wait, he holds his tongue and gives Steve space to think; too much hinges on his answer. 

“I believe you.” Steve’s eyes are soft as he brushes Tony’s wet hair out of his face. “I just… It’s…” He heaves a deep sigh, one hand opening and then closing, his gaze tipped toward something else in the bathroom. “Captain America isn’t supposed to be so weak.”

“Listen to me,” says Tony, and he pauses until Steve’s gaze shifts back to him, “the world might want Captain America. Me? I want you , Steve. You .” By this time he’s crouched on the shower floor and drying off Steve’s thighs, and he’s regained control of himself. “I will tell you that—every day—until you beg me not to say it ever again. And you know me; I am annoying and stubborn enough to do it, too.”

The tiniest smile flickers over Steve’s mouth, but the warmth it releases through Tony, melting the ice, is well out of proportion to its size. “You don’t need to do that. I believe you,” says Steve.

“Well, that’s good. Really, really good.” Tony smiles back, beyond relieved, and stands and hands the towel to Steve, who wraps it around his waist. Shower floor? Not the most comfortable place. Stepping out of the shower, Tony grabs a second towel, this one for himself, and scrubs at his hair. “It’s like you said”—he turns and looks at Steve over his shoulder—“you’re only a man.” Steve steps out after Tony, takes the towel right out of his hands, and starts drying him off. “You know, I can do that myself.”

Steve’s eyebrow slants up. “So can I,” he says drily. 

“Touché,” Tony replies, and it finally feels safe to let his lips slide into a smirk. 

“Come on,” Steve says after tucking the loose end of Tony’s towel around his waist, “let’s finish this conversation somewhere besides the bathroom.”

“Hear, hear.” Tony trails after Steve back into his bedroom. “I know I didn’t walk in here naked, but I don’t know where my clothes are.”

“Right there on the floor,” Steve replies, pointing over his shoulder.

“Hmm. Yeah, thanks. But um, they’re probably all dusty, and…”

Steve’s lips twitch suspiciously. “I could loan you something.”

“Oh, yeah, well, if you’re offering,” Tony says with studied innocence.

Steve shuffles through his closet, rattling hangers. “Heads up,” he says and then tosses some things to Tony. 

Shaking them out one by one, Tony frowns. “You forgot underwear.”

“Didn’t forget.” Steve shakes his head, damp hair falling into his face, and lets the band of his own fresh pair of briefs snap against his waist. “It’s laundry day.” While his delivery’s totally straight, his eyebrows are doing some weird, twitchy thing. 

“All right, commando it is,” Tony says, shrugging. With a snort of disbelief, Tony tugs over his head the unassuming blue tee Steve tossed at him. As Tony finishes pulling Steve’s grey sweats up his legs, he looks across the room at Steve, who’s wearing a black t-shirt now and just staring intently at him with an odd look on his face. “What?” Tony asks, tightening the drawstring on the sweats; the pants are too loose and too long, puddling around his ankles. “Do I have something on my face?” He shifts uncomfortably on his feet and pats his hands over his cheeks, feeling extremely self-conscious.

The sound of Steve’s throat clearing. “No, it’s definitely not that.”

“So what is it?” Tony asks, not aggressively, but with just a little sharpness. 

“You uh…” Steve wipes a hand over his mouth, and his gaze moves away from Tony before sliding back quickly. He waves a hand vaguely in Tony’s direction, and is that a—? 

Is Steve blushing?       

He’s definitely blushing. Perfectly. Prettily. Adorably. Why is he blushing? Oh. Oh. 

Now that he understands what’s going on, Tony’s discomfort vanishes, so he saunters toward Steve. 

“You uh, look good. In my clothes,” Steve says when Tony’s a couple inches away.

Tony slants a glance up at Steve, trying not to smile as he plucks at a pant leg. “You don’t think they’re too big on me? Maybe I should just change back into my clothes.” He reaches for the hem of the t-shirt he’s wearing like he’s about to take it off, but immediately, Steve’s hands arrest his. 

“No.” Steve shakes his head vehemently. “Keep them on; they’re not too big. Okay, they are—but they’re still perfect.”

Tony can’t hold back his smile any longer. “Yeah? Perfect?”

“Perfect,” Steve confirms. “I didn’t know... I didn’t know I’d like it so much, how you look wearing my clothes.” With his eyes so trusting and soft that it makes something in Tony’s chest twist, Steve strokes over Tony’s wrist with his thumb. “Don’t change,” he says, “please.”  

“I won’t,” Tony promises, rising on his toes to kiss Steve’s cheek. He doesn’t pull away after; simply folds Steve in his arms and sinks into the feel of Steve breathing quietly and easily against him. “So, I know we’re kind of having a moment”—Tony rubs his cheek against Steve’s shirt-covered chest—“and I don’t want to be the one to ruin it, but I’m going to hate myself even more if I don’t say this.”

Steve’s arms tighten where they rest curved low around his back. “It’s okay, Tony. Say what you need to say.”

