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“Are you visiting Bucky again?” Tony asked from the bed where he’d been sitting with his shirt half-unbuttoned, the pale blue light from the arc reactor barely enough to see Steve’s unshaven face. He looked tired with bags under his eyes from both stress and a lack of sleep. Other than the brief naps at lunch, Tony didn’t think Steve had got any sleep for the last four days.
“Bucky needs me,” Steve said simply, not elaborating or looking directly at Tony who took in the tensed line of his body and noticed the nervous fingers running along the leather straps of his shield.
Anxiety rising, suddenly feeling guarded, Tony said dismissively with arms crossing in a self-hug. “You don’t have to come to my room to tell me that.”
“Actually, I… I have something else to tell you.” Steve faltered in mid-speech, his hand moving to the shield’s front and resting on the white star.
“I think… we need some time off and stay apart for a while.”
Surprised, Tony stared at Steve, speechless, the raw emotion of hurt in bare display momentarily making Steve uncomfortable and Tony struggled to contain it as he asked, every word spoken with difficulty. “Are you breaking up with me?”
Steve averted his eyes. “I need some time to think about us.”
“It’s because of Bucky, isn’t it?” Tony bit his bottom lip at the end of his question, fingers blindly gathering up and clenching around a rumpled handful of bed sheets. He should have seen it coming and prepared himself for the inevitability instead of shrouding himself in the illusion of happiness. In a few days, it would be six whole months of being together with Steve.
“No, it’s not him.” Steve denied at first, his throat working as he swallowed, and then he sighed tiredly. “I don’t know, Tony. I really don’t. But no one should be at fault for something like this. Sometimes it just happens.”
“Why not?” Tony asked in a voice that sounded pathetic to his own ears. “If it’s not him then it’s me, isn’t it?”
“Stop it, Tony. You know it’s not you. I just can’t return your feelings anymore and it’s unfair to you.”
Blinking, Tony cast his eyes to the carpeted floor and asked himself what had gone wrong. He’d trusted Steve. He was confident that Steve loved him as much as he loved Steve, and that Steve wasn’t the type who would discard the good time they had together without hesitation. And yet, reality was this heartbreaking moment, which only meant Tony fucked up somehow and perhaps, if he apologized, Steve would forgive him. Steve always did no matter how much Tony messed up.
“Steve…” Tony started after gathering enough strength to look into Steve’s eyes but Steve interrupted him firmly. “Don’t. Don’t beg me please because I can’t handle this right now. I’m probably not acting like myself or knowing what I’m doing or saying. God, I can’t think of anything other than him. We were friends and partners through the war…”
Tony looked away again, out to the starless black sky, the dark shape of another skyscraper in the distance vaguely askew. The underlying structure must have been built incorrectly. Everything like it felt wrong and off-centered, the world turning to ash. He concentrated on breathing. Inhale. Exhale. In and out.
Tony’s hand clutched at this chest as he felt around for the arc reactor, briefly afraid to find a gaping hole in its place since that would explain the tightness in his heart.
Steve was still talking, the incessant innocent words stringing together so carelessly that it hurt.
“… lost and confused in this new world with me as the only link and connection to the past. I want to be there for him.”
The mattress sunk under the extra weight, which tilted Tony forward slightly. Warm hands on his neck, shoulders, palm flat, comforting. Steve, Tony thought, turned to lean over and into Steve’s arm but Steve pulled sharply away.
“It’s late. Just… rest, ok? We’ll talk more in the morning.”
Then, Steve buttoned up Tony’s shirt quickly and ruffled his hair the way he would whenever Tony was upset. “Is that ok with you?”
Tony nodded mutely.
“I… I have to go. I won’t be back tonight so don’t wait for me.”
And with those last words, the door closed and shut out the sight of Steve.
*
“Hey, how are you doing today, Buck?” Steve set his shield and bag on the floor and threw himself on a chair by Bucky’s bed, exhausted as if he’d spent all of his reserves.
