Archive of Our Own

There are a lot of things Steve Rogers has to learn after waking up. Things about how telephones fit in your pocket and are mostly used to knock over towers occupied by green pigs, about supermarkets the size of some small towns, about always having enough heat. Even enough to keep a survivor of decades in the ice feeling sort of warm.

He has to learn his way around New York again, about Thai food and Indian food and Ethiopian food ("Try it," Tony says, "it's good," and Steve says, "I thought people were starving there," and Tony shrugs. Says, “People are starving here, too, but American hamburgers still taste pretty damn good.”)

Steve has to learn the internet.

And he has to learn how to talk to Tony Stark.

Those last two are kind of the same, Steve thinks, sometimes, in the privacy of his quarters at SHIELD, nights when the mansion is too loud and makes him feel too much.

They're both flashy and modern and too much. Both wildly inappropriate when you'd least expect it. Both take him by surprise by what they know and how willingly they share it. Both are fun. Addictive. Sexy.

And Steve can never, ever, ever assume that either of them is saying what they mean.

It's the first thing he learns about Tony, really—that the more he seems not to care the more he probably does, and that when he says he's fine he's probably bleeding. Tony says he hates crappy tech at the same time that he's using it, says he's bored by Steve, can't deal with Steve, can't handle another question from Steve at the same time that he, well… At the same time he's reinforcing Steve's uniform, or making him go out, buying him dinner, or showing him (again) how to use his phone.

Tony never, ever, ever says what he means.

So when Tony stands in the ruins of the mansion and tells Steve that he thought the old Steve Rogers, the one from before Project Rebirth, was 'hot'…when he hunts Steve down in the gym on the helicarrier and tells Steve he admires him…

Well, Steve doesn't know what to believe.

He lets Tony walk away, doesn't go after him, not until Natasha shows him the rest of the pictures Tony kept of him, the ones that captured Steve when he didn't realize anyone was looking. The ones that are soft from being handled, the ones that are bent around the edges, and Steve's heart feels the warmest it has since the ice.

(Maybe, just maybe, he can have something he wants, this once. Maybe he can keep it. Maybe he can hold on.)

Tony saves the day and almost kills himself. In a rush of crimson-gold, he flies off, as if he wants to be alone. And he never says what he means. So Steve finds him. Steve kisses him. And nothing is the same.

(Steve takes what he wants, gives what he wants so desperately for someone to want from him. Lets Tony walk right into his heart, and it glows and glows and glows.)

…

"We can," Steve says. He's hard and panting, and Tony's over him, hips pressed to his, and Steve's skin is too tight, too warm, too much. He's never felt like this, like if he could just…if Tony just…

"No," Tony says. He slows the kisses to the point where Steve's about to scream. Instead of skirting the elastic of Steve's underwear, he puts his hand in the middle of Steve's chest. He smiles. "This is fine. This is just fine."

Steve falls asleep in Tony's arms, hot, skin still singing, feeling rejected and held and too many things.

And it isn't until he wakes in the middle of the night, boxers sticky and face flushed, that he remembers.

Tony never says what he means.

…

Except, of course, when he does.

…

A week after the mansion is destroyed, they're living in apartments Tony found for them. (“It's nothing,” Tony says, shrugging hard and not meeting anyone's eyes. Stark Industries puts people up on business all the time, they have a hundred of these, it's no big deal, but Steve knows. Knows the analog radio is the room Steve has but never sleeps in isn't standard issue for a corporate suite, knows the scent of incense in Bruce's room and the purple sheets in Clint's room and the Russian novels in Natasha's aren't the way things would normally be. He knows.)

"Probably have to go in to SHIELD today," Tony mumbles. He's standing at the coffee maker, the arc reactor a soft glow through the fabric of his tank top, arms tense. His hair is standing on end, and he's beautiful in the morning, now that Steve gets to see him that way.

Even if he still won't let Steve touch him the way he wants to.

Steve looks up over the edge of his paper. "Oh?"

Tony flinches. "Not sure how else I'm going to get any work done. Have to hack my way into their lab again, and all their equipment is shit, but, you know. Billionaires can't be choosy."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure they can. Isn't that half the point of being one?"

"Yeah, yeah. Well. That, or I could start cleaning up the workshop in the mansion, but it’s a mess. Probably nothing worth salvaging anyway."

Steve puts the paper down at that. Tony's got that tightness to his jaw, and his knuckles are white around the handle of his mug.

And sometimes Steve doesn't say what he means, either. He raises one eyebrow. "Could just hire someone to haul it all away then."

The vein in Tony's temple starts throbbing. His whole throat bobs, and his gaze is on a spot just over Steve's shoulder, his focus intense enough to burn. "Probably should."

"Really."

Tony snaps his gaze to Steve's, and Steve feels his pulse rise. It's like it always is when they fight, how it's always been, the way they goad each other, push each other. "Yeah, sure, why not, it's just the most advanced lab in the entire world, just full of projects so secret Nick Fury himself doesn't have clearance to see them and he commissioned them, so yeah. Clean-up crews. Brilliant."

A little curl of hurt unfurls in Steve's stomach, but he forces himself to breathe past it. It's just like how it always is when they fight, except it's not. Steve knows better now.

He folds the paper and stands, shoulders soft, his hands held out in front of him. Tony looks away as Steve approaches, but Steve doesn't let that stop him. He comes to stand in front of Tony and settles a tentative hand on his neck. Tony tenses but doesn't push him away. Exhaling, Steve curls his fingers around the warm skin there, rubs his thumb into the tense spot at Tony's jaw.

"That workshop is your baby," he says, low. Non-threatening.

"It's just stuff."

"It's your stuff. And you love your stuff."

Tony doesn't deny it, and that's as good as agreement when it comes from him.

"Come here." Steve pulls Tony in until he can feel his warmth against his chest. Turns to press his face against Tony's hair. Only when they can't see each other anymore does he ask, "Do you want me to go with you? To your workshop?"

The hitch in Tony's breath is the only thing that gives him away. "You don't have to."