“It’s not just what I need to say, Steve. I think you need to hear it, too.” Tony steps back from Steve and walks over to the bed, where he sits on the long edge. He pats the empty space beside him; Steve nods and joins him. The outside of his bare thigh presses right against Tony’s leg, and that gives Tony the strength to continue. “If a friend told you— If I told you I’d thought about killing myself, would you tell me I’m weak?”

“No, of course not,” Steve replies without any visible hesitation.

“Why not?”

“That’s easy.” Steve shrugs and taps his foot on the floor, making the bed bounce a little. “Because I know you. You’re not weak. You’re one of the strongest people I know.  One of the kindest. Sometimes life is just hard.”

If Steve and his smile and his integrity and his lionheart and his everything hadn’t already burrowed under Tony’s skin and turned into something Tony knew he didn’t want to be without, he would realize it then. Straightening his shoulders, Tony turns his head and takes in Steve’s strong, proud profile. “Exactly. Sometimes life is just hard. And if you can extend that kind of understanding to me or to another friend, maybe you should extend it to yourself, too.”

Steve’s head dips, and he clasps his fingers together loosely. He doesn’t appear to have checked out of the conversation, though; Tony thinks he’s listening. 

Tony sighs, and moistens his lips before he goes on. “It’s not weak to consider suicide. Just human. I’ve been there—”

Steve looks directly at Tony, frowning. “You have?”

“I’m not proud of it, but yeah, I have. Why? Does that change how you think of me—make you want to take back anything you said or did with me?”

“Not all, Tony. It doesn’t change anything about how I feel about you or what I want with you. It just…” Steve’s face seems to crumple in on itself, and Steve’s hand falls on Tony’s knee. “It hurts to think of you feeling that way.”

“It’s no different for me.” Tony drops his hand on top of Steve’s and squeezes. “It hurts me to think of you wanting to die. But I do get it; I’ve been there. And I don’t judge you for it. After my parents died… You’ve gotta trust me on this. Look, I won’t pretend to know exactly how you felt because it’s different for every person, but I do know what it’s like to hurt. To be so tired that you just want to find a way to make the pain stop. You were lonely and depressed.” He pauses and inhales a shuddering breath. Glances down at their hands. “I’m sorry that I didn’t see how bad off you were. I’m sorry I didn’t hear you when you were screaming for someone to care; to give a shit and try to help you.”

“Thank you. But it wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t your responsibility.”

“But you needed someone and you didn’t have anyone and I should have known and I hate it—I hate that I didn’t know.”

“How, Tony? How were you supposed to know?”

“I don’t know. But I should have.”

“No, Tony. I won’t let you do this to yourself.” Breathing hard, Steve touches Tony’s jaw and turns his face so they’re staring right at each other. “The only way you could have known was if I told you,” he says, low and intent.

Tony shakes his head. “But—”

“No. The only way.”

When Steve’s arm goes around Tony’s shoulders, Tony turns into it, tucking his face against Steve’s neck. “Then if it happens again, if you get those urges again, please tell me. Tell somebody. Tell everybody.”

“I’m fine now. I really am.”

“I believe you. But if you’re ever not fine, tell me.”

“Okay.” Soft as a breath.

“I couldn’t hear you, Steve.”

“I’ll tell you. I will.”

“Thank you,” says Tony, relaxing his iron grip on Steve’s shirt.

“Thank you for caring enough about me to want to know.”

“I want to know everything about you, sunshine.”

“Everything?”

Steve’s lips find Tony’s and move over them gently. Just as Tony nibbles daringly at Steve’s bottom lip, someone’s stomach grumbles. Loudly. Steve’s stomach. Tony stifles a laugh against Steve’s mouth and says, “Wanna order some pizza?”

“With pineapple? 

With a gasp, Tony rears back, a hand placed dramatically at his throat. “Pineapple? Take it back. That is not a pizza topping.”

“Sure it is.” Steve grins, broad and twinkly-eyed, and damned if Tony’s stomach doesn’t just go swoop . “And I love it.” 

“Ugh. Gross.” Tony makes a disgusted face. “Heathen. Better make it two pizzas, then.” Crossing his eyes, Tony pretends to put a finger down his throat. 

Steve shoots Tony an arch look, eyes dancing. “See? Guess you don’t really want to know everything about me after all.”

Humming noncommittally, Tony doesn’t protest; just lets Steve haul him close again with an arm around his waist and a hand tucked sweetly into his hair. He waits until Steve’s eyes close and his head dips in, presumably for a kiss. “Blech. Pineapple. You’re lucky I adore you,” Tony mutters with faux irritation.

“What was that?” Steve asks, eyes still shut and one hand cupped against his own ear. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“What’s the matter, Rogers? You going deaf in your dotage?” Tony deliberately says too loudly.

“Say it again.”

Tony grins. “You going deaf in your dotage?”

“No, not that. Come on, be nice,” Steve says, with an admittedly adorable pout. “The other thing.”

Faced with this ridiculous man and his ridiculous face and his ridiculous heart, what can Tony possibly do but relent? 

“I adore you, Cap.”

“Again. But this time without the Cap .”

“I adore you, sunshine.”

“It’s mutual, sweetheart.”

* Tesoro mio means "my treasure" or "treasure mine" in Italian.