“Other than the horrible food and some shrink who doesn’t know when his service is not needed? Just swell.” Bucky smiled infectiously, his eyes twinkling with humor and Steve found himself mirroring Bucky’s smile as his heart warmed up. Bucky’s complexion had returned most of its healthy color but the strained effort he used to stay alert showed in his eyes which were still slightly dazed from painkillers.
“No, seriously. This place is so boring. Do you think you can pull rank and get me out early?”
Bucky inclined his head and gave another lopsided grin, seeming both amused and grateful to have Steve come by after his daily duty with the Avengers.
“Not a chance after they did me a favor and let me visit you at this hour?”
“Try anyway, Steve?”
“I will,” Steve promised and pretended to be interested in a magazine on the bedside.
“You’re always a shitty liar, you know,” Bucky accused which only caused Steve to flush. Guilty as charged. He expected to be punched jokingly on the arm but it didn’t come and then grew sad as he remembered Bucky’s new disability hidden by the blanket.
“I don’t have any choice,” Steve admitted. “I want to show you the old neighborhood but it’s still early for you to be out and about. They are still trying to figure out what Zola did to you and there are psychological evaluations and a mountain of paperwork to recover your identity.”
Bucky huffed in annoyance. “I’m not a lab rat.”
“Of course, you aren’t. It’s just part of the procedure.”
“Yeah, ok. If you say so.”
Bucky gave a big yawn as Steve took a book out off his bag. “Oh God, don’t read for me today. I hate history!”
“I know. You won’t touch a book if given a choice and that’s why I’m reading it for you,” Steve commented, his head bent to hide his smirk as he flipped the book open and began reading. Bucky didn't hate school or books as much as he claimed, not to mention that reading always seemed to help Bucky to sleep.
Sure enough, Bucky sighed, scooted down the bed to make himself more comfortable and closed his eyes.
Steve didn’t stop until he finished the chapter, long after Bucky dozed off, letting his voice wash over them both.
*
After that first day of waking up alone to a cold and empty bed much too large for one person, Tony decided to move his sleeping arrangement to the cot in his workshop. Life before Steve had not been lonely, the serial of one-nightstands satisfying the sexual need while his passion went into his work, to learn and discover, to build and rebuild things.
He’d spent most of his adult life alone, much longer than the brief period of being with Steve, so it should be easy to adjust and get his life back. Except that it wasn’t. Having learned to love Steve, Tony found it difficult to unlearn it. He missed Steve’s kisses and smiles. He missed luxuriating in Steve’s warmth and listening to Steve’s heartbeats on a lazy morning. He missed touching Steve and being touched.
If he’d known happiness was such a fragile thing, a sand castle built on the shore only to be destroyed once the tide rose, he wouldn’t have taken the chance.
No one should be saddled with someone like him after knowing the blood on his hands from those he’d indirectly killed with his inventions. Steve deserved someone better, someone his age, not a forty-two-year-old with an ugly matrix of scars on his chest, a constant reminder of his past failure to save anyone who meant something to him.
There was no real need for Steve and Tony to behave any differently in front of the others since their relationship had been a secret. Iron Man and Captain America still worked well together although beside the occasional mission, Tony rather saw Steve around.
Within two weeks, it all changed once Bucky was discharged from the hospital to stay with them at the Avengers Tower. At their table where they shared meals everyday, Bucky occupied Steve’s chair next to Tony while Steve sat one chair further.
Steve didn’t flirt with Bucky, probably due to not knowing the art of flirting but Steve never seemed to be more than a few steps away from the shorter man to play money hen. They spent almost every waking hour together to reminisce the past and catch up with modern technology and history.
Bucky was quite a likable and charming individual despite the rough edge from having been through a war. Clint, Bruce, Natasha and Thor were clearly fond of him even if he always wiped the floor with them at card game. Tony suspected that he cheated, not that he or anyone ever caught it or accused him of such action.