Steve rubs harder at the juncture of Tony's shoulder and neck. "I know I don't. But I want to, if you want me to. We could go through your stuff together." He grins against Tony's hair. "I won't even go snooping through your pictures of me."

"Moved those all already." Tony's voice is muffled by Steve's shirt.

Steve lets the silence linger for a minute. "So? Is that a yes? I don't have anything else I have to do today."

It's as close as Steve can come to saying he wants to do this, wants to be there—that he knows how hard it's going to be for Tony to go through the ruins of everything he's created.

"Don't even know what you would do there." Tony turns his face so his temple is pressed to Steve's shoulder instead of his mouth. "You can't even work your phone. God help us if I asked you to do something with a circuit board."

"I promise I'll leave all the science stuff to you. I'm just there to lift heavy things."

And you, he thinks. I'll be there to lift you, too.

"Ugh. You're gonna make me take you with me, aren't you? There are going to be puppy dog eyes. You know I can't resist puppy dog eyes, Cap, that's not fair. That's not fair at all."

And Steve has learned. He's learned to peer through what Tony says to what he means.

Late that night, they're still sorting through debris, and there's a pile of discarded, broken things, but Tony isn't among them. He's holding it together every time he finds something else that's been ruined, and Steve comes over to him, holds him close even though Tony pretends Steve's in the way, and Steve breathes. He breathes this in.

Hours later, they're still not done, but it's a start. Tony stands up and brushes himself off.  Steve huffs with relief and rises, too.

This time, Tony's the one to come to him, the one to intertwine their hands, to hold onto Steve even as he surveys all there is still left to do. He turns toward the door.

But before he goes, he says, so faint, so low, "Thank you. For this."

Steve's heart throbs. Tony means it.

…

Tony groans as he flops himself down onto the bed beside Steve. Steve closes up his sketchbook, shuts the cover on the loose lines he'd been scratching on the paper in an echo of Tony's jaw. He sets it on what he's come to think of as his nightstand and looks at Tony, at the way his arm is thrown over his face as he lies there on his back.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." Tony leaves his arm there, but tilts his head to the side to peer at Steve through  his one open eye. "It's going to take weeks to get that place cleaned up."

At the very least. "Probably. But it'll get done. We can go back again tomorrow, if you want."

"Ugh." Tony shifts so both his eyes are covered again. "Can't. Meetings all day. Stupid company refuses to run itself."

"How rude of it."

"You have no idea. First one starts at eight. No matter how many times I tell Pepper I don't believe in single digits—"

"You believe in single digits." Steve grins, fond. "Just not on that side of the day." Tony stays up until all hours of the morning. Even now, it's edging on past one a.m.

Steve never used to stay up this late. Never had a reason to, but now… Now it's the only way he gets to go to bed with Tony.

It's a thing they've fallen into, ever since that first night on the helicarrier. The night after that, Steve lingered, kept finding reasons to hang around Tony as he worked his way past any sane person's bedtime, until he finally looked up, said, "Fine, fine, I guess I should get some sleep," and then Steve hovered around the door of his room until Tony rolled his eyes and said, "Just get over here already."

And Steve did. He hasn't wanted to sleep anywhere else since, and Tony hasn't asked him to. And so he's stayed.

"Fair enough," Tony concedes, yawning behind his hand. "Still, means I have to get up early."

The full implications of that make whatever hope he'd been trying to tamp down slide fully to the bottom of his gut. It does nothing to cool the ache between his legs. His voice is a little more ragged than it should be as he says, "Lights out, then?"

"Yeah, probably."

Steve doesn't want to, but he does it. Rolls over and turns off the bedside lamp and then lies down, supine, inches of space between his body and Tony's, and he hates it. Hates the way his heart feels so full and his hands so empty, hates how his skin feels hot, and he doesn't know how to make it stop. But he knows what he wants.

Tony's the one to slide over, to place a warm palm in the middle of Steve's chest and press a kiss against his throat.

"God, you feel so tense," Tony says, quiet and low.

"Just…" Steve shrugs. He never was any good at lying, so there doesn't seem much point in trying. He just lets what he wants to say go unsaid.

"Come here." Tony's hands are on Steve's arms, rubbing deep at muscles that are sore from moving rubble, sore from clenching up so tight to keep from grabbing Tony, to keep from just throwing him on the mattress and falling onto him, from drowning in him, rutting hard against hot skin and taking taking taking.

He wants to be taken. Wants Tony to want him this way, too.

Tony's lips are on his, stealing his breath before he can say too much, and Steve melts into the kiss, parts his lips and slips his tongue into the fleshy heat of Tony's mouth. His beard scrapes at Steve's chin, and he loves it, loves all of this. Loves him.

Somehow, he manages to pull Tony on top of him, and there's that ache again, building so deep and strong, and Tony's hard against Steve's thigh through his boxers, and Steve doesn't know why. Doesn't know why he won't give Steve what he wants.

Steve tries to ask for it anyway, slides palms up under Tony's shirt, touches the fine muscles of his abdomen and twists his fingers into the stray wisps of hair there. He grasps Tony's hip and cups his neck, and there's a leg between Steve's open thighs. He pushes against it, and it feels like an ignition, like little explosions beneath his skin, and he wants this. He wants this so much. Even just a touch, even just Tony's hand curled around him, and he pushes his own fingers lower, into the waistband of Tony's boxers, into the soft, smooth skin at the hollow of his hip. He feels like if he doesn't touch Tony, doesn't find out what it's like to feel that flesh—

Then Tony's laughing in his mouth, nervous and uncomfortable. "Slow down there, soldier."

"Don't want to." The words fall out of him before he can stop them, his hips push up, and it's so good.

Tony freezes. Damn.

Damn, damn, damn.

"I have to get up early," Tony says, and he's already pulling away, but Steve's clutching at him, don't go don't go don't please.

"Why?" Steve asks. His face is hot, and why can't he think? Why can't he just close his stupid mouth?

"Meetings, remember," but Tony's doing that thing. Saying everything except what he's actually thinking.

