Steve/Tony: You loved me and I froze in time [588 words]
Title: You loved me and I froze in time
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Steve/Tony
Word Count: 588
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Summary: Theirs is not the love from Steve’s fairytale book, it is not the love from Tony’s parents’ wedding photo album. For " left unsaid" of avengers_tables.
Theirs is not the love from Steve’s fairytale book, it is not the love from Tony’s parents’ wedding photo album. Theirs is not the love of a man and a woman, nor in the style of a man and a woman. They don’t get married. Steve doesn’t have time for that. Tony doesn’t keep his parents’ wedding photo album, and Steve’s fairytale book is long gone. They don’t go out to dinner, they don’t come out. Tony never says “I love you,” even though Steve does, once, in the middle of the night, with Tony naked, sweaty, half-asleep at this side.
They don’t have cutesy pet names for each other, and Tony still drinks, and Steve isn’t naive, and he watches movies sometimes, but he watches them mostly alone. Tony gives him a tablet computer, he shows him how to use it, he shows him Google, then he looks him in the eyes, smiles that shit-eating smile and says, “You can take it from here, right, capsicle?”
Steve hates that nickname. Sometimes he thinks that he hates Tony, too. Sometimes he rolls out of bed in the middle of the night and makes himself a cup of tea, shivering and shaking; and Tony - who values his sleep, and who values his beauty, and who values not having fake, romantic moments - rolls out of bed after him, following him to the kitchen in a zombie-like state. He doesn’t talk, communicating mostly in grunts and vague hand motions, but they end up drinking tea together with Tony head on the table half of the time. He usually falls asleep like that.
Tony doesn’t like being interrupted if he’s down in his workshop. He has a tendency to fire off barbed quip after quip if anyone dares to bother him while he’s working. He hates going to work, but he loves wearing ties. Steve is particularly fond of the red one. It’s cotton, a solid shade, and thin. It rests right down the middle of Tony’s chest, tucked neatly into his jacket. It tightens around Tony’s throat when he pulls. Sometimes, Tony wears sunglasses even when he’s inside. He’s rude and he’s callous, and a lot of the time, Steve really is honestly sure he’s going to wake up and realize he’s a womanizer, that Steve is not a woman.
He isn’t a woman. Tony had once walked in on him while he was beating the shit out of a punching bag and had simply said, “Jesus,” and pulled down his sunglasses just as Steve had landed the final blow, the bag splitting in half, spewing thread and sand all over the floor as the lower half of the bag slammed into the wall, bounced off and skidded across the sandy floor, stopping inches from his right foot. “I’ll make you stronger punching bags,” Tony said. He does. He keeps his promises. Steve has always liked that about him.
Tony swears a lot. He’s uncensored and unrepentant, and he doesn’t give a side glance when he says, “Fuck.” Steve has always liked that about him. Steve swears, too. The first time he does it in bed, Tony looks up at him, flushed and dizzy, and laughs. Steve raises his eyebrows at him, asks what’s so funny into the bite-marked skin of his neck.
“Jesus, Steve!” Tony says. He twists his fingers in the sheets, he arches his hips. “The little boy in me just had his innocence shat all over.”
“‘Just’?” Steve repeats. Tony laughs even harder.