Tony couldn’t bring himself to hate or resent Bucky and yet he couldn’t be friendly to him either. If that meant jealousy, then maybe it was, another mark on his personal list of colossal flaws and shortcomings, which only reinforced his opinion on the detestable nature of himself.
As a full-time avenger, part-time S.H.I.E.L.D. engineering consultant, and the head of the R&D department at Stark Industries, his days often lasted longer than twenty-four hours. He could have thrown himself into his work to detract himself from thinking of Steve if not for Steve’s request to design a prosthetic arm for Bucky, one not only performing beyond a natural limb with increased strength and speed but neural-responding via an implanted microchip regardless of whether or not the arm was physically attached. The most difficult part, Tony found out, wasn’t the imitation of a physiological limb, the biotic-abiotic interface, or complex brain wave decoding but the face-to-face time with Bucky.
Tony only planned three of such meetings—one for size measurement and neural scan, another for testing the prototype and the last one for installation—and slogged through the first two while being miserable, unable not to compare and confirm with himself his inadequacy in comparison.
Sometimes, Tony looked at the mirror and saw Howard. The cold eyes, the thin displeased line of his lips, and the hard set of his jaw. Always unhappy. Disapproving.
At first, he still believed that Steve loved him or used to love him but during the terrible silence of the nights, doubt started to creep in, and he started asking himself questions.
What made him believe that anyone could love him for who he was? What made him think he was good for anything else other than sex?
The days dragged on. Each hour that passed was an hour for Steve to drift further away from him. The breakup hurt and kept on hurting but after a while, the ache in his chest became a constant until Tony learned to live with it and grew to appreciate what he still had. Beyond the numbness, there was a small kind of happiness to be available and useful when Steve needed him to fix or build something, to watch Steve’s back and make sure he didn’t get hurt, and to be looked at and acknowledged or approved for something he’d done.
It was almost enough, a small little thing to help him to face another day instead of his own inner demon. Intellectually, Tony knew he needed to give up on Steve but he didn’t know how to crush the wisp of hope or to quell the burning want and need, and he feared that once they were gone, there might be nothing but the crushing emptiness inside.
*
It was five fifty on a cold Saturday morning, too early for anyone to be up and about. Outside, the fog condensed on the window glass and shrouded the world in bleak grayness.
Body still thumbing with the renewed energy from the morning run, Steve waited patiently for the coffeemaker to finish while scrubbing the sweat off his face and neck as Tony tottered into the kitchen.
Tony looked only half-awake in a T-shirt two sizes larger for his frame, the hem hanging a few inches above his shorts and the wide collar baring a patch of his smooth chest just above the arc reactor. Another glance told Steve that Tony was, in fact, wearing Steve’s old T-shirt, one of the few things Steve hadn’t removed from Tony’s room.
It wasn’t the first time Steve caught Tony in borrowed clothes but never outside the bedroom before.
Steve wanted to tell Tony that he looked ridiculous and that he needed to stop wearing Steve's clothes since they were no longer together. Wanted to but couldn’t because his throat suddenly felt constricted from the pang of desire churning hot in his stomach and pooling to his lower area.
Once Tony saw Steve, his large brown eyes widen and suddenly he looked open and vulnerable. Then Tony’s eyes lowered in a barely passable effort to hide his surprise and he appeared to root on the spot where he stood.
The coffeemaker gurgled behind Steve as the rich aroma grew stronger in the air. Tony inhaled slowly, his chest moving visibly under the flimsy layer of fabric, and then seeming to have made up his mind, he walked over while not looking directly at Steve.
Steve thought about moving away, somewhat abstractly, mesmerized by the strange play of light and shadow on Tony’s bare skin, and before he could snap himself out of the traitorous frame of mind to make his decision, Tony had stepped close, only a few scant inches away from Steve’s left side.
Steve’s mouth went dry. His heart was pounding like thunder in his rib cage, every part of him hyper-aware of Tony, the irresistible heat of his body and the compact muscles underneath.