And Steve's not listening. Tony wriggles out of his grasp, flops back down on the bed. It's dark but for the light in Tony's chest, but it's enough to show his expression, sour. Lying.

"You know that's not what I'm asking."

Steve's not prepared for the bark of laughter.

"Believe me, I know." Tony looks over. "Steve, you don't want this. Not like this."

"Don't tell me what I don't want."

"Well, maybe somebody should."

"Tony…" Steve's heart is in his throat, and something raw inside him opens up. He reaches over, puts a tentative hand on Tony's forearm, but the muscles there are hard, everything tensed.

"I mean, somebody's gotta protect your virtue, right?" Tony drags a hand over his face, and Steve hates this. "Though your reputation's already pretty much shot to hell by now. Going to bed with a playboy manwhore will do that to you."

"You're not a—"

"I've got to get up early."

What are they even talking about?

What are they talking about?

Steve's arousal seeps away, leaving him cold, as cold as the sheets, and there's this space between them again. Steve pulls his hand away.

"In fact," Tony's still talking, still turning away, "I don't want to wake you. Supersoldiers need their sleep. Maybe you should bunk in your room tonight, yeah? You've still got one haven't you?"

The ice inside Steve's chest shudders and twists.

He hates this. Hates knowing Tony never says what he means except when he does, and he loves that sometimes Tony's truthful with him, but he hates it. He hates it because he never knows anymore.

He doesn't know. Not as he's stumbling numbly from Tony's bed, pulling on the lounge pants he discarded, not when he's walking down the hall, not seeing anything. Slamming the door behind him, just stopping himself from smashing the damn radio, from smashing the wall. Because he's not sure. He's not sure, when Tony kicked him out…

If it was what he wanted or not.

…

There are some things Steve Rogers didn't have to learn after he woke up, things he already knew by heart. From before. Before the ice and before the serum. Before.

He knows how to wrap himself up in his own tight fist, how to stifle his cry against his wrist so no one hears. He knows how to picture a man he isn't sure wants him back as he touches himself.

He knows how to hurt when he comes, empty and alone.

He knows how to be alone.

…

True to his word, Tony is gone early. Steve wanders by his room anyway, hoping but not hoping. The sight of the open door and the unmade bed, the carelessly discarded clothes, though… It's clear enough. Hell, chances are, after the night they had, Tony would have been gone whether he had meetings today or not.

He let Steve see him weak, amongst the ashes of the things he built. He thanked Steve.

And then he gave Steve a billion bullshit excuses for why he didn't want to have sex with him and made Steve sleep alone.

Eventually, Steve pushes off of Tony's door frame and makes his way to the kitchen. He stares at the coffee maker, picturing Tony there.

When Natasha clears her throat from the table, Steve jumps.

He rubs the back of his neck and looks down. "Sorry. Didn't see you there."

"Easy enough mistake."

No one sees Natasha unless she wants to be seen.

Steve pours himself a glass of juice and starts some eggs and bacon, glancing over at Natasha in a silent question. She answers by holding up her yogurt and granola.

He'll never understand how people live on that. On green smoothies and protein shakes and—He doesn't need to be thinking about any of that.

When his food is cooked, he takes it to the table and grabs one of the sections of the paper Nat isn't currently examining. They eat in silence together for a few minutes, but then her voice rings out.

"What did Stark do now?"

Steve's heart stutters. "Hmm?" He doesn't look up, but chances are he doesn't have to.

"You've got your puppy dog face on."

Steve rolls his eyes and tries to keep his voice calm. "I don't have a puppy dog face."

Even if she is the second person to call him out for it in as many days.

"Sure you don't." When he glances at her, she's looking down at the paper, casual and calm. "So what did he do?"

"Why do people assume it's always Tony doing something?"

"Because he has a proven track record of…doing things."

"You trust him with your life, Nat."

"My life, yes." For this first time, she looks up at him. "My heart? No."

And that's what Steve's done. It's risky and it's ridiculous, but it's…it's worth it. The time he gets to spend with Tony, the way he gets to touch him, the way he sometimes gets to see beneath the armor. And if he has to put up with some erratic behavior, with being pushed away sometimes, with words that cut because it's easier than letting anyone close…

Shit.

That's what Tony was doing last night. And Steve let him get away with it.

He drops his head into his hands and groans. "I'm such an idiot."

Natasha's hum is a quiet confirmation, but there's a challenge there, too.

Right. Because it's not as if Tony isn't at all to blame.

"I mean, he is too, of course, but I let him," Steve says. "He pushes people away, you know? And I let him."

"Sometimes you have to." Her eyes are back on the paper, but her one shoulder is quirking up. "Anyway, he doesn't need to know he can't push you away. Just that you'll come back."

Steve lifts his head from his hands, straightens his spine. "Of course I'll come back. I'll always—"

"Then show him that. Maybe, after a while, he'll even believe it."

And Steve wants to go back in time and punch Howard Stark and Obadiah Stane and any of the other umpteen people who made Tony believe that people don't come back—made him believe that people won't love him for who he is. Made him believe that people won't stay.

Thumping his fist down on the table, popping the bones in his neck, Steve lets a growl of frustration grow in the back of his throat.

"Hey." Natasha touches his hand.

And how did it come to this? Natasha—prickly, distant Natasha who thinks love is for children—is the one Steve can talk to. The one who seems to understand and who knows that sometimes, isolated in this world, Steve just needs someone to touch his hand. Someone to show him what he doesn't see.

"People like Stark take time, but once they let you in…you're in forever. And they'll protect you to the end of the earth."

Steve doesn't need protecting, he just needs…Tony. Needs someone to love and someone to touch. Needs someone who challenges him and fights him and, at the end of the day, feels like home.

Natasha rubs his thumb, muses quietly, "Did you know I worked undercover at Stark Industries, back before the Avengers Initiative? Doing reconnaissance on Stark for Fury."

"Um…" Steve remembers reading that, but what does it have to do with what they're talking about now?

"In my summary statement, I said he displayed textbook narcissism."

