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Tony wakes like this, softly and warm, pulled out of a dream by hands on his back. Steve’s hands. Steve’s fingers drawing patterns on his skin. He takes in a breath, shifts, and Steve pauses.
“Hey,” he says, voice rough and sleep-worn.
Steve doesn’t answer, just presses his mouth against the nape of Tony’s neck. Tony thinks, for this, he broke the laws of reality, and he’d do it again in a heartbeat. Steve’s a warm weight against his back, damp from a shower, smelling of mountain chill, leaving lazy, open-mouthed kisses against the skin of Tony’s neck, shoulder, back—wherever he can reach.
Yes, Tony thinks.
He turns over and opens his eyes. Steve’s hair is still wet, still ruffled in every direction. The stubble on his cheeks is gone, and Tony says a mournful goodbye. He likes the scruff. He likes the way it scratches against his skin when they kiss.
There’s a little smile there, in the corner of Steve’s lips. “Morning,” Steve says.
“You’re one hell of an alarm clock,” Tony says. “What time is it?”
“Nine,” Steve says. He slides closer, tangling his legs with Tony’s. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“Old man needs his beauty sleep?”
Steve laughs, low and rumbly. He slips a hand into Tony’s hair, almost petting. “No,” he says. “S’just early for you.”
Tony doesn’t answer. He leans into Steve’s body instead, letting his head fall onto Steve’s chest. He rests there for a moment, calloused fingers stroking Steve’s side, before he shifts again, bringing them flush like two pieces slotting together. Steve sighs into his ear, then tips his head down, peppering kisses on Tony’s collarbone.
“Kiss me, you idiot,” Tony murmurs against Steve’s hair.
Steve laughs again; Tony feels the rumble where they’re pressed together, chest to chest, and his eyes flutter closed as Steve pulls Tony down into a kiss, slow and languid and just this side of dirty. Tony melts into it, his whole universe narrowed to just Steve—his fingers in his hair, his palm against Tony’s hip, his tongue in his mouth. Tony lets himself drift in it, being whole and safe and there, surrounded by Steve and the smell of his terrible body wash and safe under his hands.
This thing between them, it’s still new and precious; fragile maybe is the wrong word, but it’s close. Tony treasures it, anyway, more than he treasured any priceless thing he’s had before. He wonders, sometimes, why they let themselves circle this for a decade, why it took the end of the world for them to fall together like this. Sometimes, in the quiet of the night, Tony wonders if this is one last gift of gratitude from the universe.
Steve pulls away, tongue darting out to lick his lips.
“Tony?” His voice is soft but his hand on Tony’s hip tightens, protective and possessive and if Tony hadn’t already been half hard against his own thigh, he would’ve gotten there from the feeling of Steve’s fingers pressing hard enough to leave marks on his skin.
“Just thinking,” he says. He catches Steve’s lips with his again, trying for distraction.
“Dangerous,” Steve murmurs into the kiss, then pulls away. “Really, everything’s okay?”
“I think I love you,” Tony says after a beat of silence.
Steve closes his eyes, his cheeks going red and he grins, wide and pleased—radiant, Tony thinks, the only word his brain can conjure to describe the way Steve looks right there and then. “I know you do,” he says, “same as I know I love you.”
“Oh,” Tony says, because it’s that easy for Steve, and he thanks the universe again for this second, third, fifteenth, whichever chance he’s been given.
Steve shifts them, lightning fast, and suddenly Tony is on his back, head against the pillows, hips caged between Steve’s knees.
“Thought you were a genius,” Steve teases. He hunches low enough to ghost his lips over Tony’s and Tony arches up, needing more, needing Steve to ground him again from the floaty in-between place where his mind goes in the morning. Steve presses him back against the mattress with one hand, easy as anything, and it makes Tony shiver. He bucks his hips up, ineffectual since Steve’s ass is pinning Tony’s thighs to the bed now, but he gets his point across, he thinks, because Steve’s hands are moving down, against his stomach, toward the waistband of his sleep pants.
“Impatient,” Steve chides, and Tony whines a little.
Steve’s thumb skims the sensitive skin right under the elastic of his pajamas, stroking gently against Tony’s hipbone.
“Tease,” Tony breathes out, too late. Steve bites his lip and shakes his head.
“Not,” he answers as he slips his hand in further, pads of his fingers brushing against Tony’s cock. Tony bites down on finally, because the feather-soft touch of Steve’s fingers isn’t nearly enough, and he needs more.
Steve tugs at Tony’s sleep pants with his other hand and it takes Tony seconds to gather himself together enough to remember to lift his hips so Steve can slide his pajamas down over his ass and half way down his thighs. Steve moves over him, presses their lips together and curls his hand around Tony’s cock just like that, that perfect mix of soft and strong that punches the air out of Tony’s lungs every time. He arches up, gasping god, yes against Steve’s lips.
“I got you,” Steve promises against his cheek as he starts to stroke, slow and lazy.
Tony drifts, pleasure sparking low in his belly, eyes half-closed but watching Steve’s hand. He’s lost in a wave of almost-enough when Steve moves off him, his hand disappears, and Tony groans. He is a damn tease, he almost says, but he swallows it down when he feels Steve’s breath on the tip of his cock.
“Yes,” he says instead, reaching down with one hand and threading his fingers in Steve’s hair.