Steve took a shaky breath to steady himself only to take in Tony’s distinct scent, a combination of metal, machine oil and expensive cologne.
“Stop,” Steve said, overwhelmed. Stop being so close, stop making me want you, Steve meant to say.
Freezing in place with his hand hovering midair toward the coffeepot, Tony turned his head to Steve, eyes sweeping slowly over Steve’s body, pausing at Steve’s crotch and traveling up.
There were deep longing in Tony’s eyes and something else so foreign on Tony that it took Steve a moment to recognize it as fear. Fear of rejection.
“I’m… I’m going to kiss you,” Tony said, giving Steve plenty of warning, slowly cupped Steve’s face on his hands and rose up on his tiptoes but missed the target when Steve twisted away just in time. “Don’t, Tony.”
“Steve…” Tony said haltingly, his voice breaking, desperate and wounded. “Why not? You want me and I want you.”
When Steve didn’t deny it, Tony continued. “No one needs to know. It doesn’t have to mean anything.”
Steve closed his eyes, the very last layer of defense he managed to put up. Tony’s hand, warm on the tight muscles of his abdomen, left a hot trail on its path to his hard erection. Lust coursed in his blood, heady and wholly consuming, Steve pushed back into the pressure, wrapped an arm around Tony’s smaller body in an embrace and pressed his mouth on the tantalizing skin at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, breathing him and tasting him—sweet, warm, silky and so easy to bruise.
“God, yes. Steve.” Tony panted, arched his back and spread his knees so that Steve could pushed his legs in between and rubbed his crotch against Tony's.
It was a very bad idea, Steve thought even as he ripped Tony’s T-shirt open to get his lips on the strange texture of Tony’s chest, tracing the outer edge of the arc reactor where the skin blended into the metal socket wall.
Tony made a pained noise when Steve scrapped his teeth against a raised clutter of scars and Steve half-expected to be stopped like usual but what followed was a string of encouraging pleas and a biting pain from blunt fingernails on his shoulders.
Perhaps later, Steve would blame this for his lack of partner other than his right hand since their breakup but at the moment, there was only this mindless need to get lost in Tony.
They barely had the coordination to get to Tony’s room or to take their clothes off properly, going down on the bed in a tangle of limbs, touching whatever bare skin they could find.
There were spit and precome as lubricant because they couldn’t break apart long enough to find something else. Steve couldn’t prepare Tony properly, not with the way Tony squirmed and begged Steve to fuck him. Use him.
Steve entered Tony from behind with one hand between Tony’s shoulder blades to press him into the mattress. Tony was tight to the point where the entry felt forced. Steve had to use his fingers to pull part Tony’s hole to get the tip of his cock inside and worked his way further until he bottomed out.
Withdrawing a few inches, Steve pushed back in, not careful but slow because Tony was too tight for anything else. The second time he did so, Tony shoved his ass back to take him to the root and cried out, the gritty slide back into Tony a lot rougher than their usual lovemaking but it was impossibly good, pleasure mixed pain in a raw combination of sensations.
Steve groaned and shuddered, knowing he wasn’t going to last long like this in the dizzying heat of Tony’s body although if anything, holding back was the least in his mind at this point. With hands on Tony’s hips, he used them as his hold to haul Tony back onto his cock as his hips drove forward and quickened into a fast pace from its earlier rough drag.
On his knees with his legs spread wide, Tony moaned and begged for more and Steve didn’t know how Tony could get any pleasure from this instead of bruising and hurting. Sure enough, when Steve reached around, he found Tony soft but to his dismay, it only made him pound into Tony harder, his rhythm not faltering, slamming in and out with barely a thought to restraint his strength, hating Tony for starting it, hating himself for wanting this, hating and loving it all the same. Tony brought it upon himself. He wanted to be used and Steve gladly obliged.