Steve snorts. He thought that too, the first time they met.

"It's not as simple as that, though, is it? I mean, sure, there's the egoism and the attention-seeking and the lack of empathy and—"

"Nat."

"He doesn't think he deserves anything good."

Steve feels that right in his ribs. "No. He doesn't."

Natasha slides her hand up his arm to squeeze his shoulder. "Then just never forget—you're something good."

Even after she walks away, Steve sits there, sits there and stares off into space for a long, long time.

He and Tony have got to talk.

…

Of course, before they have the chance to, evil calls.

…

"Where the hell is Stark?" Fury's voice crackles through Steve's earpiece.

Thankfully, Natasha cuts in. "Meetings at Stark Industries. Pepper's pulling him out right now."

"ETA?" Steve asks, breathless, whipping his arm around to hurl the shield at the…huge ball of pasta attacking them.

"Five minutes."

The shield rebounds back at him, but the pasta doesn't stop.

"I can't do this, guys," Clint moans.

"Barton, I swear to God," Natasha says.

"I'm a Pastafarian."

Steve lets fly with the shield again, jumping over a car to avoid the hail of...penne? "A what?"

"It's an actual, honest to goodness Flying Spaghetti Monster. I'm a conscientious objector."

Steve vaguely remembers Tony showing him a website about this, about some parody religion that invented a god to point out the problems with teaching kids creationism. It seemed pretty ridiculous, even if it was good satire. Steve may be a Christian, but he's never been one to follow anyone's teachings blindly, and after meeting two gods, he's willing to consider all sorts of possibilities.

But spaghetti? Seriously?

"Conscientiously put a motherfucking exploding arrow through that motherfucking entrée."

"Director Fury, this is religious persecution. His noodly appendage is sacred, I tell you, sacred."

Steve tunes the debate out. The spaghetti monster is spewing what looks suspiciously like marinara at this point, which seems innocuous enough, but it's melting cars.

"Uh, guys?" Bruce says. "That's not Ragu he's spitting there. It's a mix of three different kinds of acids and…red dye number five?"

"The red M&Ms were always the best ones," Clint says, dream-like. "Even when they gave you cancer."

"Hawkeye," Steve interjects. "Do you have the shot or not?"

Clint sighs. "Even if I did and even if this wasn't against my religion. Do you really want that thing raining down acid over midtown?"

He's got a point. Steve catches the shield as it rebounds off a building and pauses, both for breath and to think. If they could just herd this thing away from this part of the city…

"Holy shit!" A very welcome, very late voice sweeps out across the communicators. "Is that a Flying Spaghetti Monster?"

Steve relaxes incrementally. "Iron Man."

The sound betrays him, sounds exactly the way it does when Steve says 'Tony', full of feeling, full of relief.

Tony's voice, as always, is full of something else entirely. "Miss me?"

"Always." And it's not a private channel, it's not the time, but he says it anyway.

There's absolute radio silence for approximately three seconds, and then everyone starts back in.

"Tony, Steve's trying to make me shoot the FSM—"

"Stark, if Hawkeye doesn't shoot this thing—"

"The chemical composition of the projectile is—"

Iron Man swoops over the battlefield, and somehow he even manages to fly as if he's smirking. "You guys are completely lost without me."

Steve huffs out a sigh. Takes over command. "Hostile is not responding to physical attacks. Disassembles and reassembles around things."

"Hive mind behavior?"

A hive of pasta. Right. This is what Steve's life is now. "Affirmative. We need to get it out over the water."

"On it."

Taking another sweeping circle, Iron Man heads straight for the mass, firing off twin repulsor blasts at it. The thing reacts with a shudder, noodles flying out from the center toward him. Iron Man nimbly avoids them while reorienting himself toward the river. Sure enough, the monster follows.

"Ah," Tony says. "The advantages of resembling a flying sausage."

"Good work. Keep it up."

Just then, Steve spies movement behind one of the disintegrating cars, and he's thinking he's going to have a civilian to evacuate, but then he recognizes what the person is wearing on his head.

"Hawkeye?"

"Yeah, Cap?"

"Do pastafarians wear colanders?"

…

It's the work of a few seconds to take the kid with the strainer on his head down. Steve looks at him menacingly, and the guy spouts off a line or two about religious freedom, and then Natasha is pulling a remote control from his pocket.

So it should all be under control. It should all, all, all be a matter of clean-up. But it's not.

Clint's there, and he's saying, "So what does this button do?"

And all they hear over the intercom is a grunt, but Steve knows that sound.

Everything in him is cold.

"Iron Man?"

Steve's running before the silence can even register, before the splash.

Before Iron Man is gone.

…

Steve is never going to eat Italian food again.

The scene at the harbor is like something out of a horror show, and Steve can't breathe. There are voices in his ear, telling him to wait for backup, to slow down, but all he can do is run. His boots slide in smashed pasta, and there's marinara everywhere, melting metal, leeching the sheen from his boots, stinging where it splashes against his neck.

And Iron Man is made of metal. Iron Man is—Tony is—

There's half a crimson gauntlet floating on the water, and Steve is going to be sick, is turning inside out, his whole abdomen a churning mass.

"Cap—Damn it, Cap—"

"That button made the Flying Spaghetti Monster explode," Steve chokes out. He's feverishly searching the water, looking for any sign, but it's just noodles and red and—

And a glow.

Steve doesn't bother to strip down, doesn't do anything except drop his shield, and then the river is coming up to meet him. He cuts through the water, takes a long dive, holds his breath, and his chest aches, and if Tony doesn’t make it…

The bright blue circle in the water is a beacon. Steve's hand connects with skin, and he's grabbing, hauling, kicking for the surface. He emerges into the sun and Tony isn't breathing. He isn't breathing.

Steve can't think.

He hauls him to the dock like a man possessed. He can't feel his arms or legs, just feels the fabric of Tony's undershirt, the cool of his skin, and he should be warm. Tony should always be warm. He shoves Tony onto the dock and follows him up, and then it's everything he's learned from before the ice and after.