It’s all the encouragement Steve needs. Tongue darting out, flat against the spot just under the head that makes Tony’s toes curl and his breath punch out of his lungs. His fingers tighten in Steve’s hair—a warning, an enticement, a promise; Tony isn’t sure himself. Steve looks up, pupils blown so wide, Tony can barely make out the thin ring of blue. Mine, Tony thinks, just a flash across the back of his mind because Steve takes him in his mouth then, and the sight of it is enough to banish every thought from Tony’s head.
He loses himself in it, loses the thread of time in his head while Steve works him over, hollows his cheeks and pulls desperate keens out of Tony’s mouth with his tongue pressing up against that spot, pulling almost all the way back, lapping at his slit, worshipping him almost.
He gropes blindly at the bedside table with his free hand, hunting for the lube, because this is good—this is great—but it isn’t enough. He tosses it down on the sheets by his hip, and this is an enticement.
Steve palms the tube and pulls off, lips red and swollen and obscene.
“You want?” he asks, popping the cap.
“I always want,” Tony answers.
That smile finds its way back onto Steve’s face, that secret, coy smile that Tony never saw before he brought Steve into his bed. “I don’t know, old timer, you’re slowing down.”
“Rude,” Tony chides, but there’s no heat in it. He’s too busy kicking off his pajama pants and pulling Steve back down onto him, nipping at his bottom lip, tasting himself in Steve’s mouth. “Take off your shorts,” he murmurs against the side of Steve’s mouth.
“Demanding, today,” Steve says, but he does as he’s asked and slides his shorts down, tosses them away vaguely toward the hamper.
It’s Tony this time, quick and limber, keyed up in the best way, who pulls Steve back down to him. Kisses him senseless, hooks a leg over Steve’s hip and pulls him close. Reaches between them and fists Steve’s cock, heavy and leaking.
“I love you,” he says again—second time, but it feels like the first, not couched in careful deniability. Steve makes a noise, a muffled, gasping moan, against Tony’s shoulder. And, well, that’s a trick, Tony thinks.
Steve’s hands are trembling when he flips the cap on the lube. He catches Tony’s lips in a kiss again, careful and reverent and reaches between them, slick fingers ghosting a trail over Tony’s balls, over his perineum, around his rim. Two fingers pressing up, then in; Tony sighs against Steve’s lips. This still isn’t enough, but they’re getting there. Something in his chest loosens, that ever-present greed that wants all of Steve all the time. He pushes back against Steve’s fingers, begs for more with his body because he doesn’t have any words right now, nothing in his brain but want and more.
He rocks back against Steve’s hand again, bites against the skin of Steve’s neck. “Please,” he manages.
“I’ll get you there,” Steve says.
He pulls out and away—Tony almost keens at the loss, almost throws himself forward but stops himself. Before, when they started this, Steve blushed when he lubed himself, cheeks stained red and eyes cast down. Now he leans forward and sucks a bruise onto Tony’s neck, too high to hide. And then finally, finally, Steve pulls him in, hitches Tony’s leg higher on his hip, and presses his cock against Tony’s hole.
Steve is always liberal with the lube, but it still burns just right when the head of Steve’s cock slides in, and Tony doesn’t try to bite back the satisfied moan that punches out of him.
“Good?” Steve asks.
“The best,” Tony replies.
He thrusts into him, shallow and slow, torturous to both of them, but Tony’s fine there, hanging on a precipice between too much and not enough, because he could live here forever, filled up and cracked open, every nerve alight, Steve’s mouth on his chest mouthing at his pecs and his collarbone.
His dick is trapped between them, against Steve’s stomach, and he wants to grind into him but doesn’t have the leverage.
Steve thrusts deeper, faster, and reaches between them to fist Tony’s cock.
“Come on, sweetheart,” Steve says, voice breaking just a little, and yeah, the pet names do something for Tony; his dick twitches in Steve’s hand and he wants to come now, wants to mark Steve up and claim him.
“You first,” Tony manages. “I want it, Steve.”
Steve’s hips snap up against him, quick and hard; his free hand sliding down Tony’s back, over his ass, stopping high on his thigh, fingertips biting into skin. There’ll be bruises there, a little ring of fingertips that Tony will touch later to remind himself he has this.
Steve’s rhythm stutters, he pulls in a breath against Tony’s chest, and twists his wrist just so—
Tony tumbles over the edge, come painting a stripe on Steve’s stomach, but he’s too wrung out to notice, too high on touch and feel to do anything but collapse forward onto Steve while Steve fucks him through it to the other side, until Steve gasps Tony, and comes tumbling with him.
Tony aches, but it’s good, the best ache; even as Steve pulls out of him and he stretches back against the pillow, he still feels high, still is reeling from Steve inside of him and all around him.
“Good morning to you, too, by the way,” he says, grinning Cheshire-wide.
Steve laughs tiredly next to him. “I just took a shower,” he says, mournful.
“Whole day ahead of us,” Tony says. Whole life ahead of us, he thinks.
Steve gropes for Tony’s hand, threads their fingers together, and brings them up. He presses a kiss to the back of Tony’s hand. “I love you,” he says against Tony’s skin.
Tony reaches out and cards his fingers through Steve’s hair again. “I love you, too,” he says.