Steve finished with his teeth clamping down on the corded muscle of Tony’s neck, his entire frame shaking as he shoved in deep and spilled come inside Tony’s body.
When Steve came down, Tony was laying passively under him but as Steve pulled his cock from Tony’s ass with a slick pop, Tony gasped and tried to reach backward to find Steve’s hand as if he was afraid Steve was about to leave. He didn't know that Steve wasn’t done with him yet, not until he fucked this mutual desire out of them both.
“You still want me, Tony?” Steve whispered into Tony’s ear, licking the teeth mark he’d made on tan skin.
“Always.”
Pushing himself up, Steve used Tony’s calves to flip Tony over onto his back. Almost instinctively, Tony covered himself with his hands, either embarrassed by or ashamed at his lack of response, and only moved them to the sides to hold Steve’s knees when Steve asked him to.
Steve adjusted their position, his hands slipping under the back of Tony’s thighs to push his legs up and out, and took in the sight. Tony’s hair was a disarrayed mess, a few strands falling over his sweaty forehead, his scarred chest rising and falling with each heavy breath and the flush on his face almost completely covered by the reactor light. Dazed, he looked at Steve with what that resembled adoration under heavy eyelids and silently told Steve he could have anything he wanted of him and more.
When Steve gave Tony’s cock a few firm measured strokes, it started hardening and turning a pretty color. Tony’s abused hole was still open and trickling come but starting to close, prompting Steve to push his fingers through the hot white mess into him to keep him accessible. Obscenities were spilling from Tony as his thigh muscles tensed up and his hips shifted in time with every tug.
“Steve, Steve, ohgodSteve.” Tony panted and trembled but seemingly strained to hold himself back.
Maybe not for long, Steve thought, but he could keep at it for a few more minutes. Watching Tony coming apart was good but even better was having his cock inside Tony while he came. Steve removed his fingers from Tony’s ass and let Tony’s cock go in favor of his own, fully hard, thick and heavy again now and then it was only a matter of lining himself up and splitting Tony apart again.
“Now, Tony,” Steve said through ragged breaths but Tony shook his head stubbornly, only to gasp when Steve ground into him against his prostate. Hooking his arms under Tony’s knees and pinning Tony’s arms down, Steve bent Tony into half, pulled almost out and slammed back in.
“I can do this the whole day.” Every word was punctuated by a punishing snap of his hip, forcing Tony into an orgasm with a loud cry, inner muscles contracting around the girth of Steve’s cock in the aftershocks.
And then Tony was limp, his channel hot, slick and wet with just the right amount of friction, perfect pressure and delicious tightness that left little room for thoughts.
Sweat pouring off him, Steve pounded into Tony as hard as he could. For the first time, Steve knew what it meant to fuck and not to make love. How to let go and fall down that slippery slope, to be selfish for once, to take and not to give, and to be careless instead of careful.
Tony jerked and sobbed in Steve’s grasp, twitchy and sensitive but compliant, his hands gripping Steve’s knees like anchors and the wonderful little noises Tony was making feeling like drug to Steve.
The sheet was rumpled under them, completely ruined, the headboard slamming into the wall as Steve took Tony over and over, impaling Tony on his cock.
Pace faltering at last, Steve lost his control and unraveled. Heat spread from his groin to every of his nerve endings like fire and orgasm rocked through his body with an intensity much stronger than the first.
Steve kept going with small thrusts to draw it out, Tony’s hole so sloppy that cum spilled out and dribbled down his ass cheeks.
Eventually, Steve slipped free. He didn’t look at Tony’s tear-stained face as he threw a cover over Tony’s naked body, pulled on his clothes and left to his own room to clean up.
*
The day had been sunless with little more than an opaque light through the murk. JARVIS earlier had reminded Tony to take some vitamin D when Tony was going through his first cup of coffee, which didn’t help the headache on the back of his head.