Chest compressions and his mouth on Tony's, but not the right way. Not the right way.

When he hears choking, it's the best sound he's heard in years.

"Shit. Fuck."

He's never been so happy to hear Tony swearing.

Tony coughs and coughs, and it's like he's spitting up half the sea, but Steve breathes. He breathes. He rubs Tony's chest and gives him room, helps him sit up.

"Tell me nobody kissed me," Tony wheezes. Then he looks around. His eyes connect with Steve's, and something melts inside them. But there's a shy wariness there still, too. "Unless it was you. If it was you, I guess it'll be okay."

Steve exhales long and hard. He touches Tony's cheek. "Just me. Just me."

"Okay." Tony's hand is on Steve's arm, and Steve doesn't even care who's looking, who's watching.

He takes Tony up in the tightest hug he dares, presses his lips to the side of Tony's ear. Even when Tony pushes him away, he doesn't let go.

He's never going to let go.

…

"Cap?"

"Yeah, Clint?"

"I think I'm changing my religion."

"I think that's a really, really good idea."

…

"God damn it, Steve."

If he weren't supporting half of Tony's weight, Steve would throw his hands in the air. As it is, it's hard enough just trying to hold on with the way Tony keeps pushing him away. "Do you really have to fight me on every step? Just let me—"

"I'm not a fucking invalid."

"No." Steve stops short, tightens his grip on Tony's waist, and maybe he's pressing against a bruise, but maybe that's what Tony needs him to do. He just wants to get him to his room. Tony already checked himself out of the hospital against doctor's advice, and Steve just needs to take care of him. All he can see is his gray face, his unmoving chest, there on the docks, lungs full of water. He grits his teeth. "No, you're not, but you almost died today. And you can let me help you get to bed or I can carry you. Those are your choices."

"I hate you."

Tony never says what he means.

He grumbles and grouses, but he stops fighting. With not a little effort, Steve manages to get him through the door and to his side of the bed. He reaches for the top button of his shirt, but Tony bats his hand away.

"I can do it."

Steve has to take a hard, deep breath. He forces himself to step away. "I never doubted you could."

Tony doesn't do it, though, just leaves his clothes on as he collapses against the pillows, wincing and choking back a sound Steve recognizes as masking pain.

All the fight draining out of him, Steve sinks down to sit on the mattress beside Tony. His hand twitches, but he doesn't stop himself. He puts his hand on the center of Tony's chest, needing the connection more than he thinks Tony does.

Tony almost died today. Steve almost lost…

Low and gritty, eyes closed, Steve says, "I don't think you're an invalid or that you can't take care of yourself. I just think you're hurt. Human. I just want…I want to take care of you. And it kills me that you won't let me."

"Sorry?" The word is meeker than Steve would have expected. It makes him deflate even further.

"When I saw the scraps of armor floating, I thought… I just thought…" Steve's fingers tense. The ridge of the arc reactor digs into his palm. "If the acid had gotten all the way through, to the casing of the arc reactor…"

He hadn't even thought of that possibility at the time. Once he had, though…

"It didn't."

"But it could have. And even—you almost drowned."

Tony's whole body goes tense. "I know how to swim."

The laugh in Steve's chest hurts. "Doesn't matter. Not when you hit the water that fast. I know…Believe me, I know."

He knew how to swim, too, but the water was cold. It was so cold, and there was ice, and—

A shiver wracks him, even though it's plenty warm. Even though Tony's warm, just the way he should be.

"Hey," Tony says. His voice demands that Steve look up at him, and after a long moment, he does. For a second, Tony's expression is open. "I'm fine."

"You're not."

"I will be."

And yeah. That's true. Steve just has to believe it. "I know."

He makes himself pull his hand away, makes himself stand up and walk to the other side of the room. "Is there anything you need?"

"A triple espresso and a functioning workshop wouldn't hurt."

"Coffee and a tablet will have to do."

Tony buries himself in his work, Steve knows that. He even understands it. The first thing Steve ever wants to do when he gets hurt is to get back to it, to do better, to prove he can still do it.

Steve's at the door, about to go get what Tony needs when he hears that awful sound again, the sound of Tony in pain and trying to hide it. He turns abruptly, and what he sees makes his gut clench, almost as sick as he was on the dock.

"Tony—"

Where his shirt's tugged up, Tony's abdomen is riddled with bruises. (How high up was he when he fell?) He's turned onto his side now, and there are even more there. Faint patterns of acid burns, and no, the acid didn't eat through skin, but it could still do damage. It did damage.

The doorframe crunches under Steve's hands. "God damn it, Tony."

"I'm fine, Cap."

Steve whips his arm around without thinking, he can't think. His fist hits the wall, and the whole room shakes, the drywall giving way, and he can't—He can't.

"You're not." Steve's voice sounds wrecked, even to him. "You're not fine."

"I'm—"

"Would you ever just tell the truth?!" He roars it, even though it's quiet, it sounds like a scream, and there's so much more there than just this. So much.

It's everything Tony's ever said that was a lie, a lie meant to protect him, meant to hide him, meant to keep anyone from seeing that he wants things or needs things or that he's capable of being hurt.

And Steve loves Tony. He loves him, all of his hard edges and his armored heart and his kindness and his way he has of never letting anyone know he's kind. Vulnerable and wanting and beautiful and kind. But Steve's suddenly so angry and hurt, for Tony and for himself, and he can't.

He looks up, and Tony's sitting there, eyes wide, face pale. His mouth is working, but for once in his life, it seems Tony Stark is speechless.

Steve drops his arm to his side, the side of his fist achy with the echo of impact, and he's probably bleeding, but he doesn't care. He knows how it feels to bleed in an entirely different way. To feel like his chest is cracked wide.

It's all spilling out of him now, his anger and his frustration running like red on the floor.

"You lie about this, about being hurt. About being okay. About everything. About you and me—"

And he didn’t mean to say that. But he can't take it back now.

"You and me?" Tony's voice sounds empty and cold.

