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Tony woke up slowly, stretching his legs out, and then his back, before letting his eyes open. Someone had pulled the black out curtains up so that red tinted light came through the decorative ones. There was only one person in this house that would do that and it wasn't Tony.
With a yawn, Tony rolled over to face the culprit that was always trying to get Tony on a normal sleep schedule, finding him propped up in bed by a couple pillows, legs still hidden by the blankets, hair ruffled, and in an old gray sweatshirt, altogether radiating softness and sleep. His head was tilted down to look at a book he was cradling on his lap, an old, tattered looking dark green book with no book jacket on it, so Tony couldn't guess what it was.
Tony shimmied forward until he was close enough to bury his face in the side of Steve's thigh, doing his best to curl around him without knocking his book. A second later he felt a hand scratch through his hair and let out a hum. "Too early," Tony muttered into the blankets covering Steve's legs. "Put the sun away."
Steve chuckled. "It's nearly 10, Sweetheart. Aren't you hungry?"
"Sure. Feed me," Without looking, Tony made a blind grab for Steve's dick through the blankets. Steve gasped, jumping a bit in the bed and snatching Tony's wrist away.
"Tony!" He cried. Tony pulled his face away from Steve's thigh so he could see his cheeky grin. "You haven't had enough after last night?"
"Never enough of you," Tony tried to reply smoothly, but a yawn took a little bit of the message away from his words.
"Sure, Tiger, you're just a never-ending beacon of sexual energy," Steve responded with a monotone. "How about some pancakes to fill that voracious appetite?"
"Later," Tony pouted, opting to ignore the teasing, "I don't want you to move yet,"
Steve lifted his book away and pulled Tony so he was resting more comfortably on his lap. "What're you reading?" Tony asked once he was satisfactorily cuddled against his boyfriend.
"A Christmas Carol," Steve answered, going back to absently running his fingers through Tony's hair while his eyes stayed on his book.
“How academic," Tony commented.
Steve shrugged. "I've always wanted to read it. T'is the season and all that."
"'I don't make merry myself at Christmas,'" Tony mumbled, eyes closing as Steve's fingers worked magic on his scalp.
"Have you read it?" Steve asked, sounding mildly impressed.
"Mhm, a long time ago," Tony replied.
"Which was your favorite?"
"Hm?"
"Of the ghosts, which was your favorite story? I'm only half way through Christmas Past right now, but the story's fascinating."
"I don't know, none of them are very pleasant," Tony said, letting his eyes open a bit to see Steve's expression, "If you mean which one he learned the most from, I think it's the future."
"Really?" Steve asked, crinkling his nose, "How do you learn much from the future? You don't even know what's going to happen."
"Scrooge did."
"Well, that's because some supernatural being came and showed it to him," Steve's mouth twisted in the way that meant he was digging his heels into an argument. Tony loved seeing that face, barring actual arguments in their relationships, but for little things like this it always meant Tony was going to have some fun. "Realistically, Scrooge had to learn more from seeing how his past mistakes affected other people."
"He learned more from seeing how it all affected his future," Tony corrected. "Learning from the past doesn't matter if you can't plan for the future."
"Well planning for the future doesn't matter if you don't learn from the past," Steve argued.
"He might have seen what he shouldn't have done, but what really got through to him was seeing what happened to his future. He knew his past was shitty, but realizing that his future was even shittier made him want to change it. You have to look ahead to the future to know what you want to do now."
"The only way you can look ahead is by looking behind first," Steve insisted.
"Very poetic. You haven't even read the book, why are you arguing with me about it?"
"I watched the movie!"
"Which one?"
"The Micky Mouse version,"
Tony burst into laughter then, burying his face in Steve's lap again to cover up the uncontrollable sound. He heard Steve start laughing too, and felt the vibrations through the bed, which only made him laugh more out of giddiness.
"You're ridiculous," Tony got out between giggles. Steve rolled his eyes in response, then finally put a bookmark between the pages he was on and moved to get up.
"Noo, wait, I take it back. You're right, past all the way, stay and cuddle," Tony whined pathetically, pulling on Steve's sweatshirt as he rolled the other way. Steve was much stronger than him though and got his feet on the floor. He stretched his arms up behind his head, showing a tantalizing strip of back muscle under his sweatshirt.
"I'm hungry. How about those pancakes now?" Steve turned and smiled down at him.
"I'm too comfy to be hungry," Tony pouted again, pulling the blankets back up to his chin and fixing Steve with a petulant glare.
"I'll bring them to you," Steve promised, leaning down to kiss his forehead before heading out of the room.
Tony sighed at the empty bed again, eyeing Steve's copy of Dickens suspiciously. While it was mostly to rile Steve up, he stood by what he said. Sure, Tony had a shitty childhood, something he'd never like to rehash with any being, supernatural or no, again, but he'd done the therapy thing. Went through the trauma and daddy issues he had piled on his plate. But what made him want to be a better man was the worry of how he'd fuck his future with all that baggage.
He smiled as he started to smell pancakes through the open door, even wider as he realized that if he focused, he could hear Steve's off-key voice singing along to "Holly Jolly Christmas."
He knew in the future he wanted to marry that man. He wanted to have Steve forever and then some. And he wanted to do everything in his power to make sure that happened.
He took a deep breath, trying to ground himself in the here and now. In his Christmas Present. He shook his head again, and pushed himself off the bed, heading to the kitchen to watch his future flip some pancakes.