Tony was trying to focus his attention on the cybernetic arm currently attached to the half-dressed man in front of him. Sore, hurting and tired, he already felt less than his usual self without being reminded of Bucky’s attractiveness and youthfulness.
“Count from one to five with your fingers,” said Tony and watched the response of smooth metal junctions as they shifted and folded soundlessly.
“Now, move your wrist and elbow. Left, right, up and down. Draw a circle.”
Bucky followed the instructions and they continued a few more minutes to test the full active range of motion, Bucky’s left arm moving naturally and effortlessly, the propagation delay from the brain signal to the arm sensors less than a fraction of a microsecond. The resistance test also passed with ease. Briefly, Tony caught a look of amazement on Bucky’s face, noticed the fascinating shade of grey and icy blue in his eyes before realizing his mistake and looking down again.
He rubbed at his temples with his fingers, suddenly conscious of the grey hair and dropped his hand. Jesus.
“How does it feel like?” Tony asked after he wrestled his bearings back.
“Strange but not bad. I can move it but can’t feel anything.”
“You’re not supposed to. If you want a cosmetic covering and nerve grafting, find a doctor but I don’t see why you would want to do that,” Tony commented neutrally. It should be a blessing not to feel anything.
Then, the only thing left to do was a strength test. Picking up a tiny flat-head screwdriver, Tony knocked on the side of the bicep to get Bucky’s attention, straightened the elbow with the other hand and put a handgrip dynamometer in the palm. He started fine-tuning it by tweaking the adjustment screw embedded in the deltoid.
“So, how is it like to fly Iron Man?” Bucky asked conversationally and flexed his arm as Tony checked the digital reading.
Tony directed Bucky a cold glance, his dislike to the other man palpable; he was never good of hiding how much he didn’t like someone. “Like riding a bicycle with jetpacks instead of wheels.”
“It is probably more fun.” Bucky attempted to crack a smile and Tony wished that he should stop talking or be friendly because Tony couldn’t handle him right now.
“Why don’t you tell me about Steve? You’re his friend, right?”
Was it what Steve had told Bucky about him? Tony frowned, bit his bottom lip and turned back to his work. Bucky’s fingers were gripping and releasing the handle in succession, each pushing the measurement higher and higher. Tony checked the meter again, decided to tune it down a notch or two but before the mantissa jumped by more than a few digits, Bucky batted Tony’s hand away.
“What’s your problem?” Bucky snapped. “I tried to be nice to you because of Steve but you’re very annoying, you know.”
Problem. Right. Tony scrubbed his face with the ball of his hand as if to wipe the headache away and told himself to calm down.
“Give me your arm. I’m not done,” Tony said after a long stretch of silence, extending his hand. “You don’t want to accidentally hurt someone with it.”
“No!” A firm refusal with an underlying streak of defiance. “I like it like this.”
“Have it your way. I’m done here. Just get the hell out of my workshop!”
“What if I don’t want to?” Bucky narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms, anger bubbling under the surface to be transformed into hate, revealed by the drawn eyebrows and on the corners of his lips. Bucky wanted a confrontation and a confrontation was what he was going to get.
“What do you want, Barnes? I get that you’re funny and clever but why don’t you understand that not everyone takes a liking to you?”
“God, I can’t believe this! You…” Bucky stuttered. “If I were Steve, I would be ashamed of you. You don’t deserve to be his friend!”
“Ashamed of me!” Tony laughed bitterly. “You think you know him just because you’re fucking him!”
The still air grew heavier between them and Tony realized he just crossed a line.
Bucky went still for a moment and when he spoke, his tone was low and dark. “I used to know a guy like you in the army. Being buddy-buddy with me until he found out I was with Steve.” Bucky paused to slip off the table to stand in front of Tony. “Started to insult me, call me name, humiliate and try to harass me. Do you know what happened to him?”
The arm Tony had been working with shortly before fist a handful of Tony’s tank top and yanked him close until their noses almost touched.