When Steve decided they needed to talk, this isn't what he meant. But it's happening anyway. He's kitchen-sinking, throwing everything that hurts in with the betrayal he feels now, he knows that, but he can't stop himself—can't keep it in. He straightens his shoulders and lets them fall. Tightens and releases and tightens and releases, and he can hear the words in his own head, the question. In the span of a second, he bites it back and starts to ask it a hundred times, but he can't not ask.

At long last, he looks up at Tony again, and his heart is raw. His voice quiet.

"Why won't you tell me why you don't want me?"

Tony's throat bobs, and for a long moment, Steve is sure he's about to confirm everything. He's going to say he likes Steve, admires Steve, but he doesn't—

But he's always hard. He seems as caught up in the kissing as Steve is, every time, until he isn't. Until he's backing away, and Steve's left empty and wanting and afraid he's never going to have it.

Steve starts talking again, a babble worthy of Tony himself. "Because you act like you do. I can feel it, when we're--, but then I tell you I want to, and you always have an excuse, but it's never real. You can't always be tired, and I don't—" Something Tony said last night occurs to him, and maybe Tony was saying what he meant.

Just in the most impossible way he could.

…somebody's gotta protect your virtue…

"You…" Steve starts again, then stops himself. "I know it's a big deal to you that I haven't done this before, that I'm a…" He can say the word. "…a virgin. But it doesn't matter to me. I mean, it does. But it just makes me want you more. Makes me want you so much I can hardly breathe. I want to know what it's like, want to give that to you. I want to touch you. I want to know what you look like when you…" He trails off. Closes his eyes and turns his face away. "Why won't you take it? Why won't you take what I want to give you?"

Silence is the only answer. Steve feels his whole chest fall. Without even looking up again, he turns back toward the door, and pauses just inside it. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have dumped all that on you when you're…" He shakes his head. "But when you're ready to speak plain…you know where to find me."

"I'm human."

Tony's words take Steve by surprise, make him stop cold with his hand on the doorknob. He doesn't turn around, but he does listen.

"I'm human, everyone else on the team is not. I mean, sure Barton is but he's always up in his nest, and they may say Nat is, but I think the jury's still out on that one." Tony pauses, and Steve can actually hear him waving his hand dismissively. "Not the point. I pretend to be okay because I can't keep up with you if I don't, and I barely made it on the team anyway."

Tony's the heart of the team.

Steve breathes out hard. "We'd never—"

"I want you. I want you more than I've ever wanted anything. I stop myself, and then I have to run off to the bathroom and jerk off as soon as you fall asleep, because you're so hot, you'd give it up to me so easy, and it hurts. It hurts to be that hard and not trust myself…I want it to be good for you. I want it to mean something, for me it's never meant anything and…" There's the quiet sound of Tony's throat working, like the words are thick, too big and too stuck. "I don't know how to make it mean enough. I don't know how to do it right with you, and you deserve…you deserve everything."

Shaking his head, Steve turns. Tony looks smaller on the bed than ever, and this is Tony. This is Tony Stark laid bare.

This is so much truth it hurts.

Deep inside him, Steve feels something ease.

When he speaks, it's with everything he feels. It's looking right at Tony, his ribcage open. "I want you."

And Tony just gazes at him, just looks and looks and looks. Finally, after so long it feels like an eternity, he says, "Okay."

"Okay?"

Tony nods. "Okay."

…

"Tony, no, you're still hurt."

A groan. "You can't do this to me. Tell me you want it and then—motherfucker! Ow."

Steve pulls his hand away from the bruise on Tony's side. The one he may have intentionally pressed on just a tiny bit too hard. "Waiting a few days won't kill you."

"It might."

"It won't."

"If it does, I'm blaming you."

"I'm sure you will."

"I hate you."

Steve smiles against his hair. Silently, he thinks, I love you, too.

…

Steve sleeps in Tony's bed that night, and the night after, and the night after that. He kisses him, and together, they ease back off the precipice they'd landed themselves on. The one where they fight and yell and poke at tender spots on purpose, until there's nothing left to do but tell the truth.

Steve counts the days and the bruises and the little whimpers Tony makes when Steve's tongue is in his mouth, his hands on the parts of his skin that aren't burned or bruised.

And he waits. He knows how to wait.

Four days after the spaghetti monster incident, Steve takes Tony back to medical, a firm hand on his arm. A doctor looks at him over his glasses. Says, "All right, Mr. Stark. I suppose you're cleared for active duty again. Just go easy, okay?"

Steve's gaze connects with Tony's, and it's so hot. How can this room be so hot?

"Actually," the doctor says—why is he still talking? "You healed up much faster than usual. Someone must be taking better care of you."

"The best," Tony says, eyes still on Steve. "Amazing the power of a good incentive."

And Steve flushes right down to his toes.

…

Steve's hand shakes as he closes the door to Tony's room that night. He glances over his shoulder before turning around. Tony's sitting on the center of the bed, legs crossed, all his attention seemingly on the tablet on his knee, but his posture is all tight lines.

Steve relaxes just a little. Tony's nervous, too.

Using the actual switch, he dims the lights, then heads over to sit on the bed, just close enough that his hand grazes Tony's hip, his arm braced to feel the heat of his torso all up and down.

"You have much more work to do?"

Tony starts but recovers quickly. He shrugs, jerky, and closes a series of window before shutting off the screen. "No. No, I'm done."

"Good." Steve takes the tablet from him and leans over to set it on Tony's nightstand. Then he's sitting up next to him again, positioning himself so their arms touch. Tony's still tight, but Steve swallows down his own nerves. He leans in to press a kiss to the bare skin of Tony's shoulder, over the cotton of his tank top, to the hollow at the juncture of his neck.

It's all soft kisses, wet slow brushes of his lips over skin that's warm and clean with just a subtle hint of salt. Tony shudders and presses into it.

"That feels good."

It always feels good. Reaching up, Steve runs his hand up and down Tony's other arm, tilts his head to find his mouth. Tony gives in to the kiss, opens his lips and lets Steve in, lets him control this, and for once Steve's not afraid. Not worried Tony's about to run or pull away.

