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Steve hated it, he hated the fact that they could only be like this if they were safely covered up by the cover of the darkness, with nothing more than the moon and the stars as their witnesses. He hated that he couldn’t see the spark in Tony’s eyes in the dark. He hated that he couldn’t hold his boyfriend his hand in daylight. Because Tony looks a thousand times better when the sun played with his hair.
They’re standing on their usual spot, Steve’s back against a wall, both in the shadow, both having to stay quiet because they can’t have people peaking around the corner.
Tony keeps kissing him, hastily, messy and hungry, because their time is short and they never know when the next time will be they meet. Steve’s hands wander across Tony’s body on their own accords. They don’t have time for romantic, they never have. They don’t get dinners by candlelight, holding hands while watching sunsets, they don’t get to be prom king and prom king, hell they don’t even get to go to prom as each other’s dates!
It’s not fair, for Steve is sure that he loves Tony just as much as a girl loves her boyfriend, but their love is not accepted, and so they end up kissing somewhere in the dark, back pressed against a wall and the need to muffle their sounds because someone might hear.
“Tony… Tony please.” Steve begs as he tries to push tony away, he can’t do this anymore. He can’t act as if he’s okay with their love like this, because he’s not. He’s not okay with hiding, not anymore. “Yea?” Tony mumbles between kisses. “I can’t.” Steve pushes Tony away, perhaps a bit too rough.
“You can’t what?” Tony looks puzzled as he licks his, way to pretty for his own good, lips. “I can’t, keep on doing this.” Steve looks away, ashamed. Because he feels weak, Tony deserves better than this, better then a boyfriend who lets him down because he feels uncomfortable.
“What are we doing differently then always?” Tony stepped back, still not understanding. “I can’t be with you anymore if it’s like this.” Steve whispers. Eyes focused on the ground. He doesn’t deserve Tony. Weak bastard that he is.
“You don’t love me anymore…” Tony whispered, again stepping back as if he wants to run. Which is most likely that he does. Because it took Steve so long to get Tony to trust him, to see him as a friend and not only as a fuck-buddy that he can’t let close to his heart. “That’s not it!” Steve answers perhaps a bit too fast. He looks up and his eyes meet Tony’s. “I really love you.” He whispers, barely controlling himself from pulling Tony to his chest and shower him with sweet kisses.
“Why are you saying such things then?” even if Steve would pull him to his chest and kiss him and say all the sweet words that he knows he’s sure of the fact that Tony wouldn’t be the same again, a seed of doubt for Steve’s love for him has been planted inside his mind. “Because, I.” Steve took a deep breath, reaching out and running his fingers across Tony’s soft cheek for a split of a second, knowing that he would never feel them again.
“I can’t act as if I’m okay with a love like this, I love you, with all of me, with my heart, with my soul and you know that I love you with my body.” He saw Tony licking his lips softly at the last comment. “But I want to love you in daylight, where everyone can see that I love you, I don’t want to hide anymore Tony!” A single tear escaped from the corner of his eye.
“So you want the both of us to get beat up, bullied and humiliated every day?” Tony almost hissed. Steve knew that it was hard. Tony had been an outcast for most of his life. And it was clear to him why he stayed on the ‘save’ path.
“No, but I want to love you and if that means that we’ll have to live with all that, so be it.”
Steve knew that Tony would never do it. He knew that he had now, officially, lost the best thing in his life.
“Then this is where it ends.”
A couple of days passed. Steve didn’t hear from Tony. He only saw him in the hallways at their school but never for longer than a blink of an eye. Because Tony seemed to be avoiding him. Logically.
It had been more than a week and Steve’s heart felt as if it was going to burst from sadness. He missed Tony so much that he couldn’t even describe it. It might seem sappy. But to him, Tony was his sun, moon and stars in the sky, he was his everything .
At the end of the second week Steve could no longer eat or sleep that’s how much he missed Tony. He was sitting in the cafeteria, alone like every day since Tony left when it happened.
There is a microphone placed in the middle of the cafeteria. It’s for musicians and poets who want to show their work to the whole school, because for some reason if you speak in the microphone everyone in the school can hear you. It’s mostly used by over hormonal teens who feel the need to tell everyone how horrible the sex with their ex was, or just yell a random insult through it.
But today there is a soft cough to get everyone’s attention, and Steve knows that cough better than anything else. He almost falls off his chair because it’s Tony, Tony’s going to speak for the whole school!
He looks a bit lost standing there, in the middle of the cafeteria, in the middle of the crowd. Opening his mouth and closing it again before getting his normal attitude back.
“Well suckers, listen up!” He speaks calmly and just loud enough for everyone to hear him clearly. “I want to tell you something.”
Steve admires him for a second. Because Tony is an outcast, and he’s bullied every single day again, but still, he dares to stand up and speak to everyone who has ever hurt him.
Some people call his name, most people call insults but Tony stands proud, and suddenly their eyes meet, and there is something in Tony’s eyes. A spark which Steve has never seen before, and he’s seen a lot of Tony’s sparks.
“I want to tell you something…” Tony says again. “but I’m not asking for your opinion so you can keep that to yourself.” He looks at the crowd, raising his voice a little. “You guys have been dragging me down everyday again, kicking me in the dirt, pulling pranks on me but I can live with that, I don’t really care because I put it all next to me.”
Their eyes meet again and Tony gives Steve a quick smile. “But you have done one thing that I can never forgive you guys for, and the worst part, you don’t even know what you’ve ruined.”
Steve’s sitting on the tip of his chair, not really knowing what to do with himself.
“You have ruined a love, a love so true and great that I’m sure of the fact that I will never find it again.”
Everyone is silent, no one speaks, the stream of insults have stopped. Steve can almost hear everyone thinking, ‘did Tony fucking Stark have a girl? Since when did Stark have a girlfriend?’
“And I want it back.” Tony stares at Steve, it is as if everything around them is gone. There is no one except for them in this cafeteria.
He smiles and makes a ‘come here’ motion with his hand to him, his legs move at their own accord walking between everyone, pushing some away, towards Tony until he’s at the little stage where the microphone is placed on.
Tony reaches out, pulling him close and whispering in his ear. “I love you Steve. Please, I want to be with you.” Steve is sure that no one in the cafeteria has heard that and he’s not really agreeing with that fact, and so he takes the microphone out of Tony’s hand.
“Tony Stark, I love you and I want nothing more than to spent my life with you, so stop being an idiot and kiss me.”
“Steve Rogers, I would want nothing more in the world.” Tony smiles and softly runs his fingertips against Steve’s cheeks before softly pressing their lips together. It’s a different kiss then when his back was pressed against a wall in the dark and they needed to take as many as they could.
They both didn’t want to pull back, knowing that if they did they would have to deal with the crap that everyone in their school would give them.
But it’s better now they’re back together, because they know that it won’t be easy but Steve is just glad that the times of back pressed against a wall are over.