Perhaps, Tony should explain and apologize but he didn’t want to. In his aching heart, there was an ugly rage born out of pain and fed by a bone-deep weariness, frustration and confusion. Like an animal, it prickled Tony’s skin and wanted to be released.
Tony said, “Shut up,” but it didn’t.
There must be a sane compromise somewhere, one that didn’t involve anyone else. Bucky kept on talking, his breath scorchingly hot on Tony’s face, each threatening word feeling like fuel to the existing disagreeable emotion.
Hand closing into a fist on his side, Tony blinked from the sweat on his eyelids, gritted his teeth and then Tony heard a crack as Bucky’s face whipped to the side, blood starting to drip from his nose. It was a mistake. Tony had done something like this once, beating up Rhodey and getting beaten in return on his birthday party a few years ago.
And he wanted it now also. Wanted to bleed the bottled despair from his system and Bucky was giving him an excuse, probably having wanted to smack him around as much as Tony wanted to hit him.
Before Tony knew it, however, the world reeled and he crashed into the opposite table, folded over from a well-placed punch to the gut, the impact knocking his precious equipments and scattering them to the floor. It fucking hurt more than that one time he got thrown into a wall while testing out Iron Man’s jet boots.
He really shouldn’t have given Bucky the advantage of extra arm strength if he’d known this would happen.
“Come again?” Bucky asked and wiped his nose with the back of his hand as Tony staggered to stand up. “Going to hit that face of yours this time.”
Bucky did good with his promise, not that Tony appreciated a nasty right hook to the jaw. Tony’d had some boxing training but this wasn’t boxing. Bucky was quick, vicious and efficient with the kind of boundless energy that Tony could not match. There was the fleeting satisfaction when his fist connected again but then, Bucky seemed to be the kind who gave it back twice of what he received.
Tony went down with a knee in the stomach and tumbled sideways, vision going white with pain. Bile rising up, Tony thought he was going to vomit but Bucky was following it up with a hard kick that connected Tony’s side.
At that moment, Dummy saved him with his fire extinguisher by spraying a jet of air over them both. Tony would praise him if he wasn’t so busy trying to keep his internal organs from turning upside down or better yet, coming out of his mouth.
Minutes got lost in a haze. Familiar voice of JARVIS waking him, giving him statistics of his vital signs and listing injuries— some bruised ribs, a sore jaw and back pain but nothing broke.
Tony sighed. Bucky had gone easy on him and it was a bit of an insult.
Rolling over onto his back and shielding his eyes, Tony let Dummy fuss over him and thought about how stupid and immature he’d been and what his action had accomplished.
Steve would never be his again. He needed to move on from the loss of something that was never meant to his in the first place.
*
For the entire morning and a good part of the afternoon, Steve had been avoiding both Tony and Bucky after having taken two showers. The dirty rush of what he’d done with Tony made him guilty although technically, he was not dating anyone to need forgiveness.
When Steve mustered up enough courage at last to see Bucky, he found the other man raiding the first-aid cabinet in the kitchen while sporting a large bruise on his cheek. Steve frowned deeply. Bucky tended to get into fight but there was no reason that he should in his current condition.
“What happened?” Steve asked, concern and worry in his eyes.
“Nothing. I was testing out my new arm,” Bucky replied, pulled out a roll of elastic bandage with a cheer, and started wrapping his knuckles with his left arm, a gleaming piece of metal extending from under his shirt sleeve instead of real flesh and skin.
Steve forced himself not to look away. “You’re a good liar but not that good.”
“It’s true. Why would I lie to you?”
“I suppose the target punched you back.” Steve huffed.
Bucky didn’t answer and finished attaching the hook to hold the bandage in place. “Yeah, it was a feisty one, good for me to get something off my chest. You never had a problem with this before.”
“You fought with Tony, didn’t you?” Steve suddenly realized, seeing the confirmation from the ducking of Bucky’s head.