It's all the gentle push of tongues and heat, the slide of lips and the slow tug of teeth, and it makes the need in the very center of him glow, burning low, until it's sparks and aches. Tony goes all soft, liquid, and Steve feels the surge. He pushes him back, and he never imagined he'd be the seducer, never managed he'd have to open up Tony this way.

Tony lets him, though, lets himself be laid back, and then he's stretching out his legs, and they're chest to chest, hip to hip. Steve's heart feels like it's going out of his chest, his breathing too fast, and he's numbness and sensation, heat and want, and he might get it. He might get what he wants.

He slides his hands up and down Tony's back, only on the third pass sucking up the uncertainty to dart lower. When Tony presses his hips into Steve's as Steve curls his hand around Tony's rear, it's like a dam breaks. He moans and pulls Tony closer, and then he's the one being pushed back.

Tony's hand is on his chest, and he's on top of Steve, his weight between Steve's legs, and the kisses are suddenly so much more. They're hot and wet, and the pull of teeth is sharper, hungry, and Steve's drowning in it. It feels just the way he always thought it would, feels like Tony taking, and it's so good. So good, the slide of Tony, hard and huge against his own ache through their pants, Tony's mouth at his ear, lush breath and the feel of Tony's thigh inside his palm.

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Steve breathes. "So sure." He arches into the low thrust. "Want…want you…" He can say this. "Inside me."

The sound Tony makes is inhuman, goes straight to Steve's cock, and God. He always knew it would be like this, always imagined, always wanted.

He's babbling, "Want to be inside you, too, want everything. Want to taste you and touch you and… But tonight." He swallowed, tips his head back as Tony bites. "Will you?"

"Yeah, yeah of course I will. Fuck, Steve, you're so good. You feel so good. I'll take such care of you. Show you."

"I know." Steve gasps and clenches his eyes shut tight. "I trust you."

There are more words, too low for Steve to hear even with his hearing, but he's so caught up, so lost in the way Tony's pressing, kissing, in the scrabble of hands at fabric. He helps Tony get his shirt off, pushes at Tony's, too, and the slide of bare chest to chest is a miracle. He puts a hand on the arc reactor and kisses Tony with everything he has, tries to tell him with that alone that this is amazing, that the electric center of him is amazing and that he loves this heart. Loves this light and this hum and this touch.

Tony stiffens, but Steve shakes his head. He can almost hear what Tony isn't saying, things about the ugliness in his chest.

"It's beautiful. I love it."

Sounding strangled and pinched, Tony presses his brow to Steve's. "You've got the strangest taste."

"Just know what I like." And it's you.

And just like that, it all slows down, but the intensity of the kiss still makes Steve feel like he's seventeen and skinny and fragile. Like Tony can feel right through what he is now, and wants him anyway.

Then there's Tony's hand, right over him. A cupping stroke through his pants, touching him for the first time, and Steve bucks into it, swears and bites the inside of his mouth, and it's all heat, all heat and wet and—

After the roar in Steve's ears clears, after the pulse, Tony shivers.

"It's okay," Tony says.

Everything is wildly sensitive, and a little bit embarrassing, except…

"Just give me a minute."

"We don't have to—"

"Tony." We waits until Tony looks up. "I want to. Just give me a minute."

"But—"

"Trust me."

"Oh. Oh." And the look that crosses Tony's face is amazing. It's sexy and lewd and just what Steve expected all along. "Oh, I am going to have so much fun with you."

He's fully hard beneath Tony's hand again, he can go and go and go, and usually it's an inconvenience, but tonight…

"Think you can keep up with me?"

"Nope, you're going to kill me. With your dick." He leans up, breaks contact and smirks, one hand in the air echoing the words. "I can just see my tombstone now: Tony Stark. Done in by Captain America's refractory period."

"Tony…"

"Don't worry." He's sliding back over Steve, grinding and good, lips brushing. "I died happy."

Steve just shakes his head, and smiles, and he's happy, too. So happy.

Grabbing Tony on both sides of his face, he drags him down until they're really kissing, and he spreads his legs wider, shifts until Tony fits himself between them. He slides his palms down Tony's chest, all the way to the waistband of his lounge pants. This time, when he dips fingers beneath elastic, Tony doesn't stop him.

"You gonna touch me, Cap?"

It's all the dare he needs. He puts his hand in under cotton, under two layers and it's all just warm skin and wiry hair and then the hot, silky length of him, the fluid and the tip, and Steve's never been so turned on in his life.

"That's good." Tony kisses all around Steve's mouth. "Yeah, just like that, nice and easy and—right there."

Steve takes his every instruction, learns how to touch him, strokes and teases and reaches down, feels the strange-soft skin of his balls and further back.

Tony nips his lip. "Not tonight, remember?"

"Do you like that?"

"Love it. Love a nice big cock up my ass, you'll love it, too. God, I'm gonna be so good to you."

Steve bites back a groan. "Sure you're not going to just talk me to death first?"

"You have no idea."

He doesn't, God, he doesn't, but he's ready for anything, ready for the way Tony strips him down, for the swipe of his own pants over his flesh, cleaning away the pleasure he's already spent. Ready to feel Tony, naked and hard against him, and his cock is so hot. Tony thrusts against him, and it’s the best thing he's ever felt, bare with another man. He never thought he'd get to have this. Never thought…

"Shh."

Steve hadn't even realized what sounds he was making, desperate and higher than he would ever be okay with in any other setting, but here… Here, it's safe.

Tony kisses Steve's mouth again, kisses his chin and throat and collar bones and keeps on going. When he scrapes teeth over Steve's hip, Steve rolls his eyes back, digs his hand into Tony's hair and then—

"Fuck."

"Captain! Language!"

"Ngh—" Steve practically pushes Tony's head back down, wants more, wants into that soft, wet heat of his mouth, and oh God. He has to hold his own hips back as Tony slides tongue and lips across the head, licks at the edges of his foreskin, takes him in, and there's the back of his throat.

Nothing's ever been this good, and he gets to have it. Gets to keep it.