“I’m not going to say sorry, Steve. He said things about me… us and he threw that first swing!” Bucky argued, winced in pain and touched his jaw. “You should choose your friend more carefully.”
Unable to believe that he was the cause for their fight, Steve grew inexplicably angry and upset even as he revealed. “He’s not just a friend. I was dating him before we found you.”
“So, he…” Bucky trailed off and cut his eyes away from Steve who read the regret on the half-turned face. “If you want to go and see him, I won’t stop you.”
He did want to but why would he? Steve asked himself. Steve hated bullies and that was what Tony was, to start a physical fight with Bucky who couldn’t protect himself with only one of his arms functional.
He might have loved Tony once but not anymore. In spite of having everything at his beck and call, Tony was always needy and demanding, unlike Bucky who was both his best friend and childhood friend, the one who had always been there for him. When Steve thought about it now, he couldn’t recall a single reason he fell in love with Tony in the first place or remember any good memory that they’d shared.
“It was over between him and me. The person I love is you,” Steve said, his voice oddly distant although he believed what he said was true.
“Do you?” Bucky gazed intently at Steve, and searched Steve’s expression, and whatever he found appeared to satisfy him because a smile spread across his lips.
Steve took a few steps forward, met Bucky in the middle and they started kissing, slow and sweet.
*
The mess on the floor of Tony’s workshop was twice as worse as usual. Tony was standing next to a half-assembled Iron Man, both hands inside the torso cavity facing away from Steve. There was a blueprint on a workbench by his side along an assortment of equipments and electronic contraptions, some of them having no names because Tony designed them himself for personal use.
Once upon a time, this place had been one of Steve’s favorites despite Tony’s choice of music that didn’t always click with him.
Right now, there were only faint electrical noises, hums of machines in the background and the whizzing sounds as Dummy rolled around and picked things up off the floor.
“You shouldn’t have hit him.”
“I’m sorry,” Tony said a bit too quickly and automatically as if he’d been waiting to say that line.
Steve walked near to straighten a chair that had been knocked over, observed a wisp of hair on Tony’s neck and followed the graceful line of his back to the top of his waistband.
God, his mind must be playing tricks on him because he should be angry at Tony instead of thinking about how attractive he looked.
“I can’t go on like this. It is not working anymore.”
“You already broke up with me. You don’t have to do it again,” Tony said flatly and emotionlessly, jerking on a wire and it came out with the copper terminal exposed from its plastic casing. Letting go of a curse, Tony reached inside the Iron Man again, presumably to remove the connector.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Steve tasted ash in his mouth as he said. “If you hurt Bucky again, I’m not going to forgive you.”
There was a clang when the wrench in Tony’s hand fell to the ground, deafening in the relative quietness. Tony didn’t pick it up or even look at it.
Steve wanted to do it for him but decided not to. The silence lengthened and nothing seemed to move, cauterized and frozen in the moment.
“You have my words,” Tony promised after a while, his left hand reaching blindly over to the workbench and grabbing a pair of pliers. He made a ‘hm’ noise in his throat when he saw what it was and turned back to his work with mechanical motions.
Steve used to be able to watch him the whole day but he couldn’t now.
Before leaving, Steve suddenly felt the need to ask, “Are you going to be ok?”
“I’m always fine.” Tony’s shoulders went up in a nonchalant shrug. “Just go to Bucky.”
Slightly bothered by the disinterest and cold treatment but since there was no more to say, Steve shook himself out of the disbelief that Tony was treating their relationship like it meant nothing. Even though he’d dated Tony for only a few months, he’d treasured the time they were together and Tony who was always there for him when the guilt of losing Bucky pained and woke him up at night.
Behind him, Tony started reading a series of sequence characters and numbers and the door locked itself automatically, probably erasing Steve’s access code and prohibiting his future access.
Something flared in his chest suddenly and weighed down his footsteps. Disappointment perhaps, Steve thought, focused on the mental image of Bucky’s smiling face, kept walking and didn’t look back.