"God, Tony…" His head is rocking side to side—he's not ready be undone again, but then there's Tony's hand between his legs, low, slick pressure against his opening.

Steve swallows hard and opens his thighs wider. The playfulness and pleasure slide away a little, an achy vulnerability surprising him. For a second, he's every inch the virgin he is, and this was always something he was ashamed to want, back in his day. But he does. He wants it so badly.

"Relax," Tony mumbles. He's got one hand probing gently down below and the other on Steve's cock, a slow slide over wet, thick flesh, little kisses all around and the sound of his voice.

With the first push of a finger inside of him, Steve tightens up, but then he remembers. It's Tony. It's getting what he wants, and it's Tony inside him.

"Okay?" Tony asks.

"Yeah. Strange, but—"

"It'll get better. A little pressure, a little push, and then…it'll blow your mind. And if it doesn't—just tell me to stop. We only have to go as far as you want, or you can do me if this is too hard or…"

Steve shakes his head. "Keep—"

"Okay, okay. You're doing so good."

He keeps doing good, keeps loose and relaxed, and Tony opens him up, takes him apart one piece at a time, one slow slide after another and more pressure, a burn and something sharp, but then it's all fullness. All a sense of being consumed and just this place between his legs where he's letting Tony in and thrusting up, and he wants—he wants—

"C'mere," he grunts, hand curling around Tony's neck and hauling him up. He kisses Tony hard and tries to touch him everywhere, pushes until he's between his legs. Tony's cock juts against the inside of his thighs, hot and dripping, touches where Tony's still got his fingers inside him and—

"Wait, just—"

"Want you. Will you?"

"Just…" Tony's fumbling, hand falling away, and Steve clenches, empty. He keens, scrabbles at Tony's hips and at his ass, digs fingernails into his spine. "One second."

With shaky hands, Tony slicks himself, and Steve reaches in, slides his own palm along the wet length of him.

Tony stops, suddenly. "Do you—do you want me to use a condom? I can, but I'm clean and you're immune to everything and it's…it's been a while. It should be safe."

Shaking his head, Steve pulls him closer, until Tony's cock is hot and full and sliding against him where he's open, where he wants it, wants this.

"Just…" He tilts his hips up, slides his own hole against the tip of Tony, but he slips right past.

"Okay, okay." Tony puts a hand around himself and presses the other into Steve's palm, intertwines their fingers and lifts them both to rest on the pillow beside Steve's head. He's all lined up, a twitch and blunt pressure before he pauses. "You're sure, sure."

"Tony."

"Just. Okay." He takes a deep breath in, scrunches up his eyes and kisses Steve, kisses him hard and distracted and then he's pushing in.

Steve jerks his leg, wraps it around Tony's hip and squeezes on his shoulder, and he can do this. Can press back against the burn and the stretch, and it hurts, but it's good. It's Tony inside him, and he closes his eyes, kisses back and breathes.

"That's it," Tony says. Another push and another. "You're gonna take all of me, aren’t you? Fuck, you feel so good, Steve, so tight and hot. Do you feel that? Feel how good it is?"

"Yeah." He does, and it still hurts, but Tony hips finally hit his ass, and oh God. Tony's in him. He's giving this to him.

And he's taking it. He's taking what Steve wants him to have, and Steve's getting everything in return.

"Tony…"

"So good, baby." Tony kisses all over his face, the corners of his lips and his cheeks and nose and his temple near his hairline, and he shudders. When Tony pulls back, it's like Steve's body is closing, but there's the glide back in. "Can't believe nobody gets to do this but me."

Steve pushes his head into the pillow, gets enough distance to look into Tony's eyes and touches his cheek. "Can't believe nobody gets to do this but me."

And they don't have to say anything else, it's all in this gaze, all in the way their bodies interlock. It's all of Tony's regrets and his unworthiness and Steve rejecting it. Steve showing him all the things he still can't say.

But he can say this. "I'm glad it's you."

It's too intense after a moment, and Tony sinks down onto him again. Long pushes and that heat deep inside, pressure someplace Steve's never felt before but that's taking him apart, breaking him to pieces.

Tony curls his fist around Steve's cock, and it's over. Steve pushes up into it, wraps tighter around Tony, around his hips and shoulders and drowns in his kiss, takes him as deep as he'll go, and then Steve's choking on his name.

"You're so beautiful when you come, Steve, fuck, yeah, feel it. Feel it."

It all spills over, an explosion from his center out, hot fluid on his stomach and his chest. The world's still black and pleasure, and Tony's folding him further in half, pushing his legs and opening him, thrusting deep and sloppy and wet. Hands on the back of Steve's thighs, and Steve thinks he's still coming, untouched.

Tony arches up, and his whole face goes tense, mouth open and there's a pulsing inside Steve, a hot rush. And Steve watches. He soaks this in, could lose himself in this. Is lost. Tony's jaw goes slack. He pushes into Steve in a couple more shallow thrusts. When he collapses, it's like he's liquid over Steve, and Steve bundles him up in his arms. He's filled and sated and leaking Tony's come, feels perfect and high and touched.

And it's everything. He's everything.

He mouths the words against Tony's hair as he holds him through the twitching, through the parts that seem to wreck him more than Steve ever thought they would. But that's how it is, he guesses. He just holds Tony, just loves him and keeps him close.

"Thank you," he says a little louder.

Tony laughs, and it's the first sign he's coming back to earth. "I'm pretty sure I'm the one who…"

Steve shakes his head, pulls Tony until he can kiss his mouth. "Thank you."

Steve told Tony he wanted to give this to him. He sees that dawn on Tony's face.

"You're welcome."

…

Later, after they're cleaned up and after Steve has laid back, Tony curled against his chest, he strokes Tony's hair and holds him, loose and relaxed.

"It's not usually like that," Tony says, quiet, like a secret.

"No?"

"No."

"Is that or a good thing or a bad thing?"

His voice is small. "It's amazing."

And Steve smiles, holds him closer.

Because sometimes…sometimes Tony says exactly what he means.